Doug Hahn's page

Some day, perhaps some clever person will create a foundry module that brings a pbp experience to the vtt.

I’d love to get off the boards to a stable platform but I personally cannot do discord.

My point being I think planned flexibility is easier to manage than strict rules are to enforce.

To clarify, my old lodge’s no-show policy is reasonable, flexible, and aimed at solving a disruptive issue (repeatedly no-call/no-showing without communicating at all) that was preventing games from mustering. I don’t want to go into the further details here, since that would derail the thread.

I only mentioned it to illustrate the point that even simple, tailored rules can still generate a lot of heartburn for VOs, especially if those rules are not officially supported by the program. That kind of friction contributes to volunteer burnout.

Policy solutions often seem nice on paper, but implementation and change in requires meaningful effort and there are always bumps in the road. Hopefully the PFS community at large understands the leeway mentioned by Ascalaphus, but few and far between read the rules or follow policy changes.

I think infinite replays dilute the experience.

Being the only person at the table who hasn’t played the scenario is not much fun. Fellow players tend to put all the decision-making on you to avoid their own "metagaming." Replaying is not the same either, and I’ve never really understood the appeal outside of special cases like the ones below.

ACP rewards, Stars, and Glyphs were a reasonable middle ground; they gave players a way to earn a replay when an unprepared GM or a disruptive player ruined the session.

Scenarios should feel special. You used to get one shot. I made sure to only play scenarios like Eyes of the Ten, Salvation of the Sages, and all the high-level 2E scenarios with GMs I trusted to show up well-prepared and make them memorable in their own special way.

Running games myself was also something to cherish, especially when players would wait for me to run a particular scenario or personally ask me to run a game for them, knowing they trusted me to give them that singular experience. That was something I held sacred and it made me work even harder to hone my craft as a GM. With this change, that personal motivation is also diluted.

From an operational standpoint, when I was a VL, finding volunteers to muster and replay for ACp/glyph or even for no credit to support new players was never a problem. I'm not really sure I understand what issue this decision is solving, because it was already easy to replay if you needed. I know every lodge is different, but as leaders in Org Play I think it's important to build a culture where the community can step up and help people out instead of depending on loosened rules.

Finally, in my own corner case, having needed to take a couple years off Org Play due to personal reasons, the idea of coming back is now far less appealing.

As a player: I am not interested in sitting down with a bunch of people who've played the same scenario several times.

As a GM: I am not motivated to run games for people who've played the same scenario before or multiple times.

Yes; having an AOO available is a very important part of "defending yourself normally." AOO's are also not actually one of the action types like move/swift, etc.

Outdated is a bit of a stretch . More people buy physical books than PDFs, ebooks etc … by a pretty big margin, in fact. Alternative ways to consume RPGs (and books in general) have certainly increased, but I promise you print is still king.

Fair. But I think the new Paizo storefront can/should better support digital products at this price point, including those who use Foundry and other VTTs.

I would like to see this company better support BOTH.

I've been one of the people asking for a pdf subscription for years and have said that I am happy to also pay hardcover price. I have been constantly been told Paizo doesn't have the technology to take my money.

Now, with a new storefront the digital landscape has somehow gotten worse and more expensive for the customers who prefer PDFs/VTT over print.

And I do suspect it's a significant player base given how vocal the community has been about this change and the ongoing issues with Foundry in the new store.

Please give us PDF subscriptions at these prices and fix the Foundry connection.

If we’re going to pay a premium for digital products, they should not be treated like an afterthought.

It’s pretty wild that the new store leans harder into an outdated, print-first model when so much of the customer base has swapped to Foundry and tablets.

PLEASE give us a pdf only subscription. I cannot store all the books, I don't use the physical books, and I cannot even give them away. This is why I unsubscribed.

I understand this hobby is a special niche full of individuals who love physical books but I really can't be the only one here in 2026 who wants PDF only… can I!?

It doesn't even have to be much cheaper than a standard subscription. I want the convenience of a subscription without the overhead of more stuff in my home.

Take my money, please.

Yup. Try posting in customer support or website feedback.

I have been saying this for years but 4-hour games are also too darn long for the majority of adults. Many scenarios rightfully take 4.5-5 hours, or sometimes 6. GMs and more often players also slow down games and/or lack respect for their peers' time.

An adult who has to get up early for work, has kids — or even other hobbies — will have a difficult time finding a free 4 hours.

Add in a commute to the FLGS, and you're looking at 5-6 hours.

Lots of things can come up that prevent one from following through on a commitment like this. Such as just being tired from everyday responsibilities.

Ashasar made an appearance in a 2E special. If you remember he was one of their leaders and apparently now he is "a planar specialist and liaison between the Pathfinder Society and the Concordance of Elements."

Perhaps they will appear in a future scenario, or have in the last season which I have not had time to play any of yet.

Depends on the GM and community where you're playing, but as long as it's functionally identical you should be relatively safe.

It will help a lot to talk to the GM in advance (email / show up early so as not to disrupt game time) and check how they would adjudicate.

"Heads up my thaumaturge uses X re-flavored as Y. Is this ok?"

Fully understand your PC's abilities so you can address any concerns intelligently and show that you are a reliable and trustworthy source.

Be polite and accept the GM's ruling.

I'm not sure where you are finding volatility. Any confusion can be cleared up by clearly documenting changes across versions in a way the most people can access.

Hi there,

The concern is not a "conspiracy"; Drental commented about "Paizo internal people collaborating with contracted people" to vet Foundry modules.

In other words, Paizo people are spending work time fixing issues in one version and not another. That's great, but seems to be creating different branches of content because those changes aren't being broadcast to the community.

Whatever the case here, I do hope Paizo can leverage the effort used to create high quality Foundry modules find a way to keep things in stride for the whole community.

One piece of paid software taking up resources to the detriment of other resources (publicly accessible forums, other VTTs) is almost never a good recipe for the community. Guess it's about where the $$ is though and who can blame Paizo.

While I operated my own Foundry server for quite a long time I do miss the days when we could find scrappy simple PFS games on Google Slides and it's one of the reasons I stopped playing online.

That said, both the PDF and the module should be recognized as legitimate and I don't think either has to somehow prove it. Both are made by Paizo internal people collaborating with contracted people and then published by Paizo.

Sure but one of those things is not like the other.

While each version is legitimate, perhaps Paizo can try to communicate changes from campaign leadership in a way everyone can access.

I wrote verse for my Enmity Cycle game, basing it on the Persian poem The Conference of the Birds. In this famous long poem a group of birds travels through seven valleys, seeking enlightenment. Here, the Bulbul (a bird with significance in Persian literature) guides the reader on a flight through Thuvia's five cities, seeking unity.

I dribbled the poem out poem along the way as my party repaired the severed head. Our bard riffed on it in some of the final battles, adding his own verse which was a lot of fun.

Sharing here in case it helps anyone's game or sparks inspiration.

______

Dear bulbul, welcome! You will be our guide;
It was on you Artokus Kirran relied
To carry five secret messages between
Five nomadic city-states, wings unseen.

He knew your language and you knew his heart—
As his close confidant you learnt the art
Of pushing jealousies deep underground,
And for these exploits was Thuvia five-crowned.

But talk of five implies plurality –
When five has gone there will be Unity.
(This is the oneness of diversity,
Not oneness locked in singularity);

We journey to the valley of community
a place of kinship and austerity.
There we will understand unspoken words
Too subtle for the ears of mortal birds.

‘Before we reach our goal,’ the bulbul said,
five majestic cities lie ahead.
To Aspenthar's sands, where banners twirl,
Mighty legions march, where power unfurls.

To Duwwor's river, with flowers bright,
And windmills turn in time, in gentle light.
To Lamasara's heart, where the muses weave
What potent visions artists dare conceive.

To Merab's port where cultures twine,
Into an alchemy of goals aligned.
To primal magic at the mountain’s feet,
Turning nature to help sustain its beat.

Fly, little bird, be resolute and brave!
Learn of each and every desert enclave.
Through diversity achieve amity
For all of Thuvia's humanity.

______
You can also corrupt this poem, for example:

Dear crow, beware! You will be our spy;
For you were Artokus' secret spy
To whisper five seeds of discord, fluttering between
Five rival city-states, like murder unseen.

I have a calendar as well here, if it helps.

https://doughahn.github.io/unofficial-opf-guides/organized-play/PFS/scenari o-arcs/#for-new-players

No quests on there, but some can go fast.

Thank you for doing this!

Your choice on ordering in some cases doesn't make a lot of sense -- the Genie arc for instance has the highest level one last (which I understand why you do it), but it introduces characters and boons that are used in the lower level ones. There's narrative issues with your Arcadia list as well.

Publication order probably trumps level, outside of particular circumstances -- ie publication order should be first, and require a note explaining why you've changed it.

Thanks, that effort was group sourced from these forums.

Feel free to put in a PR on the github repo and I can merge, or post your suggestions in greater detail on the original thread.

I have scenario arca listed on my guides website, though I’m missing some of the newer ones:

https://doughahn.github.io/unofficial-opf-guides/organized-play/PFS/scenari o-arcs/

Personally at my games and tables AI is a big nono

I see you gave a glyph. As an Orgaized Play GM how do you definitively identify AI images, where do you draw the line (e.g. custom Hero Forge token art + AI filter, Photoshop fills), and how do you enforce this "big no-no”?

Doesn't seem like ours have either.

A few tried out but had a difficult time onboarding (school items, downtime), struggled with more prescriptive rules of Org Play (can;t build high level PCs, book ownership, no evil pc's), and felt the scenarios were too strictly structured when compared to AL.

Would it be possible to host these on downloads.paizo.com so we don't have to go through the checkout process?

One click for the PDF sure would be nice, especially for new players.

Hunt prey isn’t an edge case, the GM made a mistake. It’s not uncommon to make little mistakes like this, I’ve also seen GMs say hunting prey is hostile action that would trigger combat in a diplomatic situation, etc. I mean, “hunting prey” sure sounds visual and aggressive, so I can understand where a GM might make that kind of mistake.

However if you want to target something with a melee attack (or an ally with a buff etc) it’s a dc 5 flat every time. This is a lot better than the usual dc 11.

In the heat of the moment GMs don't always make the best call especially when it comes to unique PFS house rules.

The Guide should strongly enjoin players who want to roleplay disabilities to communicate with GMs/VOs ahead of time so everyone is on board from a mechanical and sensitivity standpoint. Show up early with a printout of the rule, email them with a link to the rule, etc.

Your read on things looks correct to me except I believe you need that flat check every single time you target the creature, not just once, and not for "every single action" (some actions may not require targeting).

If anyone needs because the pages are down today, or still hard to navigate on mobile, PLayer Core and GM Core are re-hosted on my site.

⠀➤ Player Core Errata
⠀➤ GM Core

As with other FaQs, all items in the FAQ are directly linkable.

Hey Joel,

Awesome. Happy to make any updates needed on this site too & assist with whatever you need.

As someone who worked very hard on this for the VO community I would be sad to see it go away forever. So, I will do it myself.

Here is the official VO Handbook made by the VO Taskforce in 2022, with the input of the global community of VOs. This was created by myself, VO Joel Hager, and VO Numbat.

For anyone who is not familiar with this document, it contains the following key sections:

⠀1. Introduction
⠀2. Venture Officer Structure
⠀3. Organizing Local Events
⠀4. Organizing Conventions
⠀5. Reporting & Data Collection
⠀6. Dealing with Crises and Problem

While I am no longer a VO I hope this helps someone out there.

Thank you.

This has been an issue for a while now and is why I republish FaQs on on my own more accessible site

Fellow players are sitting right there watching the same thing happen.

Maybe we should have long threads on how players deal with problem players.

Joel Hagar and I wrote the official VO handbook with sections on Game Master Support including recruiting and retention.

Also has a massive section on dealing with problems.

Don’t forget the official VO handbook exists and contains a huge section on handling conflicts, problem players, and other issues. It also includes escalation paths for assistance, and other tools because the VO structure is there to help.

Hi, a handfull of us were on the waitlist for 4-99 with level 7-8 characters and a listing for Paizo (not Discord)

A new table was created with ElGrande as the GM and it was listed as being on Paizo.

It now seems to have swapped to being listed on Cayden's Keg (Discord).

Is there any way to confirm where this game is supposed to be?

Looks like the gm changed too. I just dropped. (Mordant Bones.) Have fun in the special!

I know for our local store it took a while too. The owner had to send them a pic of the storefront and a bunch of business info.

Google Drawings is difficult to maneuver on a phone's web browser, while Google Slides has a mobile app that makes using maps on that platform much easier.

Whoah. I think slides is a nightmare on mobile. You can sort of get it to work… but it's really tricky to move around tokens, and most GMs don't lock the background layer so if you tap the wrong thing all kinds of wonky stuff happens. My groups just post in the OOC or group Slack / Discord asking someone to move a token.

I would love it if someone made a simple mobile-friendly map-only tabletop for PbP. Something focused in scope and well-made for touch devices.

It would be super relevant for both Discord and forum games and I'd gladly pay for it.

I am on a Chromium browser (Arc).

When I click an accordion or an internal link I am trapped on that section of the page and unable to scroll up or down from that section.

Video of Accordion behavior on FaQ page

Video of behavior on Resources page

I understand Arc is a very new browser; I am sharing because this behavior may be happening on other Chromium browsers like Chrome and Opera.

Thanks!

Added rage of elements character options

Does not look like there are any boons as of yet.

Ancestry boons updated according to the year 5 changes.

Some people use Roll20 or Tableplop (although everyone I've seeing using the latter has been running games on Discord)

Tableplop looks more like a full fledged VTT then a mapping system?

I'm here to vouch for Slides too. If you can, make sure to lock the slide map on the bottom layer so people don't delete it or move it around.

I would love Markdown instead of BBCode on all the forums.

For PBP specifically, light green dice text on a white background is too low-contrast for vision impaired people such as myself (colorblind).

Instead of Warrior Muse I would start with a Maestro bard and then put a Marshal or Champion on it.

The marshal could linger dirge of doom and hit inspiring stance, but would suffer from lower AC (probably want to start at 16 dex and use a whip), may need a feat for martial weapon proficiency to qualify for Marshal, and might also want to get shield block.

The champion would be more of a true heavy-armored front liner who can invest in strength instead of dex, and get the champion's reaction at level 6. I think it's a more mechanically sound build than the marshal but divine flavor might not fit a "warrior muse" inspiration.

Core Preview

I transcribed the PDF, except for the monster statblocks. Key features:

⠀➤ A responsive table for replaced concepts
⠀➤ Spell Rules
⠀➤ All new and revised spells (each spell is individually linkable as well; for example Ignition)
⠀➤ Items
⠀➤ Creature rules; revised abilities such as Grab are also linkable for ease of reference.

Hope this helps someone. I wanted a reference that was structured, searchable, and smartphone friendly.

----

Also I updated the sidebar ToC to be 3 deep. I keep waffling on how deep it needs to go, but I think 3 is the most usable for spells like this page and boons.

This is a really comprehensive list. I would be over the moon with small incremental quality of life changes.

For example the website needs to be more stable in the first place. Session reporting can be streamlined with improved UX before we add more stuff to it (e.g. get rid of that massive scenario dropdown and make it searchable; make the form mobile friendly).

I too find the boons page extremely difficult to use (especially on mobile) and it's why I recreated them with their text.

⠀➤ Added Highelm char options
⠀➤ Added Highhelm avid collector items

Retitled "Benchmarks."

New link

Thanks. "Expectations" is an inspiration from Painlord's original guide as explained in the first sentence of the document.

However I don't want this to be distracting which would hurt the usefulness of my efforts.

I re-titled it "PFS Benchmarks".

It's about benchmarks after all. I honestly think this title is even better.

(I asked to community for feedback in another thread a few weeks ago by the way, which may be a good place for further feedback)

⠀➤ Added Blooming Catastrophe
⠀➤ Updated scenario list and removed NaN property from blank cells (these were being returned off blanks in the master CSV document)
⠀➤ Added hopes & expectaitons guide for new players

If you run please PM me if you would like to share any pics for the family/friends. I am putting adding them to a private album which will be shared.

So inspiring to see Jack still getting people running and walking.

I tried to draw a Ambrus's mutton chops beard — Here's to you Jack.