Venture-Captain, Wisconsin—Franklin
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I’ve tried to largely stay out of the VC drama, but both former VCs in our area say they’d been removed by leadership. I know there were VLs at some point, but they aren’t involved at this point. It’s a hobby, I presume they just moved on. Mostly, I preferred to see to the local group that played at the store and keep out of the organizational leadership above that as much as possible.
I don’t think getting RVC involved really would address any of the concerns I’ve received from based on the feedback from VOs and other GMs here. Sorry for wasting everyone’s time.
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I don’t think getting RVC involved really would address any of the concerns I’ve received from based on the feedback from VOs and other GMs here. Sorry for wasting everyone’s time.
The RVC is there to address your areas of concern as best they can. Right now, that means giving an ACP boost to your region to accelerate the rewards.
With that boost, five people doing a round-robin GMing the introductory and repeatable scenarios can earn an uncommon ancestry in a single quarter's worth of regular play. All it takes is a little patience, an open mind, and a willingness to work with others.
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Venture-Captain, Wisconsin—Franklin
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I don’t think getting RVC involved really would address any of the concerns I’ve received from based on the feedback from VOs and other GMs here. Sorry for wasting everyone’s time.
The RVC is there to address your areas of concern as best they can. Right now, that means giving an ACP boost to your region to accelerate the rewards.
With that boost, five people doing a round-robin GMing the introductory and repeatable scenarios can earn an uncommon ancestry in a single quarter's worth of regular play. All it takes is a little patience, an open mind, and a willingness to work with others.
The players walked, came back, checked in, and walked again. What PFS was about to them and what PFS is about to the plurality of its most vocal members is at odds. I’ve already said in as many ways as I can think of that the “just unlock it” argument hasn’t and isn’t selling it to them. Any suggestion or request for “hey, is there something we can do that isn’t months worth of playing a game that isn’t the one they see as PFS” is continually met with “just unlock it”. I’m not sure why that’s repeated like its going to sell them a year after the book dropped. It didn’t sell them at the height of their renewed interest.
We ran 3-4 tables a week in 1E. 2E starts, we lost two tables worth. One to “its not 3.X anymore, I don’t like it” and one to the “the core options aren’t what I liked about PFS 1.0, I’ll come back when I can play those things again.” That first group is gone and that’s fine. The second group is underserved and I’d have liked to serve them something. I feel like I’ved failed them because there’s no solution that isn’t a months long commitment on their part to a version of the game that isn’t what they saw as PFS when they went hard in 5–6 years ago. They were our store’s most enthusiastic players and supporters because of those options and that’s treated as a lack of commitment now.
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All of these ancestries DO ALREADY MATCH THE GAME AESTETIC because if they didn't they wouldn't be in a book.
I'll reiterate for the sake of reiteration: The campaign's creative vision is not an argument to pursue. Nobody with any authority or power to change things has stated that creative vision is why certain ancestries are placed as participation rewards.
However, you're misunderstanding the opinion. The opinion is not that these ancestries should not be in the game, but that they shouldn't outnumber humans. The setting is human-dominant, so showing up to a table where everyone is a poppet is not everyone's cup of tea. Again, that's not the reason poppets are set as a participation reward, that's a reason some individual players are fine seeing them as participation rewards.
They are set as participation rewards because they're desirable and will motivate players to GM tables/more tables.
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If there are enough of them, you might suggest running through modules and APs broken up over short blocks. It's still a time commitment to earn the reward of playing tengu/kitsune/etc at a PFS event, but at least they could be playing a tengu/kitsune/etc during that time.
It is still an equivalent suggestion to "just play more," but they'd be playing what they want to while doing so.
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I don't normally jump into a discussion that is this far into back and forth, but I do want to say a few things on this topic.
I understand and agree that we need incentives for GMing, but we also need the game to be welcoming to new players, especially for those of us whose lodges are in a rebuilding stage right now. If players are turning to home games instead of Org Play specifically because they can't play the ancestry they want, that is a problem for those of us trying to entice people into Org Play.
I know for those of us who have been doing Org Play for a long time, it doesn't sound like a big deal to play another character for a while first. Heck, I now have 50 PCs between the three campaigns. But for someone whose only frame of reference is home games, they don't have that mindset yet. They're used to having one PC for perhaps several years. They're not really thinking about that stable of characters. Especially when part of the appeal of Pathfinder is the wonderful array of ancestries, saying no prevents some players from even trying out Society.
I wouldn't want to see AcP done away with entirely, but I would love to see non-ancestry rewards take the forefront. In-game titles, alternate options for downtime, that kind of thing. If there were a 500 AcP option where you got a hat that was from the personal collection of Hats the otyugh, there would be PCs proudly sporting that hat tomorrow.
While my preference would be to substantially reduce or remove the AcP required for ancestries, giving new players a one-time drop of AcP that is enough to play a PC from most ancestries would also alleviate the problem I'm describing. If someone can play that kitsune or tengu and that gets the person to give Org Play a shot, that is a win for us.
I'm not making this argument for myself, as I have plenty of AcP for anything I could ever want. I'm making this argument because I keep hearing this as a reason that people don't want to participate in Org Play, and I think we are missing out on a lot of awesome players because of it.
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Venture-Captain, Wisconsin—Franklin
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If there are enough of them, you might suggest running through modules and APs broken up over short blocks. It's still a time commitment to earn the reward of playing tengu/kitsune/etc at a PFS event, but at least they could be playing a tengu/kitsune/etc during that time.
It is still an equivalent suggestion to "just play more," but they'd be playing what they want to while doing so.
That’s not a bad idea. Probably have to be the right AP for it to be easily broken down into scenario-sized chunks. It’s not as plug-and-play as PFS, but its got potential.
Thank you
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Extinction Curse's chapters are pretty discrete. Skip the optional encounters and use the milestone leveling guide. You'd throw out the circus administration mechanic and then just run a chapter per session (3 chapters per book, 6 books = 18 sessions).
I does leave them 8 AcP short, but Bounties are also now run in Adventure Mode, so they can play 8 (or GM 4 or some combination) of those as any ancestry/class over 2 sessions.
EDIT: Also, for anyone's information, there are currently 21 Bounties available, all repeatable, all Adventure Mode.
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I wouldn't want to see AcP done away with entirely, but I would love to see non-ancestry rewards take the forefront. In-game titles, alternate options for downtime, that kind of thing. If there were a 500 AcP option where you got a hat that was from the personal collection of Hats the otyugh, there would be PCs proudly sporting that hat tomorrow.
You can never have enough awesome hats.
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While my preference would be to substantially reduce or remove the AcP required for ancestries, giving new players a one-time drop of AcP that is enough to play a PC from most ancestries would also alleviate the problem I'm describing. If someone can play that kitsune or tengu and that gets the person to give Org Play a shot, that is a win for us.
My thinking on this has evolved over the course of this thread. I agree with Kate. Let's provide enough starter ACP that players can start with an uncommon ancestry right out the gate, or just plain legalize kitsune, tengus and iruxi (as a nagaji stand-in).
I think Geniekin can wait, or just be reduced in cost, because they don't fill a niche as important as these races did.
The more I think about it, the more that I realize how strong that furry segment is. My boy scout group that ditched PFS ditched it because several wanted to be tengus after playing the pirate one-shot. In SFS, we have several legal furry options now. Ysokis (which we had from the beginning), ryphorians and skittermanders (which came later.) I think that the Society really needs a good free or really cheap furry option, and kitsunes and tengus were with the Society for 5 years of PF1. That's a huge story legacy, and I do feel a disconnect that they are no longer a common sight in the Society.
I started the week that they became available, as a matter of fact. My very first PF character that I was playing in an AP before I discovered the Society was a kitsune, and I was relieved to hear that they were a legal race. Heck, I started frantically trading for people's defunct kitsune boons, because I was worried that they would get retired like aasimars and tieflings.
Although I started with two characters that were human and half-elf, I was already planning my kitsune bard when I joined up with PFS. So though I love gnomes, and am happy that leshies and kobolds are now available, I really feel that we should open up kitsune, tengus and iruxi -- or at the very least provide enough starter ACP that a player can start with one.
We're missing out on an important subset of our players by not doing this.
Hmm
Venture-Lieutenant, Indiana—Indianapolis
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Extinction Curse's chapters are pretty discrete. Skip the optional encounters and use the milestone leveling guide. You'd throw out the circus administration mechanic and then just run a chapter per session (3 chapters per book, 6 books = 18 sessions).
I does leave them 8 AcP short, but Bounties are also now run in Adventure Mode, so they can play 8 (or GM 4 or some combination) of those as any ancestry/class over 2 sessions.
EDIT: Also, for anyone's information, there are currently 21 Bounties available, all repeatable, all Adventure Mode.
If I recall, doesn’t playing at least 1 volume of Extinction Curse unlock a reduced-cost Shoony boon?
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Venture-Lieutenant, Indiana—Indianapolis
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I wouldn't want to see AcP done away with entirely, but I would love to see non-ancestry rewards take the forefront. In-game titles, alternate options for downtime, that kind of thing. If there were a 500 AcP option where you got a hat that was from the personal collection of Hats the otyugh, there would be PCs proudly sporting that hat tomorrow.
I prefer GMing to playing, so earning all the ACPs isn’t difficult for me, but I tell you this right now: if earning enough ACPs would get me one of Hats’ hats, you better believed I would be GMing until I made it happen!
I’m also for things like ACP to purchase in-game titles, and the like.
Thanks for jumping in here, Kate!
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I repeat a sample size of a party does not represent a population. if Absalom had 10 poppets and 4 of them are in an adventuring party that party in all non-human in a human-dominant setting.
And that is perfectly fine, but in the context of an organized play game, if a new player comes into that group, their thoughts would not be that poppets are extraordinarily rare, but that they fairly common and mundane, at least within the Pathfinder Society. At the very least, it would indicate that a large population of poppets existed within the Society.
The same would go for leshies. If I see a number of leshy characters at tables then that would tell people that leshy are not that rare or that that is some reason a lot of leshies joined the Society. That is the case for leshies though so I don't have that same disconnect.
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I wouldn't want to see AcP done away with entirely, but I would love to see non-ancestry rewards take the forefront. In-game titles, alternate options for downtime, that kind of thing. If there were a 500 AcP option where you got a hat that was from the personal collection of Hats the otyugh, there would be PCs proudly sporting that hat tomorrow.I prefer GMing to playing, so earning all the ACPs isn’t difficult for me, but I tell you this right now: if earning enough ACPs would get me one of Hats’ hats, you better believed I would be GMing until I made it happen!
I’m also for things like ACP to purchase in-game titles, and the like.
Thanks for jumping in here, Kate!
I'm certainly fine with adding more ancestries to the freely accessible (and adjusting costs on others), but I don't like the idea of putting titles or non-mechanical dressing behind AcP as it reminds me of vanities for PFS in Pathfinder 1 and I was not terribly fond of most of them.
Right now I feel I can make a character who owns a bakery in Absalom and that is how it passes his downtime as his day job. I also can make a Taldan character with a meaningless title. I can make a character who own a significant home out far away from wherever this adventure is taking place. I also can make a goblin puppeteer and say that they got one of Hats's hats.
If similarly styled vanities and titles returned though, it is likely that similar vanities would return and while I could still say all those things, despite them making no real appearance in the game, suddenly I am compelled to spend points in order for my character to retain a meaningless title that will never serve any use in the game.
I'm running games enough that costs are going to be irrelevant to me, but I really don't like much on how those vanities functioned. I'm certainly not opposed to some things of the kind appearing as new AcP options, but I'm wary of them becoming the primary item.
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If similarly styled vanities and titles returned though, it is likely that similar vanities would return and while I could still say all those things, despite them making no real appearance in the game, suddenly I am compelled to spend points in order for my character to retain a meaningless title that will never serve any use in the game.
Compelled by who? Everyone calls my alchemist Professor despite no vanity being available for it. (He's absolutely not in actuality a professor, but that's my personal choice for his backstory.)
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That's not the or a point. A person can dislike a suggestion for any reason (now, if one were to post after every single pro-vanity post how wrong a person was for being pro-vanity, that would be disruptive).
I doubt I would be motivated by vanities, either.
Just to put more of my cards on the table, I have a resting GM rate. I boost it up during certain conventions because AcP accrual is boosted. The thing that draws me is saving up for 160+ AcP ancestries that I might develop an idea for. Take those away (either free or unobtainable), and I'd probably stick to my cruising rate.
Design would have to come up with something--that they don't have time for--or start restricting classes to AcP.
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I get what Blazej's getting at here. This character started out with the concept: "Hey the Blakros Museum is fun! Why not create a Blakros daughter who is totally embarrassed by the museum and the Blakros legacy?"
And that's when I found out that there was an actual boon that cost tons of Prestige and that other people would be mad at me if I claimed to be a Blakros without taking that Vanity.
So Bobbi became a Blakros bastard, instead who was doing all the Blakros adventures in order to make good with the family who rejected her, and that became an awesome story arc. Eventually, she played the adventure where she was finally offered that Blakros title and she rejected them.
Maybe all in all it was okay that I couldn't do my original plan for this character.
Hmm
PS I did purchase a noble title for myself elsewhere, though.
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If similarly styled vanities and titles returned though, it is likely that similar vanities would return and while I could still say all those things, despite them making no real appearance in the game, suddenly I am compelled to spend points in order for my character to retain a meaningless title that will never serve any use in the game.Compelled by who? Everyone calls my alchemist Professor despite no vanity being available for it. (He's absolutely not in actuality a professor, but that's my personal choice for his backstory.)
Absolutely myself and only myself. If the decision was made to put certain things behind vanities I would respect it.
I'll admit that the number one vanity that would effect my characters in any way would be a "Trained by/Child of PFS 1e Society character". Effect being a strong word since this is all just character backstory that I haven't even brought into the games I've played.
I don't understand why you couldn't have. But maybe I'm just tired of everyone demanding mechanical reward for character story.
I apologize if I gave the wrong impression, but I'm not suggesting I want mechanical rewards for backstory. I'm honestly confused what it looks like I said if my post implied that. In my mind, if anything, I was arguing against that.
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I apologize if I gave the wrong impression, but I'm not suggesting I want mechanical rewards for backstory. I'm honestly confused what it looks like I said if my post implied that.
I apologize for the harshness of the statement and the implication towards you. I feel like one of the hazards of organized play is the, I guess 'commodification'? of gameplay. I fell into the mindset a few times of 'why play this game, there's no chronicle' and have been wrestling with the reality of it, trying to remember that I started playing this game to enjoy the story and action, not just to earn certs.
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I like vanities, but I can appreciate that not everyone does. Some GMs would be motivated by them, and some wouldn't be.
Similarly, some lodges are in a position of trying to convert players to GMs, where keeping ancestries restricted acts as an incentive to get people to take that step. Meanwhile, other lodges are trying to get players in the door and keeping ancestries restricted is harming that effort.
I know that Org Play Leadership has to keep all of these needs in mind. We're all trying to advocate both for ourselves and for our specific communities.
Venture-Lieutenant, Indiana—Martinsville
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For the current year, (2021 as of this posting), I believe we have a problem with in person gaming for PF2 because of the continued cautionary stance with the real life issue of sniffles (and worse).
I hope that others do try to GM at some point once we officially open up and declare victory (again?).
For now, I just want the players to come to the table, and not have to do the online thing.
The biggest complaint I have with AcP is the cost of having to spend it for a raise, a boon that should not be dependent on the metric that is for player boons such as Ancestry and access. There was some nice PF1 boons that had been handed out in the past, and I really don't see their equivalent in the current boons except for some of the early scenario boons and a few faction boons.
I imagine that most save their AcP for the Ancestry (Race) boons and practically nothing else. If a newer player has a character die, unless they could afford a raise with character money, they don't have any recourse.
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And that is perfectly fine, but in the context of an organized play game, if a new player comes into that group, their thoughts would not be that poppets are extraordinarily rare, but that they fairly common and mundane, at least within the Pathfinder Society. At the very least, it would indicate that a large population of poppets existed within the Society.
The same would go for leshies. If I see a number of leshy characters at tables then that would tell people that leshy are not that rare or that that is some reason a lot of leshies joined the Society. That is the case for leshies though so I don't have that same disconnect.
Sorry, I don't see how that is a problem. Maybe it's just me but I've never checked out other tables to see what anyone else is playing.
(and in both of those cases you can say the PFS created/grew their own.)
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If I see a number of leshy characters at my tables then that would tell people that leshy are not that rare or that that is some reason a lot of leshies joined the Society. That is the case for leshies though so I don't have that same disconnect.Sorry, I don't see how that is a problem. Maybe it's just me but I've never checked out other tables to see what anyone else is playing.
You don't pay attention to what characters other people are playing at your tables? How do you even play the game?
I think they meant other tables in same location of which they are not playing.
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I believe Donald is revering to not having issue with an ancestry. That is their character and their playstyle. And would welcome any to play the game (same or other table) with rather than try to force some kind of rarity ratio.
Correct. X is what you want to play? Great. A whole table of Shony Monks? We'll make it work or die hilariously.
Play time is limited, you should be able to play what you want.
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I apologize if I gave the wrong impression, but I'm not suggesting I want mechanical rewards for backstory. I'm honestly confused what it looks like I said if my post implied that.I apologize for the harshness of the statement and the implication towards you. I feel like one of the hazards of organized play is the, I guess 'commodification'? of gameplay. I fell into the mindset a few times of 'why play this game, there's no chronicle' and have been wrestling with the reality of it, trying to remember that I started playing this game to enjoy the story and action, not just to earn certs.
No problem, I was mostly worried what I had done wrong.
Hilary's character Bobbi explained my thought process a lot better. I personally love that character log and think that the vanity existing (and her not having it) produced a fantastic story for a character that might have better than if the character just had the vanity.
I will admit I feel the mindset of 'why play this game, there's no chronicle' has worked more to my advantage. During conventions I feel it has helped me get into awesome games run by great GMs because less people were fighting to get into the game because there was no chronicle sheet attached. :)
More seriously though, I do agree that valuing the games for the chronicle sheet and not the game you played is more prevalent than I like and I personally have fallen into that myself sometimes.
I will even say that I have generally felt bad whenever there is a random roll for a boon and I didn't win the boon sheet. This is despite the fact that most of my boon sheets tend to gather dust as I don't use them.
For AcP, based on how I am, I think I really like the concept of having access to rare and unusual options, but I'm unlikely to actually actually spending any significant amount of AcP (although I did spend some points for access to a discounted shoony boon). That might because I don't play enough to actually get through the roster of characters I like to play or it could because I rather have those points available (and do nothing with them) rather than spend them.
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And that is perfectly fine, but in the context of an organized play game, if a new player comes into that group, their thoughts would not be that poppets are extraordinarily rare, but that they fairly common and mundane, at least within the Pathfinder Society. At the very least, it would indicate that a large population of poppets existed within the Society.
The same would go for leshies. If I see a number of leshy characters at tables then that would tell people that leshy are not that rare or that that is some reason a lot of leshies joined the Society. That is the case for leshies though so I don't have that same disconnect.
Sorry, I don't see how that is a problem. Maybe it's just me but I've never checked out other tables to see what anyone else is playing.
(and in both of those cases you can say the PFS created/grew their own.)
I'm not sure what you are saying. I don't go around to other tables checking out table composition.
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A whole table of Shoony Monks? We'll make it work or die hilariously.
Play time is limited, you should be able to play what you want.
Only if they are also aasimar. That way they all go to Heaven.
Why doesn't that sentiment extend to people who want to play in a setting where uncommon ancestries are uncommon? We have a system that lets people play Conrasu or Kitsune if they want it enough to play or GM for it. Why can't we also have a system that keeps those ancestries feeling special to run into?
Thanks Rex for totally being on top of it. Don't know where we'd be without you.
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Sorry, I don't see how that is a problem. Maybe it's just me but I've never checked out other tables to see what anyone else is playing.
(and in both of those cases you can say the PFS created/grew their own.)
Reading it again, unless you had another thing you were trying to say here, I do want to say that I would ever want to monitor other tables to determine if they are playing the "right" kind of Pathfinder. If there are hundreds of groups having fun with poppets and leshies that is honestly great.
The organization of PFS is very large and hard for me to grasp the totality of what they need to manage, so I have been treating the management of the Society as one big eldritch GM. And, like any GM, they can determine what is appropriate for their game. If one GM gave full access to androids and another did not, I feel both GMs are not unreasonable from just that information.
In the same way, I'm fine with Pathfinder Society restricting character options. Despite me really loving the inventor and gunslinger, I would have understood with them not allowing the classes within Society play. I didn't think that was likely they would ban either of those classes, but I felt it was still in their discretion. From the same book I immediately looked at the automaton and I wanted to play one (honestly that is my reaction to most ancestries), but I thought it was unlikely they would be available in Pathfinder Society. I was pleasantly surprised to see that they were available, at any AcP cost.
It would be the exact same situation in the future, if/when there is a Numerian tech book, that futuristic tech reappeared in Pathfinder. I would love to have access to that content for some character concept, but I would be understand if they restricted that content for Society play.
As to what I persoanlly allow as a GM, I think the best example would be from the first multi-session game I ever GMed. There I allowed a player to play a winged half-dragon tibbit (like kitsune, but house cat). That was decent number of years ago and I like think I have a lot more experience as a GM.
I don't have a doubt that I would still allow that character. The details might be different, but I would still be absolutely on board for allowing that "ancestry" in my games. I am very fine with allowing characters that people want to play.
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If I see a number of leshy characters at tables….
I did take “tables” to mean at one event, sorry if that wasn’t what you meant.
Still the party make up at one table shouldn’t influence a players perception. It’s possible to sit at a table with five tiefling androids in the current system and HMM had a whole party of Pixies.
As Knight said, you can’t infer the membership of the Pathfinders from one group.
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I did take “tables” to mean at one event, sorry if that wasn’t what you meant.
Still the party make up at one table shouldn’t influence a players perception. It’s possible to sit at a table with five tiefling androids in the current system and HMM had a whole party of Pixies.
As Knight said, you can’t infer the membership of the Pathfinders from one group.
I disagree. I believe someone can make inferences even with a small sample size. They don't need to be correct, but I think that is not unreasonable to jump to a conclusion before gathering a significant sample size.
If I was in either of the groups you mentioned (which are both completely fine), I would find it outside the norm I experience, but given the tables I've participated in, I would be able to count it as an outlier. If I had instead been seeing regular occurrences of different corgi-riding sprites or tiefling androids, then I wouldn't feel they were an especially rare to see (for some definition of rare). Again, I don't think that is bad, but my perception of whether something is uncommon will be affected by how often I experience it.
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Lack of experience can alter how you comprehend data, and first impressions have a ton of impact on what you see as norms. Before nuars were legalized for everyone, there was a local convention that needed GMs. So I convinced half our players at Dreamers to run quests at that convention to help out, and everyone came home with a nuar. We had a whole herd of nuars running at our Starfinder tables for months...
New players saw them so often, they thought they were always available Starfinder race and were disappointed to discover they were a boon race. I'm just glad that they're available now, because we nuars are awesome.
