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April 2021 Organized Play Update

Thursday, April 1, 2021

OPM Musings

Tonya’s busy getting ready for her vacation, so I’ve taken over her musings for the month! Do not be alarmed. Last week, Linda and I did an interview with Know Direction, talking about the future of Organized Play and conventions this year. It was a really great time and I definitely encourage you all to watch or listen to it, but there were a few big announcements I wanted to republish here to make sure everyone sees them:

  • Pathfinder Society Year 3 will premiere at PaizoCon Europe Online, August 19-22! In the interview we referred to this event as “an unnamed event in August,” but we’re allowed to say the name now.
  • The interactive specials for Pathfinder and Starfinder Society will premiere at Gen Con, September 16-19. These interactive specials are linked specials; the events of the Pathfinder special will affect the Starfinder event, so we encourage convention organizers to schedule both. Thurston and Jenny gave our authors a great concept to work with, and we’re excited for them to tell you more!
  • Finally, Linda dropped some exciting teasers for the Pathfinder Adventure Card Society special at PaizoCon Online: Ron Lundeen is the author, and it’s going to give players a chance to experience a new facet of the PACS stories they’ve enjoyed over the history of the program.

We hope you’re looking forward to what we have in store over the next few months! Convention season is nearly upon us, which is both exciting and terrifying. But enough of my rambling, let’s see what else we’ve got to announce.

Events

We hope you all enjoyed the Double Points weekend for the new Pathfinder One-Shot, Sundered Waves! We had over 150 tables reported during that release weekend and are very pleased with the response. We’re looking at our release schedule to see when our next special event of this type might be, so stay tuned to the blog for future announcements.

Tonight at 6pm Pacific time, player signups for PaizoCon Online will open! Don’t forget to join the Discord server(direct link = paizo.events) for the latest news and updates. The PaizoCon Warhorn also includes our stream schedule; you’re free to sign up as a “player” to help plan your schedule for the event.

Sanctioning

The big sanctioning news this month is for our Starfinders: we have a brand new Starfinder Society Character Options page! This page updates the look to match the Pathfinder Society page and make it more user-friendly. In addition, Alien Archive 4, is now sanctioned for play! While you will need a boon to use any of the new races to build a PC, the equipment and class options contained in the book are now available to you. You’ll also notice that we’ve expanded the Core Sources to include the Starfinder Alien Archive.

On the Pathfinder side, we’re sanctioning Abomination Vaults and expect to complete it in the next two weeks, but no later than the end of April. We’ll post about it when it’s done!

Both of our Character Options pages have also added links to the errata for books which have had errata released. We hope this change will make the pages even more useful to our players. We’ll be looking at sanctioning the two One-Shots scheduled for release at PaizoCon next so that they’re ready for the event. After that, our upcoming sanctioning schedule includes the Devastation Ark Adventure Path for Starfinder, Bestiary 3 and Malevolence for Pathfinder, and have started working on Tyrant’s Grasp and Return of the Runelords for Pathfinder (first edition).

GM Achievements

Whether stars, novas, or glyphs, achieving a 5 ranking in any program involves a substantial amount of time. To achieve the 5th milestone, a GM must run 150 games, of which at least 50 must be unique scenarios and 10 special scenarios, as well as run between one and three games for venture-captains (program dependant). A conservative estimate of the time needed to reach the 5th milestone is 650 hours!

Two GMs received their fifth star in the past month. We have no new 5 Nova or 5 Glyph GMs to announce.

5th Star (PFS1): Juan Sanchez and Andrew Torgerud

Congratulations to our new 5 Star GMs, and thank you for your dedication! If you believe you have achieved your 5th rank but haven’t been announced, email us at organizedplay@paizo.com.

Conventions

In addition to PaizoCon Online, we have a number of conventions offering Pathfinder and Starfinder Society!

ConventionLocationStart DateStatusInteractive EventsStaff Attendance
River Raiders Lindfield NSW, Australia 4/2/2021 Online None
Farmageddon VIII Farmer City, IL 4/23/2021 Online None
CritterCon IV Cosmic Crittermander Discord 4/23/2021 Online SFS 3-00 The Last Bite Alex
Chupacabracon 2021 Austin, TX 4/30/2021 Online PFS2 2-00 The King In Thorns, SFS 3-00 The Last Bite
Sac OPF TakeTwo Con 2: The Return Sacramento, CA 4/30/2021 Online PFS2 2-00 The King In Thorns, SFS 3-00 The Last Bite
POPCon 2021 Fenton, MI 5/7/2021 Online None Alex
PaizoCon Online Seattle, WA 5/28/2021 Online PACS 7-99 Yes
Con Summer Drain 21 Gulf Region 6/11/2021 Online SFS 3-00 The Last Bite
ConCurrent 2021 Columbus, OH 6/11/2021 Online PFS2 2-00 The King In Thorns, SFS 3-00 The Last Bite Alex
PaizoCon Europe Online Online 8/19/2021 Online TBA TBA
GenCon Indianapolis, IN 9/17/2021 Hybrid PFS 3-99, SFS 3-99 (Titles TBA) TBA

As a final note, tune into Paizo Live! this Friday at 4pm PDT, where our own Mike Kimmel will be a featured guest. He’ll be talking about the Pathfinder Bounties, as well as our Organized Play products

We’ll see you next week for a special preview of our PaizoCon releases for Pathfinder Society! Until then: Explore! Report! Cooperate!

Alex Speidel
Organized Play Associate

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Tags: Conventions Organized Play Pathfinder Society Starfinder Society
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1/5 5/5

Woot! Congrats AJ and Juan on getting to 5 Stars!
Wayfinders 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 **** Contributor

Yes, congratulations to Juan and AJ! How awesome!
The Exchange 4/5
1 person marked this as a favorite.

Farmageddon VIII is not online but at a country club.
Dark Archive 4/5 *** Venture-Agent, Finland—Tampere

Realized there was no mention of sanctioning for player options from Edgewatch though ^_^; Ah well I'm still glad to hear that Devastation Ark sanctioning is soon, I'm currently running the first book after all :3
Paizo Employee 5/55/5 * Organized Play Associate
3 people marked this as a favorite.
Jesse Lehto wrote:
Realized there was no mention of sanctioning for player options from Edgewatch though

It is on our radar for when things are a little quieter, but we're focusing on the playable content first. We haven't forgotten!

6 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Starfinder Society Subscriber

I'm really curious how events in the Pathfinder special will impact on Starfinder...
Scarab Sages 5/5 5/5 *** Venture-Captain, Netherlands

Congratulations Juan and AJ!
5/5 5/55/55/5
13 people marked this as a favorite.

Starfinder Archeologist "So much magical energy and scorch residue. How much magical energy was spent here that the resonance still lingers? This must have been the site of an epic battle that decided the fate of nations"

Pathfinders "SPIDER!!! GET IT OFF ME! GET IT OFF MEE!" explosions sounds
Scarab Sages 1/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Virginia—Richmond

I'm surprised that Malevolence is getting sanctioned. I figured it would have disturbing content, and I know Agents of Edgewatch didn't get sanctioned for the same reason.
Scarab Sages 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Isles—Online
NECR0G1ANT wrote:
I'm surprised that Malevolence is getting sanctioned. I figured it would have disturbing content, and I know Agents of Edgewatch didn't get sanctioned for the same reason.

Edgewatch didn't get sanctioned due to similarity to recent events, Malevolence is a haunted house. Signal of Screams for Starfinder is a horror based AP and that has already been sanctioned.

5/5 *****
Chris Manning wrote:
NECR0G1ANT wrote:
I'm surprised that Malevolence is getting sanctioned. I figured it would have disturbing content, and I know Agents of Edgewatch didn't get sanctioned for the same reason.
Edgewatch didn't get sanctioned due to similarity to recent events, Malevolence is a haunted house. Signal of Screams for Starfinder is a horror based AP and that has already been sanctioned.

I am currently playing Edgewatch, we recently started book 3. There is no way I would want people running part 1 in a public setting which has nothing to do with the issues around law enforcement.

Part 1 spoilers:
Torture porn really isnt suitable for a public venue
Sczarni 5/5 5/55/5 ***
3 people marked this as a favorite.

Those are definitely 9 words that'll turn me off to anything =(
Scarab Sages 1/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Virginia—Richmond
Chris Manning wrote:
NECR0G1ANT wrote:
I'm surprised that Malevolence is getting sanctioned. I figured it would have disturbing content, and I know Agents of Edgewatch didn't get sanctioned for the same reason.
Edgewatch didn't get sanctioned due to similarity to recent events, Malevolence is a haunted house. Signal of Screams for Starfinder is a horror based AP and that has already been sanctioned.

No, the OPT decided against sanctioning AoE because of disturbing content, per one of its authors. I was expecting Malevolence to also feature plenty of that sort of thing, hence my surprise.

Liberty's Edge 5/5 5/5 *** Venture-Lieutenant, Indiana—Martinsville

Is there any call for volenteers for GenCon... I have not seen any notification.
Dark Archive *

Are there any ideas when the Boons for uncommon items will be available for APG, Bestiary 2 (and now 3), plus all the other books that have released and don’t have access to yet? Like the Wakizashi and Rhoka Sword?
Second Seekers (Jadnura) 5/55/55/55/5

Great stuff Alex! Congratulations Juan and AJ!
Grand Archive
1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
NECR0G1ANT wrote:
Chris Manning wrote:
NECR0G1ANT wrote:
I'm surprised that Malevolence is getting sanctioned. I figured it would have disturbing content, and I know Agents of Edgewatch didn't get sanctioned for the same reason.
Edgewatch didn't get sanctioned due to similarity to recent events, Malevolence is a haunted house. Signal of Screams for Starfinder is a horror based AP and that has already been sanctioned.
No, the OPT decided against sanctioning AoE because of disturbing content, per one of its authors. I was expecting Malevolence to also feature plenty of that sort of thing, hence my surprise.

James is a fan of horror, but not really of gore. A haunted house can take many forms.

And again... Nothing says that they will not end up saying that in the end, the content is too much after they reviewed it. (Or giving guidelines to remove some stuff.)
Dark Archive 4/5 5/5 ****
1 person marked this as a favorite.

Congratulations, AJ!

It was an honor to recommend you for your fifth star! About time you joined the Island.

And congrats to you Juan!
5/5 5/55/55/5
6 people marked this as a favorite.
Nefreet wrote:
Those are definitely 9 words that'll turn me off to anything =(

"We're from the society and we're here to help" ?

The scariest words in the common language
3/5 **
5 people marked this as a favorite.
BigNorseWolf wrote:
Nefreet wrote:
Those are definitely 9 words that'll turn me off to anything =(

"We're from the society and we're here to help" ?

The scariest words in the common language

*Nigel wakes up in a cold sweat*

Dark Archive 5/5 5/5
1 person marked this as a favorite.

Welcome to the island AJ!
Liberty's Edge 3/5 5/5 **** Venture-Captain, Nebraska—Omaha
1 person marked this as a favorite.
Hillis Mallory III wrote:
Is there any call for volenteers for GenCon... I have not seen any notification.

Call has not gone out yet.

Liberty's Edge 3/5 5/5 **** Venture-Captain, Nebraska—Omaha
1 person marked this as a favorite.

Congrats to the new 5-Star GMs. Thank you for all you have given to your players!
Manifold Host 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 ****
5 people marked this as a favorite.
Alison-Cybe wrote:
I'm really curious how events in the Pathfinder special will impact on Starfinder...

I'm really curious how events in the Starfinder special will impact on Pathfinder.

"What is this telephone booth doing here? Didn't they go extinct with the appearance of the system-wide infospheres?"
Grand Lodge 4/5 ****
Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

Are there any specifics about PFS 3-99, SFS 3-99?

I know that they're at Gencon and Gencon is Hybrid this year. Will that mean that we should expect that there will be some online tables of those events or will they only be held at Indianapolis?
Paizo Employee 5/55/5 * Organized Play Associate
5 people marked this as a favorite.
Josh Klingerman wrote:

Are there any specifics about PFS 3-99, SFS 3-99?

I know that they're at Gencon and Gencon is Hybrid this year. Will that mean that we should expect that there will be some online tables of those events or will they only be held at Indianapolis?

We're still finalizing plans but our intention is that anything that premieres in physical space will also have an online option.

Scarab Sages 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Agent, Wisconsin–Superior
2 people marked this as a favorite.

Congratulations to AJ, a good friend and mentor! Been a great time working with you and it’s excellent to see this achievement happen!
Grand Archive 4/5 ****
3 people marked this as a favorite.

It seems pretty simple for a pathfinder scenario to influence a starfinder scenario.

On the other hand, if a starfinder scenario winds up influencing a pathfinder scenario...

(That is when we find out that

Spoiler:
all of PFS takes place in a really big chamber inside Salvation's End...
Dark Archive 4/5 5/55/5 **** Venture-Lieutenant, Ohio—Columbus
1 person marked this as a favorite.
Jared Thaler - Personal Opinion wrote:

It seems pretty simple for a pathfinder scenario to influence a starfinder scenario.

On the other hand, if a starfinder scenario winds up influencing a pathfinder scenario...

(That is when we find out that ** spoiler omitted **

But I thought Salvation’s End was the Blackros Museum after it gained sentience.... that or Nigel

Wayfinders 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 **** Contributor
3 people marked this as a favorite.

The forums must be broken. I keep pushing the button but it will only let me favorite Jared's post once.

But this explains how...:
Drandle Dreng's floating head wound up in the Starfinder Universe. He's clearly the AI for Salvation's End!
Sovereign Court 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 ****
2 people marked this as a favorite.
Elizabeth Nold wrote:
But I thought Salvation’s End was the Blackros Museum after it gained sentience.... that or Nigel

Wait... Nigel gained sentience? How did that happen?

Dark Archive 4/5 *** Venture-Agent, Finland—Tampere
Hilary Moon Murphy wrote:

The forums must be broken. I keep pushing the button but it will only let me favorite Jared's post once.

** spoiler omitted **

I'm confused about that spoiler if its not a joke x'D

Anyway, I do hope they do remember that Pathfinder and Starfinder ARE AU and not necessarily in same continuity in this cross over :'D
Dark Archive 5/5 5/5
1 person marked this as a favorite.
Jared Thaler - Personal Opinion wrote:

It seems pretty simple for a pathfinder scenario to influence a starfinder scenario.

On the other hand, if a starfinder scenario winds up influencing a pathfinder scenario...

(That is when we find out that ** spoiler omitted **

No. It’s the Perplexity.

Dataphiles 1/5 5/55/5 ****
Pathfinder Adventure, Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber; Starfinder Superscriber

The new SFS Character Options page doesn't have a restriction on Pact Worlds race options, guessing that's an unintentional omission.
Paizo Employee 5/55/5 * Organized Play Associate
2 people marked this as a favorite.
AshenShade wrote:
The new SFS Character Options page doesn't have a restriction on Pact Worlds race options, guessing that's an unintentional omission.

Yep, that's my bad, I 100% forgot there were races in the back. I accept my public flogging and will correct it in the next version to roll out.

Liberty's Edge 3/5 5/5 **** Venture-Captain, Nebraska—Omaha
Leg o' Lamb wrote:
Jared Thaler - Personal Opinion wrote:

It seems pretty simple for a pathfinder scenario to influence a starfinder scenario.

On the other hand, if a starfinder scenario winds up influencing a pathfinder scenario...

(That is when we find out that ** spoiler omitted **

No. It’s the Perplexity.

Hmm Not sure about that....

Paizo Employee 5/55/5 * Organized Play Associate
2 people marked this as a favorite.
The blog post wrote:
On the Pathfinder side, we’re sanctioning Abomination Vaults and expect to complete it in the next two weeks, but no later than the end of April. We’ll post about it when it’s done!

Good news, it's finished! Sanctioning documents can be downloaded from the product pages or at this direct link.

2/5 5/5 *****
Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Alex Speidel wrote:
The blog post wrote:
On the Pathfinder side, we’re sanctioning Abomination Vaults and expect to complete it in the next two weeks, but no later than the end of April. We’ll post about it when it’s done!
Good news, it's finished! Sanctioning documents can be downloaded from the product pages or at this direct link.

Thank you! Y'all are the best!

Dark Archive 5/5 5/5
6 people marked this as a favorite.
Alex Speidel wrote:
The blog post wrote:
On the Pathfinder side, we’re sanctioning Abomination Vaults and expect to complete it in the next two weeks, but no later than the end of April. We’ll post about it when it’s done!
Good news, it's finished! Sanctioning documents can be downloaded from the product pages or at this direct link.

Why did I just read that in Professor Farnsworth's voice...

5/5 5/55/55/5
Leg o' Lamb wrote:
Alex Speidel wrote:
The blog post wrote:
On the Pathfinder side, we’re sanctioning Abomination Vaults and expect to complete it in the next two weeks, but no later than the end of April. We’ll post about it when it’s done!
Good news, it's finished! Sanctioning documents can be downloaded from the product pages or at this direct link.
Why did I just read that in Professor Farnsworth's voice...

It wasn't written in his voice?

**
Hillis Mallory III wrote:
Is there any call for volenteers for GenCon... I have not seen any notification.

As Gary said, not yet. The organizing committee is currently calling out for interest in different forms the convention may take place. You will (disclaimer: this is my personal guess) most likely hear from Paizo to which extent they are participating before the call for volunteers go out! :)

1 person marked this as a favorite.

I thought that Pathfinder-Starfinder crossover event was for PaizoCon and now I’m so bummed to wait!
Lantern Lodge
Nicole Heits wrote:


As Gary said, not yet. The organizing committee is currently calling out for interest in different forms the convention may take place. You will (disclaimer: this is my personal guess) most likely hear from Paizo to which extent they are participating before the call for volunteers go out! :)

Is there still going to be a physical PFS special at Gen Con this year? I thought all in person play was kaput.

Paizo Employee 5/55/5 * Organized Play Associate
2 people marked this as a favorite.

Nicole's post was before we announced that we were not going to be at the physical event (note the date of April 17). There will not be a physical special at Gen Con in Indianapolis, though they will still premiere at Gen Con Online!
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