Stars, Volunteers, Conventions, and More!
Wednesday, January 3, 2018
Wow! What a year we had in 2017. Thanks to you, our community, for supporting us in bringing the joys of roleplaying to more players than ever before. I look forward to seeing what we can do in 2018!
I'm currently on the road, enjoying the holidays with my family, then gearing up for 2018 convention travel by heading out to MarsCon. More on that below! The rest of the team is at Paizo HQ, working hard on upcoming scenarios, updating additional resources, and a few other projects we will expand upon in upcoming blogs. We've got lots planned and are hard at work making those plans become reality.
Stars and Novas
Over the course of 2017, several of our stalwart GMs reached their 5th star milestone in PFS. Requirements to achieve 5 star status include running 150 games, of which at least 50 must be unique scenarios and 10 be special scenarios, but are not indicative of hours spent preparing for events. A conservative estimate of time needed to reach 5* is 650 hours! To our GMs listed below, thank you very much for the time and energy you spend running Pathfinder Society games! Your efforts are greatly appreciated.
- Herman V Abelarde Jr
- Timothy Mace
- Miguel Madrid del Ama
- Stephen Ross
- Andrew Bourne
When we launched Starfinder Society, the organized play team chose to track GM activity for the two campaigns separately. As they are different systems and running one doesn't grant automatic familiarity with the other, it made sense. To keep the star theme, but make it different, we chose novas. At the time of announcement, we outline the requirements for reaching 5 novas, as we didn't expect any GM to reach that point in the first few months. Now that the campaign has a few months under its belt, and with the announcement of two scenarios a month, we are revisiting the topic of what milestones a GM must achieve to be recognized with the 5 nova status.
As this isn't just the org play teams campaign, it belongs to the players too, I wanted to give our community a chance to weigh in on what they would like to see the 5 nova status represent. Any criteria we use needs to be objective, measurable, obtainable, and equitable. As this can be a very hot topic, and one that may elicit polarizing opinions, I would ask you to send commentary via email to organizedplay@paizo.com. The team will read all commentary and use it in our discussion of policy.
Conventions
Our community hit the ground running in 2018 and has put together quite a few events spanning the globe! If you've wanted to travel to an event, but are unsure if there are Paizo organized play activities, this list should help you out!
Convention Name Location Start Date MAGFest 2018 Washington ,DC 1/4/18 Start of the Year 2018 Geneva, Switzerland 1/4/18 PbP Community Multi Table Special III - Race for the Runecarved Key Online 1/5/18 ShadowCon 2018 West Memphis, AR 1/5/18 SacAnime Winter 2018 Sacramento, CA 1/5/18 Midwinter Gaming Convention 2018 Milwaukee, WI 1/11/18 Arisia 2018 Boston, MA 1/12/18 MarsCon 2017 Williamsburg, VA 1/12/18 Niu yia 2018 León, Spain 1/12/18 Paradise City Comic Con 2017 Miami, FL 1/12/18 SCARAB 2018 Columbia, SC 1/12/18 PAX South 2018 San Antonio, TX 1/12/18 The Grand Lodge Parties On Fresno, CA 1/13/18 Swampcon 2018 Gainesville, FL 1/13/18 Contingency 2018 Fordingbridge, Hampshire, UK 1/17/18 Mammoth Con 2018 San Diego, CA 1/19/18 Winter War 45 (2017) Urbana, IL 1/25/18 3rd Convention Pathfinder France Paris, France 1/26/18 Cancon 2018 Canberra, ACT, Australia 1/26/18 Polar Vortex 2018 Glen Ellyn, IL 1/26/18 B-CON Winter 2018 Frankfurt am Main, Germany 1/27/18 Manaleak 2017 Birmingham, UK 1/27/18 AtomiCon Mini II Durham, NC 2/2/18 CaptainCon 2018 Warwick, RI 2/2/18 FlintCon 2018 Flint, MI 2/3/18 GalaxyFest 2018 Colorado Springs, CO 2/9/18 LodgeCon 2018 Peotone, IL 2/10/18 GenghisCon 2018 Aurora, CO 2/15/18 BASHCon 2018 Toledo, OH 2/16/18 Con of the North Minneapolis, MN 2/16/18 George WashingCon (2018) Bloomington, IN 2/16/18 Dreamation 2018 Morristown, NJ 2/22/18 TotalCon 2018 Marlborough, MA 2/22/18 2nd Annual Boys and Girls Club Con Bellevue, NE 2/23/18 OwlCon 2018 Houston, TX 2/23/18 ImperiCon 2018 Wixom, MI 2/24/18 CoNfUsIoN 2018 Utrecht, Netherlands 3/9/18 CosCon XXX 2016 Butler, PA 3/16/18 PFS MANCon 2018 Manchester, UK 3/23/18 Marmalade Dog 23 Kalamazoo, MI 3/30/18 Volunteer Opportunities
As we spin up 2018, watch for a few more Call to Vol blogs. We will need GMs/HQ personnel for Gen Con and Origins . We are also looking for volunteers willing to help demonstrate games in the Paizo booth at UK Games Expo and PAX Unplugged. Calls for Gen Con, Origins, and UKGE should go out within the first quarter, with PAX arrangements occurring in July/August.
I've got the list of PaizoCon volunteer registrations and will be working to match volunteers to tables over the 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.
2018 Organized Play Staff Travel
Last month, I added a column to the convention list to show which events the organized play team planned on attending. While helpful, it didn't allow for much pre-planning, since event support requests submissions tend to be 1-2 months before the event. So this month, I've pulled together a list of all events in 2018 that will have an organized play staff presence. A few are listed as TBD and there may be some changes, as who attends depends on workloads and availability, but this is our currently planned itinerary.
If you are an event organizer and want to invite us out at your event in 2019, drop an email to organizedplay@paizo.com before next summer. We review our schedule in the fall and try to get all decisions wrapped by the end of the year.
Convention Name Location Start Date Paizo Staff Attending MarsCon 2017 Williamsburg, VA 1/12/18 Tonya SCARAB 2018 Columbia, SC 1/12/18 John OrcCon Los Angeles, CA 2/16/18 John TotalCon Marlborough, MA 2/22/18 TBD OwlCon 2018 Houston, TX 2/23/18 Tonya Emerald City Comic-Con Seattle, WA 3/1/18 Tonya, John, Linda GaryCon Lake Geneva, WI 3/8/18 Tonya Gama Trade Show Reno, NV 3/12/18 Tonya GameStorm Portland, OR 4/5/18 Linda Quad Cities Game Fest Quad Cities, IA 4/27/18 Tonya PaizoCon Sea-Tac, WA 5/25/18 Tonya, John, Linda UK Games Expo Birmingham, England 6/1/18 Tonya Origins Columbus, OH 6/13/18 Tonya, John ALA Annual Conference New Orleans, LA 6/20/18 Tonya PaizoCon UK Birmingham, England 7/20/18 Tonya Gen Con Indianapolis, IN 8/2/18 Tonya, John, Linda DragonCon Atlanta, GA 8/30/18 John Fan Expo Toronto, Ontario, Canada 8/31/18 TBD SkalCon Minnaepolis-St. Paul, MN 9/14/18 Tonya Hurricon Tampa, FL 9/27/18 Tonya PaizoCon OZ Brisbane, Australia 10/19/18 Tonya U-Con Ann Arbor, MI 11/9/18 Tonya PAX Unplugged Philadelphia, PA 11/30/18 Tonya Spotlight Blogs
Some of my greatest enjoyment being part of organized play stems from sharing stories and experiences with our players. For those that garner the same enjoyment from sharing, I would invite you to submit a blog for the organized play team to highlight in our Wednesday blogs. Topics are flexible, as long as it relates to organized play, though we reserve the right to edit for content and clarity. Please send submissions to organizedplay@paizo.com with the subject Spotlight Blog.
Wow. That's a lot of information packed into the above paragraphs. I'll leave it there for now and continue on next week.
Until next time—Explore, Report, Cooperate!
Tonya Woldridge
Organized Play Manager
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