[Spoilers] The Season 7 Railroad


Pathfinder Society

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Shadow Lodge 4/5

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If you asked me last season, I would have said pathfinder society scenarios, on a whole, are well written and fun, and that I was a fan of PFS. Now, I'd say pass me the plunger, this steaming pile of poo is clogging up my toilet. I came to his realization this morning, as I finished playing through 7-23. Every season 7 scenario I played, I thought to myself, well this one isn't very good, but the next one will be better. After 23 times, I have to admit to myself, no the next one probably won't be better, maybe it's time to give up.

Let me break it down. It's not that the stories are bad this season, the quality of stories in season 7 is still good.

It's not that the scenario ideas are bad. Most of the setups for this season have sounded intriguing, they could have been good/fun scenarios.

The horrendous stench comes from the crippling restraints that the scenarios have put upon GMs and players alike. It feels like playing a video game with invisible walls everywhere, and they haven't even bothered to make a fence or something, you just run into the air every other turn you make. Obstacles are given a set solution to overcome them, nothing else is allowed. You want to sneak pass this combat? The lowest party member rolled a 40 on their stealth check? Sorry it says right here that these human guards have a +9 perception, but they spot you from 200 feet away, at night. If you had failed a DC20 stealth check, then they would have seen you at 400 feet. Roll initiative.
Rollplaying, puzzles, investigation, it's all been replaced by skill challenges. Roll a die, did you beat the DC? Excellent, let me read off this result from the chart? What? you were trying to sneak into the office and not the warehouse? Too bad, the chart says that succeeding at that bluff check gets you into the warehouse, and you find this mcguffin you weren't even looking for. You wanted to go to the office? Sorry, the scenario says you can't go there until tomorrow, even though it's right there across the street.
I'm tired of apologizing to players when I run a season 7 scenario, that they can't do something because the scenario writer doesn't want them to. I'm tired of being shut down as a player because I go on top of the rail car instead of through it and even that minor deviation is explicitly disallowed by the module.

I don't know what's happened, there was a few bad scenarios like this from previous seasons, but now every single one this season is rotten. As a GM, I feel insulted that the writers don't trust me to handle the players ideas. As a player, I feel frustrated at the constant arbitrary breaking of rules and lack of choice. I like PFs, I don't want to just throw up my hands and say I quit. But I'm sick of being treated like an idiot; I'm not going to continue playing a game if it treats it's player base with so little respect.

Shadow Lodge 4/5

gnoams wrote:
Roll a die, did you beat the DC? Excellent, let me read off this result from the chart? What? you were trying to sneak into the office and not the warehouse? Too bad, the chart says that succeeding at that bluff check gets you into the warehouse, and you find this mcguffin you weren't even looking for. You wanted to go to the office? Sorry, the scenario says you can't go there until tomorrow, even though it's right there across the street.

I'm curious which scenario you're referring to with this bit. I've played/GMed (or at least read) most of Season 7, and I haven't come across anything like this.

Would you care to elaborate?

3/5

gnoams wrote:


The horrendous stench comes from the crippling restraints that the scenarios have put upon GMs and players alike. It feels like playing a video game with invisible walls everywhere, and they haven't even bothered to make a fence or something, you just run into the air every other turn you make. Obstacles are given a set solution to overcome them, nothing else is allowed. You want to sneak pass this combat? The lowest party member rolled a 40 on their stealth check? Sorry it says right here that these human guards have a +9 perception, but they spot you from 200 feet away, at night. If you had failed a DC20 stealth check, then they would have seen you at 400 feet. Roll initiative.
Rollplaying, puzzles, investigation, it's all been replaced by skill challenges. Roll a die, did you beat the DC? Excellent, let me read off this result from the chart? What? you were trying to sneak into the office and not the warehouse? Too bad, the chart says that succeeding at that bluff check gets you into the warehouse, and you find this mcguffin you weren't even looking for. You wanted to go to the office? Sorry, the scenario says you can't go there until tomorrow, even though it's right there across the street.
I'm tired of apologizing to players when I run a season 7 scenario, that they can't do something because the scenario writer doesn't want them to. I'm tired of being shut down as a player because I go on top of the rail car instead of through it and even that minor deviation is explicitly disallowed by the module.

When a scenario does something not legal, or breaks reality too mcuh. I ignore the set rules and let the players play.

As a DM I have a rule to avoid saying no. If the players want to do something I will make up the rules to let them, or modify what is there.

I will often reward players with things they serve no mechanical benefit. One player freed a glaberzu on the promise they would drink together(he did not know it was evil). So guess what all this alcohol appeared and they had a drink together before he went on his evil ways. This is a way to turn that choo choo into something else. Yes they are on the train but as a Dm that knows the specific PCs at the table you throw in detours that have no mechanical effect. I even write these on chronicle sheets.

Dming is the illusion of choice. Sometimes the scenarios are written in a way that the illusion is near impossible to maintain. My suggestion is to try different things experiment with adding things. No player will ever complain about a scenario you made more fun for them.

The Exchange 4/5 5/5

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I don't think I've had anything like your experiences with Season 7.

I've probably GMed half or more of the scenarios at this point and I can't think of any situations where you were "forced" into a specific path this season that didn't exist last year. Sure there's still secret doors you won't find unless you make perception checks. But there's no particular railroading that I have seen this season more than others.

I will say that a lot of scenarios go to great pains to put in suggested checks. Like you might need to impress someone and the scenario says "you can do A, B, C, D, or E" where earlier seasons might have just given a DC to impress. These aren't really limiters, you can do something analogous. I can see where some GMs might take it quite literally as an inclusive list, though. And if you want to find the age of a relic the scenario might tell you that knowledge history or a particular craft check works. But if someone pulls out a scroll of legend lore that ought to work too.

The only issue I have is that in one scenario I've run a few times the assumption is that the players do "A" or "B." One time my table took option "C" which was the unexpected "wait and do nothing." As the outcome was quite important I called for a restroom break so I could figure out how to work it into the scenario.

I'm not sure what in 7-23 you're talking about in particular. I mean there's one sentence that even explicitly says "if the PCs formulate a plan to [spoiler], run with such creativity."

Silver Crusade 5/5

Kevin Willis wrote:

I don't think I've had anything like your experiences with Season 7.

I've probably GMed half or more of the scenarios at this point and I can't think of any situations where you were "forced" into a specific path this season that didn't exist last year. Sure there's still secret doors you won't find unless you make perception checks. But there's no particular railroading that I have seen this season more than others.

I will say that a lot of scenarios go to great pains to put in suggested checks. Like you might need to impress someone and the scenario says "you can do A, B, C, D, or E" where earlier seasons might have just given a DC to impress. These aren't really limiters, you can do something analogous. I can see where some GMs might take it quite literally as an inclusive list, though. And if you want to find the age of a relic the scenario might tell you that knowledge history or a particular craft check works. But if someone pulls out a scroll of legend lore that ought to work too.

The only issue I have is that in one scenario I've run a few times the assumption is that the players do "A" or "B." One time my table took option "C" which was the unexpected "wait and do nothing." As the outcome was quite important I called for a restroom break so I could figure out how to work it into the scenario.

I'm not sure what in 7-23 you're talking about in particular. I mean there's one sentence that even explicitly says "if the PCs formulate a plan to [spoiler], run with such creativity."

I've had the same experience as Kevin. I ran 7-21 and the bulk of the scenario is "here's what you have to do, how do you want to do it?"

4/5 5/55/55/5 *** Venture-Lieutenant, Minnesota—Minneapolis

Mitch Mutrux wrote:
I've had the same experience as Kevin. I ran 7-21 and the bulk of the scenario is "here's what you have to do, how do you want to do it?"

Sun Orchid Scheme is 7-21. I've run it twice already, each time it comes off a little differently. It has several places where it suggests you get creative -- including inventing complications that fit with what happens.

I can think of a lot of Season 7 scenarios where I suspect the results will vary widely based on who GMs it. I do think that several take more preparation on the part of a GM than previous scenarios. The type of preparation isn't so much mechanics as how to fit them into your style of play. You have rough outlines for NPC personalities, fitting them together with the story can take a bit of work.

Overall, I've enjoyed the Season 7 scenarios quite a bit.

Silver Crusade 5/5 5/5 **

The OP is definitely overstating things but there is certainly a kernel of truth hidden in the hyperbole.

I certainly recognize several of the scenarios from his descriptions of the railroads. Which isn't a good thing.

I've run exactly two season 7 scenarios within the last week, so I'll use them as examples of railroading. To Judge a Soul parts 1 and 2. Even though the following are in Spoiler comments I'm deliberately being somewhat vague.

Yes, a GM can ignore some of the railroading if they want to and are willing to bend the "Run as written" Mantra.

To Judge a Soul Part 1 Railroading:
There is lots of railroading here.

The entire social portion set in Ayajinbo expects the PCs to pursue their goals in very specific ways. They have to give specific information to even get in, then they have to make set social checks in set order to win over their targets. It is very hard to roleplay it so that the given approach even seems reasonable let alone the ONLY way as written

The combat at the village also assumes that the PCs will decide to fight on the map. Two of the times that I've run this (out of I think 4) the PCs wanted to fight elsewhere. Its a large map to draw to not use :-(

To Judge a Soul Part 2 Railroading:

There was arguably excessive railroading in the aftermath of the first encounter. Some <redacted> appear menacingly and the PCs actions are then basically scripted for them. My characters reacted differently than expected and I had to shove them back onto the tracks reasonably quickly. In fairness, not following the tracks and then being forced onto them was hilarious for me and all the players involved (as all the players knew exactly what was going on)

My problem with that scenario is related but not quite railroading. It is how much it just ignored actual Pathfinder mechanics to tell the story it wanted to.

To Judge a Soul Part2 Ignoring Rules for Story:
The encounter in B5 explicitly lists as options things that are totally not allowed by Pathfinder rules. When I run it I explicitly tell players that they can try things that should have no chance of success because otherwise, uh, why would they?

And the possessed Yeti was mechanically wrong in several respects

Shadow Lodge 4/5

so I was trying to avoid being spoilery. Maybe it's just me and the people I play with getting burned out, but I can't think of a single season 7 scenario where nobody at the table complained about it. The bulk of season 7 scenarios do claim to be "here's what you have to do, how do you want to do it?" but they then go on to provide pages of heavy handed rulings binding gm and players hands from doing it any way but the one the scenario writer wants. So if you ignore the arbitrary ruling and made up mechanics just for that one scenario, then they might be better, but we shouldn't have to ignore or change the scenarios to make them fun.

sun orchid scheme:
so the forced combat stealth check example where it gives a distance the enemy see's you and doesn't allow for any other way than attacking the caravan, yeah, that's directly taken from this scenario. This was one of the worst railroad scenarios ever written, because it makes you think like you can plan your own heist, psych, you can't, you just roll checks and do it the way we wrote, there isn't enough info provided to actually let players be creative. When I ran it my players wanted to try sabotaging parts of the caravan as it was being built (not taken into consideration by the scenario). They wanted to join the caravan, make a distraction and break into the safe (the scenario says you attack the caravan, can't go with it as guards even though it just forced you to spend 3 days infiltrating and joining the caravan guard).How about sneaking someone inside to hide in the transport while it's being built (I duno, maybe, there isn't really enough info for the gm to have any idea if that would work). It was missing tons of crucial information like how many guards are there? What are their patrols, how do they respond to threats, you know, information you'd think any good criminal would research before starting their heist (seriously, the author should have gone and watched some heist movies before writing this) Even basic info like how long is the trip is not provided (I don't how long it is, but it doesn't matter because you have to attack them at this one map location we provided).

abducted in aether:
I play a lot of slot 0s with with other gms prepping to run these at local events or cons. We started this one laughing groaning at the scenario writer's failed knowledge the planes checks, it was mostly just little things in the description text. I don't have a lot to complain about this one, it was just the last one I played, when I realized I haven't liked any of this seasons writing. The big problem was the scenario writer coming up with an interesting idea (having to stab elementals with syringes and pull them out), but failing with their mechanics (it requires a CMB check to pull them out, but the tier 10-11 creatures had a CMD of 52 so even a character specialized in it would need a natural 20 to succeed)

The season 7 games I've enjoyed the most are the ones where, when I read them afterwards to run, I discovered that the GM flat out ignored and changed what was written to make it good. If we, as GMs, have to break the rules of PFs to run a good PFs scenario then something is wrong.

4/5

More entertaining to me have been older scenarios where the railroading doesn't work as intended, which tend to be older scenarios. Just today, I was in Eyes of the Ten and the GM got to a point and said "let me tell you what's written and you tell me where you decide to break it." Moreover, the tactics we discussed could have been executed as early as level 7 in just the CRB. It was incredibly contrived writing and assumed some very...interesting things.

No scenario is perfect. Some are better than others. On the whole, I've felt as though the writing has generally improved from season to season, with S7 being the most enjoyable so far.

Shadow Lodge 4/5

Serisan wrote:

More entertaining to me have been older scenarios where the railroading doesn't work as intended, which tend to be older scenarios. Just today, I was in Eyes of the Ten and the GM got to a point and said "let me tell you what's written and you tell me where you decide to break it." Moreover, the tactics we discussed could have been executed as early as level 7 in just the CRB. It was incredibly contrived writing and assumed some very...interesting things.

No scenario is perfect. Some are better than others. On the whole, I've felt as though the writing has generally improved from season to season, with S7 being the most enjoyable so far.

Interesting. I play at a local gaming store with a group on the west coast, and online with a group from the east coast, and have been hearing complaints about the current scenario writing from both groups. I feel that the writing was improving, but took a nose dive with the latest batch of scenarios. So I was wondering if people were universally disappointed. I'm not saying it didn't happen with older scenarios, but not in the same way or so much. It seems in season 7, each scenario has to have it's own set of new rules made up just for that scenario. I think several people here put their finger one of the big complaints. The writers make up a bunch of new rulings giving sidebars full of options that either don't exist elsewhere, or even break existing rules. So the GM doesn't have much option but to give the players this list of new rules, making GMs and players feel like they are being forced to follow this list of things to do instead of coming up with their own ideas.

1/5 5/5

Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I had a chance to play 7-23 in a Slot 0 pre-qualifier for some judges at PaizoCon.

It's very interesting to note some VERY important features of the particular encounter referenced (that even our party had a 'duh' moment about)

Spoiler:
If one of the elementals is knocked out/subdued,beaten their CMD tanks because they're all agility, and if they're not 'conscious' then they can't move. In addition, a single elemental can be used for all the samples, if needed, apparently...

I've actually found that most of the scenarios are a lot more 'open' to player creativity, and even the ones that have 'restrictive mechanics' have the 'creative means' outlet, based on play experience thus far.

Shadow Lodge 4/5

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We spent two hours on that elemental encounter...

The Exchange 4/5 5/5

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gnoams wrote:
abducted in aether:
I play a lot of slot 0s with with other gms prepping to run these at local events or cons. We started this one laughing groaning at the scenario writer's failed knowledge the planes checks, it was mostly just little things in the description text. I don't have a lot to complain about this one, it was just the last one I played, when I realized I haven't liked any of this seasons writing. The big problem was the scenario writer coming up with an interesting idea (having to stab elementals with syringes and pull them out), but failing with their mechanics (it requires a CMB check to pull them out, but the tier 10-11 creatures had a CMD of 52 so even a character specialized in it would need a natural 20 to succeed)

I've had the experience a few times (and even one is too many) where a GM starts off the scenario by badmouthing the writing, complaining about encounters, and pointing out that she has to change certain things. This is never conducive to an enjoyable experience. Instead it can sound like "this is gonna suck, thanks for agreeing to spend 5 hours on it!" I avoid any kind of mention of these things unless a player specifically brings it up. Even when running a Slot 0 I wait to the end to point out problems, pitfalls, and points that may need GM creativity to get around.

Abducted in Aether specifics:
First, yes. The ethereal movement was an issue that wasn't addressed in the scenario. Interestingly I spoke to several designers and developers at PaizoCon and this seemed to be more a blind spot in institutional perception than a writer's failure. Native ethereal creatures have been moving around fine for several editions without necessarily having a fly speed. No one realized that gaining a movement speed was a property of the etherealness spell, not a property of being on the plane.

I GMed this a few times and the Elemental encounter pretty much cries out for creative solutions - especially at the high tiers. The sidebar gives you the ways to extract the essence. Which are not easy to do. The CMB is nearly impossible at the high tier. And very few people invest points in the (much easier) Sleight of Hand check. So you need to come up with a creative way to accomplish the task.

I was Wei Ji's GM and as he mentioned, they used nonlethal damage to knock one out and then extract samples. Another table took advantage of elementals' notoriously weak will saves and managed to land a charm monster on one, then persuade it to let them take samples (for a "checkup").


If anything I'd say that creative solutions are more rewarded in scenarios where the listed checks are particularly difficult. However I will say that it can be a struggle for a GM - especially a relatively new one - to allow something. The tendency is to stick to exactly what's written.

3/5 **** Venture-Agent, Massachusetts—Boston Metro

Serisan wrote:

More entertaining to me have been older scenarios where the railroading doesn't work as intended, which tend to be older scenarios. Just today, I was in Eyes of the Ten and the GM got to a point and said "let me tell you what's written and you tell me where you decide to break it." Moreover, the tactics we discussed could have been executed as early as level 7 in just the CRB. It was incredibly contrived writing and assumed some very...interesting things.

No scenario is perfect. Some are better than others. On the whole, I've felt as though the writing has generally improved from season to season, with S7 being the most enjoyable so far.

Hell the railroading in the one scenario we are talking about doesn't work as intended either. Our tactics went so incredibly smoothly that I honestly thought that it was another one of those diplomacy your way out of the encounter common in season 7.

Grand Lodge 5/5

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Serisan wrote:


No scenario is perfect. Some are better than others. On the whole, I've felt as though the writing has generally improved from season to season, with S7 being the most enjoyable so far.

I'd easily disagree with this. Honestly, season 7 despite a couple of highlights is full of scenarios that were mediocre (IMO) and a couple of distinct lowlights. Some of the ones I call mediocre are well regarded due to outside things location, NPC, etc. but in the end they fall to mediocre on their own merits. I'd personally say season 4 and season 6 (and no I don't particularly care for technology) taken on whole are both better seasons by a pretty far margin.

gnoams wrote:


It seems in season 7, each scenario has to have it's own set of new rules made up just for that scenario. I think several people here put their finger one of the big complaints. The writers make up a bunch of new rulings giving sidebars full of options that either don't exist elsewhere, or even break existing rules. So the GM doesn't have much option but to give the players this list of new rules, making GMs and players feel like they are being forced to follow this list of things to do instead of coming up with their own ideas.

It's funny, there's a group of our more prolific players/GMs who try and guess when they're playing a scenario by 1 author, as he seems to have a formula for writing his scenarios. A = Social Encounter, B = Some new mechanic never to be seen again, C = Single Unit BBEG fight, A + B + C = Scenario. (Reminder addition can happen in any order so this may not be the correct one, though it often is) And season 7 has elicited some wrong guesses. That said on a whole, I think there is often a good reason for the railroad, remember these for most people are run in time limited slots. For example, locally we run our store slots like a convention slot, you have four hours from start to finish including paperwork. I wouldn't call this season horrible by any margin, but I would say it won't go into the fight for my favorite season either. (Also, I think there are more scenarios in this season, where if you just get to where you're going and do nothing until something big happens you'd be successful than any other - which is more problematic to me than trying to follow the railroad down the tracks)

Liberty's Edge 5/5

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Starfinder Superscriber
Kevin Willis wrote:
I've had the experience a few times (and even one is too many) where a GM starts off the scenario by badmouthing the writing, complaining about encounters, and pointing out that she has to change certain things. This is never conducive to an enjoyable experience. Instead it can sound like "this is gonna suck, thanks for agreeing to spend 5 hours on it!" I avoid any kind of mention of these things unless a player specifically brings it up. Even when running a Slot 0 I wait to the end to point out problems, pitfalls, and points that may need GM creativity to get around.

Yes, this. Very much this. Going into something intending to dislike it at the very least will bias you to look for flaws and find reasons to be unhappy.

This can happen on the player side too. If a chase scene comes up and you say (even at the end of it) "I always hate chase scenes", you're convincing yourself that you can't ever like it or find a reason to like it. You're also telling everybody else at the table that they probably shouldn't like it either.

Try to be positive. It can really help; even if it doesn't, being negative has a very strong possibility of making things worse, or making a possibly good thing bad.

Dark Archive 4/5 5/5

I've played about a 1/3 of the season 7 scenarios and with one exception I didn't feel any of them had unusual railroad problems. The one exception was Bronze House Reprisal. We managed to combine Gloves of Recon with some fun stone shaping and invisibility to collect a nice stash of evidence without detection, but RAW made everything afterwards playout like we hadn't done all of this cool stuff already.

Silver Crusade 5/5 5/5 **

Kevin Willis wrote:

I've had the experience a few times (and even one is too many) where a GM starts off the scenario by badmouthing the writing, complaining about encounters, and pointing out that she has to change certain thing

One of my flaws as a GM is that I can complain too much about the scenario while running it (not before). Especially at a table where I know all the players well. I try to not do this but sometimes the problem is SO egregious that it is REALLY difficult to restrain myself.

Kevin Willis wrote:
If anything I'd say that creative solutions are more rewarded in scenarios where the listed checks are particularly difficult. However I will say that it can be a struggle for a GM - especially a relatively new one - to allow something. The tendency is to stick to exactly what's written.

One of the areas of greatest table variation is how creative solutions are rewarded. One persons creative is another persons hackneyed or ridiculous. In organized play, creative solutions should really never be REQUIRED.

Don't get me wrong, they should be rewarded. Just not required.

Liberty's Edge 5/5

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Starfinder Superscriber
Joe Ducey wrote:
For example, locally we run our store slots like a convention slot, you have four hours from start to finish including paperwork.

Ugh.

Honestly, if I was faced with that, I'd only schedule Season 0-2 scenarios, and choose very carefully which scenarios from later seasons to schedule. In my experience, "The Stolen Heir" can fit comfortably ina four hour slot, but unless things go just exactly as planned, most scenarios season 4 or later end up being truncated to fit in 4 hours even before the paperwork. Maybe you can make most of them work if everybody stays on task and nobody does the sort of tangents, table-talk, and chatter that normal people having fun tend to like to do. But the scenarios as written just mostly don't work with a group of people having fun in a 4-hour slot.

Had a very bad experience at a small local con just this last Saturday because we had 4-hour slots with half-hour breaks between them to play Season 5 scenarios. The middle slot started about as expected (i.e. not right on time, but within 15 minutes or so). At 4.5 hours after the beginning of the slot, we were rushing to finish; we'd been rushing for about 45 minutes at that point, to the detriment of the scenario experience.

I was then running in the last slot, and my understanding was that we had a hard cutoff at the end of that slot. The middle slot was Destiny of the Sands II, the third slot was Destiny of the Sands III. So, this means that before the third slot, the players are all supposed to understand and figure out the Mythic rules that they've suddenly been granted. Everybody's flustered and trying to get things done (plus the previous GM is still doing all the paperwork, so people don't even have their chronicle sheets yet). Seeing this, I say, look, take the time you need. We will start at 8:30. Don't start the game feeling flustered and out of it. What this meant was that I now had a 3.5 hour slot, with no wiggle room at the end, to run this Season 5 scenario with new mechanics in it.

I did a reasonable job keeping people on task, but inevitably it started to go to hell at the end. The room was hot, and people had been too hot all day. At least a couple had headaches and were feeling queasy. Plus, this being a con, the room had been too loud all day long. Even without the time pressure, people were irritable.

As we approach the end, every few minutes somebody reminds us of the time pressure. When there's a puzzle, people start grousing because of the puzzle. Because I'm trying to run too fast, I make a few mistakes and give wrong detailed information, which hurts the puzzle. Other people who aren't keeping up (reasonably) express frustration at not understanding what's going on. We all start to snipe at each other. And, what I remember as the coolest part of the scenario when I played this as a PbP -- the denoument at the end after the last combat (you know what I mean if you've played this) -- is basically rushed through with two minutes of narration by me. And then I tell people I'll give them chronicle sheets the next morning, and am happy that the store was kind enough not to close so that I had the necessary 10-15 minutes to pack up the disaster around me that inevitably happens whenever I GM.

Honestly, by the end of that, I think that myself and all of the players at that table would have had more fun if we'd gone home at 8:30 and relaxed in a quiet environment each by ourselves, rather than trying to cram in that third scenario into a 3.5 hour slot. I really hate it when I'm the GM, and at the end everybody is visibly unhappy and sniping at each other; it represents a failure to run a game. Honestly, I think I did reasonably well given that when the game started I had that hard cutoff and known short time coming up, but in the long run it ended poorly.

4-hour slots simply don't work for most Season 4 and later PFS scenarios. 4-hour slots may be the RPG standard that PFS is supposed to live with, but they do not work as a PFS standard. We need to give up on that fiction, or too many of our scenarios are going to be rushed. At the very least, we need to label the ones that just will not work in 4 hours.

(And never, ever, EVER try to run Serpent's Ire in a 4-hour slot. Request a 6-hour slot. Or, better, an 8-hour slot with a 1 hour break in the middle.)

Grand Lodge 5/5

rknop wrote:
Joe Ducey wrote:
For example, locally we run our store slots like a convention slot, you have four hours from start to finish including paperwork.

Ugh.

Honestly, if I was faced with that, I'd only schedule Season 0-2 scenarios, and choose very carefully which scenarios from later seasons to schedule. In my experience, "The Stolen Heir" can fit comfortably ina four hour slot, but unless things go just exactly as planned, most scenarios season 4 or later end up being truncated to fit in 4 hours even before the paperwork. Maybe you can make most of them work if everybody stays on task and nobody does the sort of tangents, table-talk, and chatter that normal people having fun tend to like to do. But the scenarios as written just mostly don't work with a group of people having fun in a 4-hour slot.

Had a very bad experience at a small local con just this last Saturday because we had 4-hour slots with half-hour breaks between them to play Season 5 scenarios. The middle slot started about as expected (i.e. not right on time, but within 15 minutes or so). At 4.5 hours after the beginning of the slot, we were rushing to finish; we'd been rushing for about 45 minutes at that point, to the detriment of the scenario experience.

I was then running in the last slot, and my understanding was that we had a hard cutoff at the end of that slot. The middle slot was Destiny of the Sands II, the third slot was Destiny of the Sands III. So, this means that before the third slot, the players are all supposed to understand and figure out the Mythic rules that they've suddenly been granted. Everybody's flustered and trying to get things done (plus the previous GM is still doing all the paperwork, so people don't even have their chronicle sheets yet). Seeing this, I say, look, take the time you need. We will start at 8:30. Don't start the game feeling flustered and out of it. What this meant was that I now had a 3.5 hour slot, with no wiggle room at the end, to run this Season 5 scenario with...

It works for us. There are some but relatively few scenarios where it can't work. There are far more that would be better with more time. But the fact is due to work schedules and the stores hours of operation/schedule, this is our best option and the store we play it goes above and beyond to help us. What I have found is it tends to make both the players and GMs more efficient with decisions and such than I run into (on average, with large swathes of variation) at Cons coming from people who do not consistently play in a time limited manner. (Also, the majority of our lodge plays in home games and such too, so we have a good bit of table time if we really want to highlight something, for example - none of the seeker arc series - Eyes/Wardens/Immortality get run in the store, we take them to outside scheduling so that people can really live it up and take the time they need/want)

Oh and as a note: at least in previous years specials like Serpent's Ire that run at PaizoCon usually get a revision before GenCon, so it's pretty likely it will get shortened down some.

Shadow Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East

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I'm also not a fan of Year of the Skill check. But mostly because it's this year I'm using a lot of clerics and sorcerers with no skill points to spend.

5/5 5/55/55/5

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Sorcerer. Diplomacy trait. profit.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

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To Judge a Soul 1 was an awful railroad, especially because you're scripted to fail even if you do everything right, because that's needed for part 2. Hated that. The adventure should never be run separately because it's just a huge downer; it's a little less bad if you run them back to back but even so it's just sour.

Other than that I haven't felt overly railroaded - not anymore than usual, given that these scenarios have to be reasonably straightforward just to make sure most groups can fumble their way to the same ending.

My bigger gripe is with how complicated they are to prep as GM. TJaS2 has an insane end encounter where you need to know class abilities from a different class every round, and Labyrinth of Hungry Ghosts saw me collecting a nearly 20 page statblock/rules summary. For what is really a linear dungeon story-wise.

4/5

Lau Bannenberg wrote:
To Judge a Soul 1 was an awful railroad, especially because you're scripted to fail even if you do everything right, because that's needed for part 2. Hated that. The adventure should never be run separately because it's just a huge downer; it's a little less bad if you run them back to back but even so it's just sour.

(Bolded emphasis mine)

Not sure I entirely agree that the Society should always "win" everything they do. Sure, you can successfully complete a scenario, but that doesn't mean every single factor went according to plan.

Lau Bannenberg wrote:
My bigger gripe is with how complicated they are to prep as GM. TJaS2 has an insane end encounter where you need to know class abilities from a different class every round, and Labyrinth of Hungry Ghosts saw me collecting a nearly 20 page statblock/rules summary. For what is really a linear dungeon story-wise.

I don't know anything about Labyrinth, but I have noticed this trend as well. In some ways it is good and in some ways it is bad. I have been loving Season 7's attempt to try new things and honestly love a lot of the outcomes of it (But I love subsystems and mini-games a lot). At the same time, it's hard to run anything from Season 7 cold, which could be an issue.

This is coming from someone who is a huge fan of Season 7's content. I think it is some of the best we've had.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

Andrew Roberts wrote:
Lau Bannenberg wrote:
To Judge a Soul 1 was an awful railroad, especially because you're scripted to fail even if you do everything right, because that's needed for part 2. Hated that. The adventure should never be run separately because it's just a huge downer; it's a little less bad if you run them back to back but even so it's just sour.

(Bolded emphasis mine)

Not sure I entirely agree that the Society should always "win" everything they do. Sure, you can successfully complete a scenario, but that doesn't mean every single factor went according to plan.

The issue I have with it is that there are some things likely to go wrong, but if you prevent those, some out of the blue accident happens to make sure they go wrong all the same for different reasons.

To Judge a Soul 1:
The fight at the dam has a chance to destroy the dam. If you see that coming from a mile away and take steps to prevent it, after the fight the NPC breaks the dam taking out a hidden MacGuffin.

The elven court is a pretty sick place, but if you prevent all the fights from breaking out in which the mirror is supposed to get bumped, then some faceless no-name NPCs do it anyway.

Andrew Roberts wrote:
Lau Bannenberg wrote:
My bigger gripe is with how complicated they are to prep as GM. TJaS2 has an insane end encounter where you need to know class abilities from a different class every round, and Labyrinth of Hungry Ghosts saw me collecting a nearly 20 page statblock/rules summary. For what is really a linear dungeon story-wise.

I don't know anything about Labyrinth, but I have noticed this trend as well. In some ways it is good and in some ways it is bad. I have been loving Season 7's attempt to try new things and honestly love a lot of the outcomes of it (But I love subsystems and mini-games a lot). At the same time, it's hard to run anything from Season 7 cold, which could be an issue.

This is coming from someone who is a huge fan of Season 7's content. I think it is some of the best we've had.

I really like the Indiana Jonesy vibe of smart adventurers that need to be fast, smooth and clever in addition to kicking ass.

As for Labyrinth, I've put my prep on the PFSPREP site and that should save people a lot of work.

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, Minnesota

I've loved everything I've played or GMed from Season 7. I do think that it requires a heck of a lot more GM prep to run smoothly. Bret and I spent forever prepping Sun Orchid Scheme, and it became one of my favorite scenarios to GM ever.

One of the things that I love about Season 7 is that there are multiple routes to success in a scenario, and many different skills that one can use. I think that the season overall rewards creativity. But, boy, has it ever required a lot of GM prep time.

Hmm

Silver Crusade 4/5

gnoams wrote:
sun orchid scheme:
so the forced combat stealth check example where it gives a distance the enemy see's you and doesn't allow for any other way than attacking the caravan, yeah, that's directly taken from this scenario. This was one of the worst railroad scenarios ever written, because it makes you think like you can plan your own heist, psych, you can't, you just roll checks and do it the way we wrote, there isn't enough info provided to actually let players be creative. When I ran it my players wanted to try sabotaging parts of the caravan as it was being built (not taken into consideration by the scenario). They wanted to join the caravan, make a distraction and break into the safe (the scenario says you attack the caravan, can't go with it as guards even though it just forced you to spend 3 days infiltrating and joining the caravan guard).How about sneaking someone inside to hide in the transport while it's being built (I duno, maybe, there isn't really enough info for the gm to have any idea if that would work). It was missing tons of crucial information like how many guards are there? What are their patrols, how do they respond to threats, you know, information you'd think any good criminal would research before starting their heist (seriously, the author should have gone and watched some heist movies before writing this) Even basic info like how long is the trip is not provided (I don't how long it is, but it doesn't matter because you have to attack them at this one map location we provided).

I only played this one, haven't read/GMed it yet. I actually plan to start reading this soon, since I'll be GMing it multiple times at GenCon. But I have a couple of comments about your complaints that I bolded in the spoiler above.

Sun Orchid Scheme:
Joining the caravan after training as a guard was possible when I played it. Not sure who got that wrong, but our GM allowed it, so we had one spy undercover in the caravan, and that meant one less guard to fight when we attacked.

As for sabotaging construction or hiding inside the platform while it's built, I'm not 100% certain, but that seems to go against the point of the mission. You're supposed to test the caravan's defenses after they're built, not stop them from being built in the first place. That's what the teams was hired for.

Not sure about your other complaints, but I did get a general feel from our GM that some of this stuff was covered, though he may have just been improvising and selling it well.

I really liked the scenario, though, even though it ended up being more railroady than I initially thought it would be. But again, our GM let us improvise on the spy stuff, and get good results from it.

As for the rest of the season, I've enjoyed most of it, having played more than half and GMed a couple of them. There are a lot more skill challenges, but they're mostly handled well. I have complaints here and there about some of the scenarios, but not of the type you're complaining about.

3/5 **** Venture-Agent, Massachusetts—Boston Metro

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Andrew Roberts wrote:


I don't know anything about Labyrinth, but I have noticed this trend as well. In some ways it is good and in some ways it is bad. I have been loving Season 7's attempt to try new things and honestly love a lot of the outcomes of it (But I love subsystems and mini-games a lot). At the same time, it's hard to run anything from Season 7 cold, which could be an issue.

This is coming from someone who is a huge fan of Season 7's content. I think it is some of the best we've had.

Well part of Season 7's issue is that the classes they used are arguably the most complicated classes in the entire game. Like I know Labyrinth of the Hungry Ghost's twenty page stat block doesn't compare To Judge a Soul Pt 2 where arguably you need an entire class write up from Occult Adventures to run it correctly.

Silver Crusade 3/5

Ref. Sun Orchid Scheme

Spoiler:
If you succeed well enough in your investigations, you will be able to have a character or two joining the caravan and replacing the guards. This is a mechanical benefit, so the GM cannot allow you to do it otherwise.

Sabotaging the caravan beforehand would be kinda difficult because of locations. Most of the scenario takes place in Pashow, this is where the barracks and workshop are. But the actual elixir and thus also the fakes come from the Citadel of the Alchemist. So the caravan needs to get there and almost back to Pashow before you can start trying to steal the elixir. Thus sabotaging might affect things too early if it is done before the caravan even leaves Pashow.

I have noticed Season 7 being more complicated sure, and the continuous need to learn how to run Occult classes (and some Advanced Class Guide classes) is kinda demanding, escpecially on high tiers, but I've enjoyed it thus far. Skill checks, puzzles and minigames are actually more interesting to me than pure combat.

Grand Lodge 4/5

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Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Pathfinder Accessories, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Honestly, other than a couple spots already mentioned above, I've found Season 7 to be everything I've wanted in a series of adventures. I'm more put off by the prepwork needed to use everything to the fullest extent than the few railroady parts. So I can't agree with the OP at all.

1/5 5/5

Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I think the only ones I've had issue with so far have not been with 'railroad' as much as 'complexity' and 'length'.

Building in options and variations not only takes up word count, it also takes up prep time.

That being said, it's obvious that it is a learning process, as things that work get improved and things that are not so much get snipped or improved greatly.

I'm looking at you, intrigue/influence scenes, for that first part.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ***

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

For people who are having trouble with the prep work - would it be helpful if there were a series of short videos/audio files that walked through how to GM a kineticist/occultist/mesmerist/swashbuckler/etc.?

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

James McTeague wrote:
For people who are having trouble with the prep work - would it be helpful if there were a series of short videos/audio files that walked through how to GM a kineticist/occultist/mesmerist/swashbuckler/etc.?

It might be interesting, even if it isn't immediately useful. I've seen occultists and mediums be very effective, but I have no idea what's going on under the hood.

5/5 *****

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James McTeague wrote:
For people who are having trouble with the prep work - would it be helpful if there were a series of short videos/audio files that walked through how to GM a kineticist/occultist/mesmerist/swashbuckler/etc.?

I think one of the issues is that Season 7 scenarios have contained an enormous amount of Occult Adventures material, and quite a lot of people seem to have little interest in it. As GM's that means there is a hell of a lot of reading to do in order to get to grips with how these classes work and they are dense. Most of them come with a dizzying mess of different abilities and those class levels are often being added on to templated creatures or ones with racial HD.

Of the season 7's I have played and/or run Between the Lines, School of Spirits, Blackros Connection, All for Immortality Captive in Crystal, Ancients Anguish and To Judge a Soul 2 all feature occult classes or material. As yet I don't have a single Occult PC so that is a lot of material to digest and the stat blocks in the modules do little to nothing to explain what they do.

Shadow Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East

Lau Bannenberg wrote:
James McTeague wrote:
For people who are having trouble with the prep work - would it be helpful if there were a series of short videos/audio files that walked through how to GM a kineticist/occultist/mesmerist/swashbuckler/etc.?
It might be interesting, even if it isn't immediately useful. I've seen occultists and mediums be very effective, but I have no idea what's going on under the hood.

Someone tried this as a write-up for gunslingers a few years ago. It was very... antagonistic.

Liberty's Edge 5/5

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Starfinder Superscriber
James McTeague wrote:
For people who are having trouble with the prep work - would it be helpful if there were a series of short videos/audio files that walked through how to GM a kineticist/occultist/mesmerist/swashbuckler/etc.?

This might help, although honestly I'd rather have the Cliff Notes text version.

Of course, the other problem is that my brain is full.

3/5 **** Venture-Agent, Massachusetts—Boston Metro

andreww wrote:
James McTeague wrote:
For people who are having trouble with the prep work - would it be helpful if there were a series of short videos/audio files that walked through how to GM a kineticist/occultist/mesmerist/swashbuckler/etc.?

I think one of the issues is that Season 7 scenarios have contained an enormous amount of Occult Adventures material, and quite a lot of people seem to have little interest in it. As GM's that means there is a hell of a lot of reading to do in order to get to grips with how these classes work and they are dense. Most of them come with a dizzying mess of different abilities and those class levels are often being added on to templated creatures or ones with racial HD.

Of the season 7's I have played and/or run Between the Lines, School of Spirits, Blackros Connection, All for Immortality Captive in Crystal, Ancients Anguish and To Judge a Soul 2 all feature occult classes or material. As yet I don't have a single Occult PC so that is a lot of material to digest and the stat blocks in the modules do little to nothing to explain what they do.

Blackros Connection I don't remember there being any Occult Material. It was off kilter and weird but none of that stuff was new.

EDIT:
Wait I remember though that was kind of a pointless thing to add into the scenario.

Shadow Lodge 4/5

Just reading mesmerist and psychic spells is enough, methinks. Mindscapes, dreamscapes, psychics and that one spiritualist are runnable cold or are featured with nifty info sidebars.

But damn, that mesmerist. What a drag to learn.

Grand Lodge 5/5

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Joe Ducey wrote:


I'd easily disagree with this. Honestly, season 7 despite a couple of highlights is full of scenarios that were mediocre (IMO) and a couple of distinct lowlights. Some of the ones I call mediocre are well regarded due to outside things location, NPC, etc. but in the end they fall to mediocre on their own merits. I'd personally say season 4 and season 6 (and no I don't particularly care for technology) taken on whole are both better seasons by a pretty far margin.

It occurs to me, that while mediocre does mean "of moderate quality", it has a more common negative connotation attached than I intended. Average, fine or, alright would have quite possibly been a better choice.

The Exchange 4/5

rknop wrote:
James McTeague wrote:
For people who are having trouble with the prep work - would it be helpful if there were a series of short videos/audio files that walked through how to GM a kineticist/occultist/mesmerist/swashbuckler/etc.?

This might help, although honestly I'd rather have the Cliff Notes text version.

Of course, the other problem is that my brain is full.

This be how i fill. I find myself forgetting things i learned years ago, which just frustrates me. Can you imagine how those that are just starting to GM feels.

Shadow Lodge *

Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Superscriber

I've been overall very happy with Season 7. I'd call it very comparable to Season 6 in quality.

I've run the To Judge a Soul series twice now, and I have to say that it's one of my favorites. It's got a lot of interesting stuff happening, and I'd call the first one the opposite of a railroad as there is no one way to approach the scenario. (Now, it does end the same way no matter what, but that's not a railroad.)

I agree that prep for it was brutal, but it was much easier the second time.

Paizo Employee 2/5 RPG Superstar 2014 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32

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As an occasional scenario author, I'm curious as to whether anyone has examples of good, fun, non-railroad scenarios. Ones in which you feel the GM and players have a great deal of flexibility. Which scenarios (from any season) should authors keep in mind so that we can deliver more content like that in the future?

4/5 5/5 Venture-Lieutenant, Finland—Tampere

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Mike Kimmel wrote:
As an occasional scenario author, I'm curious as to whether anyone has examples of good, fun, non-railroad scenarios. Ones in which you feel the GM and players have a great deal of flexibility. Which scenarios (from any season) should authors keep in mind so that we can deliver more content like that in the future?

Seeing an intrigue-influenced version of Murder on the Throaty Mermaid would be super interesting.

Shadow Lodge 5/5

Mike Kimmel wrote:
As an occasional scenario author, I'm curious as to whether anyone has examples of good, fun, non-railroad scenarios. Ones in which you feel the GM and players have a great deal of flexibility. Which scenarios (from any season) should authors keep in mind so that we can deliver more content like that in the future?

I'll be honest, I don't always find a railroad "bad", as long as it's sufficiently interesting to hold my attention. I also think that a lot of the options for non-railroad are still railroady. Take Sun Orchid for example. There are still a limited number of ways that you can succeed at that mission, but what it does well is disguise that railroad.

I feel that some of my dislike of some of the non-railroad scenarios is based more on their complexity and the required prep time to run them correctly. All too often GMs feel they can run cold, which works just fine in the linear story, but turns out to be a disaster in the complicated non-railroads. So if I were to focus on something, it would be keeping the complexity down. But that's just me.

My favorite scenario is still Silent Tide. That scenario is about as railroady as they come, but it's themed well, has interesting characters, has a good mix of "encounter types" and can be run fairly quickly and easily.

4/5 ****

Mike Kimmel wrote:
As an occasional scenario author, I'm curious as to whether anyone has examples of good, fun, non-railroad scenarios. Ones in which you feel the GM and players have a great deal of flexibility. Which scenarios (from any season) should authors keep in mind so that we can deliver more content like that in the future?

Hey Mike,

this thread may be of interest to you.

Paizo Employee 2/5 RPG Superstar 2014 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32

Pirate Rob wrote:

Hey Mike,

this thread may be of interest to you.

Thanks, I have been keeping an eye on it. :) In this case I'm specifically asking for examples of scenarios that folks feel do a good job of allowing for creative, non-railroad solutions. Not just "good scenarios" or "it's a railroad, but good!" Certainly knowing about those things is helpful, too, so thanks again.

Silver Crusade 4/5

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Rei wrote:
Mike Kimmel wrote:
As an occasional scenario author, I'm curious as to whether anyone has examples of good, fun, non-railroad scenarios. Ones in which you feel the GM and players have a great deal of flexibility. Which scenarios (from any season) should authors keep in mind so that we can deliver more content like that in the future?
Seeing an intrigue-influenced version of Murder on the Throaty Mermaid would be super interesting.

Agreed. A murder mystery like that can be fun, if done well. And actually, my big complaint about that one is the most railroady part.

Murder on the Throaty Mermaid:
No matter what's going on, the bad guys reveal themselves and attack the PC's in the end. So it doesn't matter at all whether or not they solve the murder - the murderers will reveal themselves. So what's the point of the investigation?


I haven't done a lot of PFS scenarios... but I always assumed they WOULD be railroad.

The very idea that you sit down for a night and 3 hours later are finished with the adventure... doesn't really give a lot of time for variation does it?

We've stuck a few of them in our home games... as filler in our Shattered Star game, and we think outside the box and roleplay a lot... but we haven't even come close to finishing one in acceptable time. We average about 5-6 hours per scenario.

I can totally see organized play needing to keep the train going...

Dark Archive 4/5 5/5 ****

Mike,
That's an interesting question. I think if you follow a traditional story-line, you have to be a bit on rails, otherwise you can't get from start to finish!

But, some have lighter rails than others.

Library of the Lion:

This investigation leads you around the library in no particular order. However, you do need to find the one secret door to be successful! It allows for some decent role play, and the players have more of an illusion of control

The Icebound Outpost:

Again, order of all but the final encounter doesn't really matter as you explore the Frozen temple. Thorough Pathefinders will encounter everything, as the place is relatively small. Still, an interesting and fun variation on the dungeon crawl

The Temple of Empyreal Enlightenment:
perhaps a little more railsy than Icebound Outpost, but again you can experience the temple in pretty much any order. It is even possible that some groups won't even fight the end boss!

Where Mammoths Dare Not Tread:
starts off seeming kind of like you are on rails (the first combat is unavoidable), but you get to make some real choices. Even the end bosses are a choice! And it is entirely possible that murder-hobos will destroy their best allies.

That's just s few, and if I weren't on my iPad I may have done more!


I wonder if the term "railroad" was never linked to gaming if people would still complain about it? When I started gaming, the answer was "no."

Every season, someone says the same complaint as the OP. Different strokes. The vocal minority is always the loudest.

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