A Call to Vol—PaizoCon 2018!

Monday, December 18, 2017

In prior years, it seemed that we had a distinctive convention season with a slower period during the winter. This model doesn't work anymore, as PAX Unplugged extended the season into mid-November, and next year pushes it further back into early December, while Martin Luther King Junior's birthday weekend is the launch of the new convention season.

The new season brings with it several Paizo-sponsored conventions with a large organized play presence. PaizoCon, Gen Con, Origins, as well as travel to other shows such as UK Games Expo, PaizoCon UK, and PaizoCon OZ. Planning for these conventions started several months ago. Over the past few months, Paizo staff worked hard on updating the Attendance policy. With it completed and releasing to the public this month (along with updates the PaizoCon area of paizo.com), tickets sales are soon to follow. One of my goals includes offering volunteer slots for Paizo-sponsored conventions before the ticket sales open. This allows volunteers to make plans with their friends before purchasing tickets. Thus, we moved the call for volunteers from its usual February timeslot to today.

We have a few big changes from last year. We hope this streamline some of the processes or bring more options for attendees at the convention.

First, we changed the nomenclature from session or slot to block. Each block is 5 hours. This unifies the terminology from the event support form used by our event organizers and keeps things consistent across the board.

Second, we ditched using the Tier system to describe how many volunteers. It is a RPGA holdover that caused confusion, as the lower number the tier, the more slots a person volunteered. Also, we have tiers for our scenarios, so having tiers for volunteers caused some confusion in our data. This year, you register for the number of 5 hour blocks you wish to volunteer.

Third change is overnight madness! Following on the success of having overnight games at Gen Con 50, we are trying it out at PaizoCon. We will schedule some tables of Pathfinder Society or Starfinder Society, but there will be a limited number of tables available on a first-come, first-served basis for attendees wishing to play other games.

Fourth, afternoon tables may be submitted to the PaizoCon event system. When Sara Marie requests submissions from third parties, feel free to submit items for Pathfinder Society or Starfinder Society. Any tables not allocated through the system by the time submissions will be available on site with first-come, first-served priority.

Finally, we are setting a 7 block maximum for volunteering. We want people to take a break and see what the convention has to offer. PaizoCon is a celebration of Paizo, its staff, and community and we want you to experience different aspects of it. Oh, and eat. We really want you to have time for food, rest, and showers.

Last year, we utilized 78 GMs, Card Guild organizers, and HQ volunteers to ensure organized play activities at PaizoCon ran smoothly. I anticipate the same needs again this year, depending on how many blocks each volunteer requests. We have a few new choices for volunteers this year. As we are running overnight games, we will need a handful of GMs to run games through the wee hours of the morning. We are also looking for two HQ volunteers for the afternoon block to man the information desk and two for the overnight block, when they would be manning the info desk but mainly focused reporting prior blocks game information. Due to the limited number of places, space fills up quickly, so I recommend signing up as soon as you know you can commit to the event.

Volunteer slots are scheduled as follows:

BlockRPG/ACG GMsHQ
Friday Morning7:45 AM to 1:00 PM7:30 AM to 1:00 PM
Friday AfternoonN/A1:00 PM to 7:00 PM
Friday Evening6:45 PM to Midnight6:30 PM to Midnight
Friday Overnight12:45 AM to 6:00 AM1:00 AM to 7:00 AM
Saturday Morning7:45 AM to 1:00 PM7:30 AM to 1:00 PM
Saturday AfternoonN/A1:00 PM to 7:00 PM
Saturday Overnight12:45 AM to 6:00 AM1:00 AM to 7:00 AM
Sunday Morning7:45 AM to 1:00 PM7:30 AM to 1:00 PM
Sunday AfternoonN/A1:00 PM to 7:00 PM
Sunday Evening6:45 PM to Midnight6:30 PM to Midnight
Sunday Overnight12:45 AM to 6:00 AM1:00 AM to 7:00 AM
Monday Morning7:45 AM to 1:00 PM7:30 AM to 1:00 PM

The breakdown of what benefits are available for each tier are:

# of BlocksPrint ProductBadgeT-ShirtsBoon/RewardStore Credit
7 BlocksChoice of 3
6 BlocksChoice of 2
5 BlocksChoice of 1
4 BlocksChoice of 1
3 BlocksChoice of 1
2 Blocks
1 Block

The details of each benefit are as follows:

  • Print Product—A FREE copy of one Paizo print product of your choice valued at $59.99 or less (excludes preorders or backorders).
  • Badge—A free 4-Day PaizoCon 2018 badge
  • T-Shirts—Limited release t-shirts given every other year.
  • Boon/Reward—An PaizoCon exclusive boon for Starfinder (RPG), Pathfinder (RPG), or (ACG)
  • Store Credit—Paizo.com store credit at $10 per slot

Those interested in volunteering, please complete the PaizoCon 2018 volunteer questionnaire. I will consider everyone who completes the form, but reserve the right to select volunteers who have worked at PaizoCon in prior years.

Huge thanks to everyone who gives of their time and resources to help make us the largest organized play program in the world. You rock!

See you Wednesday for an early holiday present. Until then—Explore, Report, Cooperate!

Tonya Woldridge

Organized Play Manager

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Tags: Adventure Card Guild Conventions Organized Play PaizoCon PaizoCon 2018 Pathfinder Society Starfinder Society
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Grand Lodge

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Huzzah! *slightly diminished due to possibly NOT volunteering for the first time in years*

Grand Lodge

What?

Hmm lassoes TOZ.

You have not GMed for me yet! I will rope you in for a pre-or post-PaizoCon game if you don’t sign up to volunteer!

Back to the form: I submitted my form, and made sure that I passed the link to the blog link to others! I asked for three games. Let’s see what scenarios they shower me with!

Hmm

Shadow Lodge

3 people marked this as a favorite.

*pokes the lasso in confusion* Well then.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

As someone who regularly works an overnight shift, I am excited about the overnight slots.


...I may have possibly made a poor life choice...

...I don't regret it, though...

Paizo Employee Developer

2 people marked this as a favorite.

1. This is tagged Paizocon2017
Shouldn't it be Paizocon 2018?

2. When is the con? There are no blog posts announcing the date and the convention page still says 2017.

Sovereign Court Organized Play Manager

3 people marked this as a favorite.
KitsuneWarlock wrote:

1. This is tagged Paizocon2017

Shouldn't it be Paizocon 2018?

2. When is the con? There are no blog posts announcing the date and the convention page still says 2017.

That it should. The tag may not exist yet, as I got to write the first PaizoCon blog.

Dates are May 25-28, 2018.


HQ overnight is for the hardcore volunteers. :)


Or young people, I guess. : p


Tonya Woldridge wrote:
Dates are May 25-28, 2018.

At the same DoubleTree again, yes?

Dark Archive

4 people marked this as a favorite.

As someone who has been volunteering at PaizoCon for quite a few years, I would like to encourage anyone who hasn't been to this convention to try and get out at least once if you can. It is a convention like no other.

Sure, there are other conventions out there that may host a couple Paizo employees, however one-on-one time with them can be pretty limited. There are a ton of them at GenCon, however they're all pretty busy running large seminars, working the booth, managing the chaos in the Sagamore, etc.

PaizoCon is a smaller-sized convention put on by Paizo for their fans. The seminars are smaller and the staff are way more available for a casual chat. They each take turns running short survival-of-the-fittest delves. Everyone takes part running them too, so if you have a favorite staffer, you get a chance to play at a table they're running. And while PFS and SFS will have a large ballroom of events to choose from, it's not as hectic at GenCon, nor should it be the focus of your time there. They give the afternoon slot off so you can have a chance for a meet and greet with the staff, or a seminar, or to demo some of the cool new third party stuff that the vendors have.

All in all, it's a much more relaxed convention, put on for your benefit as a thank you, and in a great hotel with a lot of amenities (such as free cookies).

Don't break the bank to get here, but it is a once in a life opportunity that you won't forget.

Shadow Lodge

You said you were going to call then blocks now and that there wouldn't be tiers, yet the tables reference slots and tiers...

Grand Lodge

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Hmm wrote:
You have not GMed for me yet! I will rope you in for a pre-or post-PaizoCon game if you don’t sign up to volunteer!

On further consideration, I believe I will not be volunteering for the official PFS slots. Assuming that the afternoon slots can still be submitted after the event schedule has been posted, I will look to schedule a table in an off afternoon for me to run. Requests are welcome.

Liberty's Edge

Not likely to happen in 2018. Maybe in 2019.

Sovereign Court Organized Play Manager

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Eric Clingenpeel wrote:
You said you were going to call then blocks now and that there wouldn't be tiers, yet the tables reference slots and tiers...

Gahhh! Cut/Pasted from last year and missed changing the headers. Will ask Chris to work her magic today! Thanks for pointing it out.

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Starfinder Society Subscriber

Aww, I need to support Momocon in Atlanta :/

Dataphiles

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Can't wait! I went for the first time in 2017, and loved every second of it.

Scarab Sages

Tonya,
One thing I noticed is that for the overnight slots, everyone stops previous slot at midnight, then HQ shows up 15 minutes after games start and leaves an hour after the GM slot ends. Shouldn't it read 12:30 AM to 6:00 AM to match up with the other slots?

Scarab Sages

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Zach Davis wrote:
Can't wait! I went for the first time in 2017, and loved every second of it.

It was awesome meeting you!


For the boon/reward, are these the choice of the GM race boons? Or the general convention boons?

Also, thanks for putting this up early! Helps us plan!

Grand Lodge

1 person marked this as a favorite.

PaizoCon in the past has not given out race boons, alas. What they tend to give out is an extra trait boon from one of the upcoming APs.

Hmm

Sovereign Court Organized Play Manager

3 people marked this as a favorite.
WiseWolfOfYoitsu wrote:

Tonya,

One thing I noticed is that for the overnight slots, everyone stops previous slot at midnight, then HQ shows up 15 minutes after games start and leaves an hour after the GM slot ends. Shouldn't it read 12:30 AM to 6:00 AM to match up with the other slots?

Nope. I had 1 extra hour each day that I couldn't cover because of keeping slots at 5.5-6 hours. Given that GMs are on duty for 5.25 hours, this is the only way to keep it equitable. I'll cover that hour slot, and I'm much more functional at midnight than 6 am! I'm not expecting mustering for midnight slots to be that difficult (this statement is not a challenge!)


Tonya Woldridge wrote:
I'll cover that hour slot, and I'm much more functional at midnight than 6 am! I'm not expecting mustering for midnight slots to be that difficult (this statement is not a challenge!)

Awe. Are you sure I do like Challenges.

Scarab Sages

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Tonya Woldridge wrote:
WiseWolfOfYoitsu wrote:

Tonya,

One thing I noticed is that for the overnight slots, everyone stops previous slot at midnight, then HQ shows up 15 minutes after games start and leaves an hour after the GM slot ends. Shouldn't it read 12:30 AM to 6:00 AM to match up with the other slots?
Nope. I had 1 extra hour each day that I couldn't cover because of keeping slots at 5.5-6 hours. Given that GMs are on duty for 5.25 hours, this is the only way to keep it equitable. I'll cover that hour slot, and I'm much more functional at midnight than 6 am! I'm not expecting mustering for midnight slots to be that difficult (this statement is not a challenge!)

I still don't see how having the HQ staff show up after the games start makes sense, but I'm sure you've got it worked out. As I recall, it still took a few people to muster each night at GenCon. But, since I'm trying to volunteer to GM for those slots anyway, I'll be showing up early enough to help out as needed.

Scarab Sages

Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Society Subscriber

I'm excited to be at PaizoCon in whatever capacity I can.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Can't wait! I signed up for Starfinder GM slots this year! Thanks for posting this early.


Work got back to me on my PTO request and I put in my volunteer submission. Here's to hoping that it is accepted.


3 people marked this as a favorite.

Alright, time off has been approved, Volunteer form submitted, hotel and roommates lined up. Here's hoping for some more fun this year at PaizoCon!!!

Can't Wait to see all of you again and roll some dice. This time from behind the screen :D

See you all there!


When should we gently inquire as to GM/work status for PaizoCon?

Is it too soon?


GM Wageslave wrote:


When should we gently inquire as to GM/work status for PaizoCon?

Is it too soon?

I would give it a little longer. In Tonya's post "Stars, Volunteers, Conventions, and More!" on Jan 3rd. She mentioned that she was still working on it. Quoted below

Tonya Woldridge wrote:


I've got the list of PaizoCon volunteer registrations and will be working to match volunteers to tables over the next week or two. I will send emails to all registrants regarding their status. For those that hadn't completed the form but wanted to volunteer, you can still register by completing the PaizoCon 2018 Volunteer Registration.

I speculate that she is still working out the final pieces to the list and will likely start sending out emails soon possibly the end of this week but do not take that as a confirmation of this. I know Tonya is super busy making sure we all enjoy ourselves all over the world. She is amazing at what she does and I have to say thank you Tonya!!

GM Poblano

Grand Lodge

If I want to volunteer for just specials, multi-table or otherwise, how many slots should I sign for?

Dataphiles

I would just sign up for however many tables you feel like running and then indicate to Tonya your desire to run specials. Or I believe Sunday evening is the multi table special you could always just volunteer for that one time slot, and then set up any other specials you wish to run in open gaming.


Hi all, has anyone started getting volunteer assignments?

Grand Lodge

None yet here but I am hopeful this will be soon.


Likewise.

*fingers crossed*

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Hoping to see that email soon, as well.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Has anyone seen anything yet?


Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber

Nothing yet...


What's the organized play situation at Origins? How do sign-ups for GM slots work for that convention?

The Exchange

Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Swarley515 wrote:
What's the organized play situation at Origins? How do sign-ups for GM slots work for that convention?

Doesn't look like it was officially announced here but the sign up appears to be available at http://ohiopfs.org/origins/origins-gm-application/


Checking in. Anyone seen anything yet?


Nope. Was just wondering this morning myself, since it seems GenCon has gone out.


GenCon confirmations of acceptance or actual schedules?

I haven't seen either from PaizoCon yet and it's getting kind of late?


I'm curious as to when we will know as well as I missed the event submission window which was quite small.

Liberty's Edge

3 people marked this as a favorite.

I really need to know soon if all three GMs in my family have been accepted and assigned. This year will be great, I just know it! Even my 13 yo is coming to play!

Grand Lodge

WBryan wrote:
I really need to know soon if all three GMs in my family have been accepted and assigned. This year will be great, I just know it! Even my 13 yo is coming to play!

Yay! Wendy Glad to hear you will be GMing again this year. I played at one of your tables last year. You are an awesome GM.

Grand Lodge

2 people marked this as a favorite.

Glad to hear kudos for a hard-working VO in Southwest Washington!
Thanks for passing along the compliment, Gary.
Great job, Wendy!

Grand Lodge

Any time Larry! I look forward to meeting you in person this year at PaizoCon. I wasn't kidding when I said I owe you a drink of your choice. Your help had greatly relieved some stress while planning my Con in Lake County.

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