I am very pleased to announce that Pathfinder Society Play is going to go huge at this year’s Who’s Yer Con – March 11th – March 13! You can find all the events over at the Who’s Yer Con website!

We are running a total of 50 tables over the three days, including some exclusive content like the Gen Con 2010 Special Interactive – Year of the Shadow Lodge and The Midnight Mauler which is currently only able to be run by about 25 GMs in the world (3 of whom will be at WYC)!

Paizo did announce the upcoming retirement of several Season 0 modules as part of their ongoing clean up of the Pathfinder Society Organized Play program. Specifically Season 0 modules were published under the 3.5 rules, because the Pathfinder Role Playing Game had not yet been released. All Season 1 and forward modules are published under the PFRPG rules. This means that there are some small differences here and there, and many of the Season 0 modules will be retried rather than converted.

This wave of announcements was for modules #6: Black Waters, #11: The Third Riddle, #12: Stay of Execution, #19: Skeleton Moon and #25: Hands of the Muted God. These are still legal for play and reporting through 11/14/2010.

Having said all that, we ran #6 Black Waters to give everyone a chance to play it before it becomes retired. The module is a lot of fun and it’s too bad it didn’t make it onto the convert list. The Pathfinder are sent to the tragic site of a training academy which was ruined 10 years ago by an earthquake. The Tri-Tower Academy had also apparently been built on top of an ancient necropolis and when the earthquake stuck, part of the academy collapsed into the necropolis revealing it’s existence. Many new Pathfinders joined the cause!

Luis da Guy – A noble Caviler from the Republic of Andoran, ready for battle and standing by this fellow Pathfinders with his bravery. A new class added by the Advanced Player’s Guide, and my first time at the table with one.

Crug’ool – A member of the lower classes of Taldor, Crug’ool the Barbarian travels with his Magus friend and guide Saran. Ignorant, dim-witted and crass you do not want to make this guy angry!

Saran Jade – A more typical citizen of Taldor. A spoiled, pompous noble trained in both the martial and arcane arts. Saran is a Magus which is an open play test class for the up coming Ultimate Magic book.

Vareth – A half elven ranger from Andoran. Vareth is still very wet behind the ears, but eager to make his mark on the Society.

Kalisa Rose – An Alchemist from Infernal Cheliax. Another new Advanced Player’s Guide class and my first time at the table with one. Just remember, Alchemist bombs are a cool ability but splash damage can hurt friendlies! Saran and Vasha found out the hard way.

This week saw the official announcement of the Pathfinder Society Regional Coordinators for the first 13 regions worldwide. I’m very pleased to report that the Venture-Captain for the Indianapolis region was none other than….me!

This means that I will be working even harder to get Pathfinder Society played regularly in all the game stores in Indy that are interested, trying to get stores that aren’t interested on board, gathering players and perhaps most importantly gathering up GMs to run events.

Pathfinder Society is something very special as Organized Play goes, and Paizo is a great company. They take a lot of feedback from the fans and work that into their offerings. Pathfinder Society represents the best of the best.

Other Venture-Captains and regions announced are:

• Atlanta – Michael Brock
• Australia – Stephen White
• Belgium-Netherlands – Auke Teeninga
• Cincinnati – Russell Akred
• Denmark – Diego Winterborg
• Detroit – Douglas Miles
• Los Angeles – Robyn Nixon
• New York City – Art Lobdell
• San Diego – Eric Brittain
• Seattle – Dane Pitchford
• Tampa – Michael Griffin-Wade
• United Kingdom – Dave Harrison

For now I’m off to explore, report and cooperate!

Last night, September 17th we played our second session of Pathfinder Society out at Saltire Games! After talking with the owner, Phil, he said he was very excited to have Society games finally being played there. He also said he’d be willing to offer the following deal to new players: Buy the Core Rule Book and the Advanced Players guide and he’d give you a copy of Seeker of Secrets for free! He told me that he’s been selling a good bit of Pathfinder products but not really getting any in store games so he was thrilled to have us come out and play.

One of the nice things with Society play is that the table composition can change quite a bit from game to game. This week we had two new players in place of two of last weeks players.

Al-Rashied – A half-elf summoner from the land of Osirion. Summoners are one of the new classes added by the recently released Advanced Players Guide and I had yet to see one at a table. Al-Rashied was a very interesting fellow, skilled in the use of a large, curved blade and followed by his Eidolon, Vasha. Vasha is a four legged beast with a jackal like head and a feline body who enjoys the taste of her fresh kills.

Zazelot “Zaz” Sparkslinger - A gnome sorcerer, Zaz is an Air Elemental Bloodline Sorcerer from the land of Andoran, with a skill at making and a fetish for wearing colorful quality hats! He is also quite skilled with channeling electrical energy into his enemies, much to their shock!
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Last week, September 10th I kicked off a new Pathfinder Society group at Saltire Games in Lawrence.  The response has been huge!

Because of the nature of the Pathfinder Society modules, it’s actually very difficult for me to talk about them in great detail without possibly spoiling it for future players. However, I’d like to go into whatever I can safely as well as talk about some of the characters, players and quirks of the Organized Play format.

The characters started in Absalom, the City at the Center of the World, in the Grand Lodge of the Pathfinder Society! The Grand Lodge is the largest Pathfinder Lodge in all of Golarion as well as the training grounds for all perspective Pathfinders. The new group of characters having recently completed their Confirmation tests and graduating to full fledged Pathfinders were ready for an assignment from one Absalom’s Venture-Captains.

Let’s meet the characters!
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Hello to everyone! I’m new to the site and a new author looking to share some perspective specifically on the growing Pathfinder Society Organized Play going on around Indy!

Pathfinder Society Organized Play uses Paizo Publishing’s Pathfinder RPG rules, which continues the rules traditions of Dungeons and Dragons 3.x rules. Sessions are 4-5 hour blocks and each module is designed to be played start to finish during that time block. Players create characters who are members of the Pathfinder Society, an organization in the world of Golarion who is dedicated to exploration, understanding and recovery of magical relics and ancient cultures for over the last 400 years. The Society maintains Lodge houses in many cities around the Inner Sea region of Golarion where members can receive missions from the local Venture-Captain to help further the Society’s goals: Explore, report, cooperate.

There is already a lot of Pathfinder Society (PFS) play going on at Arsenal Game Room downtown, and last week I kicked off a new group at Saltire Games in Lawrence.

Each PFS table is between 4 and 7 players plus the GM. The response has been awesome for the new location as well! We had 5 players last week, and I’ve got 7 lined up for a game this week but due to having only 1 GM I actually had to tell a few interested players that I’d have to get them into the next game. Another great feature of this Organized Play program is that all modules are designed to be played stand alone, so you can hop in and hop out of the action as your schedule permits. With the understanding, of course, that once you’ve played a given module you will not be playing it again. Since this is an Organized Play program where the published modules are balanced and your participation is logged via your player Chronicle sheets that also means you can play in a game anywhere with the same character! So playing games at different locations around Indy also becomes an option for players! Additional information for the specifics of the Organized Play program can be found in this handy PDF, the Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play.

I’m going to be writing up some session reports based on the games at Saltire, so watch for them!

–Ziz