Greetings,

It was great seeing many friends at Origins as well as meeting new folks I will hopefully encounter in the future. It struck me how much smaller these gatherings have become. The reasons vary depending on the individual, but it certainly made me think how we can start growing the campaign again. One of the keys to doing so is having people willing to GM. I think there are some changes that could be made to encourage more people to step forward and GM without negatively impacting the campaign or providing power creep.

Proposed changes:
1. If you eat a mod, you get a full cert. I think this is fundamental and absolutely needed. Getting games started in new places shouldn't be a burden on people starting things up, and their "thanks" for doing so, shouldn't be to miss out on cool stuff the players at their table get. Con GMs rarely get to play the mods in advance. In those cases they aren't just eating the mod, they are giving up time at the con which is often a vacation to run for others. Again, their thanks shouldn't be to miss out.

There are occassional mods that have multiple item rewards that become more problematic in the case of eating a mod. If there are multiple rewards then I would recommend either making a separate ruling on a case by case basis or have a general rule such as: Pick any one available item. If there are 2 truly story appropriate items on the list, you may select 2. However, if you select 2, they may never be traded or sold.

2. Allow GMs to cash in volunteer certs for other mods volunteer certs. This one may seem a bit odd, let me explain why I think this is needed and helpful. I know of one GM at Origins that ate and ran the soft point 5 times. Maybe it was only 4, but I'm pretty sure it was 5. For it he got 5 volunteer certs. I think he has 3 characters. Maybe he's got a 4th. Most people play 1 or 2 characters. After enough copies of the cert to cover the character or characters you want to play, there's very little incentive to run that mod again. GMs are the life's blood of the campaign. Without them the game doesn't happen at all.

I am not proposing that with this that all cert packets include all volunteer certs. That would be a logistical nightmare. Having a single 1 page document that lists the other mods XP, monetary and other volunteer rewards I think is completely doable. Worst case they reference an online list after the fact. On the cert they would write something like "Redeemed for X mod's volunteer reward." This allows a GM to fill in certs for an additional character and catch a new character up on volunteer certs to where other characters are. In terms of what qualifies for what, here are my thoughts in order of least complexity to greatest complexity.

1. Pick any mod's volunteer cert
2. As #1 except a standard length mod only counts as 1/2 of a 2 round mod and a 2 round mod counts for 2 rewards
3. If running a hard point, pick any mod's volunteer cert, if running a soft point, pick any soft point mod's volunteer cert
4. As #3 except with the round caveats of #2
5. Pick any volunteer cert whose XP and Gold rewards are equal to or less than the volunteer cert of the mod you ran

Of the above, I would select #2. It is simple and rewards GMs for the time they invest.

If the above items are unworkable or ill advised, I'd like to understand why. I'm happy to entertain other options that encourage people to GM and to share that responsibility. I tried to limit the benefits to what a player can achieve / receive now.

If you want to really add an incentive to GM to the list, consider putting just the XP and Gold rewards for the past specials events on the list as options to take. Any specials from those events in terms of items, favors, etc. wouldn't be included. That would be limited to the people who were physically present. A BI such as with Origins would require 2 rounds worth of volunteering for example. It would though allow folks who can't travel to eventually catch up rank-wise to people who've been to everything. To do so though would require them volunteering their time and helping build the campaign for others.

With a sweep of his hat,

Paul

Well thought out Paul. One frustration I have as a judge is running the same mods for different people over and over. I think I've run 1000 words some 10 times....

+1 This....this is my view on the topic 100%, including the "Trade in a cert for another cert of equal 'time'" As Eric stated, some GM's are running the same mod 3-5 times and you generally just don't have a need for that many backup characters.

John

Overall, I do get upset when I miss out on cool magical/story-important gear, but I'm not sure that if a player gets it the GM should too. My favourite GM certs so far have been the ones that do give SOMETHING of note, though (magical items, runes, etc). As such, I generally agree with this.




Possibly start an economy where you can 'cash in' Volunteer certs for money on a 1 cert to 1 Gc basis? Basically, if I played HP9 at Origins 3 times, I get 1 Volunteer cert to level my primary, and 2 others. I can then have those voided to provide my character with 2 more Gc, which puts me halfway to a Fine Rune? You could even do an economy like "cash in 10 volunteer certs to get a Tier 1 magical item from a set list". This gives an incentive to the person to GM, but doesn't 'break' the economy.

This seems like a good suggestion to me as well. I'd even go a little further on the "eating a mod" suggestion and make all judge certs expected xp +25 like some of the mods already are (there are two mods I've played where I'm not sure what judge xp should be since there are completely optional portions that a fair number of tables don't do).

As for the trading in certs, don't judges get replay (not volunteer) certs the 2nd+ time they run a mod? If so, I have no issues with trading certs (it's just xp and gold).

The "coin" of the game if you will is XP. I really like the fact that the character matters far more than their gear. Players get XP for a character they're using for their time invested. I think GMs should be compensated in the same way.

If my thanks for 15+ hours of my time is 3 Gc on a character, I'll probably look for something else to do with my time.

With a sweep of his hat,

Paul

I should clarify my last position: I am personally not a fan at all of GM's getting Replay Certs for running adventures after they have previously played/GM'd them. I think the GM should ALWAYS get the Volunteer page, and only players who are replaying get the RCP. A GM sacrifices too much to get a shit reward, and in many cases the RCP simply does not give enough reward to be worth it. As such, by this method of thinking, a GM could get multiple VCP's for running the same mod multiple times and either apply them to other characters or to cash them in for a small, but useful reward for one of their current characters.

I can hopefully offer some insight here since I am directly involved in organizing Pathfinder Society play and have seen the good and bad of several different systems.

I do think that a GM should get the same reward a player would get, this only makes sense. They are sacrificing their time and ability to be playing the game instead, so they shouldn't get less of a reward for doing so. I understand that in some mods there are choices to be made, and sometimes a chronicle can have a negative aspect associated with it, and this is an important part of the campaign. But if you want to encourage more GMs to run games you need to incentivize this beyond getting a reduced chronicle with no special items in most cases.

Just to use a comparison, in Pathfinder Society the GM always gets full gold, full exp, full fame, and any of the boons or items located on their chronicle sheet, as long as the character the sheet is being applied to is eligible for that reward. On top of that, we reward our GMs for convention games they run by providing a boon (special cert) just for the GMs. This is usually a cert that can be applied to a new character to play a special race. And then, GMs earn credits for every reported table they have ran. After 10 tables they earn a star, at 30 tables they get a second star, and so on until you hit 150 tables, which is the fifth star. These stars are both a form of "bragging rights" and status among other GMs as well as a method to add additional rewards for those GMs who have went above and beyond to help the campaign.

Doing these things insures that you have GMs who are eager to sit at a table and run a game, because they know they aren't hurting themselves by doing so. They will likely see a better reward than if they had played the scenario, and therefore you can bet you would have many more people willing to branch out and try the GM seat. You will also likely have more enthusiasm from people running games, which means more tables being ran and more chances to introduce new players to the system.

Just my thoughts and experience!

I'm not a fan of anyone getting replay certs (GM or player). However, I do think this needs to be consistent...

Hmm. On the other hand, if GMs always earn volunteer certs, it might be a way to get new GMs to run who have already played a mod with one character. However, this could easily lead to some of these new GMs cherry-picking mods to run based on rewards (oops, my secondary really needs a nice shield so I'll only run mod XX).

I think I'll stick to my original thought - players and GMs need to be consistent in getting replay certs. I'd be all for getting rid of replay certs entirely and just having volunteer certs and play certs (Arcanis is the first organized play I've ever been part of that has anything like replay certs).

I fully support GMs being awarded for their time (even getting a small bump if they had to "eat" a mod). I'd also be fine with something like what others have suggestions (once a GM has run X tables, they can claim an additional reward).

Hi all

One think I noticed that people we saying that is you GM a module you get a volunteer cert for each time you run it.

I thought you only got it once and that was if you had to eat the Mod.