August 2024 Organized Play Monthly Update

Digital Adventure Releases

These adventures will be available on August 28, 2024.

Pathfinder Society

Pathfinder Society Intro: Year of Immortal Influence*

Pathfinder Society Scenario #6-02: Rain Falls on the Mountain of Sea and Sky*

Pathfinder Quest (Series 2) #20: The Dacilane Academy's Show Must Go On

Starfinder Society

Starfinder Society Scenario #7-05: The Day the River Died*

*part of a subscription

Gen Con Recap

We're back from Gen Con, and at this point we’re just about caught up on sleep!

During the Best Four Days in Gaming, we ran:

• 415 Pathfinder Society tables
• 129 Starfinder Society tables
• 198 tables of the Starfinder Playtest
• 115 demo tables of Pathfinder and Starfinder Second Edition

You can read more about Gen Con in last week’s recap blog!

Sanctioning Updates

Pathfinder Player Core 2 released at Gen Con, and sanctioning has been posted on the Character Options page! As it is now after August 12, the Remaster Guidelines take effect for all characters as well. Please be sure to review them and leave any questions in the remaster thread; once my travel schedule calms down I intend to go through and figure out what problems we’ve discovered that need guidance from the OP team.

The Wardens of Wildwood Adventure Path is also sanctioned at this time! We’re working on Pathfinder Adventure Prey for Death now, so don’t speedrun the adventure too quickly (though I wouldn’t blame you, it’s a lot of fun). Also on our upcoming radar are the Pathfinder Lost Omens Tian Xia Character Guide, followed by the Curtain CallAdventure Path and Pathfinder War of Immortals.

Starfinder Playtest

The Starfinder Playtest has begun! The Starfinder Playtest tracking sheet is now available at starfinderplaytest.com, ready for you to track your participation in the two playtest scenarios as well as the published softcover adventures. Let us know what you think in the playtest surveys!

GM Recognition

As Gen Con is our biggest stage, we took the time to do quite a bit of recognition of our volunteers!

Order of the Wayfinder

In addition to the Campaign Service Coin, we also have one other award: the Order of the Wayfinder. This award is given out only once per year, and it recognizes a member of the community who has provided exceptional service. Typically, we give this award to individuals who have taken on a particular project and knocked it out of the park. Previously, this award has been awarded to the head of our Additional Resources review team and our Regional Venture-Coordinator for the Online region, among others.

This year’s recipient, awarded at Gen Con, was Lucas Servideo. Lucas is a longtime volunteer with Paizo Organized Play and currently serves as the Regional Venture-Coordinator for the Northeast region. Over the past several years, Lucas has been dedicated to the Pathfinder Academy program, which is our program for younger players and new Pathfinders. Bringing new players into the program is crucial, and Lucas is a warm, welcoming, and dedicated first point of contact for our youngest Pathfinders. He has been a crucial advocate for this program, and I was thrilled to award him with the Wayfinder this year while he was dressed as his contemplative character. That’s just how we do things around here.

Campaign Service Coins

Additionally, I awarded two Campaign Service Coins at Gen Con! We award these coins to members of the community who have gone above and beyond to provide an exceptional program to the community at large. Campaign Coins are awarded based on nominations; if you believe someone in your community is deserving of this award (whether or not they are a Venture Officer), send an email to organizedplay@paizo.com with their name and reasons.

Congratulations to:

David Malkiewicz, who now holds a campaign coin and OP ID #908

Darrel Curry, who now holds a campaign coin and OP ID #909

GM Ranks

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 dependent). A conservative estimate of the time needed to reach the 5th milestone is 650 hours!

5th Star (PFS1): Jason Belter

5th Glyph (PFS2): John Brinkman, David Malkiewicz, Mykal Merrill

If you believe you’ve completed your 5th rank but haven’t been announced yet, please email me at organizedplay@paizo.com.

That’s quite enough from me! I’m off to PaizoCon Europe to eat cheese and chocolate—and probably do some gaming somewhere in there. Until next time: Explore! Report! Cooperate! And enjoy the summer sunshine (or winter sunshine, for our southern hemisphere friends)!

Alex Speidel
Organized Play Coordinator