Faction boon slotting - WHY?


Starfinder Society

1/5 5/55/55/55/5

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Starfinder Superscriber
Virtually every scenario with a faction tag wrote:
The PCs should finalize their boon slots for the session. This scenario is important to the [FACTION NAME] faction; GMs should encourage the PCs to slot their faction boon accordingly

Ok so once or twice could be an oversight, but that this is still appearing in scenarios raises a red flag.

There's a clear consensus that when the party achieves the faction goals listed in the back, every member of the party gains 1 reputation in that faction regardless to which faction they slotted. Their slotted faction only determines which faction they get an equal measure of reputation as the fame they earn.

This explains why there's three reputation lines - a scenario can have up to two faction goals plus the faction they slotted.

This is clearly in contrast to PFS where you only get the additional benefit when your character is of the appropriate faction, and several times now I've seen PFS GMs just starting to run SFS games read this text and cited it as why players wouldn't get extra reputation unless they slotted the appropriate faction boon. Not just in local games, but at conventions including PaizoCon.

Is there an actual point to this boon slotting recommendation text? Are the PFS GMs really not confused at all, or is this just a copy/paste that keeps getting added resulting in mass confusion on the topic?

Grand Lodge 4/5

To me it's reasonable advice to a player, who will advance Reputation faster with a faction for which he's already approaching qualifying for a tier. A total of 1 or a handful of Rep points for a faction doesn't do much.

Awarding and recording the extra reputation seems to be open to misunderstanding in several ways, which I think is a separable issue.

1/5

Slotting the faction boon accordingly could also mean "You're getting 1 rep with <faction> anyway, you might want to slot a different one"

The Exchange 4/5 5/5

“This scenario has themes that tie closely with those of Faction X. If you are inclined to get fully into the theme of the scenario, consider slotting the Faction X Champion boon.”

It’s thematic, not optimization.

1/5 5/55/55/55/5

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Starfinder Superscriber

Ok, I think this really needs to be stated more clearly.

There seems to be an overwhelming assumption that SFS GMs have 1) read the Starfinder Guild Guide, and 2) actually know the game's rules generally.

That was very much not the case at PaizoCon, many of the SFS GMs had little to no experience GMing Starfinder - relying on their (admittedly deep) Pathfinder knowledge to get them through.

One of the GMs I had was running the same scenario I was and used this text from the scenario as his reason not to award unslotted faction reputation. He also thought that Pathfinder AOO provoking rules applied.

The Exchange 1/5 5/55/55/55/5

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Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Arc Riley wrote:


That was very much not the case at PaizoCon, many of the SFS GMs had little to no experience GMing Starfinder - relying on their (admittedly deep) Pathfinder knowledge to get them through.

This is confusing to me as I was given 6 slots of PFS when I have more experience GMing SFS. It seems to it would have made more sense to give me SFS slots if they were giving people with more experience in PFS, SFS slots.

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Starfinder Superscriber

At the time, months before PaizoCon, very few people had more than 1 nova. AIU, VLs and VCs are counted as having +1 or +2 novas respectively.

Ie, a VC from rural USA overseeing two game stores 40 miles apart each running games every other week and having only run one game of The Commencement back in September is counted as having the same experience as a non-VO GM who's run 50 SFS games.

I noticed many of the SFS GMs were VLs and VCs. Any of them volunteering to GM SFS would have automatically bumped-out SFS-only GMs.

The real fault lies in the people holding VO titles irresponsibly volunteering to run SFS at PaizoCon without the necessary prep; reading the guild guide, understanding how to fill out chronicle sheets, understanding how reputation works, and understanding the major differences between PFS and SFS. Friday morning a SFS GM was even asking to borrow someone's starfield hexmap because he'd never run starship combat before.

But regardless, next year several of us will have 4 Novas (some may even be looking to get their 5th!) so the VO priority ranking won't be as much of an issue.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

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I don't think we're served well by fatuous advice to slot a certain boon when slotting that boon doesn't do anything special in the scenario.

Yesterday we were told we should slot a certain Ally boon, which I did instead of my regular skilled hireling. During the adventure I didn't really notice the special ally doing a lot (mainly because we had things well in hand ourselves).

Fortunately other players already covered the skills of my skilled hireling, but I think this serves as an example. It's irritating to give up slotting the boon you originally planned because the scenario told you, when there was no actual need.

If representing a particular faction really matters in the scenario, then sure advise slotting that champion boon. In fact, note that people have the opportunity to buy it on the spot. But if it's just "extra immersion" with no mechanical/plot impact, then don't cry wolf.

4/5 5/55/55/55/5 **** Regional Venture-Coordinator, Central Europe

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Lau Bannenberg wrote:


Yesterday we were told we should slot a certain Ally boon, which I did instead of my regular skilled hireling. During the adventure I didn't really notice the special ally doing a lot (mainly because we had things well in hand ourselves).

In which scenario and which ally boon did this happen? So far all cases of slotting advice i have seen gave major bonuses.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

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Nils Janson wrote:
Lau Bannenberg wrote:


Yesterday we were told we should slot a certain Ally boon, which I did instead of my regular skilled hireling. During the adventure I didn't really notice the special ally doing a lot (mainly because we had things well in hand ourselves).

In which scenario and which ally boon did this happen? So far all cases of slotting advice i have seen gave major bonuses.

1-11. There were some bonuses, but not enormous. It was more a safety net that we didn't need. It could be important to other parties though.

I was trying to illustrate the annoyed feeling of "I was told to slot X instead of Y, but I didn't need X because we were doing so well".

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I think the OP's point is the more important one: that it's not profitable to tell people to slot a particular faction "just because it's interesting", and can actually be harmful ("I paid fame for a faction champion boon because you told me I should slot this particular faction, and now it does nothing special?"). Likewise it confuses the GM ("you only get the extra reputation if you slotted the recommended faction right?"). Let's face it - the separation between fame and reputation is already confusing, no need to make it worse.

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Even weirder to me is when a scenario recommends slotting a particular faction, and then the scenario doesn't actually mention giving extra reputation with that faction. Why are some "important to this faction" scenarios more important than other "important to this faction" scenarios?

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The GM telling players which boons to slot is a bit metagamey, and so are scenario tags telling people to expect/not expect starships. We also occasionally have social influence encounters with rules that are different from the influence encounters we've done in other scenarios, and players may come up with really poor strategies based on what they thought they knew the game rules were last time. And some GMs are then really stingy on even explaining to players how the encounter works mechanically, like what skills can they even try. "Oh, you used Diplomacy, but in this influence encounter you can only use specifically enumerated trained-only skills. That's one turn wasted."

There seems to be a sort of embarrassment about these things among some GMs and writers, which makes them retreat into obscurantism and giving players little or even false information. That's not going to make the game fun.

5/5 5/55/55/5

One bonus in particular is VERY important and very hard to come by any other way. So even with your particular circumstances slotting it was probably the right call.

1/5

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Lau Bannenberg wrote:
The GM telling players which boons to slot is a bit metagamey, and so are scenario tags telling people to expect/not expect starships.

The starship tag is important so that people who don't like starship combat can avoid it.

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Starfinder Superscriber
Andy Brown wrote:
The starship tag is important so that people who don't like starship combat can avoid it.

Or they can play their one PC built for it, likely an Operative.

And the scenario's faction tag can allow players with multiple PCs to play it with a PC of the appropriate faction so their can gain that faction's reputation faster.

But after they've already sat down with a PC and are now slotting boons, that text only serves to cause confusion.

The Exchange 1/5 5/55/55/55/5

Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Lau Bannenberg wrote:


Even weirder to me is when a scenario recommends slotting a particular faction, and then the scenario doesn't actually mention giving extra reputation with that faction. Why are some "important to this faction" scenarios more important than other "important to this faction" scenarios?

As far as I'm aware that has only happened one time, the scenario you already have mentioned in your post, 1-11 and it was specifically an unintentional omission.

Although I understand how this error without corrected PDF is problematic since not everyone checks the forums regularly.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

Shaudius wrote:
Lau Bannenberg wrote:


Even weirder to me is when a scenario recommends slotting a particular faction, and then the scenario doesn't actually mention giving extra reputation with that faction. Why are some "important to this faction" scenarios more important than other "important to this faction" scenarios?

As far as I'm aware that has only happened one time, the scenario you already have mentioned in your post, 1-11 and it was specifically an unintentional omission.

Although I understand how this error without corrected PDF is problematic since not everyone checks the forums regularly.

Fixed your link. Good to know that.

Dataphiles 4/5 5/55/5 *

It seems to me that, based on what I have read so far, the individuals who are the most confused are those who optimize. Put simply, these boon slotting recommendations are not for you. The recommendations are for those who come to play to enjoy the story with the characters they've brought that are a part of the whole story. They are not for those who come to the table to beat the scenario.

It is possible, mind blowing as it may be, to have all of the faction champion boons and slot the corresponding one per scenario. Now, this tactic will likely cause the character to not achieve tier 4 in any faction. Again some of you may find this a mind boggling tactic, but it does add extra theme and flavor character-wise to the experience.

So far as I can tell in the SF games I have played, they are very much not written with optimizers in mind. They are normally quite easy (NOTE: This is not a complaint). I hope that they do not change this tactic.

(Important Note: It may seem that I am hating on optimizers. I am not. I am one. Being blunt about my communication is normally the best tactic to encourage comprehension.)

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