I want to use a Pathfinder society scenario in my game, but I don't play in society. My only problem is that society scenarios often include "award players XXX gp" and I have no idea what to do when this happens. Should I just ignore these or do something else?
1 Answer
From the pathfinder society Campaign Guide, Appendix 4, Step 6 (emphasis mine):
Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild play is unlike a standard roleplaying experience. Instead of dividing up treasure among the party, every Pathfinder has access to any piece of loot available in an adventure. (...) In addition, every player who completes a scenario receives a set amount of gold for the scenario that she can spend to acquire items
What this means is that in pathfinder society play, the characters do not get to keep equipment and items found during the adventure. Instead, any rewards are "converted" to gold and items are then available to purchase.
While this reward system makes sense for organized play games by allowing multiple players to have access to a certain item you don't have to do this in standard play (and it makes little sense to do so in a normal campaign).
The simplest way to tackle this in a normal campaign is to award item rewards as you normally would and ignore the "gold conversions" that are made specifically for society play.