A Starfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 1-4.
A vault opens inside the mysterious false moon of Salvation's End, and the Starfinder Society sends in a team of agents to investigate. Although it has discerned little about the vault"s interior, the Society has identified a powerful energy signature near the vault's center. Several factions within the vault clash for control of the area. If the PCs are to succeed at their mission, they'll need to choose a side.
I went into this knowing nothing about it, playing a solider.
And well... we partied hard with the Yeti, getting covered in mud, checking our their recreational pass times and drinking heavily. Everyone got into the whole RP side of it.
Then, after recovering from our hangovers and some of us changing into more respectable attire, we went off to talk to another group. Who also totally just wanted to grow their crops. Luckily we were all for growing vegetables, and even more for eating them. So a meal later we had two sets of allies.
Then... the ghostly swamp. Okay, so those mushrooms looked totally edible...
Anyway, avoiding spoilers, we managed to put the ghost to rest, ate our fill, drank far too much, inhaled the smoke of inspiration and got thoroughly covered in mud.
Not a shot was fired, but everyone had a great time (players and characters)
While I wouldn't want every scenario to be like this one, as a change of pace it was fantastic. Just because you are playing a low skill character doesn't mean you can't have a great time role playing in the vault of Duskmire.
Played on 5/04/2020, Subtier 1-2, 6 Players total.
Fantastic Scenario:
Exciting Sandbox, where you're not forced in any particular direction; become the aggressor, peaceful diplomat, or a mix of both. Lightly based on themes from Maze Runner and The Hunger Games. I highly recommend playing this one and I can't wait to run it in the future.
Questions/Suggestions with SPOILERS:
Hopefully there will be a continuation at some point b/c the experimenters are never revealed; where did that drone originate from anyway. Maybe I missed something, but there wasn't a sense of closure except for the fate of the races therein. I didn't play (or run) SFS #1-09, which might have provided some answers surrounding my quandary (?).
A very fun scenario, with really crazy and surprising NPCs, and a lot of cool interaction.
My first scenario where not a single shot was fired (nor blow exchanged) and I had a ball (though I was mainly a fighter, and no diplomat).
Based on my experiences running and playing at my local gaming store…
I really wanted to like SFS 1-20. The scenario picks up where SFS 1-09 Live Exploration Extreme!! left off on Salvation’s End, so weird things happening in the scenario should be expected. The scenario just fell short for me in terms of both flavor and mechanical execution. I can say that this is the first scenario I’ve rated as 1 star after reviewing every SFS scenario in chronological order of release, and as of SFS 1-35 was my least favorite to play through. The scenario didn’t do everything wrong, but it just missed it for me. Details below.
The good news
Spoiler:
The scenario includes a unicorn with a grenade launcher, which is just a cool thing to say. Cool character aside, the scenario tries (and succeeds) at giving players the option to accomplish the scenario’s main objective without any combat whatsoever. The twists on the various Duskmire races’ normal disposition was also interesting, and further foreshadows immensely powerful magic/tech/something at the heart of Salvation’s End. VC Kunoris Vex was also a nice addition, and somebody I’ll be looking forward to seeing more of in the future.
Where things might’ve gone wrong
Spoiler:
This scenario seemed like a giant sandbox to me, and while normally that’s a plus, it seemed like there was nothing pushing the action in the scenario. After the initial interaction with both the yetis and gnolls, there’s nothing for the PCs to do except make a diplomacy check or begin trying to kill them (unprovoked). While I don’t think combat is the best part about starfinder, in combat at least everybody is participating and making multiple rolls (attacks, saving throws, etc.), whereas the yetis and gnolls can be solved by one PC making one social (diplomacy/sense motive/intimidate) roll, with everyone else maybe trying to aid. Other than the unicorn’s swamp, which was mildly more interesting and felt a little bit more like PC actions mattered in influencing the creature in a way that could actually result in combat, the other two major Duskmire races basically boiled down to a skill check or two (even including modifiers from interaction with the other races).
Spoiler:
The end result of this scenario set up is that “diplomancers”, as another review put it, have a great time. The downside is they take point for nearly every interaction, with characters focused on combat, tech, etc. largely feeling superfluous for almost the entire scenario. Even though there are pseudo-skill challenges (with the yetis and unicorn), other than the unicorn (which can provoke combat) it doesn’t seem like these skill challenges matter outside of adding a few more modifiers to the all-important social skill check roll. Any time a reasonable outcome of a scenario is to have the party soldier, solarian, and maybe even mechanic, operative, technomancer, or mystic twiddling their thumbs for most of the four-hour time slot, the scenario isn’t working.
So the continuation of 1-00 and 1-09 is 1-20, and is still only 1-4? Correct me if I'm wrong, but won't most people who played 1-00 and 1-09 be well past level 4 by the time it comes out?
There are at least two philosophies of featuring a special character or location in scenarios.
1) Continually increase the level range of subsequent adventures so that a specific character can experience each of the adventures sequentially over the course of several seasons.
2) Present adventures in a variety of level ranges without following an ascending level progression.
Model 1 sure is nice for those who want to experience the entire story, and that's most appropriate when there's a very linear story to follow. From a design perspective, it makes it difficult to "backtrack" in levels, even when a lower tier is the better fit for the subject matter; if it isn't constantly increasing in level, some see that as denying individual characters that chance to play every one of those adventures.
Model 2's quite handy when there's not a precise, linear storyline or path through a site. In the case of Salvation's End we're looking at an adventure site that we hope to feature for years to come with new material appealing to a wide level range. That means you'll see some higher level scenarios set there in the future, and after those, we might include another Tier 1–4 because it's the best choice for the subject material, schedule, or both.
Scenario is yet to come, but in event reporting form there is its option - and there are still no such options for Dead Suns IV and V. How is that?
My assumption is that if Dead Suns was SFS legal, players would be able to attain level 9 before GenCon and thereby be unable to play Scoured Stars Invasion...
So the continuation of 1-00 and 1-09 is 1-20, and is still only 1-4? Correct me if I'm wrong, but won't most people who played 1-00 and 1-09 be well past level 4 by the time it comes out?
Organized Play Lead Developer
