We’re back from Indianapolis and Gen Con 2019! Four GMs from the League of Aroden area attended this year’s grand convocation and ran a total of 28 sessions. We had a great time, met some great people, and as always gained experience from the players and GMs we interacted with for five days. This year saw the launch of the new Pathfinder Second Edition and the audience received it enthusiastically. The lines at the two Paizo booths were rather long on Thursday. Everywhere I looked it seemed like I saw a PF2 core rulebook. The players at my tables were armed (literally. The thing is 640 pages long!) with them by the second session on Thursday. One player at my second session table actually went and spent 45 minutes in the line and bought the CRB, Bestiary, and cards or character sheets midway through the session because he was so impressed by the game.
On my part, I ran eight sessions of Pathfinder Second Edition. Seven were 1-01 The Absalom Initiation, a really nice introductory scenario for new players and GMs which has variable parts in it so that it isn’t always the same story in each session. It is repeatable by players if they use different characters each time. I also ran one session of 1-00 Origin of the Open Road which is a L5 Pregen scenario. Unfortunately, it is not a repeatable. Here are the players I ran for (missing one group shot).
Personally, I had a great time. It was even better because I didn’t have a heart attack on the way home, I got to meet my buddy from the Army when we were on Okinawa 83-85 Marty Ryan and his wife, had my good friend Bill McQuegge along with me, and even better, didn’t have a heart attack the day after I got home! Those of you who know about the heart attacks understand how rough that was.
I also got to attend five seminars with Paizo staffers and the Order of the Amber Die group on Pathfinder, Writing for Paizo, Using 3D Terrain, and Dungeon Design. You can catch those videos on the Paizo Twitch channel. Yours truly asked several questions in the Q&A and the Writing for Paizo seminars and be seen near the end of those segments.
Even better, I got to expand my game collection by having eight chances to win a copy of the Adventure Card Game Core set. On the sixth roll of the huge D20 I rolled a Paizo and won it!
One of the nice things about running eight sessions of Pathfinder at Gen Con is what you can earn. I received four new Organized Play shirts, a copy of the PF2 Core Rulebook, a few minis, game buttons, store vouchers which I used to get the PF2 Bestiary, Condition Cards and GM Screen, the huge carry bag, seven PFS1 boons for my characters, plus I picked up the card box to put my various Buff and Condition Card decks in, a dice tower for the new secret check rolls, and won the Adventure Card Game Core Set.
Finally, another highlight of my trip this year was meeting with the Know Direction crew on Friday night. I enjoy their podcasts and blogs, and it was a great time just visiting with all of them and sharing stories about gaming. The only negative part was I forgot to get pictures of them, but I will get some next year! Meanwhile, you can go to Know Direction, catch their podcast archives, and see the various blogs the members maintain.
It was an amazing Gen Con. I am looking forward to next years as Paizo announced they are releasing the Advanced Player’s Guide for PF2 along with a hardback book for Absalom which is a must have! I think I’ll be running six or seven sessions again, so time to start working on that fourth Glyph already.
Thank you to everyone who played at my tables, to the Paizo team, to the Know Direction staff, and to the Organized Play team who organized the sessions for this year’s Gen Con. It was a blast being there and as I said already, I will be there again next year!
See you all then!
Xathos of Varisia
The League of Aroden 