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In light of all of the threads subsequent to Gen Con which have inspired so much debate and bad karma, I thought another Gen Con thread was warranted which focused on the most important things: PFS at Gen Con was an incredible success brought about by people who went above & beyond, and the vast majority of people had a terrific time!!
So please, use this thread to share your positive experiences, funny stories, and recognize the folks that made the Gen Con PFS experience such a blast! (No complaints on this thread, please)
I would like to start out by recognizing the most important people, the players. I was fortunate to GM for 48 fun, enthusiastic folks and my brother. I had about 15-20 newbies to PFS, and a there were a couple for whom this was their first ever Roleplaying Game session! I laughed during every session, and was impressed by the roleplaying and ingenuity demonstrated.
One of my favourite memories from this year came out of the Special. The youngest player at my table managed to be the first out of the room of over 300 PCs to break thru one line of defence in the climactic encounter. His face really lit up when the Overseer GM (Tim Hitchcock) worked his character's name into the narrative (I believe it was Aust). The next day, I ran into him and his dad, and they were both incredibly enthusiastic about the session, and about Pathfinder Society.
Let's hear some more!
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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I also have a story about the Special. I was running a table of six terrific 1st and 2nd level characters.
One of my players sat down with a Tengu monk. ("Ahh," you're thinking, "the stories practically write themselves.")
During the second act, the party was facing three NPC tengu monks, while also trying to protect another NPC nearby, a fighter they believe to be much more capable than themselves. Three of the party -- the sorceress, the gunslinger, and the cleric-- bow to the monks and challenge them to one-on-one duels. Then tengu accept, and the party members get a solid 3 out of 3 victory.
But I figure they need something to work together towards, so up comes a much higher-level Tengu monk, something I figure to be a fair challenge to the six PCs as a team. The NPC fighter they've befriended looks worried and tries to flee. So the PC Tengu monk steps up and challenges his much tougher counterpart to a duel, one-on-one. The NPC accepts.
And the player's dice are hot, and I can't roll above a 10 for the love of Lassie. And the 1st-level Tengu monk kicks the NPC's butt. The entire table goes nuts.
--+--+--
That's one of the things Tim has a gift for: writing adventures where there are plenty of chances for the PCs to shine, plenty of story opportunities.
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Trust a Canadian to put things in proper perspective.
;)
Ahhh The Special:
Fond memories indeed!
To see Tim Hitchcock weave his yarn in front of 320+ players is a sight to behold; you have an entire room of near strangers who for a few hours have suspeded their disbelief and now have a communal bond of shared motivations and goals.
How about the three WotC GMs who quietly LEFT their own gaming session to play the special. They showed me their schedule, made pleas to the Twenty Golarion gods, and with near text book puppy eyes asked to be let in - who was I to stop them from joining the fun !
Or how about the first four generic ticket holding players who were in line to play the special who were so eager to get into the specail they had been waiting in line for over an hour before the muster, they took turns giving each other food and bathroom breaks; when we later requested volunteers to GM the special it was the very same four players who grabbed their bags and took up the call to run tables! A hearty applause there !
I also noticed a LOT of fathers who brought their young children and first time players in to play PFS; call me sentimental but each time I saw that happen it brough a smile to my face, and in the case where the kids were actual teenagers, I made a point to tell them to say thank you to their respective fathers.
And I believe it was Craig Shackleton (?) who run a great themed delve with Seven Samurai, all 1st level who took on two CR 7 White Dragons. Not only did all the PC's survive but one of the Samurai's horses snuffed the life off the first White Dragon with a tripple confirmed crit.
I also very much would like to thank all the hard work and time put in by Mark, Liz, all the sleep deprived Venture Captains, my fellow HQ staff and all the other volunteers. It's hard to complain how tired one is when threr are some four dozen volunteers around you who have put in as much work as you have and eveyone is flashing genuine smiles, throwing fist pumps in the air, and making all possible efforts to make each and every PFS session as memorable as the last.
Some of the Paizo staff and contributors took up the GM duties as well and that was all very much appreciated, hopefully we can wrangle more next year (hint, hint Mr. Mona).
All in all the energy in the PFS room would do any real gamer proud; it's not remotely hard to imagine of Gary Gygax nodding approval from beind his DM screen in the sky.
- Noel Anthony de Joya, Proud to be a Grognard, but even more proud of being part of the current fellowship gamers.
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Or how about the first four generic ticket holding players who were in line to play the special who were so eager to get into the specail they had been waiting in line for over an hour before the muster, they took turns giving each other food and bathroom breaks; when we later requested volunteers to GM the special it was the very same four players who grabbed their bags and took up the call to run tables! A hearty applause there !
Nani Pratt (aka Nani Z. Obringer), Kyle Pratt (aka Alizor), John Compton (aka Caepio Alazario), and Josh Foster (aka Alorha) I believe were the four. All from the Atlanta area and all deserve the highest of kudos. Great job guys and way to represent Atlanta.
Also, I want to commend all of my Atlanta area DMs who volunteered. I think we had 10 DMs total from the Atlanta area that DMed more than 80 games.
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I would like to start out by recognizing the most important people, the players. I was fortunate to GM for 48 fun, enthusiastic folks and my brother.
Hey don't think I didn't get that! I was super fun and enthusiastastic as I deeply offended the paladin with my "Taldan diplomacy". And I got to make you take a 7 player table so that was fun.
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Trust a Canadian to put things in proper perspective.
And I believe it was Craig Shackleton (?) who run a great themed delve with Seven Samurai, all 1st level who took on two CR 7 White Dragons. Not only did all the PC's survive but one of the Samurai's horses snuffed the life off the first White Dragon with a tripple confirmed crit.
That was me actually, Glen Shackleton (Craig wasn't at Gencon this year). Awesome that you brought it up, though, as it was a lot of fun!
That delve was awesome. It was my last running of 7 delves with 6 or 7 players each in only four hours (including some Paizo VIP's which made this one star GM even more nervous).
Those players that played the 7 samurai were terrific fun. They were crowing about the fact that they had defeated the previous delve with a large Lemure before it even got to act on its round, so I put them up against the very difficult CR6 2 white dragon encounter AND I threw in another large Lemure just so it could get its revenge. A seemingly ludicrous challenge for 1st level characters.
They managed through good strategy and good fortune to defeat them all. The most damage was done by the one female player in the group, whose heavy warhorse repeatedly inflicted crit after crit on the poor dragons. It got to the point where the dragons toward the end of the fight concentrated all their energy on taking down the obvious leader of the group, the heavy warhorse.
None of them died although several were in negatives. They were a really fun group who were a pleasure to run through the delve.
Lest anyone think I was a softie, I killed all but one member of my first delve table with the same white dragons (but a good time was had by all).
My other best memory from this Gencon was running Midnight Mauler cold for a group that were understandably annoyed at having been left waiting for a long time for their GM due to a mixup during mustering. This group was a lot of fun though, and they warmed up pretty fast. The best moment was when this party of mostly fighter types all ran away in terror from a certain monster in the sewers saying that they had no way to hurt it as it chased and attacked them before they realized all they had to do was attack it as it had no immunities to regular weapons. Classic funny gaming moment. They were a fun group and I thank them for getting over being mildly pissed off at the delays and just having fun with the scenario and overlooking my lack of preparation.
Does that make me the only 1 star GM to have run Midnight Mauler?
It was a great con- thanks to all my players and to all my GMs as well who patiently waited for me while I finished mustering each slot. My one regret is that my creepy bard, Phineas Papple, did not actually succeed in forcing a single villain to wear a silky negligee this year.
Glen Shackleton
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What a fantastic idea.
I was a bit disappointed checking this after GenCon to see that there wasn't the huge amount of awesome stories posted all around the forums, people seemed to be focusing more on the small amounts of bad things (though I confess that I did also post about Shades III).
This was my first (and possibly last due to the fact that I am returning back to England in Jan) GenCon ever. I signed up to run 10 slots of PFS instantly, plus 3 slots at Scotty's the day before. After having got into PFS a few months back, I knew this was all I wanted to do at GenCon (but I did find time to do other stuff indeed).
Right, some highlights for me. Sewer Dragons was one of the most fun mods I have run in a long time. Really nicely written, and roleplaying with Kobolds, I mean come on! That's just epic! I definitely recommend that. The special was... hectic. I ran for a party without too much actual damage within their ranks, so it was tricky for them to keep up, but that seemed to spur them on, taking larger risks to kill stuff as quickly as they possibly could.
I met some awesome people at GenCon, had some amazing roleplaying and tense combats, so it's really tricky to pull out the best moments, as it says it was indeed the best four days in gaming, certainly that I have ever had.
Wow, that was a cheesy signoff...
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Crossposted to this more appropriate feel-good thread from the "Gencon 2011" thread--here's my feel-good Gencon story:
This year, my Gen Con buddies and I decided to play only PFS, and we had a blast. Quality for PFS GMs has always been on the high end, but this year we had a set of GMs that ranged from above average to excellent, which is quite a feat considering we had 8 different GMs. I have to give a specific shout-out to our becloaked GM, Nani Pratt, for the special. She came out of the front of the generics line as a GM in order to let more people play, and thus she had maybe thirty minutes at best to prepare the humongous and awesome special. Even disregarding the fact that she didn't have much preparation and how difficult the special was to run, she was still the best GM we've had in PFS, combining enthusiasm, panache, rules knowledge, and a clear voice that cut right through the teeming masses at the special.
As a testament to why Paizo (and PFS VCs and GMs) are the classiest folks in the industry and why Gencon itself is...aggravating, we had two hurdles thrown at us by Gencon, and folks from Paizo and PFS went out of the way to help out:
First, Gencon lost 6/10 of our reservations, including the tickets for Midnight Mauler and Blood Under Absalom. I had talked about it with Hyrum at Paizocon, but of course he wasn't there at Gencon. Despite the fact that no one staffing PFS had any advance warning and I could have been just making this up as far as they knew, the whole PFS crew was extremely understanding, and they managed to not only seat us for 4 of the 6 slots (one we took off to make new PFS characters and one they ran out of seats) but they managed to do so without splitting up our group of 4 and to get us into the special--and the true testament of their commitment to all us PFS players is that they did so without showing us any special treatment: we waited in the generics line like everyone else, and they got us seated together almost every time.
The second bit of Gencon staff 'fun' came when my little brother left his badge in the bathroom and found it stolen just before one of the PFS slots that Gencon didn't actually lose. The PFS staff were extremely helpful, and I feel that our GM deserves congratulations for weathering the abuse from the obnoxious Gencon staff member who came over and hurled conspiracy-theory levels of accusations at both the GM himself and my brother with relatively good cheer (as a fun side note, the Gencon event staffer seems to hail from the River Kingdoms with his "you have what you hold" attitude, as he more-or-less told me when asked that they'd rather seat the thief who stole the badge and tickets than the paying customer).
Special recognition must go out to VC Mark Garringer, who noticed the mess with my little brother and more-or-less watched out for us for the rest of the Con, including finding us an unticketed pickup game just outside the PFS hall in one of those four slots and even bringing out the little wooden coins for us and the GM in that slot. Mark is a class act and a credit to the VCs and PFS.
I hear that more GMs will be needed to handle the desired larger room next year. I certainly plan on volunteering for a slot or two, and I'm trying to convince the others in my group to step up as well. You guys at PFS went out of your way to get all of us players into great games, and I for one believe in helping to give back.
It was also great to see people I know from the forums or have met in person before. This includes but is not limited to:
Tim Hitchcock, who bit the head off a mini to play the severed head of Mimir in my Iron GM game the same year I played my first PFS game, and master of the Ruby Phoenix entry test this year,
Liz Courts, the daimyo of the Paizocon Gnot Gninjas trivia team and keeper of the chest of goodies,
VC Michael Brock, our great GM of Shades of Ice Part I who, with amazingly badass certainty, called and received a natural 20 on his dice, on camera, when attacking a PC with AC over 20 higher than the NPC's attack bonus,
Joel Flank, whose fighter continually saved the day in Shadow's Last Stand with plenty of AoOs and disarms,
and probably at least several people who I missed (sorry!).
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I would like to add some kudos to the people who ran the HQ.
Thought they didn't get to sit in on the fun at the tables, none of us would have had as much fun without their enthusiasm and efficiency. They all put in incredibly long hours making sure the GMs and players had scenarios, maps, Chronicles, ID cards, wooden nickels... and whaterver else we needed to make the game run smoothly.
Apologies to anyone I miss (or mispell): thanks to Mark, Liz, Laura, John, and Noel!
Also, Mark G was a fantastic ambassador for Indianapolis! There was no overlooking the effort he put in organizing the games at Scotty's, helping out at HQ (or wherever needed), and looking after the never-ending treasure chest line.
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My favorite moment, while gm'ing the special, during the play encounter I had the pleasure of great roleplayers. One person whom had a womens outfit stood up and started singing opera in a womens voice, another stood up and started yelling jokes due to his costume. While another character barked and howled the whole time. While the rest of the players were rping great in their own right. The sight of the other tables players expressions were pricless.
I had a great time in each slot and between slots.
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Great idea for a thread!
I just have a few thanks I really wanted to throw out there:
1) Mark and Liz. They worked their butts off for this convention, and I think all their effort paid off in aces. GREAT job you two!
2) Dane Pitchford for being a white knight on the Saturday. Also, for staying up all night with Tim and I.
3) Lora Massey for helping me get revenge on Jason Bulmahn. I think Jason has learned not to mess with Canadians and our use of the letter U.
4) John and Noel. John for chatting with me throughout the whole convention whenever I happened upon the PFS room and wasn't running. Noel for making sure Tim and I (somewhat) made it to our Sunday slot.
5) Tim Hitchcock, for hanging out with me all Saturday night. Despite him saying "Thurston, you're going to hate me for this...", I think Tim showed me one of the best convention experiences I've ever had.
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I, for one, would like to thank the crew who ran the two rounder Iron Man round using PF rules. The round was a little disorganized for DMs but was very creative and enjoyable and very well preped for maps/figures. What was truly exceptional however was the single round the next day. The "Korvosa Irregular" event they ran on Saturday. The models and terrain they created for that one round event were AWESOME! The "adventure" presented six different challenges and they created each challenge in 3-d terrain. Although I did not win any paizo swag in either event(came in second in Korvosa Irregular event) it was different and very entertaining.
It was also very nice seeing Azmyth again this year, although I failed to share a table with him this time. Azmyth rocks! Also made some new friends, some locals. What up - Jake, Ben, Mike, Bryce and the lovely Sarah.
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First, thank you to the team who ran the PFS room. They did a fabulous job and made the weekend a wonderful experience for GMs and players alike.
My best play experience was having Thurston run Frostfur Captives. He did a fantastic job of roleplaying and rolling with the insane things that our party did. I won't give too much away about the mod, but there was much hilarity, and I am very inspired by the experience. I can't wait to run the mod myself!
I had a ton of fun GMing. Having great groups of players is the best feeling in the world, where through the 4 or 5 hours you can give them experiences of laughs at antics, nail biting at tough combats, and triumph at the end. The theatre scene in Blood under Absalom was amazing, and it was awesome to have an entire table of players capering and shakepeare-izing and generally doing ridiculous stuff. At my Wrath of the Accursed table, I loved having my players thwart the flying invisible opponent by leaping from rooftops and shooting arrows into random spaces.
Lastly, it was great to see so many familiar faces, and meet a lot of new people. We only see each other once or twice a year and swap gaming yarns. Or threaten to kill their characters in revenge. I'll kill you yet, Kyle Baird!
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I would like to add some kudos to the people who ran the HQ.
Thought they didn't get to sit in on the fun at the tables, none of us would have had as much fun without their enthusiasm and efficiency. They all put in incredibly long hours making sure the GMs and players had scenarios, maps, Chronicles, ID cards, wooden nickels... and whaterver else we needed to make the game run smoothly.Apologies to anyone I miss (or mispell): thanks to Mark, Liz, Laura, John, and Noel!
Also, Mark G was a fantastic ambassador for Indianapolis! There was no overlooking the effort he put in organizing the games at Scotty's, helping out at HQ (or wherever needed), and looking after the never-ending treasure chest line.
Thanks, Neil. I know it's probably kind of sick but I enjoyed helping out at HQ enough that I didn't really miss not getting to play any PFS games. I'm pretty sure that means there's something wrong with me.
Also, although I've said it before, I really liked getting to meet all the awesome, fun people that make up PFS and I look forward to seeing you all again next year (if our paths don't cross between now and then).
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Yargh... we had a good time. One of my buddies from TO came down with me for his first Gen Con and now he's hooked, he's coming with me every time I go now!
In the future, I think I'm going to take photos of all of the tables I play at, it's just fun remembering. (Sunday mornings exempt... man I hate Sunday mornings, lol.)
Anyway, here are my shots and there are other Gen Con photos if you browse around. I didn't take too many photos this year unfortunately, I packed my schedule (with Pathfinder) a little too much.
Pathfinder Classic pic 1
Besides Pathfinder, the highlight of my con was Terrorwerks and some other LARPing. I have some good stories!
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GenCon 2011...the best one yet?!?
Despite not getting my usual 4-hour block in the dealer room, had a blast. All of my tables were awesome with some really interesting character flavor and unexpected actions. First time I've been able to run Midnight Mauler at subtier 6-7, and it happened twice! Running the delve for new players was a highlight. I think I helped convert some 4E players to PFS.
Got to put some faces to online names, reconnect with some ol' friends and meet many new ones. Didn't get to kill, er um, GM for Care Baird, but there's always next year muahahahaha.
The GM's, VC's, and especially the HQ volunteers did a great job and made mine so much easier. The muster was much improved.
The "electricity" in the room was dialed up to "11" from the start and continued through the con, despite voices being lost, and lack of sleep.
GenCon just confirmed in my mind that Paizo has the best product and the PFS community is the best around.
And now to start prepping for next year... ;-)
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Arriving late Wednesday evening, I peer into the convention center finding my bearings and establishing where the Paizo room will be.
I walk past the room with my fellow adventuring group, three buddies of equal skill each in our own respective areas.
The gentlemen who plays the rogue informs me to check inside for any possible 'freebies' that they might hand out. The gentlemen who plays a paladin immediately responds with, "I don't think that would be the best idea."
The groupie who plays the female ranger with the highest perception notices Tim signing about 5 million copies of the special. He informs me of the guy and I walk up to Tim and introduce myself.
I play an alchemist (CN), and I have an excellent conversation with Tim. After talking for a while, all three of my buddies inform me that we need to head back, and I realized a couple things.
1) We type-cast our characters.
2) Tim is a great conversationalist.
3) Everything went swimmingly and I look forward to 2012.
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I have some pretty good memories as well. They start with Wednesday in a mad dash to get the room setup. It turned out to be a good team building exercise with the other VCs and Mark as we figured out how to build the displays and get HQ setup. Turns out that you couldn't ask for a better group of guys to get that stuff going.
It was also fun sitting around building paper minis with friendly folks you dropped by to see how things were going and joined in.
The once up and going I was extremely please how well the musters worked out. Sure we had to refine ithe process, but by the time we were done, it was almost an art form.
By the way Tim Hitchcock is a GM machine, he was rolling tables at the the Delve like a madman, and pretty much had a smile on the whole time.
When I wasn't running, or mustering, I was trying to answer questions to anyone who had them. It was great to see all the people who were excited about Pathfinder and being able to dispel confusion about it.
If nothing else, the entire time was a great feel good moment. I cannot wait till next year.