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I noticed a reference in the Pathfinder / Starfinder Society Guides to Org Play that seemed to indicate that PFS/SFS is transitioning to a 3rd party nonprofit, the Organized Play Foundation (which I'm assuming is Paizo's way of either dodging for-profit volunteer complications or a way to write off all of the free digitial copies they give away to volunteers or both).
Did I miss something or is this one of those "you should have sold a kidney (because no one wants your liver at this point) to get to GenCon" sort of things that's not been formally announced yet?
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There have been issues with other organized play systems, where the volunteers suddenly wanted to get paid, and it went to court, and they won, and it was a nightmare for the other company. So this is an arms-length thing. It was discussed at PaizoCon briefly. No big deal.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Basically what GM Lamplighter said. I don't remember the whole story, but it was about WotC whose MtG tournament judges had such obligations that they started to look too much like employees.
Paizo couldn't possibly handle the paperwork involved if suddenly every VO became an employee (even if unpaid, it's still a lot of paperwork), so they need to prevent such issues.
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I noticed a reference in the Pathfinder / Starfinder Society Guides to Org Play that seemed to indicate that PFS/SFS is transitioning to a 3rd party nonprofit, the Organized Play Foundation (which I'm assuming is Paizo's way of either dodging for-profit volunteer complications or a way to write off all of the free digitial copies they give away to volunteers or both).
There have been issues with other organized play systems, where the volunteers suddenly wanted to get paid, and it went to court, and they won, and it was a nightmare for the other company.
Yes, well aware (as bolded above).
I didn't find any changes at PaizoCon 2017 volunteering for the Organized Play Foundation versus volunteering for Paizo at previous events. Did anyone else?
Did you volunteer for a non-Profit or for Paizo? ... was there a discussion about the transition and what (if any) personal or trackable information would be provided to this non-profit? (I ask as I believe non-profits generally operate under different transparency requirements than corporations do.)
I was just asking if I missed an announcement about it as it appears that Paizo is apparently considering all of PFS part of this new non-profit - which I would have assumed means that there was a data transition, which in turn generally involves communication to those who may be affected.
From your response, I'm actually more worried than I was when I initially asked ...
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This is actually a great thing.
What that means is that, if something happened to Paizo, PFS could continue.
The main thing they have to make sure they do is keep up all the paperwork appropriately, especially the finances, or untangling things afterwards gets messy.
It was a different industry, but I spent ten years on the board of a non-profit spun off for the benefit of its customers from a for-profit company that went out of business, and the existence of the separate entity made a huge difference in our ability to take care of the customers.
If this *also* protects Paizo itself, so much the better.
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Did you volunteer for a non-Profit or for Paizo? ... was there a discussion about the transition and what (if any) personal or trackable information would be provided to this non-profit? (I ask as I believe non-profits generally operate under different transparency requirements than corporations do.)I was just asking if I missed an announcement about it as it appears that Paizo is apparently considering all of PFS part of this new non-profit - which I would have assumed means that there was a data transition, which in turn generally involves communication to those who may be affected.
From your response, I'm actually more worried than I was when I initially asked ...
It was announced at PaizoCon HQ, when GMs checked in - we were required to read and sign the new stuff before we were allowed to GM. As it doesn't really affect other events that Paizo isn't running, I'm not sure it "covers all of PFS"... there is no implied relationship between someone who buys and plays a game and the company that produces the game. Venture-Officers I imagine have a different agreement, but they've always had to sign something before joining anyway.
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I'm not sure it "covers all of PFS"...
This is why I started the original topic, I probably should have just quoted it in the first post:
To coordinate this pool of global volunteers, Paizo has teamed up with the Organized Play Foundation, a nonprofit charitable organization created to help bring together gamers and to promote education through strategic games. Volunteers with the Organized Play Foundation choose which organized play program, in our case Paizo, and the scope of their activities, anything from a local game store to an entire country or continent, to provide regular gaming opportunities for gamers in each region.
Volunteers, collectively known as Venture-Officers, receive ranks based on their duties and geographical areas of responsibility. The top level of volunteers, Regional Venture-Coordinators, looks after large geographical areas. Under them are Venture-Captains, responsible for countries, states, or large metropolitan areas. Their right hands, the Venture-Lieutenants, assist in the area’s coordination efforts. The lowest level, Venture-Agents, coordinate activities in one location, such as a game store, a school, a community center, or a military instillation.
... this makes it seem like all of PFS has been converted over or is converting over to a 3rd party non-profit.
While my original post was that of curiosity, PhU makes excellent points about how messy these conversions can be and as someone who has more personal data on Paizo's site than almost anyone else's I was curious if there was any information regarding the transition anywhere.
Again, I acknowledge the poor timing with GenCon, but it's not like the info was there more than a day or two before it.
there is no implied relationship between someone who buys and plays a game and the company that produces the game.
True, but we're talking about PFS, not home-games. There is more than an implied relationship between a company that produces a product and their primary marketing campaign for said product, however.
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My point is that, if you're running PFS in a game store somewhere, you don't work for Paizo, you don't get covered by Paizo's liability insurance, you don't have any dress code or policies or whatever enforced upon you - you're just a guy, playing a game. As it should be.
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I'm not sure it "covers all of PFS"...This is why I started the original topic, I probably should have just quoted it in the first post:
To coordinate this pool of global volunteers, Paizo has teamed up with the Organized Play Foundation, a nonprofit charitable organization created to help bring together gamers and to promote education through strategic games. Volunteers with the Organized Play Foundation choose which organized play program, in our case Paizo, and the scope of their activities, anything from a local game store to an entire country or continent, to provide regular gaming opportunities for gamers in each region.
Volunteers, collectively known as Venture-Officers, receive ranks based on their duties and geographical areas of responsibility. The top level of volunteers, Regional Venture-Coordinators, looks after large geographical areas. Under them are Venture-Captains, responsible for countries, states, or large metropolitan areas. Their right hands, the Venture-Lieutenants, assist in the area’s coordination efforts. The lowest level, Venture-Agents, coordinate activities in one location, such as a game store, a school, a community center, or a military instillation.
... this makes it seem like all of PFS has been converted over or is converting over to a 3rd party non-profit.
While my original post was that of curiosity, PhU makes excellent points about how messy these conversions can be and as someone who has more personal data on Paizo's site than almost anyone else's I was curious if there was any information regarding the transition anywhere.
Again, I acknowledge the poor timing with GenCon, but it's not like the info was there more than a day or two before it.
there is no implied relationship between someone who buys and plays a game and the company that produces the game.True, but we're talking about PFS, not home-games. There is more than an implied relationship between a company that produces a product and their primary marketing campaign for said product, however.
I'm no lawyer and I'm like many of us, on the outside looking in. I have no particular insider information. However, if I remember correctly, the case that spawned this got Wizards in trouble because the volunteer Judges could not legally be recognized as volunteers if they were "volunteering" for a for-profit company. Paizo is a for-profit company as far as I am aware, and so anyone "volunteering" for Paizo would be legally considered an employee, with all of the wage regulations, insurance regulations, liability concerns, and so on that that entails.
Creating legal separation between Paizo and its volunteer corps seems pretty critical to ensuring Paizo's future as an ongoing concern. I think that importance explains why they are going forward with it even if things are unfinished and rough right now. I imagine we'll see more changes after Gencon winds down, although what types of changes Paizo's legal counsel recommends, I have no better idea than the rest of you.