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Ladies and Gentlemen,
As great as the specials were for GenCon, the lack of organization on the 2e side for the GMs was embarrassment by Paizo. They didn't get clear direction on the Chronicle sheets, and tables struggled on day jobs and factions points, etc. We got a new head of organized play, hopefully she can resolve it.
Having this beta version of the society's guide on a website is a bad call. See RPGA for reasons why. Players and GMs want a single source PDF to reference, not a series of webpages you have to scroll through.
Lastly, this should have been addressed 5 business days before GenCon, not being told "we are working on it" and never coming through. Please get the PDF up or make an official announcement about the website, which looks unorganized as well.
I love PFS and really like PF2, but Paizo failed their judges this weekend which affected the tables overall experience. Also, this is from a player's perspective, so there are two sides to every story, so I might be mistaken.
Please get the PDF officially up and leave season 10 up as well for the legacy play.
Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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The rules are on the Organized Play Foundation website:
Likely could do with a bit more polish and but enough to work with (even though it might take some days for everyone to get back to the office to update the current website).
EDIT: I actually tend to view the website version as an advantage, though we really need to find an easy workable way for people to download an offline version. Printing the pages as PDFs works, but is not super comfortable.
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I can understand having a living document for a couple of weeks while they work out some of the issues/provide some extra quality of life charts. However I strongly prefer an easily versioned and printable document, in the long run.
They've mentioned they'd have a version date on the webpages, but that's not even there yet. (A timestamp from when someone prints it can be misleading if they caches/downloaded the webpages, so the version identification needs to be on every individual webpage)
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We got a new head of organized play
Incorrect. We have the same Organized Play Manager, Tonya Woldridge who oversees the overall program. Linda Zayas-Palmer was a developer and was promoted to the Lead Developer for organized play. She oversees the writing/development of the scenarios and quests. Essentially, the difference is that Linda directs the in-game aspect of the campaign, while Tonya directs the out-of-game aspect of the campaign.
Having this beta version of the society's guide on a website is a bad call.
It is not a beta version, it is the official Guide for PFS(2). It was decided to move the Guide to a digital version to make it easier to access and update. Players and GMs who need to access the information will be able to link directly to the section they need with their digital device in real time rather than having to carry around a printed product or download it to every device they need. It is expected that the amazing community for OPF will extract all the information and create their own printed version which will be available for those who absolutely want it in that format.
I/you/we can certainly argue as to the philosophical ramifications of the "goodness" of the decision, but at least for the time being, that is how it will be presented. One of the major advantages of this is that Paizo is traditionally very busy with creative projects and not particularly quick to react to logistical changes within the OPF, meaning it can take a quite some time to update or upload materials for the campaign. By having the Guide located on the OPF website, the volunteer team can directly control the contents, fix errors, and update it in real time as changes or additions are rolled out.
This is clearly represented by the issues we experienced with the delay in the release of the Guide. Clearly, not having it available until the convention was in progress was not the intention and nothing to do with our organization. Moving to the digital platform incurred delays outside of our direct control.
Please get the PDF officially up and leave season 10 up as well for the legacy play.
Since the season 10 Guide is not expected to change, there is no reason to take it down. However, there is also no current plan to create a space for the PFS(2) Guide to exist on the Paizo website, although it would be reasonable to add a link to it on the Society pages.
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However I strongly prefer an easily versioned and printable document, in the long run.
Having a printed document to download creates delays as it has to make publishing passes through the art, editing, development, and IT departments. Having it hosted on the OPF website means Tonya has complete control over what it says and when it is updated. We fully expect community members to extract the information and create their own printable version and they can maintain that document without the added level of oversight by Paizo. All they need to do is keep an eye on the page for updates.
They've mentioned they'd have a version date on the webpages, but that's not even there yet.
Since the information is fresh and this is the first edition of the PFS(2) Guide, there isn't yet a need for a version date and/or a timestamp. However, I think it is reasonable to expect that in near future, that will occur and new additions/changes to the Guide will be in red with a timestamp.
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All they need to do is keep an eye on the page for updates.
Uh, if you want it to even be CONCEIVABLE that most GMs will notice changes to the guide you're going to have to be a LOT more proactive than hoping we keep on eye on the page.
PLEASE tell me you plan on there being announcements HERE ON PAIZO.COM when changes are made.
And some kind of diff log when changes ARE made.
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I'll leave it to the Paizo leadership team to decide what they will announce on their website and when, but it would be INCONCEIVABLE to think that a change would occur on the official OPF website regarding the Guide material and not think that someone will notice and post a comment about it. Generally speaking, Paizo staff cannot sneeze without someone in the community offering a tissue and giving them a "bless you" or "gesundheit"
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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They've mentioned they'd have a version date on the webpages, but that's not even there yet. (A timestamp from when someone prints it can be misleading if they caches/downloaded the webpages, so the version identification needs to be on every individual webpage)
Done
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They've mentioned they'd have a version date on the webpages, but that's not even there yet. (A timestamp from when someone prints it can be misleading if they caches/downloaded the webpages, so the version identification needs to be on every individual webpage)Done
Thank you. That helps one of my concerns.
If you can also address the odd table of contents/ navigation where you only get the first letter of a section that would help a lot!
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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Thank you. That helps one of my concerns.
If you can also address the odd table of contents/ navigation where you only get the first letter of a section that would help a lot!
That is something I am working on. I have a (temporary) fix in mind.
All I will say on that subject is that that "table of contents" is automatically generated, and is not working as intended. (And the people who have the access to be able to turn it off are all recovering from GenCon. ;) )
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It’s a brand new concept with a lot of moving parts that has only been active for a few days and during what is undoubtedly the busiest time of the year for Paizo and the OPF and when most of the staff are recovering from 20+ hour days for a week plus. So how about you give them a bit to catch their breath and work out the bugs that are inherent in any new endeavor.
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I agree that I see many pro's to how it is laid out. However, it also does have the issue that if you don't know what segment something is in. it can massively extend the time it takes to find it. Further, the individual segments are not always intuitive. (There have been multiple occasions I expected something to be in section X but was actually in Z)
To be fair, how is that different than it was with the printed guide? Not everything was located in the obviously place. I recall more than once having a hard time finding what I was looking for. Knowing where to find the info is a learning curve regardless of if it’s in print or online. The bottom line is the leadership think this will improve the experience for most users, especially new players. Like anything some people are going to disagree, but you cannot please all the people all the time. I expect to see some tweaks to the arrangement and some improvements to the interface buttons, but if someone has the idea that they should just back to a PDF hosted on Paizo.com as a solution, they are going to be disappointed.
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Umm, did no one see my post and link above? There is a pdf now.
I made one for myself, but I didn't put up a link because I don't want to be the guy who doesn't update it fast enough for someone else.
If there's a PDF, it should be the one made by OPF that contains the same info, otherwise it's going to cause problems.
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Online might be easiest to maintain, and I *really* get that side of it and how important it is. But it's not usable as an in-game reference in far too many situations. I'm fortunate that I can game with an iPad, my phone, and a laptop, in a place where I have Wifi most of the time. Over three slots I'm almost always down to paper by the end of the day.
I'm sure we'll see some community-based cheat sheets, but the Guide should be covered the same way as your character sheets (or any other rules source): you need to have it accessible at the table, even if your device dies. It's on me to maintain my character sheets and Chronicles, it should be on the OPF to maintain the rules document in an accessible format.
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The material is there, I've run games already and we figured it out easily. It will get better. Jared made some updates based on this thread already, showing the value of the new system.
With a record attendance at GenCon, I don't think I'd begrudge anyone at Paizo time off to recover. Big events tend to have so many moving parts that it's impossible to have everything ready for them.
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Guide
I could maybe see there eventually being a print button in the individual sections that would allow a print similar to how we could download a version of the AR, but I seriously doubt there will be a wholistic guide printable option like we’ve had up til now. That would require double work with a significant amount of formatting and have to be reworked every time updates or additions were made. If that were the case, we might as well go back to the way it’s always been done and suffer through very long delays or have to wait a year or more for clarifications to be added and a new version of the Guide be released. Once the minor bugs are worked out and people get over their inherent resistance to change, this should prove to be a better option.
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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(Official comment by the person in charge of maintaining the guide (Who is, by the way, a volunteer.))
It is our intent to migrate the guide to an implementation that has PDF export capability. That way the guide will be a living document, able to be updated as needed, an yet still allow people to have copies on hand when internet is unavailable.
As such, we are not currently investing time in manually creating a PDF, in order to focus that time on getting the guide stable and complete.
We are, however, appreciative of the community for filling in the gap by creating an interim PDF for people.
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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And everybody so tired that can not post even short Paizo Blog post about new rules format and location? Change redirect link for PathfinderSociety.club from https://paizo.com/pathfinderSociety to http://www.organizedplayfoundation.org/encyclopedia/pfs2guide/ ? So tired, really?
Yup. Really. (Excited, but tired.)
In addition to organizing or assisting organizing 3 cons in the last 3 months, gathering a web team, onboarding them, opening two weekly play venues, caring for children, hyperlinking the guide, learning a brand new wiki technology, writing a custom scenario from scratch, Setting up to create new hyperlinked versions of the 3 *other* guides...
Some of us are really, really tired.
But that isn't actually the main problem. The main problem is that any time I spend on making the sort of changes you are talking about (or even writing this post.) takes time away from the final product, which I am hoping will be cool enough that people will be as excited about it as I am.
So please be patient.
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Jared: Thank you! Wrote a big ol' post only to find you are already on all of the improvements to the OPG site I was going to support!
Trimming my post down to:
I want to suggest to the Paizo webmaster-powers-that-be that there ought to be a speedy update to the Pathfinder Society landing page, https://paizo.com/pathfinderSociety, to reflect:
"Get Started with Pathfinder Second Edition (2e)!
[Something like] We're putting the finishing touches on brand new guides to the Pathfinder Society for Pathfinder Second Edition! The Roleplaying Guild Guide for Pathfinder 2e is now hosted:
[link to the PFS 2.0 Guild Guide]"
above the existing "Getting Started" section,
Then change the "Getting Started" to read: "Getting Started with Pathfinder First Edition (1e)"
And the link to "Roleplaying Guild Guide" to read "Roleplaying Guild Guide - Pathfinder First Edition"?
so new players can be quickly and correctly directed to the right spot?
Venture-Lieutenant, Indiana—Martinsville
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The guide is not something I was looking at to become digital. I was under the impression that the Boons forthcoming (I only see the Playtest boons thus far, and none of the PF2 games are reported yet) were going to be able to be printed to place with the character.
The Guide having to be accesses digitally was problematic, as my phone has short battery life and this is the one Gen Con where I did not bring my computer. I had to trust that I was doing things right and hope for the best. I still don't see where it says anything about EXP earned except in the blog. (Though, to be fair, I have not had the time to read every line and squint at my phone)
I hope to have some sort of cheat sheet for the GM's available soon, so the new tier mechanic and how to run a particular party can be a printed page instead of having to do it from memory.
For those that don't know, Earned Income is done in 8 day blocks, so multiple rolls will be needed for Modules and AP's.
Venture-Captain, Colorado—Denver
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I hope to have some sort of cheat sheet for the GM's available soon, so the new tier mechanic and how to run a particular party can be a printed page instead of having to do it from memory.
Posted one several days ago on pfsprep.com
Myself and others have posted a bunch of useful tools/files in this section of pfsprep.com too.
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Having the Guide to Organized Play as a website is a huge advantage, it'll just take some getting used to. I can't tell you how many times someone has tried to cite something to me from an OP Guide at least two years old. As long as major updates are dated and clear rules are given on when to retcon/not retcon, I'm fine with having it as a website. Let the coders, writers, and decision-makers take some well-deserved few days of rest. A lot of this is being handled by volunteers.
That being said, my only criticism is this change could have been better communicated to the community, especially the volunteers at GenCon.
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That being said, my only criticism is this change could have been better communicated to the community, especially the volunteers at GenCon.
Yeah, I think in this instance, given that the website was still under construction and there had to be at least a modicum of fear it would not be ready, the powers that be could have compiled the info into a booklet ala past guides and release it as a PDF. At least that would have provided a temporary fix while they were spinning up the new format and had much less impact on events. We especially had a lot of confusion with completing chronicle sheets. Once the website was complete, the PDF would become obsolete and disregarded in favor of the new format.
We kinda have this history of trying to release some cool new thing at Gen Con and frequently miss the mark because we expect too much of ourselves with little flexibility to accommodate delays and unforeseen challenges.
Organized Play Manager
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It’s a brand new concept with a lot of moving parts that has only been active for a few days and during what is undoubtedly the busiest time of the year for Paizo and the OPF and when most of the staff are recovering from 20+ hour days for a week plus. So how about you give them a bit to catch their breath and work out the bugs that are inherent in any new endeavor.And it is totally unexpected that starting not another season of PFS1, but brand new PFS2 with huge rules changes (by starting I mean selling scenarios for PFS2) will raise huge demand of PFS Guide? Such huge demand so it wont wait for a a month later like with SFS v.2.0 guide - not a single thought?
And everybody so tired that can not post even short Paizo Blog post about new rules format and location? Change redirect link for PathfinderSociety.club from https://paizo.com/pathfinderSociety to http://www.organizedplayfoundation.org/encyclopedia/pfs2guide/ ? So tired, really?
The entire team is aware of what has to be done before Gen Con. Launching a program is quite a bit of work and we've launched 3 major programs in 3 years. We got overwhelmed with the amount of final pieces and are trying to get them all done, even if after the fact.
Also, please remember 90% of Paizo staff were at Gen Con and that left a skeleton crew back at home to handle things and that those of us at Gen Con were working long hours (18-20 most days) in the lead up to the convention.
There was blog planned for the Wednesday before launch that pointed to the guide. It failed to go up due to miscommunication between me and the staffer back at home that could post it.
The best I can say is we are working on it. I'm on vacation and still working on pieces. The others returned to Seattle yesterday/today and will be working on things. We hope to wrap them up soon.
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Quoting Joe Bouchard because I almost never post on message boards, don't know how to quote someone, and at this point don't have time to figure it out.
"The Guide to Organized Play as a website is a huge advantage, it'll just take some getting used to."
Patently NOT true when the place you GM in (My local comic store) has, if I'm being generous, merely abysmally poor internet access, and no WiFi for customers.
I will be forced to print the guide since the internet access at the store is so unreliable. It's a living document that'll be updated regularly which will mean constant checks and constant reprinting.
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Ah, nevermind. I've just deleted four paragraphs of rambling complaints. Lets just say I'm struggling to get excited for the new edition and leave it at that. But hey, Paizo still got my greenbacks since I bought all the available 2E products at GenCon eh?!
I'll leave it at this...
A button on the official unofficial guide main page to compile a pdf would be helpful. At least then I could just download it on my phone for referencing, and updating would just be re-downloading once a week or so.
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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I am watching this discussion and making note of the requests. At this time I don't want to make any promises, until I know I can keep them, but many of the suggestions being made here are very reasonable, and I have hopes that people will be very positively excited with what we are working on.
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I'll just add a "me too" to the requests above for a single page, easily downloadable version. The need to search the whole document at once, and to easily store it for offline access, are both absolutely essential.
As with Balkin, above, I'm not entirely enthusiastic about the new version. Paizo is going to have to work pretty hard to get me into 2e, and fumbling this roll out on day one isn't a good start. Of course, I've been playing PF long enough to know that fumbling rollouts during Gen Con is an annual tradition with Paizo, but you'd think they'd learn from all those mistakes eventually.
In this case, a blog post and permanent link here on Paizo's site, pointing us to the third party web site for the Guide could have been put up a month or two ago, even before the Guide was ready on that web site. Having the link up in advance, pointing to a page that says "Watch this space" for a month before the Guide was ready, would have prevented a LOT of confusion over the last week.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Indiana—Martinsville
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So, in another thread, it is obvious that Earned Income is unclear as to whether one roll (For an 8 day block) means the EI on the chart, or for each day spent in that block Earning Income. (So success at level 1 means 5 cp or 4 sp for eight days)
This needs to be made clear.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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@Jared: I think key things we need to make this a success are:
* Ability to download as a single-file document. Searching through a dozen pages on a phone at the table is not workable.
* Ability to search exhaustively for a term and be absolutely sure you found all references to it. Note that a single-file or single-page solution automatically enables this through Ctrl+F.
* Clear versioning. If someone downloaded or printed the guide as a file I need to be able to determine if I'm looking at a current version. Given that individual pages might get updated, this needs some thought on how to version single-page/file representations.
* A changelog to help us see what changed during updates.
* A notification system that we can subscribe to so that we stay on top of updates. Maybe enable RSS on the changelog page or a mailing list you can subscribe to for updates?
* One clear place where we can report questions/issues, so that they don't get lost.