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Coming somewhat late to this, I would like to add my favor for either making it only one session or one session that a VC has to observe. The other two sessions can be VLs or other 5-splater.
Also if you are going to require three, then I would suggest (after GenCon and Pax unplugged) to allow for GMs to request reviews when they sign up for the big conventions. Also if you allow for other 5-splaters and VLs to review, they can volunteer a review slot as well for those cons.
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This process was mentioned on the GenCon thread, but I didn’t want to derail things there. I’m wondering how it applies in the case of 5 nova/glyph evaluation games. Do you have to muster a full table including the VC who is going to do the evaluation? Or is there another way to guarantee that the VC is actually sitting at the table that you’re trying to be evaluated at?
Every year we get requests from players to sit at the table of specific GMs. Generally, we discourage this practice for a number of reasons. However, in an effort to be as accomodating as possible, we have a process by which players can get pre-mustered to a table with a specific GM. We lay it out here:
-First, we do not perform this function before the convention. All pre-mustering requests must be completed on site with an HQ official. We are available anytime after 7am on Thursday
-pre-mustering is only done by table, not by player. Meaning it must be a complete table. If a player or two wants to play at a specific GM's table, they will need to recruit a full table of six to qualify
-the players must seek out the GM and notify them of their intent to pre-muster to their table. The GM has to approve for the process to proceed
-the players must give their real tickets to the GM who will bring them to HQ. None of the players can be using generic tickets
-the GM will present the request to an HQ official who will verify the tickets and make a note in the marshal records that the table has been pre-mustered
-when the slot/game occurs, the players just go directly to the table. They do not have to check in with the marshal
-the request must be completed no later than the end of the slot prior to the one in question. After that time, we are in the process of mustering the slot and making special requests at that time add unnecessary errors to the process
If guaranteeing that the VC who has volunteered to do your evaluation gets to sit at your table requires premustering an entire 6-player table, then that’s just one more hurdle in this whole process. If there’s another way to guarantee that you can actually get your evaluation done, that would be good information to include.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32
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This process was mentioned on the GenCon thread, but I didn’t want to derail things there. I’m wondering how it applies in the case of 5 nova/glyph evaluation games. Do you have to muster a full table including the VC who is going to do the evaluation? Or is there another way to guarantee that the VC is actually sitting at the table that you’re trying to be evaluated at?
If guaranteeing that the VC who has volunteered to do your evaluation gets to sit at your table requires premustering an entire 6-player...Every year we get requests from players to sit at the table of specific GMs. Generally, we discourage this practice for a number of reasons. However, in an effort to be as accomodating as possible, we have a process by which players can get pre-mustered to a table with a specific GM. We lay it out here:
-First, we do not perform this function before the convention. All pre-mustering requests must be completed on site with an HQ official. We are available anytime after 7am on Thursday
-pre-mustering is only done by table, not by player. Meaning it must be a complete table. If a player or two wants to play at a specific GM's table, they will need to recruit a full table of six to qualify
-the players must seek out the GM and notify them of their intent to pre-muster to their table. The GM has to approve for the process to proceed
-the players must give their real tickets to the GM who will bring them to HQ. None of the players can be using generic tickets
-the GM will present the request to an HQ official who will verify the tickets and make a note in the marshal records that the table has been pre-mustered
-when the slot/game occurs, the players just go directly to the table. They do not have to check in with the marshal
-the request must be completed no later than the end of the slot prior to the one in question. After that time, we are in the process of mustering the slot and making special requests at that time add unnecessary errors to the process
I adjudicated a 5-nova at Origins and the process was basically as follows: as long as they could fit me in, I could adjudicate it. I would imagine that at local conventions, this would be even less of a problem. As it stood, my table only had 5 players.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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@Ferious Thune: that sounds like a peculiarity of GenCon mustering, there's no reason why other Cons must have that policy too.
It seems a lot of the (theoretical) problems with evaluations occur in the context of big conventions where GMs have little influence on what they run and players can't ensure they get to a particular table. At many smaller conventions (even as big as PaizoCon UK) that should not be so hard.
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I’m asking for the benefit of those going to GenCon now and in the future. GenCon is one of the big conventions, which means it’s one of the most likely places that you’ll find a VC outside of your circle, which is necessary the way the process is now. It is also an extremely expensive convention to attend. If you can’t be guaranteed to get the VC at your table, you’ve either spent a lot of money for nothing, volunteered to run an entire weekend for nothing in order to get in for free/get a hotel room, or a combination of both.
GenCon, PaizoCon, and Origins are the three US conventions where PFS is organized by Paizo. What does it say to GMs when Paizo is organizing the event and can’t guarantee they can schedule their evaluations?
Andrew - That’s an improvement, and if that’s the case at GenCon, then it should be mentioned as an exception to needing a full table pre-mustered. It’s also still a situation that can result in someone paying a lot of money to attend the convention, potentially hoping to get three evaluations in, and walking away with zero if there’s no guarantee they’ll actually get the VCs at their table.
I’m sure that no one wants to create such a problem, and that people doing the scheduling will do what they can. It’s a huge task to schedule those conventions, so it’s understandable that there has to be a process for this kind of thing and that they can’t accommodate every request by every player to sit at a specific table.
I also think that when this 5-nova/glyph evaluation process was put together, implications of processes like this don’t seem like they were thought through. It’s more of an issue with the evaluation requirements than it is with the GenCon process. I’m just pointing out yet another way in which that evaluation process is more difficult than would appear at a glance.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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To keep this from being onerous for our less-populous areas, a GM may complete all three evaluations in one weekend, though no more than one evaluation per person may be done by any one Venture-Captain.
I guess you can read it so narrowly that in all cases must you have three different VCs, but my understanding is that you need three VCs only if you want to do the different evaluations in the same weekend. And that's an extreme solution for people who live in remote areas where even meeting a single VC is hard.
In less remote areas, you could just meet with the same VC every couple of months while going from 100 to 150 games run. Even if you GM two games a week (which is a really high and perhaps unhealthy speed, beware of burnout!), 50 games should take about 6 months to do. A year or two is probably a more sustainable speed.
Since the same VC should be sufficient if you can space it out, you don't have to spend big bucks going to GenCon to do it all at once, you can go to much cheaper events that are far less a strain on your life/finances.
As I understand it, if you're trying to cram it all into one weekend even though you don't live in the Outback, you're basically not using the system as intended. Intended is that you take it easy, have fun GMing, collect some evaluations along the way and comfortably have three succesful ones by the time you get to 140-160 games. If you really have to do it in one convention, then it shouldn't all be on one VC to adjudicate. But cramming it into one convention is the last resort, not the recommended practice.
I realize Australia is a geographically extreme case, and there might be a couple of other ones. But I don't think it should be common that you get up to a 150 games but can't meet your VC a couple of times per year. If there's that much play going on near you, there should be a VC near you.
I also think that if you're willing to go to GenCon only for GM evaluations, that there's something wrong with your priorities. If you really don't care for all the other things going on there, why not meet a VC elsewhere that's cheaper?
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To keep this from being onerous for our less-populous areas, a GM may complete all three evaluations in one weekend, though no more than one evaluation per person may be done by any one Venture-Captain.I guess you can read it so narrowly that in all cases must you have three different VCs, but my understanding is that you need three VCs only if you want to do the different evaluations in the same weekend. And that's an extreme solution for people who live in remote areas where even meeting a single VC is hard.
In less remote areas, you could just meet with the same VC every couple of months while going from 100 to 150 games run. Even if you GM two games a week (which is a really high and perhaps unhealthy speed, beware of burnout!), 50 games should take about 6 months to do. A year or two is probably a more sustainable speed.
Someone really needs to post to clarify if this is the case or not. As many of us read it, you must have three different VCs do the evaluation, whether or not it is all in one weekend. A lot of angst could be saved by someone clarifying which is the case.
Since the same VC should be sufficient if you can space it out, you don't have to spend big bucks going to GenCon to do it all at once, you can go to much cheaper events that are far less a strain on your life/finances.
See above. I don't think it's clear at all that the same VC may evaluate you more than once. Nor is there a guarantee that there will be enough VCs present at another event.
As I understand it, if you're trying to cram it all into one weekend even though you don't live in the Outback, you're basically not using the system as intended. Intended is that you take it easy, have fun GMing, collect some evaluations along the way and comfortably have three succesful ones by the time you get to 140-160 games. If you really have to do it in one convention, then it shouldn't all be on one VC to adjudicate. But cramming it into one convention is the last resort, not the recommended practice.
I realize Australia is a geographically extreme case, and there might be a couple of other ones. But I don't think it should be common that you get up to a 150 games but can't meet your VC a couple of times per year. If there's that much play going on near you, there should be a VC near you.
I don't live in Australia. I live in the US. I don't have a Venture Captain in my state. The nearest VC is within a reasonable distance (an hour and a half drive). The next closest is 3 hours. The next is, I think, about 6. I GM online. I could, with some effort, find three evaluations, but it is still a far different scenario than someone who lives in a city,let alone a state, that has multiple VCs, or someone like yourself who mentioned earlier having multiple RVCs at your table (EDIT: I think that was you, apologies if not). I've never met my RVC. I don't think he's ever been to a convention in my state or the next two states over.
Taking time off and paying for three trips is more expensive than paying for one trip. Some of our local conventions don't have VCs participating in Pathfinder/Starfinder at all.
I also think that if you're willing to go to GenCon only for GM evaluations, that there's something wrong with yourpriorities. If you really don't care for all the other things going on there, why not meet a VC elsewhere that's cheaper?
That's a personal opinion that shouldn't have any bearing on an evaluation policy. It's allowed to have all of your evaluations in one weekend. GenCon (and PaizoCon, and Origins) are the three conventions most likely to have enough VCs able to do the evaluations. Whatever someone's reason for choosing to try to be evaluated at one of those really shouldn't matter. If the system in place actively makes it more difficult to be evaluated at the three signature conventions for Paizo Organzied Play in the US, then I'd ask that someone reevaluate the system or the evaluations.
It would be really great to get some clarification all around on the points raised in this thread. Questions like:
Can the same VC evaluate you more than once, if it's not on the same weekend?
If so, then why does it matter if they do it on the same weekend?
If so, how long do you have to wait? Can you, for example, run three weekends in a row for the same VC, or do you have to wait months in between?
What defines an online GM?
Can VCs for physical regions perform evaluations online?
Can RVCs perform evaluations? (I think the assumption is yes, but it's not stated).
Do these new rules apply to PFS1? (This is a big one for me, notice the 4-stars).
Will additional guidance be provided on the rubric?
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@Ferious
The rubric and 3 reviews do not apply to PF1.
Is that stated somewhere? Because the post at the start of this thread makes no mention of it. It does talk about the 5* process needing an evaluation component. If it's actually been stated by Paizo somewhere, please provide a link to it so that we know that question at least has been answered.
It feels like that is another assumption of what must be true that isn't based on the actual information that's been distributed so far.
For example, Lau is assuming the same VC can evaluate you multiple times. Much of his reasoning for why people shouldn't be worried is around that assumption. But the sentences preceding the one he quoted talk about Paizo hearing that people are worried about friends doing the evaluations.
Another piece of commentary involved friends completing observation games, or that they were hand waived by people that knew the GM. In the interest of making this a qualitative achievement, we proposed moving from one to three observation games.
If the problem that is trying to be solved is that people are being hand waved by someone that knows the GM, then how is it solved if the same person can just do all three evaluations? That is why I very strongly believe that Lau is incorrect in his reading of the paragraph. The reasoning behind making the change does not match his interpretation of how the change should be implemented.
Back to PFS1... There is definitely confusion around what is happening for PFS1. I've heard one GM say that there will be no more new 5-star GMs after August, so they're rushing to get their specials in this month. I don't think that's true, but that someone out there has either been told that or believes that based on the information available points to how confusing the information is. And that means that an official statement about how this affects PFS1 and how PFS1 5-star evaluations will happen going forward is worth asking for, even if the answer is that nothing changes.
I get that Tonya's message at the start of this thread was fired off quickly during the prep for PaizoCon. I also get that she typed up a different version of it weeks earlier, and the forums ate it. So the message that was posted might have been understandably rushed. But it's also been nearly two months since it was posted and there has been no additional clarification or even indication that anyone from Paizo has read this thread. The questions I posted above are things that weren't clear in the message, but likely are clear to the PFS staff. It would be very helpful to have answers to them.
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But it's also been nearly two months since it was posted and there has been no additional clarification or even indication that anyone from Paizo has read this thread.
I’ll partially retract this. I forgot that Tonya had posted a couple of weeks ago with regards to getting Chris Marsh’s name wrong.
The lack of any update to the actual logistics of the issue or any answers to the questions around it is still more than a little disheartening.
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Where would be helpful.
It's for Novas, and eventually Glyphs.
It doesn't apply to PFS1.0 'stars'.
The Blog post never refers to stars - only nova/glyph (and even this thread is called 5 Nova) so he 5 Star process is unchanged.
I suspect there will be PFS 5Stars still being minted, though that will get harder as the player base shrinks etc. I think the confusion mostly stems from people making up #coolstories and other legends around the campfire, rather than accept that PF1 will just keep on trucking but with no new content being generated for it. So PF1 is pretty much situation no change.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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@Ferious Thune: I agree that this discussion is going to go round and round unless we get more clarity on whether the same VC can evaluate someone multiple times provided it's not all spaced together.
I went through the discussions we had in the VO forum about this (which were extensive) to see if there was anything much more definite in there. Obviously I can't go into detail because of NDA, but I think it's okay to say that many of the same concerns were raised and considered. In the end, it was input to Tonya and the public discussion is the output. So I don't know for sure, but I strongly think I'm right.
But yeah, we need Tonya to say something on this.
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Shifty - I would like that to be true. I suspect that is true. It would be really nice if someone from Paizo just said it directly, so that there is no confusion. As it stands, the first post in this thread does mention stars, or at least appears to mention stars:
As a bit of history, over the past four years I’ve solicited opinions from a variety of groups on the subject of what a 5* means. More than 75% thought it should have a qualitive element, i.e. represent the quality of the GM, not just a quantitative element. Enough people thought it was needed that we started looking at ways we could objectively measure the quality of a GM. This becomes harder, as we looked at how other campaigns rated their GMs and sought a solution that was clear, represented the best practices we wanted in the Paizo organized play programs, and removed as much personal bias as possible. Thanks to Chris Marsh (edit) for providing a rubric that was the basis of what is listed below.
I know my story about someone telling me that 5-star evaluations will stop is anecdotal to all of you. But it's something I was told directly this week by a GM who is rushing to get the last of his specials in before Gencon, because he really believes that he can't get his 5th star after that. At least from my brief conversation with him. I was dropping into a game in a city I don't normally game in, in a state I don't normally game in, and the shop was about to close when the subject came up. So it was someone I'd just met who seemed convinced, and I didn't want to get into it with him to try to persuade him otherwise. I can only assume since his VL was there and seemed to be helping facilitate the scheduling of the specials that his VL also believes the same thing, though he didn't say that to me. Having a direct, easy to find statement that I could point him or anyone else who is confused about it toward would be really, really helpful. This anecdote is an example of the kind of unnecessary confusion that is created when direct statements such as that aren't made. There are enough issues in PFS1 that are unclear or confusing because they've either never been directly stated, or the answer is buried somewhere on the boards and forgotten. It's a really bad thing to be starting off PFS2 by creating more situations like that.
Lau - It's good to know there's more discussion somewhere. If your take on this is true, then I don't know how having three evaluations does anything to change what was presented as the problem it is trying to solve. If a single VC can sign off on all three evaluations, then the same potential favoritism that was presented as the problem being fixed still exists. It's just spread out over three sessions instead of 1.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Lau - It's good to know there's more discussion somewhere. If your take on this is true, then I don't know how having three evaluations does anything to change what was presented as the problem it is trying to solve. If a single VC can sign off on all three evaluations, then the same potential favoritism that was presented as the problem being fixed still exists. It's just spread out over three sessions instead of 1.
Three evaluations over time, or three different perspectives all at once - should be a bit better than one "make it or break it" evaluation that put a high pressure on the VC to just pass it.
Honestly the three evaluations part isn't really the thing I care about the most, it's having actual criteria. Previously, there was no real standard on which to say why someone should or shouldn't pass their 5* evaluation. That's arbitrary and encourages favoritism. It gives the VC little to go on when they feel that the candidate didn't quite do right, but what can they do except just say No?
With the rubric, you have something as a VC to make a reasoned decision about. As a candidate, you know what criteria you need to work towards to pass. Defining what counts as "meets expectations" makes the evaluation much more equal across the board than before.
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I'm not opposed to having criteria. I do think, as I stated near the beginning of this thread, that there needs to be far more guidance than what is in the rubric document currently if there are going to be criteria. But that's a different part of the discussion than what we're looking at now (though a part I also hope is addressed).
I don't think that having three evaluations vs one evaluation does anything in a situation where someone just wants to pass their friend. But it does create a whole bunch of new problems around actually scheduling those evaluations, paying to get to where they are going to occur, and demanding more and more time from volunteer VCs. I've mentioned several times that I don't have a VC in my state. That is in large part due to the amount of time that a VC must devote to PFS, and adding these evaluations is only making that situation worse. There does seem to be an awareness and concern for how the evaluations might affect a VCs time, but that has only seemed to have shifted the burden onto the GMs.
For example, when this first came up, concern was expressed around players being able to travel to somewhere with a VC. Someone brought up that they could just get their evaluations done online. Someone also suggested opening up evaluations to VLs, so that there would be more potential people available to perform the reviews. Meaning less burden on VCs and making it easier for a GM to find someone to do the evaluation.
The response, by way of what's detailed here, was to not allow VLs to perform evaluations, and to limit GMs to a single online evaluation in order to spare the online VCs from having to perform an overwhelming number of evaluations. So the "solution" of using online evaluations if you can't travel was essentially taken away, and seemingly for no reason. No one suggested in the public thread that only the online VCs be allowed to perform evaluations online. I don't even know why that would be the assumption. Any VC should be allowed to perform the evaluation anywhere they feel comfortable doing so. But instead, things have become more limited than they were in the initial pitch of the process, and more difficult for the GMs.
It is a system which, to me, seems to be creating far, far more problems than it is solving. But if we're stuck with having it, then at least we should be able to get simple answers about how it is supposed to work.
I restarted this thread, because now it seems that the process at one of the main conventions where you can find a VC to do the evaluations may be making it even more difficult to do so. The solutions are moving things in the wrong direction.
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Shifty - I would like that to be true. I suspect that is true. It would be really nice if someone from Paizo just said it directly, so that there is no confusion. As it stands, the first post in this thread does mention stars, or at least appears to mention stars:.
Indeed, the discussion around a rubric or evaluation tool has been around since before Starfinder and PF2, indeed there have been a few trials and experiments over the last several years (four or more) which is what that is talking about.
With the launch of a new Org play campaign (SFS/PF2) the idea now has legs so that the current crop are all begun with the same set of goalposts (as opposed to moving them on legacy players at the end of a campaign for no real reason), what is probably adding confusion is that the discussion seems to interchange the various type of 5 Widget interchangably.
Going back to the Blog post I linked, you'll notice it was broken down to:
Campaign coins
Stars
Novas & Glyphs
And each one had its own 'news' and details.
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Novas & Glyphs
After soliciting opinions from a variety of sources and then lots of brainstorming and discussion, we formulated a plan for Novas which also will apply to Pathfinder Society Glyphs later this year.
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That GM rushing about probably believes what he is saying, but there is no indication anywhere that he is correct. The VL might also be spending too much time around the campfire.
What is MORE LIKELY is that the local Venture Crew have made a call that they wont be scheduling much PF1 at future events, especially a big piece like a Multitable, and this was that GMs last crack to pick those up (and those were always the issue).
I know our local PF1 multis are about to be a thing of the past so I can understand the perspective.
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I can only echo Lau's comment above as I am privy to the same VO forum, there has been fairly robust discussion around these issues.
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Quoting from that same blog:
After listening to quite a bit of feedback about what being a 5-star GM means, we've decided to add a qualitative element to the requirements. Our tech department is assisting us in making the process automated, so GMs qualifying for their 5th star won't have to wait for the monthly processing.
That can certainly be read as adding the requirement to stars as well.
If nothing is changing with stars, then the easiest way to clarify that is to say that nothing is changing with stars. Relying on the omission of stars from the heading of a section when they are mentioned in the content of the section does not create a clear situation.
I’m also pretty sure I understand what the guy was telling me, and I don’t think he was planning on running multi-table specials. I think it was more along the lines of bonekeeps and aspis scenarios.
What I think is the most likely situation is that no one in the area is paying attention the the boards, and they’ve heard second or third hand something that they’re taking to mean 5-star evaluations are going away. I really think the percentage of PFS GMs and VOs who read the forums is small, and in some areas I don’t think that much is being done to actively distribute information beyond that.
Whatever the situation there, having to point to the absence of a word in the title of a section of a blog post and convince someone that means what they believe to be the case isn’t is not really something I want to try to do. Especially when that section contains a paragraph like what I quoted above.
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You are certainly free to draw the conclusions you wish, but what we do have specifies Novas and Glyphs, and nowhere does it say this applies to stars.
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Novas & Glyphs
After soliciting opinions from a variety of sources and then lots of brainstorming and discussion, we formulated a plan for Novas which also will apply to Pathfinder Society Glyphs later this year.
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Bonekeeps are legal, Aspis is legal, and we know the campaign is not being canned - you can still report scenarios and game away in PF1 for quite some time yet.
I'd say you are correct that the majority of GMs who don't read the forums is small, but I would strongly suggest that VOs who didn't are pretty grossly remiss in their duties as part of their responsibility is to keep up to speed with this stuff.
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The assumption here on the boards that VOs are up to date on what is going on with PFS/SFS and the reality in many locations are very different situations. Which is part of why I don’t believe VCs should be tasked with evaluating GMs in the first place.
Back to the stars question... some of the language points to the change only being for novas/glyphs. Some of it says stars. Maybe they meant to write glyphs in that paragraph. Maybe not. Only Paizo can answer that. Until then, it is not clear, or certainly not as clear as it could be. That kind of uncertainty is not new to PFS, but I don’t think I’ll ever understand why it often seems to be the desired situation.
At any rate, it’s the weekend, and I don’t expect anyone is going to be jumping to look at this on their day off, so I’ll just wait and see if anything gets addressed next week. Most of the other questions are more important in general than the one about 1st edition. That just happens to be the one that is most likely to affect me first, and it seems like it should have a simple yes or no answer that wouldn’t require the whole team to consult with each other to figure out. But a response to anything in this thread would be progress. The question of whether or not the same VC can evaluate someone more than once is probably the biggest one that needs answering.
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Venture-Agent, Georgia—Atlanta
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Here's an odd question - once someone sits down to perform a formal review using the rubric to assess a GM, how/where are the results reported?
Currently, the answer is "email Tonya directly" until they get the reporting form set up.
There is a blog somewhere with that info, it was the August 2019 blog that announced Campaign Coin recipients and 5 star GMs.
[edit]
Check this link
Several GMs completed 5-nova evaluations over the past month. The rubric is working as intended. It looks like we will have the tech updates in the next few weeks, so evaluators will be able to input the results. Until then, please email them to me at organizedplay@paizo.com for compilation.
Venture-Agent, Virginia—Hampton Roads
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I am not a fan of the rubric myself but I am never really going to be able to earn a 5th Sun as the special requirement takes me right out of it.
In the old PFS1 days you had other specials in the season that were limited release and only able to be ran by VO's or high star GM's which allowed me to qualify.
Now its running multi-table specials which I have two issues with.
1. I just don't like them too many bad experiences and now I have no longer a desire to run them.
2. Convention play for me is at a point I can't do it to the level I like to perform at with my hearing issues. I now running mostly online as where I can work around my hearing loss.
3. My local VL's and VC have played at my tables many times over the years and could write this all up now I only run starfinder (mostly just needing the SCIFI feel vs running fantasy non stop for 2+ decades) and only my VC plays starfinder which means a 2 hour drive for someone to / from Richmond or getting a an online VO which is more likley but possible.
Overall I think this add more work on volunteers who are tasked enough.
Venture-Captain, Minnesota
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Now that I am no longer a VC, and everyone's GMing online during this pandemic, I've started seeking evaluations. It is really interesting being on the other side of the rubric. My best guess is that I will achieve my tenth special close in time to my 150th table. With both 3-00 being offered online, and 1-98 coming sometime this year, I should be able to pick up those last few specials. For now, it's all about the journey. Becoming a better GM, learning online tools (my next goal is to master Roll 20), delivering the story of the Starfinder Society the best that I can.
Hmm
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Becoming a better GM, learning online tools (my next goal is to master Roll 20)
Hmm
The journey of a thousand brackets begins with a single click
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I wouldn't get your hopes up too high.
1-00 was a 'special' too, until it wasn't, and some Pathfinder specials were locked behind a minimum number of stars to run (Both Aspis adventures, and Kobolds, to name just a few) or are only 'Specials' during specific Con windows, but 'didn't count' after that.
Getting 10 specials in PF was a massive chore, and SFS is proving to have equally annoying gatekeeping, and you can add a rubric too. I've worked out that financially I'm on for about $2000 AUD for my 5th Nova.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Becoming a better GM, learning online tools (my next goal is to master Roll 20)
Hmm
The journey of a thousand brackets begins with a single click
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The harder it is to get to 5 novas the better in my opinion. That way there will be less people waving the 5 novas in my face expecting respect. It got tiring with the 5 stars.
I'm just disappointed that the access to 5 Stars has been gated behind either being able to go to the right 'big events', or being wealthy enough to travel across a country to get a rubric completed.
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As for the rubric requiring the spending of money to complete due to location, that should be looked at, I can agree there.
I hope that the rubric itself is harsh and unforgiving. It should also have a small portion analyzing them as a player. A 5-nova should not be unfortunate to be at a table with, whether player or GM (like several 5-stars I have sat with).
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Venture-Captain, Minnesota
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Given that all local play has gone online, perhaps this could be reworded? "No more than one evaluation from the online VCs."
The wording was originally set up to prevent Finegas and myself (back when I was a VC) from getting slammed with requests. Wording it that way will still protect Finegas and Tyranius (Derek Larsen, current PBP VC) without making this unneccessarily hard.
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Just curious, I doubt I’ll get there in scenario volume before SFS(2) comes along: What if online *is* my “local” venue?
Currently you can do one evaluation online. For the other two you would have to travel to attend something in-person. I would hope there might be accommodations made given the current situation, but I also don’t think it’s been high on Paizo’s priority list.
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Just curious, I doubt I’ll get there in scenario volume before SFS(2) comes along: What if online *is* my “local” venue?Currently you can do one evaluation online. For the other two you would have to travel to attend something in-person. I would hope there might be accommodations made given the current situation, but I also don’t think it’s been high on Paizo’s priority list.
No. Online Dms can do all three online
To not overburden our Online VO crew, we are limiting physical GMs to one online evaluation.
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Just curious, I doubt I’ll get there in scenario volume before SFS(2) comes along: What if online *is* my “local” venue?Currently you can do one evaluation online. For the other two you would have to travel to attend something in-person. I would hope there might be accommodations made given the current situation, but I also don’t think it’s been high on Paizo’s priority list.No. Online Dms can do all three online
To not overburden our Online VO crew, we are limiting physical GMs to one online evaluation.
Right. I forgot that part. Though it was never clarified what it meant to be a physical GM vs online GM. I would guess that if you only ever GM online, that would be a safe assumption. Or maybe Finegas or Tyranius can just make that call. So that's good news, yeah.
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Venture-Captain, Missouri—Columbia
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We shouldn't have the 3-eval process at all. It just creates more hurdles to jump through for both the GM and the Venture-Captains.
Also, why only the online VCs? That's silly. There are a lot of VCs who are live who run and play online as well. In addition, what do you do when the VC knows far less about the edition than the GM? At that point you are just going through the motions.