To break off from another topic that has nothing to do with this here is my justification for playing a val'Sungha since I have been question about this many times. Sometimes pretty rudely.

I have spoken with Jimmy Beck, James Zwiers, Pedro Barrenechea, and Eric Weiner. The crux of the problem from everyone who objects is that there are no rules for playing a val'sungha so they want to forbid it. People seem to think I am wanting special treatment. I don't want or need special treatment. I am playing a val without knowing my bloodline power. Do not know what it is. Can't use it. Don't care. I like playing unique characters because I am not a joiner or a follow the crowd kind of guy. I played an Elorii last arc, and I wanted to play a val this arc. Every single PCI and campaign staff I have talked to has not had an issue with it. There opinion has been that I am both a val and a Kio. When the Kio book comes out I will finally know my bloodline power.

Here is an official document that shows that the campaign staff is aware I am playing a val'Sungha:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6pVQZ ... sp=sharing

They should not have to comment on it any further. If this upsets you feel free to keep that opinion to yourself and not flame me on the boards.

Frankly, I let this kind of harassment go on till the point that I have stopped posting here for almost a year, because of the negativity of the "in crowd". I recruited several players in Dallas last year and that same "in crowd" drove them away when they tried to get questions answered here. I wish you negative naysayers would stop and think about how people are perceiving your comments.

Did anyone else notice that the BI and participation at Origins in general was about half the previous year?

Personally I have no real problem with saying you are a val'Sungha. I have MORE of an issue if you are using an existing Val family (with powers) AND if you are using a Kio Sword or something that is otherwise restricted, at least at Con Play, but I'm not really broken up about it especially if the Campaign Staff knows about it. The crux comes from the fact that PLAYERS don't know, and if you break the Campaign Rules it makes it LOOK like you are either breaking the rules or getting special treatment. Living Campaigns are founded on everyone playing with the same toys in the sandbox, so when someone doesn't hackles go up. I personally say fun is more important than rules, but ultimately the Rules are there for a reason.

My general suggestion would play a Kio (using the Sungha last name suggesting a non-Val child of a val'Sungha) until the rules come out rather than a Val, especially if you are not particularly using the Bloodline powers. Maybe leave "Blank" talents to represent the Bloodline Talents, but saying you're a Kio will probably raise fewer hackles than saying you are a val'Sungha right now.

I think that your name printed on a cert counts a valid campaign documentation is a specious argument.

Certed permission comes in the form of a cert that says something along the line of "has permission to play a something something"

its going to look something like this (Spoiler I have a val'Vasik) :



and the rest of the the pages are going to contain story and mechanics that pertain to playing the special character.

Hey Cody,

Yeah, I get your point and agree with it. That was why I Heirloomed my Kio sword to start, did not take Psionics, and have held off on taking a path till the Kio book comes out.

My point here is that this is just an example of why this campaign is dying. Even with the successful Kickstarter, attendance at Origins was down. Mary and I were both shocked at how few people were at Origins in any capacity this year, and Arcanis in particular. Is it all because this forum is a caustic environment? Probably not, but it certainly is not helping. I know I lost a newly formed group in part over it, and I know my shelf space at my store when it opens is not going to have many copies of PCI products because it just does not make business sense.

I think Arcanis is a great campaign world and the PCI folks really do put a lot of passion into their product. However, lack of editing and these forums being filled with entitled negative people really hurts the post sale customer support aspects. I will probably just settle for displaying my personal copies of Arcanis behind the counter, and order a pair of Rotted Capes and Witch Hunter core rule books. If they sell within 3 months I will reorder on a 1 for 1 basis. If they sell quickly I may re-evaluate. But honestly I don't think PCI products will ever do well in Dallas because Pathfinder is so popular, and this shared world campaign has too many caustic personalities with Harvester titles. I specifically did not go after a Harvester title because I am too much like the bad apples myself. I have a lot of respect for a couple of them, and I really think the campaign directors do a great job, but really a couple of them should just step down if they can't keep a civil tone to their posts.

YES, I did notice the absence of players. I am sure part of the issue was the lack of a LARP. But the tendency of writers/GM's to ban things they personally disagree with was a topic of discussion at my BI table during one of the breaks. I was planning to raise the issue tonight as a separate thread. But seeing as how Matt beat me to the punch, I will raise the discussion here.

Issue 2: Writing out rules.

There has been a strong tendency for mod writers to effectively write out rules they don't find convenient. Horses, mounts, and other transportation (read chariots), are the prime example. These are mundane equipment. While Wagons, Carriages, and Chariots are not given by background, warhorses clearly are. Further there are several paths dedicated to horsemanship of one form or another. But when was the last BI that allowed horse using PC's to really shine? There has always been one obstacle to horsemanship at every BI written. Even the battle of Tannin where there where a larger than normal number of horses on the board, Horror was used to drive the horse away. This effectively invalidates several valid builds. The way to solve this is to bring horses and other mundane equipment back into the game.

Another example of writing out the rules comes with BATTLE Checks and ambushes. By the rules battle can be used to avoid an ambush. But how many times are PC's ambushed by boxed text? The opening encounter of this weekends BI is a good example. The PC's are forced into an ambush situation that according to the core rules could be avoided completely. Alternatively, tables that catch the ambush ahead of time, should have had the option to turn the tables on the ambush, or take an automatic pass on the first encounter.

Balancing encounters across the BI, creates other issues. Let me explain. The typical mod encounter has some minions, some elites, and maybe some environmental effects. But when BI's are written with THE Minion encounter, THE Boss encounter, and THE environment encounter the writer has guaranteed that every table is going to be over powered at least one encounter per BI. Question, which is the individual player more likely to remember? The one table that was over powered for them? Or the 9 tables they scraped by with? I argue they will remember the negative experience more than the positive one. The way to overcome this is to balance each encounter -some- bosses, -some- minions, and -some- environmental effect in every encounter.

for the record we sat 10 tables of 6 at the BI with 2 additional players (or 2 tables of 7 and 8 of 6) all in all with judges there were 72 people at the BI.

I think thats about the same number as last year, but I'm not an expert. maybe it was the spread out due to no LARP that would have put an extra table per slot.

uhh writing out rules, I have no idea what your talking about here, all of the encounteres were balanced with minions/non minions and a scattering of encounters with environmental effects, not to throw shade on anyone, but are you sure that these things are happening because they are in the mod or because of some other reason?

Arcanis attendance may have been down this year (I can't say as I only ever did the Delve at Origins 2013 previously). However, Origins attendance was up this year (see thread from yesterday or today on the Origins Facebook page - main post copied below).



I'm not sure if those numbers include the Star City Magic events or not (they are semi-separate from Origins).

Better editing would be a very good thing. I just saw a review of Witch Hunter today that was highly critical of the editing ("The game is a handsome, hardbound alpha edition that is so clearly unfinished that it should have been drowned in red ink").

First, our play was not "about half" we just didn't have a LARP and we pulled players from 2 of the more visible slots for exclusive play events from the Kickstarter.

Second, if you are not breaking or making rules - then the PCI staff is completely OK with you calling yourself a val'Sungha. Being down a Bloodline Talent only limits you, and should have zero impact on anyone else's fun.

Wow, take a night off the boards to celebrate my birthday with my family and the forums blow up!

Alright - after being direct to and reading the other thread about vthe Rune Master path, this thread makes more sense.

So to be clear - Anyone can state that they are a val'Sungha, the High Priest of Sarish or the Emperor of Coryan as long as they do not seek to have any additional benefits or create a rules combination that would go against the common rules of the Campaign.

Having said that, the rules for the Rune Master path listed in FiM2 is not legal at this time. It is on the list of things for the Campaign Staff to review for admittance (or not), but at this moment no one can take this Path.

Secondly, Arcanis is NOT dying. In fact we were only a few people down from last year's BI. The fact that we didn't have a LARP may have given the impression of there being less people playing, the numbers were about the same.

Lastly, let's all try and be a little more pleasant with one another on this forum, shall we?

Thank you.

Hi Mathew,

I see Henry has already chimed in, so I will mostly limit myself to an apology to any negative comments I may have contributed. I would love for the community on the board to grow and expand to include new voices. The majority of the posts on the forum come from about 20-25 people, which of course is a thin slice of the total Arcanis community. My advice is if a particular person seems especially abrasive that you just ignore their posts. I think you can effectively "unfriend" someone too under the User Control panel if you really don't want to see what they write.