The Crapification of Organized Play - Unavoidable?

[Bone Mote]

Meh.

I've played only the LG, LFR, and PFS Organized Play campaigns. Anything before that is out of my reality.

I don't begrudge the right of publishers the right to make money off their organized play systems but I think there is an inherent problem with publisher themselves running Organized Play campaigns...they just can't help themselves from ruining them.

Let's start with LFR, built on 4e. Yeah, some people love 4e, some people hated 4e, and, imho, 4e could have managed a decent and long lasting Organized Play campaign. Sadly, it failed...not because 4e was a system that needed adjusting to work for an Organized Play environment, but because the LFR 'leadership' team refused to take the necessary steps to restrict access and parts of the 4e game from the LFR campaign.

Wut?

Yeah.

When 4e started, it was amazing. Our local gaming group had 10 tables running...it was just the Player's Handbook and everything was great. People came in and played their butts off...we had the core races and everything was mostly good.

However, over time, WotC started releasing crappy, unplaytested, unerrata'd book after crappy, unplaytested, unerrata'd Dragon magazine article. It started to crapify mightily. When errata did get released, full character builds were being torn apart by errata. Characters died to decision paralysis (by their players) under the weight of new content.

The LFR judge pool was the first to go. No GM delights in knowing but 1% of the game's rules/feats/powers/options. There were just too many things to know. And no judge wants to run the same mod for the same replayer again and again. No judge likes being farmed.

And WotC (or the feckless admins who promoted the crap) demanded that LFR use skill challenges in every mod...despite feedback about how silly they were and how much they killed roleplaying and were a factor in driving players away. But WotC needed to sell product...so skill challenges stayed.

And because WotC wanted to sell their crap, they instituted stupid rules like unlimited retraining (which breaks a core principle of getting players to actually care about their characters) and ridiculous race options (bugbears? gnolls?...in a 'heroic' campaign) and ever expanding ridiculous content (insert your pet peeve here) just so they could sell the crap.

The crapification eventually led to a lot of people leaving LFR...sure there were other reasons too...but as content built up and judges and players (except for the true believers, the hardcore) could no longer assimilate and enjoy the game without realizing how little they knew/understood, the game started to collapse.

The same feckless LFR admins instituted rules to allow players to create higher level characters so that players would have more reason to buy their crap. Sadly, this hits against a core principle of OP: that characters need to earn their levels. More players left.

But I'm sure WotC saw their product sell...*sigh*

Now, we can look at the Pathfinder Society...and we see the same pattern emerging. The crapification has begun.

Back in the good ol' days, it was simple: you had the core rulebook, the APG, and Seeker of Secrets...and life was good. You hated the Summoner, but you could deal with it...maybe.

Then Ultimate Magic was released...and the Magus and Synth Summoner came and shat upon the PFS game. (In particular, the Synth leads to more stupid and broken builds than anything.)

You: Wut? Why is this an issue?

Me: Well, in PFS, all content is almost immediately available to players...even though much of the content is overpowered for an Organized Play environment. In a home game, it's easy for a GM to say "Hells no, no Master Summoners in my game." In PFS, there are no such restrictions. Everything sees play. And this breeds the worst sort of min/maxing, munchkin, scenario destroying (PFS GMs are not allowed to change scenarios), attention hogging players in the game. They can do *anything* because it's legal. ANYTHING.

Then Ultimate Combat came out...with a plethora of more crappy, untested, unerrata'd content.

And let's not forget the other content that has been added over the last year: ALMOST EVERY CONTENT BOOK THAT PAIZO has published.

Yep. Crapified.

All this untested, unmitigated crap is going to kill the PFS campaign too. Sadly, Paizo feels that they need to sell product at any cost....even at the cost of slowly dragging their campaign to the depths. Oh...and the power creep! Let's not forget about that.

An Organized Play campaign lives and dies on the back of their judges...and if judges can't/won't judge because they just can't learn about all the content out there AND can't adjust scenarios to match their players...then they are going to flee. And the more casual players are going to flee when they realize that they don't know or understand all the crap that is out there.

No PFS GM delights in not knowing 1% of the available options/feats/classes, etc., AND can't adjust the scenario to challenge their players. And so Paizo treads down the path of LFR before it....

So, tell me, people....what do you think?

Can an Organized Play system run by the company last? Or are we doomed to failed campaigns because companies can't help themselves?

-BoneMote

 

[Loonook]

So, tell me, people....what do you think?

Can an Organized Play system run by the company last? Or are we doomed to failed campaigns because companies can't help themselves?

-BoneMote

Your post really doesn't offer any sort of clues to possible fixes and just seems to go meh and be angry.

WOTC is the perfect savior of the Living X groups because, well, they have plenty of experience.

Let us look at WOTC's biggest brand: Magic the Gathering. It is approaching its 20th birthday, has an arguably larger effect on Wizard's bottom line than anything D&D has done in quite some time... But what does MTG have to do with this?

THIS

This probably doesn't mean anything to you at all unless you have played Magic in any tourney format. Living Greyhawk had a Banned List but it wasn't very in-depth or affecting. Living FR 3.x had the same, but again... We could just not care .

Banned lists, restrictions, errata are important to organized play when you have several hundred items coming out every couple of months.

Sort of like Magic .

Slainte,

-Loonook.

 

[S'mon]

Nice rant.
I think Organised Play goes against the fundamental principle of a good RPG: The GM is in charge. All the crapification stems from that.

 

[trancejeremy]

Has there even been a RPG whose splatbooks weren't under playtested and usually overpowered? (Okay, probably Gurps and Hero , but those can be abused out of the rulebook)

I guess 0e wasn't so much, but in Unearthed Arcana, you had the Cavalier, who was obnoxious. At least they gave the Fighter and Ranger weapon specialization to close the game, but still...

I guess the problem is, once the initial launch of corebooks, they need to make money. So they rush them out without proper testing/editing.

 

[Ahnehnois]

With no disrespect intended, could one ever expect organized play to work, period?

I have no experience with it, but from an outsider's perspective, playing a story you don't create using rules you don't decide with people you don't know seems pretty antithetical to what my conception of D&D is.

I suppose there's value in trying to introduce new people to the game, and in introducing people who game to each other, and that good experiences could certainly result from these kinds of games, but in the long run, D&D is a form of creative expression for the players. Being forced into a published setting, running published adventures, and using preset limited rules without houserules seems to impinge on that creativity pretty seriously. Likewise, not necessarily knowing the people involved must make it very difficult to build a story around them. If I were running an rpg company, I would devote my resources to helping people play the game by themselves; I wouldn't consider any of this living campaign stuff.

I think Organised Play goes against the fundamental principle of a good RPG: The GM is in charge. All the crapification stems from that.

Well said. D&D is about the people in the room, and no one else.

 

[IronWolf]

Organized play certainly has its negatives in my opinion. The necessary rigidity of it is the biggest problem for me. With that said, I still participate in organized play games at cons and such. This is largely due to it does provide a somewhat consistent play experience. If I sign up for a Con game through an organized play system I can be pretty sure there will be a GM there and I will get to play.

I do think the banned list should be broader in OP to keep some of the growth problems from occurring. Not to mention as has been noted it is hard for GMs to keep up with the amount of material released leading to GMs unfamiliar with allowed classes, feats, spells, etc.

It is a tough line to walk.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

I'm sorry that your experience with organized play is lacking, but I have to say that I still love it.

Yes it's different from a home game experience, and there are disadvantages because of that. There is not the same continuing story, you may find yourself at a table with people whose play style is different from yours.

That being said, OP maintains what I believe to be the core of any RPG: having fun pretending to go an an adventure in mythic lands.

But it also has many things to offer that home play doesn't. It opens up new windows. First (and most importantly imo) you get the chance to meet new gamers in your community. I've met several people through organized play who I now game at home with and count as friends. OP also offers a chance to see new elements of the game. While you might find it a burden to be confronted with a different class, I think it's interesting to see something new in action. If I'm DMing something I don't understand, I ask for a quick explanation, and I trust the player not to do anything to spoil everybody else's fun.

Also, as far as WOTC is concerned they have diversified the OP offerings because they realize that different gamers want different things. If you want a limited pallet, you might try encounters, where not everything is allowed (it changes from season to season).

 

[Steel_Wind]

You post as if every table for PFS has a Synthesist archetype at it -- or a more "stock" Summoner, for that matter.

Frankly, self-restraint is big issue here. I have never had a Summoner at even one of my PFS tables outside of Gencon, and no one has ever played a Synthesist archetype yet at any table I've run outside of Gencon either (where I ran one of them) That's in about 50 sessions or so of PFS, give or take, so far.

Some classes are banned from Society play when it is clear that they are unbalancing and ruin the play for other players at the table -- but usually just for flavor reasons, more often than not. This has not yet happened with the Synth either. It's not that big a deal with the Synth, as the action economy problems with the class are the biggest issue -- and they go away when playing the Synthesist.

As for power creep, it's been rather restrained in Pathfinder compared to 3.5. There are some classes with incredibly destructive abilities if they splurge all their power at once (Magus, I'm looking at you) but overall, Season 2 and 3 have been very enjoyable and the things you are complaining about are things I have not seen at PFS tables.

I HAVE seen Barbarians upset the apple cart mind you, especially enlarged Invulnerable Ragers at lower and mid-levels -- but apart from that? Not really. My simple rule on barbarians is that I don't allow two at the table at the same time in any of my events. One of them is shifted to another table if that happens (and it has not, so far).

Am optimized Musket Master can dominate play at levels 5-6, but after that speedbump in the overall level progression, it smooths out to the point where they soon become underpowered as a whole (at level 5-6, however, it can be annoying).

But never mind a discussion of the theoretical ways to build a character and how that CAN stretch the rules. Give me specific examples of WHERE the campaign itself has gone off the rail with references to ACTUAL GAME SESSIONS of in-store play. I'd truly would like to know about it -- where it happened -- when it happened -- and who was GMing.

Name names, please.

I can't promise to fix it or change anything; but I CAN promise to look into it and have the appropriate people inquire as to the whys and wherefores and address your concerns.

Pathfinder Society Venture Captain (Ontario)

 

[ExploderWizard]

The vast majority of the fun from an rpg comes from the other people at the table. In organized play you get a mixed bag of people to play with and no real control over what wingnuts are at your table.

This means that the experience can be really great, really crappy or anything in between.

 

[pauljathome]

Frankly, self-restraint is big issue here.

I think that this is absolutely the key.

Any game (home, organized, 3rd, 4th, Pathfinder, whatever) is very, very prone to break down if the players engage in over the top power gaming. That tendency IS accentuated in organized play but it is always there.

So far, we've been lucky locally in that none of the players are particularly mini-maxing their characters.

Steel Wind is wrong on one point, though . He HAS seen a Synthesist Summoner at his table. But, as it was created, it really wasn't a problem character.