Ghlorofaex

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RPG Superstar Season 9. RPG Superstar 6 Season Star Voter, 8 Season Star Voter, 9 Season Star Voter. Organized Play Member. 197 posts (1,171 including aliases). 4 reviews. 2 lists. 1 wishlist. 10 Organized Play characters. 3 aliases.



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A strong start to a much-anticipated AP

5/5

Perspective: I played this as a ysoki mystic, alongside two envoys (half-orc and human), an uplifted bear mechanic, an android technomancer, a vesk soldier, and a ysoki operative. Everyone was part of the same crew, but one or two people were absent each session, bringing it to 6 players for most games.

I was pulled into science fiction by Firefly, so this adventure path is one I’ve been chomping at the bit to play since the Starfinder system was announced. As the introduction to this AP, We’re No Heroes faced the Herculean task of capturing my nostalgia for flying aboard Serenity, getting me hooked on the new overarching narrative without it seeming too derivative, and being a mechanically engaging adventure for 1st level PCs all at once. I’ll do my best to address each of these points without spoilers, but suffice to say the end result went above and beyond my expectations.

Atmosphere/Nostalgia: This adventure has everything a fan of the “space trader” genre could want, expertly molded into the Starfinder setting. I was worried about how important interplanetary shipping would be in a setting where anything can be crafted from UPBs, but the jobs all make sense and tie into the local lore beautifully. The Starfinder setting can be overwhelming at times, but this adventure taps into the coolest parts of the various locales enough to bring the story to life without getting the PCs bogged down in the details. The title is apt; PCs aren’t supposed to be warriors, and even the required combats align with the needs of the genre without expecting the PCs to be selflessly heroic. Overall, this adventure has working-class struggles and held-together-with-chewing-gum survivalism in spades. I’m curious to see how well this lasts in a system closely tied to the value of your gear, but the first installment definitely makes you feel like a cog in the corporate machine, forced to do your job no matter how much you resent the machine because the alternative is starvation.

Original Narrative: The plight of the EJ-Corp teamsters is noteworthy in just how many tough decisions the players have to make. Paizo’s APs have a good track record of providing realistic consequences to the PCs’ decisions, but in many cases the good/bad outcomes align with the nature of the AP’s themes. Acts of mercy and justice have the (predictably) highest payoff in Wrath of the Righteous, alienating your fellow crew members makes The Wormwood Mutiny more difficult, etc. In this adventure, there are a lot of situations where there is no right answer. Many times the PCs are faced with the decision to choose between a sympathetic NPC or their own bottom line, with notable penalties for choosing the former. Though it’s too soon to say how those decisions may impact the story down the road, the direct hit to the PCs’ heartstrings (morally or financially) definitely makes you invested in seeing this through. The one gripe that does come up from this story is that, as a “trucker” plot with a strong economic undertone, most of those tough decisions arise from parts of the job “going bad” for reasons the PCs cannot control. This didn’t bother me (things not going according to the gorram plan is what made Firefly fun to watch), but some of our players felt like they were being forced to fail. The GM needs to do a bit of extra work to take the sting off of this dynamic, otherwise reward-hungry players will likely become frustrated. That said, the storytelling is compelling and definitely left us hungry to see what happens next.

Mechanics: Low-level play in Starfinder can be difficult to glorify, especially when the adventure genre expects the PCs to be at or below the poverty line. I knew this going in, and was pleasantly surprised by how amazing the “set piece” encounters turned out. The author squeezed a lot of awesome out of relatively straightforward mechanics, leading to some interesting combats with cinematic outcomes. A few of the combats did seem perfunctory, but some of that is expected in any low-level RPG. My main gripe was the degree to which XP gain outpaced credit rewards, though that may have been a necessary step keep the working-class feel.

Overall: We’re No Heroes is an outstanding springboard for a much-anticipated Starfinder AP. I could not have been more thrilled with how our campaign began, and if the rest of Fly Free or Die plays out as well as this installment did, it will be one of the most satisfying APs Paizo has to offer.


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Simply Unbeatable

5/5

As a disclaimer, I wrote the Adventure Card Game entry for this issue. While I appreciated the opportunity to experiment with ACG design, I predominantly play the Pathfinder RPG, so I'll be speaking mostly to the value of this installment's content for GMs and players. That being said, "valuable" is an egregious understatement when it comes to the material provided in Wayfinder #18.

For a game with a cultural and mechanical legacy as expansive as the Pathfinder RPG, one of the best compliments I can give a content writer is to immediately think, "How does this not already exist?" I was stunned how often this thought crossed my mind while reading this issue of Wayfinder. The most obvious examples arise from the Bestiary, which includes fairy tale and urban legend classics ranging from the Hidebehind to the Big Bad Wolf. Spells like fey road and liar's light seem like they should already be a core part of any fey spellcaster's arsenal, masterfully applying game mechanics to frequently-used fairy tale tropes. The authors clearly did their homework, and even hardcore Brothers Grimm traditionalists will find something to love in the pages of this issue.

This is not to say Wayfinder #18 spurns fresh ideas for the sake of nostalgia. The new content effortlessly expands the scope of the First World without ever feeling like it's gone too far. In the Bestiary, new spins on old favorites (e.g. the Gravestone Dryad and the Poppy Leshy) expand a GM's options while maintaining similar themes, while brand new monsters like the Tintargurill offer GMs tools for fitting supernatural fey into a realistic ecosystem without compromising the fantasy flavor. Archetypes allow spiritualists to be haunted by bogeymen, anti-paladins to draw power from First-World patrons rather than fiends, and so on, all providing fresh new rules to vex players while still fitting the mold of the fey to a T. Perhaps my favorite article in the whole installment is the Gerbie Corruption - never before have I considered a cartoonish adherence to nonviolence and whimsy so threatening, and yet I read it and thought, "Of course this should be a corruption! It makes perfect sense!"

Perhaps more than any Wayfinder to date, every page is oozing with flavor. The short adventure that opens the issue reads like it fell out of a Brothers Grimm volume, allowing players to bid for others' memories at the cost of the things that make them who they are (e.g. their eye color). The fiction is simultaneously frolicsome and horrifying, drawing the reader deeper and deeper into a wondrous tale that they know won't end with Happily Ever After.

Given how frequently fey pop up in Pathfinder games and Paizo adventures, every single GM (and likely several players) could enrich their game with the contents of this fanzine at a price that is simply unbeatable (namely, zero dollars). I cannot recommend Wayfinder #18 highly enough to anyone who has ever played, GMed, or even heard of a tabletop roleplaying game.


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For Cutthroats and Kings Alike

5/5

I submitted an article to Wayfinder #15, but it didn't make it into the final product. I was disappointed at first, but when I read the installment I realized why my entry didn't make the cut: the quality of this issue's content is some of the best I've seen in the series to date.

Although it's difficult to capture the diversity of the River Kingdoms in fewer than 80 pages, Wayfinder #15 avoids falling into the trap of becoming a fanzine focused exclusively on Daggermark, Tymon, or any of the area's noteworthy locales. Most of the material within applies to the entire region, ranging from the flora and fauna of the Sellen River to the Kingdoms' two unique faiths. Low-cost consumables, particularly poisons and alchemical equipment, make up most of the new items available, though PCs will also find archetypes and feats to help them survive in the rough-and-tumble province. Tons of descriptive content provides GMs with tools to make the River Kingdoms come alive, from anthems of the river folk to NPCs and destinations to flesh out the local way of life. The fiction within is engaging and heartbreaking, with many short-stories reminding readers why life in the lawless riverlands tends to be brutal and short.

Perhaps the best material, however, supplements the Kingmaker Adventure Path and other kingdom-building campaigns. One archetype will easily appeal to players hoping to conquer the Stolen Lands, and every side trek and sample encounter provides GMs with ways to freshen up the AP's exploration components. This issue is a must-have for anyone playing Kingmaker with experienced gamers, or for GMs re-running the campaign and hoping to shake things up.

I look forward to every installment of Wayfinder because the quality and ingenuity of Paizo's fan base never ceases to amaze me. Whether you already own issues 1-14 or you're just learning about the fanzine now, Wayfinder #15 will remind you just how much talent and brilliance the Pathfinder community can muster.


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Great Encounters, Somewhat Disjointed

4/5

Perspective: GMed this for a brawler 5, inquisitor 5, swashbuckler 2, warpriest 4, and witch 2. The group earned both prestige points as well as the bonus boon.

Accolades:
  • Excellent use of maps: Not only did the author provide an original, easily drawn map brimming with flavor and interesting mechanics, but he used the pre-published flip-mat to its maximum capacity. Our group used the flip-mat for a cat-and-mouse stealth encounter, but the setup possessed all the necessary features to make combat and/or roleplaying-based approaches exciting as well.
  • Numerous roleplaying opportunities: The author provided PCs with opportunities to interact with law-bound administrators, vulnerable allies, disillusioned agents, hostile guards, defensive refugees, and even monsters that wouldn’t normally play nice with adventurers. The NPCs and their motives are well-described, making the cast of characters a valuable asset for GMs attempting to breathe life into the Chelish atmosphere.
  • Interesting rewards: All of the items that the PCs can find during the earlier parts of the scenario play into the final dungeon, expanding the PCs’ repertoire against some potentially dangerous foes. The chronicle sheet has some interesting options without being too pricey, and the heavy use of Ultimate Equipment (at least at high tier) makes this a valuable scenario for Core Campaign players. The bonus boon is quite flavorful and useful for low level PCs.

Mixed Blessings:
  • Spoiler-free: This adventure goes to great lengths to keep the events in “Faithless and Forgotten” part 2 and part 3 secret, which is nice for PCs who want to play out the mystery but problematic for GMs who don’t necessarily understand the continuity for NPC motivations, political undercurrents, etc. If possible, I highly recommend that GMs read through the other parts of this trilogy before playing this scenario, since they can help solidify the more mysterious workings within the narrative and guide answers to PC questions.
  • Few required combats: Diplomatic and observant PCs can talk their way through almost every encounter. While this may feel rewarding to the roleplay-heavy classes, combat-focused players may feel unfulfilled. Also, PCs who use nonviolent approaches can easily avoid spending any resources up until the final encounter, which allows the PCs to unload all of their tricks on the final boss (we had no trouble with this because the higher subtier boss is quite threatening, but the lower subtier may seem underwhelming under these circumstances).

Shortcomings:
  • Disconnected encounters: The scenario essentially plays out at two separate halves (an urban bureaucracy/subterfuge and a standard dungeon crawl), and the first half can be further subdivided into a scene spent recruiting a Society asset and a scene spent following up on some suspicious activity. Although all the sections retain some ties to the overarching narrative, each one plays out essentially independently, which gives the whole scenario a jerky, fragmented feel. GMs can somewhat offset this with some background reading about Cheliax, major players within the Society, overarching plotlines, etc., but it still feels like this extra work is necessary to shore up holes rather than enhance the game experience.
  • Wasted words: A lot of the scenario reads like a novel instead of a game. The scenario contains a surplus of read-aloud text, even in locations with little mechanical relevance and encounters where the PCs are just passive observers. I expect that much of this text is devoted to setting the scene for the trilogy’s overarching themes, but it still felt like those words could have been used to build ambience in a manner that involved the PCs as active participants.

Overall: This scenario was a treat to run, and I expect even new GMs would not find it terribly difficult to make this adventure come alive. Encounter mechanics worked well and each individual piece of the scenario excelled at accomplishing its self-contained goals. However, the strained connections between scenes left us feeling that this scenario was juggling a few too many balls at one time. This is somewhat expected for the intro to a 3-part series. Trying to set the stage for a prolonged narrative while simultaneously creating an impactful, self-contained adventure is a tall order, and several first installments of 3-part scenarios suffer from the same problems I’ve outlined above. Still, the scenario was an enjoyable opportunity to explore unfamiliar territory.

Final verdict is 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4 because I know—and love—the overarching plot. I recommend saving this scenario until you can play all three parts in order; the trilogy is definitely greater than the sum of its parts (which are still pretty darn solid individually).