Lots of news to get to this month, so jumping right in.

Team News

As announced on Saturday night at Gen Con, the organized play team underwent some changes in personnel. After eight years on the team, lead developer John Compton is moving to the Starfinder team as a Senior Developer. With heartfelt thanks for all the energy and effort expended on org play, we wish him the best in his new role at Paizo. As he departs, we experience a smooth transition, as developer Linda Zayas-Palmer steps into the organized play lead developer role. She brings six years of org play experience, as well as several more as a volunteer coordinator for Pathfinder Society, to the role and we are excited to see her influence on our storylines and scenarios. Both Michael Sayre and Thurston Hillman remain part of the organized play team. In the next few weeks, we will be working with Pathfinder Society managing developer Adam Daigle to evaluate further team needs.

Organized Play Foundation News

A few pieces of business as it relates to our relationship with the Organized Play Foundation (OPF) and volunteers.

First, we’ve moved the Pathfinder Society (2nd edition) Guide to Play to the Organized Play Foundation website. The direct link is http://www.organizedplayfoundation.org/paizo/guides/. At present, it is online only, but we are working on a version that is print to pdf. The surveys we did last fall indicated much of the playerbase wanted an online version. Being online also makes it a living document that we can update as needed, instead of once a year.

Which brings us to the second point. We have three OPF volunteers tackling special projects. I’d like to take a moment to introduce them to you and welcome them to their new positions.

Jared Thaler – responsible for the OPF website and online guide. He is currently working on improving the guide for use at games and will be rolling it out shortly. The version on the website now is a temporary version to get the rules to the communities running Pathfinder (2nd edition). He will update the version # and date on the front page when changes are made, so check there first!

Barb Wilkins – responsible for volunteer onboarding. She is working on reviewing current volunteer rosters and sending out new NDAs for signing. If you’ve been waiting for your appointment, there should be an end in sight.

Bob Jonquet – responsible for Event Team coordination for Paizo-sponsored conventions (PAX Unplugged, PaizoCon, UK Games Expo, Origins, and Gen Con). He will work with the organizing committees of those events to ensure a consistent, positive experience for all volunteers and attendees.

Thank you to all three of them for stepping in and filling some gaps in our organizational structure. We hope that having some focused attention on these areas will resolve some of the issues over the past year.

Redistricting the Regions

With the launch of Pathfinder Society (2nd edition) we moved some regions around and appointed several new Regional Venture Coordinators. Check out the new list here: http://www.organizedplayfoundation.org/encyclopedia/volunteer-coordinators/

Campaign Coins

Gen Con gave us the opportunity to recognize several longstanding volunteers with Campaign Coins. While each recipient had individual qualifications for receiving the award, they all shared a love of their communities and a willingness to serve. I hope we created some stardust moments for these individuals. They all seemed shocked at the recognition and I caught a few of them still in the middle of their volunteer efforts in the Sagamore.

Please take a moment to thank the following community members for their efforts on behalf of our gaming community and congratulate them on receiving new Org Play numbers!

Recipient	Org Play Number
Quinn Shannon	814
Jon-Enee Merrix	815
Kevin Baumann	816
Heather Vigil	817
Brad Fiske	818
Shannon Petrosky	819
Hilary Moon Murphy	820
Marc Waschle	821

Stars

Gen Con rang to the sound of games being played and a few 5-star and 5-nova evaluations as well. Over the past month, several GMs reached the summit of 5-star mountain. 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! Three cheers on your achievement!

Andrew Harasty
Joe Bouchard
Matt Duval
Phil Lucas
Ivis Flanagan
Sean Duncan
Johanathan Kopp
Mark Taylor
Sam Pitcheralle
Matt Wrycraft

As we pivot on the release of Pathfinder Society (2nd edition), Pathfinder, we would like to reiterate that this is not the end of the road for the Society (1st edition) campaign. Just as scenarios still count for event support and players can still earn boons at events, games ran will still count towards star requirements. So, don't worry if you're not quite to your goals, there will still be time to reach for the stars.

Novas & Glyphs

Several GMs completed 5-nova evaluations over the past month. The rubric is working as intended. It looks like we will have the tech updates in the next few weeks, so evaluators will be able to input the results. Until then, please email them to me at organizedplay@paizo.com for compilation.

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!

Game On Expo 19	Phoenix, Arizona	8/9/2019
Goblin New Year 2019	Portland, Oregon	8/9/2019
KuroNekoCon 2019	Spokane, WA	8/9/2019
Summerlodge 2019	Taastrup, Denmark	8/9/2019
GardenCon 2019	Geneva, Switzerland	8/15/2019
AnimeFest	Dallas, Texas	8/16/2019
Coulee Con 2019	La Crosse, Wisconsin	8/16/2019
Crit-Con 3	Concord, NC	8/16/2019
Dragonflight 2019	Bellevue, WA	8/16/2019
Sanctuary Con	Ottawa, ON Canada	8/16/2019
FanExpo	Toronto, Ontario, Canada	8/22/2019
2D Con	Minneapolis MN	8/23/2019
Con Voyage 2019	Sydney NSW (at sea on the Carnival Spirit)	8/23/2019
Convocation 4719	Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada	8/23/2019
Play-by-Post Gameday VIII	Online	8/23/2019
Shadowcon 2019	LOndon, UK	8/24/2019
The Convergence	Hamilton, New Zealand	8/24/2019
Draconicon 2019	Tel Aviv, Israel	8/28/2019
AB-Con Autumn 2019	Germany/Bavaria/Aschaffenburg	8/29/2019
DragonCon 2019	Atlanta, GA	8/29/2019
Gateway 2019	Los Angeles, CA	8/30/2019
Gateway to Golarion 4	Kutztown, PA	8/30/2019
Grand Con 2019	Grand Rapids, MI	8/30/2019
PacifiCon 2019	Santa Clara CA	8/30/2019
GTEX 2019- Game Theory Events	Hilton Houston NASA Clear Lake	9/6/2019
TRPG Festival 2019	Japan	9/6/2019
Renton City Comic Con 2019	Renton, Washington	9/7/2019
TotalCon's End-of-Summer Sizzler	Marlborough, MA	9/8/2019
Ancient City Con	500 South Legacy Trail St. Augustine, FL 32092	9/20/2019
CogCon 29	Rolla, MO	9/20/2019
Delta H Con	Houston	9/20/2019
Saskatoon Entertainment Expo	Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada	9/20/2019
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, there is still time to squeak in your request before we submit the 2020 travel budget. 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
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	John C.
PAX Australia	Melbourne, Australia	10/10/2019	Tonya
PaizoCon Asia-Pacific	Brisbane, 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

*Staffers scheduled to attend may change without notice.

Check out our earlier blog where we shared some of our favorite Gen Con experiences.

Until next time—Explore, Report, Cooperate!

Tonya Woldridge
Organized Play Manager