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!

The Game Manufacturers Association (GAMA) Trade Show in Las Vegas has wrapped up and I'm headed back to Seattle early next week. GAMA brings retailers and industry professionals together once a year at their trade show, as well as sponsors the Origins Gaming Convention every June in Columbus, Ohio. The Paizo team was busy this year! The Jasons (Keely and Bulmahn) ran lots of Starfinder ship combat demos, Erik Mona talked to loads of attendees about upcoming Paizo products, including the Starfinder line, Jeff/Cosmo/Pierce/Jenny spent lots of time in meetings, and I gave presentations on Paizo Organized Play. By the way, how many of you caught our live tweets from the presentations? That was the brainchild of our new Outreach Manager, Dan Tharp. You should see his fingers fly on a phone keyboard.

A while back, we opened up submissions to our Pathfinder Society Character Sketch Competition, and while PaizoCon swept through the office and knocked us prone, we're back and ready to show off the entries! We hope to continue to open up similar contests to give artists within the Pathfinder Society community to show off their characters and creations, so don't despair if you didn't get a chance to enter this time! I'd also like to extend a big "Thank You!" to our contestants for their patience over the last two weeks while we ramp back up to normal.

There is no way to do everything at Gen Con by myself; there are just too many tasks and too many places to be. So every year a team of Lead Volunteers is named to help out. While I coordinate things between Gen Con and PFS, they do the same for all the volunteers. Months before the convention starts, just weeks after Gen Con 2015 ended, they started talking about Gen Con 2016. Through months of planning, generating schedules, corresponding with volunteers, compiling lists of supplies, they work closely with me to deliver a quality show. They arrive at Gen Con early and help me set up the Sagamore. Setup is a HUGE endeavor, involving unpacking pallets, building shelving, assembling table stands, folding papers, stuffing envelopes, sorting shirts... an almost endless list of tasks that all need to occur before Wednesday afternoon when our volunteers arrive. After four days of very little sleep, they help tear down the Sagamore, disassembling everything we built days before, packing up the pallets, rolling banners, and compiling a list of GM feedback. Only when everything is torn down and ready to return to Seattle do they take a breather and stop thinking Gen Con 2016. Then, a few weeks later, they review the feedback, read through the many post-Gen Con forum threads, and start thinking about Gen Con 50. The amount of time these volunteers spend putting the show together is immense and I cannot say thank you enough to them for all they do!