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I played Port Godless as a part of VTT Gameday on March 1st and loved it. Awesome flavor, it's Rahadoum so you know it's going to be tough.
So here is what we did:
We talked to our VC, we talked at our contacts house, we talked at the market, we talked at the dog track, we talked at the bath and talked our way out of a combat there. And even though that's a lot of talking, our GM is known for her time management, things moved smoothly and I felt added to the building intensity of the mission.
We spied out the compound. We went to the sewers, set off the trap and fought the Xill, but had to retreat because the trap caused problems for several in our party. We went back topside and entered the compound as slavers.
Our ninja and summoner eidolon were invisible and scouted while the rest of us posed as buyers. Now granted splitting up caused the DM to have to deal with two parties and lengthened this phase of the mission, but it was fun. And it didn't get bogged down, everything was always moving. Team Ninja scouted just about the whole main level of the compound. They sneaked without being caught and disabled traps. They knocked out guards and hid bodies. Team slave buyer diplomacized, gathered information about the rift wardens, and danced with slave girls.
Then invis Ninja encounters the daemons in the slave warehouse and it's on. They come busting out killing slaves and attacking team Ninja and Team buyer (at least the party was back together!). Team buyer stayed in character and only attacked the daemons in self defense. Then the guards attack us (which I disagreed with that move by the GM, but she's a good GM and called it like she saw it I'm sure.). We kill the daemons. We kill the guards . Then the BBEG sends up some more summoned baddies. And time. Our 4 action packed hours are up.
Now for all that we got nothing. We got 0 PA. (Which I understand. We didn't complete the mission.). But here is my beef. We got 0 XP. (I questioned our GM on this and she said we hadn't completed three encounters). So this has eaten at me for about ten days now, so I buy the scenario and read it thinking she was wrong. But she was right. As the scenario is laid out, there are only 4 encounters (2 of which are underground, where we didn't get to). So by the letter of the law we should get nothing. But that just doesn't feel right to me. We did a lot of stuff in our 4 hours as my wall of text can attest. Surely some of that should count for something. An optional encounter maybe.
So the gist of it is I'm whining over 1 XP because I think the encounter count and breakdown for this very sand boxy scenario is wrong as judged by my gamer morality. Any recourse? Or just bellyaching?
PS-it was fun and memorable, but please don't say that should be enough. Because the goal is always to have fun and yet we still give out chronicles. ;)
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It seems like your beef should be about the arbitrary 4 hour time limit. Who decided the game would only last 4 hours and no more? The Guide says 5 hours is the rule of thumb, and home & online games are allowed to go longer.
Also, consider this; you didn't come away completely empty-handed, did you? You should have received some gold for the Pure Legion encounter & defeating the daemons. Look at it this way, you got a gold reward but you didn't advance your character. Other PCs who play this adventure advance in XP, continuing up the wealth-by-level ladder. YOU just got almost 3,000 GP without advancing up the ladder. You are going to play subsequent adventures and you will get the XP you missed this time, but you will be 3,000 GP ahead of everyone who completed 3 encounters. So there's a silver lining after all.
You can always use your GM star to replay this with a later character, too, provide you haven't burned it yet.
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Cfoot,
it is my take that your GM may not have gotten this correct.
Encounters faced:
- Talking at contact's house
- Talking at the market
- Talking at the Dog Track
- The Bath House
- The Trap and the Xill
- Pulling the entire complex.
Even if she didn't give you credit for the final encounter, you still had the other encounters. Even if you roll the first three into a single encounter, that's still three encounters.
Counting the encounters at the complex is rather difficult, since they all start getting rolled into one (but as the guards are an encounter, if you defeated all of them, you should get credit!)
Retreating out, is really not an option in this case, because as soon as you trigger the trap, Sophini tells her guards to sound the alarms, summoning the Pure Legion. At this point, the timer starts. The Pure Legion storms the compound within about 12 minutes (give or take, depending on a few things the PCs could have done). When they arrive,
Sophini will be abandoning the compound.
So, by allowing you a different route in, your GM was probably being more lenient than she should have been (at least in my reading of the scenario).
On the other hand, I would pretty much NEVER try and run this scenario in a 4 hour slot!
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Typically if there's an issue with something the GM did it needs to be settled before the Chronicles are filled out and the players leave the table. Or log off ~whatever~.
Cfoot, you sat on this for 10 days--mostly out of being an adult and knowing you should let it go. But it kept eating at you, so you had to let it out. We've all been there. The problem is that GMs make mistakes all the time. Sometimes characters have died due to those mistakes. However, it would create an organizer's nightmare if every time a player read a scenario after playing it and found an error (or vented on the messageboards and other GMs pointed out the mistake) there had to be a reckoning. Everyone loves to play the 'What if...' game, but it can't ever be conclusive. The GM may not know who all the players were. The tracking sheet gets handed in and reported. At some point we have to say "What's done is done, learn from the mistake and move forward."
GMs have to be allowed to make mistakes, otherwise the game grinds to a halt. Your table may have been collateral damage, Cfoot. Some may argue it was run correctly. It's moot. Move forward. Having been through this situation, you will be a better GM for your own players. That's all the consolation I can give you.
Venture-Lieutenant, Indiana—Indianapolis
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Sometimes characters have died due to those mistakes.
SNIP
GMs have to be allowed to make mistakes...
This. Right here.
At Gen Con last year, I was playing The Hellknight's Feast. My cleric died. I was pretty bummed - it was my first character, my highest level character (at level 6), but he died in a good fight.
I used a boon I had to cut the cost of resurrection in half, and I used PP to pay for it.
Only AFTER the game was over and I came home from Gen Con did I learn the GM made a mistake and used the wrong monsters. The monster that killed me shouldn't have even been in that encounter.
Yeah, I was about 16 PP and a Boon. And I didn't care, because that scenario and that group at the table were so fun, the gaming experience was worth far more than when I spent to fix the GMs error.
We do make mistakes all the time. Fortunately, it being a game, the mistakes aren't life-altering. It sounds like the 4 hour limit worked against you, and as others have said, maybe the GM didn't count the encounters right.
So, it's a case of live and learn.
Mark
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Typically if there's an issue with something the GM did it needs to be settled before the Chronicles are filled out and the players leave the table. Or log off ~whatever~.
Cfoot, you sat on this for 10 days--mostly out of being an adult and knowing you should let it go. But it kept eating at you, so you had to let it out. We've all been there. The problem is that GMs make mistakes all the time. Sometimes characters have died due to those mistakes. However, it would create an organizer's nightmare if every time a player read a scenario after playing it and found an error (or vented on the messageboards and other GMs pointed out the mistake) there had to be a reckoning. Everyone loves to play the 'What if...' game, but it can't ever be conclusive. The GM may not know who all the players were. The tracking sheet gets handed in and reported. At some point we have to say "What's done is done, learn from the mistake and move forward."
GMs have to be allowed to make mistakes, otherwise the game grinds to a halt. Your table may have been collateral damage, Cfoot. Some may argue it was run correctly. It's moot. Move forward. Having been through this situation, you will be a better GM for your own players. That's all the consolation I can give you.
Not all mistakes are made equal. Some mistakes are worth grinding the table to a halt *right then and there*. Because avoiding the nightmare of retroactively undoing death or whatever is worth some table time. It just is. I've kept my mouth shut two or three times against my better judgment and PCs paid.
Just because GMs run for free doesn't mean they get free reign to ruin everyone else's experience. Now if no one at all catches it, then nothing truly can be done.
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Grind the table to a stop and throw a temper tantrum. You sound a bit like a player's versus gm mentality.
It's a hobby. Calm down mistakes happen. Characters die. Monsters get defeated.
Let's say you grind a table to a halt on a new gm who is trying their best but getting bullied by rules lawyers. Why should this person volunteer their time ever again?
You certainly won't pick up their slack. You're a single star much like myself. Difference is. If someone ices one of my guys with the wrong monsters or makes a huge glaring mistake I know that s!!& happens and to just deal with it and move on. Not wreck ssomeone's day who set out to volunteer their time to give other people 4 to 5 hours of a good time.
Sometimes the best of intentions pave the road to he'll is all.
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Grind the table to a stop and throw a temper tantrum. You sound a bit like a player's versus gm mentality.
It's a hobby. Calm down mistakes happen. Characters die. Monsters get defeated.Let's say you grind a table to a halt on a new gm who is trying their best but getting bullied by rules lawyers. Why should this person volunteer their time ever again?
You certainly won't pick up their slack. You're a single star much like myself. Difference is. If someone ices one of my guys with the wrong monsters or makes a huge glaring mistake I know that s!#@ happens and to just deal with it and move on. Not wreck ssomeone's day who set out to volunteer their time to give other people 4 to 5 hours of a good time.
Sometimes the best of intentions pave the road to he'll is all.
So trying follow the guidelines set forth in the PFS rule set is now "bullying by rules lawyers?".
I would think that after I explain to our hypothetical new GM how their rules mistake was going to completely ruin an encounter, they might actually be grateful, rather than pout over making a mistake.
GMs don't get to cheat because they are volunteers. And I don't want someone so sensitive to their mistakes running a table that I'm at anyway. These things can usually be cleared up in 5 min or less.
"Grind the table to a stop and throw a temper tantrum."
Who is the one here making the assumptions? Sounds like anti-player bias to me. See? I can throw around barbs, too.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Indiana—Indianapolis
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GMs don't get to cheat because they are volunteers.
No one here is talking about GMs cheating. Cheating is a deliberate act; making a mistake doesn't fall into that category. This thread seems to indicate that perhaps the GM referred to in the OP's post made a mistake, or didn't understand the rules.
But, the OP didn't bring it up at the table, and ten days after the fact, there isn't anything to be done.
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Unfortunately, I've caught GMs deliberately changing scenarios and/or adding things to a scenario and then hiding behind the "mistake" curtain.
To refine my position, GMs shouldn't be able to run an encounter against the rules if they are ignorant of the rules while someone at the table is aware of the rule. This is critical in places like Bonekeep and other difficult scenarios.
The GM is getting his/her credit no matter what happens in the scenario.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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David, we might have had this discussion before.
What you're suggesting is something like this:
Player: Excuse me, GM. I believe you're making a mistake.
GM: I'm pretty sure I'm not. But please, take a moment to convince me.
Now, let's say that the player cannot satisfy the GM. The player might be referring to a FAQ answer, but didn't think to bring a hard copy. Or the player might not be able to find the right rule in a book. Or the GM might recall an FAQ that over-rules the player's citation. Or the player and GM are coming down on different sides of a gray area. (Or the player might just be mis-remembering; that happens a lot.)
In this particular case, since the GM can see the text of the scenario and the player can't, maybe it's something like "We're 3rd level. We can't be fighting a Mi-go with class levels." Or "We're 6th level. We can't be fighting a CR 13 encounter."
So, the player has raised an objection. The GM has listened, overruled the objection, and moved on. If by "grinding the table to a halt *right then and there*" you mean that you won't accept the GM's ruling, then you have to understand that the situation has changed on a basic level. It is no longer a rules issue. You want to stop the game. The GM and every other player wants to play the game.
If I'm the GM, I'll ask you to set your objection aside and play. If you refuse, I'll ask you to leave the table, and we can sit together ovr a beer that evening and discuss the matter.
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This has been a bit of confusion for me lately.
I thought the '3 encounter minimum' was only for those coming back from the dead. And if you play the entire time, you get the XP.
Pretty sure that isn't true... it is the three encounters for XP, success conditions for PP.
Example, in this scenario, the players can skip both of the rooms on the sides, and go directly to the end room. If they defeat the bad guys there, and break the macguffin, then they return the museum to the "real world", and they can no longer encounter either of the side rooms. They'll have only completed 2 encounters, even though they succeed at the primary and secondary conditions. They get 2PP, 0XP.
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I know cfoot, I have had cfoot as a GM, I have played Eyes of the Ten with cfoot. And he is definitely not someone who will be disruptive at a table.
I believe his issue is that there's really no clear definition of what an "encounter" is. Season 5 scenarios have been split into sections by letter (A, B, C, etc.). Most GMs have been considering each lettered section as a complete encounter. The issue is that A might be a fight with two mooks, B is roleplaying with four different casts of characters in four locations, and C is climbing a cliff. Wildly different amounts of time can be spent.
I do not have this particular scenario in front of me but I believe A was a runaround of at least three social interactions, B was a social/combat area, and C&D were each straightforward fights. When I played this we probably spent 3 hours on part A, 45 minutes on the social part of B, and mauled the B fight along with C&D in about 20 minutes total. (By the way this was definitely in my top 3 play experiences of all time, we had a blast!)
Anyway, the issue is that some GMs might consider each of those social interactions to be a separate "encounter" but a lot read it as "you complete one encounter when you complete all of Part A."
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The problem with that is lack of punctuation. Does it mean (survived) OR (raised AND at least 3 completed) or does it mean (survived OR raised) AND (at least 3 completed).A PC may receive XP only if he survives the scenario or is raised from the dead by the scenario’s conclusion and completed at least three encounters over the course of the adventure.
Expect table variation? ;)
I think most would agree on the latter.
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David, we might have had this discussion before.
What you're suggesting is something like this:
Player: Excuse me, GM. I believe you're making a mistake.
GM: I'm pretty sure I'm not. But please, take a moment to convince me.Now, let's say that the player cannot satisfy the GM. The player might be referring to a FAQ answer, but didn't think to bring a hard copy. Or the player might not be able to find the right rule in a book. Or the GM might recall an FAQ that over-rules the player's citation. Or the player and GM are coming down on different sides of a gray area. (Or the player might just be mis-remembering; that happens a lot.)
In this particular case, since the GM can see the text of the scenario and the player can't, maybe it's something like "We're 3rd level. We can't be fighting a Mi-go with class levels." Or "We're 6th level. We can't be fighting a CR 13 encounter."
So, the player has raised an objection. The GM has listened, overruled the objection, and moved on. If by "grinding the table to a halt *right then and there*" you mean that you won't accept the GM's ruling, then you have to understand that the situation has changed on a basic level. It is no longer a rules issue. You want to stop the game. The GM and every other player wants to play the game.
If I'm the GM, I'll ask you to set your objection aside and play. If you refuse, I'll ask you to leave the table, and we can sit together ovr a beer that evening and discuss the matter.
As long as you don't mind the retcon paperwork for illegitimate PC damages. Such misconceptions as "acid ignores hardness" can lead to interesting problems for PCs.
That reminds me to print out all relevant FAQs for my PCs.
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The problem with that is lack of punctuation. Does it mean (survived) OR (raised AND at least 3 completed) or does it mean (survived OR raised) AND (at least 3 completed).A PC may receive XP only if he survives the scenario or is raised from the dead by the scenario’s conclusion and completed at least three encounters over the course of the adventure.
Grammatically, without a second instance of "he", it muat be the second way, but using tiny grammatical nuances is shaky support. I've never seen anyone who thought it was the first way, though.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Indiana—Indianapolis
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I've played that one, and while we technically succeeded, we ran out of time too and hand to handwave a few of the later encounters.
I'd say Port Godless is a fun and interesting module that was regrettably squeezed down into a scenario's clothing. There's just not enough time in an average session to do it properly.
I played this game at a local con a few weeks ago. The slot was 5 hours long, and we finished it in just about 4 hours, give or take a few minutes. We never felt rushed or pressed for time.
I suppose maybe we just got lucky, caught a lot of breaks or whatever, but we managed to do everything we needed to do and finish well within our time limit.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32
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I would like to address the question of GM infallibility. For mistakes that are either clear-cut (not counting diplomatic encounters as encounters for XP purposes, for instance), or in obvious violation of the printed scenario (we locally had a GM throw iron golems at a level 3-7 party in a scenario that in no way featured iron golems), it is part of the duty of the relevant venture-officer to mediate disputes. If the mistake is a minor one (mistake as to how a spell works and which did not result in death, for instance), then it does not raise to that level. In this case, I think that it would be appropriate for the OP to discuss this with the relevant GM and point out that diplomatic encounters are still encounters. If that fails and the OP wishes to avail themselves of further recourse, they could send a message to the relevant VO (who I understand to be the online VOs.)
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Thanks for the insight fellas. It's all good.
I have played Eyes of the Ten with cfoot.
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I swear when our ninja was scouting I was having flashbacks. I also thought that if my inquisitor got pinched by the Pure Legion, he would have to use his one phone call to hire Cardamus as his attorney.
That would be a great sequal to this. Hire Ben McFarland to write "Rescue from Rahadoum". Where you go in to rescue all the pathfinders that were arrested. Part courtroom drama, part prison break. Hadn't done one of those yet in PFS.
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I have another question regarding gold. This is not about my situation, but just for my education as a GM when calculating gold.
Here is what the mod says after these encounter:
"Rewards: If the PCs fail to defeat Sophini, reduce each PC’s gold earned as follows.
Subtier 5–6: Reduce the gold earned by 973 gp. Out of Subtier: Reduce the gold earned by 1,376 gp. Subtier 8–9: Reduce the gold earned by 1,778 gp."
"Rewards: If the PCs encounter but fail to defeat the ceustodaemons, reduce each PC’s gold earned as follows.
Subtier 5–6: Reduce the gold earned by 350 gp. Out of Subtier: Reduce the gold earned by 612 gp. Subtier 8–9: Reduce the gold earned by 875 gp."
Now if you don't defeat Sophini, it's clear, reduce gold by X. But with the daemons it seems to read that if you face them and don't defeat then reduce. But what if you don't face them? Do you not reduce the gold? Thanks.
