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It is so the everyone understands where to go to find information. If Paizo was to begin using Facebook and Twitter and Absalom Station Interweb Network to announce changes, it would be become impossible to keep the multiple outlets updated and in sync.
PFS 1 has "campaign clarifications," "additional resources," unofficial forum posts from devs that at times counted as PFS updates (e.g. "a FaQ on Poison"), FaQs by book (which also count as RAW for PFS), and probably more. It’s not like everything was ever in one place or easy to find.
The MOST important part is to get it up right the first time. We don't need mistakes being introduced because we rushed to get it out.
This is disingenuous because no one's proposing rushing anything. It's been 4 months since Lost Omens World Guide launched. I don't think anyone is talking about "rushing things out" — nor do they want Paizo to — they just want things done in a timely fashion without delays in the order of a quarter- to a half-year (or more, in many cases).
But this process has been refined for over 10 years and it does work.
Is this satire?
The process is clearly not refined, and it certainly doesn't work. This is contextualized from my PoV by other issues such as NDAs taking a year++ to get signed, channels of communication like the VO forums being inaccessible without janky workarounds, ACP delays impacting GM motivation, etc.
I really don't want to turn this into a litany of complaints because at the end of the day I still love Paizo and PFS, and I appreciate how hard-working Paizo employees are, but to say the system is "refined" is just straight-up ridiculous. I truly hope that, at least internally, Paizo recognizes that — because acknowledging and then fixing these issues would be a huge net positive for our communities.
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But a lot of us will defend those doing the work because we understand what they are working so we can play a game.
I respect your wanting to defend the organized play staff. They are indeed human beings who deserve empathy, as well as thanks for their work to support our hobby.
At the same time, Paizo is a company that gladly accepts our money. Without making ad hominem attacks on any employee, I think it's fair and even a kindness to share concerns about processes. Those of us who raise concerns do so because we want the Society and Paizo to thrive. We're raising flags about things that are driving people away from Society play and Pathfinder.
If I'm angry at anyone, it isn't the Paizo team — it's the many community members here who take any criticism as an attack on staff. And those on this thread who present yourselves as the in-group, and me and others who share feedback as outsiders.
I've been a part of PFS since Season 2, and began playing 1E while it was still in beta. I'm no outsider to this community, even though I haven't been to PaizoCon (loyal to Kublacon here in the Bay Area) or GenCon (can't afford it) and haven't historically participated much here on the messageboards.
You might think you're doing the team a favor jumping zealously to defend them and dismiss feedback, but you're actually potentially alienating loyal Paizo customers who very much want their business to thrive.
...this process has been refined for over 10 years and it does work.
The thing is, there are a number of processes that *aren't* working well.
There is the slow sanctioning process, which came about as an over-correction against a minority of players who abused character options, and now leads to months-long delays for making content legal. The current review system was super well-intended, and I commend folks who are trying to make it work quickly. It's not an attack on anyone to say, "Let's review this to correct the over-correction."
There is also the process for posting already sanctioned material on the website. I'm not privy to why it takes so long. I'm not even asking for transparency. I just know that companies with more modern websites are able to publish simple text edits to a resource list in a few minutes and button clicks. It's not unreasonable to ask staff to review and get rid of unnecessary complications in that process.
And there are the very long delays, as Doug Hahn noted, to sign paperwork making people official venture agents — folks like you who work hard to keep the Society afloat, and end up paying out of pocket for campaign materials that they're supposed to receive as a thanks for their hard work.
In my region, we've had folks waiting a year and a half to be made venture agents. That is *not* a process that's working well.
If Paizo was to begin using Facebook and Twitter and Absalom Station Interweb Network to announce changes, it would be become impossible to keep the multiple outlets updated and in sync....
As Doug Hahn noted, materials that are needed for society play are currently scattered all over this lovably clunky website. I usually need to use Google to find things on their website, because there are so many different branches where content might be hiding.
What I proposed is not publishing the content willy nilly all over the web. It is: publish a blogpost or messageboard post — whichever is most doable by the team without a web developer — and then link to that page in the available Society social media channels (as we currently do).
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"Let's review this to correct the over-correction."
This is probably where Campaign Leadership finds themself in a bind. It's the eternal question of quality vs timeliness.
On the one hand, I know people who cancelled subscriptions and/or delayed purchases because sanctioning was taking too long.
On the other hand, I cancelled my subscription after I lost a much loved PC to the retraction of an additional resource.
I, personally, don't see a compromise between thoroughly vetting Additional Resources and timely vetting Additional Resources, and I doubt Paizo does, either.
Do you have a suggestion on how these two issues can be solved together?
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Those of us who raise concerns do so because we want the Society and Paizo to thrive. We're raising flags about things that are driving people away from Society play and Pathfinder.
But with that, I will leave you all to sink with this ship.
You might think you're doing the team a favor jumping zealously to defend them and dismiss feedback, but you're actually potentially alienating loyal Paizo customers who very much want their business to thrive.
And you don’t see how being a jerk and making demands isn’t alienating? Why are the people disagreeing with you not “loyal” Paizo customers?
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There's not forgetting books are published for the general public first, and that Organized Play is an offshoot. So not everything is immediately vetteable. Delays can't be avoided in that aspect.
Organized Play is also a driver of sales. I organize PFS at my local game store and their Pathfinder sales are almost exclusively to my PFS players. Sanctioning sells books. I saw that in PF1 when my players were ordering books to build characters from. I’d quite like to see it in Second Edition.
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Contributor
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There was a blog post yesterday with Org Play updates here. Sounds like they expect sanctioning on several books to go live before the end of the month.
Venture-Captain, Minnesota
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The other important part of that update was that they are adding a new administrative assistant to the team. It is my profound hope that having someone to help make sure the small tasks get done will speed everything up that has been in stasis mode.
Hmm
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The other important part of that update was that they are adding a new administrative assistant to the team. It is my profound hope that having someone to help make sure the small tasks get done will speed everything up that has been in stasis mode.
Hmm
You would be excellent in that position!
Aaron Shanks profile on Paizo
Seems he is "Marketing & Media Manager" for Paizo Inc., not necessary working with the Organized Play team.
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In the broader Paizo picture, I'd like them recruiting a staffer dedicated to PR, that wouldn't harm chances.Aaron Shanks has the official title of “Public Relations Manager.”
Reading these two posts made me laugh out loud.
I don't know the guy. Can't make any judgments about him or the work he performs.
But I've also been saying for some time that Paizo (or OP) could certainly benefit from a dedicated PR face. Whether it was smoothing over a bad FAQ or consoling a delayed product release.
Looking over his 55 posts, he has been addressing those very things. But extremely infrequently.
If I could make a suggestion, it would be for him to post the Organized Play updates to the Blog, and give Campaign Leadership that much more time to work on the Campaign.
Then people would be less likely to ask "Really??" when someone points out that Paizo actually does have a PR manager.
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I’ll be honest, I don’t know anything about the guy. I read Philippe’s post and thought “I wonder what the closest title they have to ‘PR guy’ really is.” So I opened up the 2E CRB and flipped to the credits in the back. “Hey, look! Here is someone who actually has the title of ‘Public Relations Manager.’”
I am utterly unsurprised that his title in print doesn’t match his title online.
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I, personally, don't see a compromise between thoroughly vetting Additional Resources and timely vetting Additional Resources, and I doubt Paizo does, either.
Do you have a suggestion on how these two issues can be solved together?
I agree with you, Nefreet. Thanks for engaging in dialog about this.
I do apologize to folks for being a bit heated in some of my remarks. I've meant to avoid personal attacks, while still being clear about the urgency I see to improve the process.
I don’t claim to have all the answers to speeding up sanctioning. That said, here are some ideas I’d put out there which might be helpful collectively:
1. Lessen the need for sanctioning by encouraging players to self-monitor.
There is unbalanced or Society-inappropriate material, and then there is the will to exploit such material...
Why not add to the organized play community guidelines language that urges players to help preserve game balance? That includes being open to character redesign if it turns out they've built something that breaks the spirit of collective fun?
Folks have raised the concern that lax sanctioning can later lead to massive frustration, if the society at large decides material is inappropriate for all ages (e.g., the vivisectionist, the grave warden) or not well balanced (e.g., the summoner—especially the synthesist, the vivisectionist).
Of course we want to avoid that, but in 1E, sanctioning didn’t prevent some players from building overpowered characters that frustrated judges and other players. I do this myself when it comes to maximizing Diplomacy bonuses on my characters…
I suggest we build a culture where we encourage each other to shine, and be willing to tone it down if we’ve over-optimized characters or play in a way that’s offensive to others.
And of course support free retraining in those cases where a decision is made to reel back a character option.
I don’t suggest this as a replacement for sanctioning, but as something that could help make the process less painstaking. It might have the added benefit of strengthening the community.
2. Have faith in 2E’s greater game balance architecture.
One of the things that sometimes rankles me about 2E is that it’s SOOO balanced. I get frustrated that I can’t build 1E-style diplomancers that roll in the 30s to 50s on every check. But I’m also glad, because I don’t want my love of playing Face who are more charming than I am to break the table.
Point is, I think 2E’s developers have created a game that will be much easier to keep balanced over time. There may still be power creep and small exploitable loopholes. But there’s much less reason to worry.
3. Standardize what sanctioning guidelines we can and share that with the broader Paizo team.
There are a few things that we always seem to know are a concern in organized play:
• Uncommon options meant to be rewards: We reserve some options as rewards for longterm participation / GMing—like uncommon ancestries or certain very unique items.
• Sensitive subject matter: Some options are barred due to being overly sensitive for a family audience. This includes classes that require a character to be evil. I suggest being as specific as possible in these guidelines, since one person’s idea of, say, sexual appropriateness can be repression to another. (I’m SOOO glad that in 2E slavery is clearly defined as evil.)
• Options that are designed for home play/don’t work with society mechanics: This one might require some work to define. I’m thinking most of the extensive downtime rules in Starfinder’s Character Operations Manual.
• Broken stuff: Options that genuinely break the game and can't be addressed by an errata.
It may be that, by fleshing out these guidelines, staff could send them upstream in the publication process—perhaps turning them into tags, making some materials essentially pre-sanctioned.
Alternately, baking some of these guidelines into Society rules could help make some options clear right away — for example, set a cost of 5 ACP to play any uncommon ancestry, or 3 to choose an uncommon heritage or archetype. (And since the ACP system isn't quite set up yet, perhaps let people buy on credit.)
It might take a bit of up front work on the part of organized play staff or volunteers, but it seems like some of these options are clear.
4. Publish results of sanctioning in two steps.
First, the quick and dirty method: Create a post in the format most easily accessed by regular staff—via a blog post or message board post. Get out the word by posting a link to the Facebook group, Slack, etc. like the team normally does.
Second, the long term, centralized option: Send the same text along to the web designer, to add to the centralized Additional Resources page.
I agree that this would add some additional steps to the process—but I've seen similar changes actually make an overall workflow more efficient, while greatly improving customer satisfaction.
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And of course support free retraining in those cases where a decision is made to reel back a character option.
This discussion recently spurned its own thread over in the Starfinder Society Forum, when the Ring of Fangs was banned and players weren't allowed a rebuild. It was then that I decided to cancel my Starfinder subscription to "protest with my wallet".
I truly hope both Campaigns embrace free rebuilds when the rules change. I think it's the most unreasonable practice currently in place. I understand why sanctioning is delayed. I don't understand why *players* are punished when Paizo changes their mind.
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And of course support free retraining in those cases where a decision is made to reel back a character option.This discussion recently spurned its own thread over in the Starfinder Society Forum, when the Ring of Fangs was banned and players weren't allowed a rebuild.
The ring of fangs debacle left a really bad taste in my mouth, but also left me feeling torn down the middle.
On the one hand: “C’mon, players! That item enabled builds way more powerful than they should have been. If you make a build using an item that is so obviously out of scale, you shouldn’t expect to get rebuilds when it is banned or errata’d.”
On the other hand: “C’mon, Organized Play! That item enabled builds way more powerful than they should have been. Even if it’s going to be months between the time you become aware of the out-of-scale build and the next release of Additional Resources it only takes a minute to post ‘we are investigating this item and will not be offering rebuilds in the event of banning or errata.’”
.....
Or to put it another way: I don’t believe players should get to use out-of-scale builds (even temporarily) with no consequences just because they found interactions the review team did not. But if Campaign Leadership doesn’t publicly comment for months (or years) it’s unfair to yank out the keystone with no recompense.
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Or to put it another way: I don’t believe players should get to use out-of-scale builds (even temporarily) with no consequences just because they found interactions the review team did not. But if Campaign Leadership doesn’t publicly comment for months (or years) it’s unfair to yank out the keystone with no recompense.
I guess I don't understand why we would have a culture of punishing folks for making unbalanced choices, especially if we're all helping each other grow to be better players and community members. In any case, punishing a specific choice doesn't necessarily help the person understand how to play with the whole table in mind...
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Although I agree that "playing with the whole table in mind" is a wholesome idea, and probably the majority of players already do that, it's impossible to apply. There is no one consensus among unsociable gamers on what's universally restrained. And everyone has their own weaknesses (and may or may not be aware of them).
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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1. Lessen the need for sanctioning by encouraging players to self-monitor.
I don't think this will work at all. If you look at PF1, yeah, it would be hard to rebuild a character if you realize that the build was OP. But plenty of people with OP characters didn't take the next character as an opportunity to build a more moderate one; most of them have a whole roster of OP characters.
Another thing is that organized play is intended to be cross-regional. What's considered appropriately powerful in one region may be hated elsewhere. Self-monitoring can't really cope with that, because what are you going to do? If I'm in the other town, I'll redesign because I'm OP there?
Organized play requires a degree of standardization so that moving from one table to another goes smoothly.
2. Have faith in 2E’s greater game balance architecture.
As someone who reviews books for AR, I can tell you that PF2 is substantially easier to review than Starfinder because the way the game is balanced is much easier to see. And as much as some problems have been festering (Battle Medicine..), overall the language tends to be clearer and more precise.
That said, review is still necessary. But I can say that the amount of work it takes to review the book is not the bottleneck of the process.
3. Standardize what sanctioning guidelines we can and share that with the broader Paizo team.
This seems to go against the grain for Paizo;
- They've always maintained that most materials aren't designed just for organized play, so some material would never be appropriate.- All final decisions are in the hands of the campaign leadership.
- From experience I can tell you that I would not trust upstream creatives to always do a good job at vetting their own work for organized play suitability. While PF2 has been pretty good quality, we had to request a LOT of clarifications about COM.
4. Publish results of sanctioning in two steps.
I'm conflicted about this. On the one hand it's frustrating how much technology seems to be the bottleneck to the sanctioning process. Just getting stuff done with a forum post is tempting. But PFS1 is littered with ancient forum posts setting forth this ruling or that and it's completely unmaintainable. "Temporary" measures tended to take away the pressure to come up with better permanent solutions.
Personally I think organized play should use a simpler CMS for this that doesn't require IT people to input AR stuff. Thus, I'm quite baffled that the OPF wiki page isn't going to be the main AR source.
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some problems have been festering (Battle Medicine..)
As someone who has participated in that 400+ post thread, I really hope a "Campaign Clarification" gets released at some point. The CRB Errata didn't address it, and the Rules Team has given no direction as to whether they even see a problem with it.
Venture-Captain, Online—VTT
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Folks have raised the concern that lax sanctioning can later lead to massive frustration, if the society at large decides material is inappropriate for all ages (e.g., the vivisectionist, the grave warden) or not well balanced (e.g., the summoner—especially the synthesist, the vivisectionist).Of course we want to avoid that, but in 1E, sanctioning didn’t prevent some players from building overpowered characters that frustrated judges and other players. I do this myself when it comes to maximizing Diplomacy bonuses on my characters…
I'd just like to take a moment to address this, my experience with the sanctioning process is utterly the opposite. The word 'lax' should never be used in my opinion, the Paizo staff and Venture Officers who help with that task spend countless hours on their evaluations and on discussing them, trying to allow as many options as possible without anything that risks creating imbalances that will harm the campaign, there is nothing lax, haphazard or anything of the sort about it.
Does stuff that is broken slip through sometimes? Sure! Unless sanctioning involved hundreds of people it's always going to risk missing some corner case combo that breaks things, but the time and effort involved to work with and go through that many reviews would make the current sanctioning schedule look like light speed, so that's not an option.
I strongly agree that a culture of "don't try and break things" would be great but... have you meet nerds? Mathematical combinations, optimisation, and so on are the favourite part of the game for many, I would hope that despite this everyone can understand they should allow each player at the table a chance to shine and that soloing a scenario isn't fun for anyone except you, but... :/
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Venture-Lieutenant, Massachusetts—Boston Metro
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I strongly agree that a culture of "don't try and break things" would be great but... have you meet nerds? Mathematical combinations, optimisation, and so on are the favourite part of the game for many, I would hope that despite this everyone can understand they should allow each player at the table a chance to shine and that soloing a scenario isn't fun for anyone except you, but... :/
Folks have raised the concern that lax sanctioning can later lead to massive frustration, if the society at large decides material is inappropriate for all ages (e.g., the vivisectionist, the grave warden) or not well balanced (e.g., the summoner—especially the synthesist, the vivisectionist).Of course we want to avoid that, but in 1E, sanctioning didn’t prevent some players from building overpowered characters that frustrated judges and other players. I do this myself when it comes to maximizing Diplomacy bonuses on my characters…
I mean it's less nerds and more PF1 is really imbalanced. It says how imbalanced it is when a downgrade to a class (Sorry I've never seen sneak attack be responsible for 1 star scenario reviews) is considered overpowered. Yeah I know vivisectionist is better than the rogue but that's not a high bar.