OPC Wants You for PaizoCon 2017!

I hope to see you from behind the GM screen :)

Huzzah! (Even if I can't go.)

Volunteer request submitted!! Looking forward to this 10th Paizocon (number 5 for me with 4 of them as a volunteer)!!

Volunteer form submitted.

Hurm. The ballroom is a pretty big space that usually has a lot of people in it. Closing it in the middle of every day is going to dislocate all those people to other places. Some fraction will probably go off-campus, but I predict that the other miscellaneous gaming rooms and the hall space where you can game becomes rather crowded without the ballroom as a place where some people can go.

They had the second floor ballrooms as gaming areas last time. That was where the unofficial slots were held.

Was the ballroom closed in the middle of the day last time around?

No Saturday night slot? What happens then? Drinking and debauchery?

(This will be my first Paizocon...)

Drinking and debauchery. Specifically, the banquet.

Unless I am convinced otherwise, this year I think I will not volunteer.

I have volunteered at every GenCon/PaizoCon I have attended since 2008 (missed only 2014, Air Force decided to screw up my schedule that year). I think I will make this the first one I don't!

Sweet, Sweet sleeping in!

Have fun GMs!

How can I help otherwise? Setup? Teardown?

Drinking and debauchery. Specifically, the banquet.

Anecdotally, that also happens at the after-banquet festivities, and the after-after-banquet festivities. Most of said festivities are informal and resume formality the following day at about 8 am.

Ahhh, I remember my first PaizoCon, and getting very drunk with Thursty... *Also I may have fanboyed over meeting my favorite Gaming author for Paizo Crystal Frasier*

Ahhh I remember my first GenCon and getting very drunk with Daigle...

Damn... I need more firsts.

Was the ballroom closed in the middle of the day last time around?

No, but there was only a handful of tables when I stopped by looking for my Bid for Alabastrine game.

What does "HQ" involve? I'm not involved in organised-play, but would be interested in helping out at the 'carry boxes and/or tell people where stuff is' level if that's a thing.

Ahhh I remember my first GenCon and getting very drunk with Daigle...

Ahhh, the days before I had to be somewhere at 8-9am at a convention...

:)

What does "HQ" involve? I'm not involved in organised-play, but would be interested in helping out at the 'carry boxes and/or tell people where stuff is' level if that's a thing.

HQ typically involves the following

It's an exciting, all-hands-on-deck kind of volunteer experience. You show up for four days, give 110%, and spend the next week recovering with a big grin on your face :D

Looking forward to seeing everyone this year! Huzzah!

Hurm. The ballroom is a pretty big space that usually has a lot of people in it. Closing it in the middle of every day is going to dislocate all those people to other places. Some fraction will probably go off-campus, but I predict that the other miscellaneous gaming rooms and the hall space where you can game becomes rather crowded without the ballroom as a place where some people can go.

While I appreciate the concern, we actually only had 5-6 games going in the ballroom during the afternoon slot last year. Often, when people talk of their con experiences, they don't get out of the PFS area. In closing it down during the afternoon, we hope people will take the middle slot to participate in everything else PaizoCon has to offer - panels, paint & take, delves, other games, staff interactions. So I think we will be okay.

Am I the only person that wishes the big cons like PaizoCon and Gen Con would run more older scenarios to help people fill in gaps in their play lists? The new things are the easiest things to schedule for smaller lodges, whereas sometimes you need a large gathering of people to find a table's worth of players to play that one scenario from two years ago that everyone else in your hometown has played.

Anyway, this will be my first PaizoCon and I'm really looking forward to it.

Submitted! This is my second PaizoCon, and would be my first as a volunteer.

Arg, decisions, decisions... Do I spend my first PaizoCON volunteering? Or taking in the sights? I like GMing a lot... But I also want to do everything...

Steve Geddes wrote:

What does "HQ" involve? I'm not involved in organised-play, but would be interested in helping out at the 'carry boxes and/or tell people where stuff is' level if that's a thing.

HQ typically involves the following

- Answering questions and ferrying people to appropriate areas.
- Marshaling players--forming them into groups and sending them to tables.
- Basic set up and tear down of the ballroom.
- Managing the prize booth and handing out boons; rationing prize to ensure it lasts all weekend.
- Checking out Pregen booklets and ensuring they're returned.
- Performing hand signals during the special.
- Checking in GMs and ensuring they are at the proper table.
- Assembling scenario packets for GMs, and prepping packets for future slots.
- Entering reported games for all of PaizoCon.
- Arriving before the slot begins and/or leaving a while after slot ends, as we need to prepare/clean up the space.
- Finishing the weekend by attending China Star, the local greasy spoon restaurant that we historically celebrate the end of PaizoCon at.
- As well as any further duties I'm forgetting to mention.

It's an exciting, all-hands-on-deck kind of volunteer experience. You show up for four days, give 110%, and spend the next week recovering with a big grin on your face :D

Cheers. Sounds like the place for me. :)

Woran: don't do Tier 1 GMing at your first PaizoCon. It's fun, if you like GMing, but it also sort of takes over your life. Do Tier 3 or Tier 4 GMing.

I went for Tier 3 because I'm a sucker for free t-shirts.

A small thing, but mentioning the dates in the blog post is probably worth the space.
Seattle, WA—May 26-29, 2017

Are there different boons for each tier or do Tier 1 - 3 receive the same boon/reward?

This will be my first PaizoCon. Should be interesting.

You may want to update the final page of the submission form. The title is PaizoCon, but the rest of it says GenCon including the contact e-mail.

This will be my first PaizoCon. Should be interesting.

You may want to update the final page of the submission form. The title is PaizoCon, but the rest of it says GenCon including the contact e-mail.

Whoops. Thought I got them all changed. Fixed now :)

If you already sent an email with changes to the genconpfsvolunteer address, I'll get it, so no need to send another.

I am interested in volunteering. Classes at North Idaho College should be wrapped by then and with that, my Venture Agent duties, until late August. I've been hoping to attend PaizoCon and this would be the perfect opportunity.

I am interested in volunteering. Classes at North Idaho College should be wrapped by then and with that, my Venture Agent duties, until late August. I've been hoping to attend PaizoCon and this would be the perfect opportunity.

To volunteer, you need to fill out the questionare linked in the blog.

Am I the only person that wishes the big cons like PaizoCon and Gen Con would run more older scenarios to help people fill in gaps in their play lists?

Alas, since I am not attending PaizoCon this year (:sniff:) I cannot speak to their schedule. However, we are discussing the possibility of some classic tables at Gen Con 50. We are keenly aware that as we prepare to launch season 9, there are a lot of players who joined PFS in the not so distant past and did not have the opportunity to play through all the older season offerings. No promises, but its on the agenda.

Am I the only person that wishes the big cons like PaizoCon and Gen Con would run more older scenarios to help people fill in gaps in their play lists? The new things are the easiest things to schedule for smaller lodges, whereas sometimes you need a large gathering of people to find a table's worth of players to play that one scenario from two years ago that everyone else in your hometown has played.

Anyway, this will be my first PaizoCon and I'm really looking forward to it.

Many of us run PFS games before the Con starts. Often these are older scenarios. If there's something in particular you are looking for, be sure to check threads about pre-con gaming and make a request.

Am I the only person that wishes the big cons like PaizoCon and Gen Con would run more older scenarios to help people fill in gaps in their play lists?

Come visit us in the Bay Area, we always run a selection of older scenarios at our conventions.

Am I the only person that wishes the big cons like PaizoCon and Gen Con would run more older scenarios to help people fill in gaps in their play lists? The new things are the easiest things to schedule for smaller lodges, whereas sometimes you need a large gathering of people to find a table's worth of players to play that one scenario from two years ago that everyone else in your hometown has played.

From an organizing standpoint, I'm happy to provide some insight into this.

Starting out, we have 6 play slots and lets assume about 35 tables at each slot. But 1 of those slots is the special, so really we have 5 play slots across the convention. That's 175 slots. And in there, we're going to have to deliver on some basics.

We promised to host newer scenarios, from #8-06 to #8-23. So that's 23 scenarios already decided for us. We also need to have the PFS quests, and the level 1-2 replayables going as well--as larger conventions are going to draw a good deal of folks that haven't ever played PFS before. So that's like 27 scenarios already picked for us. And each of these will need to be hosted multiple times throughout PaizoCon, for all the people that can't make it to every given day.

We also need to make sure that the newest scenarios, the ones that are coming out in 2017, get more tables than the ones that came out in late 2016. It doesn't make much sense to have 12 tables of #8-22 over the convention, but also have 12 tables of #8-06. So probably what we're going to have is around 10 tables for each game that dropped in 2017 (#8-12 to #8-23), and probably about 5 tables for the rest. So that's 150 tables, plus whatever we need for evergreens. So we've already got 160/175 slots decided for us.

Given that, each slot we're also going to want to have more low level tables than high level ones. With a ratio that looks something like this (based off of previous PaizoCons)
1-2s: 2x
1-5s: 15x
3-7s: 8x
5-9s: 7x
7-11: 3x
So if we did have throwback games, they'd either have to be low level or take one of the coveted higher level slots. Which would kind of defeat the purpose of being able to run some of those really cool older arcs (Heresy of Man series, etc).

And as we talk about specific scenarios, we also need to stagger multipart scenarios. So we'll want to have part 1 on the first slot, part 2 on the second, etc. We'll also want to have part 1 again on the second slot, for people that didn't make the first. So we're going to have a rotating staggered break down of those scenarios-- eg. Tyranny of the Winds 1-3, Forged in Flame 1-2, etc.

Also, despite a lot of newer folks not playing those older scenarios, there will be participants that have already played them, making them dead slots for those players. So if we do have throwback games, they'll have a limited turnout versus other scenarios which are new as of the month of PaizoCon.

Lastly, we don't want our GMs to have to run different scenarios each slot. They're already going to be running at least two typically (the special and one more), and if we introduce some throwback scenarios, they'll be needing to add that to their prework as well. They're already doing so much for us, we don't need to add to their stress level by adding another scenario to their rotation.

Anyway, that's the process we've got to go through to get the PaizoCon PFS schedule decided. And at the end of the day, it's difficult to really justify including some throwback scenarios. Especially when you consider the middle slot of each day is open for free play, allowing people to organize and run games just like this!

Mimo Tomblebur wrote:

Am I the only person that wishes the big cons like PaizoCon and Gen Con would run more older scenarios to help people fill in gaps in their play lists?

Alas, since I am not attending PaizoCon this year (:sniff:) I cannot speak to their schedule. However, we are discussing the possibility of some classic tables at Gen Con 50. We are keenly aware that as we prepare to launch season 9, there are a lot of players who joined PFS in the not so distant past and did not have the opportunity to play through all the older season offerings. No promises, but its on the agenda.

And GenCon gets like 150 tables per slot to play with, so it's more viable to rotate a few of those in!

but its on the agenda.

I knew Bob had an agenda! And I am certain it is related to my destruction!

Thank you for the explanation, Walter. I didn't realize how much smaller PaizoCon was than the Pathfinder presence at Gen Con, since I haven't been to the former before.

Gen Con is definitely the larger of the two but I still prefer PaizoCon! It's more sociable and focused around everything Pathfinder and awesome. It's also driving distance for me ;)

This will be my maiden PaizoCon voyage and so I'm just gonna have fun. Maybe sit in on a 5-star qualifier if not my own.

I put in as a volunteer gm and I'm going nutty with the wait. I don't want to be stressing like a kid at Christmas for longer than I have to, so how will I know if I am NOT chosen? Will there be an announcement that all slots are filled?

Like several other people who have posted this will be my first PaizoCon, but I've also never attended any Con that used a lottery for sign ups. What do I need to know regarding registering for events?

Like several other people who have posted this will be my first PaizoCon, but I've also never attended any Con that used a lottery for sign ups. What do I need to know regarding registering for events?

Let's see...

1. Watch the paizocon forums - there'll be announcements here when the lottery's about to start.
2. It doesn't matter when you sign up for the lottery, so long as it's during the open window, which is usually about a week.
3. You'll rate events 1-4 for what you want least to most. Rate honestly, having multiple 4s doesn't increase your chances. It just means that if there are several spots open when your turn comes along, it'll choose randomly between all of them instead of giving you the one you really want most.
4. Don't worry about not getting many/any events in the lottery. Based purely on my own general impression (and doing this for several years now), you have a pretty good chance of getting at least one lottery event, and a decent chance of getting zero or two.
5. Most games are not in the lottery. After the lottery runs and the results are in, these events become available on a first-come/first-served basis.
6. If there's a lottery game you really, really want and don't win, you can go to the room it's in anyway and possibly get in. Usually somebody will flake. I've run 1-2 games at every PaizoCon I've been to, for I think 8 years now, and I've never had a 100% overlap between people who were registered for the game and people who showed up to it.

My experience agrees with #4 on that list. I've had 0, 1, and 2 lottery games that I got into.

There will also be pick-up games, and other games arranged ahead of time. If you know people you want to game with, arrange a game during time when none of you have anything else; I did that last year, and it was quite jolly.

I got into three lottery events last year, but two of them were ACG, so maybe there was a little less competition?

It's definitely worth ranking every single lottery event that you have any interest in playing. If your number comes up and everything you've ranked is full, you just won't get anything.

Thanks for all the great answers!

Random question that popped into my head:

If you signed up for GMing, do you know what slots you'll GM before the lottery opens up? No use signing up for the special if you are sceduled to GM it for exsmple

In the past, we have.

I'm coming just to play PACG. For the past few years at PaizoCon we've had tables of experienced players who don't need a GM for the PACG games, just the materials.

For the periods of time where the ballroom will not be available, will you still make the PACG materials available so that we can organize games on our own? Since I'm flying up I'd prefer not to have to bring a whole box of pacg on my own.

And, not to sound churlish, but 2 years ago we were able to play all day up until the Sat evening banquet. Last year, the ballroom closed early but we were able to (just barely) request use of the game and scenarios and were able to play Sat afternoon. This year it seems like the gaming area is closed for even longer. I definitely don't want to insist that Paizo staff or volunteers work through the banquet so that I can play. But it seems like the number of hours the PACG is available to play is getting whittled down more each year. For those of us who are taking days off of work and flying in the Con, getting fewer hours of gaming is not really a feature, its a bug.

Please let us know if there is going to be some sort of protocol for checking out or requesting PACG scenarios and game boxes during the times that the hours that there are no GMs. Otherwise I guess at some point there might not be enough play hours at PaizoCon to make it worth while. Which would be a shame, since PaizoCon is one of my favorite Cons all year.

In the past, we have.

I figured, but assumption is the mother of all accidents so to say.

Also, I have not heard back from Tonya regarding my GM application :(

Neither have I; has anyone, yet?