SFS #1-01 The Commencement (Spoilers)


GM Discussion

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Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

Has anyone put together a racetrack map for the junkrace?

I am looking at 25' squares (as that is the minimum interval a junkracer can move.) 30 squares, 4 laps = 3000 feet.

Also looking for pawn pics for the junk racers.

Grand Lodge 3/5 5/55/55/5

Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Just ran this last night - didn't have prep time to make a track, but just used the Battlefield PF flipmat to give them a sense of who was in the lead, using the starship pawns as tokens for each racer.

Also, during the Wayfinders mission...

Wayfinder:
Party rolled the shapeshifter alien. There wasn't a good description of what it's 'natural form' should be, so I just made it a silver-grey blob that kept shapeshifting to attempt to communicate.
Made for some awesome hijinks, as the Envoy tried to get the thing to take shape as his gun so they could holster it and walk away with it.

Grand Lodge 2/5 5/55/55/5 * Venture-Captain, Washington—Tacoma

Jelloarm wrote:
Just ran this last night - didn't have prep time to make a track, but just used the Battlefield PF flipmat to give them a sense of who was in the lead, using the starship pawns as tokens for each racer.

How did that work out? I'm concerned the abstraction of the race might confuse the players. I'm considering the previous idea but using 60 25' squares (2-laps) just for ease of tracking the distance traveled.

The abstractions seems fine for use in a chase, but the race, where there is a fixed length seems a little too much work for abstraction.

I could be totally off base too.

Silver Crusade 5/5 5/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria

I just ran this one, for the peace, really set you combinations of racer s in stone and create a table (spreadsheet) with the final stats to keep things moving.

EDIT: I prepared this in a very busy week, so I might post more once I have caught up on some sleep, but at least one question came up.

When it comes to the race, do the penalties from multiple hits in the same round stack? This clarification can really affect the race when player boosts their engine to very high speeds.

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

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Racetrack

Designed to be printed across 3 sheets of paper. Treat each line across the track as 25 feet, and make 4 loops, and that is 3000 feat.

ETA: You will probably want to add a Start / Finish line on one of the straight sections.

Grand Lodge 3/5 5/55/55/5

Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Pakishi wrote:

How did that work out? I'm concerned the abstraction of the race might confuse the players. I'm considering the previous idea but using 60 25' squares (2-laps) just for ease of tracking the distance traveled.

The abstractions seems fine for use in a chase, but the race, where there is a fixed length seems a little too much work for abstraction.

I could be totally off base too.

It went alright - I just did squares being about 50' each and used it to show them who was in the lead. It wasn't perfect because no one (myself included) was ever able to keep track of which ship was which racer, and the maths involved with the pilot/ship combos was clumsy, so I second Sebastien's point - I would randomly generate in advance so you can have the math on the different ships/racers done in front of you and not crunching numbers on the fly.

Grand Lodge 5/5

Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Society Subscriber

Played this today.

We used a flipmat and a marker, and would write down how far each racer was next to it, with relative positions marking who was in the lead and behind etc.

4/5 5/5 *

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Ran this for the first time today, completely cold. We did the race in abstract and everyone enjoyed it. I'm sure I missed some mechanic details, but it seemed to come down to fail Piloting for half speed or succeed for full speed. With Iseph the Android Operative remote piloting at +11 the party succeeded easily at the DC 14 check (4 player) and won handily. He didn't miss a check even after being shot.

Shadow Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 ****

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For the racetrack when I ran this (3x) at Gen Con, I used my 2' Alea Tools magnetic circles as the junkracers, and put a mini on top of each to indicate the driver (a ratfolk for Ratrod, a silvery humanoid for Velocity, etc.), and I marked every line of a flip mat as 100'. I just moved the front edge of each racer to the position it was (halfway for when they moved half-speed), and used dice behind each to indicate how many times they'd been hit before the piloting checks.

My players seemed to enjoy that set up :)

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

Jared Thaler wrote:

Racetrack

Designed to be printed across 3 sheets of paper. Treat each line across the track as 25 feet, and make 4 loops, and that is 3000 feat.

ETA: You will probably want to add a Start / Finish line on one of the straight sections.

It has been brought to my attention that my map is less than clear. Those are supposed to be junk piles on it.


My attempt at a race track:

Link to Junk Track

Track is 3000ft. Vehicles move at their full speed. Average full speed is 500 feet. Failed check is half speed or 250 feet. That's 6-12 checks to complete this section.

Race track starts at the edge of one of the 6 colors. Successful check the racer moves into the next color, failed check they move to the end of the current color (this means there's 12 positions on the track).

Those with markers-and-maps, just pick 6 color dry-erase markers (or mix two colors/different hashes per section if limited), and just follow the color-position rules above. Good chance to draw some elaborate loops and turns, draw outside those squares!

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

Fooma wrote:

My attempt at a race track:

Link to Junk Track

Track is 3000ft. Vehicles move at their full speed. Average full speed is 500 feet. Failed check is half speed or 250 feet. That's 6-12 checks to complete this section.

Race track starts at the edge of one of the 6 colors. Successful check the racer moves into the next color, failed check they move to the end of the current color (this means there's 12 positions on the track).

Those with markers-and-maps, just pick 6 color dry-erase markers (or mix two colors/different hashes per section if limited), and just follow the color-position rules above. Good chance to draw some elaborate loops and turns, draw outside those squares!

Just don't forget to keep track of actual distances as well so you know who is in the lead. That average 500 feat can vary from 700 to 400.

Sovereign Court 3/5

Do the players need to pay for the music album out of their chronicle or can it just be purchased with the credits they accumulate in the scenario?

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

It comes out of their chronicles cash.

2/5 5/5

Starfinder Charter Superscriber

I'm prepping this one, and glad to see there's a GM thread on it. I'm sure I'll post some various random observations and questions over the next couple of weeks.

First up, I notice that in the Dataphiles mission that Ceren (the hacker grandmother) is supposed to "go into temporary hiding" and then meet the PCs in a park in six hours. If I know my regular players, they'll almost certainly insist on someone staying with her during these six hours, and I can't think of a good reason why she'd refuse. I guess they could just split the party while the others work on the fake death documents, but I'm curious how this went down for those of you who already ran it.

2/5 5/5

Starfinder Charter Superscriber

Second question: wouldn't any lawful good types among the PCs quite justifiably balk at faking the old woman's death, and instead argue that they should call the Stewards and explain the whole thing? After all, she did in fact steal data from a corporation, but she has a legitimate legal defense of incapacity. I think if the scenario did more to establish that the corporations are likely to take lethal vigilante justice into their own hands, the "fake her death" would seem more plausible--I'm worried that as it stands, it sounds like the somewhat crazy idea of an elderly woman with a degenerative brain condition.

Then again, I may just be overthinking it. Players often do what they know they're supposed to do, even if doesn't always make role-playing sense.

Grand Lodge 5/5

Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Society Subscriber

I'd explained the fact that Ceren wants to deal with it alone is to rouse the least amount of suspicion. Why would she suddenly have one (or more) armed and armored bodyguards?

As for faking her death, if the players ask Historia-7 she actually explains about the situation of Bluerise tower, and that the Stewards can't even do anything there. The defence of incapacity would be nothing to those corporations.

2/5 5/5

Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Damanta wrote:

I'd explained the fact that Ceren wants to deal with it alone is to rouse the least amount of suspicion. Why would she suddenly have one (or more) armed and armored bodyguards?

As for faking her death, if the players ask Historia-7 she actually explains about the situation of Bluerise tower, and that the Stewards can't even do anything there. The defence of incapacity would be nothing to those corporations.

Hm, the "bodyguards would be too obvious" idea is a good one I could try. I still worry that "sure, let's let the elderly lady with the brain condition who is being hunted by corporate thugs trundle off on her own" is a hard sell though. It's like asking for trouble. At least, if I were a player, I would try a *lot* of different options (disguising a PC to trail her covertly, taking her to SFS HQ for safe-keeping, etc.) before that one.

As for the corporations and the Stewards, it's actually not so clear. Historia-7 explains that the corporations are sovereign over Bluerise Tower and that even the Stewards can't enter, but it requires another leap (though not completely implausible one) to convey that they have legal carte blanche to apprehend suspected thieves anywhere on Absalom Station with full impunity. But maybe that is the case--I haven't seen enough of the setting to know just how much corporations dominate Absalom Station.

Silver Crusade 5/5 5/5 **

I was running this at a local con, doing the race in a similar manner to what was described above

Then I noticed that obe of the players had quickly whipped up a spreadsheet on their laptop.

That was the perfect solution :-). Use figures to keep track of order, use the spreadsheet to keep track of actual distances. If it is a possibility I HIGHLY recommend it. Allowed me as the GM to concentrate on givibg flavour to the race and not on the mechanics

4/5 5/5

In the abandoned warehouse: where is the Feather Stalker's nest?

Grand Lodge 5/5

Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Society Subscriber

I think the nest is the destroyed crate.

Edit: Made a quick picture of where I think the starting positions are

4/5 5/5

Thanks!

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

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Jhaeman wrote:
Damanta wrote:

I'd explained the fact that Ceren wants to deal with it alone is to rouse the least amount of suspicion. Why would she suddenly have one (or more) armed and armored bodyguards?

As for faking her death, if the players ask Historia-7 she actually explains about the situation of Bluerise tower, and that the Stewards can't even do anything there. The defence of incapacity would be nothing to those corporations.

Hm, the "bodyguards would be too obvious" idea is a good one I could try. I still worry that "sure, let's let the elderly lady with the brain condition who is being hunted by corporate thugs trundle off on her own" is a hard sell though. It's like asking for trouble. At least, if I were a player, I would try a *lot* of different options (disguising a PC to trail her covertly, taking her to SFS HQ for safe-keeping, etc.) before that one.

Is there any reason *not* to let a PC go with her? As far as I can tell, it doesn't break the plot. (It does mean that the PC will not be able to help fake her death, but there are some PCs that wouldn't be able to help wit that anyway, and this lets them feel useful.)

2/5 5/5

Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Jared Thaler wrote:

Is there any reason *not* to let a PC go with her? As far as I can tell, it doesn't break the plot. (It does mean that the PC will not be able to help fake her death, but there are some PCs that wouldn't be able to help wit that anyway, and this lets them feel useful.)

Good point. The bodyguard PCs would be off-screen for a bit, but as long as their players are patient it shouldn't really take *too* long for the death-faking PCs to finish their business.

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

Is there anything stopping the PCs from getting a full night rest between tasks?


Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Jared Thaler wrote:

Is there any reason *not* to let a PC go with her? As far as I can tell, it doesn't break the plot. (It does mean that the PC will not be able to help fake her death, but there are some PCs that wouldn't be able to help wit that anyway, and this lets them feel useful.)

That's precisely what happened when I ran it. The only result was that I had the PC who went with her (he was trailing her, not actually hanging around in her presence) start the ambush closer to the old woman, the other PCs had to approach from across the bridge.

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

What is the feathered stalkers DC if it has the reflecting armor offense option?

Grand Lodge 5/5

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Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Society Subscriber
Jared Thaler wrote:

Is there anything stopping the PCs from getting a full night rest between tasks?

I had my group rest after doing the task for the Dataphiles and the Acquisitives. The prerace stuff takes an hour, the mission for the Dataphiles takes 6 hours, and you're looking at travel times, so I figured that'd hit the 8 hour adventuring day.

Gave them a night rest.
Then they started out with the mission for the Wayfinders, which I ruled took them about an hour going back and forth, then 6 hours waiting in line and the rest used to defeat the Feathered Stalker.

I'd say the Reflecting Armor offense ability is a spell-like ability, so the DC is 10 + spell level (1) + charisma modifier (-1): 10. (Pg 262)

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

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In Memorium wrote:
Shady coroners can provide fresh corpses for this purpose with a bribe of 60 credits, though PCs may come up with their own creative solutions

Two of my players recalled that in a previous adventure they had dealt with a certain family of Ysoki on Absolom Station who bought dead bodies "of the books" as it were, and who were grateful to them for a favor they had done.

I ruled that with a decent diplomacy, they could be persuaded to part with a body for a mere 30 credits.

The players then sold the bodies of the thugs from the river ambush back to them, and got their 30 credits back.

I figured that was creative enough to count.


Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Just looking for clarification on something about this encounter as well...it states that a DC 21 intimidate check can be used to interrupt the thugs. Does this imply that they collectively decide "NOT WORTH IT!" and we skip the combat entirely? Or does it mean they go on the offense immediately, instead of just trying to grab Ceren?

I'm assuming that if they flee, then just add their loot to the gift box after completing this task.

4/5 5/5

Jared Thaler wrote:
In Memorium wrote:
Shady coroners can provide fresh corpses for this purpose with a bribe of 60 credits, though PCs may come up with their own creative solutions

Two of my players recalled that in a previous adventure they had dealt with a certain family of Ysoki on Absolom Station who bought dead bodies "of the books" as it were, and who were grateful to them for a favor they had done.

I ruled that with a decent diplomacy, they could be persuaded to part with a body for a mere 30 credits.

The players then sold the bodies of the thugs from the river ambush back to them, and got their 30 credits back.

I figured that was creative enough to count.

I was so glad that I read this before GMing it. My players did exactly the same thing!

2/5 5/5

Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Adder007USA wrote:

Just looking for clarification on something about this encounter as well...it states that a DC 21 intimidate check can be used to interrupt the thugs. Does this imply that they collectively decide "NOT WORTH IT!" and we skip the combat entirely? Or does it mean they go on the offense immediately, instead of just trying to grab Ceren?

I'm assuming that if they flee, then just add their loot to the gift box after completing this task.

I'm interpreting it to mean that the thugs will back down and not attack if they're successfully Intimidated. The PCs will earn the rewards for successfully completing the encounter.

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

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So...

Here's my "low-effort" map for the Botscrap Junkbot Race!


Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Jhaeman wrote:
Adder007USA wrote:

Just looking for clarification on something about this encounter as well...it states that a DC 21 intimidate check can be used to interrupt the thugs. Does this imply that they collectively decide "NOT WORTH IT!" and we skip the combat entirely? Or does it mean they go on the offense immediately, instead of just trying to grab Ceren?

I'm assuming that if they flee, then just add their loot to the gift box after completing this task.

I'm interpreting it to mean that the thugs will back down and not attack if they're successfully Intimidated. The PCs will earn the rewards for successfully completing the encounter.

I got clarification in the errata thread, yes, they don't attack.

And Hilary Moon, is that a game piece from Mousetrap I see, representing ratrod?

3/5 5/5 *

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Music I will be be listening to during the race portion of the scenario to get into the mindset.

I feel like the race can be a little chaotic to keep track of, but could also be the most memorable introduction to starfinder possible.

I do wish there had been a race track map included, but I just drew my own. I do worry that it will be tough to keep track of all 5 NPC racers + the party and current penalties, etc.

Grand Lodge 5/5

Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Society Subscriber

A 3000 ft. track, with various speeds on the racers is a bit hard. You'll always have to note down somewhere what the exact distance is.

The group I GM'd for made sure Lemgem's engine blew up :( Poor gnome.

2/5 5/5

Starfinder Charter Superscriber

I'm not sure what I think about the depiction of the faction leaders. They certainly each have personality, which is important going forward and helps to make memorable NPCs. On the other hand, a couple of them are almost embarrassingly informal (verging on silly), and, perhaps apart from Historia-7, none seem particularly anxious or alarmed by the Scoured Stars incident which is supposed to be the big backdrop of the season--the PCs are getting sent out on some rather trivial tasks like winning a junk race or buying an album. Again, I might just have tastes for darker, edgier stories but to me this scenario is a bit overly "family friendly."

2/5 5/5

Starfinder Charter Superscriber

More random thoughts:

I really like the warehouse map in "Not-Quite-Abandoned Warehouse." If it were a flip-mat, I would buy it.

For the Sense Motive check to realize the kids are hiding something (they set a trap), should I have everyone roll it after conversing with the kids, or only if a player specifically says they want to use the skill?

I've noticed that most of the scenario isn't as well-randomized as the PFS intro evergreen (The Confirmation), but I do like the tables provided for determining the harmless alien's appearance and motivation. I'll be curious to see how many groups just blast it to pieces before asking questions :)

Grand Lodge 5/5

Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Society Subscriber

Before you start the adventure, have the players roll 2 or 3 sets of checks. Make a list of perception and sense motive and maybe will saves.

Then you can use that set for when they need to perceive something or for the sense motive check.

As for the faction leaders, I got the impression they were putting up a brave front in face of the new recruits. While the tasks may seem overly trivial, keep in mind that they used to be more or less ceremonial before the incident.

2/5 5/5

Starfinder Charter Superscriber

In regards to the equipment listed on the Chronicle (the normal stuff, not anything boon-related), do you guys make out "if-then" lists like the one below or is there a better way to track what should be crossed out? Here's what I've done as a reminder for my personal notes, but it's time-consuming to put it together and I'm not sure if I'm handling the concept correctly.

the PCs are able to purchase the equipment listed, unless: a) they did not complete Mission # 3 (cross out “basic iridishell” and “incendiary grenade”); b) they did not buy an extra album for Zigvigix (cross out “charge cloak”); c) they did not overcome the corporate gangers (cross out “flight suit stationwear” and “pulsecaster pistol”); d) they did not complete Mission # 2 (cross out “standard datajack”); e) they did not succeed in either aspect of faking Ceren’s death (cross out “frostbite-class zero rifle”); f) Laboni did not win the race (cross out “graphite carbon skin armor”); f) the PCs did not rescue Kieu’s children (cross out “mk 1 ring of resistance”).

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

Jhaeman wrote:
I'm not sure what I think about the depiction of the faction leaders. They certainly each have personality, which is important going forward and helps to make memorable NPCs. On the other hand, a couple of them are almost embarrassingly informal (verging on silly), and, perhaps apart from Historia-7, none seem particularly anxious or alarmed by the Scoured Stars incident which is supposed to be the big backdrop of the season--the PCs are getting sent out on some rather trivial tasks like winning a junk race or buying an album. Again, I might just have tastes for darker, edgier stories but to me this scenario is a bit overly "family friendly."

The shirren is experiencing intense survivor guilt, the ysoki is completely overwhelmed by the current workload, and the only reason the android is even *in* the starfinders is because of the SS incident.

I got more of a "Yes, this is an incredibly major problem, but until we find some clue somewhere there is nothing to do about it, and if we don't focus on this other thing, the whol society will implode and there will be no one left to deal with the scoured stars.

And while the jobs are very trivial, we are talking raw recruits, sending these people on these relatively trivial jobs means freeing up someone actually competent to go somewhere else or that there was no one else, and if the PCs hadn't been available, the job just wouldn't have gotten done.

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

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I didn't get the sense that the Zigvigix was feeling guilty, I felt like it was nervous about using the party as wingmen to see if Historia-7 wanted to go out.

Reading through it again, I'm not sure if that was the intent, but it certainly felt that way when I played it.

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

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Quote:

long-standing member of the Exo-Guardians, Zigvigix suffered severe injuries prior to the Society’s expedition to the Scoured Stars, which prevented them from taking part. Zigvigix became overwhelmed with survivor’s guilt for not being present for the ill-fated expedition

...

Zigvigix says that Historia-7 has seemed down after losing her mentor in the Scoured Stars. They hope the sugar-pop music can cheer up the android;

...

If a PC succeeds at a DC 17 Sense Motive check—or an astute player voices the observation without a roll—the PCs may note that Zigvigix is not buying a copy for themself. The shirren’s response makes it clear that despite their obvious desire, they downplay their opinion when it might benefit themself and seem uncomfortable spending money on their own personal wants—an oddity for the highly individual shirrens.

I don't see anything in there indicating they are romantically attracted to Historia-7. They are just a massive fan that thinks their idol's music fixes everything (but that they don't deserve to be fixed.)

Scarab Sages 4/5 5/5 **

Hey guys. I'm going to be running this at a sort of mini-con at the end of this month, and our PFS/SFS group are hoping to use this as a way to increase our pathfinder/Starfinder community in the area. So I wanna pull out all the stops to try and wow potential newcomers. I'm making some minis that sort of represent the iconics, gonna prep the racetrack, etc.

One thing I wanted to do was add some music while waiting in line for The Star sugar heartlove album. I figured they would be pumping strawberry machine cake to those waiting in line. Can you help me come up with some suggestions? Only one I can think of is SUGAR RUSH by AKB48 (from wreck-it-Ralph).

Paizo Employee Developer

Thurston Hillman suggested vocaloid songs like Hatsune Miku, who has a ton of music you can find on Youtube (entire concerts worth). If you're going for extra wow factor, these optional NPC portraits might come in handy too.

I also really enjoy playing music from the Redline anime for the race.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ***

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

The PFS Prep forum for this scenario is super helpful. I have formatted stat blocks for this scenario, and I also added item cards for all the items that the PCs can pick up during the scenario. (Since we're all learning them!)

As for other people's stuff, I'm clearly stealing the formatted NPC pictures, and I may be taking some of Kitsune Warlock's organization for the race too. It looks really nice (compared to my hacks in Microsoft Word).


VampByDay wrote:

One thing I wanted to do was add some music while waiting in line for The Star sugar heartlove album. I figured they would be pumping strawberry machine cake to those waiting in line. Can you help me come up with some suggestions? Only one I can think of is SUGAR RUSH by AKB48 (from wreck-it-Ralph).

I used: Link 1

Link 2

and other instrumental k-pop

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

Iammars wrote:

The PFS Prep forum for this scenario is super helpful. I have formatted stat blocks for this scenario, and I also added item cards for all the items that the PCs can pick up during the scenario. (Since we're all learning them!)

As for other people's stuff, I'm clearly stealing the formatted NPC pictures, and I may be taking some of Kitsune Warlock's organization for the race too. It looks really nice (compared to my hacks in Microsoft Word).

Both the NPC pictures and Kitusune Warlock's prep were fantastic.

Alas, my using the Arena for the race map was less awesome. The racers go far slower on curves than on straight lines. While curves added excitment and challenge, I need to come up wth a track with more straight line action for the race!

Hmm

4/5 5/5

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I just marked six straight lanes on a flipmat. When each inch is 50 ft you just get to 1500 feet. Turn at the end (or use two flipmats) and you are good to go. To make things more fun I bought 6 very cheap kids toys to use as the cars. Make sure to also mark where each car is, because these toys have a life of their own...

Dark Archive **

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I just ran this for a group last weekend, and they really enjoyed it. A quick AAR:

All of them decided to get the subdermal patch. Unsurprising, really; it's a new toy, and they certainly wanted to be known as Starfinders. After that, they got Guidance's list, and decided to start with the Wayfinders, since none of them had any real interest in that faction.

They went out to the Master of Stars, and while they were able to restore auxiliary power to E-deck and get the kids to tell them what was going on, they misread the situation with the alien. This might have been my inability to get across the fact that the creature was sentient, but they decided to attack it first. Fortunately, the first person to attack it used a non-lethal attack, so it wasn't dead. However, that opened up an interesting dilemma - since a concerted effort to kill the creature ends up ending the encounter (for the worse), I ruled that the non-lethal attack did the same, but since it wasn't dead, it just set back communication attempts with the alien in the future. I still docked them some credits, but about 50% of what was recommended, which seems a fair trade to me. I do wonder, however, if something in Fitch's speech could have indicated that the Wayfinders value first contact with alien species, and if reminding them of that would have changed the outcome.

The next one was the Acquisitives, and they really enjoyed this one! They all got to flex their individual muscles - the tech people built up the racer, the operative got to sabotage Ratrod's junker, and the mystic ended up arranging for an alliance with Velocity and backed into getting Lemgem to overload her junker. The only place where this felt slow was in the actual race, since the amount of decisions the PCs had was limited, compared to the amount of rolls that the GM has. One other question that popped up - if a racer is targeted and hit twice by weapons, is the Piloting penalty cumulative? I said no, simply because that would end up being a potentially massive penalty, but I wasn't particularly sure.

Next up - Exo-guardians! They enjoyed finally having a real combat, with the exception of the envoy, who chose to wait in line for a copy of Strawberry Machine Cake's new album. Since I had access to Chromecast, I played some appropirate music. Obviously, the battle didn't take anywhere near the six hours that the line did, so they had plenty of time to get in line and wait with him after they defeated the feather stalker.

Finally, they went to assist the Dataphiles. They talked around the mission for awhile, as they didn't want to tip off Ceren or her grandson that they suspected them of hacking the corps. I played fast and loose with what spells and skills could do to get them to open up to her, and eventually they learned that Ceren was accidentally responsible. After that, the scenario played out the way that it was supposed to, but it's worth mentioning that some tables might not open up to the NPCs immediately, so you will want to be ready for that.

All in all, it was a fun first official adventure, and left the PCs wanting more. Several of them mentioned that the thing that this adventure did better than any of the others was showcase how many different genres of sci-fi Starfinder is capable of handling. Most of us knew the promise of this was implicit in the setting - Paizo did it for fantasy with Golarion, so there was no reason why they couldn't do it again for sci-fi in the Pact Worlds. Now, however, we have the first true delivery on that promise.

Looking forward to playing future mods! :)

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