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Ultimate Organized Play

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Ultimate Organized Play

Unread postby icycalm » 11 Dec 2022 09:54

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I am trying to find out exactly what the Pathfinder(/Starfinder) Society Scenarios are, so as to best integrate them into Battlegrounds. I already knew the basics: that they are one-shot adventures (i.e. designed to be completed in one session of about 2-4 hours), with about a dozen of them released every year as part of a season. So there are 14 seasons so far, 10 for PF1 and 4 for PF2, because that's how many years each edition has been active.

Initially, I intended for players to unlock these side-adventures as they move about the world, and play them when they need XP/levels, e.g. because they're doing badly in their campaign, or lost a player and need to grind, or maybe the entire party was wiped and the new one needs to grind.

But the problem is... the seasons have their own metaplot. And if that wasn't bad enough, some of the particular side-adventures are connected with events in the main campaigns...

Here is someone explaining it on Reddit three years back (when there was still only one season for PF2, instead of today's four): https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/c ... enarios_be

Xylkren wrote:As many people have explained they are usually divided in seasons with each season having an overarching plot that culminates in a multitable special that is played at conventions.

In PF2 we are still in season 1 with many one shot scenarios released and a few metaplot ones.

They are usually more railroady that the usual adventure path, due to being played with random people and the time constraints of the format.


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These scenarios are part of what is known as "organized play". Of course you can buy them and play them at home with friends, but their main purpose is to be played in Paizo-sanctioned events with Paizo-sanctioned GMs in an organized fashion such as that, if your character survives one of these scenarios, you can then take him to another event and play with him with another sanctioned-GM, and thus continue developing him, all the while earning officially-sanctioned XP and rewards. And if he dies at a table, he is gone. You can't play with him again at Paizo events. It sounds very fun and very hardcore! Instead of always playing with your buddies and your friend GM, you get to experience many other GMs and many other players and parties. Of course, a huge part of the fun of roleplaying is playing with your friends, but it must also be fun to occasionally play with complete strangers, if it's done the right way (and Paizo-sanctioned GMs should be able to do it well). I mean think about it: it would even add to the immersion if the strangers your character meets are also irl strangers, so that you don't have to pretend to be strangers! Method roleplaying! (from method acting).

So you see I am trying to wrap my head around this format because I've never personally experienced it. If I was somewhere with nearby Paizo events, you bet your ass I would go and play.

This is Organized Play - Paizo's Pathfinder, Starfinder, & ACG Society Play
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTvalWnQSpE

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I absolutely encourage people to seek out games in their area and go play and have fun, and then write back here to tell us how it went. Here's where you sign up: https://paizo.com/organizedplay

(When creating an account on Paizo's site, use the CULTxusername format.)

Paizo wrote:Paizo Organized Play is a worldwide roleplaying organization where players can take the same character and play in any game around the globe. Scenarios and quests are designed to bring players together as they explore new worlds, investigate mysteries and fight the forces of evil in a shared setting that responds to their decisions.


Of course, you'd be playing PF2 now... but it shouldn't be too much of an issue since the GM will be handling everything. Or you can play Starfinder instead.

My headache is to find the best way to integrate this stuff into my world. There are various ways it could be done. But before discussing any of them, there is an overarching issue. And this is the issue of time.

There is simply not enough time to run all of these, or even any of these, considering that they are inferior to the Adventure Paths, and we hardly have time to run all of THOSE. So given a choice between the two, I will of course prefer to run the Adventure Paths.

However, the Scenarios can still act, as aforesaid, as side-adventure opportunities to gain XP when for whatever reason the party needs XP. This the Adventure Paths themselves can't generally provide as they are very strictly written to deliver their epic campaign in their 600 pages.

So what do we do with the Scenarios that we never end up using, and what do we do with the metaplots that link each season, and all the seasons together? And even worse, what do we do with the plots that link these seasons with the Adventure Paths?

One idea I hit on at first is the "meanwhile" idea.

"Meanwhile..." - Using between session posts to make your world feel alive!
https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comm ... ts_to_make

The TL;DR of that article is that the GM can set up a kind of table to randomly roll on for what major NPCs are doing between sessions, and then post the results in the forum midweek so that the players feel that the world is even more alive, etc. In our case, I could use the Scenarios we don't end up playing for this. I read them carefully (which I love to do; I love to read absolutely every official line ever written for Pathfinder), and then I make these events happen in the world, and then the players hear about them through their acquaintances and rumors. So we get the best of both worlds: we focus on the superior Adventure Paths, but still gain the richness and the texture of the Scenarios.

I just don't see how the Scenarios' metaplots can be conserved this way while also leaving some of the Scenarios to be played when needed. How will I know when to make the Scenarios happen, since a player character could die at any moment and his new character will need a Scenario to grind for a while?

Keep in mind all these Scenarios entail the players being members of the Pathfinder Society sent out on short missions. So initially, before I knew there were metaplots involved, I planned to give the option to level in the Society until, after a number of successful missions, the players could be promoted to running a Society Lodge. It's like a station for the society, an HQ, and the players would be society chiefs. So for PF1, there are 10 seasons, meaning 10 opportunities for a party to become society chiefs, and then if they accomplished that they would gain additional resources to use in the strategy layer.

Another option would be to use pregenerated characters for these one-shots and have the PLAYERS GM them, so that the games can happen anytime, even midweek, with whoever is available, for 2-4 hours each scenario, so pretty much in the same randomly assembled manner in which these games are played at game shops or conventions. And THEN we integrate the results into the world. So the characters participating in these scenarios would have nothing to do with the protagonists of the Adventure Paths. Or they could become allies of the protagonists, with each player getting 1 pregenerated "sidekick" per Scenario season, as long as the sidekick survives.

I love this idea, but there are some issues with it. One main issue is that PF1 Scenarios are not adapted for Fantasy Grounds or any other VTT. This would mean we would have to manually convert them. Now this isn't TOO hard, because these scenarios are a mere 16 pages each, typically with only a couple of maps, a couple of images, and very few monsters, mostly taken from the Bestiaries, and we have all of those. The main issue there would be transferring the NPCs manually. Maps and creatures are easy, NPCs would take a bit more work, but not TOO much work. (PF2 Scenarios ARE being converted for Fantasy Grounds btw, so by the time we get there, it won't be an issue, but for PF1 it is an issue.)

So as you can see, if we go this route then it suddenly becomes sort-of possible to play ALL the Society Scenarios AND all the Adventure Paths, since I won't be running the Scenarios and thus not spending my time on them. And they would also be terrific training for wannabe GMs. Think about it: there would be NO RISK to the main Pathfinder metaplot no matter what happens in these one-shots. Neither the GM nor the players would be under pressure to perform. It'd be like a true BONUS ROUND: the most you could lose, is the bonus (the sidekick on the strategy layer, if your character doesn't survive). This would give us the occasional brief midweek session with WHOEVER OF THE 18 PLAYERS ARE AVAILABLE (we only need 4), and it would enrich our world and World Anvil overworld with hundreds of new locations, characters and mini-stories. AND we could play all seasons FROM THE START, without skipping any episodes, thus perfectly playing out their metaplots, which is something that even people who go to Paizo's conventions can't do. We'd be the only group in the world to play ALL the Society scenarios IN ORDER! AND we would do it in such a way that the results of all these scenarios feed directly into the Ultimate Edition overworld and strategy layer!

THAT's why I call this mechanic "Ultimate" Organized Play, because it perfectly melds the Society Scenarios with the Adventure Paths into a single overworld, with the same group of players and GMs involved in running everything and playing everything out, and everything affecting everything else. Neither the stay-at-home AP players, nor the convention PS players get this experience, because they don't try to meld them together.

The downside is that these scenarios won't therefore be available for Adventure Path protagonists to use as side-adventures for grinding purposes. However... there are still the standalone adventures lines for that, i.e. 32-page or 64-page standalone adventures scattered around the world. There are dozens of them. It's not as granular as having hundreds of 16-page one-shots, but it can be made to work. PLUS... these main protagonists may also now have their SIDEKICKS to help out, when things get tough. So things should balance out in the long run, and be even more complex and interesting than before.

I dunno... I think it's worth a try. Here is the VERY FIRST Pathfinder Society Scenario for Season 0 released all the way back in 2008, at the very beginning of the Pathfinder project (DO NOT VISIT/READ THIS THREAD): https://paizo.com/products/btpy84k0?Pat ... ilent-Tide

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Paizo wrote:Pathfinder Society Scenario #1: Silent Tide

When strange reports of misty undead spread through Absalom, you and your fellow Pathfinders are dispatched to the half-drowned district of Puddles. Notoriously rough, the drooling addicts, flesh panderers, and quick-handed knifers of Puddles are the least of your worries. The night's tide brings with it an ancient armada of some long-forgotten war and you are the only thing between their mist-shrouded ghost fleet and Absalom's utter oblivion.


It sounds pretty fucking exciting to me! It sends you straight to Absalom, Golarion's biggest and most important city, to fight a fucking armada/ghost fleet at 1st-level! Anyone wants to try running this for us? Anyone want to play?

And the bonus is... we'll finally get to finish something in Pathfinder! Probably even in one session!

Of course I'll be there to help out and make sure everything runs smoothly for the first few games.

As for characters, as aforesaid, we'll use pregens, so no time spent rolling characters. I am sure there are sites with lots of them, and everyone can pick what they want. If your character survives an entire season, he becomes your main character's sidekick!, bringing along all his loot, and you can move him around the overworld strategy-style to go wherever you want him to, and be used when needed.

One complication: in 2008, Paizo was still using D&D 3rd Edition rules, as they still hadn't made their own. They are almost identical rulesets though, according to dan, so it shouldn't be hard to figure them out. We will need to do some extra reading to get this going though. Oh and the PF Bestiaries probably won't be useful, and we'll have to import all creatures too until we hit the season when the PF rules were released.

I think the initial SETUP to get this project going will be considerable, but once it is set up, I think it will run very quickly. The scenarios are just 16 pages! They are super-easy to read and learn, they don't have too many NPCs to get to know. Two maps can be imported in Fantasy Grounds in 5 minutes. And even the stat copying can't take that long once we know what we're doing. And we would have to learn this anyway because most standalone adventures aren't converted, only the Adventure Paths are.

I think basically for the first few adventures, I would have to learn to convert them myself, and then later teach this to someone else to do. Or, because of how anal I can be with this stuff, I will probably end up converting everything myself and just handing the module over to the GM of the day. So for the GM, it should be just a question of learning the 16 pages and showing up on the day, with no pressure to perform whatsoever. It should be some seriously fun chilled gaming!

Okay, I'll shut up now. It's 9 AM and I didn't sleep all night to write this, that's how excited I am. Let me know if anyone wants to try GMing this. Players we can easily find, we just need 4 out of 18, but someone will have to step forward to GM—and learn the 3.5E rules, so we aren't talking tomorrow or next week. But if we make a start now, I can see us playing in a month or so. And once we start and train a couple of GMs, I don't see why you guys can't be playing weekly without needing me at all except to enter the results of each session on the World Anvil overworld.


P.S. I bought the scenario (they're only $3.99). It's fun!

P.P.S. Now that I am reading the scenario, a far quicker way to do it would be to convert to Fantasy Grounds only the images and maps, and then run the battles the same way we would on a tabletop: in our heads. First of all, this is good for learning the game and the rules, and when mastered this way, helps you run converted adventures even faster and more faithfully. And it just means we can hit the ground running with basically no prep beyond reading the 3.5E "Player's Handbook". It will be slow at first, calculating everything ourselves, but the time spent doing this is better time spent than converting stuff to Fantasy Grounds. More fun too. I could run the first adventure like this in a week, if we wanted. Maybe even sooner. I just need two evenings to read the PHB.

P.P.P.S. You generate your characters/potential sidekicks with this tool in just one click: https://www.myth-weavers.com/generate_npc.php

P.P.P.P.S. I am making a #pathfinder-society Discord channel where we can talk about all this! I want to play next Saturday!
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icycalm
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