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 WrycraftAs 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
August Update— Team News, OPF News, Spotlights and Conventions!
Wednesday, August 7, 2019
