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Yeah, I'm not invested in any particular solution -- why my initial suggestion of a 40 ACP grant, didn't dive into any of the technical details. I didn't care if it was/wasn't retroactive, I didn't care if it was 'a 0 cost ACP boon that gives you 40 more, limit 1", or Blake's Tiger's 'reduced price meta-access boon style', etc. I think most of the formulations discussed here all help and it really comes down to what OP/Tech could implement (and what other improvements it would be traded off against in development time). Sure there's some versions I like more than others; but it definitely feels like 'perfect is the enemy of good' in this context.
Venture-Captain, Missouri—Columbia
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I would suggest a "Welcome to Pathfinder Society 2" boon that can be bought once per player at a discount (e.g. 40 AcP) that allows you to select an ancestry from a curated list of 80 AcP Uncommon ancestries (e.g. leshy, iruxi, orc and/or tengu, kitsune, geniekin).
That doesn't require any programming (the 1 per player "function" is already in place), it doesn't require figuring out how to infuse accounts/new accounts with AcP, and it requires the same amount of effort to earn an Uncommon ancestry as if the player did receive an infusion of AcP.
You wouldn't have faster access to Second Chance and you couldn't use it to buy Avid Collector or Esoteric Spellcaster, but I think the real point people are getting at are the ancestries. I would also not be applicable to either things not on the list or things that cost more than 80 AcP, which one could argue that leaves off the "one" thing I wanted, but I think it's a good compromise between tech and intent of the original suggestion.
I am in favor of this. It keeps the Rare ancestries rare and gives new players a bit more in options. It also allows them to play a bit and learn more about the system before they invest the needed AcP into building that character they really want to play.
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The simplest answer has the best chance of being implemented quickly. A curated list is going to take much longer to set up in the system. Awarding a flat 40 (or whatever) based on the registration of a -2001 PC is likely to be the easiest, cleanest, quickest solution that can still be maintained through the existing program.
I don't think I'm conveying what I'm imagining correctly if you think programming the system to inject 40 AcP is easier. Or it might be if Organized Play has quick access to the Paizo web programmer and all it takes is adding a +40 to the calculation of AcP when an account is accessed.
I was thinking of a single boon like the Shoony discounted boon. They already have the program in place to add a boon to the list for 40 AcP and make it a one per player boon. The text of the boon just lets you circle which one you want to use once you print it.
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Then I also didn't convey that well.
When the boon is made, the Organized Play team decides what's on the list. Whether that's "things that were Always Available in PFS(1)" like "tengu, kitsune, and geniekin" or some other list, I didn't imagine that it would be updated ever.
Or it could be "any" 80 AcP Uncommon ancestry, fill in the blank on the chronicle if it needed future proofing.
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I think he was saying that the list of Uncommon Ancestries will continue to change, so the boon would have to be updated every time something new releases. The "curated list" part of his message.
Or the text could just say "40 point discount on any uncommon race".
But I don't think any of us really have a clue what is easy and what is hard for the Paizo web team to implement. Historically, things that would appear to be really simple seem to be really difficult.
So I like the suggestion of letting Paizo figure out the best solution from a technical point of view. Anything along the lines of any of the suggestions in this thread would be a significant step forward from where we currently are.
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But, what's the point? This whole thing revolves around letting a new player, play the character they envision. A curated list is not much better than what we already have because there are going to be people who want access to ancestries not on the curated list. Why rack you brain on what should/not be on the list?
We need to stop the half-way measures. Either we think new players should have quicker access to restricted content or they shouldn't. If they shouldn't, leave things alone. If they should, then given them access, not restricted access because that just shifts the idea of haves and have nots.
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But, what's the point? This whole thing revolves around letting a new player, play the character they envision. A curated list is not much better than what we already have because there are going to be people who want access to ancestries not on the curated list. Why rack you brain on what should/not be on the list?
We need to stop the half-way measures. Either we think new players should have quicker access to restricted content or they shouldn't. If they shouldn't, leave things alone. If they should, then given them access, not restricted access because that just shifts the idea of haves and have nots.
I completely agree with this. Forget the curated list - why make more work than necessary?
Just give new players (or everyone, I don’t really care) a boon that grants 40AcP and be done with it. It gives new players a little bit of an incentive to stick with the game, and if you grant it to existing players, it doesn’t hurt anyone.
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But, what's the point? This whole thing revolves around letting a new player, play the character they envision. A curated list is not much better than what we already have because there are going to be people who want access to ancestries not on the curated list. Why rack you brain on what should/not be on the list?
We need to stop the half-way measures. Either we think new players should have quicker access to restricted content or they shouldn't. If they shouldn't, leave things alone. If they should, then given them access, not restricted access because that just shifts the idea of haves and have nots.
Or it could be "any" 80 AcP Uncommon ancestry, fill in the blank on the chronicle if it needed future proofing
The point is that they could add a 40 AcP, buy once, write in the blank the name of an 80 AcP Uncommon ancestry "today," where there is currently no mechanism to inject AcP into an account short of reporting 5 dummy GMed scenarios and would require a tech development request to at best reprogram the AcP calculation to start at 40, which, heaven knows how many downstream bugs that might cause.
EDIT: Restricting it to an ancestry discount rather than a pile of pretend currency allows a player to get a sense of how quickly they can earn AcP themselves to develop their own value for AcP and make better choices with how they spend it and, more importantly, avoid buying Esoteric Spellcaster without realizing that it doesn't open Access to all your characters (or that you can't play your first session as a warpriest cleric with Protection memorized because you have neither the money nor the opportunity to Learn a Spell after you bought armor, shoeld, weapon, and gear) or that buying Avid Collector doesn't get you proficiency or that you bought Avid Collector for Access to a katana for your first session and your first session turned out to award "here's access to a katana" boon.
But all of the above is just opinion, and this is/should be a safe place to toss around ideas. It's not like whoever writes the most/the least/in all caps gets their idea implemented.
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We need to stop the half-way measures. Either we think new players should have quicker access to restricted content or they shouldn't.
Put in a different way, I agree I'm more interested in a long-term solution, not a short-term stimulus package.
Paizo's going to keep publishing books. These books are going to have disproportionately Uncommon and Rare options (as someone correctly identified, it'd be weird for a Common ancestry to suddenly appear).
So, over the next 5-ish years, a large fraction of the new material that's making splashes at conventions and showcased on podcasts and takes center stage in FLGS windows will be behind PFS gates. And some of that is okay, but there needs to be a long-term plan so that we're not doing short-term stimuluses every year.
I'm ... meh ... about a 40 AcP grant. It does skew the perspective of how much effort it takes to "save up" for an option. It also opens the possibility of people re-registering new PFS numbers if they end up with buyer's remorse about how they spent their free AcP. Blake's system with the discounted ancestry is way better.
But long-term, I think there's room for more granularity than "either this entire ancestry is locked" or "this entire ancestry is free".
- There could be narrow discounts, so instead of "due to years of PFS effort, kobolds are available to all", there's "due to years of PFS effort, Sewer Dragon Kobolds are available to all."
- There could be narrow discounts across the board. So with a big dump of Uncommon ancestries from LOAG, the Uncommon ancestries from APG go down in price by some small amount; and when a future book with ancestries comes out, the LOAG ancestries get discounted.
- There could be more number-based restrictions, or escalating prices. So the first orc you create is cheaper than the second, like 40 AcP for the first orc, 80 for the second, and 120 for each one thereafter.
It's not "MOAR FREE STUFF", it's "with each new big, splashy thing that people will hopefully be excited to play in Campaign Mode, let's have a little, splashy thing that people will also be excited to play in PFS."
And if the general feeling is that people are already super excited about PFS and don't need any incentives, that's a possible decision, too.
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But long-term, I think there's room for more granularity than "either this entire ancestry is locked" or "this entire ancestry is free".
I'm not at all sure that is necessary or worth the hassle. Especially since it is NOT just ancestries we're talking about, its feats, items, classes, etc.
For regular players who have been playing awhile, the ACP system is probably sufficiently flexible for most of their needs. Oh, a player won't be able to afford EVERYTHING they conceivably want but they WILL be able to afford the things they REALLY want. And I think that is pretty much true for the player who plays once a month or two and the player who plays everything AND occassionally GMs or goes to a Con. The former burns through characters less quickly and so needs less ACPs. But even the latter isn't going to need more than 1 or 2 new characters a year and they'll get enough ACP for that.
And we can't lose sight of one of the main goals of ACP, which is to encourage people to GM, especially at Cons. Paizo has to find the balance point where ACPs from GMing are desirable but not necessary.
I think the current structure is pretty close to that point (at least for those of us who play a lot and GM a little, which is my situation). The problem is new players, and the 40 or 50 ACP grant nicely solves that problem.
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Regularly reducing costs seems disasterously paralyzing and fun reducing.
Should I but this now? Maybe it'll be cheaper next month, better not play that level 2 game and do something else instead.
It also does nothing to help the goal of getting new players invested in uncommon ancestries quicker.
Contributor
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I'm for the simple get-new-players-something-fun-quicker 40 ACP boost. The system seems to be working okay for encouraging most of our players to try out GMing and for rewarding people over time, so I don't want to muck with it too much beyond that.
Hmm
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Venture-Agent, Minnesota—Minneapolis
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I don't want tech to have to add anything in order to be able to do the 40 ACP grant. There are other things I would prefer they devote their time to, such as a better interface to see available boons by character you are purchasing them for.
We already have the Wayfinder boon where any character with two games can get a Wayfinder. That makes me think there is some way to check number of games. There are already examples of boons that can only be purchased once.
I think if they create a 40 ACP boon, it should be available to everyone after some minimal investment in a way that the current system supports.
Venture-Captain, Online—VTT
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But goblins? No, I don't see that. I was one of the players who found it quite jarring how much the last season of PFS1 suddenly tried to rehabilitate goblins from the evil pyromaniac 11 year olds on a sugar rush that really should be killed on sight they'd always been. It felt very, very forced and was clearly a significant world change thrown into PFS1 to help us adjust to the coming PF2.
Not remotely.
Just off the top of my head there is an entire series of incredibly well known free RPG day modules that portray them in a generally sympathetic (or even heroic) light, there are multiple scenarios which have the Society working with, or helping, or even relying on goblins in Season 3, Season 4, Season 6, Season 10, even a boon all about them working with the society! That's just the few that have stuck in my memory.
If people are new to Society play and don't know the backstory of how goblins have become interwoven with the Society and helped them then... then why do we assume that they also think goblins are any more kill on sight than half-orcs for example?
I wouldn't object to more lore and story about them, I'd be happy for more about many things, but given the living are now dealing with the necromancer who tricked Aroden into killing him, outsmarting a god, plus the legions at his command and with 1000 years of planning... I think a lot of places have bigger worries, standards for allies have probably dropped significantly to "Are you living and will you fight undead?" for many no doubt.