I have very quickly thrown together a crib sheet for Goblin players so that we can run this on Saturday. Please beware, it is unofficial and it may include errors. Share this if you feel it may help. Otherwise all players will need their own copy of the Playtest Rules and the six extensive revisions plus recent updates. It's linked from our Pathfinder UK website, in the second paragraph.
"Lord Romeo" I will send you a private message via this Paizo website to tell you how you can help us in London but feel free to contact me on my public email address listed on the Pathfinder Society Coordinators' webpage. http://paizo.com/pathfinderSociety/coordinators
We have had Core running at our conventions with very mixed results and lots of confusion. Many players just don't understand the exclusivity. They find it very inflexible. It would be a huge help if a Core Character could play in the regular campaign when there are no alternatives available, stay with the core rules and resources, and then go back and play in Core games.
Listen you Agents, out there in PaizoCon-Land, I don’t want to spoil your day but we just got an alert from from our people at Border Control. It seems like a Faceless Stalker managed to slip through and caught the flight out of Heathrow. Someone found the mangled body of "Andrew the Brit" jammed into a dicebag in the washrooms. It seems likely that it took over his appearance and stole his PaizoCon ticket. Whatever you do, don’t accept chocolate from this cad. He just wants to bury you and steal your skin.
Wow. This is a fantastic adventure but it took me ages to get the GM prep sorted out. I've uploaded it to GM Prep along with a digest of the complex timeline. You're welcome to share.
Well done Chris Manning. He kills my characters but I still love him. (I'm sure I have detected necromantic magic in his dice tower.) He is always there at our games conventions to entertain our players. Keep at it Chris. And very well done to all the other 5-Star dudes.
Congratulations to Terry Thambipillai (universally known as Terry T) for achieving his 5th GM star. Terry is a GM of puissant skill. He manages to balance a very firm grip on his players with a gentle sense of humour. He runs games tirelessly, both online and in person, and his tables are always full. He gives his time very generously at most of our UK games conventions. Terry is an ornament to the Pathfinder Society in the UK and in Europe, albeit a slightly cracked urn. He is a remarkable ambassador for the game in Europe and has led many an adventuring party of Brits across the Channel. So far he has avoided starting any international incidents – probably because he is regarded as an English eccentric. Amazingly, they keep inviting him back for more. He is a very popular guest. I love his games and I hope to play in many more of them. Rock on Terry.
That is wonderful news. Erik couldn't have made a better choice. You were amazing when you were VL over here and taught us how so many thing could be organised better. We still miss you in the UK but this way we kinda get you back again. Come and visit us at PaizoCon UK or PaizoCon France and bring lots of friends. A big hiya to Crispy, too, because behind every great woman...
I'm just back from Conception with 140 game sessions to report and it's not going well. Many character numbers are causing the report to fail to save. They seem to be new character numbers that haven't yet been registered or numbers where a player is planning to create an extra character but hasn't registered it yet. The ones that are accepted come up as "RPG". The ones that aren't accepted remain blank in that column. It's a real problem because the whole game report fails to save. I can't wait for players to register their characters online and, of course, the reality is that some never will. Is there anything I can do to work around this or are you working on a fix?
This is a wonderful adventure and I am just limbering up to run it for the second time but
I am delighted to congratulate Benoît Gros on achieving his fifth star for GM'ing. He sets the Gold Standard for running Pathfinder games and recently I was honoured to play in some of his games at GardenCon, Geneva. Benoît plays the characters like a professional actor who has learned his roles to perfection and he sets the scene and the atmosphere like a master of storytelling. What makes that even more remarkable is that he does so in several languages. On an international table, he will sometimes run in more than one language to make sure all the players are comfortable. Amazing! The other great quality of Benoît's games is the tremendous verve and energy that he generates as he drives along the action. He manages to set just the right level of challenge, allowing his players to enjoy the games but feel pushed close to their limits. It goes without saying he is very knowledgeable on the rules and clearly spends a serious amount of time to properly prep his games. I know of no other Venture Captain who has done more to encourage and organize an exchange of players throughout Europe. He is a very welcome visiting GM to our UK games conventions and without his help we would often be stuck for language support. And, of course he is a wonderful host to players from all over Europe at his own convention in Geneva, Switzerland. Well done Benoît!
I am delighted to announce that Carol Tierney is our new Venture Lieutenant for England. Our VO Team unanimously voted Carol Tierney as the ideal candidate to take up the post. She is already doing most of the work of an energetic Venture Lieutenant and we wanted to recognise her efforts and make her official. She has been instrumental in running the "Open Skies" Pathfinder Lodge in Cambridgeshire with regular games. The group has built formidable reputation within the UK. Carol organises the "3XP" Pathfinder Conventions and this has been so successful and popular that it often runs twice a year to cover special events. Last year Carol wrote and ran the first player-scripted Pathfinder costumed LARP in the UK at "Conception" games convention. It was a wonderful special event for a convention and she is writing and organising a similar event for Conception 2015. She is one of the "Wyrd Sisters" who cook up hot and healthy grub for harassed GMs at that same convention. Of course Carol is also an excellent GM, and fast gaining more stars. We would be lost without her and her talent for organising. Watch out for great things to come, in her area and beyond.
I am delighted to tell you that our UK Venture Captain, Dave Harrison is now a Five Star GM and I am honoured to be the one to submit this to Paizo. Dave was the "mad fool" who rashly volunteered the idea of the first PaizoCon UK. Without him the event wouldn't exist and many UK players wouldn't be playing Pathfinder, at all. He is a lovely guy, a good friend and a huge asset to the hobby. He is often willing to drop everything and run a game to make sure everyone else has a chance to play. Dave is certainly one of the most talented GMs that I know. I find him an inspiration! Dave's new 5-Star status is endorsed by a host of really wonderful comments that I have from some of the players and GMs that he has entertained and supported:
Read what they say about Dave: --- Having played in many of Dave's games I've always found them to be among the most atmospheric and engaging of all those I've played. His background knowledge of the world of Golarion really contributes to making our characters truly immersed into the role of Pathfinders and that our actions matter. His running of Eyes of Ten for our group is among the most memorable of all games I've ever played. It was just awesome. - Andrew B --- Dave Harrison has been a friend and mentor to me through the last two and half years since I have taken up playing PFS. From the moment I met him, he was encouraging and welcoming to a shy player at her first con. As a GM, he brings the world of Golarian to life, ensuring that each player in included and has fun. He is fair with the rules and the complete ambassador for the whole of the Pathfinder Society. I have loved every single game I have played of his, feeling immersed in the world and that exilhirating feeling of knowing you defeated the enemy with only a hit point or two to spare. He has been totally supportive of my time so far as a GM, including sitting at my table as a player, He is positive, open and such a fun person, that I am now honoured to call him friend. Without his guidance and support, I don't think I would have ventured into starting my own events and broadening the numbers of games in Sussex. - Chris BB
If ever there was a perfect example of where the journey mattered more than the destination it is one of Dave's games. The smiles on the player's faces, the laughter at the table and the retelling of the war stories after the event is all the evidence anyone needs that here is a great GM. Pathfinder Society and all of the players/employees who are involved in it should feel very proud and indeed lucky to have someone of Dave's calibre involved. On a more personal note, I feel privileged to have been able to play when Dave ran the first (and so far only) UK 'Eyes of the Ten' table. That weekend is one of my most enjoyable roleplaying experiences so far in my 15+ years in the hobby and is I will never forget. The camaraderie between the players as our characters accomplished the seemingly impossible was something special. Such was the enjoyment had in that weekend that we as players 'reserved' Dave to run the module 'Academy of Secrets' with our new Venture Captain characters so we could 'get the band back together'. If you'll excuse the paraphrasing; if a company can be judged on the quality of its GMs, then well done Paizo, you're second to none. - Alex S
Dear Chums, thanks so much for the kind words. It's very humbling...but that won't stop me celebrating with a few beers this Friday with the usual crew down in Saventh Yhi. I recognise lots of familiar names from Europe and America above and I really look forward to playing with you lovely people again. ...'til the next time.
Like the rest of you, we do what we do because we enjoy it, but it was very humbling to be honoured in this way and to get that special medal and the bragging rights on that low, low PFS number. Wow! Thank you very much, Mike and Paizo.
We are very excited to announce that we have two new Venture Lieutenants for England. Their names will be no surprise to Pathfinder Society players who attend games conventions in the UK, because they are both regular GMs and organisers. Looking after the north and working out of Sheffield we have Pete Pollard and a little further south and working out of Peterborough we have Tonya Woldridge. Pete is an Oscar Nominated GM who regularly covers every game slot at most of the big game conventions and has a talent for bringing the adventures to life in a frighteningly vivid way. For many years he has been a rock that we could depend on at games conventions and he runs a lively regular local group in Sheffield. This year he is handling the table assignment at PaizoCon UK. Tonya runs the gaming half of CrispyCon and she gets an award for the smoothest running game convention in England...ever! She has been our mainstay for the scheduling of games and GMs at the big conventions and she is one of the "Three Wyrd Sisters" who run the soup kitchen for poor GMs at the Conception 5-day games convention. All her family are dyed-in-the-wool Pathfinder fanatics and in her spare time she organises them, too. As if that wasn't enough, she is also an ace GM. Wow! These two great people will be helping Dave Harrison and I as our team of star Pathfinder GMs attend more and more local conventions to spread the word to new players and entertain game hungry veterans. Please say hiya to them and wish them luck.
Jens, you caught me wrong footed as I am still in recovery from Conception where several records were broken and we increased our Pathfinder slots by over 50 percent on last year. See our PaizoCon UK website Several GMs deserve congratulations for achieving official star-rating at Conception. Chris Brockley-Blatt completed enough games to get a one-star, Chris Manning achieved a one-star, Shawn Comiskey achieved his two-star, Crispy won his four-star status. Jens Loesel ran his 151st games, and gained appreciative comments from players…enough to apply for a five-star rating. I'll be sending in a formal submission with player comments over the weekend. Meanwhile, hurray, for 4-star Crispy. His adventures are vivid, flavorsome and often deeply threatening. When you sit on his table you are NOT at his table, you are right there in the middle of a thriller and living the action. He is a world-class GM and you should elbow your way on to his table at any cost.
Wow! Thank you all so much for the kind thoughts and words. This one came out of the sun at me so I am still getting to grips with it. I am very, very honoured and I'll do my best to shape up to the high standards that other people have set. I really appreciate your good wishes but expect the usual blood, murder and carnage (in a loving way) if you sit down at my table. I'm looking forward to working with Dave to try and make England the hummiest place to play Pathfinder. I've bought a new pirate hat to celebrate!
We've got the photos on the PaizoCon web site now. They are divided up into
Go to PaizoCon UK website.
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