A Venture Officer (VO) is responsible for the part of Paizo Organized Play Programs (POP). Currently, Pathfinder Society (second edition) and Starfinder Society are active POP programs. Pathfinder Society (first edition) and Pathfinder Society Adventure Card Society are legacy POP programs. Our goal is to provide a fair, safe, and entertaining campaign for the greatest number of players. Since VOs are the experts in what works best in their communities, this framework can be tailored to best fit the needs of the local community.
The goal of this handbook is to help you refine your approach and understand your responsibilities to best meet the needs of Organized Play, players, venues, conventions, and Game Masters (GMs).
Note - The VO Handbook will continue to be revised based on changes to requirements or requests for updates from the Venture-Officer Corps.
1.1. How this Guide was Created
In mid-2020 the VO Handbook Task Force shared an initial draft of the guide with the entire VC and RVC community. It was much shorter and quite different than what you see here. Based on the extensive feedback we received, we reassessed the community's needs and rewrote the entire document. These revisions then underwent incremental rounds of feedback and conversation with the VC community.
The initial version of the VO Handbook is the result of those efforts. By fostering a dialogue with the VC community, the authors of this guide aimed to better understand the needs of the VO corps and to cultivate a sense of shared ownership of the guide — both now and going forward.
1.1.1. Improving the Guide
To give us feedback, any member of the public can visit our Handbook Ticketing System to open an issue; tickets will be tracked and resolved within that system, and you will receive an email with a link to check on its status. VOs can also start an informal discussion with the Taskforce on our Discord Channel. Changes will be noted in the changelog after they are deployed.
1.2. How to Use this Guide
This guide is different from a methodology. A methodology is a system of practices, techniques, and rules used by those who work in a discipline. Instead, this guide serves as the foundation upon which VOs can build their own methodologies, tools, and techniques. Beyond the policies that all events must adhere to (such as the Code of Conduct), VOs are encouraged to tailor how they apply the knowledge in this guide to their own region — after all, every community is different.