Volunteering with the Organized Play Foundation

Thursday, August 27, 2020

We’re taking a pause in our usual organized play program updates this week and shifting gears slightly. Building the program is important and provides lots of games, but that is only half of the equation of organized play.

The other half is the community that uses the games and the volunteer leaders who support their communities. For that, Paizo’s teamed up with the Organized Play Foundation (OPF), a not-for-profit entity focused on community building. Paizo has a license agreement with OPF so that the community volunteers gain access to Org Play program materials while donating their time to help their local groups.

Organized Play Foundation Logo

Community Volunteers

The community volunteers fall into two main categories. The first, known as venture-officers (VO), focus their energies on public game events in a geographical location - whether that be a store, community center, town, state, country, or region. There are four levels of venture-officers, based on the size community they organize. Venture-officers gain access to Paizo published materials based on their rank. They do sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), as oftentimes VOs know program plans before public release. For more information about being a venture officer, including how to apply, visit the Volunteer Coordinator Page. Questions regarding the volunteer program as a whole should be sent to volunteeragreements@organizedplayfoundation.org.

The second category of volunteers are the convention volunteers. These range from members of the convention organizing committee to GMs running games and HQ staff performing admin tasks. Paizo sponsors a number of conventions each year and contracts the OPF as the volunteer management organization. The 2021 sponsored shows aren’t 100% decided yet, so it’s not quite time for a full open call, though we expect openings on the PaizoCon (May), UKGE (June) and PAX Unplugged 2021 (Dec) organizing committees. More information on volunteering for events appears on the Volunteer Information section of the Organized Play Foundation website. The page information, including how to volunteer, will be updated once the 2021 shows are determined. Currently, the open conventions are PAX Online and the upcoming convention is PAX Unplugged.

Task Forces

For those who are already venture officers, or who may be joining the team, the community is spinning up a number of small-group initiatives collectively known as task forces. These teams will work to aid the OPF in managing various aspects of community integration and OPF operations.

A list of task forces clicking this link. To join a team, complete the registration form at the bottom.

There is no hard deadline for joining a team, as people rotate through the VO corps they will also rotate through the task forces, though anyone interested in helping launching a team should apply by September 15th, 2020.

Until later today, when we discuss Rarity and Access as used in the Pathfinder Society (second edition) program!

Explore, Report, Cooperate (and wash your hands!) -

Tonya Woldridge
Organized Play Manager

More Paizo Blog.
Tags: Organized Play Pathfinder Society Starfinder Society
2/5 5/5 *****

Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

The Volunteer Information section link appears to be broken (as does the link from the ToC of the OPF site).

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

4 people marked this as a favorite.

Hmm... If I am a chair, can I be a metal chair, then I could cast "Animate Object" on my self and have my perfect cyborg body...

Bwahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahaha!!!1!!

Sovereign Court 4/5 * Organized Play Manager

Eric Nielsen wrote:

The Volunteer Information section link appears to be broken (as does the link from the ToC of the OPF site).

Web pages are now active. Thanks for pointing this out!

2/5 5/5 *****

Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

I'm still getting error pages both from the blog post and from the Conventions link directly on the OPF page.

Marketing & Media Manager

Eric Nielsen wrote:
I'm still getting error pages both from the blog post and from the Conventions link directly on the OPF page.

All links on the blog appear to function now. Thanks.

2/5 5/5 *****

Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Confirmed. :)

2/5 5/55/55/55/5 Venture-Agent, Ohio—Cincinnati

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Is there a possibility for non-venture officer contributions to the task forces? I do not have the inclination for normal venture officer duties, but would volunteer my software development/IT skills to any custom tooling outcomes of these task forces.

Liberty's Edge 3/5 *

3 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Astos,

The likely reason that it is being restricted to venture-officers is that the VOs have signed a non-disclosure agreement and these tasks will likely deal with topics that aren't ready to be made public yet.

If they were to consider others they would more than likely have to go through the process of having them sign an NDA that their legal team would have to draw up.

Wayfinders 5/5 ***

Sad day. I am not a VO. I cannot sign up.

Sczarni 5/5 5/55/5 ***

Plus, you lose your Forum handle as a VO, and it is replaced with your real name and geographic location.


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Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Maybe add a "copy-editing" task force?! Have them gather the most blatant typos/mistakes with any new scenarios and plan to published a revised version 14 days or a month after the initial release. Just, you know, text corrections, etc., not major content changes... Stuff that just makes quality control appear poor if it happens.

Sorry, I know this might seem silly or even sarcastic at first glance, but so many scenarios published have had their issues that were missed in-house and quite probably Paizo is not making enough money off of these to have them professionally copy-edited. Or maybe there is copy-editing, but whoever does it just cannot spend enough time on each module? Maybe the interested community can help provide that service, since we go through the scenarios with an eye for detail anyway?! Just have interested fans gather a list of typos and glaring errors and after some time have someone in house spend maybe an hour max to fix them in the pdf and re-release?

My PFS-scenarios for August just dropped and I've only had the time to look through some parts of Citadel of Corruption. But I've already stumbled across a chronicle that congratulates me on having finished a different scenario and an encounter that claims to award 10gp, but really awards 2 treasure bundles. Especially the chronicle part makes me cringe thinking I'm supposed to hand those out to players... It just doesn't look professional.

Shadow Lodge 4/5 Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South & West

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Rule #1 of copy editing; it should be done by somebody who is new to the document in question, not by somebody who has been working on it for weeks. It's all too easy to read what you subconsciously know is there, rather than looking at what actually is there.

Sovereign Court 4/5 * Organized Play Manager

Nefreet wrote:
Plus, you lose your Forum handle as a VO, and it is replaced with your real name and geographic location.

This isn't true anymore. RVCs have their region listed and everyone else just gets their VO rank. RVC emails are also the only ones published and that is with their permission. Inquiries are sent to the RVC, who then provides introductions to volunteers in their region.

The display name defaults to account names, not an alias. So if you set up an account name with initials, you would be able to use that as your display name as a VO.

Sovereign Court 4/5 * Organized Play Manager

4 people marked this as a favorite.
albadeon wrote:
Maybe add a "copy-editing" task force?! Have them gather the most blatant typos/mistakes with any new scenarios and plan to published a revised version 14 days or a month after the initial release. Just, you know, text corrections, etc., not major content changes... Stuff that just makes quality control appear poor if it happens..clipped for brevity

We cannot utilize volunteers for tasks that Paizo employees perform. So editing (or anything in the realm of publishing) is out, as that is Paizo's main line of business. If a person wishes to send feedback that is their choice and not an item we are soliciting, so you can post the errors/send them to us and we can incorporate them into future iterations or reprints. So while I appreciate the idea of making a copy-editing task force, it isn't in the cards.

Scarab Sages 4/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Tonya Woldridge wrote:
Nefreet wrote:
Plus, you lose your Forum handle as a VO, and it is replaced with your real name and geographic location.

This isn't true anymore. RVCs have their region listed and everyone else just gets their VO rank. RVC emails are also the only ones published and that is with their permission. Inquiries are sent to the RVC, who then provides introductions to volunteers in their region.

The display name defaults to account names, not an alias. So if you set up an account name with initials, you would be able to use that as your display name as a VO.

Is that only for new volunteers? Because the three VOs who have posted in this thread have a city/area listed by their name.

Scarab Sages 5/5 5/5 *** Venture-Captain, Netherlands

1 person marked this as a favorite.

*posts to check it out*

Dark Archive 4/5 5/5 ****

It is possible that is only true for newer VOs?

Grand Lodge 4/5 ***** Venture-Captain, Missouri—Columbia

I wasn't thrilled that I was going to be using my real name instead of my online alias which is how most PFS players know me, but as you can see on the lines, it's okay.

Grand Lodge 4/5

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

It was honestly weird to start being called by my forum name more than my real name.

Liberty's Edge 3/5 5/5 **** Venture-Captain, Nebraska—Omaha

I always used my real name instead of a different name so I didn't have a transition when becoming a VO.

Sovereign Court 4/5 * Organized Play Manager

Tonya Woldridge wrote:
Nefreet wrote:
Plus, you lose your Forum handle as a VO, and it is replaced with your real name and geographic location.

This isn't true anymore. RVCs have their region listed and everyone else just gets their VO rank. RVC emails are also the only ones published and that is with their permission. Inquiries are sent to the RVC, who then provides introductions to volunteers in their region.

The display name defaults to account names, not an alias. So if you set up an account name with initials, you would be able to use that as your display name as a VO.

Lol, I should look at the forums more. We removed the listing of VOs by location, but I didn't realize it was still tagging them here in our system on the forums.

Since we aren't keeping the centralized roster, I'm happy to remove anyone's specific tag location and make it more generic (state/region). The reason they were attached to names was so we could get them funneled onto the main list.

***

To be clear, if I am not a VO, I can't volunteer to be part of a Task Force? Or is it that I can't lead a Task Force now, but I can volunteer later?

Dark Archive 4/5 5/55/5 ****

Watery Soup wrote:
To be clear, if I am not a VO, I can't volunteer to be part of a Task Force? Or is it that I can't lead a Task Force now, but I can volunteer later?

Being on a task force requires being a VO with a signed NDA. If you're interested in becoming a VO and then joining a task force, you should contact your local VC (or RVC, if you don't know who your VC is).

***

Okay, that's fine. I just wanted to make sure I'm reading correctly.

I don't understand why one needs to have signed paperwork in order to work on some of those task forces - especially some of those 'TBD' ones which are probably going to end up on next year's "we've been meaning to get around to it but we just don't have the bandwidth" list.

A whole bunch of them can be declassified and fed to the peanut gallery, IMO. You don't need to have signed a legal document to collect FAQ from the community or write a script for introducing players new to RPGs.

Grand Lodge 4/5

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

They could. They don’t want the task forces assignments in the wild until they’re ready, however. Hence the signed agreements.

***

That makes more sense, if they're recruiting task force leaders now (who understandably need to be a VO), who may then in turn recruit non-VOs to participate, but not lead, the task force.

Liberty's Edge 4/5 5/55/5 **

Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Steven Schopmeyer wrote:
It was honestly weird to start being called by my forum name more than my real name.

There is nothing weird about your first name, is is beautiful first name, nay I say it is the best first name!

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Steven Lau wrote:
Steven Schopmeyer wrote:
It was honestly weird to start being called by my forum name more than my real name.
There is nothing weird about your first name, is is beautiful first name, nay I say it is the best first name!

o.o

4/5 ***** Venture-Lieutenant, Maryland—Hagerstown

With some hesitation, I applied for two of the task forces. Fingers crossed I get one.

Sovereign Court 4/5 * Organized Play Manager

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Watery Soup wrote:
That makes more sense, if they're recruiting task force leaders now (who understandably need to be a VO), who may then in turn recruit non-VOs to participate, but not lead, the task force.

Some of the task forces would benefit from a larger group of eyes. We do need to be careful of how directly Paizo solicits assistance that is not through the OPF. By asking those who already volunteer to build their communities to provide feedback on the shape/tools for those communities, we are clear. If those volunteers ask their communities for assistance, they are clear. So it is an iterative process that will have several opportunities for input/assistance.

Once we have the team leads in place, we will repost the list with good contact info.

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