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Forgive me if this is rantish. I do not like organized play. I also do not like high-pressure salesmen. Let me lay out my feelings so you have some idea of where I'm coming from:
Organized Play services "Tournament Style Play" mentality, and will eventually lead there regardless of intent. It is hyper-competitive and Legalistic. It must be so in order to maintain consistency across tables. To do so you need to write rules as statute, hamper GM judgment, and structure adventures within a fixed time frame, which ends up channeling down social and spatial interaction.
This leads to combat dominance, which leads to everyone wanting a piece of the limelight, which leads to more combat widgets, which then eats more time, which in turn leads to social & exploration elements further channeled due to greater time constraints upon modules, and hyper-competitiveness wanting the end goodies to complete their builds.
Ultimately the players are turned into a group of rules lawyers and turns GMs into nothing but a referee and scripted narrator who tragically lose sight of what's important about tabletop RPGs; it's not a competition, it's about telling a story (I don't care what Society says about its self, when you get to my age you can spot bullcrap a mile away).
With that in mind, imagine how I felt when the owner of a local game shop contacted me and asked me to cancel my private home game on Saturday so the Paizo rep could have players to run organized play while he (the owner) charges the players $4 each to play. Naturally, I brought the idea to my players and told them they are free to do as they please with no hard feelings. Thankfully, I have loyal players (a couple of whom were equally if not more offended) and my Saturday game lives on.
Now I am left with questions; Is this the kind of behavior Paizo expects from it's Representatives? Do they ask their retailers to do the same? How could they honestly expect a group of casual players cancel what they do in their private lives to accommodate the desires of the business?
The whole experience really makes me want to dump Pathfinder as our go-to game as soon as Pathfinder 2 starts up and just play 5th Edition (I realize WotC has organized play, too but I'm yet to be asked to cancel my private game because they need players to show up).
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Rather than ranting with vague statements, it would probably be better to contact Paizo customer service and make a factual report, including names, dates, times and the exact wording of the request that was made of you.
Ranting here won't make you feel better and won't change the store owner's behavior. An investigation by Paizo is much more likely to have an actual impact, if that's what you really want.
To investigate, they need facts, not vague emotional outbursts.
DO NOT POST THOSE FACTS HERE. Use the Paizo Private Message system to send them in a message to Paizo staff.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
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Hmm... okay so my first question for you would be, when you say "Paizo Rep," do you know if this is a local Venture Captain, or other Venture Officer? If so, and you could tell us the region you're in, we might be able to get to the bottom of it.
Secondly, the local store owner should NOT have asked you to cancel your home game just to get him players. I personally don't like it when stores charge players to play, so I feel you on that one as well.
That all said, I'm a Venture Captain, albeit for the Card Game. I obviously enjoy the Organized Play experience, and disagree with you on pretty much every point in those first three paragraphs. No matter what the situation, I'm sorry to hear that an organized play game made your own experience less awesome. :(
Rather than ranting with vague statements, it would probably be better to contact Paizo customer service and make a factual report, including names, dates, times and the exact wording of the request that was made of you.
Ranting here won't make you feel better and won't change the store owner's behavior. An investigation by Paizo is much more likely to have an actual impact, if that's what you really want.
To investigate, they need facts, not vague emotional outbursts.
DO NOT POST THOSE FACTS HERE. Use the Paizo Private Message system to send them in a message to Paizo staff.
I actually didn't consider bringing this to investigation; ranting does actually make me feel better and I was just expecting someone to say, "Yeah, that's common practice. Get the frack over it." Maybe some words of sympathy but that's all.
Anyway, thanks!
No, it's really bad behavior to make claims like that about Paizo, and then refuse to document them so that they can do something about it.
If you're going to make wild accusations, you need to have the honesty to back them up so that staff can handle the problem.
I think an important point here is what actions and statemwnts were made by the store owner, and what was the PFS rep? And what did either one know or support about the other. The way this reads to me the PFS rep didn't do anything sketchy, just the store owner.
No, it's really bad behavior to make claims like that about Paizo, and then refuse to document them so that they can do something about it.
If you're going to make wild accusations, you need to have the honesty to back them up so that staff can handle the problem.
Good to know. Thankfully in our modern world of data collection and poor privacy settings on Facebook, I have every bit of required information and more at my finger tips (seriously, a complete stranger shouldn't be able to find where your kids go to school without even asking for the info). I'll open this can of worms right away.
Good to know. Thankfully in our modern world of data collection and poor privacy settings on Facebook, I have every bit of required information and more at my finger tips (seriously, a complete stranger shouldn't be able to find where your kids go to school without even asking for the info). I'll open this can of worms right away.
I'm not clear what point you're trying to make. I think you're trying to be sarcastic.
No one is asking you to open a can of worms. They're asking you to back up your claims of harassment and bullying in a private message to the people who can stop the harassment and bullying.
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Side note: creative typing to avoid profanity filters is sleazy. And most likely a violation of terms of usage or community guidelines or somesuch.
I'll open this can of worms right away.
Actually, you already have.
Getting your thread flagged for violating community policy is going to direct staff to it automatically. If, as you say, there's that much information available about you already, staff will know which store anyway.
And they'll be able to figure out which PFS GM/Venture Captain is involved as well.
Good to know. Thankfully in our modern world of data collection and poor privacy settings on Facebook, I have every bit of required information and more at my finger tips (seriously, a complete stranger shouldn't be able to find where your kids go to school without even asking for the info). I'll open this can of worms right away.I'm not clear what point you're trying to make. I think you're trying to be sarcastic.
No one is asking you to open a can of worms. They're asking you to back up your claims of harassment and bullying in a private message to the people who can stop the harassment and bullying.
Can help but feel I've offended you somehow. Also, I'm sensing a bit of "blame the victim" from you. In not knowing where to go/what to do I came here. I have been advised. I will take the advice.
This shop owner is already in trouble with WotC for sketchy stuff he's done for Friday Night Magic and falsely claiming to run D&D games when he's actually running Pathfinder in order to get a distribution discount. Believe me, can of worms here.
If you find it so agonizing to interact with me, please feel free to stop doing so. I won't be offended.
Side note: creative typing to avoid profanity filters is sleazy. And most likely a violation of terms of usage or community guidelines or somesuch.
Noted. Edited to accommodate delicate sensibilities of the snowflakes.
Forgive me if this is rantish. I do not like organized play. I also do not like high-pressure salesmen. Let me lay out my feelings so you have some idea of where I'm coming from:
Organized Play services "Tournament Style Play" mentality, and will eventually lead there regardless of intent. It is hyper-competitive and Legalistic. It must be so in order to maintain consistency across tables. To do so you need to write rules as statute, hamper GM judgment, and structure adventures within a fixed time frame, which ends up channeling down social and spatial interaction.
This leads to combat dominance, which leads to everyone wanting a piece of the limelight, which leads to more combat widgets, which then eats more time, which in turn leads to social & exploration elements further channeled due to greater time constraints upon modules, and hyper-competitiveness wanting the end goodies to complete their builds.
Ultimately the players are turned into a group of rules lawyers and turns GMs into nothing but a referee and scripted narrator who tragically lose sight of what's important about tabletop RPGs; it's not a competition, it's about telling a story (I don't care what Society says about its self, when you get to my age you can spot b u l l s h i t a mile away).
With that in mind, imagine how I felt when the owner of a local game shop contacted me and asked me to cancel my private home game on Saturday so the Paizo rep could have players to run organized play while he (the owner) charges the players $4 each to play. Naturally, I brought the idea to my players and told them they are free to do as they please with no hard feelings. Thankfully, I have loyal players (a couple of whom were equally if not more offended) and my Saturday game lives on.
Now I am left with questions; Is this the kind of behavior Paizo expects from it's Representatives? Do they ask their retailers to do the same? How could they honestly expect a group of casual players cancel what they do in their private lives to accommodate the desires of the business?
The whole experience really makes me want to dump Pathfinder as our go-to game as soon as Pathfinder 2 starts up and just play 5th Edition (I realize WotC has organized play, too but I'm yet to be asked to cancel my private game because they need players to show up).
You've already opened the can of worms by posting this.
It might be a really good idea to write out a calm, factual statement for them to investigate instead of having this as their only starting point.
Can help but feel I've offended you somehow. Also, I'm sensing a bit of "blame the victim" from you. In not knowing where to go/what to do I came here. I have been advised. I will take the advice.
This shop owner is already in trouble with WotC for sketchy stuff he's done for Friday Night Magic and falsely claiming to run D&D games when he's actually running Pathfinder in order to get a distribution discount. Believe me, can of worms here.
If you find it so agonizing to interact with me, please feel free to stop doing so. I won't be offended.
Again, you may want to document this in a private message to staff.
If you don't know where to start, try
Tonya Woldridge who is the Organized Play Manager
or
Sara Marie the Customer Service Manager.
Either one of them will know what to do with your information.
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Side note: creative typing to avoid profanity filters is sleazy. And most likely a violation of terms of usage or community guidelines or somesuch.Noted. Edited to accommodate delicate sensibilities of the snowflakes.
Your tone is not inspiring much support or compassion, you do realize this, right?
