Countdown to PAIZOCON

Thursday, June 11, 2009

PAIZOCON is tomorrow! The massive event schedule lists all of the awesome activities attendees can expect to take part in, but here are some of the real gems that I'm looking forward to:

As I mentioned in Tuesday's "Countdown to PAIZOCON" blog, guests and Paizo staff will have the opportunity to wine and dine together during Saturday's banquet. One of the reasons I'm most excited about the banquet is the opportunity to meet fellow Paizonians. Having gotten to know so many of you on the messageboards, it will be fun to finally meet some of you face-to-face! In addition to Publisher Erik Mona's preview of upcoming Pathfinder products and CEO Lisa Steven's keynote address, attendees can expect one very special surprise. I can't say what it is (under pain of death), but you all should be very excited!

One of the neatest things about PAIZOCON is the myriad opportunities to get the inside scoop on Pathfinder, Paizo, and the old days at TSR. Between “The Pathfinder RPG and the Future of Paizo" on Friday, and "What's New with Pathfinder?", "Secrets of TSR Revealed!", and the "Pathfinder Fiction Discussion" on Saturday, guests should expect to get firsthand knowledge about the juicy details of the publishing industry, as well as an exciting look at all of the goodies (and there are many!) that Paizo will be working on in the near future. I plan on attending as many of these seminars as I can!

Speaking of seminars, there are a ton about how to begin writing for RPGs and break into the game industry. Here's a brief list of some of the seminars that I hope to attend myself: "How To Break Into Print in Kobold Quarterly," "Designing Dungeons with Monte Cook," "Secrets of the Publishing Industry—Your Questions Answered," "Pathfinder Society Open Call Workshop," "Build a Pathfinder Society Scenario with Sue Cook and Joshua J. Frost," and "Game Design Self-Editing Workshop by Sue Cook."

Finally (and perhaps best of all) expect to play lots and lots of games. Pathfinder Society scenarios will be run every day throughout the convention, and special events such as Sean K Reynold's "Into the Scarlet Monastery" (a Pathfinder RPG rendition of one of the most iconic dungeons of the most iconic MMO), Jason Bulmahn's "Fight Club" (wherein you characters will be brutally savaged by monsters), and master of horror James Jacobs's "Unspeakable Futures" (a Pathfinder RPG variant set in an apocalyptic earth ravaged by the Elder Mythos) are sure to be crowd pleasers. I might even have to sit in and watch some of these games being played—they sound that awesome.

I've quickly run out of space in my excitement to tell you about the ridiculously fun things to expect at PAIZOCON, so I'll end with this:

PAIZOCON is tomorrow baby! WOOT!

David Eitelbach
Editorial Intern