Origins 2014 BI Certs – Page 4

This topic has 77 replies, 22 voices, and was last updated 12 years, 2 months ago by frootsnax.

Viewing 15 posts - 46 through 60 (of 78 total)

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July 7, 2014 at 1:18 pm #263795
Anonymous
Inactive
Thanks to Eric Gorman for giving me some perspective. I admit to being a “whiny git” when first hearing about the xp award for this BI. But in the long run IT is the actual experience of the BI that I remember. I played in the first BI (Battle of Semar) and then judged every BI after that. In the new campaign I have elected to play until I feel comfortable enough with the system to judge. I can barely remember what certs I got out these, but boy do I remember what it was like. The battles of Solanos Mor and Enpebyn went a long way to shaping the arc of my main character. I remember the fun of running a APL 2 (yes they were level 1) table of brand new characters at the Battle of Seremas at GenCon. We had a Mourner and an Illirite priest at that table and with good roleplaying and a lot of healing the Mourner decided to join the LLT after the BI. $\":)\"$ I understand and appreciate the desire for reward but in the end if we had fun that’s all that really mattered. And I DID have fun at my table this year. Eric was an excellent judge and we had the “Armand” experience to lighten the mood.
July 7, 2014 at 1:42 pm #263796
Anonymous
Inactive
Just like most of the actual magic items in the campaign, I can’t use my fate point because it is a PoM boon.
Not sure why you are interpreting it this way? Unless it’s for RP reasons, then there’s nothing I can do to help you there. There’s nothing written in the cert as it stands to exempt non-PoM folks (be they Elorii, Kio, or otherwise). Also, I’m not familiar with the other magic items you mentioned (outside of many of the Vault Items) that are restricted to the PoM.
John
July 7, 2014 at 4:56 pm #263808
frootsnax
Participant
…snip…And I DID have fun at my table this year. Eric was an excellent judge and we had the “Armand” experience to lighten the mood.
You guys were a great table! I had a good time judging. The Armand experience is just one part of the Peter Parker experience. Sir Jaeger did a delve and a LARP with Arbelos in the last campaign and I watched Pete’s character dynamite himself in the Scourging of Cornwall LD battle interactive. I knew what was coming! $\":P\"$
The characters ranged from 1.5 to 2.7 which presented challenges to put appropriate challenges in front of the right characters. But you guys rolled well with everything including cut ropes, giants knocking people off bridges and being “elected” to go on the special mission to jail break everyone (which was essentially a 10-11 person table with all sorts of craziness … including a VO). Next time you bump into James Zweirs thank him too for double teamng with me to run that small slice of insanity.
July 7, 2014 at 8:11 pm #263815
Anonymous
Inactive
As one of the people behind the decision (in-as-much that I made suggestions and attempted to pass-along the benefit of past-experience as campaign director), let me explain my thoughts behind my suggestion to limit XP/material rewards.
1. XP. The previous iteration of the campaign (the d20 one, for clarity) suffered some significant problems in the latter years that were side-stepped by the judicious application of GM-fiat hand-waving. Specifically, the ~5 level gap between players who could attend the big shows, and those who could not.
There are two solutions to this: make every event available everywhere OR limit the rewards from playing unique events.
We have tried the former now for a few years, and it has not brought about the type of results we (PCI) are happy with.
2. Material rewards. Honestly, it is my view that this battle, more so than most others we have ever done, needed to have limited material rewards. No side got away from this even remotely unscathed. For those who didn’t hear, the battle was effectively a stalemate and the final ‘victory’ was not won by a sizable margin. Yes, there may be tons of spare weapons etc lying around, but few armies can afford to equip their stock soldiers in anything except normal quality gear.
In short, while some BIs / events are likely to give significant materials rewards, they do need to reflect the reality of the result of the event.
3. Time played / money spent.
I definitely commiserate with people on these points. I personally understand the investment that people make in attending Origins. However, when it comes to single-run events, it is also my view that simply being there (assuming it meets the ‘fun’ test) is some level of reward.
As stated previously, I, and PCI as a whole, do intend to learn from the lessons that were made obvious to us this year. In general, if you ever feel that you are not having a good time (ie, something has failed the ‘fun’ test), do feel free to let someone on the campaign staff, or any PCI member, know (whether by email, forum PM or even just walking up to one of us at a convention and telling us). Without hearing back, we cannot change.
Some have tried to compare with the delve from last year’s Origins. That is another of those mistakes (perhaps?); my intent when I wrote/ran it was that it would eventually get released for home play. Rewards were designed to be in-line with that.
July 7, 2014 at 8:49 pm #263817
Anonymous
Inactive
I understand the reasoning for keeping xp low for con-exclusive events and I support it.
The only two things I’m unclear on:
Why did the Vault of Larissa give out good xp and good (depending on how you look at the mostly cursed items) rewards? That was only a few months ago. It seems like the xp policy change would have made far more sense to implement then (or to make retroactive). As I said, I don’t mind the xp reduction but I do mind that it was not in effect for ArcaniCon (which I was unable to attend at the last minute) but was in effect for Origins when the cons were so close together.[/*:m]
Why wouldn’t the Khan give out better rewards for the BI? The victory was narrow but the story was that without us “irregulars”, the battle surely would have been lost. Given that, I would expect a kingdom to give a generous reward (honestly, 2Gc doesn’t seem like much at this point looking at how much I need to buy anything useful). This may be just me not understanding something in the story (I’ve only played a little under half of the arc 2 mods) but it seems odd. If we had actually lost the BI, I would expect minimal material rewards.[/*:m]

July 7, 2014 at 10:28 pm #263825

Anonymous

Inactive

I am beginning to understand the balancing act PCI is performing with XP and keeping the tiers of play as close as possible. I think there are other issues that need addressed at the same time to help with this, but that is outside the scope of the BI discussion.

That said, I think there are many ways to give ‘rewards’ that aren’t monetary, that aren’t ‘one use’ and that keep the flavor of the overall event intact. I’ve given some suggestions to PCI and I know they are having a lot of discussions around this. I look forward to seeing what’s coming.

John

July 7, 2014 at 11:55 pm #263828

Anonymous

Inactive

I think there are many ways to give ‘rewards’ that aren’t monetary, that aren’t ‘one use’ and that keep the flavor of the overall event intact.

I know that Tony has said that there are plans to make the Fame/Reputation system useful in the near future, so perhaps a component of the reward for the BI could be reputation with Tultipet/First City. I would think this would be a logical result of the PC’s participation in such a battle.

July 8, 2014 at 3:47 am #263838

Anonymous

Inactive

Okay I grant that there wouldn’t be a lot to scrounge at Tultipet, that’s trying to get blood out of a stone (no pun intended). But given we saved the First City from invasion perhaps they could cough up something. As I mentioned earlier it doesn’t have to be lots of gold or magic or even xp. I’d be cool with a title, some fame, maybe a medal. All these keep the con goers and non con goers roughly in line xp wise. And titles, medals and such don’t cost the First City all that much unless there are some tangible assets attached. My character for one would love having the title “Defender of the First City” having at this point saved the city twice (both BIs). Maybe induction into a group. Again nothing that provides xp or any benefit in combat/magic. Sort of like getting knighted without a fiefdom to back it up. Just my two cents.

July 8, 2014 at 4:11 am #263839

Anonymous

Inactive

For me, the big take-away of this discussion is that, ahem, to paraphrase, action have consequences. Decisions made by campaign staff encourage certain behaviors and discourage others. So, perhaps one way to approach the issues is to consider what behaviors PCI does want to encourage among the player base.

To address just the main issue raised here:

— To encourage players to come to the big cons: offer exclusives with commensurate (whatever that means) rewards.
— To keep the con-goer PCs relatively equals to non-con-goer PCs: don’t offer con-only exclusives, or severely limit rewards for them (and here, I mean not just XP; once the XP “playing field” is leveled, the next issue will be that non-con-goer PCs don’t have as much money, magic, fate as the con-goers.)

Just some thoughts and speculation.

Obviously, the first step is to determine what behavior you want, and only then figure out what changes will accomplish that goal.

July 8, 2014 at 5:30 pm #263841

Anonymous

Inactive

I am new to forums, and can’t seem to find a way to send you a PM.
My email was just restored on the evening of July 7th (it’s been out since June 28th). I have not received my 2014 BI cert. Please tell me what to do.

D. Stephen Raymond

July 8, 2014 at 7:20 pm #263844

Anonymous

Inactive

You need to have 5 posts (iirc) to send PMs.

July 11, 2014 at 3:00 am #263902

Anonymous

Inactive

I also don’t see what any of the above has to do with rewards at the end of the experience. The real reward was the experience. Saying the value of the experience is based on the numbers on your cert is a disservice to the men and women who judged the BI and the writers and map makers who organized it all.

Although I am sure there are many others who do as well, I need to say thank you, Eric, for “getting it” and saying so.
Matt, I respectfully disagree that what Eric said is strictly “getting it”. While I agree the experience of being at the Con and participating in the events is enriching and ‘worth the trip’, those “numbers on your cert” factor in to the specific experience of the characters at the table. MY XP was seeing people I generally only see once a year, interacting with them, hanging out and having a great time. That I freely admit and agree that I had ‘a great time’ during the Con is a service to the men and women that judged and staffed The Gathering. All of that is irrespective of the number on the cert.

The number on the cert is a measure of the character’s XP. We invaded a Dwaren freakin’ Enclave – sure it wasn’t exactly Solanis Mor…but it is STILL the kind of thing that’s only happened, what, twice in the history of Onara. That’s the kind of thing songs, fables, poems, and ballads are written about. That’s the kind of thing the characters will say “do you remember where you were when…” and will answer “yeah, I was leading the charge of my squad, taking the far bridge…where the hell were YOU”.

To put the numbers in perspective… BEAST lost 100xp in the first module (very wrongly, we feel, because we weren’t frakin’ grave robbers, but that’s a complaint for another time). Two standard module, run-of-the-mill fights equaled 100xp. That’s the same amount of XP granted by a freakin’ BATTLE INTERACTIVE. Using the metric established by the first mod of the Con, that 100xp was earned halfway through the second round.

So my question is, and will continue to be, where the Hades is my character’s xp for the last however-many-and-a-half rounds?!

Look, I get the desire to not have the huge gap between the Con goers and those that play the campaign at home, I really do. And it’s even a noble idea… But darn it all… We’ve had the new system for, what, 4-5 years now… And in that entire time, the absolute largest gap between someone that’s attended every Con and someone that’s never attended a Con is exactly 2 ranks. We’re not even talking those two ranks being the difference between X.10 and (x+1).01, so one cannot even suggest that the tier difference could cause an imbalance. The imbalance is between those that play all released mods and those that don’t (likely those that started at 1.5 and have only done the second arc).

2 ranks…in 5 years… Color me unimpressed by this supposed imbalance. So flat out, mathematically, the argument “we don’t want a huge gap between attendees and home gamers” just doesn’t hold any water…at all…

July 11, 2014 at 3:27 am #263904

Anonymous

Inactive

I think your calculations are off by just a bit. If it is 2 ranks in the last 5 years, I can’t say and it is irrelevant. Going forward, there will be one con-exclusive event at ArcaniCon and Origins each year. That equates to 1 rank per year at the old xp levels. And that’s not counting LARPs or other special events. 2 ranks is noticeable but not huge. I do think the xp needs to be kept down for con-exclusive events. However, personally I think the biggest “xp gap” is due to the 1.5 cert being a 1.5 cert (playing through the 1.5-cert-illegal Crusade mods gave a lot more than 4000 xp).

July 11, 2014 at 3:30 am #263905

Anonymous

Inactive

You guys might wanna let it ride and wait for an official response, Tony indicated a good while back that the feedback was heard and he would be endeavoring to fix that, you might actually wanna give the campaign a chance to fix it instead of running the topic into the ground.

July 11, 2014 at 4:01 am #263906

Anonymous

Inactive

I think your calculations are off by just a bit.
You are correct. I forgot that the BI for the first ArcanisCon wasn’t released.

To date the only exclusives have been:
A Peaceful Interlude (500xp) – GenCon BI just after the end of the crusade
Expedition of…something or another (750xp max, only 1 table got this I think) – Origins 2013
Green In Tooth & Claw (500xp) – ArcanisCon ’13 BI
Vault of Larissa (650xp) – ArcanisCon ’14
Origins ’14 BI (100xp)

Still, 2.5 ranks difference between “played absolutely everything” and “played everything but Con exclusives” over 5 years isn’t a lot. Mind, I am not counting the 5 XP per LARPs.

Also, has it been confirmed that there will be exclusives at GenCon in addition to Origins or were you assuming Origins + ArcanisCon?

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