Meet Thea Peters, one of Pathfinder Society’s newest 5-star GM, and the first female 5-star GM to boot.

Pathfinder Socialite is a twice monthly series on the Private Companion blog in which we speak with people of interest in the Pathfinder Society Organized Play community, the Venture Officers and 5-star Game Masters whose tireless volunteer efforts make Pathfinder Society possible.

PC: You have the distinction of being the first female 5-star GM. Is it better, in your eyes, that this be singled out and celebrated, or treated just like any other 5-star GM?

I think being a 5 star GM in and of itself is something to be celebrated, however, I think being the first of the women GMs to obtain my 5 star is something that I would think should be celebrated. I think it shows how far the gaming industry has grown that we have women GMs let alone have one that has reached the top of the mountain.

I eagerly await other women GMs getting their 5 star and plan to celebrate just as hard for them as I plan do to for myself.

 

 

 

PC: What is your gaming background, and how did you come to be so invested in the Pathfinder RPG?

My gaming background doesn’t have a lot in it. I started playing in 1995 with a group in college. We played in the subbasement of the fine arts building because one of the other gamers had a key and we could get in any time we wanted to. I remember being intrigued by this new world where I could be a Dwarf and could summersault down hills with my battleaxes and chop up monsters.

There was a period of a few years where I had moved away from a local gaming group and my time was consumed with my marriage and work. However, gaming was always something I was interested in. I played mmorpgs for several years, and once I got the opportunity for a table top game went for it as that is and will always be my first love.

What brought me into Pathfinder was a co-worker. He was having a house warming convention and I got to go. That was the beginning of the addiction or me. It was completely different from anything I had ever played and something that I was able to grasp and understand quickly.

PC: What does being a 5-star GM mean to you?

It means to me that I have obtained a goal that I set for myself. It also means to me that I now have a responsibility to represent women gamers in the industry as best I can in a positive light and not feed into the stereotypes that women gamers seem to have.

PC: Where do you think these lady gamer stereotypes come from? Do you think it is fair that you have to put in extra effort just to be accepted by guys looking for an excuse to dismiss you?

I think the stereotype came from a historical connotation from war-gaming that roleplaying was a guys’ playground and if you were a woman in the gaming room you were merely there to keep the beer and snacks stocked and not to play. I think it has gotten a lot better in that women are more widely accepted in the gaming community, but there is still a long way to go. We still have threads and conversations about how to make women gamers more comfortable in gaming setting.

I don’t think it’s fair, but from a women’s point of view it’s what we’ve always had to do. There is always going to be the guy that doesn’t think we can do what we know we can do. There is always going to be the guy that doesn’t think we know how to play the game or that we should be running tables. On the flip side there are always going to be the females in the gaming arena that feed into those stereotypes and that don’t help to promote women in gaming. But that is what the strong women gamers have to prove, that we are not that stereotype and that we can be just as effective and just as valid in the gaming arena as the guys.

PC: How often do you run PFS games, and how often do you get to play in them?

I have certainly ran games more than played them lately, but that was because I had the goal of obtaining my 5th star.  Playing for me has been mainly slot 0s for local gamedays and our local convention. There has been the occasional time where I’ve been at a convention and gotten to play though.

PC: You’ll be at PaizoCon and GenCon, you are studying Health Information Management, and presumably you have some kind of personal life. Where do you find the time for all of this?

We’re supposed to have a personal life? Oops. For me I have been able to my project management class and apply that along with time management to how I organize how I do things. I’ve been told that I’m super organized; I have to be if I’m going to be able to get it all in.

I prep ahead, anything I have printed out I keep so that I can quickly grab the scenario again if I need it. I’ve used map drawing as a way to distress from work or school.

PC: What attracted you to Pathfinder Society organized play?

It was gaming; I hadn’t had a face to face gaming group in close to 10 years, so it was a way to get out there within my newly single life and meet people and make new friends.

PC: What are some of the advantages and other differences PFS play has over play at home?

I think the big disadvantage that people have shared on the forums is some of the restrictive aspects to society play vs being able to make home rules; however, for me I like the restrictiveness and that is probably what has helped me thrive as a PFS GM. So while others may see that as a disadvantage, for me it is certainly an advantage

I think the largest advantage PFS has is the community. We drive each other to be better and to do better and bigger. That is something that you don’t necessary have in a home game.

PC: Tell us about the Shared GM Prep Google Drive.

The Google Drive is something that happened almost on accident. Someone else on the forums actually started the original thread asking if there was a shared collective of resources for GMs to prep with; that eventually became the Share Google Drive.

The Google Drive is something that I hope becomes a GMs go to place when they start to prep a scenario, or to have the resource available should the undesirable happen and a GM has to run something cold – we’ve all been there, running a scenario cold and having to figure out stat blocks and templates on the fly; it sucks. Now GMs have this resource to go to where, hopefully, there are template stat blocks for monsters and other helpful items for each scenario.

There are only two standards for the Drive… if you borrow from it, you need to add to it and you can’t upload the actual scenario. Other than that I intend and hope that it becomes completely community driven. The fact that it has grown as much as it has is a testament to the online community as they have made it what it is, and will make it what it will eventually become.

PC: What are some of your favourite PFS memories?

There are so many memories that I have made over the course of my PFS career that they number way too many to even begin to count them. Sufficed to say those memories wouldn’t have happened without the friends that I made along the way. I have been very lucky to have found a great core group of convention friends that ranges from Michigan to Wisconsin to Missouri and Illinois and Indiana and even Australia.

Without these people I would not have gotten a chances to GM (Ty Doug Miles), I wouldn’t have learned some hard lessons on how to handle difficult people (Kyle Baird), and I just simply wouldn’t have had the experience to travel outside my little world in Iowa and see other parts of the U.S.

PC: What lessons have you learned from the PFS community?

The biggest lessons have been tolerance and being flexible. Before I started GMing and running Pathfinder I can honestly say that I was not the most tolerant person in the world. In order to run games and be at a convention you have to be tolerant of people from all corners and walks of life.

The flexibility comes in from a willingness and desire to make PFS the best it can possibly be and to be rigid in what you are willing to do isn’t going to do that. As a GM you have to be willing to step in and do things you weren’t prepared to do.

PC: If you could change one thing about PFS, what would it be?

I think if there was one thing I could change it would be the presence of more women gamers at conventions. I think this is a population that is growing slowly, but women are still outnumbered and I would love to see that change.

PC: What is a highlight of your PFS experience?

I think the highlight of my PFS experiences will always have to be getting a personal congratulations from Jason Buhlman on getting my 5th star. I wonder how many of our other 5 stars can say that? Getting to go out with Mike Brock and Wes Nicholson and a bunch of other guys after getting my 5th star was also one of my highlights.