[Policy Proposal] Organizer Recognition System


Pathfinder Society

The Exchange 5/5

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There are a host of things I’d like to see our campaign leadership introduce or improve. There are only so many hours in the day and only so many dollars in the budget. Mike had a looong list of goals he came to the Coordinator job with, and I bet he's checked off a lot of them. Kudos to him. However, there's no rest for the wicked. It's September and time for "What have you done for us lately, PFS?" ;) I’m kicking this one out there in hopes of some ‘+1s’ and some feedback.

PFS recognizes the GMs with stars, but how are organizers recognized? Let’s say that “Eric” organizes a convention. If Eric does his job right he’s like a movie producer—he’s behind the scenes, not on the screen. He does all the front-end work so he can be available for the unforeseen. He builds, recruits and promotes. At the con he’s the one watching over things, handling problems and helping players. He does the session reporting on the back-end. Yet by the end of the event “Chris” the GM gets a star and Eric gets?…a sense of accomplishment? The same thing goes for a game-day coordinator, only spaced out over a year.

One of the campaign issues that I hear often is that sessions are going unreported. Things are getting better, but I think everyone agrees that PFS play is under-reported. Ultimately this is the metric by which Paizo measures the success of PFS, and therefore how much of the budget it commands. Does anyone think that an incentive for organizing AND reporting sessions would not be beneficial for PFS?

I don’t think that store credit or swag is the answer. I think that it would be far too easy to game the system, which is probably why we haven’t seen anything material for GMs. But why not an organizer reward system a-la stars next to your name? Use diamonds or moons. Use bones that gradually form a skeleton. I’m not a web guy. My point is recognize those who organize and report just as those who GM.

I bet there are some Venture-Lieutenants who organize more games than the Venture-Captain they report to. I bet there are some store coordinators who organize more than the local VOs combined. Let’s see the comparison. Let’s give delinquent organizers an incentive to catch up on their reporting.

Sczarni 3/5

A similar idea was proposed to me by a player just before Gen Con. Organizers don't get anything, and they should be able to get something.

My suggestion is a multi-tier boon that can be applied to a character, providing 1-3 experience and 2-6 fame, to be determined by he local VL or VC, plus tier-appropriate gold.

The "star" system is also a fair idea. Organizers who participate in the task of organizing should be recognized for their efforts. Diamonds, moons, 4-pointed stars maybe.

Dark Archive

they could get extra points towards GM stars.

4/5 *

I think such a thing should be distinct from GM stars - they're not the same thing. Although, arguably, the coordinator role is at least as important as the GM role. Right now, the Campaign Service Award covers the creme de la creme of that crowd, but there is room for more at the middle.

Sovereign Court 5/5 Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds

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I'm not going to lie: I would love to see something like what Doug proposes. I think that those of us who are diligent in getting our jobs done don't really have any way of standing out ahead of those who don't.

Personally, I would like to see it take the form of something along the lines of the EX special that is published each month. A Quest (or two) per season that only organizers who report a certain number of events (or who never receive complaints about having NOT reported events) can get access to. I suggest Quests in the hopes that PFS management understands that a good organizer wants tools that he/she can use to increase their player base. Efficiently set up one- to two-hour adventures can go further toward this goal than nearly anything I can think of.

Of course, it'd be nice to see these Quests have some sort of payoff for players. A nifty boon or some modicum of gold payout would be sure to attract veterans to sit alongside the new players and help show them the ropes.

Anyhoo, that's my contribution toward this. I'm certain that there are bunches of good ideas that could be brought up (and am actually pretty confidant that PFS management is already considering something along the lines of working more closely with non-VO coordinators). I look forward to seeing what comes of Doug's excellent proposal.

4/5

I think the needs of organizers vary a lot - my weekly group doesn't really fit the "needs quests" mold - but I think that some recognition for the organizers whether or not they are also GMs would be well deserved - in many cases the organizers do more work every week than any single GM (they wrangle GMs, report games, promote the events, find spaces, players and more.

My suggestion would be that organizers get some credit for all the reported games of their event(s) and perhaps either those stars stack with other recognitions or have a separate related set of rewards.

Liberty's Edge 5/5

I like this idea!

The biggest complications with the reporting system though is when you're guest hosting for an event when the regular store organizer is out of town or at a convention or when you just have to step in and help. Unfortunately, if the regular host has the event set up under their name already, you can't enter and report the event under yours (unless we've been doing it wrong, then, well, our mistake).

I do love and appreciate all the work the GMs do every game day and for every table, but there is really a lot of work that goes into organizing game days on a regular basis. I only organize one of the stores in our region on a bi-weekly basis, but I also help out the other stores when they need it. Often times it's chaos at the start time as there's suddenly a bunch of people that cancelled and/or signed up last minute, then it's trying to fit them in tables, along with getting the new walk-ins registered, and then realizing you need an additional table, so you go through your GM folder and pull out a scenario to GM on the fly. And that's even after I've spent the week organizing everyone onto tables and arranging GMs and posted the tables. It's not only me, right?

But I do enjoy it, otherwise I wouldn't be doing it! Yay chaos! :)

As to any incentive to offer, what would be super super awesome is if they would be willing to offer like one free scenario by PDF for every so many tables you organize (like 10 or 20 or something) that we can use ourselves to GM a table, or can gift to another person to GM one of the tables at the stores we organize. I know I've spent plenty buying the scenario PDFs for myself or gifting to others to have them (or myself) GM at one of the events. But I'm sure everyone's done the same. But it would be an awesome way to say thanks. :)

Just my two cents...(or should I say, two tigers!)

Thanks ya'll for thinking of the organizers! :)

Scarab Sages 4/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Florida—Jacksonville

Definitely "+1's" to all the above. Personally I'd like to see more marketing swag options to visually draw more new players when I organize events in public venues.

Sovereign Court 5/5 Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds

Whoops. I was glancing through this morning and noticed I said "every month" about the releases of EX scenarios. I meant every Season. Just 1 or 2 things per Season is all I'd ask for. I promise I don't need monthly acknowledgment...

Silver Crusade 5/5 5/5 **

While I like the idea the implementation might be difficult. For example, the person who starts up a new event does more work than the person who inherits an event. Its more work to run an event with 4 tables than with 1 but not 4 times as much. Etc.

Speaking for myself, what I'd like to see is some form of discounted cost for scenario access for event organizers

Grand Lodge 3/5

Conventions can get free scenarios for the GMs if they have a certain threshold of tables. What if event organizers get free scenarios if they report a certain threshold of tables over a given period.

So say if in a 8 week period an event organizer reports 20 tables. They get the next batch of scenario releases for free. (tables and time frame just examples)

The marketing should be for the stores that register with Paizo and host events. It should be easy to track. Store A registers with Paizo, event B lists store A as the location and is public. Event B reports 40 tables. Paizo sends store A some marketing stuff.

4/5

As an Organizer what I would really prefer over rewards directly for myself would be rewards I can split with my GMs and Players.

For example - if a weekly event were to be considered similar to a convention perhaps a select set of scenarios could be made available to me to be gifted to my GM's. We all are willing to pay for scenarios to support our hobby - so I"m not asking for everything to be free - but I would love a way to recognize GMs, save them a little bit of money and give them some thanks.

Likewise for players it would be great to have a more formalized way to give dedicated players some recognition and thanks for participating.

In a non-formalized manner Paizo has supported my game night via donating (through VC Azymth) a small library of books for my game night - which is really amazingly generous.

(a thought - if scenarios were to have digital art and mappacks that you could purchase with them it would be great to get these to my GMs.... and/or for Paizo to find a deal with something like FedEx Office/Kinkos for the printing of poster maps for GMs....)

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