Pathfinder Unchained's Staggered Advancement

Staggered Advancement

Staggered advancement is Pathfinder Unchained's answer to several of the other systems out there that have implemented systems that involve improving a character's abilities more often than at every level.  Instead of gaining a whole swath of abilities upon advancement, PCs pick up abilities at 25%, 50%, and 75% of the experience to rise in level.  In fact, the bulk of the system's 2 pages are explained in a giant table on pp. 42-43.

How It Works
Our friends at Paizo have broken the benefits you get into a few different baskets.  Easiest are normal class abilities.  PCs pick up their new class abilities when they level up traditionally.  There's no changes here.
Skills:  You pick up half of your skills at halfway to the next level and the other half when you actually level.  Like everything else in RPGs, round down at the halfway point.  So, if you are supposed to pick up seven skill ranks a level, you get 3 at 50% of the way there and the other four when you fully advance.
BAB, Saves, and hit points:  These three are more complicated.  First, you have to figure out how many of them advance per level (note that using fractional bonuses would alleviate this problem).  If only one of them advances, you get it at 75% of the way there.  If two advance, you get them at 50% of the way to the next level and at 75%.  You only use 25%, 50%, and 75% if all three are going to go up.  This is one of my few quibbles with the system.  If you're only raising two, I'd raise them at 25% and 75%.  After all, you're getting skills at 50% anyway.  You advance the full BAB and the full saves, but get only 50% of hp (rounding down like always).  You get the other half of your extra hp when you fully level.

Comparisons: Numenera and 13th Age
There are a couple of other systems that use staggered advancement that make for good advancement.  I also think that they use staggered advancement far more effectively.  13th Age is the easiest because it doesn't use experience at all.  Instead, at pre-determined moments the GM lets characters know that they've advanced a step.  At that time, you check one of the boxes:

That's it.  You check a box each time.  When all the boxes are checked, you advance to the next level.  You have to check all of them before you can move on to checking them again.  So, if you start with a feat, you've got to check all the necessary boxes before you advance to the next level and take another feat.  The game suggests that GMs might want to let characters level all at once sometimes--I highly suggest this for going from 1st to 2nd level.

In Numenera, the Strange and (presumably) the Cypher System writ large, players gain XP by accepting GM intrusions.  The GM decides something interesting (bad) is going to happen and awards the player 2 XP.  The player keeps one, but gives the other to another player at the table.  Players can also earn XP at the end of sessions or at important story points.  Players can spend an XP to reroll any roll.  PCs can also spend 4 XP to gain a benefit: 4 points to allocate amongst your stats, adding one point to one of your character's edge pools, increasing your character's effort score by one, or become trained in a new skill.  Numenera assumes that characters will spend 4XP to do this every level, but it might be fun to raise that by one point a level so that you need 5XP to pick up a benefit at 2nd level, 6XP at 3rd, etc.  This also slows down progression because characters are going to be spending XP on rerolls like drunken sailors anyway!

How Does Pathfinder Unchained's System Stack Up?

In the end, I'm pretty meh on this system.  It just doesn't make much sense in the Pathfinder universe.  Staggered advancement makes a lot more sense in more story-driven systems.  Pathfinder is a statistic-driven system though.  The system feels arbitrary and it's too complicated: the bonuses come at different times and yet they feel too tightly prescribed at the same time.  I wouldn't mind it if my players wanted to use it.  That said, as a player I wouldn't want to!

GLBT in tabletop and video games

So, I'm a little bit behind the times (a year it looks like), but I just read this article about why the gaming industry will ignore the GLBT demographic for the foreseeable future.  Per usual video gaming journalism, it's the "gaming" industry as if games can only occur on a screen.  It must be fantastic to simultaneously be so needy of your time in the limelight while using phraseology that's exclusionary in your own complaint about marginalization.  This is not the only time I've seen this--Gaming in Color comes to mind.  But at least it's director had the balls to stand up at GenCon after his screening and point out that he was now aware of what he'd done in excluding tabletop and CCG folks.

So, maybe this post is a complaint about underinclusivity.  Maybe it's  satire about identity politics.  Hell, it could be both.  What I do know is that the tabletop RPG industry does not have this problem.  5E rules famously include statements about how your character's orientation is up to you--and it's even on the character sheet!  Paizo's given us GLBT characters since their first Adventure Path.  Wrath of the Righteous even has the potential for you to end up adventuring with two gay men in a relationship and two women one of whom is an MTF transexual.  Oh!  And they are all well-developed characters and don't exhibit any tokenism.

And now, Shanna Germain of Monte Cook Games is writing a Numenera novel with "a fierce, one-handed, bisexual woman."  I haven't read any of Shanna's work before, but I'm hopeful that we will see more GLBT characters that do all the cool fantasy/sci-fi things and also get to be fully themselves in print.  You can check out some of her writing and other projects on her website.

On this note, I feel I should also raise the issue of the change.org petition related to Monte Cook Games.  I'm not going to comment on whether or not their proposed setting is somehow racist or bigoted.  Having a diverse staff before this sort of thing raises its head goes a long way towards getting them the benefit of the doubt.  Beyond that, I am going to note that they've responded to the criticism in a very mature way.  They've opened a discussion thread on the issue on Facebook and they've even linked directly to the petition.

Full disclosure: I haven't read through all of the comments.  But, to me this goes a long way to say, "We didn't think what we were doing was offensive.  We understand that it's impossible to do anything in the creative world without offending someone.  Now, we want an opportunity to find out whether or not we've offended a fringe minority or if we have some larger cultural sensitivity issues to consider."  Well, Monte Cook Games took a lot of the right steps on creativity even before this issue raised it's head, so I say we give them a little bit of slack before going to the mattresses of identity politics.  Who knows?  If they have offended a large swath of the population, they might even be responsible about it.  And if not, well, we'll have seen some people embarrass themselves on a target far less appealing than the Washington Redskins.

Dungeons & Dragons takes back the RPG Crown

ICv2 confirms what I guessed at last August: Dungeons & Dragons 5E was the best selling RPG last year.  As ENWorld notes, the real question will be whether or not they can keep up with Paizo's gruelling pace of releasing so many products a month.  

Also interesting is Numenera's meteoric rise.  The 9th World premiered in fall 2013 and it took the #4 position by Spring 2014.  It fell off for a couple of months, but it's back at number 4 now.  I've been a big Numenera fan ever since the Kickstarter, but I'm not sure that it provides the level of long-term playability that a game like D&D or Pathfinder does.  For me, at least, Numenera (or its younger Cypher System sibling, the Strange) is more of an occasional fix to find something a little bit different than a regular habit.

In other good news, ICv2 also reports that there have been six straight years of growth in hobby games, with "a revived RPG category" as one of the "leaders in the trend."  Gaming is not a marginal hobby, people!

Other good news from the article:

Retailers reported a broad-based influx of new customers, reflecting a growing awareness of the hobby.  The big holiday surge in particular types of games may reflect this trend; new customers were looking for board games they’ve heard of (like perennials Settler of Catan, Ticket to Ride, Pandemic) or easy-to-learn, simpler games like Love Letter and Cards Against Humanity.

EN World has a chart showing the historical rankings according to ICv2:

DC Gameday XV

If you're local to the metro DC area, I highly encourage you to check out DC Gameday XV.  DC Gameday happens twice a year in March and October and represents one of my favorite things to do in gaming: play random games that you can't really play without a huge gamer crew.  Oh sure, there will be Pathfinder and D&D games, but you can find one of those anywhere.  I want to use my Gameday to play random ass games.

Games are posted as GMs offer to run them and are listed on the site.  Best of all, because almost all of the games are obscure, GMs tend to offer them as 'come as you are without any system knowledge' games.  So, if you want to try something new, this is totally the place to do it!

It takes place over the weekend of October 25-26.  There are morning and afternoon gaming slots.  Each lasts for four hours.  They also have a big social event on Saturday evening, if you're not being consumed by law school shenanigans like I normally am.  Anyway, registration opens on Friday, October 10 at 8:00 p.m.  And do register at 8:00 p.m.--slots in good games fill up fast.  I was considering offering to GM a 13th Age game, but it looks like someone's already going to do that.  So, I can PLAY 13th Age!!

When I went last spring, I only got to go on Saturday, but got a chance to check out Monsterhearts for the first time and to play a Numenera game in the afternoon.  I'd never played Monsterhearts before--it has easy mechanics and can easily be exported to just about any system.  The system is based on Apocalypse World, but was designed to better explore issues related to sex and different sexuality.  In the classic Monsterhearts setting, you have a turn on mechanic that means that another character may be able to sexually excite your character--even if you don't want them to!  The game we played was loosely based upon the movie Casablanca.  I even got to play a fantastic piano player--who has supernatural powers derived from a deal he made with the devil.

Apocalypse World is a tremendously flexible system.  In fact, there's a Kickstarter closing TODAY called the Spirit of '77 that's also based on it.  What's the Spirit of '77 you ask?  "Spirit of 77 is a role-playing game based on 70’s pop culture – glam music, grindhouse action films, kung-fu, weird science and revved up race-cars on lone highways, outracing Smokey and the Man!"  So, basically it's awesome.  And, the website has a preview adventure posted: The Cruise Ship of the Damned.  They've also taken the time to create a soundtrack of rockin' 70s tunes on Spotify that are supposed to go well with the game.  Perhaps I will offer to GM that one!

GenCon Recap: Saturday, August 16

My GenCon Saturday started with sleeping in!  Unlike the previous two days, I didn't have anywhere to be until 9:00a.m. for Kobold Press' seminar about trying to be a freelancer.  I don't really have any desire time to be a freelancer, but I think these types of panels offer good advice on how to make good adventures.  Also, I wanted to support Kobold Press, because they are one of the few established outfits in the industry that takes submissions from people without any publishing credits to their name.  The session was interesting and I took a few nuggets away with me: you'll probably have to give your first piece away but try and start getting paid for your second, know multiple systems because you never know which systems will be in vogue over time, and whenever you do get rejected always ask for feedback on how you can improve your work for future publication.

I confess: I snuck out of the seminar early.  After meeting the folks running all of Monte Cook's games the night before, I was hoping to catch a Numenera game on a generic ticket.  The Kobold seminar was at the very back of the hotel to the southeast of the convention center.  The Monte Cook Games room was at the very end of the hotel to the northwest of the convention center.  So, I got to walk the entirety of GenCon!  It is a long effing way.  

It was longer when I arrived to find out that had I been one person earlier I could have gotten a seat at the table with my generic ticket.  Poverty.  My friend from the bar the night before did manage to get a generic ticket slot though, so that's good though.  I hadn't been able to sign up for a Numenera event in pre-registration.  I was shocked at how quickly these games filled up.  I think that less well-known games are harder to get tickets to because it's a lot easier to find a game of Pathfinder or D&D when you aren't at a Con.

So, it was time to make the long walk back to the Convention Center proper.  With a hole in my schedule, I decided it was time to do something unplanned.  On a whim, I walked into the Dungeons & Dragons room.  I'm inclined to dislike 5th Edition based on the game's management's history, but I figured I could at least check it out.  All their events are set up in a castle and so I stepped inside.

Much of the castle is dedicated to people actually playing D&D, which is nice to see.  They have a tiny retail section in the castle as well and I'm hoping to browse through the new Player's Handbook and edition launching adventure, Tyranny of Dragons.  It's a two-part adevnture set in the Forgotten Realms, a setting that I really liked back in my 2nd Edition days.  The first one is called Hoard of the Dragon Queen.

I come up to the retail area.  It's basically a check out line without any browsing space.  I ask if I can take a look at the game or if I have to get in line to purchase.  The guy behind the counter tells me I have to get in line.  This sales tactic is probably coercively effective on customers that feel less license to be a dick than I do.  I get in line and start browsing the book.  I'm going to have time for either the Player's Handbook or the adventure--and I go with the adventure.  The artwork is top notch and the plot looks good from my five minute overview.  

Unfortunately, I have to put it back once I'm at the front of the line.  I'm a no go on purchasing--this was pretty much a classic customer service fail.  Don't make me stand in the checkout line to browse your product.  I am considering purchasing a book, which a lot of people put a lot of time into writing.  I am not purchasing this, this, or this.

So, back to the Exhibit Hall.  I finally make it through this time.  I also make my first impulse buy of the Con: a copy of Iron & Ale.  You can read my review of it here.  

After finishing my rounds at the Exhibit Hall, I'm walking past a board game company's booth just as an announcer is calling for a single player to jump into a game being demoed.  It's called Hyperborea. It promises an opportunity to, "Embark on an epic quest to build your mythical nation into the greatest empire known to mankind. Capture land, defeat monsters, and discover new technologies on the rise to greatness."

Everyone plays a different army attempting to be the first to capture the most gems.  There are army movements, special resource cards, and a lot of divisions by three going on.   If 13th Age is like Pathfinder with 1/3 of the rules, then Hyperborea is like Settlers of Catan with 3 times the rules.  Seriously, if you like highly complex board games with tricky rules interactions, Hyperborea is for you.

I didn't mind playing it, but didn't love it either.  The woman who explained the game was top notch and the family that I was playing with were big time board gamers.  Super nice too!  Apparently, he worked at TSR back when it was TSR, because they were talking about meeting up with Margaret Weiss and had the father seen Tracy?  Mom from the family ultimately won the game.  It was competitive too--this is not a family that minds going head to head.  It infected me a little bit too, I had to remind myself that these people were TOTAL strangers.

Finally, it's time to play The Strange!  Unfortunately, the girl from the night before that I thought would be my GM actually had the session starting two hours previous.  Well, maybe not unfortunately because our GM was actually awesome!  We had a great party.  I also got to meet my first Gaymer (and he was hot!) at the session.  I was feeling a little shy though so I didn't ask for a ribbon from him.  Wish I had.

The Strange takes place in modern day Earth, but with so much more going on.  Have you heard of dark energy?  Well, Monte Cook and Bruce Cordell have.  And they've decided that it's actually a connection to something called the Strange, which is essentially this network that connects our universe to all sorts of other alternate realities.  Some of these realities have alternate physics.  For instance, another reality, Aredyn, functions a lot like a traditional fantasy game.  There's another alternate reality, Ruk, that has a strong super-science cyberpunk feel.  Oh, and there's the Strange itself, which is also home to planetovores.  In fact, Ardeyn is actually a creation by the Earthling (Terran?) that first discovered the Strange.  He created it as a sort of decoy to throw any planetovores off the trail of the real Earth.  There are other worlds, or recursions, as well.  All in all, this is a really interesting setting.

The system isn't that different though--the Strange RPG is based on the same cypher system that runs Numenera.  One day I'll write a more in depth post talking about what I find interesting about the system, but here are a few interesting details.  

1. Players do all the dice rolling - Players have rolls to make for any skill check and have target numbers to hit to either hit an enemy in combat or to dodge an attack from an enemy.  This frees up the GM to focus on the story--and it shows in how much more immersive the story can be when the GM doesn't have to fiddle with rolling her own dice.
2. XP has value - You can use XP to level up, but I wouldn't recommend it.  XP has so many other uses.  Most importantly, XP is used to reroll whenever you feel like it.  You also don't get XP for defeating monsters.  Rather, you get XP for advancing the story's plot.  When the GM wants to screw with you (known as a GM intrusion), she offers you 2 XP.  You take one and give the other XP to another player at the table.  If you don't want the terrible thing to happen, you can pay one XP to the GM to avoid it, though this is frowned upon.
3. Your strength is also your hit points - Players have three stats in the cypher system: might, intellect, and reflex.  You do extraordinary things by adding effort to your rolls, but adding effort also takes from your character's might, reflex, or intellect.  So, applying effort on a might-based skill actually means that your character will be giving up hit points to perform an action.  It's an interesting mechanic that really makes a player think about how doing something will affect your character's survival.

Usual rules apply: no details on the adventure.  I will say that I got the chance to be a particle physics grad student by day and a go go boy by night.  I also got an opportunity to pretend to be an interpretive dancer when infiltrating a cult.  I went a little far on this one and ended up being "that guy" at the table.  To my fellow players, I apologize.  To Austin, thank you for cluing me in that I needed to rein it in a little.  I'm glad that you got to be the hero on this one in the end!  (Did I mention that we saved the world?)

Also, did I mention that the cosplay at GenCon is amazing?  I have now decided that it's imperative that I create a cosplay vs. drag queens YouTube! compilation.  I'm only shocked that someone else hasn't beaten me to this particular punch.

Cosplay v. Drag Queens is going to be a thing!

It's also time for dinner.  I wander over to the food trucks and also get an opportunity to see the greatest board game of all time: The Cones of Dunshire.  Yes, that game.  Mayfair Games is holding a charity running of the game.  I wasn't willing to pay the $100/head to get in on the game itself, taking pictures for free (well, and picking up a t-shirt) had to be enough for me.

Then, it was time to check out the Film Festival.  I wanted to catch a couple of films.  First, there was a showing of the entire season of Walking in Circles.  It started late and I got a great chance to talk to a nice girl who was hiding out in the viewing room from a crowd of raving zombies.  Someone had organized a giant zombie tag game.  But, the game doesn't happen inside any of the event spaces or in the Exhibit Hall and she was getting some much needed rest from her undead tormentors.  Walking in Circles was fun, but not particularly memorable.

What I've really come to the film festival to see is Gaming in Color, a documentary about homosexuality in gaming culture.  As a Gaymer, I'm interested in seeing how we get portrayed.  The two guys who made it (and who organized the Gaymer X Con in San Francisco) are also present to talk about it on a panel afterwards.  I'm holding off on my review of it as well, because it will make for an entire post.  For now, I'm going to say two things.  First, I'm very glad that this documentary got made because it raises some questions that we should all be looking at for how homosexuals (and all minorities) fit into the gaming world.  Second, I was shocked at how offended one part of it made me and a little bit angry about it.  But more on that later.

Finally, the documentary and the panel are over.  It's almost midnight and I'm a tired puppy.  I hail a cab back to my apartment and fall asleep reading a 13th Age adventure module I picked up the day before.  My Sunday schedule is light and the PFS games start at 9:00 instead of 8:00.  Maybe I'll pick up one with some generic tickets in the morning?

GenCon Recap: Friday, August 15

Finally!  I am awake at a decent hour!  I make it from my apartment down to the convention center with time to spare.  I quickly find a group and we sit down for our morning session.  Although I had fun playing Kygar yesterday, today I'm playing my new Taldan rogue, Averitt.  Named after a band I particularly like, Averitt is a hard core Taldan nationalist.  He believes that the empire is destined to rise again.  Unsurprisingly, he's joined the Taldor faction of the society.  After last night, as a player I'm curious to see how the faction Taldor's being moved into, the Sovereign Court, will play out.

This morning's session is PFS Scenario 6-01: Trial by Machine.  They've said that the new season of PFS won't be over the top on technology.  But I'm excited to see how things play out with integrating Numerian superscience into the metaplot for the season.  The scenario takes place on Absalom, but involves exploring a ruin that's been "redecorated" by a Pathfinder with ties to the Technic League.  We're basically right at the line between upper tier and lower tier, so we decide to play up.  Averitt's only played one scenario before, the opening scenario from Reign of Winter.  Playing up was a great challenge but one piece of advice--THIS SCENARIO IS A KILLER, DON'T DO IT!

No spoilers on the scenario for you!  But, I'd like to tell you how excited I am about the chronicle sheet I got.  Averitt's got an e-pick now!  Numerian ruins, beware!  There's a thief that's going to open you up like an oyster!

Next, it's off to a one-shot session playing 13th Age.  This is my first foray over to play in an independent session.  Those are all over at the J.W. Marriott, which is actually blocks away.  It took me past both the anime and collectable card games portions of the Con.  This really marks how big the Con actually is.  Although I was at a session at the Westin the day before, it's directly across the street from the Sagamore Ballroom, where the Pathfinder Society scenarios are played.  The trip to the Marriott takes about fifteen minutes.  This walk really makes something hit home.  There is so much going on at GenCon that it would be completely impossible to experience all of it.  (I did mean to make it into the card game rooms to check out some games, especially A Terrible Time, which I Kickstarted, but it just didn't happen).

I'm a big fan of 13th Age.  Although also a fantasy-derived system, it has about 1/3 of the math that Pathfinder does.  I played a dark elven sorcerer with connections to the city's underworld.  The session took place in a city dominated by trade and that is therefore hospitable to monsters.  We were employed by a lamia in love with a dwarf.  Her medusa friend turned the lamia's fiance into stone.  She wants him changed back, but on the sly.  We have to procure some ingredients to fix his petrification.

Our GM was a guy named Graham Wills.  I'm unsure if he was British or Australian but can 100% verify that he was awesome!  He really set things up to make playing the game easy on us.  He'd designed character sheets that had all the necessary background info and mechanics so that we needed very little explanation.  That really freed us to focus our time on roleplaying.  Graham was great about creating a story-driven game and he was the perfect type of GM--good at setting the scene and good about creating intrigue but also fantastic at saying, "Yes!"

Without going into details, we got to have an opportunity to put on a play!  The scenario ended well and, honestly, I enjoyed it so much that I'm thinking about GMing a session for DC Game Day next month.  After the session was over, two of the other players accosted me about my Arkansas hat--Pierce and Alyssa are from my home state!  Pierce had come to GenCon solo on a lark the year before, which really helped validate my decision to do so this year.

After 13th Age, I decided it was time to brave the Exhibit Hall.  The Paizo line was long, but I braved it!  I picked up all the stuff.  I had a great time talking with a lot of the Paizo staff.  I also talked to the publisher of 13th Age, Pelgrane Press and picked up a few other things along the way.  I've got a little bit of time, so I hail a cab back to my apartment and drop off my loot.  He agrees to wait and bring me back to the Con.  I have bought too much--this is going to be hell on my bag & on my checking fee!

And now it's time for the end of season scenario for Pathfinder Society.  Khygar's back for this one.  "Spoiler" alert!  The Pathfinder Society has finally found the lost Sky Citadel, Jormundun and it's time to explore it before the demons of the Worldwound have a shot to overrun it.

This was hands down the best group I played with all weekend!  Things were looking rough on finding a group, but slowly but surely things worked out.  First, I met a great couple from Seattle, who were actually using GenCon as their honeymoon.  We had another sweet couple, and another single.  I made number 6.

Our GM was the Venture Captain of Chattanooga, Justin Peters.  He hasn't gotten his official shirt yet.  Note: He deserves it and more!  I got in trouble early on for meta-gaming.  Justin totally kept us on task.  Never before had I noticed how much faster things go if you roll attacks and damage at the same time.  Justin kept us on track and really helped us move through the Sky Citadel at a brisk pace.  And, boy, was it necessary!

Things are going along and we are part of a major work.  All the tables' results are tabulated together and individual sessions get interrupted from time to time to let us know how the overall session is going.  Part-way through the session, we get stopped for an unrelated reason: Paizo has won all the Ennies!  As a celebration, everyone gets a special mini--the Slaver Demon.  James Jacobs himself delivered them to our table.

There's a twist in the scenario, but I'm not telling.  But, our party finishes and nobody dies, which is a relief.  Investigating ancient dwarven ruins is thirsty work, so I decide to head over to Scotty's Brewhouse again.

Yet again I'm drinking alone.  But, then this hot guy sits down next to me.  For the life of me, I have no idea if he's gay or straight or whether he's even hitting on me.  But we chat a bit.  He's from Chicago and he's her Numenera game the following day.  I also meet another GM running a table (either Numenera or the Strange).  His name is Brandon and he runs podcasts related to Numenera and the Strange.  You should check out Transmissions from the Ninth World and Translating the Strange.  Everybody finishes up their drinks and it's back to the apartment for the night!

e visiting from Chicago and he has a huge group.  I met some nice people, including the girl who's supposed to GM my

Enjoy the tale?  Hate it?  Leave comments below!

GenCon Overview: Things Done Right and Wrong

I've been posting lots of my gaming materials and other tips and trips, and I've gotten away from covering my trip to GenCon.  Since GenCon was the main reason for my pilgrimage to Indianapolis, I really ought to get back to covering how the convention went.  So, without further ado, here are 4 things that I'm glad that I did and 5 things that I'll change for my trip next year.

Things I’m Glad I Did

James Jacobs, Adam Daigle, & Rob McCreary

1.  Talked to the Paizo staff: Shocker, I'm a Pathfinder fanboy, so I was thrilled to get an opportunity to interact with the Paizo development and design staff that were present.  Though some of the Paizo staff have indicated that they don't love going to cons, you'd never know from the interactions that I had with them.  Everyone was unfailingly nice and approachable.  On the messageboards, I'd previously asked Creative Director James Jacobs for some advice related to a campaign in Galt.  I got an opportunity to say thanks at the show and he asked how things played out (alas, the PCs aren't there yet, so I had no answer).  I also had a fantastic interaction with Adam Daigle (who is really cute in addition to being a top-notch designer) who talked about how much he enjoys his GenCons...especially after the booth closes at 6:30pm.  The seminar interaction was also top notch.  Having an opportunity to request a short intro guide (5 pages or less) with Wes Schneider was a great opportunity to put some concerns to the people that make the game and to see that other people agreed that this would be useful.  Thanks everyone else that was in the seminar!  The staff were also really honest: it's highly unlikely that we'll see a Campaign Setting book about Trade & Travels that covers what life is like on the road for merchants, highwaymen, and other Gentlemen of the Road anytime soon.  (As an aside, I think Chabon's Gentlemen of the Road would make a fantastic setting!)
2.  Talked to 3^rd Party Publisher Staff: And not just Pathfinder 3rd Party publishers, but all of them.  I loved the opportunity to chat up people at the booths.  The fact that these people also make some of the games that I love was fantastic.  Chris Pramas from Green Ronin was right there and more than willing to chat.  I talked about how excited I am for the forthcoming Advanced Bestiary and he seemed really happy...until he got pulled away to talk to someone that had problems with his work.  The developers and designers of all the game systems were just right there and you really had an opportunity to let them know what you enjoyed about their systems and adventures.  I met a great girl (I've forgotten your name!  I'm so sorry!) at the Kobold Press booth who talked about how fun it is to do development work for them and she was able to show me a lot of her stuff and talk about what inspired it.
3.  Explored other systems: Variety is the spice of life and gaming of every sort is on the menu at GenCon.  My two favorite systems to investigate were The Strange RPG and 13th Age.  The Strange is Monte Cook Games' newest offering in its Cypher System.  It was a Kickstarter project that just published before GenCon.  I'd backed both it and the original cypher system game, Numenera.  In the cypher system, only the players ever roll dice, which really frees up a GM to do what needs doing most: the storytelling.  The Strange takes place in a universe very like our own, except that some people have learned how to harness dark matter to travel to other realities, or recursions.  The session we played, The Eschatology Code, really helped me wrap my head around how The Strange could be moved from a neat concept into an actual playable system.  I got to play the role of a quantum physics grad student by day/go go boy by night and save the world, which was a treat.
   I also got to check out 13th Age, which has a decidedly fantasy focus.  It's character creation system means that characters are immediately tied into the game world and are more story than numbers-based.  If you're a role-player, this is awesome.  If you are a roll-player, RUN AWAY!  Our party formed an impromptu theater troop and made a monster cry with a sad, sad opera.  It was hilarious and so, so, so fun!  Our GM Graham W., was top notch and an expert about saying, "Yes," but then building some real consequences into our actions.
4.  Wore my Arkansas hat: I grabbed my hat at the last second from its shelf.  Arkansans are few in number but large in heart.  Twice during the convention I got hailed just for wearing it.  The hat helped me find two friends on the first night.  GenCon was old hat to them, and I got a listing of tips for surviving GenCon from them (most of which I followed).  Two of my fellow 13th Age players also ended up being from AR and they offered to meet up again the following day.  It also helped that one of them, Peter, had done what I'd done and just up and game to GenCon the year previous.  Having an iconic symbol on your person that connects you to something larger is a great way to help establish quick bonds.  The hat will be among the first things in my bag next year.

Things I’ll Change Next Year

1. Come with friends!  I had a great time this year and got some good opportunities to think.  But, I must admit that I also got a little lonely from time to time.  Next year I will definitely bring at least one friend with me.  We probably won't play all the same games together, but it will be nice to have somebody to meet back up with and (especially) to go to the bar with after things settle down.
2. Closer hotel & no rental car: I stayed almost a mile away from GenCon and that meant an extra half hour trudging to and the con each morning and evening.  Well, each morning.  After 16 hours at Gencon, I cabbed myself home each night because I was exhausted.  Next year I want to be much closer.  I couldn't swing a room at the Westin (that's expensive!), but we're going to stay at the Sheraton, which is only a few blocks away.  Also, I didn't need my rental car at all.  I drove it only to and from the airport.  Next year I'll find taxi/shuttle transport into the city and back to the airport and not bother with a car at all.
3. Run a game: I'm a big fan of giving back and running a game seems like the easiest way to do that.  Pathfinder Society games can be a little intimidating, but running a game is the best way to learn it inside and out.  Rather than trying to GM PFS, I think I'd like to run another system.  I also learned that the smaller publishers love having someone run a game in their system and are pretty liberal with goodies that make the game more fun--and which you can take home with you!
4.  Events: I had no idea what True Dungeon was.  Now I know.  I will go next year.  It MUST happen.
5. Seminar Tickets: I picked up a lot of seminar tickets this year under the theory that they are free.  But guess what: seminars don't really sell out.  You don't need generic tickets to get into the free events that aren't sold out either.  Plus, GenCon's registration program won't let you double book for events.  So, no seminar tickets next year.  Instead I will go ahead and leave those times open or possibly register for something else.

So there you have it.  That's what went right and what I'd change.  With Gencon 2015 a year away, I want to know exactly what I liked in the moment this year to better plan for next.  Oh, and watch out True Dungeon.  I'm gunning for you.

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