July Stars, Volunteers, Conventions & More!

Wednesday, July 4, 2018

Happy Independence Day to our players and volunteers in the US, happy “got rid of them” day to the United Kingdom community and a belated Happy Canada Day to our neighbors up north! The first whirlwind of convention is over and I'm taking a day to rest, relax, and enjoy friends and family. Thursday, I'll be back with my nose to the grindstone, working on all the tasks needed to bring the Sagamore Ballroom at Gen Con to life, planning out the last few bits of travel for 2018, and looking at plans for 2019 and beyond.

To our volunteers, some good news! I've updated all requests dated through June 17th. I'm pulling down the next batch this week and will work on getting those processed. So if your waiting on being named a Venture-Officer, haven't seen an update to your account, and the request was filed before June 17th, please have the request resubmitted. To all new venture officers, welcome to the team. To those leaving the venture-officer team, thank you for your efforts in making your gaming community thrive!

Campaign Coin

During the staff trip to Origins in Columbus, I had the opportunity to recognize two outstanding volunteers. One is currently a bedrock of the Cincinnati volunteer community, as well as returning Origins volunteer. Please congratulate Brent Bowser, whose new org play number is 793.

The second recipient is a familiar face in the Northeast region. He spent countless hours as a Venture-Lieutenant and then a Venture-Captain, as well being a mainstay organizer of org play at the annual Save vs. Fear event put on by the Bodhana group. For his efforts in the community, we recognized Bobby Harring with a campaign service coin #794.

If you know a deserving member of your community, please email me at organizedplay@paizo.com with their name, location, and the reasons you feel they should be recognized for their service. If you are able, please include what events they may attend in 2018. This is especially helpful if they will be at an event with a member of the organized play team (see further down the blog for that list of events.)

Stars and Novas

Convention season and a robust gaming schedule came together to provide more Pathfinder Society GMs with a chance to earn their 5th Star. To achieve this milestone, GMs facilitate 150 games, of which at least 50 must be unique scenarios and 10 are special scenarios, as well as run a game for a venture-captain. A conservative estimate of time needed to reach 5-stars is 650 hours! To the GMs listed below, congratulations on reaching this milestone! To all GMs that achieved 5* status, thank you very much for the time and energy you spend running Pathfinder Society games! Your efforts are greatly appreciated.

• William Cheung
• Albert Cohen
• Daniel Knipfer
• Maggie Keeble
• Ian McHugh

Starfinder Society has a few GMs that reached their 3-nova milestone in the month of June. After reading through much discussion on both what GMs would like to see in Starfinder Society and what GMs hope to have for Pathfinder Society 2, I think we are close to having a process for awarding a 5th Nova. I'm working to put it together for the Org Play team. From there it will go to the Venture-Officer team and then to our players. It is my intention to have a commentary period before we put it into play and will link any discussion threads in a future blog.

Volunteer Opportunities

We still have badges and rooms available for Gen Con volunteers. If you are interested in volunteering to run events, especially Starfinder Society or the Interactives, please visit the Gen Con 2018 volunteer questionnaire for more information and to register. To sweeten the pot a bit more, one of the GM rewards is a copy of a book and one of the available choices is the Pathfinder Playtest Rulebook.

Convention Listing

Feedback is that our publishing the convention schedule helps our players and GMs allocate their free time. So we will continue to do so! Here is the current list of all events that requested support from the Organized Play team. All of the conventions on the list maintain some type of web presence, be it website, social media page, or Warhorn listing, so if you are interested in attending in either capacity, check out their websites or contact the local venture-officer for more information! If you know of a convention running Society games that is not on this list, encourage the organizer to contact me at organizedplay@paizo.com to discuss their event.

Convention Name	Location	Start Date
Dexcon 21 (2018)	Morristown, NJ	7/4/2018
Convergence 2018	Bloomington, MN	7/5/2018
Dice Tower Convention (2018)	Orlando, FL	7/5/2018
InConJunction 2018	Indianapolis, IN	7/6/2018
Milwaukee Summer Revel 2018	Brookfield, WI	7/6/2018
Pathathon 2018	London, KY	7/6/2018
Salt Lake Gaming (2018)	Salt Lake City, UT	7/6/2018
Cards Against Gnomanity (2018)	Online	7/9/2018
ConnectiCon 2018	Hartford, CT	7/12/2018
CharCon 2018	Charleston, WV	7/13/2018
Kantcon 2018	Overland Park, KS	7/13/2018
Sanctuary Con 2018	Ottawa, ON Canada	7/13/2018
Gaming Marathon for Charity 2018	Colorado Springs, CO	7/14/2018
2018 Comic-Con International: San Diego	San Diego, CA	7/19/2018
Feencon 2018	Bonn-Bad Godesberg, Germany	7/20/2018
Gem State Gaming Convention 2018	Boise, ID	7/20/2018
MidSummer ConQuest 2018	Sacramento, CA	7/20/2018
OGC 2018	Nashua, NH	7/20/2018
Paizocon UK 2018	Birmingham, UK	7/20/2018
QuinCon 33 (2018)	Quincy, IL	7/20/2018
Summerfest 2018	Richland, WA	7/20/2018
Wintercon 2018	Canberra, Australia	7/21/2018
AB-Con Summer 2018	Aschaffenburg, Germany	7/27/2018
Raleigh SuperCon II (2018)	Raleigh, NC	7/27/2018
Ropecon 2018	Helsinki, Finland	7/27/2018
PreGenCon 2018 at Scotty's BRewhouse	Indianapolis, IN	8/1/2018
2D Con 2018	Bloomington, MN	8/3/2018
Goblin New Year (2018)	Portland, OR	8/10/2018
Portland Gameday: The Scoured Stars Invasion (2018)	Portland, OR	8/11/2018
AnimeFest (2018)	Dallas, TX	8/17/2018
Burg Comics Con 2018	Harrisburg, IL	8/18/2018
SFS Tacoma Game Day 2018	Tacoma, WA	8/19/2018
Dragonflight 39 (2018)	Bellevue, WA	8/24/2018
MegaMooseCon 2018	Richburg, SC	8/24/2018
DragonCon 2018	Atlanta, GA	8/31/2018
Gateway 2018	Los Angeles, CA	8/31/2018
PacifiCon 40 (2018)	Santa Clara, CA	8/31/2018
Your Pathfinder Con I (2018)	Fredericksburg, VA	8/31/2018
CornCon (2018)	DeKalb, IL	9/1/2018
Evergreens & Beer (2018)	Sylva, NC	9/7/2018
SIBCON 2018	Butler, PA	9/7/2018
TotalCon End of Summer Sizzler (2018)	Marlborough, MA	9/9/2018
SkålCon 2018	Roseville, MN	9/14/2018
CogCon 28 (2018)	Rolla, MO	9/21/2018
Retail Support Con I (2018)	Raleigh, NC	9/28/2018
Saluki Comic Con (2018)	Carbondale, IL	9/28/2018
Conapalooza 2018	Kingsport, TN	10/12/2018

2018 Organized Play Staff Travel

I've updated the organized play staff itinerary for the rest of 2018. These aren't all the events that will have Paizo staffers in attendance and some of the events have staff members beyond the organized play team. If you're at any of the events listed below, please stop by the booth or organized play space and say hi!

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. I'm working on compiling all of the requests now and am looking to submit a preliminary schedule to Paizo executives in August, so that we can try to get all decisions wrapped by the end of the year.

Convention Name	Location	Start Date	OP Staff
PaizoCon UK	Birmingham, England	7/20/2018	Tonya (+Paizo staffer)
Gen Con	Indianapolis, IN	8/2/2018	Tonya, John, Linda, Michael (+Paizo staffers)
DragonCon	Atlanta, GA	8/30/2018	John (+Paizo staffer)
Fan Expo	Toronto, Ontario, Canada	8/31/2018	TBD
SkalCon	Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN	9/14/2018	Tonya
Hurricon	Tampa, FL	9/27/2018	Tonya
PaizoCon OZ	Brisbane, Australia	10/19/2018	Tonya
U-Con	Ann Arbor, MI	11/16/2018	Tonya
PAX Unplugged	Philadelphia, PA	11/30/2018	Tonya (+Paizo staffers)

Join us next week when John talks about how the Pathfinder Society members may participate in the Pathfinder Playtest.

Until next time—Explore, Report, Cooperate!

Tonya Woldridge


Organized Play Manager