Greetings Pathfinders! Are you ready for school? With the change from PFS1 to PFS2, we’ve had a lot of new players coming to Pathfinder events in the League of Aroden service area. The single biggest question after, “When is your next session?” is, “How do I make a character?” Yes, PFS2 is different, but really not very hard to master. Players have the most difficulty in learning what the PFS2 requirements are more than anything. With that in mind, I’ve developed a PFS2 Character Creation Seminar which has 10 steps for players to build a completely ready to play PFS2 legal character. Once you have built the character, we test your work out with one of the Pathfinder Second Edition quests. 
So, come to Valhalla’s Gate on October 12th in Columbia, Missouri. The Seminar will fill all of the tables for the first time slot this month at PFS Smackdown which begins at 11:00 AM. There are some GMs who will run the quests which in this case is Quest 1 – The Sandstone Secret. It is a repeatable quest that gives PFS2 credit. Following the first time slot, we will then offer 3 tables with 3 different PFS2 scenarios to choose from. Just in case we have enough players, we do have a fourth GM available. Those scenarios are 1-01 The Absalom Initiation (primarily new player oriented)
1-03 Escaping the Grave (Going to the Gravelands!)
1-04 Bandits of Immenwood
All are for the 1-4 tier. They have to be. No 3-6 has been released yet!
You can sign up for these sessions at our Warhorn page now!
Our GM pool is beginning to expand over the next few months and so will the pool of PFS2 content. In either November or December we will begin offering The Fall of Plaguestone which is a module. That will have to be ran over two months. We will also probably run the first chapter and maybe even the second chapter of the Adventure Path, Age of Ashes. Each will require two months to play. We will also run the last chapter of the PFS1 scenario arc from Season Six in November.
Also, as everyone has noted, we’re having a hard time fitting everything into two four-hour sessions. A lot of that is due to having six to seven players at the tables. With more GMs coming online, we need to start limiting tables to five players. Sessions run faster with five players. We can get the first session over before 3 PM so everyone can grab a bite to eat and get started in the next session so we are done around 6:30 and not rushing to finish up. Since some of our GMs are going to be new to GMing, we need to avoid overworking them with overcrowded tables as well.
The PFS2 scenarios are written for four players. They have the capacity for seven players, but that requires some readjusting and inserting additional foes for the encounters. That is where the time drag is coming into play. I have ran a lot of PFS1 and PFS2 scenarios and almost every time I’ve ran a 7 player table the game has gone at least 30 minutes longer. Some have taken over an hour longer. So, with that in mind, we are going to limit sign ups to five players from now on for all tables. Any players past five will be seated at an overflow table if we have one available. The goal is not to deprive you of the ability to play PFS2, but to give you a better game play experience.
Finally, I’m doing a GM call once again. It’s pretty obvious we are going to start having four tables per time slot. I do not expect GMs to run two tables each month. I would like to thank Kurt Linsenbardt who has been doing just that in August, September, and now October. I would like to arrange it so that we are rotating GMs so that they are at the very least only having to run once a month. The more GMs we have, the more players we can seat. Also, if you want to go to Gen Con 2020 and run PFS2, the staff would prefer you have 10 sessions ran if not more. I have to vouch for every GM to the staff. Running at Gen Con is a wonderful experience and something you should all do at least once. I love it. I’m already beginning to plan my 2020 con. If you are wanting or considering running at Gen Con next year, now is the time to start to get familiar with running PFS2 sessions.
If you want to learn how to run a scenario, we will teach you how to do it. It really is not that complicated. It is more about organization and being prepared. We want you to look up the rules! So do the players. Trust me, I did it and still do it. You’ve seen me do it. That’s not the issue for running a session. It’s about making decisions and maintaining the flow of the game. It just takes a bit of getting used to doing it. Once you’ve done it a few times, it starts to fall into place. Just ask any of the GMs how and why they do what they so and you can begin to learn. Anyone interested in GMing for the November and December Smackdowns, let me know. We will get you set up and ready to go.
The League of Aroden 