Origins 2014 BI Certs

My math may be off but it would take 28 mods/events at 350 xp average to jump a Tier in a year, given a Tier is 10000xp.

I meant rank in that instance

Just to be clear, if I attend a major con like Origins, and play as I did, two hard points, a soft point and a BI, I would expect to average about 1000 xp for my trouble (about 250 per event). To me that seems fair. Others may differ.

Let me chime in as someone who will likely never go to a Con. I appreciate that PCI is trying to not let those who are fortunate enough to be able to make them don’t get too far ahead of the rest of us who just can’t go. I do think that those going to the event and spending the time have a right to be upset over the rewards being so drastically different without notice. They deserve a unique and special reward for attending exclusive events, but those rewards should be in a form that reflects them being part of the story itself.

If the campaign staff is going to stick with the changes moving forward they need to make sure it is known that the XP will be reduced. They also need to have some very nice toys for those players who are committed enough to be able to go to these events. I think they should get things like land grants (possible providing some kind of income), titles, non-combat equipment (a loyal servant, carriage, etc), and other oddities (say for the elemental BI they were infused with an element and can serve as a source of that element a number of times a day).

I’m going to agree with my Cajun Country buddy here. I don’t mind reduced xp if it’s announced in advance and balanced with some cool bling. Doesn’t even have to have an effect in combat or help out casting. Something along the lines of the Useful Item certs we got for the Kickstarter campaign. A title like “Defender of the First City” would be something Haakon would value greatly. Other characters may want something else so a checklist of things would probably make sense. Maybe a reduced rate to get a rune placed for example. Or an upgrade to an item we got in one of the hard points leading up to the BI (trying to avoid spoilers here ). Some nifty thing from the Khan’s armory perhaps. Just some of the ideas I came up with in the last few minutes. Any or all of these could help lessen the sting of the reduced xp award. I assume the campaign staff is already in discussions over this sort of thing.

After more thought, I would “vote” to keep the xp at 100 but to give more other rewards (body rune, khan’s armory, item upgrade, title with effect, etc).

Part of the problem is likely the poor communication around the xp reduction. I heard about it at Origins prior to the BI but others did not (100 was much better than the 0 I heard mentioned as a possibility).

The special Fate point is interesting but is a little underwhelming as one time use (but would be vastly over-powered if it was usable once per adventure).

Adding to archangel’s points:

I didn’t go to Origins. I wanted to go, Amanda wanted to go, but travelling 3,200 km is difficult to do on a rather short budget. I know there are dozens–if not hundreds–of Arcanis players in a similar situation as myself just in North America (let alone places like Australia!) who cannot attend these very few events every year. To us, these BI’s and LARPs might as well be equivalent to the special tables that Henry ran this year at Origins which we will never get a chance to ever play again (MAYBE as a print product at some nebulous point in the future). From this point of view, there is more than a little amount of irritation towards those who get to have, or can afford to have, these experiences. Irrational? Sure, but also very human.

As a writer of adventures–or, at least an enthusiastic dabbler in writing–I am not a huge keener on the idea of one group of players being as much as half a tier ahead of another group who has played for equal amounts of time. You can’t really help writing for new groups of players because we WANT lower-tier people to join, but having EQUALLY experienced people so far apart really messes with the mechanics of writing an adventure.

Speaking as me personally, I generally agree with PCI that exclusive events that shall never be played again should not get the equivalent as TWO adventures in XP. I made a similar point with James Zwiers’ special delve at Origins ’13 (which I did attend) and how much XP was given out for that adventure. Speaking as myself, as someone who would prefer a more balanced XP between Con and Home players, I would treat this BI as NO MORE than a Soft Point for XP. After all, Hard Points are designed to be the main story which everyone should play in order to know what is going on. Soft Points are adventures which PCI releases more or less for fun and to fill the gap between the Hard Point Storyline. BI’s fall into the middle in that they are major story events, but are not something that everyone should play. As such, I would vote treating them and all other ‘exclusive tables’ as Soft Points in terms of XP.

As far as balancing out rewards, I personally would want something neat that I can not get in a normal storyline, but much of the fancy stuff that you would get in the Forged in Magic book may be too powerful to give out. I personally don’t agree with this, especially if you limit the selection like was found in “Desecration”. That said, I REALLY like the BI rewards for the first ArcaniCon BI: A limited term boost to the player’s Stamina and a ghost flower which serves no purpose. These are tangible benefits (at least the first one), but not game breaking and short-term in how long they will actually last.

Possible suggestions as to what PCI can do? Well, I haven’t seen the BI cert, so I don’t really know what this Fate Point can do. I’d personally say “You gain an additional Fate Point to your per/adventure Fate Score for 5 adventures after this cert.” It has a tanigble benefit in game, but is not overpowering as it doesn’t give them an ability or power nobody else has, merely more of what they already have. Failing that, give them a magic item such as the Ssethric Ring from “Visions of Lives Past”: Powerful items, but with a limited number of ‘charges’ on it.

Anyway, my perspective on the matter.

“to be part of the story” – that’s my ‘reward’ for attending the convention in the first place and playing a Con exclusive, otherwise why wouldn’t I just play everything at home? Bottom line – this should be a ‘given’ and not factored into the BI reward.

Yes and no. A lot of people couldn’t afford or get the special Henry run tables that BEAST participated in. The experience of being able to do something that those who couldn’t be there is part of the reward. Arguably the rest of the reward for participating should be somehow connected to the event.

The special tables aren’t really part of this discussion, as it is entirely focused on the BI. However, it was suggested going into the special table that we would not receive XP. In fact, most of us assumed going in that we wouldn’t get *anything* at all due to the scope of the story. All we asked for was a chance to learn new lore and have an affect on the world we live in. Any items, blessings, curses, xp, whatever…well that would just be gravy. For my $300 to sit at the table, I got exactly what I was expecting and hoping for – and I haven’t even gotten a cert yet. The BI is an entirely different animal. Any attempt to compare the two is akin to comparing apples to 747’s.

storylines (in the standard mods) that were incredibly ‘meh’ to my S’sressen table (BEAST)
The storylines are what they are, and the Ss’ressen aren’t central to the stories being told this time around. In a home campaign the GM can tailor the adventure for the characters. There are a variety of very interesting character builds out there that aren’t going to have an obvious hook into every mod. If you choose to play a character concept that isn’t likely to have a strong tie to the main story, there’s nothing wrong with that. BEAST is a neat idea. When you expect the central story to engage everyone equally even those characters that are more off the beaten track, that’s when you have a problem. It’s a choice.

No one at all is suggesting Ss’ressens are central, hell I’m not even stating they’re important. My point was that we sat at the first table and it was all political in-fighting this and backstabbing that. As a special forces squad, BEAST couldn’t have given two poops about what was going on. It was pink-ish skins backbiting, lying, cheating, and generally being humans – that ultimately had almost nothing to do with Milandir, thus even less to do with the Black Talon.

There’s always a mod that comes along where the character (and/or the player) simply doesn’t care about the plot or reasoning. At a home game, sure, it’s easy to say “nah, I’m going to sit this one out”, but at a con…playing the game is the entire reason for being there in the first place. Why in Hades would anyone say “you know, I paid a lot to come to this con, then paid for the badge, then paid for the slot…but the plot just doesn’t interest me, I’ll see you guys in a few hours”!? Doesn’t happen – at least that I’ve ever heard of. You slog through, you rationalize that somehow you care about more than the XP (and maybe loot) you’re going to get at the end, but in the end…you still don’t really care. You get the cert, add in the XP, and hope in the next mod there’s more of a hook for your character. I’m not whining, I’m not complaining…I’m simply stating that other than XP, there was no reason for any member of BEAST to bother with the first mod, yet it would have been pretty stupid for any of us to sit out.

campaign wide “gritty rules” that may likely kill my characters (spending multiple advancements into defenses alone does not fit said characters, thus I refuse to do it)

Ok, this argument has worn itself out for me. You wouldn’t take a character who’s Mute to a RP intensive mod that might have no combat and expect it to necessarily be fun. Likewise a battle interactive is a battle interactive. It’s combat intensive. It’s risky. Characters that are fragile for whatever reason are going to have problems. Nothing requires you to bring that particular character into the BI. You could build a combat intensive character who primarily only plays BIs and who shines there. It could still be designed to fit into BEAST or whatever theme a group has. That way you as the player don’t miss out and increase your enjoyment of the experience. If it’s critical to play the same character through everything, then the character should be designed to function reasonably well in BIs and standard mods. If it’s not then you have a disconnect you need to fix.

The key thing with my sniper is you have to see him to hit him (or use AoE where you think he is). His hide is typically in the mid to high 30’s. So it works GREAT. But… When the GM nerfs/disallows something specifically in the rules that completely gimps my character’s ability to hide, THEN I have a serious disconnect. Tick 1 (first Tick 1) of the round at the BI with all of those bridges and groups of crossbowmen my character took 4 wounds (and was down), not a single one because of a crit…all because Pedro said I couldn’t use one of my Talents and hide. Ask Flynn, my sniper is a beast (no pun intended), but when you have an entire squad of minions targeting a single character, something’s going to give. Keep in mind that unlike every other Ss’ressen, Ghost Scale get almost no AR. Additionally, to use all of my talents which help me hide – you know, those talents Pedro said I couldn’t use – require that the character not where ANY ARMOR. So the entire BI I was double whammied, which was just awesome. Replace those talents I couldn’t use with defenses and sure, I wouldn’t be complaining about ‘gritty rules’ either. As for my second character, he’s a lover, not a fighter – which is why his ass stays out of BIs.

I’ve played or run 3 mods since Origins. All using the massive damage rules. Wounds have happened on rare occasion, but they certainly haven’t threatened the lives of the characters. There may be specific mods that are more deadly, but as a general rule I don’t think this is as much of a concern as most people think. For reference my character has defenses of 20/18/19 at 2.2 with Fortitude being my weakest.
And in how many of those modules have you had entire squads of minions unloading with their best attacks on a single character?