Premier Events for GMs

Here’s the post introducing premier events.

What’s a Premier Event?

A premier event is a Paizo-designated public game day or gaming event that grants more AcP. During one quarter of the year (in other words, for three months out of the year) the event grants extra AcP, as if it were a convention.

What do I need to do to get extra AcP?

Show up and play! But… we do need your support if you’re a GM.

What do I need to do if I’m a GM?

If you’re a GM, we need you to:

  • Know when your event is granting extra AcP, and
  • When it is, use the premier event code on your chronicle sheets instead of the regular event code.

That’s it!

Do we know which quarters we’re getting extra points yet?

Yes! Quarters for the RSP are:

  1. February 1, 2022 – April 30, 2022
  2. May 1, 2022 – July 31, 2022
  3. August 1, 2022 – October 31, 2022
  4. November 1, 2022 – January 31, 2023

We have requested Quarter 1 for our online games, Quarter 2 for our other in-person games, and Quarter 3 for GASP.

Why does this work this way? / I thought I remembered this working differently.

Yep, this is a little different. Paizo initially created the Regional Support Program (or the Game Day Support Program) to support our venues, and to give PFS1 and SFS players and GMs who couldn’t make it to a convention an opportunity to win boons. Organizers were given a packet of boons every February and everyone has a roughly 10% chance of winning a boon every time they play. GMs who run 12 games at a public game day received a race boon to thank them for their support.

There were essentially four levels of support for PFS1 and, originally, SFS:

Home Games > Public Game Days (RSP) > Premier Events (Conventions) > Premier Plus Events (Official Paizo-Supported Conventions, like Gencon)

This model continues for PFS1 now. For Pathfinder 2nd Edition and modern Starfinder Society,  however, Paizo replaced the RSP (those boons) with extra AcP: every time you play or GM, even in a home game, you get points, and you can trade those points in for regular boons or even race boons. That solved the problem of getting everyone boons (especially race boons!), but this also eliminated the extra bonus you get for playing at a public game day. Now, there are only three categories:

Home Games > Premier Events (Conventions) > Premier Plus Events (Official Paizo-Supported Conventions, like Gencon)

So, in order to bring back a bit of a reward for playing in public games, three months of the year a local game day will provide the same AcP as a convention!

Why are we handling this with different event codes? Well, we’re still working around the limitations of the Paizo system a little bit. As far as it knows, an entire event is either premier or not. So in order to get you your extra points, we need to shift events for the duration.