I first dipped my toes into tabletop gaming with a little bit of 3.5 D&D back in college. Years later, after Nick and I got married, we found ourselves facing one of adulthood's greatest dilemmas: spend our tax return on tickets to see Weird Al, or buy the Pathfinder 1st Edition Core Rulebook. Naturally, we chose the "responsible" option, the book that promised endless entertainment instead of a single concert. Twelve years later, I can confidently say that decision has cost us thousands of dollars in books, minis, conventions, crafting supplies, dice, apps, and all the other delightful rabbit holes this hobby opens up. Worth every penny.

What started as a game became a community, and along the way I found some of my closest friends scattered all across the country. Nick and I originally got involved with Organized Play because we struggled to find a consistent home group. Before long, Nick became a Venture Captain, and I ended up in the unofficial role of "Venture Wife." Life eventually pulled us away from Organized Play for a while, and during our hiatus we explored 5th Edition D&D and spent quite a bit of time in various Savage Worlds settings. Then came a move to a new state right at the start of COVID. Suddenly without a social circle, we returned to Organized Play, and once again it introduced us to an incredible community, several home games, and many wonderful people.

During Pathfinder 1st Edition, I earned my 5-Star GM status and spent a lot of time running Kids Track games. I genuinely love having younger players at my tables. Honestly, whether you're young or old, brand new or wildly experienced, there's always room at our tables. Tabletop gaming also led me into a whole collection of adjacent hobbies that bring me joy: miniature painting, terrain crafting, t-shirt making, and dice-making, just to name a few. Now in Pathfinder 2nd Edition, I have an official title as Venture Agent. As much as I enjoy GMing (I'm almost at 3 glyphs!), I may enjoy playing characters even more. I'm currently up to 20 PFS characters this edition, and I love every single one of them... It's not a problem. Really. :)

Les Smartnick has been playing RPGs since around the launch of D&D 3rd Edition, and over the years has tried Shadowrun, Mutants & Masterminds, Trinity, and World of Darkness, among others. He came up through board games, Magic: The Gathering, and Warhammer first, working through a long list of tabletop miniatures and card games that have taken him to conventions across the US and Canada. Most of his RPG experience comes from home games with friends, alternating between playing and running the table.

Les joined the Pittsburgh Lodge in late 2024 to give Pathfinder 2nd Edition a try, started GMing sessions in 2025, and became a Venture Agent near the end of that year.

Outside of tabletop, Les is a longtime video gamer, with Diablo 2 & 3 and the Mass Effect trilogy logging some of his deepest hours. Whether on screen or at the table, he spends almost as much time building characters and classes as he does playing them.

Hi, I'm Katelin, the newest second newest Venture Agent with the Pittsburgh Pathfinder Society. I started playing Pathfinder First Edition over a decade ago in high school. In college I joined, and eventually ran, my school's board gaming and TTRPG social club, where I was exposed to a plethora of systems, mostly through one-shot adventures. That club took up the majority of my social time, and those events and the people I shared them with make up my best college memories.

Graduate school pulled me away from my hobbies for a while, and I lost both the time and the energy to invest in them. I finally finished my degree in 2023, and since then I've been able to rediscover and fall back in love with TTRPGs and board games. My wife, Emily, and I now keep a gaming library that holds over 150 titles.

Nick proposed the idea of GMing to me in 2025, and although I was nervous, I really enjoyed the experience. Emily and I started hosting games for the Pittsburgh Lodge at Halfling's Hideout in May of 2026, and we are excited to get involved and help build the community. The lore and crunch of Pathfinder are what keep me coming back for more.

Hi, I'm Emily! I was always drawn to the idea of board games growing up, but I was unaware of the world that expanded beyond Sorry!, Life, and Skip-Bo. My eyes were opened when my now-wife introduced me to our school's gaming club. I was soon joining in regularly at board game nights, and our board game collection has grown rather steadily since.

What about Pathfinder though?! Ah, once again my wife Katelin had talked about the Pathfinder games she played growing up, those four-hour-plus gaming sessions with role play and adventures. During COVID a couple of friends managed to have a sporadic home game online that eventually morphed into a more steady Pathfinder homebrew. Then Katelin found Pathfinder Society - she tried it first, and I soon followed.

I love the community that Pathfinder Society creates. As a new GM, I look forward to telling the stories and leading new Pathfinder agents on adventures across Golarion.

Hello! I'm Steven, also known online as Shinra.Engineer, which is equal parts career identity, Final Fantasy VII tribute, and an accurate description of my relationship with technology infrastructure.

Before anything else, my family comes first: my wife, our son and daughter, and our two corgis are my greatest pride. By day, I am a sysadmin running IT infrastructure for air-gapped government contracts, high-power computing, and server environments. By night, I am a Professional Dice Dwarf. I don't own enough to be considered a Goblin, but the ones I do own are entirely made of Metal, Stone, or Shiny AF, and I stand by that distinction. I am a self-described connoisseur of kemonomimi, think Thiren, Beastkin, or Demi-Humans.

My tabletop systems of choice are Starfinder 2e, Fabula Ultima, and Pathfinder 2e, with a deep love for CRPGs and JRPGs, anime, and a steady rotation of audiobooks across LitRPG, fantasy, science fiction, and historical fiction. When weather allows, I'm out on my Honda Shadow. I also build small tabletop-adjacent Discord bots as a hobby, including Abyssal Engine for Fabula Ultima play-by-post and Pocketful, a D&D Beyond inventory viewer that pairs with Avrae. And then there is Skyrim, which has owned a piece of my soul since 2011 and shows no signs of giving it back. At least once a year, the bug will find me and put a stranglehold on my mind until I follow the ritual. Every time. There is no escaping it. I've stopped trying.

As a Venture Agent, I focus on supporting our Game Masters, helping newer players find a comfortable seat at the table, and keeping the technical side of the Lodge (and this website) running smoothly so the rest of the team can stay focused on running the bulk of the games. If any of that sounds familiar and up your alley, we're going to get along just fine.

Hello, I'm Ken, the Venture Agent overseeing the Game Masters venue and Karee's husband. While I did introduce Karee to the gaming world, it was Karee who introduced me to Pathfinder and Society play.

I am a longtime TTRPG player and Game Master across multiple systems in a homebrew setting. Society was new to me, and I liked the Pathfinder system. I suppose it reminded me of AD&D 2nd Edition. Considering I found out later that Pathfinder grew out of D&D 3.5, it made sense.

Now, here I am running and playing games in Pathfinder Society. I am not going to hide that I enjoy GMing somewhat more than playing, so don't be surprised if you see me most often behind the GM screen.