There is a difference between "challenging" and "frustrating"

     I first ran into people not quite understanding how to properly challenge their charges while I was in elementary school.  There were two teachers who ran the program for gifted (in the good way, not in the Midvale School way) children, NOVA.  Aside from the issues with gender inequality – they believed that girls were disadvantaged by traditional education methods, so their solution was to actively and purposely disadvantage the boys in their classes – they really had one major screw up.  While making the material covered more challenging was the right thing to do, they also decided to be much harsher in their grading.
     Not that there is anything wrong with tougher standards.  It is not irresponsible to tell children that they shouldn't be aiming for the 70% mark to get by.  Never mind that a C average would get a student booted out of the program, and even flirting with a low B led to some encouragement to migrate back to an existence with the normals.  Those were the standards, and even though we didn't know what they were going in, they were pretty regular.
     The problem was what it took to get that solid B average.  Many of us are used to the soft and easy break down of 90/80/70/60 percent for the floors of A/B/C/D grades.  It allows for an easy concept of how one is expected to perform.  In NOVA, the break down was a little different.  The As ranged from 100-96, Bs from 95-88, Cs from 87-78, and Ds from 77-70.  Now those aren't equal spreads, but I guess there is nothing that says they have to be.
     So, NOVA had tougher material and higher expectations in terms of performance in regards to grading.  That just makes for a challenging experience; you can make your own decisions as to whether or not that is a good thing for 8 year olds.  But these teachers also decided that they needed to be hypercritical when it came to grading and testing.  The multiple choice tests had between 8 and 10 possible answers, and the students received credit only if they picked the answer that best fit the expectations of the teachers (usually 5 of the choices were correct to some degree).  The essay tests (starting in third grade) demanded that the imposed format of topic sentence, supporting sentences, conclusion be used in every paragraph.  If a sentence were deemed to not be on point within the paragraph, that was 5% off right there.  Same for every spelling or punctuation error.
     Throw in the fact that neither of these women liked me (and said so to both me as a child and to my mother while they were trying to get my brother and I kicked out of the program despite our good performance), and I never really felt like I was being challenged by NOVA.  It was challenging, but I was just frustrated.  I was punished for my inability to spell – something with which I still struggle – and not allowed any degree of creativity in building my written arguments.  I wasn't rewarded for having a better understanding – as I saw it – than the teachers when I selected the answers that didn't need unstated qualifications (that they thought were implied in the questions).  It was a fight, all the time, and it did much to ruin any fun I had in school.
     And that lasted until about 2001.  Well, if I am going to be honest it will endure in some degree forever.  I have a general mistrust of teachers because of these women – the worse of the two has been reduced to teaching computer savvy students how to use outdated school computers at St. Christina School (3333 W 110th Street, Chicago, IL) – and, I would guess, that my similar distrust of women in general springs from the same source.  (So, for those who were so eager to blame someone I didn't meet until the fall of 1991, I suggest that you may be wrong.  Ask her.  I'm sure she'd agree that she is blameless.)
     Anyway...
     One should never have a goal of frustrating people unless the desired result is to drive them away.  Challenging them is different.  In the endeavors we willingly take on, most of us like a challenge.  If it all comes too easy, we tend to get bored and move on to something else.  If it doesn't come at all, we'll just quit.  And we are right when we do so.
     I see a fair amount of RPG scenarios where the writers can't seem to make the distinction between frustrating players and challenging their characters.  Sometimes this is because they just don't understand the mechanics of the game.  Henry Lopez was a textbook offender of this when he put together a non-combat encounter  for his Living Arcanis mod "Sibling Rivalry" where every PC needed to be able to scale a 200 foot tall cliff.  Not in a, if we take a lot of time when can mitigate the difficulty for characters that don't do a great job of climbing.  No, it was a every character needs to make this check that needs to challenge good climbers.  Run as written, this encounter should kill PCs.  It should leave entire groups sitting at the base, unable to go on.  While that may be somewhat realistic, it isn't what players are looking for.
     More recently, I and my fellow players suffered through Kyle Baird's Pathfinder Society Organized Play scenario The Rats of Round Mountain—Part I: The Sundered Path (#3-20).  The author had a completely different understanding of the rules than those who have played the scenario; this is never a good sign.  The result in a combat encounter which essentially runs as all of the players can make some guesses and maybe not be able to hit while the NPCs can do lots of damage to the PCs.  Not fun.  Not even for the GM running it.
     This is not the first time that PFS has embraced the frustrating over challenging mindset.  Sometimes it is because the GM isn't running it correctly (those little creatures aren't supposed to be invisible throughout the encounter, DG), but more often it was because somebody couldn't tell the difference between challenging and frustrating.  Having to defeat a really tough bad guy?  Challenging.  Having to make more than 10 Fort saves in a scenario or pick up the plague?  Frustrating.  Needing to find a way to accomplish some tasks without resorting to combat?  Challenging?  Having all of the roleplaying elements of a sessions mean nothing because the investigation cannot reveal anything?  Frustrating.
     We want challenges.  But we expect to succeed in them.  We want to think that there is a chance of failure, a real chance, because it is that perceived risk that makes the success matter.  Now, I don't think any of us wanted failure to be an actual option in elementary school (and that is not something we really willingly enter).  And we would probably like for work to have a much greater chance of reward than real risk, since without it we may go hungry and be without shelter.
     When it comes to hobbies, we want our successes to mean something.  We want the frustrations to be minor, ones than can be overcome by a better understanding of the technique or situation at hand.  It is why we don't stick with playing miniature golf or wiffle ball as adult hobbies.  It is why – if we are being serious – we don't try to learn to play a musical instrument without some form of assistance or aid.
     I guess I am one of those people who frustrates far many more than I simply challenge.  I would apologize, but that seems like a lot of work; I'd have to track down people who I would just assume have forgotten about me.  So, I have something to work on.  But nobody is really adopting me as a hobby, so they all have the option of just walking away.  I like my time spent playing RPGs.  I just wish that the people who took the time to write the material had a better understanding of the difference between challenging and frustrating.

How Not to Abuse the Rules as a GM

This is the image I use for Kiara, my Arcane Monk (meaning she is mostly Wizard with a few levels of Monk).  She and I (since she is really just an alter-ego that allows me to experience dangerous adventures in Paizo's setting of Golarion) had a rather unsatisfactory experience in her final time being played.  And I blame the GM who didn't know how to properly cheat.

     If there is anything I have learned about cheating at roleplaying games (RPGs) – and let's not assumed that I have, or that what I have learned is worthwhile – it is that it is best left to the person running the game (the Game Master, or GM).  And the only reason to engage in cheating is to make sure that everybody gets to have a good time.  One of my fundamental assumptions – repeatedly proven wrong over this past weekend – is that people want their player characters (PCs), their in-game alter-egos, to succeed after being significantly challenged.  I would prefer that the players have some vested interest in story, and in integrating their PCs into the world, but since the PC has to overcome challenges (not all of them all of the time), I know that successes matter.
     Now, the game I played and judged (was the GM of) this past weekend was Pathfinder.  It is, like it or not, the true heir to the legacy of Dungeons & Dragons that WoTC threw away when they introduced 4th Edition.  I have been playing RPGs – starting with the Basic Rules set of D&D – for almost 30 years; longer if I consider playing with no understanding of the rules.  But rules are actually important.  They shouldn't be paramount, because there are the concerns of story and character and player investment, but in an Organized Play (OP) environment, rules are damn near the top of the list.
     Not that everybody needs to know every rule.  Not that anybody need to know every rule.  There is a reason we carry the books around.  Actually, these days most of the referencing is done on tablets (for access of the pdfs of the rulebooks) or on smart phones (for the website that has almost all of the rules material).  We need access to those rules.  Some of us are gracious in our ignorance, and others are fat pieces of shit who I will sooner see die then ever realize that their partially informed opinions – the same way most of the rest of us formulate opinions – are not universal truths. 
     As a player, I know not to cheat.  Hell, I don't want to.  I do want to avoid having bad things happen to my characters.  I don't want them to be killed, or robbed, or imprisoned, or raped, or any of the other unsavory things that can happen to real people (and the chances for the aforementioned possible consequences drastically increase if the PCs are adventurers).  But I see the easiest way to put the odds in my PCs' favor is to minimize the risk as much as I can, and that is just play style.  I also try to make sure that my PCs have utility, that they can do several different things (though not as well as any character that chose to specialize in them).  It means that I don't spend a lot of time wondering when the fight is going to happen so I can finally do something.  I prefer the stuff that isn't combat.  Not everybody is like that.
     The aforementioned fat piece of shit (and I'm sure in about a week's time I'll regret repeatedly referring to him as a fat piece of shit, but at least I'm not calling him or her out by name as a fat piece of shit) decided that the adventure he was running for us, the players, was too easy.  Fine.  Those of us who GM in an OP setting have been there.  Lots of players want to crack their PCs out, usually for combat.  Hell, combat is the only true measure of success in OP, so those of us who don't so it are just harming ourselves (or looking for some degree of challenge to be left in the combat encounters).  But he increased the difficulties of the encounters to counteract the combat ability of two PCs in such a way that those PCs were the only ones who could meaningfully contribute to the battles.
     That is how to be a bad GM.  It is a prime example of how not to abuse the rules.  All GMs want to feel that what they are doing matters to the players.  Players want to think that the actions of their PCs matter (though this isn't all that likely in OP sessions).  Often, players aggravate the GMs by not paying attention and having silly table talk, bullshitting with each other until it is time to roll dice.  And we should feel bad about that.  But the GM doesn't just want attention because he or she is there.  The GM wants attention because the actions of the beings he controls (the NPCs and monsters and such) present some degree of risk and challenge to the PCs. 
     The FPoS decided that one encounter had to be against a monster with an AC 41, SR 27 (maybe...we never surpassed it to know for sure, but the mechanics of it would be right), over 300 HP (all of that is meaningful if you know the system; the short version is that the monster was tough).  Our party consisted of 10th and 11th level PCs.  To put this in perspective, none of the PCs had an AC over 40 (my Arcane Monk did get her's up to 38 for this combat), none of us had SR (spell resistance), and none of us had more than 120 HP.  The monster could deliver over 70 points of damage in a single hit, and since it was attacking with better than +30 to hit (meaning that it would hit my Arcane Monk with a 60% frequency and come close to killing her on the first attack, with five more to follow that same round).  The only PCs who could fight it were the ones who were making a joke of all the other combats – the giant Robot and the dainty Archer (with his suspect dice that consistently rolled in the 17-20 range all weekend). 
     Everyone else was fucked.  And we knew it.  It didn't make the combat more exciting (the chance of losing does that to some degree, but knowing there is nothing a PC can do means that there is less reason to pay attention....like politics in Chicago).  But FPoS sat in his chair chuckling like he had found the way to bring balance to the game.
     As someone who frequently cheats as a GM, I can assure him that he did it incorrectly.  When the PCs who are built to break the game are doing just that, the GM needs to introduce elements that slow down and hamper the (usually combat) successes of those PCs.  Someone's archer is killing everything on the battlefield?  What if all the bad guys could deflect those arrows (by ability or spell), at least for a short while?  The other PCs now get to step up and help out.  The raging barbarian/ultimate fighter/giant robot is killing every NPC with a single hit?  Why not have the bad guys steal his or her (or its) weapon (even if the bad guys normally wouldn't have a chance in hell of succeeding)?  The the battle beast of a PC has to come up with a new tactic and the rest of the party gets involved.
     Maybe it is just laziness, but I think it points to a fundamental misunderstanding of how to break the rules for the good of everyone.  I first encountered people doing it the wrong way when Carl Hewelt decided to make a Living Arcanis module more difficult for us because my Barbarian/Fighter was killing everything.  The end result was the only PC who could do anything meaningful in combat was my Barbarian/Fighter.  He pissed off the other players because he was trying to show me that my PC could be made less effective, and he didn't even do that.  I think that there has to be a misreading of the situation where these GMs think that since they have to increase the difficulty of the scenario, they should only let the PCs who made that necessary (?) succeed from that point forward.
     I don't know if the players I GM for know when I am cheating.  I think they have a notion, sometimes, but they often seem surprised by the fact afterwards.  With experiences like the one the FPoS put together, everyone at the table knew right away.  And I think we all would have been fine with it had the FPoS found a way to make it a more equitable experience.  But if you are too single minded to see anyone else's opinion on anything, I guess you are not likely to consider whether or not they see the general experience the same way as you.  And the FPoS is of the belief that he can make the most effective combat builds out there, so his attempts to frustrate those who are combat monsters may have been a qualified success, but it also shows how little he understands the game.

Learn the Rules

I think I am going to put this out as a table tent in front of me when I GM from now on.  As much as it may apply to me at times, I do make an effort.  And I know I don't avoid learning the rules in an effort to get away with things.

     Something happened on Monday that upset me.  Not a lot, but enough to tweak my enjoyment of judging a Pathfinder Society Scenario (read: being the Game Master for an roleplaying game, in this instance Paizo's organized campaign for Pathfinder).  And because I wasn't aware of the issue until we were about 40 minutes into the session, I didn't want to cause a scene and call the offending player out.
     Most of the players had 4th level characters (with one having a 5th level), so nobody was new to the campaign or the system.  In fact, I am nearly positive that all the players at the table had been to the Monday night games at Chicagoland Games before.  As such, I was not expecting any kind of problem.
     Now, I have gotten a little lazy in my attitude towards Pathfinder Society play.  I don't always update my records right away, I don't closely follow the ongoing story, and I don't dig through the rules to find all of the combinations the players are sure to want to abuse so they can play the most powerful version of their characters as possible.  But where I have truly gotten lazy is in how I handle the players before the session starts, probably because after eight years of judging organized play I have begun to think that experienced players should be responsible enough to play the game without cheating.  Or, if they feel the need to cheat, they will at least cheat on dice rolls and not the basics of the rules.
     Then there was the player with the 4th level Cleric.
     I had judged him before, a couple of months ago.  I remember him not really knowing the rules, which was okay at the time.  We are trying to get new players to show up – both because we want more people to help grow the campaign and because we want them to buy stuff from the store that lets us use the space – and that means that some people will start playing without really looking at the rulebook.  Fine.  He had problems with some of the core things about his character, but they were corrected as we played the scenario.  At the end, I very politely suggested that he go over the few areas about which he seemed to be completely unfamiliar.
     I didn't think that would necessarily solve the problem, but I thought it would be a step in the right direction.  Lo and behold, he shows up for the Monday session with the same character and proceeds to make even more egregious mistakes in regards to his character.  And I want to be clear I am not slamming somebody's play style.  Sure, it bothered me that he wanted no roleplaying, just roll playing (meaning that he just wanted to roll the dice for everything his character did), but because he seems to have come to Pathfinder through online play, I kind of expected that.  No, this player consistently misunderstood nearly every rule in regards to his character.
     He didn't want to memorize his character's spells ('I can just cast anything on my spell list, right?').  He wanted to add his character level to his channeling.  He wanted to roll the wrong dice for his channeling.  He would stop the action to look up a spell description on his phone (which does happen, but he waited until it was his turn to even start the search and that would stop the game dead for at least a minute), but he only did that a few times.  Not carrying around a rulebook (or a printed copy of his spells), he seems to have opted to keep his spellcasting to a minimum.  Again, that can be a fine play choice but he could have helped his fellow players by actually being familiar with what his character could do.
     And I don't mean as a 4th level Cleric.  I mean as any type of Cleric.  Or spellcaster in PFS. 
     I corrected him on his belief that he could spontaneously cast his spells (which I had done before), but he continued in his belief that he did not need to prepare his spells or make a spell list.  He got a little frustrated that he couldn't do whatever he wanted (I think this had as much to do with him wanting a more combat focused experience and I was trying to gives as much RP time as possible, so he may have had some legitimate frustration with my style).  But he has a 4th level character.  That means he must have played him – because I'm pretty sure he hasn't been judging – at least nine times.  To be fair, that is about five times too many to have any uncertainties on the basics of the rules, and at least three sessions too many to not know the basics of what his character can do (you know, by the actual rules).
      It pissed me off.  I was already in a bad mood because I forgot to pack a book for my train rides to and from the game (meaning I missed out on over two hours of reading I could have accomplished), but that anger was directed at myself.  I was hoping that the players would be able to give me as good an experience as I was planning on giving them.  I like to think at least three of the five players honestly enjoyed the session.  I enjoyed a lot of it.  But not the guy who shows up to play the game without any regards to playing by the rules.
     I can stand a small amount of cheating.  I don't view it as all that different from the people who try to min-max the hell out their PCs to get the best advantages they can find.  But cheating usually means having an understanding of the rules one wants to find a way to get around.  I respect that a whole hell of a lot more than showing up without knowing what one is doing in what is essentially a session not for beginners.  I see that as wasting my time and being discourteous to the other players.
     Just learn the rules, man.

Okay, I know it is in the Star Wars alphabet, but I think it conveys the thought just as well.

Gaming in Different Systems (to break up routine and keep the game fresh)

I came across this really cool picture and I just can't find the personality for the character to play him.  The rules about the character seem to be getting in the way.  When that happens, I usually know to spend some time with other game systems to break my focus on the crunch and get back to roleplaying the characters.

     I don't think I am going to write anything deep or intrinsically meaningful (nothing groundbreaking, that is for sure) on the topic of why roleplaying gamers tend to play multiple games using multiple systems.  I'll leave that to anyone who wants to dedicate more than a few minutes thought to the subject.  It is something that happens, however, and I do wonder why.  Why don't these gamers – of which I am one – stick with one system?
     As far as this applies to me, I guess that part of the reason is that I have no desire to master a system.  I am not, nor do I think have ever been, looking for a way to game the system.  I don't want to get bogged down in the minutiae of the rules, the deep crunch that some enclaves of gamers dive right into, looking for a way to win at character creation or power combinations.  I want to be able to play, and in most instances to be capable of running the game (if needed).  But I still think the second rule should be to enjoy myself (behind the first rule – don't ruin anyone else's good time – and slightly ahead of the third rule – don't cheat unless you are the GM), and I usually don't happily read more into the rules than what I need to accomplish that.
     There is a danger of sticking too long to a single system, though.  Eventually, those little facets of the rules that I could avoid start springing up.  Worse – and this is the situation in which I find myself – characters start to seem less like organic beings who grow and evolve over the course of play (yes, I am generally that reckless when it comes to anticipating character progression – a topic I have briefly covered before) and things to be optimized or trickerated (read: made to have many minor tricks that, in combination, amount to increased utility and abilities beyond standard or optimized builds).  The characters stop having personality and become little more than the information on the sheet.  And that is just boring to me.

TMNT & Other Strangeness is one of my favorite RPGs – though also one that demands an adolescent mindset and indulgence in comic book sensibilities – but also one that lends itself to wholesale abuse of the system to make the best character one can make to win the game through combat.

     This is a problem I first encountered when playing Palladium games in the late 1980s and early 1990s.  I was much more into TMNT & Other Strangeness (1985) and Heroes Unlimited (Revised) (1987) than Rifts (1990) or The Palladium Fantasy Roleplaying Game (1984).  On of the commonalities between TMNT and HU is that powers and abilities were things to be added to the base character.  Eventually rolling up characters on the random chart becomes less interesting than figuring out which combinations could yield the best payoff (often in combat).  There were animals (for TMNT) and power categories (for HU) that just weren't worth it when looked at in terms of what's best?, and when I realized I had reached that point, I started playing different systems again.

For some reason, 2nd Edition felt more mature and demanded more focus be on the characters than on the game mechanics and monsters to be defeated than 1st Edition.  (Ironically, the campaigns I played using the Basic/Expert editions were always more strongly focused on roleplaying and interaction than on combat.)

     I got back into AD&D (which had a 2nd Edition by that point).  I played the occasional game of GURPS.  I broke up the RPG sessions with Car Wars (the 1985 Deluxe Edition and then 1989's Third Edition) and BattleTech (1984).  Sure, BattleTech lent itself to trying to make the perfect combat 'Mech, but before the Clans and 3050 tech was introduced the game really relied on sound strategy and executed tactical maneuvers.  AD&D 2nd Ed. demanded – or so we thought – a more serious approach to the game world and to the character (seriously, check out the difference in how much text is dedicated to Alignment in the 1st Edition and 2nd Edition PHBs.  This worked out rather well until TSR introduced the Complete Handbooks and my group quickly devolved into figuring out the best way to make a character.  It was time for a new system.
     I kicked around the MechWarrior RPG 2nd Edition (1991) and some GURPs (1986). I tried Fudge (1992) but found it too abstract for my purposes.  My cousin tried to get me interested in RoleMaster but I prefer the rules-light, setting specific Middle-Earth Roleplaying Game (1984) and gave it a few months of play.  Eventually I fell back into AD&D 2nd Ed., but that was short lived as we – as a group – came to discover Vampire: The Masquerade (2nd Edition) (1992).  Vampire led to the other White Wolf games and it wasn't a little more than two years before the entire enterprise was back to looking like a bunch of dots on the page.  The characters who started these campaigns – Demius Bloodclaw in the Dragonlance AD&D campaign and Richard Talisman in the Vampire chronicle, both run by Jeff Bergman – shone so much brighter as beings with whom I shared time and gave voice than those toward the end.

God bless the two gentlemen who ran HârnMaster at the conventions where I played it.  There commitment to the game allowed me to play about 20 sessions without ever having to buy a book for it (though I did have some of the supplements by the end).  I think my time with this game cost me (all cost factored in) about $3 per session, and that seemed expensive at the time.  HârnMaster had the kind of customization that AD&D had lacked, but since D&D 3E allowed it...goodbye HârnMaster.

     I had a brief flirtation with HârnMaster 2nd Edition (1996) and played Star Wars d6 2nd Edition Revised and Expanded (1996) as ways to stay active with RPGs.  I ran Vampire and Werewolf: The Apocalypse 2nd Edition (1994) as needed but was losing interest in them.  Then Dungeons & Dragons 3E (2000) came out and I was all excited about playing D&D again.  The game had been made new, but it was familiar enough to allow me to dive right back in.  The break from it allowed me to be excited about the characters and stories all over again.
     However, I find myself playing only Pathfinder these days (and only the Organized Play scenarios and modules).  I have six character that I have played – Daenaris, Hymibi Jymbo, Kiara, Bellarius D'Nassi, Jenissa Halvarek, and Hedda Gørsyn – and one yet to be played (Aeoki Hyrushi, the character who is supposed to go with the picture at the beginning of the post).  I find myself having a hard time being invested when a character may only be played two or three times a year, but it is even worse when the rules seem to take over the experience. 
     I don't feel any strong need to get involved in different games, but I know that throwing different systems into the mix helps break up the desire to look at the roleplaying experience as something that can be won by making a better, more powerful, more resource-laden character.  In previous experiences, one of the things that changing systems did was expose me to new and different people.  I already get a steady stream – perhaps too much – of that with PFS. 
     I know people who purposely plan short campaigns as a way to keep things fresh.  One of the things this allows is to let the duties of GMing be shared (OP accomplishes this much differently), but it also means that the players will likely move on to a new game before anyone has felt the need to figure out how to make the best character they can.  It keeps the focus on the roleplaying and the characters have to be found and defined quickly because they won't be around forever [Talisman was played for almost three years, Mistocles Sardis (Living Arcanis) was played for six years, and Daenaris was first played on 11/27/09].  I don't think that is what I want to do, but changing things up with different systems – on occasion – is usually a good idea.

Stuffed COWS '11

     I find it hard to motivate myself to write a full post about anything in the wake of spending 34 hours running and playing Pathfinder Society Organized Play at Stuffed COWS – a local gaming convention hosted at the College of DuPage for (I believe) 13 years now.  That is much longer than my involvement with it, but I have been a regular for a few years now.  I started as a die-hard Arcanis player, but when that world changed rules systems, I was more interested in sticking with something similar to v3.5 than the (mostly) well developed world of Onara.
     So I am just posting this as a kind of filler.  It also seemed to make sense to write about this as soon as possible – The Descendants (2011) can wait a day or two.  Sorry if anyone was expecting something insightful today.
     I had a good time at the convention.  Two players told me that I ran the best table at which they played – at least up to the point they told me – and I felt good because I went out of my way to make sure I could manage the challenge for the PCs without risking it being a death trap.  None of the players who blitzed through an earlier scenario (under two and a half hours) seemed upset about having a lot of extra time on their hands; I did everything I could to make the experience memorable because of what they had their characters choose to do to overcome minor obstacles.  Yes, I felt very self-conscious running a scenario with a player who had already run it for me (he knows where I'm changing the mod or breaking rules on-the-fly), but I think the table enjoyed it and nobody told me I was doing it wrong.

I can across this picture and had to make a character for it.  The end result is Hedda Gørsyn, an Andoren Magus (Kensai)/Bard (Arcane Duelist) who is – at present – all utility, no AC, and little HP.   I just had a better sense of character for her than I did for the Tian Oracle, so it was another female character (and now they outnumber the males).

     I only was able to play three scenarios – this the curse of going up to Wisconsin to do Pathfinder at DCV (see The RPG Table Tent at Work and Play and The Problem Player at the Con posts).  My weredragon got to assert that she is the Sewer Dragon of Absalom.  I got to play a sadistic, but not unintelligent, goblin sneak-thief.  And I got to break out a new character – and had to choose a faction at the table – who was so far out of her element that it was scary.  Actually, that table didn't sit particularly well with me.  There was a teenager who brought real immaturity to the table (not the adult immaturity to which I have become accustomed), and I really don't care for that.  There was a revisit of the theme of a player demanding that all of the spotlight falls on him and not playing well with others (still not me), and of leaving my underpowered PC to fend for herself.

This is a modified piece by Adam Majka with the Pathfinder logo under it.  I used a different version in one of the table tents I brought for players.  I like how this image came out so much, but I wasn't going to drain the ink on the color printer to print it out.

     I got to see some of the table tents I designed in use with other players.  I got to take some pictures of other tents in use.  I was told I won over one player to the use of the table tent, and another commented on how he had shared my laments with a certain bad player with some friends.  I was just really stoked to know that they had ever read anything on the blog.
     I actually didn't hear much in the way of complaining this year.  But the attendance was well beneath where I would have liked to see it.  I think the high water mark was running 10 tables in a slot.  Four years ago it would have been around 18, which means another 40-50 players.  It worked out for making it easier to organize, but I missed the bustle a little.  I did get to see people I have not seen in quite some time (including a pair of brothers who I just assumed weren't gaming any more), and that was cool.
      Here are some pictures I took.  I know that nothing about them conveys the fun or the action we experience while playing PFS.  Sorry about that.

Timothy Bailey's tent for Dr. Wogglebug.  I saw him in action multiple times.

Timothy Bailey's tent for Huang-Fu Zheng.  I did not see him in action.

Hawthorne Candlewood, Jenissa Halvarek (the weredragon), and Dr. Wogglebug after defeating an opponent in Sewer Dragons of Absalom.  Tim Tjarks did an awesome job judging us.

Two witches, a barbarian/oracle, and my magus/bard escorting some goblins (the Snapple lid represents the cage that one of the goblins was put in). 

The table tent and character sheet I used for Hedda's first time being played.  I completely forgot that she would be 2nd level before she actually saw action.  But a second level (no BAB) character like her should not have been thrown to the wolves in a 4-5 tier.  I blame the witches.

   

Pathfinder Tents

     Just threw a couple of tents together to stand in for the standard fill-it-in-yourself (which these still require) table tents for PFS (or most any FRPG) play.   I have a 33 page pdf file (3 tent faces to a page, top face is the same throughout) with 67 different looks.  Now, should I acknowledge that I'm not going to print out the full file for the upcoming convention – and not just because I don't want to drain the color from the printer – and that they are not going to replace the more basic tents that have been in service for over a decade?
     If you have never been to this blog before, I have a few previous posts on the table tent (The RGG Table Tent and Me, The RGG Table Tent at Work and Play, and The Non-RPG Table Tent), and am hoping that this will be my last regarding them in a long while.

This one was done specially for COWS conventions.  Hence the COWS logo and  dancing cows.  Also managed to throw a Pathfinder Society logo in there.

At no point does any of the text change (though I had to reposition it for a few of the ones I did).  Figured this does as good a job of advertising PFS play as the downloadable tents from Paizo.

I did one for each of the factions (secrecy be damned, I guess).  For some reason, when I look at a bunch of these one after another, they look like bank deposit forms to me.

The alternate version of the Osirion tent.  For some reason I really like this graphic more than the standard one.  My great thanks to whoever made it.

No, I can't think of a situation in PFS play where a PC is going to look like this.  But it is a cool looking picture and I wanted to use it.

Playing a pregen?  Or maybe you just really like the artwork for the iconics (they are recognizable enough that their images promote the game)?  Then have I got the table tent for you.

Another image that just screamed out to have a character made to match it.  If I were making this into a PC, it would have to be a Chelaxian (proto Hell Knight).

Along the same lines, this would be that Silver Crusade character I'm probably not going to make. I get a paladin vibe from this.

Maybe you have the mini that goes with this picture (I've seen it in play).  At least it shows that I made some tents for male PCs.

Ever wonder how all of the bad guys can immediately recognize your PC as a Pathfinder?  Maybe it is because you went and put a Wayfinder on your table tent.

Want a tent that you can color yourself?  Or maybe you just need something that says guy with a sword because you haven't fleshed out the rest of the concept.  Well, here you go.

What if your ninja is male?  Or you just want a more dynamic shot for a ninja-type character?  That is why I put this one together (on the same page with just the regular ninja).

The RPG Table Tent at Work and Play

     Well, it wasn't all getting frustrated and aggravated by Kalus (which I apparently misspelled anyway) at DCV '12 in West Allis, WI.  There was lots of fun to be had both as a player and a judge.  Sure, there was the familiar problem that seems to come with any RPG system that allows for a great deal of variance in building a character – things that your character do are "broken" and "pure cheese" (largely because they are powers/tactics that the person making the accusation wouldn't use), but everything that their characters do (which may be more unbalanced in terms of game mechanics) is just responsible character construction.  But I have long ago discovered that letting people make their characters the way they want and play up to those strengths (and maybe even cheat a little) is more conducive to a good time than having a confrontation over it.  Besides, as a GM/judge, I have no problem stepping up the challenge with some added minions – that would have killed the most broken party of PCs I have ever seen without breaking a sweat – or a thematically cool device (the negative energy cannon, and I think it needs to make it into a mod).  I do know that I'm not allowed to kill PCs with the added things, but if there was never any threat of character death to begin with, then I don't think I've violated the spirit of the game.
     But I took the opportunity during the convention to snap some shots (with the godawful camera built into the phone) of the table tent in action.  I'm also going to add some shots from a previous convention and two taken here just to round things out.  Anyway, my hope is that this acts as a nice companion piece to the post about table tents and also to the one about the problem player at the convention.  Mostly pictures today, people.  Hope you enjoy them.

This is one of the two pictures taken from home (and this was taken with an actual camera, so almost all of the others look much worse than this).  Kiara is my Arcane Monk (Wizard with evasion).  I've updated her tent with the less obviously stolen image, the right Armor Class (though she did an entire combat at 36), her faction, the symbol of her homeland, height, weight, and hair and eye color.  Kiara is my second favorite PFS character, right behind Daenaris, my 12th level Horizon Walker.  She saw play a couple of times at DCV.

This is the table tent for Hal "the Headache", a halfling slinger who fought from atop a wolf.  The character was almost as dangerous as the archer, and not just because he could move a good distance each round and still take all of his attacks.  Hal also didn't rely on a variety of energy damage, just did something like d6+18 damage per sling stone.  Hal was played by Rick Starzinski.  I don't know if the picture does justice to just how small this table tent was (like a 3"x5" index card torn in half, then folded), but it was still largely effective.

This is the standard fill-it-in-yourself COWS Gamers table tent, created by Brad Ruby.  They are freely available at the two COWS conventions (CodCon and Stuffed COWS).  Sporting one is an easy way for someone to identify you as a Chicago area player.  This one belongs to Tod Hurlbert (who likely listed his RPGA number instead of Paizo/PFS number).  This tent conveys a lot of information and Tod has fantastically clear handwriting.  We had a really odd party when I played with Friar 'Bug', but those Fighter levels didn't put him on the front line.  That ended up being the job of my Arcane Monk (think Wizard with evasion).

This is Heidi Deville-Clarke's table tent for Emestra.  It is a folded index card.  But it conveys the character's name, deity, race, and class.  It also does not take up an inordinate amount of space.  Emestra was part of the same party as 'Friar Bug', but had worse luck in terms of her lot in our one tough fight. 

Anthony (Tony) is a character from a 'family' where each PC's first name starts with the next letter of the alphabet.  I immediately – and I hope good-naturedly – wondered aloud why the player (Jeremy Feist) hadn't gone with something more fantasy like Andreas, Anders, or Anton.  This table tent had the character's name, the equipment that can identify him (many GM's will ask what kind of armor and/or weapon the character has in order for the NPCs to make informed attacks).  In my mind, Tony had a Southside (of Chicago) accent and would start every conversation with the phrase, "Let me tell you something, my friend"  –  but only in my mind.

This unfortunately blurry photo is of Keith Korzeniowski's character, Numak.  This table tent is just as last minute as the rest from the Saturday morning session of Tide of Morning, but instead of listing equipment, Keith kept it simple and just went with character name, race, class, and then player name (clearly different because it is beneath the line, something I think this group of players has incorporated into their tents).

Want simple?  Ingrid Sakrison's tent for Lirryn Holt (I consistently pronounced this as though the first syllable was stressed, and that was wrong) just lists PC name and player name.

As we can see in the background of this photo the source of all the table tents, multicolor spiral-bound index cards.  For Arath, Rick adds the Yellow Sign.

Another full-on blurry photo, but this is the real life table tent for Faragone Tymne (played by Brad Ruby).  The modified, electronic version can be seen here.  This was Faragone's last session, and it was good to be able to play with him again (as Faragone and Kiara – my Arcane Monk – started about the same time and were made to compliment one another).

Frank Naughton's table tent for Niruuk, a half-orc Barbarian/Sorcerer.  This is a prime example of the last minute table tent, but it let me know who (by sight) was playing Niruuk.  This was at the table with Kalus, but Niruuk was good at combat and Frank was a good guy with which to game.

This is my table tent for Jenissa Halvarek, my weredragon (or, by the rules, Synthesist).  You may notice that I don't put my name on my table tents, but I have started adding my Pathfinder Society number.  So, I included character name, race, class (actually, archetype), nationality, primary skill, AC (both with and without the eidolon), her faction symbol (though I made it red), her deity's unholy symbol, her region's symbol, height, weight, and hair & eye color.  I also have an image for her, though it is kind of dark and not especially clear when viewed from more than a few feet away.  In the background of this picture (directly above the picture of Jenissa) is the table tent for Kalus, which is just the standard fill-it-in-yourself available from Paizo.

The ultimate in minimalism, Jack Schierer's tent for Wilbur is 100% character name.  But it did its job just as well as any of the more involved ones.  Jack was one of the players at the session of The Ghenett Manor Gauntlet, where Kalus was a constant hindrance.  Both, however, were in danger of becoming sponges.

 

Here is my table tent for Bellarius D'Nassi, who got some quick upgrades to make him ready for a dangerous challenge.  Hence the need to write in his alternate ACs (he spend most of the mod at 23, as he needed to wield his weapon in both hands to overcome damage reduction).  But for one bright shining moment, he had an AC of 32.  Bellarius is not a particularly strong character in terms of what he can do (he can fight a little, he can cast a few spells, and he can channel positive energy to heal people or injure undead and evil outsiders), but he looked like a Greek God when compared to Kalus.

Tim Bailey's table tent uses the same symbol for the Osirion faction that I use on my tracking sheet for Hymibi Jymbo.  Like I noted the first time I wrote about the table tent, there are players who include only one in-game stat: Charisma.  Still, I like the style of Khalfani Lisimba's tent.  As our arcane caster, Khalfani was quite helpful in The Ghenett Manor.  He was equally effective beating on things as a Barbarian. 

Not a table tent.  This was the first combat from the Pathfinder mod where Kalus abandoned the party.  This picture was taken, amazingly enough, as Kalus was moving his character (that is his hand on the miniature) out of combat and into an entirely different encounter.  The rest of the party was left to fight the combat by themselves, though it is very likely that Kalus would not have been able to do much other than provide flank or act as another target.  Frank (Niruuk) was stuck next to Kalus in the previous session, and he didn't make that mistake twice.  If you haven't read the previous post, then this may seem a little out of place.

This is a table tent from an LFR (D&D 4E) table.  Clearly, Brian Klement likes his table tents to be a little more like mine than the last minute ones.  Of course, this really resembles the old Dragonfire Signs tents more than anything, save that it is in color and it can be written upon.

From the same LFR table, we have Chez McDoodle's Entourage.  I'm sure this has some meaning, but I just liked the fun spirit behind it.  Also in the picture is the useful effects type of tent, in this case noting that all the player characters have a +1 Power Bonus to Attack and +3 to Damage.

Unfortunately blurry, Watto Watto's card is all kinds of awesome.  You have the picture, the pun (Murder, Inc. for the Crow-like Kenku), the slogan, and the miscellaneous information needed to identify the character and player.

Another effects tent.  I don't really know 4E rules, but that +7 Psychic Damage seems a little high.  On the other hand, nobody at the table is going to feign ignorance as to the ongoing effect.  In the background is the front of the Chez McDoodle tent.

This is actually from CodCon '12.  There is a dangerous combat going on (it all looks so stagnant in photos), but in the upper right hand corner the effects card for the Bardic Performance can be seen.  It is a good way to be reminded that you have a better chance to hit and do more damage.

Not everyone believes in the table tent.  While I and the player to my left had table tents mine is pretty obvious (if facing the other players and not the camera) and the other is mostly obscured by the Coke can.  The rest of the table felt no need for them.  Don't remember is this was from Stuffed COWS '11 or CodCon '12.

The Problem Player at the Con

     No, this short little piece is not about me.  While I am sure that there are people out there who would view me as a type of problem player – I have been accused of hijacking tables and dominating the roleplaying, but I've never bigfooted other players out of doing something they wanted to do or tried to make sure that all eyes were on me – I am of the opinion that I am more or less responsible when it comes to not mucking about with the enjoyment of the other players at the table.  The exception to this I will readily acknowledge is when a player tries to rules lawyer me as a GM/Judge (incidentally, always incorrectly) because they always want their tricks to work and how dare anything stand in the way of their character's awesomeness.  The point being, I take the idea of people getting together to game and have fun as a mildly serious responsibility, and I know it is my job not to fuck that up for anyone.
     Then there is the problem player.

This, incidentally, actually is the problem player in question.  I found this picture of him (from 2007) playing a different game system, one that apparently required him to dress up Muttley.

     This guy – and to be fair, I was warned about him before I was saddled with playing two mods (roleplaying game session or adventure if you have gotten this far and don't know RPG Gamer culture and terms) with him on Sunday – is the epitome of everything that is often thought wrong of gamers.  He is belligerent.  He has no discernible knowledge of social graces.  It was though someone had placed a sugar-addled seven year old in an old man's unwashed body and made us endure him for ten hours.
     But being a jerk isn't really enough to make one a problem player.  After all, the overbearing can sometimes stumble across the necessary solutions or save the day with a properly deployed spell or attack or negotiation.  They may want a little more credit than what is due, or restate what another player has just said with the conviction that they, just then, were the first person to make the suggestion, but they still have a sense of being a part of the group, a team member.  The problem player – and this one specifically – did not abide by the rule that RPG play is an inherently pro-social endeavor.
     This has all been so vague, and I want to vent on the actual things that set me off.  Even though I have his actual photograph here (and tomorrow's post will likely link the alias I'll use here with him), I am going to refer to him by his player character's name, Kalus.  I hope this will not lead to greater confusion.

1.  As we were beginning our morning session (starting almost 30 minutes late), Kalus interrupted each player's description of their respective characters to tell everyone more about Kalus-the-character.  More than half of the people at the table had experience playing with Kalus and the character before the convention, but he still felt a need to make the regular practice of, 'my character's name is [insert name here], looks like or is wearing [insert description here], and generally does [insert party role, however creatively, here]' into an attempt to have everyone envy how great Kalus (and Kalus-the-character) is.
2. As our group of seven players (six responsible people and Kalus) is trying to get information about what is happening in the adventure – or characters are called into HQ in the very early morning because of some crises, but if we don't pry for information, we won't know anything about what we are supposed to do – Kalus takes every opportunity to ask ridiculous or completely unrelated questions when the GM was trying to respond to an individual player, speaking over the only person who can give the players the information needed to get the story moving forward.  The only way to stop this conduct was to engage Kalus in a discussion of his character, which leads to the next point.
3. Kalus may have been playing Kalus-the-character for some time (at least twelve different times, but most likely closer to twenty), he had little to no actual grasp on the rules specific to that character, and a very weak grasp on the basic rules governing the game – Pathfinder.  Within two minutes of this attempt to keep him from destroying everyone's good time (not sure why I decided to sacrifice mine so quickly, but I guess it would be ruined by him one way or the other, so why not try to jump on that grenade, such as it were), I identified four errors he had made in describing how his character did things, by the rules.  I don't like arguing rules, ever, but I like people having at least a concept of them that is related to the ones published in the books.
4. When we reached our first point of investigation, Kalus decided to have his character go off and do something by himself (this would be a recurring theme; it is the primary area where I feel comfortable labeling him as a problem player and not a player with problems), but still insisted that he should be able to dictate our actions as well – on a different floor of the structure we were investigating.  Now, stupid me, I took him at his word when he described his Rogue – a character class that deals sneak attack damage in certain combat situations – as combat capable.  When the first combat happened, I included him in the limited group of character's I could haste (give an extra attack and a bonus to avoid being hit).  He promptly proceeded to do little damage and complain that he had to risk being hit.
5. In this first combat, my character was targeted by a spell that made her flee in terror from the being we were fighting.  Kalus decided that this was a personal failing of mine, that I rolled a d20 and received a result so low that when added to my save (ability to reduce or negate the effect) and ended up affected.  Incidentally, as players, we fully expect the NPCs (minions and villains under the control of the Game Master or GM) to fail similar saves.  The game actually presumes that both player characters and NPCs will be affected by spells and effects.  More on this later.   
6. At the conclusion of the first combat, our group had some spoils of war.  Kalus decided that his character was going to take possession of all but one of the captured items, even though the rest of the players decided to divide the useful items among the player characters.  Kalus kept declaring that he had everything, and loudly, to the point of the GM saying fine, your character has all those items.  This caused a problem later when the player seated to my right, Howard Black, needed a captured item to improve his character's chance to be effective in combat (and had otherwise had it except for Kalus' protests that everything had to run through him), and set him up to do nothing for a combat.  Not many players enjoy that.
7. Kalus' disruptive, needy (he honestly wanted as much attention as anyone would give him, but thought that his character was at least half the party), and largely ineffectual play led to our first session running long.  As Howard was going to run the second session which I was playing, I made plans to go and grab some food and return so that we wouldn't be further delayed.  When we returned, Kalus came over to us and charged that we hadn't told him we were going for food (which was true).  If he had known, he would have given us an order for what he wanted (there was no mention of whether he intended to pay for that; the traditional discussion of someone you don't really know getting food for you usually starts with, 'If I gave you a few bucks, would you mind getting something for me while you are there?').  This prompted me to tell him that I assumed that as an adult, he had the ability to get food for himself.  I still think I'm right about the sentiment behind that statement, I know that I said it in a way that could leave no doubt that I didn't want to have anything to do with him except for being slotted into the same sessions at a convention.
8. As the group of players assembled for the second session, there was some debate as to what level of difficulty we should attempt.  Knowing my character (a different one from the very effective one I ran in the first session, though the one from the second absolutely can make saves), I stated my preference for the less difficult option (which assumes character levels 5-6) and not the more difficult (assumes character levels 8-9).  At the moment the character was 8th level.  Kalus, playing the same character, insists that he is confident in taking on the harder option.  Said character was 6th level.  The other players agreed that they wanted to try the bigger challenge, so I had to apply a chronicle that added another level to my character just to give him a chance to survive (or so I thought, but it definitely helped the party).
9. Our characters were ordered to be polite and not steal or destroy any property if we could avoid it.  Kalus decided that he thought this was stupid, and the fact that the rest of the players disagreed with him didn't matter to him.  He was caught trying to steal an item and Howard, being the word of God as far as the game at the table is concerned, told him his character had to put it back.  Kalus decided this wasn't the case and continued to try to distract everyone with talk of the item he still had and was going to steal.
10. When we encountered the first combat, Kalus fled.  He went to what amounted to a different encounter.  Granted, I would have handled this differently than Howard did – I would have told Kalus that he was out of play until the combat was over and then his character could be addressed, but I think Howard thought he would come back to help everyone else in combat.  So, there was Kalus, insisting that he be allowed to go and do an encounter by himself and either make us wait for him or at least be given equal time as the rest of the players combined.  The irony of it all is that Kalus-the-character would have been nearly useless in combat and had no ability to avoid being hit.
11. Our next combat encounter had a wicked Lovecraftian monster that had the ability to, for lack of a better term, turn characters into sponges (like the animal or the synthetic cleaning implement).  This monster attacked Kalus-the-character and lo and behold, he gets all sponge-ified.  There are saves he can make to get rid of this effect, but Kalus has great difficulty making them (apparently, when he can't make a save, that is not a failure of designing his character or choosing a proper level of challenge, but of the situation being unfair, which is what Kalus protested repeatedly).  Howard straight out told him that if wouldn't make the rolls for the saves, he may as well just leave.
12. There are various other instances of Kalus metagaming (using knowledge the player has but the character would have no way of knowing), but they pale in comparison to the assault that was his personality.  It was just so off-putting.

     Now I feel better for venting.  And Kalus has made my list of people with whom I will never game with again (joining Nicole Rubins and Joel Fischoff), which is quite an accomplishment in and of itself.  But Kalus has done more than that.  He has earned the distinction of becoming either my least favorite person or most unfavorite person – I haven't settled on the terminology yet – replacing Ingrid Baksys (who I am sure has not had a single thought even remotely related to me in seventeen years, and to be fair, I don't know that I have had reason to think of her in any capacity but twice over the last decade).  She, perhaps unintentionally, made some attempts to undermine a rather dear friendship I had (with Jamie Best, who incidentally knew more about the damning evidence suggesting that I was "crazy" than Ingrid did, as Jamie was there when the incident that prompted the crazy to happen and then was informed as to what the "crazy" was, in surprising detail the very next day, which was three days before the recipient of the crazy did), and I felt – and still fell – okay about holding a grudge over that.  It is entirely possible that Ingrid is a good and decent person and that I am unfairly characterizing her from one incident close to twenty years ago.  I certainly had less interaction with her over the year she and I had a class together in high school than I did in one day with Kalus, so the responsible thing for me to do would be to vacate any and all ill feeling I have about the event that prompted me to put her atop my list.
     And, to get around to musing on a point, what is to be done with people like Kalus at a convention?  They have paid their money to get in and play, so the organizers are not going to be in a hurry to turn them away (everybody wants the money).  There are people there who know and have relationships with him (and such is often the case), and they have become used to the abusive behavior which makes him, for lack of a better term, a fun-vampire (one who sucks the fun out of a situation, not a vampire with which it is fun to interact or observe).  I know that I'm not allowed to assault them (and I don't want to, for the most part), but they can't grasp the social cues that let them know that they are not appreciated.
     It makes me long for a stable group of players I like and trust with whom I could play in a home campaign.  I'm not going to give up convention play – I like playing with new people, old acquaintances, and friends in varying mixes at each session.  But I think I have had as much as I am ever going to take from the problem players.