Eat when you're hungry. Drink when you're thirsty. Sleep when you're tired. Bathe before you stink.
Because you may not realize that you stink.
So me and my buddies are driving up for our first time and i had some questions on how the games work. First, do all the games run on PFS like do we need to make PFS characters beforehand to play with. Also along those lines do all PFS characters have to start at level one because it would be kinda lame to go to paizo con and then have to play only level one characters. So if someone could just kinda clear up how the games are run and what kind of characters to bring that would be great.
So me and my buddies are driving up for our first time and i had some questions on how the games work. First, do all the games run on PFS like do we need to make PFS characters beforehand to play with. Also along those lines do all PFS characters have to start at level one because it would be kinda lame to go to paizo con and then have to play only level one characters. So if someone could just kinda clear up how the games are run and what kind of characters to bring that would be great.
Well, I hope someone more knowledgeable about Pathfinder Society can throw their two cents in but I can share my experience. I don’t play in Pathfinder Society because of my work schedule so I went to PaizoCon without having a Society Character. When the events are posted, the descriptions will mention if pre-generated characters will be an option or if there is a character requirement. I attended my first Pathfinder Society game at PaizoCon and didn’t make a character, I opted for a Pre-gen character. All the GMs for the society games where given a huge stack of iconic Pathfinder character sheets of various levels for Society play. I just picked the bard and played through my level one society game. I’m not sure if this is allowed at higher levels but I got to play in the game without having to make a society character myself.
My friend and I also played in a 3rd party game that was a Pathfinder one-shot adventure set in Planescape. Didn’t know much about the setting but figured it was worth a shot. The amazing GM that ran the event had pre-generated characters for us to pick from so didn’t have to make a character there either.
So short answer, you’ll need to go through the events when they are listed to see which ones require a Pathfinder Society character or if you can just show up to the game to use a pre-gen character.
Hope this helped some.
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@ Bjorn,
You play in a group of whatever level your PFS PC is.
I'm really hoping there will be at least one 12th level game and maybe even a bit higher than 12th. If not I'll stick to the 8th & 9th & 10th level games. I'm with you, though, I have zero interest in playing low level adventures in PFS at PaizoCon.
Paizo is putting out the schedule asap and from there we can put our 'favorites' in a list for the lottery -- and see what games you get. This is my first PaizoCon (my first ever Con) and I'm a bit nervous about the lottery.
But I'm hoping it all works out. I'm hoping that if I select the high level games I'll get them -- hoping that there are enough of them to ensure I play in high-level PFS. We'll see.
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@ Bjorn,
You play in a group of whatever level your PFS PC is.
I think his question was more about what if you don't play PFS normally and don't have a PFS character
... do we need to make PFS characters beforehand to play with. Also along those lines do all PFS characters have to start at level one because it would be kinda lame to go to paizo con and then have to play only level one characters. So if someone could just kinda clear up how the games are run and what kind of characters to bring that would be great.
As others have said, my understanding is that most (all?) PFS games should have pre-generated character sheets of the iconics at whatever level that particular game is, so you can just pick one and play.
@ Bjorn,
You play in a group of whatever level your PFS PC is.
I think his question was more about what if you don't play PFS normally and don't have a PFS character
... do we need to make PFS characters beforehand to play with. Also along those lines do all PFS characters have to start at level one because it would be kinda lame to go to paizo con and then have to play only level one characters. So if someone could just kinda clear up how the games are run and what kind of characters to bring that would be great.As others have said, my understanding is that most (all?) PFS games should have pre-generated character sheets of the iconics at whatever level that particular game is, so you can just pick one and play.
Speaking as a non-PFS player, this is good to hear! I was hoping to get in a little PFS to give it another try... I had back-to-back less-than-good experiences with the local PFS community when I first tried it out about five years ago, and never went back for a third game.
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@ Bjorn,
You play in a group of whatever level your PFS PC is.
I think his question was more about what if you don't play PFS normally and don't have a PFS character
... do we need to make PFS characters beforehand to play with. Also along those lines do all PFS characters have to start at level one because it would be kinda lame to go to paizo con and then have to play only level one characters. So if someone could just kinda clear up how the games are run and what kind of characters to bring that would be great.As others have said, my understanding is that most (all?) PFS games should have pre-generated character sheets of the iconics at whatever level that particular game is, so you can just pick one and play.
Chiming in: PFS Pregens cap out at level 7. You can play in higher tiers than that with them, but you'd be at a disadvantage (i.e. playing a level 7 in a tier 10-11 table would be rough, though in a tier 8-9 wouldn't be so bad).
Thanks everyone for chiming in, that clears a lot up. My next question would be are there many non PFS games that you can play in? Also, is it possible to get a PFS character leveled up w/o actually playing it. I live in rural Montana so getting an actual group together is a nightmare and a pain for me. Basically I have a level one PFS character but am looking for any other ways to play higher level characters of my own creation at the con itself.
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Bjorn, have you and your friends thought about playing PFS online prior to PaizoCon? We’d love to have you join us.
If you want to get leveled quickly, catching some Virtual Table-Top (VTT) PFS games should allow that. After the convention, you could continue playing your characters either VTT or in Play-by-Post (PbP).
(Since PbP is slower and you have a deadline, I would not suggest trying PbP until after Paizo Con. But once that is done, please look us up!)
Looking for PFS VTT Online Play?
If so, start by joining our PFS Online chat here on our dedicated Discord server:
PFSChat.com and go to the #looking4game channel.
If you want, you can also join the Pathfinder Society Online Collective, where you'll find plenty of games to get you started.
Looking for PFS Play-by-Post?
We have four great lodges!
Or you can contact your friendly local PbP Venture Lieutenant, Hmm.
The way the Con has worked (and I assume will work) is that there is an event lottery before hand. This includes games run by Paizo staff, freelancers, 3PP folk, and anyone else who wants in. These games are generally not PFS, and will list what they need you to bring, which is often dice, a pencil, and a desire to play.
After the lottery is settled, PFS games open up on a first come-first serve basis. The answers here will likely serve you better than I will, since they come from VOs.
Pick up games are also fairly common, with people using every available space in the hotel, including a few dedicated rooms.
So there are absolutely plenty of games, PFS or not.
Can anyone give a general layout (based on previous years of course) of where everything is located? Vendors are in 1 room, PFS in another, etc?
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Very roughly:
There's a big room for PFS, which is also where the banquet is held. Last couple years there's also been a smaller room nearby dedicated to the Adventure Card Game.
A separate room for vendors, which also has an area at one end for the mini-painting sessions, if memory serves.
Multiple smaller rooms, mostly on the floor above the PFS room, where panels and smaller games (like the ones that will be in the lottery) happen.
Coffee shop and restaurant are down the hall from the main PFS room.
The overall layout of the hotel is sort of a long line, with the PaizoCon space at one end, so some of the rooms in the room block are a pretty long hike away from the con.
So, aside from some of the actual sleeping rooms being a bit far awy, the con space itself is all quite compact and convenient.
Thanks Khelreddin!
Best to check the PaizoCon main page, and PaizoCon forums.
Per recent posts, the event schedule will be up tomorrow morning. Extrapolating:
As for the question of "do you need a PFS character" - the majority of games (30/70? higher?) are PFS, and the majority of non-PFS games are *highly* sought after. That said, you could easily fill the con with a schedule of non-PFS games and seminars if you're not picky on the games. But making/having a PFS character can vastly increase your options - plus I find playing and running PFS at PaizoCon an extraordinary experience, playing with the biggest fans of the game.
So first timer.
What is the situation with food on site and around the hotel?
Customer Service Manager
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Hotel has a breakfast restaurant and a bar that are delicious but a little pricy. They've also got a coffee kiosk with lots of grab n go foods. They've done a little cash only lunchtime grill before, not sure if they plan on that again or not. In the local area if you want to walk a block or two there are a range of restaurants ranging from fast food to sit down.
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Any suggestions on where to park if I'm staying at the con hotel? It seems like their parking is offsite parking for the airport, so theoretically cheaper than parking there...any advice?
If you're in a PaizoCon room block, it has included significantly discounted hotel parking in prior years. Something like $8 a day. Do that if you can.
I'm trying to understand the lottery. Let's say there's an event I really really really want. That gets a 4, clearly (highest priority). If that is my absolute first choice for that day, that's my only 4 to maximize my chance? I can have 4s on different days without changing the odds on that one? I'd like to use the lottery the way it's intended.
That's my approach and I've had good luck the last few years. My unofficial understanding is that list of lottery participants is randomized each round and assignments made by day. So if there's really one game that you want to play more than any other, make that your only 4.
If you have two 4s, they'll choose one at random and see if there is room, then check the other, then on to your lower numbers.
What's worked for me is make some hard choices about what I really want to play, then assign a single event to 4, a single event (sometimes two) to 3, one to three events as a 2 (depending on how much I want various games) and then anything else I'd be willing to play gets a 1.
We only have 4 levels of priority to work with, so we have to make use of them to tell Paizo when we really want something more than anything else. In my opinion.
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Hello all! This will be my first time at PaizoCon, and I am bringing my 11-year-old son with me. I had a few questions:
- I've signed my son up as my "buddy". When we pick lottery events, do I sign up for them, and he gets automatically added, or do we need to both sign up for the same events?
- How strict are the age limitations on the events? Many of the events we are interested in are listed as 13+. My son and I participate in local PFS games and he is able to handle himself pretty well at a table of adults (and he knows the Pathfinder rules better than I do). In particular, we were hoping to try to get into some of the Starfinder events, and there is only one that is listed as ages 10+ (and it's happening Friday night, when we won't be there). Even the "We Be Goblins" adventure sessions are listed as 13+.
- Any advice on parking for locals not staying at the hotel? I'll be driving down from Seattle each day. I'd prefer to have access to my car at the con, but it's OK if this is not possible.
Thanks!
I just looked as well i am bringing my 12 year old son for a guy week of nerding out. He wants to do all the games i sign up for as well I was wondering how we can do that bc i have only seen options for 1 person. I also would love any and all help on this answer. Grim, thanks for bringing this up as well. Hope to see you there and meet each and every other nerd with kids at the con...
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I just looked as well i am bringing my 12 year old son for a guy week of nerding out. He wants to do all the games i sign up for as well I was wondering how we can do that bc i have only seen options for 1 person. I also would love any and all help on this answer. Grim, thanks for bringing this up as well. Hope to see you there and meet each and every other nerd with kids at the con...
I don't have inside info, but here's my understanding from doing buddy system once and reading posts. This thread seems to have the best explanation.
Buddies will always be placed together in the lottery. This will reduce your chances of getting lottery events because every table you want must have two slots, not one. Buddies will have no effect on open registration; you'll need to each register separately.
Each round, whichever buddy comes up first seems to dictate that round's preferences and that selection represents both buddies chance for that round.
So—register as buddies on the bottom of the right sidebar of the events page, make sure your ratings are aligned on both accounts, and cross your fingers. Good luck!
Chief Technical Officer
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The things we did that I'd recommend:1. Pike Place Market
2. The Seattle Center has a bunch of cool things:
- Space Needle - for the view, apparently the meals aren't that flash
- Pacific Science Center
- Chihuly Garden
- Some kind of music/art musem whose name escapes me, but which is impossible to miss if you're there
Ha—I think their name escapes them at times too. It used to be the Experience Music Project (EMP), and then they added the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame (becoming "EMP|SFM,") at which point everyone became confused about whether there were two separate museums or just one. And then to notch up the confusion a bit more, the Hall of Fame portion was renamed "the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame." In November, they renamed the whole thing "The Museum of Pop Culture" (MoPOP). But there's still plenty of time for them to change the name again before PaizoCon...
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Chief Technical Officer
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I just looked as well i am bringing my 12 year old son for a guy week of nerding out. He wants to do all the games i sign up for as well I was wondering how we can do that bc i have only seen options for 1 person. I also would love any and all help on this answer. Grim, thanks for bringing this up as well. Hope to see you there and meet each and every other nerd with kids at the con...I don't have inside info, but here's my understanding from doing buddy system once and reading posts. This thread seems to have the best explanation.
Buddies will always be placed together in the lottery. This will reduce your chances of getting lottery events because every table you want must have two slots, not one. Buddies will have no effect on open registration; you'll need to each register separately.
Each round, whichever buddy comes up first seems to dictate that round's preferences and that selection represents both buddies chance for that round.
So—register as buddies on the bottom of the right sidebar of the events page, make sure your ratings are aligned on both accounts, and cross your fingers. Good luck!
This is a pretty solid answer. My only comment is regarding this sentence: "This will reduce your chances of getting lottery events because every table you want must have two slots, not one." It is true that using the buddy system means the lottery won't pick an event for you if it has only one open seat when either of your numbers comes up, but that's offset by the fact that your buddy could be selected in any given round before you would have been selected, which effectively jumps you forward in line to his slot. This means that having a buddy could get you into an event that has at least two open slots when your buddy's number comes up, but which would have been full by the time that you would have been selected if you didn't have your buddy. So having a buddy can work for you as well as against you.
Ha—I think their name escapes them at times too. It used to be the Experience Music Project (EMP), and then they added the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame (or "EMP|SFM,") at which point everyone became confused about whether there were two separate museums or just one. And then to notch up the confusion a bit more, the Hall of Fame portion was renamed "the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame." In November, they renamed it the Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP). But there's still plenty of time for them to change the name again before PaizoCon...
We did the sci fi thing last time I went to Seattle. We were quite disapointed by it actually. They had lots of cool memorebelia but no good curation.
It was like heres a room with prop space blasters. Lots of cool ones from different shows but no organization or explination.
This visitor's guide to PaizoCon is still pretty accurate, for what it's worth.
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This is a pretty solid answer. My only comment is regarding this sentence: "This will reduce your chances of getting lottery events because every table you want must have two slots, not one." It is true that using the buddy system means the lottery won't pick an event for you if it has only one open seat when either of your numbers comes up, but that's offset by the fact that your buddy could be selected in any given round before you would have been selected, which effectively jumps you forward in line to his slot.
Thanks, Vic. I agree, and should have mentioned that. I'm not enough of a stats nerd to try and figure out the numbers, but my gut feeling is that it helps in the first round or two but hurts a lot in subsequent rounds, especially for the most highly coveted slots.
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This visitor's guide to PaizoCon is still pretty accurate, for what it's worth.
Oh, thank you for sharing, that was a good read!
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Chief Technical Officer
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This is a pretty solid answer. My only comment is regarding this sentence: "This will reduce your chances of getting lottery events because every table you want must have two slots, not one." It is true that using the buddy system means the lottery won't pick an event for you if it has only one open seat when either of your numbers comes up, but that's offset by the fact that your buddy could be selected in any given round before you would have been selected, which effectively jumps you forward in line to his slot.Thanks, Vic. I agree, and should have mentioned that. I'm not enough of a stats nerd to try and figure out the numbers, but my gut feeling is that it helps in the first round or two but hurts a lot in subsequent rounds, especially for the most highly coveted slots.
I agree that for each day, it's more likely to help you early and hurt you late. Following that logic, since the most highly coveted slots will generally fill during the first round (pretty much by definition), that would suggest that having a buddy probably tends to help your chances of getting into more popular events while tending to decrease the total number of lottery events you get.
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I agree that for each day, it's more likely to help you early and hurt you late. Following that logic, since the most highly coveted slots will generally fill during the first round (pretty much by definition), that would suggest that having a buddy probably tends to help your chances of getting into more popular events while tending to decrease the total number of lottery events you get.
Agreed! That logic is pretty much irrefutable. I had horrendous luck in my first year when I used the buddy system, but I'm pretty sure that was mostly (entirely?) due to my not understanding the lottery system very well.
And while we're all totally focusing on the lottery, it's worth reminding first timers how awesome all the non-lottery events are. There are plenty of PFS games for everyone. There are great seminars. The lottery is only part of the story.
So while I feel like I have my lottery approach dialed in at this point, you end up with the opposite problem—hoping you don't get too much in the lottery that you don't have time for the other stuff. I feel like there's just enough stuff. I expect to get one or two great lottery events, with plenty of room for the seminars. (Like the one on using props as a GM—how great is that?!)
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How do we get our badge-- when/ where?
I remember seeing a post quite a long time ago suggesting there is typically an hour(s)-long line on (I think) Friday morning. Is that seriously the case?!
Can't Paizo just put them with our name at the Doubletree messages/mail-front desk and when we check in to our room they give us the badge with our name on it?
What is the fastest way to get one's badge? I'm not so excited about standing in a long line while my Friday morning event is going on.
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How do we get our badge-- when/ where?
I remember seeing a post quite a long time ago suggesting there is typically an hour(s)-long line on (I think) Friday morning. Is that seriously the case?!
Can't Paizo just put them with our name at the Doubletree messages/mail-front desk and when we check in to our room they give us the badge with our name on it?
What is the fastest way to get one's badge? I'm not so excited about standing in a long line while my Friday morning event is going on.
The line will move quick. This is not in any way like GenCon. Beyond just the badge, if tradition holds, you will receive a bag o' Paizo goodies/swag along with the tickets to yer events. It is a nice thing Paizo does for the peeps hitting the con so there is a little method to the madness.
I am trying to remember if there was early pick up last year and I think the answer is no.
ETA: In prior years if you were a GM for an early morning slot, you had the ability to obtain yer stuff the night before. I don't know if they do this anymore.
I think I got my badge around 10am on Friday last year, and I don't recall the line being very long at all. I imagine there's more of a rush right before the morning slot, but it shouldn't be too bad.
Leg o' Lamb, my GM email says to line up at 6:30 to get registered right at 7 for the 8am slot.
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I believe last year there was early pick up on the Thursday evening if you were GMing in the Friday am slot.
Typically join the queue at 6.30am-ish, you'll be in it for no more than about 45mins. It moves fast, you get a great goody bag at the end, typically worth more than the badge cover charge....plus you get to chat and meet fellow gamers in the queue.
Dont forget your id though.
All in all, its an event in itself :-)
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Customer Service Representative
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For those arriving on Saturday, I assume the wait is not as long? We aren't able to make it on Friday, and I'm wondering how early I need to be there if I have an 8AM session Saturday. I was thinking 7:30 but maybe that's not enough time?
In past years, the line is usually more of a trickle by Saturday morning. Most people have picked up their badges by the end of Friday, so you most likely won't have to wait very long. Also, if your 8am game is a PFS game, the registration table is usually right outside the Grand Ballroom, so you won't have far to go once you've picked up your packet.
That being said, it's always a good idea to leave yourself some extra time just in case. If you get through with extra time to spare, you can always check out the store, grab a snack at the coffee stand, or set up camp at your table early.