Big News!

Viva la Golem de Triumph!

We quietly (unofficially) phased out 7 player tables in the Los Angeles area unless it was a group that plays together or the only other option was someone couldn't play. Making this official is the best birthday present ever. Even if it is just for 2nd ED.

7 player tables is/was our #1 complaint source.

Perhaps a dumb question at a stage this early, but: any plans on which languages will be offered at the tables?
French is quite clear, I think, from region and even name ;) But the German and Italian speaking parts of Switzerland are not too far off, so will there be also tables in English, German, Italian?
Thanks to let me know if there are plans already! :)

Interesting. Austria will not allow public gatherings for events (festivals, conventions, concerts,...) until the beginning of September.

That Switzerland will greenlight such an event for August surprises me.

Geneva, eh? Make sure you drive over to France so you can buy, well, everything at half price or less ;-)

Perhaps a dumb question at a stage this early, but: any plans on which languages will be offered at the tables?

French is quite clear, I think, from region and even name ;) But the German and Italian speaking parts of Switzerland are not too far off, so will there be also tables in English, German, Italian?
Thanks to let me know if there are plans already! :)

I would drop a note to Benoit (bengrow@yahoo.com) letting him and the planning team know you would be interested in other languages. If they have the GMs, I bet they will be willing to accomodate.

Interesting. Austria will not allow public gatherings for events (festivals, conventions, concerts,...) until the beginning of September.

That Switzerland will greenlight such an event for August surprises me.

The event planners are watching announcements day to day and will update, but at this point we wanted to get the news out there for people to think about and pencil into their schedules.

Even if it is just for 2nd ED.

7 player tables is/was our #1 complaint source.

Nothing limited the announcement to 2nd edition. The way it is phrased, it would apply to all campaigns— Pathfinder 1st edition, Starfinder and Pathfinder 2nd edition.

Perhaps a dumb question at a stage this early, but: any plans on which languages will be offered at the tables?

French is quite clear, I think, from region and even name ;) But the German and Italian speaking parts of Switzerland are not too far off, so will there be also tables in English, German, Italian?
Thanks to let me know if there are plans already! :)

We are currently in the process of recruting GMs, but I can already assure you there will be tables both in French and English. If we find Gms willing to run in another language and the demand exists I don't see why that would be a problem.

Interesting. Austria will not allow public gatherings for events (festivals, conventions, concerts,...) until the beginning of September.

That Switzerland will greenlight such an event for August surprises me.

Indeed the whole Covid-19 situation threw a spanner in the works. Nonetheless we thought it would be good to let people know our plans so you could plan accordingly. We will keep you updated as the situation progresses.

Nothing limited the announcement to 2nd edition. The way it is phrased, it would apply to all campaigns— Pathfinder 1st edition, Starfinder and Pathfinder 2nd edition.

Feedback from our communities regarding tables for Pathfinder Society (second edition) indicates that 7-player tables aren’t working. So, we are phasing them out. Starting as soon as possible, we ask GMs to move to 6-player tables. . .

Seems pretty clear to me that this only applies to PFS2.

Can we run 1-2 person tables for PF1 yet? :D /s

Good announcements all around. Especially now that we have multiple repeatable scenarios it should be easy to always have an extra GM on hand.

Hooray for killing 7-player tables. Good riddance. :)

Now I really have to work on learning French.

GardenCon was one of my favorite conventions during my time in Europe, congrats on the event promotion! I can confirm that at least some of the tables were in English, too, otherwise my gaming would have been severely curtailed.

Benoit and the Gardencon team have been very accommodating for those of us that only speak pigeon French / German over the years, my only issue now is that it clashes with my wedding anniversary and my wife isnt a gamer :(

Hey, I actually might join. Given that COVID19 will likely kill all my long-distance travel plans for foreseeable future, a train trip to the wonderful edge of reality that French-Swiss border is sounds like a good idea.

Let's hope this can actually happen as planned. It is far from certain.

I am very happy with the rule change regarding 7 player PFS2 tables.

I am pleased with this change.

I have had a few tables of seven with 4th level and 1st level In one case, very bad GM die rolls saved the party which had an incredibly tough fight. In a second case, a charmed foe was willing to cut a deal with a spell caster.

I think a wise thing to do will be something my group does. We have a person who plays and GMs to have a back up mod ready if needed. (When we were playing together physically, we would schedule two or three tables.)

People still do seven player tables? I stopped allowing seven player tables at events I organized local, years ago. Consistent feedback was it created a bad experience, so we simply stopped it. Guess this may help areas where they get complaints from people wanting to be the 7th player.

People still do seven player tables? I stopped allowing seven player tables at events I organized local, years ago. Consistent feedback was it created a bad experience, so we simply stopped it. Guess this may help areas where they get complaints from people wanting to be the 7th player.

While this new policy is just for PFS 2, perhaps it might be wise to see if this can be extended to other games. I know that a seven player tables can run very slow -- especially with new players.

People still do seven player tables? I stopped allowing seven player tables at events I organized local, years ago. Consistent feedback was it created a bad experience, so we simply stopped it. Guess this may help areas where they get complaints from people wanting to be the 7th player.

Very much agree, I don't know if we ever did before my time but as far as I am aware we've never allowed seven player tables at any of our cons online, it's just not fun at the end of the day.

I can understand the inclination to do it rather than turn a player away but... I've yet to have any of the seven player tables I sat at feel like it was worth it, through no fault of the GM or other players, it's just too many people trying to all engage in the same content.

Six player caps for all the campaigns would be ideal imo, I think that's both the logistical limit for a good game and also the limit for everyone to get 'camera' time and enjoy exploring their character interactions and the roleplay opportunities with the other players.

There are two scenarios that are worth segregating.

1. Planned for 7

It is good that nobody PLANS to have 7 players. There's time for a 2nd GM to be found, and there's time for more people to join.

Here in the SF Bay Area, Warhorn displays the 7th signup as "Waitlist" and all the event reporting forms have 6 spaces.

If there's a significant waitlist, the VO often scrounges for an extra GM, opens a second table, and nobody is surprised when 7+ show up for a game.

This works well as is.

2. Late/unplanned addition to 7

Despite all the planning, sometimes you get a walk-in. Or signups get messed up and people double book. Or whatever circumstances led to a 6:31 pm decision to:

A. Ask someone to leave.
B. Turn away a new player.
C. Ask someone to GM with 30 seconds notice, see if FLGS has an extra table, balance the two tables for levels and classes, etc.
D. Play with 7 players.

It is NOT obvious to me that playing with 7 on an emergency basis is the worst option.

Playing with 7 people is like amputating a finger. The reason you do it is because the alternatives are all worse. It should be discouraged as a regular/normal option but left as an emergency option.

So there's going to be a... Geneva Convention?

Ahem, had to get that out of my system

Quite courageous to announce this now, when presumably there still will be heavy restrictions in Europe. Octoberfest was just cancelled in Germany and that is in... October. Also a bit before and after.

Well, if the situation clears up somehow (it won't, realistically, though), I'd love to participate. Would be nice to see if Gorbacz is as charming in person as he is on this forum and have some unmoderated talk. :)

Quite courageous to announce this now, when presumably there still will be heavy restrictions in Europe. Octoberfest was just cancelled in Germany and that is in... October. Also a bit before and after.

Well, if the situation clears up somehow (it won't, realistically, though), I'd love to participate. Would be nice to see if Gorbacz is as charming in person as he is on this forum and have some unmoderated talk. :)

We usually also do an annual convention in Germany (with plenty of English tables for our international guests), it was planned for the first weekend in September, but at this point, I have significant doubts that it will happen in that month. Of course, like many other regions, we started to do a lot more online tables.