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You should tell people how to play a game. If you don't tell them how to play a game, how do they know how to play the game?
One of the hardest things to do is to differentiate between "giving welcome advice and information to your fellow player" and "telling your fellow player what to do". The line varies from person to person, it varies with the type of advice you give, it varies with HOW you phrase your helpful suggestion, heck it probably varies with the sugar level of the recipient and how many times you've done it in the last 10 minutes.
Its hard even in face to face games where you have all the visual cues that make up so much of our actual communication. Its hugely harder in the online world.
The best solution that I've ever found is a combination of
1) Trying up front to determine the experience level of a new player and knowing the kinds of mistakes they might make
2) Trying to determine up front how much help the player wants
3) Making it VERY explicit to the other player that if they tell me I'm giving too much help that I'll back off. Or if they ask for more help I'll provide it.
4) Being as tactful as I possibly can be when giving advice (eg, there is a world of difference between "You might want to consider taking a step back in order to avoid the attack of opportunity" "Step back 5 feet so you don't provoke" and (in real life, generally), moving the persons miniature and saying "Other persons character takes a step back before casting" (and yes, I've seen all 3 :-()
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One of the hardest things to do is to differentiate between "giving welcome advice and information to your fellow player" and "telling your fellow player what to do".You should tell people how to play a game. If you don't tell them how to play a game, how do they know how to play the game?
The point of my excessively lengthy, rhetorical post was that advice is not rude. Giving advice in a rude manner is rude (though I don't find a random post of advice on a public message board to be rude, that's an aside). And you are correct, sometimes we present it poorly or receive it poorly regardless of intent.
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I have been playing tabletops for about 15 years now. Between the multitude of systems I have played, if you are looking for a hard definition of efficient for one's turn, I would say 2 minutes. 3 minutes if you want to be overly generous. If you're taking more than 3 minutes to resolve your turn, you are wasting the other players/GMs time.
If it is a new player, I am happy to give leeway in this matter.
I personally endeavor to not take longer than 30 seconds. This goal stems from a respect for everyone's time.
There are many methods to shorten the time it takes. Find one that is right for you, or ask for assistance finding one that is right for you.
So we've got a time efficient answer.
"The GM said be ready to take efficient turns guys." -Player 1
"But did the GM mean efficient with regards to time external to the game world or did he mean efficient with regards to the outcome internal to the game world?" -Player 2
"Tree." -Player 3
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So we've got a time efficient answer.
"The GM said be ready to take efficient turns guys." -Player 1
"But did the GM mean efficient with regards to time external to the game world or did he mean efficient with regards to the outcome internal to the game world?" -Player 2
"Tree." -Player 3
This example assumes there is no ongoing communication at the table. If a GM or fellow player is unclear about something, you can and should ask. It can start a productive conversation for everyone, and help the table a lot!
In Org Play we will respect one another and work towards understanding.
This example assumes there is no ongoing communication at the table between GM and players. If a GM or player was unclear about something, you can and should ask.
In Org Play we will respect one another and work towards understanding.
But how is that possible when you said, and I quote
I won't define "efficient" for anyone
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You seem to think that communication is impossible without a strict definition of a term.
Player: When you say efficient what do you mean, GM?
GM: We might not have time to finish tonight because there's a lot of combat and they are tough. So, please do your personal best to pay attention, prepare, and take snappy turns if you know what you want to do. In fact, you can pre-roll attacks on the turn before yours — I'll let you know when you're on deck."
Note that the GM here isn't defining anything to the player (they COULD in fact also do that and say "this is what I understand the term to mean but feel free to disagree"). Instead of being didactic, they are articulating their concerns and offering up a potential solution.
Again, no one here is telling the player how to play. The intent is to help the table have a better chance at finishing the mission on time and opening up a potential discussion about achieving that goal as a team.
Edit: This point actually goes back to the original intent of this thread: discussing and communicating our hopes and expectations of one another. Expectations can be refined and change as we learn and grow or meet new people. They don't have to be set in stone.
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Tristan, I am going to go off of the assumption that you are not intending to troll. Though, your posts so far do give off that feeling.
How one can be efficient with their turns can vary per player and even per character with the same player. As such, how a player is efficient with their turns can go into the weeds unnecessarily. The best way to achieve efficient turns is to gauge by time (that is why I brought it up). As I said earlier, if you are taking more than 3 minutes to resolve your turn, it is incredibly unlikely you are being efficient with your turn.
efficient (adj) - achieving maximum productivity with minimum wasted effort or expense.
This doesn't seem to fit the context of the conversation as well.
efficient (suffix) - preventing the wasteful use of a particular resource.
This seems to fit a lot better.
So, as you seem to have been hankering to get into an in depth discussion about the word efficient and how it applies in this context, I think I will point to the second definition of the word. And, based on the context of the conversation, it is clear that the underlying 'particular resource' is time. So, it seems like a very simple and easy to reach conclusion that when a GM requests an 'efficient' turn, they are requesting that the players prevent the wasteful use of time.
And you seem to think that not providing full definition of a term won't lead to mismanaged expectations and anxiety unduly placed on players by the simple divisive phrase of "Be ready to take efficient turns"
It could lead to discussion. Or it could lead to people getting in their heads and not discussing.
And in my 6 years of society play Ive never seen this happen : "opening up a potential discussion about achieving that goal as a team."
There's usually not enough time.
Leo didn't see your post as i was writing up my previous post
Well when a game is scheduled for say 6:00pm to 10:00pm with a hard stop of 10:00pm for store closing and the last player signed up doesn't get there till 6:07pm and takes 10 minutes to get settled. You're already 20 minutes down. Even-more-so when it's the GM with the late arrival cause then there's set-up time. So in an effort to be efficient already optional encounters are out the window. And "opening up a potential discussion about achieving that goal as a team" would tack on what 10 minutes, pushing the time down to 3hrs and 20minutes cause the store wants you out at 10:00pm not finishing your game and still having to pack out at 10:00pm
And you couldn't have the discussion about achieving goals as a team without the whole team being there cause one character difference can change the whole team and how it operates to achieving one goal. And if we then are efficient with time but not efficient in actions in the gameworld are we really efficient?
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It takes seconds to have a brief discussion; communication is also an ongoing process throughout the game session.
Further, taking a moment moment to establish a good vibe of teamwork saves the party time in the long run because they are more likely to succeed and act as a cohesive unit.
We’ve sure come a long way from discussing the tone of the guide! If you wish to discuss the concept of turn efficiency in more detail perhaps a new forum thread would be more appropriate.
But shouldn't "opening up a potential discussion about achieving that goal as a team" take longer than seconds? And if its ongoing during a game session doesn't that take time and make each turn inefficient?
I wish i could talk about how much I despise the guide and its tone, but I really don't want to get banned.
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Tristan,
The strategy I mentioned seems to succeed in my games. It was only a suggestion and I don't think it would work universally.
You seem to have moved on from accusing me of being an authoritarian to merely wasting player time. If something subjective about playstyle or table management doesn't work for you, there is little value in trying to legalistically prove the other person that they are wrong — at least to this extent. Both parties often end up looking like jerks.
I should not have gotten so embroiled in a counterproductive conversation with you either, and I apologize for that.
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I understand the guide is not for everyone and I really do appreciate constructive feedback on content & tone!
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Firstly Tristan, your pedantic delve into 'efficient' does not do your point any credit.
I suspect you, like I, read the original post and were bothered by the underlying tone. I suspect that you, similar to I, have experienced other players at the table that have 'given advice' very much like this. They also were 'trying to help'. But the underlying reality was that they were essentially saying that I was foolish for not having bought a dagger on my character (in PF1) "in case I got swollowed whole". I even had a GM, with another one of my characters that got swollowed, offer to retcon that my character had bought a knife (in SFS). I declined and took offense. To be fair, my PF1 character that got swollowed proceeded to punch and kill the enemy from the inside because the AC was lower (which was my goal). And my SFS character had not (and to this day at level 13 still has not) purchased any weapons, however I had an electrostatic shield mk 2 and shocked the creature from the inside.
That said, despite taking offense, I did not express it because they were in fact trying to help. They were not being malicious. And that is what truly matters.
That is also why, in my original post in response in this thread, I gave credit where credit was due. It is good advice. I then (not overly aggressively) pointed out that "expect(ation(s))" wasn't as good of a word for giving off the 'advice' vibe he was going for. To which I tied it up with a softball opportunity for the OP to clarify that he was going for a 'helpful advice' intent (as I suspected he was).
So...
I wish I could talk about how much I despise the guide and its tone, but I really don't want to get banned.
As I proved, you can. Just maybe address it in a reasonable and constructive way, instead of possibly coming off like an angsty teenager.
Be prepared for people, despite your approach, to ironically accuse you of assuming the worst even though you actually assumed the opposite. And rest well in the fact that they did acknowledge the point you were trying to get across as a good point. And also...let it go because not everything is about you.
(yeah, I went a little passive aggressive there. it is a bad habit)
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One other interesting note about tone is how Painlord's guide (linked in my first post) is ALL about "expectations." This guide was always intended to be an homage/update to that old guide because it's still useful and helped me learn a lot. But homage fails when the parts you bring in don't to live up to the current audience's mores.
I think this discussion goes to show how community expectations and standards have progressed… in a good way!
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That quote is not actually defining anything to the player, though.
Perhaps in and of itself, I would agree. However, for my own part, I use it to indicate the scenario runs long and we should apply extra focus to be ready to take your turn when it arises and not distract the other players when they are considering their own actions. Generally, we like a casual play environment where we joke around, rehash out movie quotes, that "one time at band camp," etc. but in this case we need to cut those out. I follow the written "warning" with a verbal reminder and expand on my intention. Limiting rules/restrictions/recommendations are always more effective when you tell the participants why you made it a point to emphasize them.
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I wish i could talk about how much I despise the guide and its tone, but I really don't want to get banned.
Then just don't use it and don't recommend it. There are thousands of us that do like it and use it quite effectively. No one tool in the org play suite is going to be universally embraced. Focus on what works for you and your lodge and ignore the rest. Or, if you are so inclined, write your own guide. If its better than the existing, it will replace it. If not, worst case is you have one that makes you happy.
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Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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I have fond memories of using Painlords suggestions, and while the system has changed I do not see the ones in the opening post in a negative light, they seem to be good-natured suggestions for new players, combined with a couple of best practices.
Giving new pointers some potential ways how they can improve, and positively affect the table is not a bad thing.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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One other interesting note about tone is how Painlord's guide (linked in my first post) is ALL about "expectations." This guide was always intended to be an homage/update to that old guide because it's still useful and helped me learn a lot. But homage fails when the parts you bring in don't to live up to the current audience's mores.
I think this discussion goes to show how community expectations and standards have progressed… in a good way!
I think the tone could do with a bit of polish. And anytime you have a lot of well-meant good advice to share, you have to be careful not to flood people with it.
We want to help people; but telling people about a hundred things they should/could be prepared for is maybe too much. Just because a "mistake" is avoidable doesn't mean it always should; there's a social cost you pay each time you pre-empt someone experiencing the mistake themselves. So you have to choose if this one is worth it.
For example, you could be telling people to pack a mace in case they run into skeletons. But skeletons aren't that dangerous. You might be able to just punch your way through, if worst comes to worst. So if you also have a lot of other ideas to share, maybe hold this one back.
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They're guides. References. And they're not directed at a single person at a specific moment in time. Anyone is free to open or not open the thread, read or not read part or all of the contents, whenever, wherever, and as often as they choose. There are scores of them all over the internet.
Are we supposed to be offended that someone wrote a guide somewhere that we might or might not stumble across and rated a feat we didn't take as a "Must Have" or a feat we did take as "Utter Garbage?" Dismissed an ancestry we built a character with as "far too situational to use outside an aquatic campaign?" Or suggested starting equipment for a PFS character?
I say no, but a lot of people sure do think the answers are yes.
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pack a mace in case they run into skeletons
Personally, I find that to be metagaming and not something I would share with a player as an expectation and would be aggravated if someone said it to me. OTOH, reminding someone that many creatures have damage resistances and its pragmatic to carry bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing weaponry is perfectly acceptable. A similar message to spellcasters and energy types would apply. YMMV
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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I am not so sure about the danger of flooding people with good advice, I came back to Painlord's guide several times over the years. Unfortunately, forum posts are not always super easy to update.
I guess it depends on how it is consumed.
If you're a new player and want to be prepared for anything, then a post with everything in one place is nice.
If you're a new player at the table and someone starts reciting a hundred bits of good advice at you and expects you to redraft your character accordingly.. that's not so great.
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pack a mace in case they run into skeletonsPersonally, I find that to be metagaming and not something I would share with a player as an expectation and would be aggravated if someone said it to me. OTOH, reminding someone that many creatures have damage resistances and its pragmatic to carry bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing weaponry is perfectly acceptable. A similar message to spellcasters and energy types would apply.
This, with the added mention that metagaming can sometimes lead you to incorrect choices.
Like when the party was fighting a construct with Hardness, but the Barbarian thought OOC that bludgeoning would be more effective, without IDing it. So he dropped his d12 weapon for a smaller damage die bludgeoning weapon, which was barely able to affect the construct at all.
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Metagaming is using knowledge you have that your character can't possible have. Your character acting on guesses they have based on what they've seen isn't metagaming, but it can certainly be wrong.
Sometimes metagaming can be used for good, like when you use your knowledge of the scenario to have your character make a choice between options that follows the railroad tracks instead of going off on a tangent the scenario has no material for.
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Not to derail the topic, but our characters forgetting what they learned about the world after the scenario ends is also metagaming.
I think it is a mistake to make the leap that once you identify one creature that they are all so similar that you will always know every occurrence of it again. Just like there are varieties within the human race, it suggests there is variety among all creature types. At least enough that some could be mistakenly identified. Thus the knowledge check to identify a particular creature even though you already encountered one last year, last month, last week, yesterday, or even an hour ago. YMMV
*if that is not what you meant, I apologize.
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Of course it is possible that they might misidentify critters without a recall knowledge check, and think that the bone golem is a skeleton, got example.
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** spoiler omitted **
If my character succeeds a Society check during a social encounter in Scenario 1 to know that a particular iron mask and outfit indicates the wearer is a Razmiran priest and succeeds a Religion check to know about the Razmiran faith, but if he encounters a Razmiran priest in Scenario 2 and fails the knowledge check or isn't even prompted for a check, he does not remember that thing he once knew.
More frustrating for me is when characters of a given background have to make checks to know things about their own culture (and can critically fail) and might not even have Society trained.
Back to the Razmiran example, I can make a sorcerer with 10 intelligence with the Razmiran Faithful background and could easily fail my Razmir Lore check, while I'm standing there in Razmiran wearing my own iron mask and hooded robe but fail to recognize a fellow Razmiran priest as one.
Sure there are situations where I'm mistaken, confused, or wrong--maybe it's a spy pretending to be a Razmiran priest--but the baseline assumption is I know nothing in absence of a successful Recall Knowledge check scored during that scenario.
In regards to combat, all those situations suggested are valid reasons to get it wrong. However, if my character fights a zombie brute and discovers via accident using an axe or knowledge check, it seems entirely reasonable to me that he'd try again with slashing weapons the next time he sees a walking, rotten corpse, even if he's wrong and it doesn't help. There's even "common sense" assumptions that our characters ought to be able to make, right or wrong, such as using a hammer against a skeletal foe rather than a spear or not using produce flame against the fire elemental.
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Well, I do recommend Painlord's guides (among other guides, such as Tarondor's class guides), but I'm not actually instructing anyone to read my own guide. I see where you're coming from, though!
In the text quoted I was trying to give Painlord the enthusiastic credit he deserves as one of the best guide writers out there and how it's still a relevant learning tool, but I now understand "ask new players" could be taken in a didactic way. (In reality, I recommend Painlord's guide for new players who ask for learning resources. It's a shame you can't edit old posts on these forums.)
I am not sure why there is anything wrong with linking a guide on your GM profile, though. It's a common practice with PbP GMs and players don't have to read those profiles.
It's awesome you followed up because I am working on a revision of this guide for our local website, and this is really helpful.
Thank you for the clarification, Thomas!
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If my character succeeds a Society check during a social encounter in Scenario 1 to know that a particular iron mask and outfit indicates the wearer is a Razmiran priest and succeeds a Religion check to know about the Razmiran faith, but if he encounters a Razmiran priest in Scenario 2 and fails the knowledge check or isn't even prompted for a check, he does not remember that thing he once knew.
IMO that is a GM issue not a rules issue. The adventure cannot make assumptions about your character’s experience. So it falls on the GM to make logical rulings. If you keep a history of what your PC has encounter, where and when, and present that to the GM, they should generally be open to giving you some leeway on basic knowledge checks.
More frustrating for me is when characters of a given background have to make checks to know things about their own culture (and can critically fail) and might not even have Society trained.
Again, IMO this is more an issue with the GM, though you should not automatically assume that just because you are part of a religion or culture, or come from a certain region, you should automatically succeed on all checks related to them. Clearly, if you are a Razmiran priest and encounter another one in the “wyld” you should be able to identify it fairly easily. I wouldn’t change the DC, but I would apply an appropriate modifier (easy, very easy, etc) to the check. It is still possible you could critically fail since there are other situations where someone might wear a mask (Nethys, facial deformity, mantis assassin, etc) that you might misinterpret.
In regards to combat, all those situations suggested are valid reasons to get it wrong. However, if my character fights a zombie brute and discovers via accident using an axe or knowledge check, it seems entirely reasonable to me that he'd try again with slashing weapons the next time he sees a walking, rotten corpse, even if he's wrong and it doesn't help. There's even "common sense" assumptions that our characters ought to be able to make, right or wrong, such as using a hammer against a skeletal foe rather than a spear or not using produce flame against the fire elemental.
Again, these are all plausible, but the GM does not know your character’s history and I doubt most are going to let a player slide by just saying, “I’ve encountered these before.” I would ask for details about when, which scenario, and what the circumstances were. It’s something I am easily able to account for in my home campaigns, but no org play with random players. Unfortunately, it’s part of the nature of unrelated, episodic gameplay. You are at the mercy of the GM who’s rule applications may not be consistent from table to table.
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A large part of my classes was walking out, seeing a species of tree, having it identified, then trying next week to come back and identify a different tree of that species. It can be surprisingly hard.
And thats usually NOT while the trees were trying to murder us.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Re: skeletons. First I appreciate how me saying "maybe NOT talk about skeletons" is presented as me spilling the metagame beans about skeletons. Fine job there.
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But that said - Pathfinders are supposed to receive three years of training, and skeletons are among THE most common monsters. If Marcos Farabellus is going to give you any examples about why you should pack more than just one favorite sword, skeletons make for an excellent example.
That doesn't mean if you actually run into skeletons in a scenario that you'll automatically know that those things are skeletons (and not some other bony form of undead). You might still have to Recall Knowledge for that. Who knows, these skeletons might be somewhat different. But empirically trying whether a mace works, I'd be okay with that. Especially when the GM isn't being very secretive either and starts the encounter with "you run into skeletons".
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Yes, I would agree that bludgeoning is good against skeletons would be on the curriculum, and that 'boney creature' more likely to be a skeleton than a bone golen, or a bone devil, or other options. I don't feel its meta-gaming if a player goes for their blunt weapon. In most cases its not their default weapon that they would have had out, so they're still spending an action to switch (and possible another one to sheath, or just dropping their main weapon)
Likewise Area/Splash against swarms feels like its a basic PFS training curriculum.
Trolls/regen on the other hand I feel is a bit more esoteric, and unless the character has a history with them, I frown if they instantly switch from their primary/always use weapon to an alchemist fire, before they even see it regening, etc.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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I have to say I'm a bit bored with having to go through the motions of faking surprise and amazement when my umpteenth character runs into the same common monsters and going through the rigmarole of identifying their weaknesses.
It just feels more rewarding to use Recall Knowledge to find out something useful about a creature that you might not even know yourself as a player, than to do the "oh really? skeletons are crunchy?!" for the sixtieth time.
It'd be cool if your character could belong to an organization that trained their agents for a couple of years on how efficiently to dispatch routine monsters.
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I've always suspended my disbelief about needing to re-identify monsters in org play. It just seems like a necessary evil in any living campaign because we're often playing with strangers or PCs whose experiences we're not familiar with. I don't spend energy obfuscating common weak creatures, though.
At the home game, PCs get to know and remember stuff because the world and players are consistent.