OPC Log—11 Gozren 4716

Monday, April 11, 2016

Photo courtesy of Nathan Peever.

This past weekend I attended Emerald City Comic Con with over 80,000 other people! While not the largest convention I've participated in, it is in the top three (among Fan Expo Canada with 127,000 and Gen Con at 197,695 attendees). All three are huge conventions with a varied fan base!

This weekend volunteers and Paizo staff came together to run Pathfinder Society events in the Sheraton Grand Ballroom. Except for the early morning hours, we consistently filled our tables and worked hard to get games going quickly. Some of our attendees enjoyed the Adventure Card Game so much they came back the next day to play through the Season of the Runelords Adventure 1. Several other groups went directly from our tables to on-site retailers and bought the Rise of the Runelords Base Set with the intent to start playing back home.

Over the weekend, I managed a couple of breaks and visited other areas of the convention. While I didn't see any of the Pathfinder iconics running around, there was plenty of other great cosplay abound! Pockets of people formed as people took photos of some truly awesome concoctions of fabric, foam, and makeup. Seas of people filled the dealers hall and artist alley. Their talent amazes me and I could stand for hours looking at their work.

But Emerald City Comic Con is just one topic for this week. Let's shift gears to a topic that's been cropping up on the forums: the expense and difficulty of attending conventions. Some Pathfinders desire the rewards of attending conventions, namely boons, but couldn't see a way past the barriers blocking their path. On the organizational side, we receive requests for convention support from events that don't meet the requirements for venue or size. We don't like saying "no" to these events, so we put our heads together, and developed a "Game Day" program to augment our convention support program.

It took a few months to get the details hammered out on who qualifies, what they receive, and support distribution methods. We came up with a flexible program that allows us to tailor our response based on the region and needs of the community. The Game Day program supports three non-convention venues—the venue that is a consistently strong performer that needs recognition for its accomplishments, the venue that is new and could use support to establish itself, and those events that are not quite conventions because they occur in retail establishments or are just under the table requirements. All Game Days still must follow the requirement of being open to the public, registered on paizo.com, and having some form of online advertisement.

We decided the Regional Venture-Coordinators (RVC) know their areas best, so they should choose Game Days under the new program. Each RVC gets 10 such events a quarter. We chose 10 as a baseline number until we can see the reach of the program and identify the regional needs. The RVC works with the event organizer in establishing goals based off of attendance, event offerings, and community needs. Each Game Day should have a basic, stretch, and super stretch goal. Rewards in the form of player and GM boons scale with the goals, with all Game Days getting the basic Tier 3 rewards. If a Game Day meets its stretch goals, then they earn Tier 2 rewards, just as super stretch equals Tier 1.

It is my pleasure to introduce the first of our game days. For the second quarter of 2016, the Southeastern region named Cool Kids Excelsior 2nd Anniversary Bash from April 29-May 1 in Hoover, Alabama, as one of their not-quite-a-con Game Days, as it is held in a retail location. Point of contact is Venture-Captain Mike Seales. The second Southeastern Game Day is TriCon from April 23-24, 2016, in High Point, North Carolina. Once again, it is an event in a retail location. Venture-Lieutenant Landon Hatfield is leading this event. Both of these Game Days are on the event locator here on the website; if you want more details check them out! The Western-Europe/Middle East region named one Game Day: Madrid, Spain, is hosting reoccurring game day. The first was April 2-3 and saw 10 tables of Siege of Serpents and a few other games. The next occurrence is April 30, when they plan to run introduction events in four different locations across Madrid. For more information, contact Venture-Captain Tesifonte Negro Gonzalez. Venture-Officer emails are on the Regional Coordinators page. I look forward to announcing more Game Days as the program grows!

Finally, I would like to apologize to the three individuals who entered the Pathfinder Adventure Card Guild accessory contest. I didn't take my travel schedule into account when I set the submission deadline, and was out of the office when the deadline occurred. But, late is better than never! We had three submissions of three unique accessories. Voting opens today and closes it on Friday, April 15th. Winners will be announced in the blog on Monday, April 18th! Please take a moment and vote for your favorite!

Submissions by Calthaer, Hawkmoon269, and lackoffocus.

Tonya Woldridge
Organized Play Coordinator