Wrapping Up 2017—GM Stars, Conventions, and PAX Unplugged!

Wednesday, December 6, 2017

As I write the final "First of the month blog" for 2017, my thoughts roam back over the year. The Organized Play community delivered more games in 2017 than ever before—kudos to everyone involved! The biggest news of 2017 was the launch of our new organized play program—Starfinder Society. Though it had its hiccups, overall it was a resounding success. We are seeing players return to organized play, and many more who are new to Paizo and organized play are finding us at events around the world. Over the next few weeks, the team and I will write more about our thoughts on 2017 and what we have in store for 2018. Keep an eye on this space!

PAX Unplugged

Several members of Paizo staff, along with a cadre of volunteers, spent the weekend of November 17th in Philadelphia at the inaugural PAX Unplugged. There wasn't an empty seat in the booth as we ran hour long demos using Starfinder Society Quest: Into the Unknown. We had a few repeats, but most of our players were new. The enthusiasm and excitement in the booth kept me going through some long days. A huge thank you to the volunteers that came out and helped, both in the booth and the organized play tables downstairs. We greatly appreciate your efforts in spreading the word of the Society!

Paizo and Organized Play are looking to return to PAX Unplugged in 2018, with more demos and organized play tables. Currently, PAX is listing November 29th to December 2nd as their dates for the 2018 show. Right now the plans are nebulous, but if you're interested in helping out in the booth or running Pathfinder/Starfinder Society scenarios, save the date and watch this space mid-year for more info!

DIY Terrain Contest

In August, we opened a competition for the best homemade terrain and in November, we presented four entries to our community and asked them to vote for their favorite. It is my pleasure to announce the winner! The competition was tight, but the entry that received top honors, or should I say honours, is Chris Manning from the UK/Online community, for their 3D ship. Congratulations Chris! A huge kudos to all our participating artists, for their wonderful creations—Sam Sampson, Quinn Shannon, Scott Young, and Chris Manning

5* GM Recognition

Our GMs haven't let up the pace in running games and several of them achieved recognition in the past month. We saw more additions to the Nova Club, as GMs ran and reported games of Starfinder. We also had several GMs completed their 5-star requirements for Pathfinder Society. The requirements include running 150 games, of which at least 50 must be unique scenarios and 10 be special scenarios, but are not indicative of hours spent preparing for events. A conservative estimate of time needed to reach 5* is 650 hours! To those listed below, who earned their 5th star over the past few weeks, welcome to the club and thank you for your dedication to our Society

  • Jack Amy
  • Elizabeth R Corrigan
  • Andreas Frederiksen
  • Mario Grande

Conventions

2018 is filling up with conventions, thanks to the effort of our volunteer event organizers! Check out the list below for upcoming events with Starfinder Society and Pathfinder Society play. This iteration, we added a column of where you can find the Organized Play staff hitting the tables and rolling the dice.

While our convention schedule is pretty set for 2018, if you are an event organizer and want to invite us out at your event in 2019, drop an email to organizedplay@paizo.com before next summer. We review our schedule in the fall and try to get all decisions wrapped by the end of the year.

Convention NameLocationStart DatePaizo Staff Attending
Aus East Coast Interactive 4Sydney/Brisbane, Australia12/8/17
Pathfinder Christmas Party 2017Turku, Finland12/9/17
30 Hour Food Drive 2017Spokane Valley, WA12/15/17
A Queen City Holiday 2017Cincinnati, OH12/15/17
CoolCon IV (2017)Maitland, FL12/27/17
Path Mas 17Leon, Spain12/28/17
#real GAPFS Holiday Party 2017Winder, GA12/30/17
Start of the Year 2018Geneva, Switzerland1/4/18
SacAnime Winter 2018Sacramento, CA 1/5/18
PAX South 2018San Antonio, TX1/12/18
MAGFest 2018Washington ,DC1/4/18
ShadowCon 2018West Memphis, AR1/5/18
Midwinter Gaming Convention 2018Milwaukee, WI1/11/18
MarsCon 2017Williamsburg, VA1/12/18Tonya
Niu yia 2018León, Spain1/12/18
Paradise City Comic Con 2017Miami, FL1/12/18
SCARAB 2018Columbia, SC1/12/18John
Swampcon 2018Gainesville, FL1/13/18
Winter War 45 (2017)Urbana, IL1/25/18
Cancon 2018Australia1/26/18
Manaleak 2017Birmingham, UK1/27/18
FlintCon 2018Flint, MI2/3/18
LodgeCon 2018Peotone, IL 2/10/18
TotalCon 2018Marlborough, MA2/22/18TBD
OwlCon 2018Houston, TX2/23/18Tonya
CoNfUsIoN 2018Gouda, Netherlands3/9/18
Marmalade Dog 23Kalamazoo, MI3/30/18

We have a few more updates to get to, mostly involving Starfinder Society, which seemed like a good thing to put in its own blog. So check back later to see what new developments are in store!

Next week, John brings us news on the faction front, including the results of the Leader's in Liberty contest. If you haven't voted, you have until tonight at 11:59 PM Pacific time to record your choice. Vote now for your favorite!

Tonya Woldridge
Organized Play Manager

More Paizo Blog.
Tags: Community Contests Organized Play Pathfinder Society Starfinder Society
4/5 *

Congrats Chris on the terrain contest - well deserved!

Scarab Sages 5/5 5/5 *** Venture-Captain, Washington—Spokane

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Congrats to Chris Manning on the Terrain Contest!!

Huzzah!! for all the new 5 star GMs. Congratulations on that milestone!

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, Minnesota

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Congratulations to Jack, Elizabeth, Mario and Andreas on your 5 star achievements!

Chris Manning, congratulations on yer ship, it be a fine vessel. Yarr.

4/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Congrats Chris, and all the new five stars!!!

Also, if you're in the Boston (MA) area the weekend of 1/12-1/15, check out Arisia - we'll be in the game room running both PFS and SFS all weekend!

Scarab Sages 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Isles—Online

<blush> Thanks All

Congratulations Jack, Andreas and the other 5 Stars, see you on the island soon.

4/5 5/55/55/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Congratulations to all the new 5 star GMs!!

And congrats to Chris- the boat was pretty epic to see- and certainly made me want to up my game :-)

Huge congratulations to Jack and Andreas: they all looked amazing and certainly made me very jealous of your gming!!

Grand Lodge 1/5 Contributor

Congrats, Chris! Congrats, new 5 star GMs!

Scarab Sages 5/5 5/5 *** Venture-Captain, Netherlands

Congratz Chris!
And congratz to our new 5 star GMs!

Sovereign Court 4/5 * Organized Play Manager

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Lisa Neilson wrote:

Congrats Chris, and all the new five stars!!!

Also, if you're in the Boston (MA) area the weekend of 1/12-1/15, check out Arisia - we'll be in the game room running both PFS and SFS all weekend!

I'm not sure what happened to take Arisia off the list. I've had their Con Support request for months. Getting it added back on asap!

Dark Archive 4/5 5/5 *

2 people marked this as a favorite.

Don't forget Con of the North February 16-18 in the Twin Cities!

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

Pacificon Central Valley had to be canceled due to the Thomas Fire, but the PFS portion of it will still go on!

The Grand Lodge Parties On!
January 12, 2018 – January 15, 2018
Fresno, CA

Liberty's Edge 4/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Congratulations to Elizabeth!!

4/5 *

Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Lost Omens Subscriber

Yay, new five stars!

Grand Lodge 5/5

Congrats to the new 5 stars!

For those interested in seeing Tonya at MarsCon, you can find all the details here:

https://warhorn.net/events/marscon-2018

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