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Arcanacon 2012
Australia Day long weekend
Thursday 26th through Sunday 29th January, 2012
Collingwood College, opposite Collingwood town hall, only a brief walk from Collingwood train station
Further details: Arcanacon website
Hi all,
It's that time of year again! The 2012 Convention season kicks off in Australia with Arcanacon held over four day on the Australia Day long weekend!
Each Pathfinder Society game plays for 5 hours duration, and therefore requires two standard Arcanacon sessions to play, please refer to the timetable below for Pathfinder session times:
Thursday 26th January 2012
Session 1: 4:05pm to 11:00pm
Friday 27th January 2012
Session 2: 9:00am to 3:55pm (lunch-break 12noon-12:55pm)
Session 3: 4:05pm to 11:00pm (dinner-break 7pm-8pm)
Saturday 28th January 2012
Session 4: 9:00am to 3:55pm (lunch-break 12noon-12:55pm)
Session 5: 4:05pm to 11:00pm (dinner-break 7pm-8pm)
Sunday 29th January 2012!
Session 6: 9:00am to 7:05pm (lunch-break 12noon-12:55pm)
Note: Sunday is a special event: Blood Under Absalom, which requires three standard Arcanacon sessions to play!
Thursday, Friday and Saturday sessions will be chosen on the day, but will include intro scenarios for new players, new releases and popular favourites, so something for everyone!
Players may arrive and sign up on the day, however pre-registration enables us to anticipate player numbers and provide sufficient GMs to run tables. Note: Sunday's Blood Under Absalom special is anticipated to book out - pre-registration is strongly recommended!
You may join the Pathfinder Society without any prior game experience by playing one of seven pre-generated characters - Kyra human cleric, Valeros human fighter, Merisiel elven rogue, Ezren human wizard, Lirianne half-elven gunslinger, Reiko human ninja, or Hayato human samurai.
Alternatively, if you’re already familiar with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, you can create your own first-level character and bring it with you to the game. If building your own character, you will need to refer to either the Pathfinder RPG Beginner Box or Pathfinder RPG Core Rules and the Guide to Pathfinder Society Organised Play which describes the point-buy system, starting hit points, factions and traits, and other rules important to building a character for a world-wide shared campaign.
Most Pathfinder sourcebooks contain options you may use for your character, including new classes, archetypes, feats, traits, equipment, spells etc. If using a rule from a source outside the Core Rulebook, you must have a legal copy of that book with you at the table for the GM to refer to, and it must be listed as allowed on the Additional Resources page, otherwise your character won't be permitted to use that class, feat, spell etc during play.
Useful links/resources:
- Pathfinder RPG
- Pathfinder Society
- Guide to Pathfinder Society Organised Play
- The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Reference Document, a free web-based reference for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game
- Pathfinder Society Organised Play Factions - Almost as important as your choice of race and class is your character’s Faction - one of ten allegiances who assign you secret side-missions
- Pre-generated characters:
- official Paizo pregens
- fan-generated Core class pregens
- fan-generated APG class pregens
- Free Pathfinder Roleplaying Game PDFs:
- Character Traits: 388 KB zip PDF
- Character sheet: 72 KB zip PDF
If you've already been playing Pathfinder Society at previous events and have a higher-level character (make sure to bring along your Chronicle Sheets!), every opportunity will be made to group higher level characters together at one table. However, due to player numbers and character levels, it won't always be possible to play a scenario at your preferred character level, so players should be prepared to play a back-up, lower level character, if a higher level table is unavailable for your session.
You may continue your character's daring adventures at Pathfinder Society gamedays held every week at Good Games Blackburn and Geelong stores.
If you have any questions about character options or Pathfinder Society events, please don't hesitate to contact me or post your questions or comments right here.
Hope to see you at Arcanacon!
Cheers,
Stephen (DarkWhite)
Pathfinder Society 4-Star GM
Venture-Captain, Melbourne Australia
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Thanks Andrew,
I notice you're also trying to start up some Pathfinder gaming in Rockhampton - good luck with that too!
PFS is really starting to spring up all over Australia - I'm aware of groups in Brisbane, Canberra, Geelong, Melbourne, Newcastle, Perth, Sydney - I'm sure I'm forgetting one or two.
I really encourage everyone to support these local gamedays and events.
If you know of any PFS being played in your area, or would like to start a group up, or would like to get in touch with a local group, please post about it here, or let me know via email - eg, is anyone playing Pathfinder in Adelaide, Darwin, Tasmania? we'd love to hear about it!
Cheers,
Stephen (DarkWhite)
Pathfinder Society 4-Star GM
Venture-Captain, Melbourne Australia
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Arcanacon 2012 begins tomorrow!
Australia Day long weekend
Thursday 26th through Sunday 29th January, 2012
Collingwood College, opposite Collingwood town hall, only a brief walk from Collingwood train station
Further details: Arcanacon website
Scenarios will be chosen on the day, based on character levels present, and who has played what, but there will be intro scenarios for new players, new releases and old favourites of all levels, single adventures and series, set in the City of Absalom and surrounding nations, even as far as distant TianXia, so basically something for everyone!
Based on current numbers, we'll probably be running three tables per session, but this could easily increase if un-registered players arrive on the day. Not a problem, as we're prepared with a team of GMs for every session, so even if you've missed pre-registration, bring a friend along, introduce them to Pathfinder, and let's see if we can't make this the biggest Pathfinder event Melbourne has yet seen!
The Blood Under Absalom special on Sunday has been hugely popular, with three tables already booked out. We still have room for a couple more tables of players, but I wouldn't wait long to get your name on the list, because once players start arriving tomorrow, these will also book out.
If you can't attend registration tomorrow (doors open at 2pm) you can email me if you want to get your name on the Sunday list for Blood Under Absalom (or any other session).
Having spoken to several of the GMs over the last few days, I know they're getting excited to meeting and running these scenarios for you all at Arcanacon this weekend.
I hope to see you there!
Cheers,
Stephen (DarkWhite)
Pathfinder Society 4-Star GM
Venture-Captain, Melbourne Australia
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At least one of our GMs is prepped to run:
a) the Shades of Ice series - any or all Parts; and
b) the Quest for Perfection series - Parts I and II
(unfortunately, Part III releases during the event, so no-one will have had time to prepare it yet)
So there's a very strong chance you'll get to play the scenarios on your wish-list - we may even need to run some twice.
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I’d like to make special mention of the superhuman effort that DarkWhite put in making Arcanacon a roaring success over the last four days. There was over 24 players in attendance, all getting stuck into the new Season 3 scenarios. Special effort had been made at the 11th hour to get the final Quest for Perfection module prepared that allowed many players to go through this trilogy. For a weekend with a lot of Chinese New Year events going on, it was great that this con showed off Golarion’s new Asiatic setting Tian Xia (including Tian Xia contributor and RPG Superstar 2010 Matt Goodall GMing Quest for Perfection part 2!).
On the final day, the Blood Under Absalom special event was organised with four competing tables. Pathfinders were greeted by DarkWhite in full Oni gear – A Qing style silk cap with a false trailing black ponytail (at least I hope it was fake hair). Boon cards were distributed within imperial red oriental envelopes with golden calligraphy. When it came time for the Ruby Phoenix Tournament Oni representative to throw rubies amongst the full bar, DarkWhite flung shiny ruby-red wrapped Chinese New Year lollies amongst the gathered Pathfinder players, sparking absolute chaos! Players went wild trying to get their hands on a ‘ruby’.
The sense of teamwork on the final day was great to see – all players were working towards a common goal. This may have been due to the high death rate though! A number of brave Pathfinders met grisly ends during the four days, and certainly stopped any speculation that PFS scenarios are not high in the danger stakes (what was the total bodycount? 15?! more?!).
In short, congratulations to DarkWhite, Ryan Koetsveld and all the participating GMs and players. 'Twas a great weekend.