May Update—Spotlights and Conventions!

Monday, May 6, 2019

My calendar reminders say 18 days to PaizoCon, 24 days to UK Games Expo, 36 days to Origins, and 85 days to Gen Con. The team is neck deep in preparations as we head towards the finish lines. Who's getting excited? Last week, we posted a blog that had information on our convention special events—PFS #10-98: Siege of Gallowspire, SFS #2-00: Fate of the Scoured God, and PFS(2) #1-00: Origin of the Open Road. You can read it here!

Campaign Coins

I attended KoboldCon in Colorado Springs last weekend and had the pleasure of recognizing OJ Pinckert as a campaign coin recipient. If you've been at Gen Con the past few years, you may have met him and his Goblin BoB around the event. He is now the proud owner of organized play #808. A huge huzzah for his years of service to the program!

Stars

During April, several GMs reached their 5th star. To achieve this milestone, GMs run 150 games, of which at least 50 must be unique scenarios and 10 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, thank you very much for the time and energy you spend running Pathfinder Society games! Huge congratulations on your achievement!

Jeff B
Andreas Forster
Eleanor Jenner
Ken S
Sandra Wilkinson

Novas & Glyphs

Last month, we presented the first peek at the requirements for reaching 5 novas. As we seek to standardize some points between the campaigns, what is implemented for novas will apply to Pathfinder Society (2nd edition) Glyphs as well.

The commentary to that blog provided quite a bit of feedback. Readers also raised a few questions. One point of discussion was whether the Nova represents a commitment to the campaign (quantitive) or recognizes the ability of the GM (qualitative). Feedback from the discussion threads and surveys of last fall say the majority of respondents want some level of qualitative measure and that a 5 nova GM meets a baseline expectation of table experience.

At this point, we have a potential rubric. A massive shout out to Chris Marsh, whose original version provided the basis for our discussions. As I don't want to clutter this blog with a conversation about the rubric, I will post it in a discussion thread on our forums. The thread was opened last Friday, May 3 and you can find a link to it here. We will take feedback for one week. After that, we will lock, load, and publish the rubric for future use.

Regarding other questions. I'm working on a FAQ sheet that will address most of the commentary/concerns and hope to have it posted soon.

Convention Listing

We have organized play activities at quite a few conventions in the upcoming months, so if you want to get your game on, check out the list below! The list includes all the event support requests received to date. If you see one missing, ping the organizer and have them submit a request for support or have them email me at organizedplay@paizo.com to discuss their event. 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!

Convention NameLocationStart Date
1D4 Con (2019)Shepherdstown, WV5/3/2019
2019 D8 SummitUtica, IL5/3/2019
Chupacabracon VI (2019)Round Rock, TX5/3/2019
ConTRAPtion 2019Worthing, West Sussex, UK 5/3/2019
HeroiCon 2019Decatur, IL5/3/2019
Comicpalooza 2019 Houston, TX5/10/2019
PeazoCon!!! 2019Madrid, Spain5/10/2019
QC Gamefest 2019Davenport, IA5/10/2019
SFERAKON 2019Zagreb, Croatia, Europe5/10/2019
the Seelie Court 2019Philadelphia, PA5/10/2019
MegaConvention 2019Orlando, FL5/16/2019
BLFC 2019Reno, NV5/17/2019
KevätMaraCon2019Oulu, Finland5/17/2019
Tricon 2019Bay City, MI5/17/2019
FlamingCon 2019West Palm Beach, FL5/18/2019
Fargo CoreCon 2019Fargo, ND5/23/2019
MomoCon 2019Atlanta, GA5/23/2019
Cherry Capital Comic Con 2019Traverse City, MI5/24/2019
Gamex 2019Los Angeles, CA5/24/2019
KublaCon 2019Burlingame, CA5/24/2019
Mobicon 2019Mobile, AL5/24/2019
Seekerpalooza 3 (2019)Montreat, NC5/24/2019
Nexus Game Fair 2019Brookfield, WI5/29/2019
ConCarolinas 2019Charlotte, NC5/31/2019
Die Con 19Collinsville, IL5/31/2019
Galaxy Con 2019Richmond, VA5/31/2019
PULSAR'19Paris, France6/8/2019
Prairie Con XL (2019)Brandon, Manitoba, Canada6/14/2019
Summerfest 2019Richland WA7/25/2019
Summerlodge 2019Taastrup, Denmark8/9/2019
Con Voyage 2019Sydney NSW (at sea on the Carnival Spirit)8/23/2019
SkålCon 2019Roseville, MN9/20/2019
Saluki Con 2019Carbondale, IL9/28/2019

Organized Play Staff Travel

Want to hang out with Paizo staff? Play in a game which they are GM? Check out the list below and come see us at a convention near you. If you are an event organizer and want to invite us out at your event in 2020, the deadline to request our attendance is 1 June, as we must submit the convention plan by July. Organizers may email your interest to organizedplay@paizo.com. Note: staff do not attend conventions the last weekend in May or the weekend of Gen Con, due to already being slated to attend those shows.

ConventionLocationStart DatePaizo Staffers Scheduled to Attend
PaizoConSeaTac, WA5/23/2019All
UK Games ExpoBirmingham, United Kingdom5/31/2019Tonya, Amanda, Cosmo, Erik, Jason B., Jeff, Rob
OriginsColumbus, OH6/12/2019Tonya, John C., Thurston
GenConIndianapolis, IN8/1/2019Most
FanExpoToronto, Canada8/22/2019Tonya
DragonConAtlanta, GA8/30/2019John C.
Delta H ConHouston, TX9/20/2019Linda Zayas-Palmer, Mark Seifter
NukeCon Omaha, NE10/4/2019OP TBD
PaizoCon Asia-PacificAdelaide, SA, Australia10/17/2019Tonya
GameHole ConMadison, WI10/31/2019Tonya, TBD
PAX UnpluggedPhiladelphia, PA12/6/2019Tonya, Amanda, Cosmo, Erik, Jason B., Jeff
Delta H ConHouston, TX9/20/2019Linda Zayas-Palmer, Mark Seifter
NukeCon Omaha, NE10/4/2019OP TBD
PaizoCon Asia-PacificAdelaide, SA, Australia10/17/2019Tonya
GameHole ConMadison, WI10/31/2019Tonya
PAX UnpluggedPhiladelphia, PATBDTonya, Amanda, Cosmo, Erik, Jason B., Jeff

*Staffers scheduled to attend may change without notice.

Until next time—Explore, Report, Cooperate!

Tonya Woldridge
Organized Play Manager

More Paizo Blog.
Tags: Conventions Organized Play Pathfinder Society Starfinder Society
Grand Lodge 4/5

Huzzah!

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 ****

Thanks for working on this stuff. Congratz to OJ for his Campaign Coin and 5 star GMs on their achievement!

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

2 people marked this as a favorite.

So.. where is that link to the May 3rd thread?

Grand Lodge 4/5 * Venture-Agent, Texas—Houston

The formatting for "Comicpalooza, Houston, TX" appears to be off in the chart.

Silver Crusade 5/5 5/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria

Congratulation to all the new 5 Star GMs and the new campaign coin recipient.

5/5

So.. Tonya is attending PaizoConAP twice this year?

Grand Archive 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South & West

Congratulations to all the new five stars and O.J. for his campaign coin but I have to give a special call out to Eleanor Jenner the SF Bay Area's newest 5 star GM. She gives so much to our community as both a GM and VA and giving up the whole of yesterday (7 hours anyway) to a bunch of unruly folks to run us through Sevenfinger's Sails.

Grand Lodge 2/5

Congrats, OJ!

Liberty's Edge 4/5 5/55/55/5 ****

Congrats to the new 5 stars! Thank you for dedication!

Also, Nuke-Con in Omaha is still listed as TBD.

Scarab Sages 5/5 5/5 *** Venture-Captain, Netherlands

Congratulations to all the new 5 Star GMs, welcome to the island! And of course the new campaign coin recipient!

Dataphiles 5/55/55/5 Venture-Agent, Netherlands

Congrats to everyone here! Looking forward to seeing that new 5 Nova rubric ;)

4/5

GenCon released their events catalog. But I can't seem to find any PFS events. Is there a delay? Just curious. I would hate to miss out on getting to play the final con of PF v.1

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 ***** Venture-Captain, Minnesota

Congratulations, O.J.! So well deserved! Also huzzah for Jeff Babineaux, Andreas Forster, Eleanor Jenner, Ken S & Sandra Wilkinson. May your stars always shine bright!

As someone who is going to be evaluating a candidate on that rubric, I am also looking forward to seeing it!

Hmm

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 ***** Venture-Captain, Minnesota

CheeseStalker wrote:
GenCon released their events catalog. But I can't seem to find any PFS events. Is there a delay? Just curious. I would hate to miss out on getting to play the final con of PF v.1

Don't worry CheeseStalker! There are so many PFS events scheduled this year. It just takes time for GenCon to load all our events!

Hmm

Grand Lodge 4/5 ***** Venture-Captain, Missouri—Columbia

Where is this thread to comment on?

The Exchange 5/5

"A conservative estimate of time needed to reach 5-stars is 650 hours!"

bah! I'm sure I easily took over 800 hours to get mine. What kind of a benchmark is 650 hours? Anyone who puts their mind to it could eaily spend more than that. I mean I hardly worked at it, and if I hadn't needed that 5th replay I would still be... wait, do you mean a MINIMUM of 650 hours? What? ... Oh. Never mind then.

The nurse arrives and wheels the old gamer guy back to his room...

edit: oh! yeah! Welcome to the club!

2/5 5/5 *****

Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Has anyone found a link to the thread they reference? I tried searching through various forums and noting looks to match.

If they're only planning on keeping feedback open for a short window, they really need to get the link/thread viewable soon.

1/5 5/55/5 ** Venture-Captain, Australia—WA—

Hopefully, the link and potentially a revised review window will be forthcoming soon.

Liberty's Edge 4/5

Congrats to all the new 5 stars! Welcome to the island!

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