|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
If that's not the intent, then wording should probably be "run combat encounters without deliberately changing difficulty"I have written the text above in a very deliberate way, and I am aware that I wrote "increasing" and not "changing."This is one of the more common ways rules are written to lead to gray areas.
If an inn has a sign that says "no red dragons"* Can a green dragon book a room?Conversationally The answer should be yes. There is no reason to specify red dragon specifically except to allow other dragons. Logically the answer is "unknown" because the exclusion of a red dragon doesn't automatically allow a green one. (Denying the antecedent would be the fancy name for it if I've had enough coffee to read wiki right...)
If the intent is allow the DM to decrease the difficulty of the encounters to account for taste, newguy not losing their first character, or dice being cursed it should be specified under the DM may. Otherwise the implication of increasing vs. changing the difficulty has to be weighed against the lack of such a rule where it should be and different dms will read those two things very differently.
*honestly one snore and there goes the roof
100%. Honestly, if you find yourself having to explain why you wrote something a particular way -- which Alex just did -- imo that's a strong indicator that it needs to be rewritten.
|
|
GM Discretion currently says GMs can allow:
Alternate or creative skills used to bypass or overcome traps and skill checks.But naturally, in the next line it immediately runs into the issue you mentioned about alternative skills potentially being at a higher DC:
DCs and results of a check are part of the mechanics and cannot be changed.
The way I had been interpreting those lines was: it's OK to use creativity to bypass a check (e.g. "well, because you're flying, you can skip this Acrobatics check!") but not to provide a substitute check (e.g. "sure, use Warfare Lore instead of Athletics to influence this NPC, because they think warriors are cool, and I'll say it's at DC.").
So we may need to clarify that a bit.
I would sleep better after game nights if you did!
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Many people don't even read the whole Guide before GMing (sorry, Guide folks, but it's true).
IMO this is working as intended. We want barriers to entry to be reasonably low. You need not read the whole Guide to be a player, and I think you need not read the whole Guide to be a GM either. Remember, "thanks for running!" is the entire rubric for a zero-glyph GM.
Hopefully, though, a new GM has at least scanned the most important bits, and we've made the most important bits easy to find and digest.
Once you've left those tenderfoot days far behind with your super-elite one glyph status (shout-out to the One Horde!!), I think it's OK to have a certain expectation that you've read the thing pretty well through.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I don't see why the lack of a basic save would have grounds for being a typo. Lots of things don't have saves.
It's actually not that common for large-area large-damage effects not to have basic saves.
In this particular case, the probable reason is:
The leshies in the scenario are "corrupted". The original leshies, when killed, would explode in a burst that heals other plants. The corrupted ones have the amount of healing switched to amount of harming everyone in the area.
That's all fine, but is it balanced? It's a spectacular amount of damage. The sort of damage count that if you were building a monster according to guidelines, would get a save. But this one wasn't built from the ground up, but by mirror-imaging. But healing and damage aren't exactly a mirror image thing.
You can also compare it the 3-action Heal/Harm spell, since the effect has roughly the same area. If you do an area Heal, there's no save to not be healed (the original creature), but there's a save to avoid taking damage from an area Harm (the corrupted creature).
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I honestly don't see the difference.
Although I do think this should be stated explicitly:
With that in mind: if an encounter was skipped for any reason that gave treasure bundles, players should not be punished for this, and should be awarded the treasure bundles at the end of the adventure.
...because time issue is quite common, and I've seen GMs doing the opposite.
|
Venture-Agent, Wisconsin—
|
Hi Alex,
I think the rule "No banning of legal character options" could use some clarification. Is this saying that the Common/Uncommon/Rare traits must be ignored by GM's?No; this sentence is to prevent a GM from saying "I think clerics are dumb, so no clerics at my table."
(I know there were other overnight discussions here but I haven't eaten my breakfast yet. This one was easy to respond to.)
Does this ONLY apples to legality of the character and their character options? What about other reason that a GM might say NO to a character/player?
i.e. instead of "I think clerics are dumb, so no clerics at my table.", what about "I think paladin players are dumb, so no paladin players at my table" ?
Or "I think Urban Bloodrager are dumb, so no player with Urban Bloodrager at my table" ?
Or "I think improved familiar with retrained feat (per 2018 Legacy FAQ) are dumb, so no character with improved familiar with retrained feat at my table"?
Organized Play Coordinator
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Hi Alex,
I think the rule "No banning of legal character options" could use some clarification. Is this saying that the Common/Uncommon/Rare traits must be ignored by GM's?No; this sentence is to prevent a GM from saying "I think clerics are dumb, so no clerics at my table."
(I know there were other overnight discussions here but I haven't eaten my breakfast yet. This one was easy to respond to.)
Does this ONLY apples to legality of the character and their character options? What about other reason that a GM might say NO to a character/player?
i.e. instead of "I think clerics are dumb, so no clerics at my table.", what about "I think paladin players are dumb, so no paladin players at my table" ?
Or "I think Urban Bloodrager are dumb, so no player with Urban Bloodrager at my table" ?
Or "I think improved familiar with retrained feat (per 2018 Legacy FAQ) are dumb, so no character with improved familiar with retrained feat at my table"?
None of these statements would be permitted under these rules.
|
Venture-Agent, New Hampshire—Bow
|
I agree with the intent of these changes, with one caveat.
We need to be careful of how much "latitude" is allowed. If some GM's are given free reign to modify things, the scenario is only going to be in name only.
For instance, adding the weak adjustment to a key fight in a scenario to allow the battle to feel exciting, but go faster by 2-3 rounds to save time is probably fine. Reskinning a herd of nightmares as unicorns, is probably going to so alter the feel of a scenario, that it completely destroys an author's intent. In other words, if there are not some types of limitations, there are GMs who will take this to the extreme, which usually makes a game unfun for players. (There are GMs I prefer to not play with because they did not allow the use of abilities and otherwise changed things).
I know there is some guidance in the "Must", "May" and "May Not" sections of the update, but I am still concerned about some GM's who if we give them a little leeway, are going to run to the end of the leash and then keep running to see how far they can drag you.
The most important thing is, make the game fun, while having a consistency among tables so that anyone can sit down at a table most anywhere and have fun. Carefully reading and understanding scenarios allows GMs flexibility to make on the fly adjustments if there is a phobia of some sort or time is running short. It also allows the GM to discern discrepancies and decide how to handle them rather than debating choices in front of players. As an example, several posts up, there is a question about climbing the mountain in 6-02 and how long it should physically take. But, in the scenario, the conclusion states it takes a few hours to return to the Lodge, and the players arrive in the evening. Thus, it is clear the Law of Fun (all players are master climbers) and the Law of Magic (something weird happened, so you hike fast), should always trump the Laws of Physics.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Reskinning for gm preference is one of those things which can be a good thing or could be like "I hate non human ancestries in my fantasy, so everyone is human" kind of dealio. Ye kinda have to trust gm to not abuse it.
To be fair, the whole Organized Play concept is based on that trust: We kind of have to, otherwise the system collapses.
In reply to the original post: I appreciate the declaration of intent in the post, and I approve of the clarifications as the intent is good. Yet I feel like it's a lot of words and work for barely any practical change. RAW-literalists will always go by the exact words of what is written, rather than what is intended (see any political, theological, legal or game rules discussion ever), so maybe it would help to explain the intentions rather than to lock it down in short key phrases that have no context. I know it doesn't help for any form of word count, but I think that without, the proposed alterations will have very little effect.
|
There hasn't been resolution of the (very good) question about conflicts between "not intentionally increasing difficulty", fixing "obvious errors", "maintaining the functioning subsystems", and (apparently unrevised) allowance for GM discretion with respect to "terrain or environmental conditions described in the adventure but not given mechanics". Let me give a concrete example from a recent PFS scenario; I'll keep details to a minimum.
In 6-02, the PCs climb a mountain. Under the specified mechanics, it takes 8 to 16 hours to do so; it is quite unlikely that the party does it in less than 12 hours (roughly 2% chance for a party of 6, under generous assumptions). The adventure starts "early in the morning", and there are *at least* 5 hours of (non-strenuous) activity in the adventure before the ascent. There is an additional segment of the ascent that is not given a timeframe.
There is a combat after the climb, with no discussion of environmental conditions. Under the proposed new language: (1) Can the GM deem that it is nighttime and thus dark? (2) Can the GM have all the PCs be fatigued, because they have been climbing a mountain for at least 8-16 hours?
If the GM "maintains functioning of subsystems and similar", then they would know that it's likely been 18+ hours since "early morning". It's reasonable to infer that it cannot possibly still be daytime at this point, and the guide gives latitude for conditions that were not given mechanics by the adventure.
Following the rules of the game, they've been traveling overland for well over 8 hours (even accounting for "breaks to rest and eat" per the adventure), and thus should be fatigued. By RAW, it's almost impossible to *not* be fatigued for the final combat. The (generously calculated) chance of ascending in 8 hours is about 7 in 1 million for a party of four and 1 in 2 billion for a party of six, even pretending that the unspecified segment takes no time at all.
On the other hand, either of these changes would intentionally increase the...
Seems fair to have the final fight take place at night in darkness and the party fatigued. The more difficult conditions around the fight are a result of player actions and successes, not arbitrarily inflicted by the GM.
|
|
I would say yes to the nightime and no to the fatigue. Yes you've been climbing all day but you can stop and rest. Adventurers aren't out of shape office workers climbing is what they just do for a living. It's something there's an argument for and against, it's not something that's so blindingly obvious it HAS to be in there to make things more difficult for the players.
|
On the other hand, either of these changes would intentionally increase the difficulty of the encounter (under the assumption that many or most GMs won't consider time so carefully, and many will forget the fatigue rule), which is forbidden. Which PFS rule takes precedence in this conflict?
Pragmatically, what a GM does is probably going to depend a lot on how tough the combat looks without darkness and fatigue. If its a moderate then GMs are going to be a LOT more likely to apply the darkness and fatigue factors. And on how much time remains in the session at that point.
Not sure that is a good answer or the desired answer but I'd bet a considerable amount of money its the actual answer.
|
Venture-Lieutenant, Indiana—Indianapolis
|
There hasn't been resolution of the (very good) question about conflicts between "not intentionally increasing difficulty", fixing "obvious errors", "maintaining the functioning subsystems", and (apparently unrevised) allowance for GM discretion with respect to "terrain or environmental conditions described in the adventure but not given mechanics". Let me give a concrete example from a recent PFS scenario; I'll keep details to a minimum.
In 6-02,...
You probably should have put the details of the scenario in the spoiler tag.
Venture-Captain, Australia—NSW—Greater West
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think this is a good example of what can go wrong with the new rule. For this one example we are looking at one team that will be playing it at night and fatigued, and the other end they are not fatigued, and in the day. It would be a very different experience.
|
Organized Play Coordinator
|
| 13 people marked this as a favorite. |
Thank you all sincerely for your feedback, I greatly appreciate it. I intend to ask the Guide Team to publish this text with the next update, with two small changes:
- Change the header of "GMs may" to "GMs can," as that is more correct and in line with our style guide
- Change "Run combat encounters without deliberately increasing difficulty" to "Run combat encounters without substantially increasing difficulty."
To explain the second change slightly further: I do not want to permit GMs to decide the encounter needs to be harder, so they add a dragon. Or three more minions. That's out of bounds.
Looking at the mountain climbing example above, I do think a GM would be within their rights to say that the final encounter takes place at night if the adventure took 18 hours to complete. I don't think they should have to, but I don't think it's out of line either. Darkness is certainly a problem to be solved but not insurmountable, even at low levels.
I think this also solves a lot of issues brought up with correcting errors as well. Increasing HP by 15 because we did math wrong is an increase in difficulty, but isn't likely to result in a TPK at most levels. Ultimately a GM will have to make a call on a change like that, but that's already true.
And just to be clear, the Guide is a living document. If we institute this new text and then start to hear reports of it causing issues, we can and will change it.
|
|
I disagree that it is unclear that reducing is allowed - this is a rules document not a logic puzzle, so exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis is in full force.
If it's not a logic puzzle, there's no reason not to say it flat out. Neither the guide nor the game rules are written to that standard. Try applying it even a page of the guide rules and see how many times it turns up the wrong or conflicting answers. I cannot tell you how many times that logic went wonky in the rules forums.
|
Proposed Text:
GMs may:
- Adjust obvious typos or errors in a scenario
- Use alternate maps (or areas of provided maps) for encounters
- Reskin enemies to avoid phobias or for personal preference without altering mechanical traits
Points 2 and 3 could help a lot in making repeatable feel less the same.
Since SF2e has more of a ranged meta an easy way GM could change the feel of an encounter or adjust for the number of players with or without changing maps would be to have movable obstacles GMs could move around the map. This would also allow GMs to adjust for parties are are heavily melee or ranged too.
That could be part of encounter design telling the GM how many obstacles be placed, and or be written as a general in the proposed changes.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Hello Pathfinders and Starfinders,
Today we are asking for public comment on the following revisions to the Guide to Organized Play, specifically the section entitled Run as Written.
** spoiler omitted **
** spoiler omitted **...
I generally like the changes. I run for a lot of kids and teenagers and sometimes forced to change subtle points in the story and it's nice to know these are encouraged. The game is about fun and not real life culture or politics.