RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
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Hi everyone!
I was lucky enough to go to Origins Game Fair over the weekend, and while I was there I got the chance to interview Tanis O'Connor, who has been put in charge of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Guild, which is the new organized play program that will be launching at GenCon in August!
Note: We only had time for a quick interview, so my notes were pretty sparse, therefore I'm paraphrasing Tanis's answers, just a heads up there.
Today we've got Tanis O'Connor answering some questions for us about the upcoming Pathfinder Society Card Guild. I'm sure many of you are excited to hear more details about this exciting new way to play the game that we already love!
1. Tell us a little about yourself, and how you came to be in charge of the newly created Pathfinder Adventure Card Guild.
Tanis: Well, I started participating in organized play for role-playing games back in 2000 with the Living Greyhawk campaign. I love the community aspect of organized play and the ability to connect with people no matter where you sit down to play. I moved to Seattle in 2007 to start working with MIke Selinker, and was put on the development team for the Pathfinder Adventure Card game. When organized play for the PACG was brought up to Mike later on, he said "Sure, let's do it! But we'll need a person for that..." and when Paizo asked "Do you have someone in mind?" he picked me!
2. For those who haven’t heard of this before, tell us in general how the new Pathfinder Adventure Card Guild will work?
Tanis: The general premise is this: You will need to buy a Class Deck (releasing at GenCon alongside the Skull & Shackles base set) which will contain four characters all of the same class. For example, the Fighter deck will contain a variant version of Valeros the iconic Fighter, along with three other Fighter characters. Each of those characters will also have two distinct role cards, so with just one class deck you can make up to 8 different characters for use in the Pathfinder Society Adventure Card Guild.
Once you have your class deck, you can show up at an OP event, where the organizers will have a copy of the Skull & Shackles base set. You'll sit down and play a scenario with others who want to join in, and you'll earn rewards in-game for your OP character. Then you'll rebuild your deck at the end, but instead of using cards from the base set, you'll use only cards from your own class deck.
The scenarios will be taken from those already in the Skull & Shackles box as well as distinct weekly scenarios that we'll be releasing to game stores and organizers, which will use cards from the Skull & Shackles base set and adventure decks.
3. How will I find games? Will this use the current Pathfinder Society venture officers, or will you be creating new VOs specifically for the card game?
Tanis: Yes, Pathfinder Society Venture Officers will be in charge of setting up meetups for playing OP scenarios. If you're interested in become a VO, please talk to your local Venture Captain or email Mike Brock (mike.brock@paizo.com)
4. How will we build our decks? How will rewards at the end of scenarios work?
Tanis: You'll bring your own class deck to the game, and you'll play just like any other scenario, acquiring cards during play and earning new cards as rewards when you defeat a scenario. Your party will divvy up the spoils as normal, but instead of just adding those cards to your respective decks, you'll add a card of the same type from your class deck to your character deck. For example, if you picked up a +2 Longsword during the game, which is a Weapon card from adventure deck 3, then at the end of the game you would get to choose a Weapon card from your class deck that is equivalent (a Weapon card marked 3), and add that one to your character deck.
5. Will the rewards for the card game affect our PFS characters in any way? Will there be special boons associated with playing the card game?
Tanis: We're definitely hoping to get this implemented as soon as possible. The way I envision it is you might fulfill some type of special requirement during play... let's say you're playing Kyra the Cleric, and your party defeats three Undead creatures during the scenario. You might get the choice to either add an extra item to your character deck for the next scenario, OR you could choose to apply a special chronicle sheet to one of your PFS characters to get a free potion of cure light wounds. We're still working out the details of this, so stay tuned for more info, hopefully at PaizoCon.
6. The class decks are going to have four character each with two role cards each. Can you tell us anything about those characters/roles? Any teasers at all?
Tanis: Hmm... let's see. Well, my favorite new character is in the Fighter deck, and you might want to check my paizo.com forum icon for some hints on that one. I'll also say that fans of two-weapon Rangers will enjoy the Ranger deck.
7. We’re starting the Guild with the Skull and Shackles adventure path… will we also be able to play through the Rise of the Runelords path and get rewards through that? Or will that adventure path forever be “home game only”?
Tanis: We're not planning to sanction the Rise of the Runelords base set as of right now, since we're starting "Season 0" of the Card Guild with Skull & Shackles. When "unnamed third base set, possibly announced at PaizoCon" is released, that will start season 1 of the Card Guild.
8. What will the typical structure of a Guild scenario be? Will it follow along with the current Pathfinder Society storyline at all?
Tanis: The structure of these is still being hammered down, and we hope to eventually tie it in with the PFS storyline, but they've got things planned out years in advance, and their next story arc doesn't really fit with Skull & Shackles, so these won't be connected at first.
9. Will there be any massively-cooperative scenarios to run at cons, like there are for Pathfinder Society scenarios now (the con Specials)?
Tanis: Season 0 of the Card Guild is going to involve a lot of experimenting to see what works, and I'd really like to test things out that might involve massively-cooperative scenarios that can only be run at conventions, or even directly-competitive ones. Once we figure out what works best during season 0, we'll continue making scenarios like those in subsequent seasons.
10. Will there be any competition between players directly? Rankings, etc?
Tanis: Not during season 0, but it's possible that we will have competition and rankings later on. Stay tuned!
Thanks for posting this. Very exciting!
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
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Can't wait to hear more details about organized play. If I'm not mistaken, Hawkmoon and I have no Venture Captain in our area, so we're looking forward to going to the FLGS with info whenever it becomes available so that we can get this rolling.
You should e-mail Mike Brock (mike.brock@paizo.com) and ask him about becoming a venture officer yourself so that you can run these games. :)
Can't wait to hear more details about organized play. If I'm not mistaken, Hawkmoon and I have no Venture Captain in our area, so we're looking forward to going to the FLGS with info whenever it becomes available so that we can get this rolling.You should e-mail Mike Brock (mike.brock@paizo.com) and ask him about becoming a venture officer yourself so that you can run these games. :)
We did, but it was a while ago before the system was even designed. Hoping to get more info soon. We don't play the RPG, so I'm not sure if we would be allowed to be VOs, but there are no VOs for the whole state of Delaware from what I can tell.
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
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We did, but it was a while ago before the system was even designed. Hoping to get more info soon. We don't play the RPG, so I'm not sure if we would be allowed to be VOs, but there are no VOs for the whole state of Delaware from what I can tell.Can't wait to hear more details about organized play. If I'm not mistaken, Hawkmoon and I have no Venture Captain in our area, so we're looking forward to going to the FLGS with info whenever it becomes available so that we can get this rolling.You should e-mail Mike Brock (mike.brock@paizo.com) and ask him about becoming a venture officer yourself so that you can run these games. :)
Ooh you're in Delaware! Let me know if you make it over here toward Baltimore or DC for any conventions and we can meet up. I'm just north of DC.
Are there any conventions in Baltimore/DC? I'm not up to speed on the convention scene.
Also, when organized play is up and running, I wouldn't mind occasionally doing a small amount of traveling to play with some other forum members.
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
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Are there any conventions in Baltimore/DC? I'm not up to speed on the convention scene.
Also, when organized play is up and running, I wouldn't mind occasionally doing a small amount of traveling to play with some other forum members.
Well, there's MagFest in January in Baltimore http://magfest.org/gaming
as well as GadCon in March, also in Baltimore http://www.jestergamesmd.com/index.htmlI'm also wondering if some of the other conventions in the area have large gaming sections. I ust moved into the area about two months ago so I'm still learning.
We don't play the RPG, so I'm not sure if we would be allowed to be VOs, but there are no VOs for the whole state of Delaware from what I can tell.PACG-only VOs are welcome!
Great! That reminds me: should local stores have enough info on this now that we can start taking to them about it?
What if we don't have a local participating store? Is there any way to basically sanction a home group? I wouldn't mind signing up to be a local VO and forming an organized group here, but outside of my local Barnes and Noble, there isn't a store within realistic driving distance that I'm aware of that I could try to set something up at unfortunately.
I don't know about "sanctioned" play in terms of reporting for PFS purposes, but you will be able to purchase the PDFs from the Organized Play scenarios the month after they are run in local stores. So you could still run them, but I don't know if that is "sanctioned" or not.
I am a little interested in this as well. I would like to run events, but am not really sure if there is a place to run them nearby. I am thinking that I will be running them after the stores get them no matter what, but it would still be great to be in on the ground floor.
I don't know about "sanctioned" play in terms of reporting for PFS purposes, but you will be able to purchase the PDFs from the Organized Play scenarios the month after they are run in local stores. So you could still run them, but I don't know if that is "sanctioned" or not.
Mostly saying because if there is a chance later on for rankings and the like, that I'd like to be able to part of that and would definitely pursue being a VO for my area and giving at least the players that would like to be included an opportunity to do so.
As it stands today, I will definitely purchase the PDF's and use that at home with some of my solo groups and/or with other players, but assuming the lack of a local participating store here, I'd also like to do what I could to make it "official".
You'll be able to report home play sessions on your own. I'm going to do my best to ensure that there's as little distinction as possible between in-store play and home play, apart from the fact that stores will be getting scenarios first.
That's great! Thanks for the response Vic!
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What if we don't have a local participating store? Is there any way to basically sanction a home group? I wouldn't mind signing up to be a local VO and forming an organized group here, but outside of my local Barnes and Noble, there isn't a store within realistic driving distance that I'm aware of that I could try to set something up at unfortunately.
Depending on how the scenarios are released for store play, non FLGS stores may be an option. I have heard of Pathfinder Society being run from a Steak 'N Shake.
Chief Technical Officer
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The scenarios will be released to game stores that sign up with our program—and we do verify that they're an actual game store—and to PFS Venture Officers. So a VO in an area that doesn't have a participating retailer could run it elsewhere... but if you have neither a participating retailer nor an active VO, you'll need to wait until it's available for home play.
I am a game store owner and looking for info on how to sign up for this program. We have an active Pathfinder Society and want to run the Adventure Card Guild as well.
I think this news announcement has the info you are looking for.
Retailers wishing to participate in the new organized play program, and to receive the free scenarios and other promotional materials, will need to register on Paizo's Retailer Locator at paizo.com/retailers.
wishing i could get my hands on these scenarios real time, or that we had VC/VO/VL's that could instead of only sending them to stores. There are no registered stores in my area, but I'll have the S&S base set and friends with the character decks but no store near me to play the official games, so I'll have to wait up to a month to get my hands on the scenarios?
Starting to see the flaw with this one.
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For those without a game store, consider maybe finding a time at a community center, comic shop, quirky coffee shop, or maybe a restaurant or pub that has family game nights (is that only a thing here in Portland?). We have a chess club that opens its doors on non-chess nights to other games, something like that might be perfect for you.
One of the main concepts behind organized play is spreading the word about Paizo's great games, limiting play to a home group is awesome-fun but doesn't do much to include new or estranged gamers.
By posting a meetup, making a facebook group, a craigslist advert, or putting up flyers you could start your own public gaming group, and would likely go much further if your goal is to become a VO in an area that is not currently organized even without the support of a dedicated gaming store (thus granting you access to the scenarios).
Otherwise, waiting for the public release looks to be your only bet. Really, if you take a month to play the base set and first adventure pack and then start OP scenarios when they come out for everyone you can still have weekly games with new-to-you content.