Off into the sunset

Yesterday afternoon, I received an email from Mike Brock (aka my Paizo Overlord) where I was notified that it was time for a change of Venture. Long story short (yes its very long with a lot of things), I accepted the offer and became a free man. I posted the following email to the Rocky Mountain Pathfinder Yahoogroup late yesterday.

As I know many of you read this blog but not the Yahoogroup, I will re-post the email here.

Fellow Pathfinders, I'll be blunt. I have been asked to resign from my position as Venture Captain of Colorado, a position I occupied with pride for almost two years. After some thought, I have accepted the offer to resign from the position, effective the moment I send this email. Although I am not happy about having to take this decision, I am at peace with it. If I am to be fully honest, a number of things in PFS no longer kept me as interested as I once was, and I guess it showed. During my time as VC, I saw PFS grow from a one-table a month affair to something you can play almost every day if you wanted to. We have one of the most vibrant and dynamic community in all of PFS-dom, and I'm not afraid to say it. I did not do that alone, I credit the many GMs, the organizers and the many stores who worked with us to get this madness going. I like to think of myself as the grease in the machine that allowed this ballet to happen (yeah, yeah it's kinda pun-ish). But now its time to throw someone else into the grinder. Now I'm sure you all wonder "WHY?" I won't go into into details. I'll keep my official line to "some people lied and exaggerated". Yep "some people" told Mike Brock a lot of lies and unverified lies got me fired without getting a chance to explain or disprove. That is what hurts the most. I want to thank my Venture-Lieutenants, all PFS GMs, all the organizers, all the players, with whom I got to play my tenure, and the store owners who gave us space to play. All this was accomplished by you and your enthusiasm for the game. To my replacement, I will say this: Good luck. About Tacticon: Its business as usual: I'll still be running the event with Bryan and Scott. Don't worry about it. So there you have it... It should come as no surprise that other than Tacticon, I will be passing the organizer's baton to another for all my PFS events (PFS in Cos, PFS at Petries') to focus only on NeoExodus. So if you want to organize events, I will be retiring from them at the end of Tacticon. Since PFS did eat up a large amount of my time, time I now have to focus on other priorities. Did somebody say "NeoExodus Organized Play"??? I still plan on staying around and playing Pathfinder with you all. So that was the big announcement. Colorado PFS now enters its next chapter. JP PS: Please do not inundate Mike's inbox with angry emails, it would not serve any useful purpose. I am surprisingly at peace with the decision imposed on me.

Addendum

Seeing the large number of unhappy people at this announcement, I felt I had to make the following post. The massive wave of support I felt really surprised me and made me feel much better. I knew I had a great group of players, and their posts and kind words mean a lot to me.

However, it is not my intention to start a backlash against Paizo, or see the community break itself apart over this.

Guys, Please do not let my situation change what you were doing. I will ask all of you to keep participating in events being put together AND keep up the spirit and goodwill we built together. I ask each of you NOT to start a witch hunt about "who said what", "who complained", or whatever. I KNOW who is responsible, and chose to forgive them. I'm annoyed and angry about it, but I will get over it. Remember we built this TOGETHER and let's keep playing TOGETHER. Many of us came to PFS because it was the best game out there: because WE MADE IT THE BEST. Also, please support whoever becomes the next VC. He will need all your support and I'm sure has nothing to do with the events surrounding. I already plan on giving him my full support, whoever he will be. JP

There you have it. I am no longer the Colorado Venture-Captain. I turn this page of my life with a sentiment of accomplishment. That it ends this way leaves a sour taste, but the memories and the good times will forever remain etched in my heart.

Some of the accusation leveled against me may just become true! Now I MAY get to run 8 slots of NeoExodus... Or run 5 and play 4 slots of Arcanis!

Now... who wants to play some NeoExodus? I have some free time!

JP