Timeliness and AcP

[Doug Hahn]

Bob Jonquet wrote:

GM Doug H wrote:

Volunteers do most of the reporting for org play. That's a fact.

That may be a fact in your area, but it is not universally true across the community. There are a lot of areas where the VO/organizer leaves it to the table GM to report. This is especially helpful in highly active areas with lots of games and participants. VOs are not required to report all events, they are just required to ensure all reporting is being done for events they organize. Rather than expect one person to report what could be dozens of tables, the GM can report their couple/few more quickly and efficiently. If a single VO is overseeing multiple tables at multiple weekly events, yes it might be a big job to keep up with reporting and perhaps it should be looked at for improvement, regardless of the status of NDAs or AcP.

I disagree with the depiction of timely reporting being "more pressure" or an added burden. It has always been the expectation since before there were VOs. The larger an event, the more time is generally accepted by players. I just don't see a correlation between reporting completed events and other aspects of the program but, since enforcement of this falls within the purview of the VO hierarchy you do you and I'll do me.

Explore! Report! Cooperate!

We also divide and conquer where possible.

"Timely" reporting is subjective. For example, I am fine reporting monthly (I have a VA who sits down with a beer on Friday night once a month and churns through his tables — he does it the way he wants and I'm fine with that because it gets DONE).

However, with AcP we probably need to get reporting done a LOT sooner than once a month.

I'd really like to see more "explore, report, and cooperate" here with the discussion opened up to letting reporting happen when people have time, and letting us accommodate our GMs otherwise.

At the end of the day, VAs are at the brunt of this system. Your gm didn't report the game? VA's are going to hear it and get pressure to report, not necessarily the table gm. The onus is on volunteers, and they need to be given more support by the entire community.

Accommodations like a signed sheet for GMs using AcP would be a great supplement to this system, and take the pressure off WHOEVER is reporting.

[Wei Ji the Learner]

There IS a significant drawback to this approach, however.

*IF* that is made available for GMs, then the 'immediate pressure' is taken off the reporting team -- true.

But with that immediate pressure *off*, then RL happens... and one is waiting months to know if everything else got reported.

The GMs are taken care of(somewhat), but what about all the players that want to get their things?

[GM Doug H]

Wei Ji the Learner wrote:

There IS a significant drawback to this approach, however.

*IF* that is made available for GMs, then the 'immediate pressure' is taken off the reporting team -- true.

But with that immediate pressure *off*, then RL happens... and one is waiting months to know if everything else got reported.

The GMs are taken care of(somewhat), but what about all the players that want to get their things?

We often wait months for things to get reported anyway. The problem's not going away; that's the point.

You could also have an accommodations sheet for players to log games played. It wouldn't be hard.

I will openly admit that I'm more concerned about GMs (and volunteers) than players for two reasons. First, people who GM are more likely to be hitting AcP goals right now, and it's a good time for accommodations because lots of reporters likely have a ton of catching up to do. Second, GMs should always be rewarded for their hard work because without them communities die.

[Z...D...]

GM Doug H wrote:

We often wait months for things to get reported anyway. The problem's not going away; that's the point.

Why does it take that long to get games reported?

I am sorry if I am not understanding the time delay. It takes 5-10 minutes, depending on the site/internet speed that day, to report a table.

GM Doug H wrote:

You could also have an accommodations sheet for players to log games played. It wouldn't be hard.

And it would not be hard to abuse the system either. Some people even abused the RSP Boons by marking games ran.

[Doug Hahn]

Zachary Davis wrote:

GM Doug H wrote:

We often wait months for things to get reported anyway. The problem's not going away; that's the point.

Why does it take that long to get games reported?

I am sorry if I am not understanding the time delay. It takes 5-10 minutes, depending on the site/internet speed that day, to report a table.

GM Doug H wrote:

You could also have an accommodations sheet for players to log games played. It wouldn't be hard.

And it would not be hard to abuse the system either. Some people even abused the RSP Boons by marking games ran.

Disclaimer: I'm not talking about my area specifically, but reporting in general and what I see on the forums.

Reporting takes time because people are busy, and have jobs and stuff? I mean, can't really tell you why it takes time for some people because everyone's different. Some people hate doing it. Some people have connectivity issues. Some people just don't have time/ energy after work on weeknights (or when they get home from a game at 11:30 PM on a work night) and want to spend time with their family/kids on weekends. It looks like a pretty common problem just from this thread alone, with others raising the same concerns about timeliness.

As mentioned above, I don't believe in designing against a minority of cheaters. We should be promoting social norms and good behavior in our communities instead of expecting systems like AcP to shield us from bad behavior.

People will cheat AcP too; they will make their own events and report fake games to earn credits or find some other way.

I see no reason to fret so much about using paper when at the end of the day there's so much potential to help the honest GMs out there get the rewards they earned while easing the burden on volunteers/reporters.

[MadScientistWorking]

Bob Jonquet wrote:

zeonsghost wrote:

Also, where is the contact information for VOs? I thought it was on the Paizo website, but I can't for the life of me find it anymore.

Doug Hahn wrote:

Used to be here: https://paizo.com/organizedplay/coordinators but it looks like there's a redirect issue bugging the page out.

Now, you can find the RVCs here (but not the VCs/VLs/VAs like they used to have on the Paizo site): http://www.organizedplayfoundation.org/organized-play-regions/

Since we are moving forward with the Guide and related information being hosted on the OPF site, the coordinators page on the Paizo site was removed. It was significantly out of date anyway. I believe the expectation is that once the NDA process is complete, we will have an accurate list of VOs again and they will be added to where the RVC list is.

Don't you think it's a horrible idea that the list of people who your supposed to report harassment to no longer exists and was inaccurate?

[Ferious Thune]

Bob Jonquet wrote:

GM Doug H wrote:

Volunteers do most of the reporting for org play. That's a fact.

That may be a fact in your area, but it is not universally true across the community. There are a lot of areas where the VO/organizer leaves it to the table GM to report. This is especially helpful in highly active areas with lots of games and participants. VOs are not required to report all events, they are just required to ensure all reporting is being done for events they organize. Rather than expect one person to report what could be dozens of tables, the GM can report their couple/few more quickly and efficiently. If a single VO is overseeing multiple tables at multiple weekly events, yes it might be a big job to keep up with reporting and perhaps it should be looked at for improvement, regardless of the status of NDAs or AcP.

GMs are volunteers. Event organizers who are not VOs are volunteers. You are a volunteer (unless you’re now on the OPF payroll. I don’t know your situation). It is absolutely true that nearly all reporting is done by volunteers, unless Paizo or the OPF is paying someone to do it.

Having a functioning VO corps and supporting them in turn helps support the other volunteers. These things are absolutely related. As are things like scenario support falling through for conventions, the lack of physical advertising material to help promote the game (posters being sent out to event organizers used to be a thing), a functioning and current website, and many other items.

The difference in the past where reporting was concerned? The paper chronicle was all the player needed. GMs had incentive to push for reporting due to stars, but much less so than in the new system. And if they were reporting their own games and waited a while to report several games at once, the only person really suffering was themselves.

[TwilightKnight]

Adam Yakaboski wrote:

Don't you think it's a horrible idea that the list of people who your supposed to report harassment to no longer exists and was inaccurate?

That’s why the coordinator’s page was taken down and we’re now directed to the OPF page where it can be maintained without bothering the very busy Paizo tech team. The only VOs we can confirm at this time are the RVCs who are actively updating their rosters so we can publish a complete list.

[Doug Hahn]

Bob Jonquet wrote:

Adam Yakaboski wrote:

Don't you think it's a horrible idea that the list of people who your supposed to report harassment to no longer exists and was inaccurate?

That’s why the coordinator’s page was taken down and we’re now directed to the OPF page where it can be maintained without bothering the very busy Paizo tech team. The only VOs we can confirm at this time are the RVCs who are actively updating their rosters so we can publish a complete list.

But that page doesn't even redirect to the OPF page. It seems to be a redirect loop that goes to the login page and then back to the coordinators page. https://paizo.com/organizedplay/coordinators — try it yourself.

Again: several people here are pointing out the lack of tools and support volunteers get, and this is yet another example.

In this case, Paizo users cannot access/locate the (incomplete) coordinators page.

Again: it's quite clear that timeliness is going to be an issue here due at least in part to lack of support. Let's produce some paper accommodation for GMs to help out, at least for this season while the technical bugs get ironed out and Org Play gets volunteers support and acknowledgement.

[Blake's Tiger]

The coordinators page was disabled and there is no redirect. That's why you get the login page.

You need to go to the OPF website.

I, too, am concerned about relying on other people to submit my games--both as player and GM--to gain access to boons I've earned. If they make access time limited as they've proposed (3 month rotations), this makes timely reporting or the failure of have a larger effect on players.

I don't think proxies or any other form of substitute reporting is a viable answer. If that was the answer, we may as well keep track of it ourselves and rely the honor system.

[Doug Hahn]

Blake's Tiger wrote:

The coordinators page was disabled and there is no redirect. That's why you get the login page.

You need to go to the OPF website.

I, too, am concerned about relying on other people to submit my games--both as player and GM--to gain access to boons I've earned. If they make access time limited as they've proposed (3 month rotations), this makes timely reporting or the failure of have a larger effect on players.

I don't think proxies or any other form of substitute reporting is a viable answer. If that was the answer, we may as well keep track of it ourselves and rely the honor system.

And there was confusion on the other page in this thread where a potential organizer was looking for coordinator support and couldn't find the information they needed. Bob implied the coordinators page was redirected, but it is not (the page is not even "disabled" correctly).

I really don't understand the pushback against paper accounting alongside AcP reporting. It worked fine for race boons back in the day, it works for chronicles now. Yes, people cheated… but guess what? They WILL cheat AcP too. As organizers, we should be working on establishing cultural and social norms where cheating is not permitted or acceptable. That's how you stop cheating — not by building systems that make enjoying the game more difficult for those doing the most work.

And we need to stop pearl-clutching about the worst 1% of players (the cheaters who should be kicked anyway), and focus more on ensuring volunteers and GMs are taken care of. Otherwise, people may not be as motivated to GM.

I really can't stress it enough but volunteer organizations die from the inside out when they don't take care of those doing all the hard work. In this case, it's the GMs and volunteers making communities happen. They should be the priority here.

[Ferious Thune]

For the organizers list, it doesn’t help that the blog containing the new link got sorted into the Local Play forum and not here. It has 16 posts on it. I feel confident most people missed it when it was posted.

Also, it includes the link on the org play site where the RVCs are posted, but it doesn’t appear to ever say that the old link is going to be taken down, or to mention that work is happening to update the list of VCs and that they won’t be posted for a while. Basically all of the things Bob stated here would have been good to include in that blog, and that should be considered in the future.

[Watery Soup]

Bob Jonquet wrote:

Under promise and over deliver is something we are missing recently in OP.

It's something that a lot of people are missing a lot of the time.

But yes, I agree.

[Saint Bernard de Clairveaux]

Not meaning to spark any acrimony with this post, given that everyone is likely feeling overwhelmed by Covid-19 right now.

Given that the digital implementation may be a way off, it would mean a lot (and perhaps buoy many of us up) if campaign leadership would give a formal "okay" to building uncommon ancestries now that we already have points to access. At the very least, I trust local venture officers and GMs to flag unearned builds and maintain a semblance of order.

I realize that some folks are worried about abuse. I trust that once we do have the digital tracking system in place, it will be possible to record the points that we've spent. In the meantime, allowing "provisional spending" will give the team plenty of room to get the digital system right, while allowing us to distract ourselves from the plague with leshies and hobgoblins and lizardfolk, oh my!

[Nefreet]

There's a particularly lupine poster who favors early implementation as well. While I'd certainly be happy to start playing my Lizardfolk now, I think Leadership wants to be cautious and make sure everything works first before opening access.

[cavernshark]

The current situation also is forcing a lot of people into online games, which may be harder to audit since you're probably interacting with folks you don't know as much. "Local" VOs and GMs takes on a whole new meaning in this context.

[Pirate Rob]

I want to flashback in time and have it be announced that you can start earning AcP immediately and that starting with season 2 you'll be able to redeem them for boons etc.

And then if they happen to come earlier than that, great!

[Saint Bernard de Clairveaux]

Robert Hetherington wrote:

I want to flashback in time and have it be announced that you can start earning AcP immediately and that starting with season 2 you'll be able to redeem them for boons etc.

And then if they happen to come earlier than that, great!

Scratches head, confused.

I understand that there’s a small C conservative element that wants to be careful about implementation and avoid abuse. I don’t agree with that perspective, but I hear it and don’t mean to fight with y’all.

That being said, if there’s one thing a pandemic can teach us, maybe it’s, “The odd jerk who pretends they’ve earned enough AcP to play a plant is really not that much of a threat to the world in the grand scheme of things.”

[Doug Hahn]

The pearl-clutching about cheaters is ridiculous. Build and establish social norms where cheaters are not tolerated.

Most VOs know roughly who their Glyphed GMs are, and who's earned boons by now. (As a VO I keep a spreadsheet of all area events. I can tell any player exactly how many AcP and glyphs they have earned in my area's stores, and I know exactly who my Glyphed GMs are. In fact, I let them hand out the extra hero points at sessions because I know they earned it.)

Like Rob I'd rather have been disappointed right away than strung along. Setting reasonable (if disappointing) expectations from the get-go — and perhaps under-promising and over-delivering — would have managed community expectations and avoided lots of these discussions. But here we are.

With the shutdowns, my prediction is that we don't get AcP until we're into season 2 anyhow.

This is just growing pains, but because Paizo refuses to see the value in common-sense temporary solutions such as paper-based boons, those growing pains are going to be a lot more painful for the community at large.

[Xathos of Varisia]

What about when your GMs play and run in other places than your events? We've got the online region and there are quite a few people playing and GMing there.

I'm in favor of waiting for Season 2 for AcP to be used. First of all, this pandemic is now the main block to implementing and rolling it out. I think the paper-based AcP would just cause more problems than it is worth.

[Saint Bernard de Clairveaux]

I mean, at risk of being a broken record, maybe it's just a matter of bringing up our Sessions page on Paizo, eyeballing that there are indeed enough credits there to make it good, and do some catch up reporting of spent points later.

In my region, we're creating VTT options that local players will mainly be using, rather than a geographically agnostic approach. At the very least, it would be great to give local VOs flexibility until all the chaos has passed.

[TwilightKnight]

Just speaking for myself and not in any official capacity, I am tracking my own AcP and spending it as necessary on the available rewards I want. Once the official program is finally all ironed out, I’ll make sure my online account matches what I’ve been doing all along. YMMV

[Nefreet]

But you're not, like, playing a Lizardfolk right now. Right?

[TwilightKnight]

Not yet

[Pirate Rob]

My paladin has a silly lizardfolk hat on, although now he's hit level 2 so he's stuck getting GM credit only until the AcP system works.

Same deal with my Leshy.

At this rate I'm also going to have a hobgoblin before the system goes live so I've started working on planning that.

Some day Rhizzuk, Professor Whitegourd and Snarlfist will come to life...

[Nefreet]

I thought the new races had to be a "new character"?

Like, one that has zero XP.

I've just had mine chilling this whole time.

[Pirate Rob]

Until a character is played above level 1 it can be freely rebuilt...

[Gary Bush]

Agree with the 1st level freely rebuild point.

[Nefreet]

I mean, previously, I agree. But it's been such a problem for years. In both PFS1 and SFS. What makes you sure that the text of these Boons will leave room for that?

I feel there's a lot of assumptions going on and people might be setting themselves up for failure.

[GM Wageslave]

Would it be wise to alienate folks with that sort of thing at this point?

[TOZ]

Heavens no. Doesn’t mean it won’t happen.

[Nefreet]

GM Wageslave wrote:

Would it be wise to alienate folks with that sort of thing at this point?

Is it wise for players to assume that these unwritten boons will be written in any particular way?

[Ascalaphus]

Maybe we should just stop egging each other on, realize that we're going through a ridiculous time, and just relax. Don't make plans based on "I absolutely MUST use a special race for my next character". It might turn out to be the one two after that.

[Nefreet]

That's exactly what I'm doing, too. Initially for 2nd Edition I only wanted to play a Goblin and a Lizardfolk. Got the Goblin itch out of the way. Have since made two other characters while patiently waiting for AcP to become available.

If anything, this delay has allowed me to embrace more of 2nd Edition than I otherwise would be doing.

[Isabelle Thorne]

I have the dubious advantage that the ancestries (or their equivalents) I'm most waiting for don't actually exist yet. Plenty of time to build up AcP before World Guide 27.5 comes out and I can play [redacted]. :D

...of course, that would rely on my actually getting to go to PFS, and getting to run PF2. Which was pretty much out of reach even before the blessing of Urgathoa settled on the lands. :/ I'd like to play online, but I've flaked out one too many times... I don't wanna try again until I can be sure I'm not gonna leave folks hanging.

[Nefreet]

If you can type up some robust botting procedures, you can have a seat at my next online table of Absalom Initiation ^_^

That won't probably be for another few weeks, since I'm already a bit involved with PbPs for Outpost III. But I plan to run it regularly.

[NielsenE]

Today I saw one of the first things that makes me worried about their ability to easily correct stuff after the fact.

The local lodge reported to games today:
PFS2 1-14: Shows "1 Pathfinder Society (second edition) GM Credits"
while
PFS2 1-16: Shows "8 Pathfinder Society (second edition) GM Credits"

So the before state was that:
players were seeing correct ACP points
gm were seeing correct GM table counts

Now it looks like:
players see correct ACP
GM's have mixed GM/ACP counts, determined on a per-scenario basis.

[pauljathome]

NielsenE wrote:

GM's have mixed GM/ACP counts, determined on a per-scenario basis.

Consistency is greatly overrated. Embrace the randomness :-)

[Red Griffyn]

The PFS staff made the right decision in sanctioning new material on the blog post so people could access archetypes, feats, etc. This was in lieu of having a formal updated additional resources page because they are still revamping the PFS2e guide.

PFS staff have decided what they think the initial fair amount of AcP is for each race. While they got a lot of good feedback regarding AcP earned, cost of boons, etc. presenting the future costs is only a half-measure. All they needed to do to make the masses happy was add the following wording to the blogpost:

"Until the AcP system is online/working, you can spend them as if you had them.".

It would be one thing if the blog post was part of a 'soon to be available' tease where people only had to wait ~2 more weeks before the system was operational. But at this point, that blog post was from 2020-FEB-06 (7-8 weeks ago). Given the current global pandemic, it isn't likely that this is going to get resolved or implemented anytime soon.

IMO you have three options that resolve to "continue to annoy the customer/player base" or "make your player/customer base happy":

1.) Stay the Course

Spoiler:

Pros: No cheating (although most GMs don't audit PCs, so really for the majority of a PCs career they could be 'x race' and never be caught 'cheating' so I'm not sure this is a pro).

Cons: No implementation date communicated, continue to annoy the customer base/player base, communicate a restrictive/delayed nature of PFS to new players who are all recently joining the online TTRPG community during the pandemic.

2.) Trust Players To Spend AcP before the system is Operational:

Spoiler:

Pros: Players/buyers are happy and unrestricted in building PCs. Allows auditing using the intended system once it is operational (i.e., you don't have 5 hob goblin PCs and insufficient AcP).

Cons: Opens up potential cheating, likely introduce some cases of accidental cheating where they didn't count AcP right. However, if we all agree that ancestries are balanced, then the risk here is low in actually unbalancing the system! Maybe have people count their own AcP in a standard excel file template that Paizo could provide in 30 minutes to prove they could have 'x' access.

3.) Allow limited boon purchase (e.g., 1 ancestry boon per account):

Spoiler:

Pros: Players/buyers are happy and unrestricted in building (one) PC. Allows auditing using the intended system once it is operational. Makes auding for PFS volunteers easier as we all know you're limited to 'one'. Could tie access to doing this to buying something in your ongoing PDF sale and tie it to supporting the business as well as making customers happy (a 'win win').

Cons: Opens up potential cheating, but its limited to say 1 race boon per person so the likelihood that it is overly exploited is significantly reduced, still some accidental cheating if you rely on AcP and not a one off paper boon. Again, if we all agree that ancestries are balanced, then the risk here is low in actually unbalancing the system.

While the ongoing world events make doing new things hard, there are easy options on the table that will let your players/customers be happy. The reason sanctioning all that material was a good decision was that Paizo took accountability for the non-operational aspects that they're working on, while getting it out of the way of their customers having fun. All you have to do is apply the same logic and open up the already sanctioned/costed boons. It takes a small modicum of trust (about the same amount that you assume when someone has stated they 'bought' the material to use in PFS2e).

You've got a ton of new players/home game players joining the online ranks of PFS because they have nothing better to do. Isn't now a good time to capture some market share and interest by being permissive instead of restrictive?

[Gary Bush]

Well, there is progress!

I am now recognized by the website as being a second edition GM!

Still no glyphs but at least it is official!!

And my AcP points are much closer than before!

[Doug Hahn]

Gary Bush wrote:

And my AcP points are much closer than before!

Mine are about 100 off. It seems less accurate now than it did a month ago :)

Probably best to not even worry/monitor until tech has completed the project.

[Marc Waschle]

My totals are off too, hopefully, when they finally get things up and running I will have the correct totals. I think the cost of the boons are moot now, because they are being made available through playing scenarios.

[NielsenE]

I don't believe any have been made available through playing scenarios

Spoiler:

Two _backgrounds_ have been made available through scenarios, but neither of them unlocks the ancestry they go with. You still have to buy the ancestry via ACP.

Unless you just mean playing enough scenarios to earn enough ACP to purchase them.