Revising "Run as Written"


Organized Play General Discussion

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Paizo Employee 5/55/5 ** Organized Play Coordinator

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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.

Proposed Text:
The Paizo Organized Play program strives to provide a fun, engaging, consistent experience at all tables. GMs are required to run Paizo Organized Play adventures as written, but are empowered to make adjustments to suit the table, fix obvious errors or typos, use alternate maps, and ensure all players have the best possible experience.

GMs must:
- Ensure players experience all major plot points and NPC interactions (excluding optional or bypassed encounters)
- Run combat encounters without deliberately increasing difficulty, except as dictated by the scenario
- Maintain the presence and functioning of skill checks, subsystems and similar - challenges, while allowing for creative player solutions

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

GMs must not:
- Change player-facing armor, feats, items, skills, spells, statistics, traits, or weapons, or any other mechanics of player character options
- Disallow legal character options
- Add new encounters or NPCs with mechanical weight or influence

Current text, for reference:
The Paizo Organized Play program strives to provide a fun, engaging, consistent experience at all tables. GMs are required to run Paizo Organized Play adventures as written, which means:
- No changes to major plot points and interactions
- No addition or subtraction to the number of monsters other than scaling directed by the adventure
- No changes to the DCs or results of hazards or skill checks defined in the adventure
- No changes to the mechanics of the adventure, including penalties due to weather, terrain or hazards
- No changes to armor, feats, items, skills, spells, statistics, traits, or weapons
- No changes to the mechanics of player character options
- No banning of legal character options

An enduring belief of a vocal portion of the community is that Organized Play adventures must be run exactly as written, with absolutely no GM improvisation, deviation, or correction of obvious errors. This is, quite simply, incorrect, and I would like to see the community actively work to excise this thinking.

I’m going to quote this from the Guide to Organized Play’s guidelines on how to be a GM.

How to be a GM wrote:
As a Pathfinder Society GM, you have the right and responsibility to make whatever judgments, within the rules, that you feel are necessary at your table to ensure everyone has a fair and fun experience.

The team that publishes adventures is human. We make mistakes. We make typos. Quite frankly, sometimes we make bad choices and put two large oozes in a room that can’t contain them. Tabletop roleplaying games are not video games; they have a GM at the table, with a brain and full ability and power to make alterations as necessary.

We are asking the community of GMs to consider themselves an active part of the process. If there is an obvious error, you do not require our permission to fix it. If there is something unclear about an adventure, you do not require our blessing to smooth it over. We do our best to give you the best version of the adventure possible, but sometimes, despite our best efforts, it’s not perfect. We trust our GMs to run the adventures not as written, but as intended, and to ensure at their tables have the best experience with the best roleplaying game out there.

These updates are intended to reflect the Organized Play team’s current thinking on this topic. Our deliberate and specific intent is to explicitly grant GMs greater latitude at their tables while remaining within the bounds of the adventures as published.

We welcome the community’s comments on the proposed revisions. Please note that these do not take effect until they are formally added to the Guide to Organized Play. This thread will remain open for comments until October 21. Please keep any commentary respectful and on-topic; off-topic digressions may be split off or deleted.

*** Venture-Agent, Online—VTT

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Huzzah! Thank you, Alex and team. This is a breath of fresh air. The rules hellknights kinda get you down after a while.

4/5 Venture-Agent, Wisconsin—

Alex Speidel wrote:
- Reskin enemies to avoid phobias or for personal preference without altering mechanical traits

As a primarily online GM, lots of the token icon of swarms are phobia-inducing, so we've adapted to use a blank circular token with text Swarm of Something to avoid causing discomfort. Glad to see it being considered in the Guide. (And I also get to use Lego for spiders, yay!)

Also, obligatory Does this affect PFS1?

****

Hellknights are overrated. I welcome this. Reading through the old vs proposed i can't think of any obvious issues/gaps.

thank you

*** Venture-Agent, France—Paris

I've always run adventures rather freely. So these rules are now much more in line with my way of running them. You get my +1.

Paizo Employee 5/5 * Developer

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Colin_Mercer wrote:
Also, obligatory Does this affect PFS1?

While PFS1 doesn't use the lorespire guides, and we're not planning to update any language in old guides, feel free to use this as a guideline for our intent on how these sorts of issues should be handled in that campaign. Assuming that people are receptive to it, since the point of this post is getting a feel for community response.

*** Venture-Lieutenant, Belgium—Mons

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Hello,
I am Glad that this discussion is opened as I've had a lot with Organized play GMs, be they Venture officer or GM. To start with I'd like to remind that this section about run as written should be read along with the GM Discretion section available here : https://lorespire.paizo.com/tiki-index.php?page=Guide-to-Organized-Play:-Pa thfinder-Society---Second-Edition#GM_Discretion .

This section provides guidelines and some freedom to the Game Master like rewarding roleplaying or creative ideas. Some of the players/GM I am discussing with are for instance frustrated that their life within of their character the society is not taken into consideration; i.e. if they have already encountered this creature, they should know some of their identified weaknesses (who can count all the battles against skeletton ;-) or if they have already visited Oppara, they should get a bonus with recall knowledge. I usually that it is "unfortunately" at their GM discretion and that they should try (but not insist).

In my games, I am quiet unconfortable with batles as I usually spend more time on social and investigation, it happens often that I have to skip encounters. I would expect a "good" rule regarding this
- Encounters without Treasure bundle and no direct impact on the plot (let's call them side encounters) -- Could be Skipped or played through story telling

But what about side battles with Treasure bundle ? Should I give them the TB or not , oes it mean that If I am late in my time keeping or just let the player have fun where that want to have fun, they should get a penalty in TB. Battles with a direct plot implication shouldn't be skipped, and though they can be easily identifiable, I wonder if we shouldn't tag them in the future to ensure that they happens always at any table)

I'd say that for the rest I do agree with the propose text !!

*** Venture-Lieutenant, New Zealand—Christchurch

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I'm glad to see this happening. The only "mechanical" change I would recommend is changing "may" to "can" since that's what "may" means in this context.

I would also like to see a provision explicitly allowing GM discretion for enemies to retreat or surrender when it makes sense for them to do so. It's written into some scenarios but not others.

Dark Archive 5/5 5/5 ****

Very nice! I like this direction and the community involvement.

**** Venture-Agent, Online—VTT

Excellent news!

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

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umopapisdnupsidedown wrote:
I'm glad to see this happening. The only "mechanical" change I would recommend is changing "may" to "can" since that's what "may" means in this context.

This is a good point, the guide team has previously been instructed to avoid "may" as it could mean "is allowed" or "might"

I would suggest "GMs are allowed to" or "GMs are encouraged to"

Dataphiles 5/55/5 Venture-Agent, California—Sacramento

Does use "alternate" maps extend to VTT for encounters that don't have maps and can be added?

Grand Archive 4/5 ****

umopapisdnupsidedown wrote:


I would also like to see a provision explicitly allowing GM discretion for enemies to retreat or surrender when it makes sense for them to do so. It's written into some scenarios but not others.

This is already explicitly allowed, though it could be clearer. Morale is a part of the tactics section, and tactics are one of the things GMs are already specifically allowed to change if the existing tactics no longer apply due to player actions.

Shadow Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, Ohio—Columbus

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Could we get an addition to specify that GMs Must Not … change the granted rewards beyond what is dictated in the scenario. (Eg: treasure/gp/xp)

Dark Archive 4/5 *** Venture-Lieutenant, Finland—Turku

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I wholeheartedly welcome these changes!

However, the wording here:

Quote:
Run combat encounters without deliberately increasing difficulty

seems to imply that a GM may deliberately lower difficulty of encounters. Is this correct? Is the intent that a GM may add Weak template on some enemies or maybe even reduce the numbers of enemy creatures in encounters?

It's clear that GMs always have the ability influence the difficulty of an encounter by running enemies more smartly or having them make tactical mistakes, but the old version explicitly called out changing encounters as a no-no, while the new text seems imply "Please don't make stuff harder, but feel free to make it easier if that's good for the table".

If that's not the intent, then wording should probably be "run combat encounters without deliberately changing difficulty"

Grand Lodge 4/5

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Getting reported twice for obvious errors rather than deliberate attempts at screwing up the party clearly had a chilling effect on my willingness to GM, for quite a bit of time.

Now that I know that there's some level of leeway allowed with that rewording (without abusing it, it's obv to be said), I might be able to return to GM something higher than level 11 (it's mostly tier 12-18 who are the sticking point in PFS1 in my case), and I might finally do the jump towards GMing PFS2 and SFS (1 or 2)

4/5 ** Venture-Agent, Utah

Tomppa wrote:

However, the wording here:

Quote:
Run combat encounters without deliberately increasing difficulty

seems to imply that a GM may deliberately lower difficulty of encounters. Is this correct? Is the intent that a GM may add Weak template on some enemies or maybe even reduce the numbers of enemy creatures in encounters?

It's clear that GMs always have the ability influence the difficulty of an encounter by running enemies more smartly or having them make tactical mistakes, but the old version explicitly called out changing encounters as a no-no, while the new text seems imply "Please don't make stuff harder, but feel free to make it easier if that's good for the table".

If that's not the intent, then wording should probably be "run combat encounters without deliberately changing difficulty"

So, as a guy who does monster- and encounter-building regularly, I have encountered a number of times in PFS where an encounter made me want to rip my hair out because “how do you expect a party to go through three moderates and a severe without resting in the span of 4 real-life hours?!”

I welcome the ability to make those kinds of adjustments, but my concern is that it will open the door to bad actors who will do something egregious like, say, completely ignore the CP adjustments for a party of 6 and point at this as an invitation to do just that. I’m not sure what the compromise would be, but I’m merely expressing my opinion on the matter.

Paizo Employee 5/55/5 ** Organized Play Coordinator

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Mr. Fred wrote:
But what about side battles with Treasure bundle ? Should I give them the TB or not , oes it mean that If I am late in my time keeping or just let the player have fun where that want to have fun, they should get a penalty in TB. Battles with a direct plot implication shouldn't be skipped, and though they can be easily identifiable, I wonder if we shouldn't tag them in the future to ensure that they happens always at any table)

In general, GMs should not completely skip encounters that are not tagged as optional (ignoring any encounter the players manage to circumvent by being clever). The only reason I would give a blanket signoff to do so is in the event of a store's imminent closure or a convention slot ending.

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.

Paizo Employee 5/55/5 ** Organized Play Coordinator

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camberme wrote:
Does use "alternate" maps extend to VTT for encounters that don't have maps and can be added?

The Guide covers both in-person and VTT play.

Paizo Employee 5/55/5 ** Organized Play Coordinator

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Cirithiel wrote:
Could we get an addition to specify that GMs Must Not … change the granted rewards beyond what is dictated in the scenario. (Eg: treasure/gp/xp)

I don't mean this as a shot at you: does this really need to be stated, and is it not already stated elsewhere in the Guide? Is this a problem that needs to be addressed?

I would really prefer not to create an extensive list of everything which must be done which should be obvious, or else I will start writing things like "yes, GMs must roll dice, and cannot simply decide attacks on vibes."

Paizo Employee 5/55/5 ** Organized Play Coordinator

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Tomppa wrote:
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."

Shadow Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 ***** Contributor

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This looks like a fantastic series of changes that will do wonders for the program!

Shadow Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 ***** Contributor

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Alex Speidel wrote:
Mr. Fred wrote:
But what about side battles with Treasure bundle ? Should I give them the TB or not , oes it mean that If I am late in my time keeping or just let the player have fun where that want to have fun, they should get a penalty in TB. Battles with a direct plot implication shouldn't be skipped, and though they can be easily identifiable, I wonder if we shouldn't tag them in the future to ensure that they happens always at any table)

In general, GMs should not completely skip encounters that are not tagged as optional (ignoring any encounter the players manage to circumvent by being clever). The only reason I would give a blanket signoff to do so is in the event of a store's imminent closure or a convention slot ending.

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.

Could this language please be added to the new proposal somehow?

With PF2 scenarios often being written to run longer than 5 hours, and with stores in some regions still only giving PFS games hard 4 hour game slots, this is a "scenario" that regularly occurs in the wild.

4/5 5/55/55/5 **** Venture-Lieutenant, Minnesota—Minneapolis

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Jared Thaler - Personal Opinion wrote:
umopapisdnupsidedown wrote:


I would also like to see a provision explicitly allowing GM discretion for enemies to retreat or surrender when it makes sense for them to do so. It's written into some scenarios but not others.
This is already explicitly allowed, though it could be clearer. Morale is a part of the tactics section, and tactics are one of the things GMs are already specifically allowed to change if the existing tactics no longer apply due to player actions.

I would like greater clarity on this as it wasn’t clear to me how much leeway a GM had in calling a battle.

5/55/5 Venture-Lieutenant, Ohio—Cleveland

Colin_Mercer wrote:
Alex Speidel wrote:
- Reskin enemies to avoid phobias or for personal preference without altering mechanical traits
As a primarily online GM, lots of the token icon of swarms are phobia-inducing, so we've adapted to use a blank circular token with text Swarm of Something to avoid causing discomfort. Glad to see it being considered in the Guide. (And I also get to use Lego for spiders, yay!)

The only new thing here is the explicit mention of phobias; the policy has been 'reskin for player comfort' for years.

I think "of something" is a clever approach, though!

Venture-Agent, Ohio—Cincinnati

I’m glad to see this, because I can tell you we have been told by VC and VO not to do this. One important thing as a GM is to respond to the players and improvise with them. I always did this, even though I knew I “was breaking the rules” - some times going a little too far.

I once ran an encounter where the boss was at 1hp and the PCs missed every attack for 3 rounds. That wasn’t fun for anyone and wasted time. But I ran it as written. Looking forward to not doing that again.

Relieved to hear about substituting maps. Maps are a very sore point for my local community. I’m running 6-04 Friday, and I literally can’t order the map in time. #Awesome

I would be interested to know how we feel about ad libbing. Running 5-19 demon afterparty, after a critical success on Occultism, I told the player that the Deskari cultists were successively sacrificing demons and kept getting bigger ones… and then stopped and left with the next ritual prepped. I filled in one or two blanks there. I realize that my imagination had filled in some details. My story telling was so right, but was I wrong?

Bad Gm. BAD Bad. No soup for you!

Dark Archive 4/5 **** Venture-Agent, Indiana—Bloomington

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I really like the adjustments. It's just difficult some times to determine when a DC is intentionally meant to be extremely difficult and when it's just a mistake, so having the option to ensure that the players have a fun experience is a great remedy to allow the GM to adjust things that may be too difficult for their players.

Shadow Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East

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Something about this doesn't feel right to me. While the quality of presentation may vary from GM to GM, the ability to get the same game at any table is one of the hallmarks of PFS. Yes, GMs need room for improvisation and handling creative solutions, but that is a fine line and this feels like it misses the mark. I can't put my finger on why, but it feels like losing some of the 'organized' part of Organized Play. Maybe add some limitations that changes may only be in reaction to player actions or concerns.

I agree with the points made by Cirithiel, Tomppa, and Mr. Fred.

Reskinning enemies to avoid phobias I get. I've had to deal with a giant spider issue at a table I ran. But reskin for personal preference? I don't want to hear a conversation where one table fought tigers and another fought wolves.

On the note of 'adjust obvious typos or errors in a scenario' - the editing quality has gone down drastically in recent years. Please put more funding to editors and don't make GMs do the work that ought to be done in house. And when errors are found in scenarios after release, it's not like you're reprinting books - just update the PDFs.

As to formatting the text. Things that are listed in the bulleted sections (use alternate maps, fix typos) should not ALSO be listed in the header paragraph. Duplication leads to bloat and errors years down the road.

Edit: I'm not opposed to revising the text. Just think it needs more work.


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With regards to the typos and errors, I have to agree with thisledown - some of the adventures have had some pretty outrageous errors that I never saw happening during my pfs1e scenarios.

This is where version numbers for the scenarios would be ideal. I'd also love to see scenarios get updated chronicle sheets and similar errata, to help better standardize adventures and what gms and players can expect.

But that's besides the point; overall, I support the changes with the new text. I haven't had phobias come up as an issue yet at the few tables I've run, but I appreciate the ability to reskin without having to ask for permission.

Wayfinders 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 ***** Contributor

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Alex Speidel wrote:

In general, GMs should not completely skip encounters that are not tagged as optional (ignoring any encounter the players manage to circumvent by being clever). The only reason I would give a blanket signoff to do so is in the event of a store's imminent closure or a convention slot ending.

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.

I am glad that you are providing guidance on this point. As a person who GMs frequently in a store (Dreamers Minneapolis) that has a 3.5 hour window and that sometimes suddenly closes at the two-hour mark if the Magic card players leave early, this has been a sore point. We're a weekly game. This happens to us about 4-5 times a year, and it's not always easy to predict.

We try very hard to never schedule adventures that might run over 3.5 hours. Yet... I will admit that there have been times when I have looked around at the Magic remaining tables and gone, "Uh oh. We're going to close early... what do I cut?" I tend to cut smaller non-story bearing fights in the middle so that I can get to the boss fight before closing. We're going to have to skip something -- we have no choice. So I try to make sure that what I keep is the most important part of the story intact.

Thank you for providing us some guidance for what we can do when we know we're going to get tossed out of the store early.

Hmm
(Who sometimes has to just wing it)

* Venture-Agent, Washington—Spokane

I like this change, and I'm supportive of codifying that GMs have leeway to provide the best experience at their table. I also believe that this change will be comforting to new GMs who have a lot of stress about running adventures "wrong" despite being well within the Run as Written guidelines.

I can't think of any critiques to these changes that can't be addressed by "Use Common Sense and figure out what works best for the table".

Since GMs are empowered to make adjustments so they can better run the scenario as intended, it would be nice if the scenarios included more "designer commentary" to make their intentions more clear. I can provide some examples of where this might be helpful, if desired.

All in all, I'm glad to see this change on the horizon!

Grand Lodge 5/5 5/5 *** Venture-Lieutenant, New Hampshire—Merrimack

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I've been GMing Pathfinder since Season 0, and d20 RPGs since the late 1980s. When running organized play I always strive to "run as written", and I think it's important to do so...

....BUT

I've been running this game long enough to know that what matters the most is how long after the game players tell the stories. In slot 1 of Season 0 of Pathfinder at GenCon I did something WAY off book. The GM loved it enough that he left the table to check with Josh Frost, and awarded me a second prestige point for a good role-play of the Andoran faction and altered some stuff within the scenario. I STILL tell that story more than a decade later.

I'm also a school administrator during the day, and an experienced classroom teacher. Knowing the "why" behind the rules is how you know when to break them. I literally tell teachers this professionally. I think the proposed language captures this well. I had this same thought when I did the GM rubric for 5 novas. I whole heartedly support this.

Unrelated... I just now noticed that my stars/sigils/novas don't appear correctly. does that happen to others?

4/5 ****

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Alex Speidel wrote:
These updates are intended to reflect the Organized Play team’s current thinking on this topic. Our deliberate and specific intent is to explicitly grant GMs greater latitude at their tables while remaining within the bounds of the adventures as published.

I really appreciate you including this intent paragraph. My first question was going to be what exactly are we trying to accomplish.

My second question is a little more specific:

Could you give a couple examples of changes that you think the campaign would be improved if GMs made, that are currently discouraged/not allowed under the current rules, that you think the update would allow/encourage?

I'm having a little trouble understanding exactly what at a table level this is expected to change.

Thanks.

Silver Crusade 5/5 5/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria

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I am also in favor of this direction, a lot of it is just re-stating that the GMs actually do have some freedom.

As others have mentioned, unfortunately in recent years it has become an unfortunate reality that a lot of copy and paste and other errors have found their way into scenarios.

I believe that the team is trying to work on these issues but with the current volume, giving GMs more freedom seems like the right call.

I agree with a lot of the things the preceding posters have said, but I would actually suggest that we go slightly further:

As HMM has mentioned, sometimes delays happen or your time slot gets shorter, in situations like that it seems vastly preferable to cut one of the less essential fights instead of the final encounter.
Empowering GMs to make that call would be my preferred outcome.

To be honest, I would say the same could apply to subsystems, especially those where the outcome is pretty minor, but the system nonetheless takes a lot of time to resolve.

Frankly speaking, I would be fine if players could opt to skip it and go with the worst outcome of a particular interaction.

---

Of course, we could go ahead and simply run everything in adventure mode, similar to how APs work, considering how rarely players are earning less than 10 treasure bundles, large parts of the process feel like an empty ritual.

That is more extreme than what is suggested here, but I hope we can consider what org play scenarios can cut down on when we look at SFS2.

***

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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

First, I really appreciate this issue being addressed. I am one of the "vocal minority" or "rules Hellknights" that finds the current wording problematic and restrictive. Speaking only for myself, I've never thought that GMs can't make *any* changes from what's written-- I'm extremely familiar with the OrgPlay Guide-- but rather that the guide doesn't provide enough latitude to fix some issues in PFS scenarios.

To be clear, the main issue in the current guide is the sentence immediately *after* the bullet-point list in Alex's "current text" section (emphasis added): "Beyond the above, GMs are encouraged to make choices that would result in the most enjoyable play experience for everyone at the table and that emphasize PCs are the heroes of the story." The listed items are explicitly phrased as *exceptions* to the general principle. They can't / shouldn't be changed or fixed by GMs.

The proposed language is an improvement, but I still think there's a mismatch between the stated intent ("if something is broken, fix it") and the actual words in the (proposed) guide ("fix it unless it's one of these things"). My topline recommendation is just to give GMs permission to fix *anything*, using their discretion and best judgment to work out the author's intent while trying to make rulings that are fair and fun for everyone. No exceptions.

Issues like the air mephit's +19 Reflex save are ameliorated with the new language. On first glance, the problem with aquatic enemies in non-aquatic environments is also resolved, because of the addition of the words "player-facing" to the clause about changes to traits. However, the second item in the "GM must" section says not to "deliberately increasing difficulty". Increasing difficulty *relative to what*? If it's "relative to the adventure as written," then a PFS GM can't say, "Of course OrgPlay doesn't want the enemies to be dead or dying when the combat starts; the author clearly forgot about the aquatic trait, so I'll ignore it." If it's relative to (subjectively interpreted) author intentions, then the GM can make such a reasonable ruling.

Similarly, the requirement to "maintain the presence and functioning of skill checks, subsystems and similar challenges" assumes that those challenges and systems *actually function*. If GMs are charged with "maintaining functioning" of scenario mechanics that are fundamentally broken as written, then they can't (necessarily) make reasonable, fun, and fair rulings to fix them.

Likewise, the restriction against adjustments to equipment (etc) presumes that all equipment actually works as intended. Several years ago, I pointed out that the daikyu was unusable as originally published. I was accused of being excessively pedantic, but the daikyu later got errata (and then a spiff-up in the remaster). The light from wayfinders can't be turned off once it's on, and it doesn't really work with the remastered light spell. I think PFS GMs should be allowed to permit players to turn off their wayfinders, and to have the light be on (or follow) the wayfinder; I think you want that to be allowed too. But under the proposed wording, "GMs must not []
[c]hange player-facing [...] items [or] spells".

TLDR: Don't put categorical restrictions on GM fixes to scenarios or rules. Emphasize GMs using their best discretion and judgment to interpret scenario intent so as to maximize [OrgPlay goals].

Radiant Oath ** Venture-Agent, North Carolina—Raleigh

I like the updated direction a lot. It will especially be a huge help for us for longer scenarios in our lodge as we have really struggled to fit them in our 4 hour time slot. The freedom to feel like we can adjust encounters to get through the entire scenario will make me feel much better about running the 7-10 and 9-12 level scenarios in particular. Feeling like you had to stick to obvious mechanical typos wasn't enjoyable so it's great to see that cleaned up.

The verbiage about reskinning monsters for personal preference sticks out a bit for me. I totally understand and support reskinning due to phobias or other triggers, but as a player, I wouldn't enjoy fighting reskinned monsters for other reasons and would avoid playing with a GM who did this. I haven't really seen much discussion about GMs wanting to do this but perhaps I'm not in the right spaces.

Overall a positive change for sure!

Paizo Employee Editor

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thistledown wrote:

On the note of 'adjust obvious typos or errors in a scenario' - the editing quality has gone down drastically in recent years. Please put more funding to editors and don't make GMs do the work that ought to be done in house. And when errors are found in scenarios after release, it's not like you're reprinting books - just update the PDFs.

As to formatting the text. Things that are listed in the bulleted sections (use alternate maps, fix typos) should not ALSO be listed in the header paragraph. Duplication leads to bloat and errors years down the road.

"Please keep any commentary respectful and on-topic" was the end portion of Alex's post. I'm going to be exceedingly honest here, the PFS community's insistence on insulting the abilities of our Editing team repeatedly is rude and disrespectful, and also I have yet to see proof that the editing quality has gone downhill. As someone who came from the Editing team to the OrgPlay team, I have seen not only the quality of our hardworking editors, but I have also seen the sheer quantity of corrections that they catch that people outside of Paizo would never think to even look for.

If you are someone who doesn't know how the sausage is made, updating our PDFs is not as easy as a simple edit and publish. If it were, updates would be made this way.

Please trust our expertise in our field.

Vigilant Seal **** Venture-Lieutenant, Georgia—Atlanta

Can we include Increasing DCs or adding ad-hoc negative circumstance modifiers to this?
While the FAQ seems to cover this, it would be helpful to get that part clarified in this portion.

GMs must not:
- Change player-facing armor, feats, items, skills, spells, statistics, traits, or weapons, or any other mechanics of player character options

****

Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Thanks! The old wording contributed to a lot of cognitive dissonance within me leading to an unnecessary amount of anxiety. I mean, I knew something was a typo or an error and I adjusted but I felt kind of sick that I wasn't following it exactly as written. Similarly, I experienced guilt when I came up with a brilliant improv (if I say so myself) that had no measurable weight on the mechanical gameplay. So, anxiety and guilt will be alleviated. Again, thanks.

Second Seekers (Roheas) 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 ***** Regional Venture-Coordinator, Appalachia

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I have several issues I would like to raise and get answers for in terms of what this policy would allow for and perhaps more importantly, what it wouldnt.

I think its kind of hard to tell in many cases what is intended to be high difficulty vs what is a typo or perhaps a copy/paste erorr.

A good example is the recent scenario Godsrain in a Godless Land, the DCs for one of the subsystems are *really* high but the threshold for success is sort of low so maybe that was the intention.

Do we have pretty broad latitude on judgement calls?

4/5 5/5 *** Venture-Agent, Ohio—Columbus

My wife and I discussed several of these at various times in the past. Our biggest concern was with various maps from time to time that had errors on them, but also the rare problems with traumatic triggers.

More than anything else though, we are extremely supportive of "creative solutions". I have played more than a few characters over the decades that are not conventional in their approach and try things the writers never considered. It is nice to support those unique characters.

5/55/5 Venture-Lieutenant, Ohio—Cleveland

LeftHandShake wrote:
...assumes that those challenges and systems *actually function* ...presumes that all equipment actually works as intended...

That is one possible assumption.

Another is that fixes to mechanics ought to be one of the things that is consistent across tables--as should dealing with not having those fixes before they exist. Consistency in the uncertainty as well as the certainty.

There are probably other possible assumptions I'm not thinking of, too. My point is less about what the correct one is and more that I think your statements are overselling how certain it is that that's the assumption.

These are meant to be guidelines with certain exceptions (which I read as intended to preserve fairness; no GM can say "I don't like x, so yours just doesn't work"). I understand that you are arguing against having exceptions; we're not going to agree about that, so I'm not even going there. As others have said, that would just put everything in Adventure Mode.

5/55/5 Venture-Lieutenant, Ohio—Cleveland

reevos wrote:

Can we include Increasing DCs or adding ad-hoc negative circumstance modifiers to this?

While the FAQ seems to cover this, it would be helpful to get that part clarified in this portion.

GMs must not:
- Change player-facing armor, feats, items, skills, spells, statistics, traits, or weapons, or any other mechanics of player character options

That's not the line item that adjusting DCs would belong in. That line item is essentially "PC items & other options work how the rulebooks and Org Play campaign rulings say they do; you can't just say 'I don't like x so I'm banning / nerfing it at my tables.'"

No comment from me on the merits/pitfalls of the idea, just saying that's not where it would go.

4/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, California—Sacramento

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Shay Snow wrote:
thistledown wrote:

On the note of 'adjust obvious typos or errors in a scenario' - the editing quality has gone down drastically in recent years. Please put more funding to editors and don't make GMs do the work that ought to be done in house. And when errors are found in scenarios after release, it's not like you're reprinting books - just update the PDFs.

As to formatting the text. Things that are listed in the bulleted sections (use alternate maps, fix typos) should not ALSO be listed in the header paragraph. Duplication leads to bloat and errors years down the road.

"Please keep any commentary respectful and on-topic" was the end portion of Alex's post. I'm going to be exceedingly honest here, the PFS community's insistence on insulting the abilities of our Editing team repeatedly is rude and disrespectful, and also I have yet to see proof that the editing quality has gone downhill. As someone who came from the Editing team to the OrgPlay team, I have seen not only the quality of our hardworking editors, but I have also seen the sheer quantity of corrections that they catch that people outside of Paizo would never think to even look for.

If you are someone who doesn't know how the sausage is made, updating our PDFs is not as easy as a simple edit and publish. If it were, updates would be made this way.

Please trust our expertise in our field.

While the quoted comment is a little on the harsh side, no one has ever said that the editing team is incompetent; there's a big difference between "try to get them some help" (which seems to be thistledown's main gist) versus "the editing team can't find simple errors" (which appears to be how you're taking his comment). We know they're all human; no one is pooping on them about that. Even the best editor is going to miss things if they're overworked, and it definitely seems like they are.

It is slightly concerning that you are stating that you haven't noticed a change in quality over the last couple of seasons and are coming into this discussion quite hostilely; if the community is telling you they're noticing something like this, attacking them and telling them they're wrong is not a good look. As a former editor, if you can't objectively look at the content from PFS2 seasons 2 or 3 and see a difference in seasons 4, 5, and now 6... I don't know what to say. I'm an avid book reader, and I notice typos or things that aren't clear all the time... because, again, the editors are human, and people miss things all the time.

With that being said, if the workflow doesn't save the files in an editable form after layout to allow easier editing, perhaps that is something that could be investigated within the company; in that case, it would be an extraordinarily simple task to edit them and republish the PDF. That's just my $0.02.

On to the reason for this thread:
I like the new changes, and agree with the replacing of "may" to "can" or "should". Also, pedantic me would like a consistency with the use of commas; the third bullet in the "GMs must" section does not include the (proper) Oxford comma, while the first bullet in the "GMs must not" section does include the Oxford comma.

I would also like to see a little more clarification on what the team sees as an obvious typo or error. As someone mentioned up-thread, the (OGL) air mephits had a reflex save of +19 that was printed in the Bestiary, and was then reprinted in multiple PFS2 Scenarios, nor was this ever changed in any errata or FAQ. Since this is the case, the assumption would be that it is just ridiculously agile and will almost never be affected by something that requires a reflex save. The (ORC) air scamp has (what many would consider the correct) reflex save of +9. Since there were nearly 5 years of errata, FAQs, and adventures all published with the air mephit having the +19, how is a GM to know that this was supposed to be a +9?

Now, if something has a skill or saving throw value of over 100, that's obviously an error, but if the number is "+112", should we assume that it's supposed to be "+11" or "+12"? Saying that GMs should fix obvious typos or errors is a great start, but there needs to be some sort of guideline for folks to refer to.

5/55/5 Venture-Lieutenant, Ohio—Cleveland

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umopapisdnupsidedown wrote:
I'm glad to see this happening. The only "mechanical" change I would recommend is changing "may" to "can" since that's what "may" means in this context.

As you know*, 'don't use "may"' is in the Guides' style guide. The only place "may" occurs in the Guides now is in policies directly copy-pasted from paizo.com. It's also on our recurring tasks list to search & destroy every so often in case one sneaks in.

* For observers who might not know: I'm the volunteers (VO) Guide Team Lead, and the person I'm replying to is a major contributor who iirc put this rule into the style guide personally. "As you know" is meant to be overly formal, with a nudge and a wink.

5/55/5 Venture-Lieutenant, Ohio—Cleveland

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avagdu wrote:
I like the new changes, and agree with the replacing of "may" to "can" or "should". Also, pedantic me would like a consistency with the use of commas; the third bullet in the "GMs must" section does not include the (proper) Oxford comma, while the first bullet in the "GMs must not" section does include the Oxford comma.

As the guy who will be doing the final copy-paste and integration into the Guides, I can assure you that the Oxford comma would only be omitted if I didn't notice it was missing. Because I agree that it belongs there & everywhere. But I appreciate the heads up!

(I will leave responding to the call for additional guidelines to the OPC.)

Liberty's Edge 4/5 5/55/55/5 ****

The proposed change is a good in my opinion.

Sovereign Court 3/5 **** Venture-Agent, Ohio—Columbus

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I’m similarly unsure what would be an obvious error to fix vs a change that increases difficulty, which is prohibited. A recent scenario in season 5 had a printed weak version of a creature. Base creature, also printed in the scenario, had 60 hp, while the weak one was printed with 15. It seemed clear to me that the weak template hit point value (45 according to the weak template chart) was subtracted from the base hit point value rather than replacing it. But that’s a big difficulty increase. Allowed to change?

In the same scenario there were 4 hazards. 2 of the hazards had stealth DCs in the low to mid 20s, while the other 2 had stealth BONUSES in the low to mid 20s. Seems clear to me there was an error on the last 2, but is that an “obvious typo or error”?

These are just two of the many, many errors in recent scenarios. While I think that the loosening of GM guidelines is indeed a good thing, correcting errors in scenarios as well would go a long way to improving quality of life for your GMs and providing a more even play experience across the program.

The current half-measure of publishing changes to the Foundry modules in an out of the way location is simply not satisfactory, if you ask me. Add to that the Metamorphic team (who produce the Foundry modules) are likely only to catch errors that directly impact the creation of the module. They are unlikely to catch errors or inconsistencies buried in a block of text that they simply cut and paste into the module.

Grand Archive 4/5 ****

Talon Stormwarden wrote:
I’m similarly unsure what would be an obvious error to fix vs a change that increases difficulty, which is prohibited.

There is a creature in a scenario with +132 to it's attack. (Pretty clearly it was changed from +13 to +12 or vice versa and someone forgot to hit delete / backspace. I guess it is lucky it wasn't on the damage line...)

Sovereign Court 3/5 **** Venture-Agent, Ohio—Columbus

Jared Thaler - Personal Opinion wrote:
Talon Stormwarden wrote:
I’m similarly unsure what would be an obvious error to fix vs a change that increases difficulty, which is prohibited.

There is a creature in a scenario with +132 to it's attack. (Pretty clearly it was changed from +13 to +12 or vice versa and someone forgot to hit delete / backspace. I guess it is lucky it wasn't on the damage line...)

While I’ll agree that’s a very obvious error, that really doesn’t address the question.

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