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Greetings! Welcome to Society!
Just wanted to address one thing off-topic really quick:
Not a actual character.
Just a Placeholder to get the Forum Name thing out of the way.
Your Alias has made 6 posts on the Forums. Once it makes 10, that name is locked in. So just to prevent your -2001 character from being permanently named "Christopher#2411504" on the website, I'd either recommend posting with your primary Forum handle, or changing your Alias's name to that of your first character.
As you've accurately pointed out, the website is quirky, and it takes a while to learn its intricacies.
If you need help with that, feel free to send me a Private Message ^_^
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Now to touch on what I imagine is your primary observation:
"Managing Chronicles" legitimately ranks around "Horror Movie" levels of dread.
Society is a somewhat different beast from regular home games, but the Chronicles are functionally no different from a homegame GM handing you a record sheet after the session.
Recordkeeping, as in tracking gold and experience, is up to you. You can use the Chronicles. Some people like myself use a spreadsheet. Others use an old fashioned character sheet with pencil and eraser. Honestly, use whatever is least stressful for you.
Do hold on to your Chronicles, either in paper form or digital (I save mine to Google Drive). A GM may ask whether you've played a certain Adventure before, or maybe help you audit a character if the numbers don't add up, but most players rarely interact with them after a game concludes.
Achievement Points are the only thing tracked on the website (as long as your GM reports your games), and they're only relevant here, for downloading Boons. You never actually need to interact with the website at all, other than setting up your Paizo account.
Heck, we have a father/son locally who find the whole website daunting, despite our encouragement, and last I checked they still haven't even registered the ID #s I gave them over the summer. Some people are just interested in rolling some dice.
As to the rest of your concerns, having been doing this for a decade myself, I can attest that things are improving. But Paizo is a gaming company, first and foremost, and website programming is not their forte. It's also not profitable. So they chip away at it as time goes on. And we joke/groan about it. But really, we're all here primarily to game. The website is just extra. At least it hasn't completely crashed yet today..
*knocks on wood*
Venture-Lieutenant, Finland—Turku
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The current system isn't ideal, but there are reasons why it is what it is, and it looks like it won't change any time soon. That being said:
1. GM should do both at the same time. This isn't really different from the old system when there were just chronicle sheets (and the reporting didn't matter) and sometimes GM just forgot to send you a chronicle sheet.
Also - It's nearly impossible for GM to select the wrong reputation for you IF you've selected your faction correctly on the web page: Both the info you've given for reporting, and the faction the system automatically pulls for you should be the same. If they are different, it's you giving conflicting information to the GM.
3. you could just name the chronicle sheets yourself as you gain them.
Or mostly disregard them, keeping your own notes in, say, google sheets: You just make a list of games I've played with that character and file the sheets away after I've received them.
4. Yeah this is annoying.
5. Level should be easy to figure out from the amount of gold you gained. But why don't you keep track of this yourself? When the game finishes, ask GM if you gained all treasure bundles/gained full reputation. If the answer is YES, you already know all the details that will be on the sheet, aside from potential item unlocks. You can just write it down for your own bookkeeping.
6. Not really an issue. At worst, you can access a reputation boon a few games earlier than you should be.
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Accepting that these issues are problems for you and not debating that, here is a clarification and a suggestion:
Achievement points wouldn't make sense on Chronicle sheets. They're gained across multiple characters and spent independent of character.
Suggestion: Rename the PDF file whatever you want after you download it. Us a _tag to indicate held Chronicles (e.g., Bort the Brave 2 1-00_apply at 5th.pdf).
I would also create an Alias rather than a character to post on the forums unless you don't mind all your characters being named after yiurself.
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Zot shakes his head at the conversation above. Too much talking, not enough showing. "Zot the Magnificent hates paperwork, so I have my minion* Hilary organize them for me. I am here to show you how a Mighty Dragon has his chronicles organized!"
Here's where Zot's minion keeps all the chronicles in one place, renaming each with a number and the name of the adventure so that it makes more sense when looking at it later.
This is where Zot's minion tracks reputation, experience, faction stuff, purchases and boons. The minion labels boons in Red and adventures in Purple to make them stand out. The second sheet shows how much Zot is liked by his faction and how much experience he needs to level.
Zot's player got this spreadsheet from her friend, Bret, who created it. Here is a blank copy of the ITS (originally, "Item Tracking Sheet" though it does so much more now) that you can copy for yourself and use:
Contributor
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Your frustrations are valid.
I also hated dealing with chronicle sheets, but tossing them in a google folder and then renaming them with numbers and names helps me cope. As someone who applies a lot of GM credits to characters (like Zot) the spreadsheet just tells me what level my character is so that I can then level it when it comes time to play it.
My advice? Stick with it. Once you find an organizational system, the games and storylines are so much fun!
Hugs and Welcome to the Society!
Hmm
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Piggybacking on Zot the Magnificent, I love Google Drive for storing Chronicles. I used to carry this massive accordion file full of folders for each of my dozens of characters, but when we were all stuck at home for months on end I converted every character to digital. Since you're just starting off now, it's the perfect time to find a system that works for you!
Renaming your files is key to organizing them. I name them by 1) order applied, 2) adventure #, 3) name of adventure, and (optionally) 4) if I GMed it. So they'll show up in neat rows like this:
01 (3-01) Year of Shattered Sanctuaries.pdf
02 (2-11) The Pathfinder Trials (GM).pdf
03 (Intro#1) The Second Confirmation.pdf
04 (Boon) Confirmation Wayfinder.pdf
05 (Intro#2) United in Purpose.pdf
06 (Boon) Hireling (Thievery, Mercantile Lore).pdf
Some characters I haven't played for a year (I do have a lot of them), so organizing things in this way really helps me pick up where I left off.
But don't let us scare you if you're not into this sort of thing! You could keep a binder, an accordion file, save cell phone pics to DropBox, or maintain a detailed spreadsheet complete with hyperlinks.
Whatever helps you focus on what's important to you ^_^
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The easiest way to store your character sheets and chronicle sheets are in a solid 3-ring binder with nice divider sheets. You can organise them anyway you like but I like to sort them by type of campaign, character and then by character level. This way you always have everything you need in order for that character and can find it quickly. Paper copies are the best way to go to preserve your sanity and to easily reference a character at any time as long as they are properly organised.
Then if you wish you can always scan in (or save) your characters and chronicle sheets to store electronically. If you wish to do so then follow the excellent suggestions provided in the previous posts.
I think that Hmm has the right approach. Find a system that works for you and then stick to it.
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Christopher, where do you play? One of the duties of Venture Officers is to help sort out Chronicle Messes. If you provide them a screen shot of what the character has played from your online reporting, and scans of your chronicles, a VO could help you sort everything out and recover the character.
Likewise, you can change the name of your main alias, and you can change the name of your -2004 character to something fun you can play later. We can walk you through the process.
If you primarily play online, I can help you get in contact with them. If you play locally, tell us where and we can help you find your local Venture Officer team.
The above spreadsheet that Zot linked to counts up your level - often the thing I most need to know - and so I have found it useful. You might as well.
Hmm
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Paizo makes just playing the damn game so hard. We have here a person genuinely trying, but ready to stop playing because Org Play is so convoluted. Its nice to see people helping them, because it should be unacceptable to our community.
Fun fact: for every Christopher#2411504 who voices concerns and asks questions, there are dozens more who don’t. They just quietly leave and you will never get a chance to help them. I truly hope someone in Paizo / Org Play understands this.
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While I agree with Doug in general, I'd like to point out that the OP doesn't really help his case.
The Org Play system exists so that people can play with others. Like every other multilateral system in the world, it's full of compromises and workarounds. Some inefficiency must be tolerated.
Demanding Paizo and every other person in Org Play rearrange the system because one person can't figure out how to post from their main instead of their 2004 is not a viable solution.
Paizo's system is gross, but that's due to legacy IT and a historical attitude of "paper rules". The system has to accommodate the players who had used paper for 14+ years.
There are many ways the system can be bettered but not this way. The point about AcP being per player rather than per character is a prime example. Imagine having to bring every paper Chronicle for every character to audit an Uncommon ancestry purchase for one character. Sheesh.
Yes, there should be a better way to audit AcP. No, putting it on paper Chronicles is not the droid we're looking for.
Someone should see if any of those soon to be fired Twitter programmers wants to build a PFS session database UI that's not written in Fortran.
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Still trying to figure out if there is even a option to hide my full name from being openly visible.
Well, as you can see from the posters here, most of us use an "Avatar Name" instead of our "Personal Name". This can be changed in your Account Settings, under "Messageboard Settings" and "Personal Settings", respectively.
Additionally, you'll notice our names are in different colors.
Mine is Blue, representing that this is my primary Avatar. People with Red names are using an Alias, and those in Green are Society characters, with ID #s attached to them.
Once you've posted with any given name 10 times, you can't change that name, which I'm pretty sure also applies to your primary Avatar name, so definitely be sure to change that before you post again.
It sounds like you deleted your -2001 through -2003? I did the same thing with my -01 character back in the day. It can certainly be frustrating learning any new system.
Did you have Chronicles assigned to those missing #s? We can help you get them reassigned.
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Demanding Paizo and every other person in Org Play rearrange the system because one person can't figure out how to post from their main instead of their 2004 is not a viable solution.
Watery I am not stating that Paizo should remake the whole system because of one individual. Nor was I saying that the concept of character accounting is inherently bad. Surely you know that's ridiculous.
This individual's problems are common and hamper PFS's growth. This is not conjecture; the issues presented in this thread have been a root cause of player attrition at our in-person locations.
Additionally, you'll notice our names are in different colors.
Mine is Blue, representing that this is my primary Avatar. People with Red names are using an Alias, and those in Green are Society characters, with ID #s attached to them.
Heh. As a colorblind person who's been using the forums for years, I never knew or noticed this until now.
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I recommend using a log sheet like this one to keep track of your characters. When you get a chronicle, put the information in your log, this way you have something to refer back to if the chronicles become confusing.
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I am also glad that Christopher spoke up and asked for help rather than simply leaving. I've had lots of people just leave the Society because they hated the paperwork aspect of it. One couple of my friends cheerfully does APs with us and the occasional society scenario but wants no credit whatsover because they hate the chronicles. But short of overhauling Paizo's software to automatically track and file chronicle sheets all in one place, I don't see a way of fixing it system-wide.
Note: it took me a loooong time to find a system that works for me, and I still sometimes mess up with GM babies because I forget what I've applied to them unless I track it right away. I'm organized because I have to be.
Hmm
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Eh, Paizo could do things to mitigate this self-created problem… Incremental improvement can happen but I don't want to derail the thread.
BTW OP, I Wrote a Guide on Org Play that includes stuff like tracking and paperwork, what Chronicles and AcP are and how to use them, and example templates for character tracking.
More stuff if you need in addition to all the other awesome items people shared with you.