With great regret I have tendered my resignation from the position of Ontario Venture-Captain.
Unfortunately, a consistent schedule of mandatory 6 shifts a week on midnights has taken its toll, interfering with my ability to live up to what I expect from myself as a representative of Pathfinder Society Organized Play.
This is almost entirely based on Real Life priorities. It certainly has nothing to do with Society leadership or direction. I have greatly enjoyed working with Mike, Mark, my fellow Venture-Officers, and the Paizo folks, and hope further opportunities will arise when life settles down.
I'd like to thank all of the GMs and organizers from my region, including (but not limited to) Steel_Wind, TorbinWren, Rolen, Feegle, Jason S, and Armac.
I'll still be GMing and organizing Society whenever possible, and I will continue to be as annoying as ever on these boards: answering questions, debating grey areas, flagging non-Society questions, using the Queen's English, and reminding people to hyphenate Venture-Captain ;)
In light of all of the threads subsequent to Gen Con which have inspired so much debate and bad karma, I thought another Gen Con thread was warranted which focused on the most important things: PFS at Gen Con was an incredible success brought about by people who went above & beyond, and the vast majority of people had a terrific time!!
So please, use this thread to share your positive experiences, funny stories, and recognize the folks that made the Gen Con PFS experience such a blast! (No complaints on this thread, please)
I would like to start out by recognizing the most important people, the players. I was fortunate to GM for 48 fun, enthusiastic folks and my brother. I had about 15-20 newbies to PFS, and a there were a couple for whom this was their first ever Roleplaying Game session! I laughed during every session, and was impressed by the roleplaying and ingenuity demonstrated.
One of my favourite memories from this year came out of the Special. The youngest player at my table managed to be the first out of the room of over 300 PCs to break thru one line of defence in the climactic encounter. His face really lit up when the Overseer GM (Tim Hitchcock) worked his character's name into the narrative (I believe it was Aust). The next day, I ran into him and his dad, and they were both incredibly enthusiastic about the session, and about Pathfinder Society.
Hey all.
I know this is last minute, but the Hairy Tarantula has asked me to stop by and answer questions about Pathfinder Society Organized Play on Monday, April 18th. Time permitting, I will also run a short session with pre-generated characters (though I will also welcome players with existing PFS characters).
I hope to be there around 6 pm, with a session running about 7-9.
I believe they intend to add PFS to their regular Monday game nights.
With the recent announcement of new factions, shakeups for the old 5 based on performance, and unlockables based on Faction performance, I thought it might be interesting to see how Factions had fared for different GMs.
Of course, this won't be a true reflection of how the new system would work, as Mark said performance would be measured as a percentage of success of the PCs of each faction.
However, I thought the numbers may still prove interesting.
Slot 1: Mists of Mwangi (Pathfinder Society Scenario #5), Among the Living (#7)
Slot 2: Voice in the Void (#35), Among the Dead (#49)
Slot 3: The Penumbral Accords (#2-11), City of Flame (#39)
Slot 4: Darkest Vengeance (#47), The Infernal Vault (#55)
Likely GMs include "5-Star" Doug Miles and Michael Kortes! also me.
Bloodcove Disguise: 4 PCs, 1 death, 1 1hp away from dying
Azlant Ridge: 4 PCs, no deaths, but no one got any PA (time)
Frozen Fingers (Home game for unregistered players): 4 PCs, 2 died in 1st major fight, I let them play new characters, TPK in final for 6 total
Rebel's Ransom: 4 PCs, 1 death
Master of the Fallen Fortress: 7 PCs with 3 pets, 1 death
My dice have obviously not been in the holiday spirit.
Honestly, I'm a pretty easy GM, and have stuck to the written tactics... but a couple of bad decisions, and some ill-timed luck on both sides can quickly turn into a losing streak for the players.
One of Ontario's longest running game conventions!
Pathfinder Society Scenarios will be running from Friday evening til Sunday morning. Including "The Year of the Shadow Lodge" special on Saturday evening, and A Special Surprise on Sunday morning.
Ran a scenario for a group of 3 last night: 2 1sts, a 3rd, and a DMPC 1st level Kyra.
Madness spoilered for brevity:
Spoiler:
At one point, the party decided to visit a noble's manor in the morning, where they had been invited to go for dinner. They had already shown a tendency to go off the rails of the adventure, and the 1st level fighter, in particular, seemed to believe that NPC's were only there to kill.
When they knocked on the door, I had the valet, flanked by 2 house guards, ask them to leave & come back at the appointed time. The fighter insisted on Intimidating the valet to be allowed access, and when the valet fled, charged into the manor after. The guards first told him to leave, then attacked when he continued into the manor.
The rest of the party realized they were in trouble and backed away.
The fighter sicced his attack dog on the guards, but did not actually attack them himself.
Once the fighter had been cut down, the guards stabilized him, and demanded an explanation from the party. They managed to Bluff them into believing the fighter had been cursed by a recently found magic ring, but failed to muster enough Diplomacy to stop them from calling the authorities. The guards were also "kind" enough to confiscate the cursed ring.
The fighter was thrown in jail, which meant the rest of the party were undermanned and unable to complete the adventure within the time allowed. They managed to earn the xp, but less than half the available wealth.
I'm seeking feedback as to how much further penalty this character should have. Note that I believe that this is a relatively new player.
I am involved with starting a PFS group at my FLGS in Oshawa: Worlds Collide at 86 Simcoe St N.
We are meeting tomorrow night - Thursday, September 3rd, 7pm - to get acquainted and create characters. I will post here when we have established game nights, but I think that we will be running scenarios starting next week (probably start with #4 - Frozen Fingers, cause it lingers in my mind like a bad smell).
I apologize for the late notification, but it all came together at the last minute.
Got home last night after a fun weekend of gaming and socializing.
I had a lot of long-winded commentary (see alias), so I thought that I'd start my own thread rather than jack Dragnmoon's.
Highlight #1: Volunteering for Paizo
I went thru True Dungeon on Thursday morning. After that, I spent at least part of each of the remaining 10 slots doing stuff for Paizo and Pathfinder: running PFS scenarios, assisting with the interactive, mustering rooms, setting up/taking down my doomed Yetisburg game (more on that later), being a backup GM, helping people make characters, subbing in/gofering for Liz.... and the whole experience was great! There were challenges, but the VAST majority of players and other volunteers were patient, enthusiastic and fun. And the Paizo folks treat their volunteers very well.
Highlight #2: The Annual Werecabbage Werewolf Dinner
A great time with the Cabbages and the Paizo folks. Poor, poor villagers. And it could have been even bloodier if it weren't for the amazing Dr Alvarez.
Highlight #3: Going for a night of beverages with Daigle, Boomer, Hitchcock, and Craig. Great group of guys to just hang with - and there was actually not much game talk.
We are a couple of players short for an ongoing Howl of the Carrion King game. The party could most use an arcane caster and a heavy fighter type (replacing paladin and sorceror).
If you are interested, the game thread is here. The discussion thread is here.
PF Beta, 20 point buy, average starting gold, 1st level, 2 traits (one campaign from LOF, 1 general).
It's a great group, and I hope that we can get a couple more fun folks to join us.
They went and folded my lovely new Dungeon Denizens lengthwise and stuffed them into a mini-mailbox! New Pathinder too!
Totally CP's fault, and I think that they are not beyond salvaging, but could you please remind the shipping folks to be liberal with the "Do Not Fold" stamp?
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