This group is dedicated to playing Paizo's Pathfinder Society organized play campaign online via virtual tabletops (VTT). The Online Collective is a place for people who want to enjoy Pathfinder Society play using online real-time tools.

What is the Pathfinder Society?

On Golarion, the world of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, the Pathfinder Society is an organization of explorers, vagabonds, sages, and treasure hunters determined to plumb the depths of the darkest tombs, and collect relics and lore from bygone ages. Every member shares one common dream: to contribute to the Pathfinder Chronicles, printed editions of secret lore coveted by the Society wherein only the most impressive finds and bravest exploits of the Pathfinders are immortalized.

Pathfinders are a diverse bunch of scoundrels and wanderers. Their loyalties lie on all shores of the Inner Sea, and beyond their adventures as Pathfinders, they often find themselves mixed up in the murky politics of Absalom and the nations who seek to control the City at the Center of the World from behind the scenes. The campaign centers on the sprawling city of Absalom, where factions engage in a shadow war for control of the city's politics and economy.

In Pathfinder Society Organized Play, you play a member of the Pathfinder Society, seeking fortune and glory all over the face of Golarion. At the same time, your character works for one of the competing factions, all with their own motivations and secret agendas.

Pathfinder Society Organized Play is a constantly evolving mega-campaign played by thousands of players and the adventures you experience are shared by players around the world. Play is organized into Seasons, throughout which the actions and achievements of you and your fellow Pathfinders create an ongoing storyline. Each season consists of at least 28 Pathfinder Society scenarios (short, 4-hour adventures) set in a variety of exotic locations across Golarion.

What Do I Need to Play?

In order to participate in the Pathfinder Society organized play campaign online, you’ll need a copy of the Core Rulebook, a character sheet, a computer capable of running a virtual tabletop and a mic or headset.

You’ll need to get a PFS number to play, as this will track your play officially. You can obtain a PFS number through the Pathfinder Society section of Paizo's site. (Click on the "Register Your Character" link to the right.)

You’ll need to make sure that your character uses only material that has been approved for organized play. This link details everything outside of the Core rule book that is legal.

Any player options outside of the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook require the player to own a copy of that material and be able to present it to the GM at the table. While we rarely check ownership due to practical concerns in the online collective, be aware that you may very well be required to prove ownership of material when playing locally.

You'll need to find a thread where a GM is offering a game in a time slot that works for you and sign up FAST. Some signups will involve posts in the thread on the collective, while others will involve signing up on an external site like Warhorn. When signing up players should include their class, level, pathfinder society number, a link to an electronic version of your character sheet, and an icon/token for their character if necessary for the program.

You'll need to have roughly 4-5 hours free to commit to the game.

Once you have played a game you will need to track your character's expenditures and advancement on the Chronicle Sheets that the GMs will send you after the completion of each scenario.

What Do I Need to GM?

You'll need everything that a player would need, a general knowledge of the rules of the game, and a copy of one of the Pathfinder Society Scenarios or Sanctioned Modules designed for organized play.

You'll need to build that scenario or module into a playable format including maps and icons for antagonists within a VTT of your choice.

You'll need to test well ahead of time that a player is able to connect to your machine for the game you intend to host. Port forwarding and firewall rules have been a nasty surprise at the last minute for many first time online GMs.

You'll need to post a new thread to the group detailing the scenario, date, time and software you will be using for the VTT and chat.

You will need to create and report the event on Paizo's website.

You will need some means of sending each player a signed copy of the Chronicle Sheet for the game you have hosted. Typically GMs fill out the sheets locally, scan them and email the sheet to each player. As long as the sheet has your initials in the appropriate places and the players get a copy you can arrange that in any way that works for you.

Anything Special I Should Know About This Mailing List?

We have a couple rules to make the mailing list run smoothly. They can be found in the first post of this thread. Please take a moment and look them over before posting. Also, your first post will be moderated to make sure that you're not a spam bot. If you don't see your post right away, that's okay! This list is moderated by human beings who isn't always online. They will get to your post as soon as reasonably able.

Additional Resources:

Virtual Tabletops (VTTs):

Roll20 - Free, and the most commonly used VTT recently

RPTools Maptool - Free and Open Source, Java based, waning use.

Tabletop Open RPG (TTopRPG) - Free

D20Pro - Free 30 day trial, or free to play if the GM has guest slots.

Fantasy Grounds - Paid Licenses Only (though a GM with the Ultimate license can host for players without one)

PFS Online Play History - A spreadsheet detailing who has played what for GM reference in choosing scenarios.

I think we've all seen this table at least once...

Ken Burnside

Matthew Paluch