Why do we play what we do?

So, after reading yet another ‘powergamer is ruining my game’ thread on Facebook, I got to thinking about how I play, and why.

I know some in our local Society can find my play disruptive.  While I’m not outgoing, and am definitely not a fast talker, my characters often are.  Some, like Miroslav and Ksenia, are enjoyable for shock value, their ‘fish out of water nature’ is fun to play in a party. (for those of you who don’t follow Pathfinder, while both characters are on the ‘good’ side of the alignment box, the environment they came from is known for its casual inhumanity.  When you’re a great grandchild of THE Baba Yaga, the being who won’t become a god because it would be a demotion, the being who every hundred years comes back and harvests her daughter and grandchildren and plops a new ruler on the throne, you tend to have a ‘skewed’ version of morality) Others, like Shankar and Mayim are my flirty sex on a stick characters.  I save them for adult tables, because their sense of adventure is not appropriate for children.  Still others, like Samiel and Kiril, are the ‘mobsters with hearts of gold.’  I wear a variety of hats as a player, and a few others as a GM.

Now this isn’t what is ‘disruptive’  Despite trying to send a GM to therapy with Mayim, and egged on by another player or three in doing so, I can tone them down.  Usually what some folks find ‘disrupting’ is my non-conventional tactics when the fight breaks out.  I prefer debuffs, trips, disarms, entangle, well I’m known as Tanglefoot Matt for a reason, and buffs like bard song.  Basically, make the party better and the bad guys worse.  For added amusement, I also like spells like murderous command and unnatural lust, depending on the character.  I always have my ConditionCards handy, and have joked about getting the entangled card blown up and printed on a shirt.  Most of my characters are also skill builds, also known as ‘skill monkeys’ so I’m also the one telling them what the bad guys’ weaknesses are.

So yeah, I’m making it more challenging than ‘he hits me, I hit him’ but the reason is above.  I’m making the party better at what they want to do. The player who loves his high damage build, is going to enjoy more that the bad guy is easier to hit, or is coming to him to cop a feel rather than standing back and shooting a bow  The player who loves multiple attacks is going to love the to hit and damage boost from bardsong, as well as that the badguys are easier to hit.  The role player who doesn’t want to use player knowledge is going to be grateful that his character doesn’t have to run through the golf bag of weapons because of my character going. “Just cave its head in with the golf club!”  This also means that I’m not stealing anyone’s spotlight.  Mr. “High damage meele” doesn’t have to worry about my character out punching him.  Miss “I’m the healbot” can heal all the nicks and scratches without me whipping out a wand of cure on my utility belt, I can save that for later.

Aside: I played a game where my slayer (think a stealthy fighter) had higher ranks in knowledge religion than his cleric and Paladin co-adventurers.  When the Paladin of Iomedae (a Lawful Good deity) is fine with you administering the last rites of Lissala (Lawful Evil deity) on the dead people you find, that’s hilarious.

And remember, this is my preferred playstyle.  I’ll have my moment to shine when the skill roles are needed, or when local campaign fluff is needed. (I have a decent memory for game world, lore.  Part of my love of skill monkeys.)  So I’m perfectly happy to let everyone play to their strengths, and help them do so.

I’m also the guy with the utility belt I mentioned above.  Need an alchemical item?  Step right up.  Need a trap disarmed, sure!  Need a door unlocked, yup.  Need the guard distracted while the rest of the party cases the place?  Sure.  Though the method of distraction will vary, from fast talking by Miroslav, to um, other things of Mayim and Shankar.  Need a scroll of control weather when the storm comes up?  Well I don’t normally care one, but the look on the GMs face when I said “I reach for my scroll of control weather” was priceless. (When I said, no, I don’t have one. His reply was “If anyone at this table would, it would be you!”)

Now all that said, it’s also part of my play-style to step aside and let the other skill monkey shine.  Most of my characters can do some decent damage if they have to cut loose.  Samiel is an archerologist (archer archaeologist) and with him buffing himself, the damage he can do is not inconsiderable.  Miroslav and Shankar are both melee fighters if need be, and Ksenia, well, she is a full spell caster, not just a hex casting machine.  I had a GM learn that first hand when I cut loose with her higher-level spells and turned the battlefield into a nightmare for the melee types.  So, My ‘annoying playstyle’ by debuffing, buffing, and skill monkeying, is designed around making everyone else’s time better.  You want me to go up front?  I can, but I’ll let you go first if you don’t mind.

Aside the second, I was playing Shankar in a trap filled scenario.  I went to take out the first trap, and the person playing the ninja said she wanted to.  I stepped back and let her.  She proceeded, through mostly bad dice rolls, to set of every single trap in the scenario she tried.  When we came across the last one, she was worried that she couldn’t disarm it and let me try.  It was at that point she found out that my die modifier was almost twice hers. Trap easily disarmed.  When she asked me why I let her set off all the traps I said “Hey, I don’t step on other players’ toes.  You wanted to be the one to disarm the traps, I’m not going to deny you the die rolls and chance to shine in the spotlight.”

So in closing, I’d ask… What’s your playstyle, and how is it ‘disruptive’?

Playtest II, Rogue Bugaloo

Just got home from playing the Pathfinder 2e playest module “Doomsday Dawn” Since my first playtest was lost to the ether, I figured I’d write my notes while the memories were hot.

Character Creation:  Went much easier this time, building a human rogue rather than a half elven bard. Without having to worry about spells (and the weird not right spell list of the bard) character creation was easy.  I went for two rogue feats, since I felt trap sense was essential (more on that later).

The multiclassing rules, well ‘archetypes’ as they’re called, caught my eye, so rather than build a character for the scenario, I went with a character I'd play through higher levels.  I chose human this time, because of wanting essentially an extra feat.  As a result, I built this character with both intelligence 16 (for the archetype) and dexterity 16 (because he’s a rogue, duh).  The stats ended up being like this.

Strength 12, Dexterity 16, Constitution 12, Intelligence 16, Wisdom 10, Charisma 12

Not ‘optimal’ (by comparison, the iconic Rogue has all 12s except for an 18 dexterity) but enough for my needs.  Next came that Race, er Ancestry feat.  I chose General Training to get feather step.  I then took the street urchin background, as the idea of a kid alone on the streets being taken in by a wizard fit the background I was going for.  Then we went on to class.

Rogue is surprisingly straightforward.  It is the ‘feat and skill monkey’ class, more so than even the bard.  And I love my bards.  With an intelligence of 16, my rogue has 13 skills he can be proficient in. By comparison there are 18 skills in Pathfinder 2e (not counting the subset of lore, which can get rather trivial.)  Add in underworld lore from the background I start at 14 skills.  Wow.  So, having taken all the roguey skills (acrobatics, athletics, craft, deception, diplomacy, intimidation performance, society, stealth and thievery), I moved on to what to do with my three remaining skills.  Well since I was going to multiclass wizard, arcana makes sense. (see below) I added in survival, to help represent the time he lived on the street, and finally Medicine, because why not?  So the only skills my rogue is not trained in are religion, occult, and nature (and all the subsets of lore, he’s not a jeopardy champ).  He’s a city boy after all. 

So now we go on to the class feats.  As I mentioned above, Trap Spotter seemed to be a must.  With traps being more lethal and disarming them a must, I thought the ‘danger sense’ aspect of trap sense was a must have.  That is gives bonuses to disarm and spot traps is even better.  The other first level feats pale in comparison.  Then I get a free ‘skill feat,’  The rogue gets one of these at every level. Going with my “rogue working for a wizard” concept, I took arcane sense, a feat that allows me to detect magic at will.  Again, the idea is that he can break into another wizard’s room and quickly find “the good stuff”. 

I think in some ways ‘feats’ is going to be to Pathfinder 2e what ‘level’ is to old school Dungeons and Dragons (see, this cartoon, for what I mean).  Race, er, ancestry feats, class feats, general feats.  It can be a feat to keep track of which is which.  

I’m of mixed feelings on skill feats. On the one hand they open up new possibilities, like battle medic giving an alternative to magical healing.  On the other, things that were part of a skill in first edition Pathfinder have become feats in second edition.  For example, survival has a section of skill on surviving in the wild, but then the forager feat just means you can do more at higher levels, which you could do in first edition with a simple skill roll.  Not a big deal, but I do worry that feats will come along in the future that make it so things you assumed were always possible, suddenly become impossible without the feat.  A term from the 3.X days of D&D was FSBNBNN “Feats should be nice, but not necessary.”

Equipment is pretty straightforward, hand crossbow, short sword and main gauche as weapons, studded leather armor and thieves tools.  Most all weapons have properties now, and my choice of melee weapons allowed me to add dexterity to damage and add a bonus to my armor class for an action.  I nicked most of my starting kit from the iconic rogue.

Finally, a name.  Having been listening to “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” I named him Tan Staafl.  Voila one complete character to run.

Now for the adventure and game play.

The party ran through part one of Doomsday Dawn, a multipoint module allowing for playtest at low to mid levels.  Our group consisted of my rogue, an iconic cleric, a monk, and a fighter.  With the exception of the iconic cleric, all the other PCs were created by the players (with the help of their parents).  We didn’t use the backgrounds in the module, but if we had, I’d have taken mindquake survivor.

The first combat was the most lethal.  With no darkvision and only one light source, combined with some incredible rolls, knocked most all the party down to single digits.  We made it through, barely, but burned out the cleric’s healing.  Thus, our humbled adventurers headed back to the town to heal.

Combat is much more swingy than first edition.  Between the new level of critical damage, and the new critical rules, a hot streak of rolls can wipe out a party.  Stealth is a must, and darkvision is even better than ever.  For some reason, goblins and dwarves are the only ones to have it.  

Trap sense was well worth it, as the traps in the scenario were picked up by the free perception check.  With healing and other magic being more limited, play smarter, not harder, looks to be the rule for second edition.  Teamwork is going to be your friend.

Initiative is also going to take some getting used to.  Perception is the initiative modifier now, with some situational exceptions.  Since it is a wisdom based skill, it means that clerics and druids will be the faster characters when the fight breaks out.  “Speed of cleric.” Is gone.  

Combat is simple with the ‘three actions and a reaction’ rule.  It also makes fights more challenging for characters like bards and other casters with concentration-based effects.  Concentration is an action to maintain.  So if your bard casts bane, and does bardic performance first round, that’s all three actions.  After that it is two actions, one to maintain inspire courage, one to concentrate on bane.  This leaves a move or attack.  Decisions, decisions.  It makes it more tactical and faster.  Bonuses are rarer now, which is good and bad.  Good in that it simplifies and speeds turns.  Bad in that it is hard to be really good at something. A first level character with +6 to +7 in skills is not unheard of in First Edition, but is impossible in Second.  Makes a first level rogue nervous with only a +3 or 4 to stealth. Skills run on a d20 + level + attribute modifier + proficiency.  Making it a toss up between equal level characters. 

In closing, Pathfinder Second Edition looks, in this beta, to be the difference between a Dodge Charger L-body and a Dodge Charger LX.  They have the same name, and look similar, but have many years of refinements and differences under the hood.  Will Pathfinder Second Edition be an Edsel?  We’ll see.  I’m cautiously optimistic, but still love my First Edition.

The Pathfinder open beta is currently a free download on Paizo.com

Origins and Endings.

Well Origins 2018 is over, now begins the ritual detox from soda (had to tap the Mt. Dew) and regaining of sleep.  To quote Murtaugh “I’m too old for this shit.”  This also looks to be the last Origins for me, unless there are changes.

First and foremost, let me start with the good. 

• ·         The Columbus Convention Center continues to be a great venue.  Spacious, clean and welcoming. I lost my phone (bad) Hyatt security found it (good) and held it for me.  Of course this blew my sleep schedule to hell, and I quickly became one of the walking dead (see above quote)
• ·         Paizo and our local Pathfinder/Starfinder Society continue to do a bang up job of support.  Of course we have several out of state GMs, Venture Officers and others to help run things, but a lot of the set up falls on our local core of people, as well as the breakdown.  Of course without the player base, we’d all have nothing to do.  Also kudos to Crystal Frazier
• ·         The dealer room.  While full of dealers, stores, publishers and other vendors, I didn’t feel crowded or overwhelmed on Friday (Wasn’t there to report on Saturday)  Of course I visited Iron Wind Metals and Catalyst Games.  Very enjoyable meeting, we talked minis at Iron Wind, and economics of scale, which Becca would have enjoyed.  I also cursed Harmony Gold, and wished they die in a dumpster fire.
• ·         Becca and Beth.  For hauling my fat aft back and forth to Origins and the like.

Of course there’s also the bad.

• ·         Paizo.  Seriously guys, what the hell?  We get apparently record breaking tables and you don’t have a booth?  “Oh, you enjoyed the game and want to buy our stuff?  Ummm, I’m sure someone down there will have it, good luck!”
• ·         Timing.  Having Origins on Pride weekend just makes traffic a mess.  Factoring in VP Pence’s visit on top of it… Glad I wasn’t there Saturday (aside, guys he wasn’t there to rain on your rainbow party.  You want to keep calling the first president who was for Gay marriage before he became president, the man who nominated Richard Grenell ambasador to Germany, the man who said he “will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology” (and looks like he means it with Iran) anti-gay.  Go ahead.  I’ll keep laughing at you.)
• ·         Lack of sleep.  Yeah I could have used more.

And then there’s the ugly.  The reason I won’t be going back to Origins, and that Becca didn’t go.

For those of you who understand conventions, there are guests of honor.  This year, Origins invited Larry Correia, a successful writer, gamer, and gun nut who has his own game coming out soon (we couldn’t afford to join the kickstarter.  When the social justice whiners started badmouthing him, John Ward disinvited him.  Note, he didn’t call up the man he invited, nor did he even do his research himself, he just caved. 

Hell, my knee put up more of a fight when it went out from under me and the tendon was shredded.  This isn’t the first time the cowards have shouted down people they don’t like.  ConCarolinas and John Ringo came to an agreement that he wouldn’t come.  Because the people who said that he made them uncomfortable were threatening violence.  Of course at the end of the Con the staff apologized to John Ringo. The same cowards who threatened to disrupt the Con put up a petition to have the management removed, it got as of this writing a measly 107 signatures.  David Weber’s petition for free speech and assembly?  Looks to be closed, but already had 3704 signers, including me, in a week.  That’s 3704 people who put their names where there mouth is.  When David Weber and Eric Flint (and Jim Butcher and Sarah Hoyt and Salena Zito and David Gerrold ….) say you fucked up?  You done fucked up.

I was looking forward to meeting Larry.  So was Becca.  I even have a copy of book one of the Grimnoir here, that I was hoping he’d sign.  Instead, Origins pulled a bait and switch, giving in to cowards.

Another thing to think of.  Those numbers.  107 anonymous signatures, vs 3704 public.  That’s the kind of fuck up they caused.  Not only that the people supporting them outnumber those who don’t 30+ to 1, but those 3704 aren’t afraid to hide.  Aside, I wish I’d seen those numbers before tonight, as I’d have raised them to Tonya Woldridge, when I told her why this was likely my last game.

The reason is all of the above.  Origins dis-invited without warning an award winning author and gamer.  When called out, they double down and said there were threats of behavior as protest.  Larry himself breaks it down here.  It’s all nice and vague “some fans” “disruptive” nothing solid.  And I was there, nothing of the sort happened.  But John Ward basically called me (a fan of Larry, and his work) unwelcome.  Well fine, I’m unwelcome.  I went this year because I’d promised to GM, and, unlike Origins apparently, I honour my commitments.  I did protest.  I proudly wore my Monster Hunter’s International hat and had my Professional Monster Hunters sticker on my laptop.  I didn’t make a scene, I didn’t yell.  Indeed, I met other fans of MHI who recognized my hat and we talked about the books.  I explained calmly that it was my ‘protest hat’ and what I was protesting and why.  My goal of catching a picture of me and John Ward together with my hat on was a goal unfulfilled, but I at least educated some people.  Whether they take action or not I can’t control, but at least they’re aware.

Finally, today, I told Tonya that I enjoyed it as always, but this was my last Origins.  I explained I loved GMing at conventions, stress and all, but I won’t be back.  When she asked why, I tapped my hat, then explained.  I told her what I said above on why I still came at all, but can’t do it again.  I think she was surprised, likely thought I was insane but we left on good terms as far as I can tell.

So that’s it.  I’ll continue to play, I’ll continue to support Paizo, even though they’re way to the left of me as a whole, because I can talk to them.  But Origins?  If they don’t want Larry, if they’re happy that David Weber won’t be accepting any guests of honor positions?  Yeah I look around and I’m in good company.

Matthew C. Morris.

Taking a break from Pazio, not the Society,

I find myself needing to take a break from the Pathfinder Society boards.  The coming changes have stirred up a hornet’s nest of contempt, and seem to have exacerbated other feelings.  I’m taking a break, so I can still enjoy the game.

In the past few weeks I’ve been accused directly and indirectly, of being a bad GM for…

·        Wanting to run new scenarios rather than the same scenario over and over, so I can apply GM credit/gain boons.  Yes, how dare I want to run through scenarios/modules/adventures I’ve bought and paid for to get the full value out of them.

·        Daring to ‘fudge’ a die roll so that a first time player doesn’t get to watch his character die to a lucky roll

·        Not sponsoring a ‘community attitude’.

I’ve been also accused of being a bad player for:

·        Opposing a proposed system that encourages not ‘taking one for the team’ and playing down.  Most annoyingly, by someone who doesn’t go to scenarios/games that ‘don’t interest him’  So I’m a bad guy for showing up and not wanting to play down, but he’s not for just not going at all?

·        Not always GMing to split a table, instead of playing.

Between that and the attitude I see of people arguing from authority that ‘the community’ agrees with them, or saying ‘We feel’… I’m taking a break.  You know what?  I don’t care if you have 5 stars, I don’t care if you started playing RPGs at Gary Gygax’s table.  I don’t care if you’re a writer, a Venture Lieutenant or a Venture Captain.  Your ‘authority’ is exactly the same as mine.  Unless you’ve a mouse in your pocket, or voices in your head, you aren’t speaking for the community.  You’re likely just talking out your aft.

I’ve an emotional interest in Paizo in general, and personal interest in the success of the Society as a community as a whole.  When I got back at the table, playing a 4 hour session exhausted me.  I was rocking forwards and back (a sign that my Social Anxiety is about to hit critical mass) by the end, and I was exhausted the next day.  Now I can take the stress (and it is stressful) of GMing, and run full day events, with little effect.  I’m stronger because of my interactions with the local community, and I’ve met some good people.  I’m looking forward to testing my endurance (and meeting more people) in two months at Origins.

The local community can’t generalize, or marginalize me as part of a faceless group that matches their stereotypes.  They’re real people who interact with me, warts and all, every week.  I don’t want the actions of a loud closed minded minority to drive me away from the real people I’ve met and been to their homes.  People I interact with may not like me, but they don’t like me not some easily dismissed pseudo-real person they can pretend matches their notions, because I make them uncomfortable.

So why am I posting this on the Hermit-blog?  Because I’m not conceited enough to post a long rant on the Paizo site saying why I’m leaving.  This however, is my blog, and I’ll say whatever the frak I want.