OPM Musings
Wow, the month flew by. Activity the last few weeks focused on getting January scenarios out of the door, working on future scenarios, planning for our new seasons, and ramping up for convention season. We’re putting some finishing touches on our plans and will share them with everyone in a few weeks.
It’s been satisfying to have some of our longer-term projects come to fruition. Over the next few months, we hope to bring a few more projects across the finish line. I’ll leave it to Alex to reveal our latest project.
New FAQ Pages
We’re glad there was such a positive response to the new Pathfinder Society Character Options page last week because we’ve got another new set of pages for you: FAQ pages for Paizo Organized Play have now been updated! We’ve got areas for general organized play questions, as well as areas for program-specific questions. Just like the Character Options page, this update both refreshes the look of the pages and will make it easier for the Organized Play team to publish content. We’re still tweaking these pages, so you may see some changes in how the content is organized, but if you have feedback, let us know! We’ve kept the Pathfinder Society (first edition) pages in the legacy format.
Eagle-eyed players will notice that the Pathfinder Society FAQ page currently contains the full text of a number of boons. You’ve been asking for a place to view the full text of boons before buying them, and now we’ve got one! Any boon that is more complicated than its short description will have its text published on this page. Boons that unlock ancestries or similarly self-evident boons will not have their text published.
The FAQ page also contains the full text of our Year 2 Chronicle Boons. As we discussed in last week’s blog, there is an issue where GMs cannot download these boons after running the game, so we’re pleased to offer this workaround. Any GM with a chronicle sheet for running a Year 2 scenario with a boon attached can use the full text as published on the FAQ page instead of downloading the boon. Once the bug is fixed, these boons will be removed from the FAQ page to avoid spoilers.
Fame
Last week, we updated the community regarding our Pathfinder Society digitization efforts. At this point, Fame is no longer a spendable currency and we are not tracking it in any way. Reputation still exists and unlocks benefits for characters via the Achievement Point system on your “My Organized Play” page. You can see your current Reputation with the factions (note, it is called Fame on the webpage in a holdover from Pathfinder Society (first edition), which is something we have queued to fix.)
Sanctioning
We caught up on some of the outstanding tasks, as well as kept up with our goal of day one sanctioning. Last month, we finished up Troubles in Otari and added the character options from the The Threefold Conspiracy to the Starfinder Society Additional Resource document. By the end of this month, we hope to have The Slithering and another update to Starfinder Society Additional Resouces. We also are on target to have Lost Omens: Ancestry Guide ready on release day (February 24th). We haven’t forgotten the Pathfinder (first edition) outstanding items, but we haven’t had the capacity to dip back into that system yet.
GM Achievements
Whether stars, novas, or glyphs, achieving a 5 ranking in any program involves a substantial amount of time. To achieve the 5th milestone, a GM must run 150 games, of which at least 50 must be unique scenarios and 10 special scenarios, as well as run between one and three games for venture-captains (program dependant). A conservative estimate of the time needed to reach the 5th milestone is 650 hours!
We had one GM earn their 5th star this month. No GMs earned their fifth Nova or Glyph.
5th Star: Dawn Upson
Congratulations on your achievement, Dawn!
Conventions
Convention season is just around the corner, and we’re starting to kick up planning for our major conventions. We hope to have information on how to volunteer soon! In the meantime, there are plenty of local events offering Paizo Organized Play. If you don’t see a convention on the list that you think should be there, contact the event organizer and ask them to register their event for organized play support.
| Convention | Location | Start Date | Status | Interactive Events | Staff Attendance |
| COTN 2021 | Plymouth, MN | 2/12/2021 | Online | None | |
| Orccon 2021 | Los Angeles, CA | 2/12/2021 | Online | SFS 3-00 The Last Bite | |
| OutPost IV: Roll Them Bones | Online | 2/16/2021 | Online | PFS2 2-00 The King in Thorns | |
| Total Con 35 | Marlborough, MA | 2/18/2021 | Online | PFS2 2-00 The King in Thorns, SFS 3-00 The Last Bite | |
| George WashingCon 2021 | Bloomington, IN | 2/19/2021 | Online | None | |
| Hamburg Society Con online | Hamburg, Germany | 2/26/2021 | Online | PFS2 2-00 The King in Thorns | |
| Reaper Virtual Expo | Denton, TX | 3/5/2021 | Online | None | Alex |
| COS VCON | Butler, PA | 3/19/2021 | Online | SFS 3-00 The Last Bite |
Come back next week for a very special guest blog from the Organized Play Foundation!
Until next time: Explore! Report! Cooperate!