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 Name Location Start Date 1D4 Con (2019) Shepherdstown, WV 5/3/2019 2019 D8 Summit Utica, IL 5/3/2019 Chupacabracon VI (2019) Round Rock, TX 5/3/2019 ConTRAPtion 2019 Worthing, West Sussex, UK 5/3/2019 HeroiCon 2019 Decatur, IL 5/3/2019 Comicpalooza 2019 Houston, TX 5/10/2019 PeazoCon!!! 2019 Madrid, Spain 5/10/2019 QC Gamefest 2019 Davenport, IA 5/10/2019 SFERAKON 2019 Zagreb, Croatia, Europe 5/10/2019 the Seelie Court 2019 Philadelphia, PA 5/10/2019 MegaConvention 2019 Orlando, FL 5/16/2019 BLFC 2019 Reno, NV 5/17/2019 KevätMaraCon2019 Oulu, Finland 5/17/2019 Tricon 2019 Bay City, MI 5/17/2019 FlamingCon 2019 West Palm Beach, FL 5/18/2019 Fargo CoreCon 2019 Fargo, ND 5/23/2019 MomoCon 2019 Atlanta, GA 5/23/2019 Cherry Capital Comic Con 2019 Traverse City, MI 5/24/2019 Gamex 2019 Los Angeles, CA 5/24/2019 KublaCon 2019 Burlingame, CA 5/24/2019 Mobicon 2019 Mobile, AL 5/24/2019 Seekerpalooza 3 (2019) Montreat, NC 5/24/2019 Nexus Game Fair 2019 Brookfield, WI 5/29/2019 ConCarolinas 2019 Charlotte, NC 5/31/2019 Die Con 19 Collinsville, IL 5/31/2019 Galaxy Con 2019 Richmond, VA 5/31/2019 PULSAR'19 Paris, France 6/8/2019 Prairie Con XL (2019) Brandon, Manitoba, Canada 6/14/2019 Summerfest 2019 Richland WA 7/25/2019 Summerlodge 2019 Taastrup, Denmark 8/9/2019 Con Voyage 2019 Sydney NSW (at sea on the Carnival Spirit) 8/23/2019 SkålCon 2019 Roseville, MN 9/20/2019 Saluki Con 2019 Carbondale, IL 9/28/2019
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.
Convention Location Start Date Paizo Staffers Scheduled to Attend PaizoCon SeaTac, WA 5/23/2019 All UK Games Expo Birmingham, United Kingdom 5/31/2019 Tonya, Amanda, Cosmo, Erik, Jason B., Jeff, Rob Origins Columbus, OH 6/12/2019 Tonya, John C., Thurston GenCon Indianapolis, IN 8/1/2019 Most FanExpo Toronto, Canada 8/22/2019 Tonya DragonCon Atlanta, GA 8/30/2019 John C. Delta H Con Houston, TX 9/20/2019 Linda Zayas-Palmer, Mark Seifter NukeCon Omaha, NE 10/4/2019 OP TBD PaizoCon Asia-Pacific Adelaide, SA, Australia 10/17/2019 Tonya GameHole Con Madison, WI 10/31/2019 Tonya, TBD PAX Unplugged Philadelphia, PA 12/6/2019 Tonya, Amanda, Cosmo, Erik, Jason B., Jeff Delta H Con Houston, TX 9/20/2019 Linda Zayas-Palmer, Mark Seifter NukeCon Omaha, NE 10/4/2019 OP TBD PaizoCon Asia-Pacific Adelaide, SA, Australia 10/17/2019 Tonya GameHole Con Madison, WI 10/31/2019 Tonya PAX Unplugged Philadelphia, PA TBD Tonya, 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