Paizo's Gen Con 2021 Update

As a volunteer for a corporate business, I understand that sometimes there must be an over-abundance of cation and risk avoidance.

As a Venture Agent, I'm deeply saddened by this news. BUt perhaps it's an opportunity to promote Family Time Games on the north side as part of Pop-Up Gencon.

As an Indianapolis local VA, I'm terribly disappointed that once again I will not be seeing Paizo friends from across the country and around the world. Handing out VO Dice in person will have to wait another year. This absolutely sucks.

On the personal side... As someone who nearly died from Covid back in March of 2020, I was REALLY looking forward to returning to a semblance of normalcy. Even if we had a fraction of the in-person games offered, I would have been willing to GM a VTT from the Sagamore. I'm still willing to do this, and I might just make a few phone calls and emails.

Hey, Rob, I like your idea of using Family Time Games, especially if we can run the Pathfinder and Starfinder specials from this year and last year. You would have at least four of us driving down from Lafayette, and likely more. P.S. Is there any chance of doing an in-person HoosierCon this fall?

I am not going to comment on the decision not to have in person gamez. It is made and nothing I say will change it.

I am fully vaccinated and enjoying my mask free life.

An update on the badge. I contacted customer service at Gencon to request a refund or rollover and specifically said it was because Paizo is not holding in person games. They replied that they would rollover the badge.

So contact them.

I am so tired of online tables so I may skip the online Gencon again.

If you want live games, the weekend after is NukeCon, Omaha largest gaming convention.

Will there be any options for people attending Gen Con in-person to play in Pathfinder or Starfinder events, specifically the specials?

premiere at Gen Con...Gen Con and Gen Con Online

All I can say is you clearly misread the intent of the word "at." Based on the conversations in the various chats, you are in an extremely small group if you took that to mean they would be there physically. The org play team has had a consistent message that they did not know if Paizo would be attending Gen Con and they would let us know when that decision was made. I'm one of those quick to hold Paizo's feet to the fire, but if this is the only "proof" of their attendance its pretty thin. As Henry Ford would say, "Damn near invisible."

Those of us who did get fully vaccinated now have had something we were looking forward to taken away.

I'm really glad Paizo decided not to do GenCon in person this year.

The vaccine is not 100% effective, so there's no way of knowing whether you're going to become ill because someone who is not vaccinated is at your table. Personally, I'm glad I don't need to deal with the unvaccinated people who refuse to wear masks, and expose me to the virus.

I really appreciate that Paizo didn't put staff and volunteers in the position of having to choose whether or not to accept those risks.

Obviously my mileage varies a great deal from yours.

Request for Paizo:

Dear Paizo,

While I’m disappointed that you won’t be joining us at GenCon this year, I’m also a fan of personal choice. So I’m okay with your “personal” choice as an organization. That said, could you please loosen your rules on running the Starfinder and Pathfinder specials from this year and last, so that we can run them at our local hobby shops without the requirement for multiple tables? (This would also help address the concerns of some of those regarding having too many people together at once.) Asking for myself, my friends, and many fellow hobbyists. Speaking for myself, my computer is a dinosaur, Roll20 is a pain, and I do this hobby to be around people. As an added argument, playing in person allows us to meet people we otherwise wouldn’t have much in common with. In-person gaming allows people of different backgrounds and life paths to come together and have fun and experience the diversity that is one of your company’s core values.

Sincerely,
Jarek

This thread has been locked until we can review it when we’re on the clock tomorrow.

Some posts and the replies to them have been removed.

There are a variety of reasons a person may not be comfortable going into a heavily crowded area, fully vaccinated or not. Let's not attack people for that.

I am tentatively opening the thread again. If it becomes clear we are not able to have a discussion without attacking or bickering it will be closed again.

All I can say is you clearly misread the intent of the word "at."

"At" is one of those tricky word with multiple meanings.

How about the third page from the Organized play interest survey?

From here.

Plus all the mentions of running a Hybrid convention. If you think people were unreasonable expecting Paizo to be at physical Gen Con, I don't know what to tell you.

TwilightKnight wrote:

All I can say is you clearly misread the intent of the word "at."

"At" is one of those tricky word with multiple meanings.

How about the third page from the Organized play interest survey?

From here.

Plus all the mentions of running a Hybrid convention. If you think people were unreasonable expecting Paizo to be at physical Gen Con, I don't know what to tell you.

We've been exploring the feasibility of running hybrid conventions all year. The interest survey was just that, an interest survey. We continued to update people about plans as we have them. But plans are not inflexible and they rarely survive in their initial form. We are constantly adjusting, to the point I've used Sempre Gumby as a motto. Just last year, we had to pivot an entire Pathfinder Season metaplot away from a Golarion-ravaging disease (there's a reality in your gaming, but this was too much.)

In this case, we planned for a PFS Year 3 launch at Gen Con in August. They changed their dates, so we moved to a Year 3 launch at PaizoCon Europe Online and a concurrent release of the Specials at Gen Con. Now we aren't going to be at the physical show, so we will do an online premier of the specials, then release them to conventions. There will be a table minimum, but I'm not sure the exact amount until the devs give me more information. Once we have more info, we will share it with the public. That has been our statement whenever asked and will continue to be our game plan.

Next steps are 1) waiting for more information about Gen Con Online before we do a schedule update, though our plan is to have the schedule available before registration opens 2)ask OPF to recruit volunteers for the show 3)update the community on both 1 and 2.

Now we aren't going to be at the physical show

And so the question remains - why was this announced two days *after* the window closed for attendees to roll over their Gencon badges to next year?

Options include, but are not limited to:
- Paizo wasn't aware of the rollover date
- Paizo was aware of the rollover date but couldn't make a decision by then because _____
- Paizo was aware of the rollover date but didn't feel the need to make an announcement by then
- Between the rollover date and the announcement date ______ changed

There *is* a reason, and while some of us may or may not like the answer, I don't think it's too much to ask for an explanation of that reason.

Tonya Woldridge wrote:

Now we aren't going to be at the physical show

And so the question remains - why was this announced two days *after* the window closed for attendees to roll over their Gencon badges to next year.

In an earlier post, someone said that they were able to roll over their badge after this announcement by dealing directly with GenCon.

If that's what you're worried about, I'd suggest making that attempt as soon as possible.

While I am sure the safety of staff and volunteers was a strong influence on Paizo's decision, I am equally sure that making the decision was a complex and difficult process that involved many more factors.

The change of dates meant that they would have been pulling staff away from families during the school year.
They have a fairly tight publishing/development schedule and plan around PaizoCon and Gen Con (in August) which involve most of their staff. It would likely be incredibly disruptive to that schedule to lose the staff availability later in the year by sending them to the rescheduled Gen Con. (Lots of people would scream loudly about that and it would affect their relationships with other businesses.)
We have no idea what the requirements and restrictions on attending are that they would have to meet or how feasible those are for Paizo.
I am sure there are other concerns of which I am totally unaware.

Attending Gen Con for Paizo is a massive undertaking. I am sure they benefit from it but especially in these already challenging and disrupted times, they had to carefully weigh all the factors and complete whatever negotiations were needed before they made their final announcement.

I am happy to hear that Gen Con is allowing late badge rollovers for those who have been affected by the unfortunate timing of the announcement.

I look forward to meeting in-person many in this community sometime in the future to exchange stories, support, and play games.

Tonya Woldridge wrote:

Now we aren't going to be at the physical show

And so the question remains - why was this announced two days *after* the window closed for attendees to roll over their Gencon badges to next year?

Options include, but are not limited to:
- Paizo wasn't aware of the rollover date
- Paizo was aware of the rollover date but couldn't make a decision by then because _____
- Paizo was aware of the rollover date but didn't feel the need to make an announcement by then
- Between the rollover date and the announcement date ______ changed

There *is* a reason, and while some of us may or may not like the answer, I don't think it's too much to ask for an explanation of that reason.

It was indicated on the Paizocon discord that the rollover date was emailed to badge holders, but not in the press releases. That is probably the only answer that will be given. Anything more would invite criticism that they don’t seem able and/or willing to endure.

I will confirm that I was able to rollover my badge after the announcement