August Update— Team News, OPF News, Spotlights and Conventions!

So much Awesome!

Congrads to John and Linda on their promotions!

Big Thanks to Jared, Barb and Bob for stepping up and volunteering!

Congrads to all the new 5 star GMS and Campaign Coin Recipients!!

Congrats to you both, John and Linda! <3

Also, a huge thank you to everyone for all your hard work. Those coins and stars are well deserved!

Congratulation to all the new 5 Star GMs and welcome to the club to all the new campaign coin recipients ^^

Yay :)

Congratulations, John and Linda!

Thank you to everyone above for helping make this such a wonderful community <3

I thought I should mention that I believe that there will NOT be any PFS presence at Fan Expo this year.

Congrats to all.

Congrats to the new coin holders! We earned! (Looking at you Hmm!)

Congrats to all the new shiney 5 star GMs. Thank you for all you have done for your players!

And while it is still not noted, John Compton will be attending NukeCon in Omaha during the first weekend in October! All are welcome!

Congratulations to the Campaign Coin recipients. I am especially proud of Quinn and Marc who I have watched grow their GMing skill over the years and are a fantastic example of the very best our community has to offer.

Also, I’ve had the pleasure of working with Heather and Kevin as leaders with the Gen Con team and they are amazing not only as gamers, but as people pouring their heart and soul into providing players and GMs an outstanding experience.

Finally, Brad, Shannon, Jon-Enee, and HMM have all volunteered their time and it was a pleasure working with them.

To all of you, GREAT JOB and thank you for being awesome!

Congratulations to the recognized and the promoted and the brave souls who have stepped up for greater responsibilities in the organization. May your adventure be painless and enlightening!

I thought I should mention that I believe that there will NOT be any PFS presence at Fan Expo this year.

I'm still going to the convention, running a few games, and hoping others come out to join me.

I would love for there to be a larger presence, but with only 2 weeks to go I don't think we are going to be able to pull it together.

That being said, anyone interested in running a game, please message me at organizedplay@paizo.com.

Greetings!

At present, it is online only, but we are working on a version that is print to pdf.

Thank you!

So many 5-stars and campaign coins! Congratulations everyone!

To the Campaign Coin recipients - congratulations to you all and welcome to the club! To my fellow gms joining the ranks of the 5-stars - We did it! <3

pauljathome wrote:

I thought I should mention that I believe that there will NOT be any PFS presence at Fan Expo this year.

I'm still going to the convention, running a few games, and hoping others come out to join me.

I would love for there to be a larger presence, but with only 2 weeks to go I don't think we are going to be able to pull it together.

That being said, anyone interested in running a game, please message me at organizedplay@paizo.com.

It would be nice to play some PFS at this convention. Is there any chance that there will be some advanced warning of what will be running and when as you get closer to the Con?

I'm glad to have made the 5-star ranks just in time for 2e.

Next stop: Time to add up those Glyphs.

EDIT: Though my Forum Tag doesn't seem to have updated.

Congratulations 5 Star GMs and Campaign Coin recipients!

Congratulations to all the new 5 Star Gms, especially Matt and Phil.
I’m lucky that Matt W is one of my main GMs who kindly runs for me. WOW- I’ve said it before, and i’ll deffo say it again- if you can get a game run by him, go for it. Trust me- you won’t be disappointed!

Phil is a fabulous GM too. I’m honestly looking forward to a next con in the UK I know he sometimes attends, to see if I can get some games in with him!

...my Forum Tag doesn't seem to have updated

Its a switch Tonya/Paizo has to flip. Seeing as it was announced, I would expect it to happen soon, but you might need to nudge them as a reminder given the hectic recent schedule.

Congratulations all. Well deserved

Congrats to all you deserving folks, with special shiny ones to our local yokels: Heather, Ivis and Sean.

Congratulations to Linda for the big promotion! Please come back and play with us at Strategicon in L.A. soon!

> 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.

Please make the PDF version very soon, or just put it all on one URL so we can easily print it! The majority of places I play at don't have wifi. The current layout of spreading the document across many pages makes barely unusable. For example, if you want to search for a term, you have to do it ten times to make sure. (Are you willing to wager large sums of money that your Glossary is complete?) Speed is also an issue. It took me 30 seconds to open the page just now (wired to cable modem), so it would have been faster to look something up in a print version.

When you do update it please, please, please announce it loudly and widely. One temptation of "living documents" is to make frequent, minor tweaks, so it becomes not a just question of "which season's Guide do you have" but "which version", or "what day", or even "I have the today's 11:15AM version, which one do you have". Intentionally making an update difficult is often the only way to slow that down. I once did software development at a company where the documentation was in a Wiki, management encouraged us to not do up-front design but design and change as we wrote code, and chaos ensued.

For example, even now, after just two updates, the TOC page says the Guide is
"Current Version: 0.03
Current Version Date 8/6/2019 – 22:00"

but the individual chapters say they are

"Current Version: 0.02
Current Version Date 8/5/2019 – 18:00"

You're already getting chaos.

Ok, I'm sorry to be the grumpy Gus here, but you guys have really missed the mark with the new 2E PFS rules for GMing. Challenge points and treasure bundle calculations are two of the most convoluted systems I have ever seen in an organized play system. Space-X could launch a rocket into orbit with less math/steps than what you propose for calculating subtier/level adjustments and awarding chronicle gold.

These systems feel absolutely against the spirit of a simplified gaming experience that 2E presents. You have taken all of the complexity that was removed from the game experience and dumped it onto the GM's head. I highly, highly request that you not overthink these things and revamp them for simplified systems.

Also, I noticed we have already begun the list of things banned from PFS. I would also humbly request that consider limiting this list as more resources come out. The first addition "additional resources" list reads like the IRS schedule-C tax code. If you want to watch a new player's head explode, try having a conversation with them about that resource list and explaining why a half-dozen character options on the character they created aren't legal because of amendments on pages 7, 11, 22, and 34 of the resources list. I know you guys are trying to "level out the playing field" and I get that some things should be banned, but also understand that some players enjoy min-maxing and some enjoy playing sub-optimal characters, and we have to cater to different play styles.

In short, please help us help you bring more people into the game by keeping the rules simple, friendly, and accessible at all levels.

Thanks for listening to the feedback.

Who can I contact for additional information on how Paizo games are going to be offered for at PAX Unplugged this year? I see the staff presence has continued to increase which is great and I’m hopeful that means we will have organized play available in some capacity. I’ve tried reaching out to a few people without much luck. Thanks!

Who can I contact for additional information on how Paizo games are going to be offered for at PAX Unplugged this year? I see the staff presence has continued to increase which is great and I’m hopeful that means we will have organized play available in some capacity. I’ve tried reaching out to a few people without much luck. Thanks!

The information is here.

So,I’m finding that my 2 PF2 events from GenCon have not been reported. Anyone else having this problem? Our first GM did not advise us of the 2001 numbering. Could that be the issue? My character sheets were numbered 201. Thanks!

None of them have been reported as of yet. It will be once the system is updated so that PFS2 sessions are in it.

Congrads to all the new 5 star GMs

> 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.

For example, even now, after just two updates, the TOC page says the Guide is
"Current Version: 0.03
Current Version Date 8/6/2019 – 22:00"

but the individual chapters say they are

"Current Version: 0.02
Current Version Date 8/5/2019 – 18:00"

You're already getting chaos.

The Version on the front page reflects the most recent revision to any part of the guide.

The version on each page reflects the most recent revision to that page. This was done at the request of several people who are compiling the guide in PDF or other formats so that they only have to update / recode the pages that have changed.

No mention of improvements in prize support distribution...

> 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.

Please make the PDF version very soon, or just put it all on one URL so we can easily print it! The majority of places I play at don't have wifi. The current layout of spreading the document across many pages makes barely unusable. For example, if you want to search for a term, you have to do it ten times to make sure. (Are you willing to wager large sums of money that your Glossary is complete?) Speed is also an issue. It took me 30 seconds to open the page just now (wired to cable modem), so it would have been faster to look something up in a print version.

When you do update it please, please, please announce it loudly and widely. One temptation of "living documents" is to make frequent, minor tweaks, so it becomes not a just question of "which season's Guide do you have" but "which version", or "what day", or even "I have the today's 11:15AM version, which one do you have". Intentionally making an update difficult is often the only way to slow that down. I once did software development at a company where the documentation was in a Wiki, management encouraged us to not do up-front design but design and change as we wrote code, and chaos ensued.

For example, even now, after just two updates, the TOC page says the Guide is
"Current Version: 0.03
Current Version Date 8/6/2019 – 22:00"

but the individual chapters say they are

"Current Version: 0.02
Current Version Date 8/5/2019 – 18:00"

You're already getting chaos.

It appears that the versions are only changing on the pages that have changed, as well as the main page. Additionally, there is a changelog posted which says what the differences are from the previous version:

Changelog

0.04 – Player Basics – Clarified Boon Slots Text
— Faction Boons – Updated Promo Boon text
— Volunteer Coordinators – Added Washington DC to Northeast region
0.03 – Volunteer Coordinators – updated page with correct RVC emails and location titles

Knowing Jared (he's my VC), the team he's building to help handle the OPF website and online guide will be working hard over the next few weeks to get everything ship-shape and to a version 1 state.

The Version on the front page reflects the most recent revision to any part of the guide.

At the time I posted, the top level was 0.03 but each subsection was still at 0.02, except for two subsections that have no version number!

The version on each page reflects the most recent revision to that page. This was done at the request of several people who are compiling the guide in PDF or other formats so that they only have to update / recode the pages that have changed.

Yes, I know they are trying to do this. However, not every page has a version.

It appears that the versions are only changing on the pages that have changed, as well as the main page. Additionally, there is a changelog posted which says what the differences are from the previous version:

And they took the smart step of duplicating the changelog on the pages that changed. :-)

Short of allowing us RO access to their VCS so we can diff the revisions, there is something called "change bars" which would indicate the _exact_ pieces that changed at the point where they changed.

The software industry went through these problems decades ago and, if Paizo wants to avoid the same problems and hassles, they should use the current best practices for release management.