New Quests and Ancient Perils

Monday, March 27, 2017

Around the Paizo office, we've been really busy getting the upcoming Starfinder Core Rulebook out the door and launching the Starfinder Society Roleplaying Guild campaign—but not so busy that we couldn't bring you two great new adventures for the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild.

Perhaps two isn't quite the right number, as Pathfinder Society Scenario #8-16: House of Harmonious Wisdom is not a quest but a series of five Tier 1-5 quests. Every quest pack is a new opportunity and a new challenge—an opportunity to work with lots of new authors, and a challenge to find just the right location on Golarion to present a new set of adventures. This series presented even more opportunities because this is the first time we've released a full series of quests mid-season, it's the first time we've presented a full series of quests at multiple subtiers, and it's also the first series of quests we've centered in Tian Xia. Fortunately, the authors Jason Owen, Black, Katherine Cross, Sarah Hood, and Christopher Rowe all did admirably, creating engaging characters and fun encounters that show off the conflict between the three nations that each claims to be the rightful heir of the fallen Lung Wa empire: Lingshen, Po Li, and Quain. In collaboration with the retired folk hero Mai Chun (pictured here), the PCs must visit each of the three Successor States in search of a famous Lung Wa relic—all while evading envious rivals (like the scholar pictured here) who seek the same prize.

Because these mid-season quests with multiple subtiers are an experiment in the season's structure, we're eager to hear back from you about whether this is a something we should repeat in the future, whether it was useful for your area, and how we can improve this format.

If you're in the market for higher-level threats, you're in luck! We're also releasing Pathfinder Society Scenario #8-17: Refugees of the Weary Sky, a spiritual sequel to the Heresy of Man trilogy (though you don't need to have played the earlier adventure to enjoy this one). In collaboration with its new allies on the elemental planes, the Pathfinder Society has identified an ancient ruin dating back to the Jistka Imperium. This same ruin is one of the last holdouts of the Imperium's elementalists during its disastrous conflict with Osirion, and the echoes of that powerful magic still pervade the site. Fortunately, helping get the PCs started (and illustrated for the first time) is Venture-Captain Obo, the Society's steadfast liaison in Rahadoum, assisted by the Sapphire Sage Amenopheus, who has taken a special interest in the refuge of Osirion's ancient enemy. Don't miss this desert adventure by Jeffery Swank!

John Compton
Organized Play Lead Developer

Introducing New Product Launch Quests!

Monday, April 20, 2015

The Pathfinder Society team is always looking for ways to improve our relationship with friendly local gaming stores and offer things to help thank them for all they do in their support of both the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild and Adventure Card Guild.

Retailers registered on paizo.com currently may receive a free Base Set for each Pathfinder Adventure Card Game adventure path in order to run Adventure Card Guild scenarios. Each week they also receive free copies of the Adventure Card Guild scenarios. And in the very near future, we plan on giving retailers access to the back catalog and all future scenario releases of the Roleplaying Guild scenarios.

We're kicking off this plan with an exclusive quest for retailers on April 29! This quest is based on and utilizes content from our latest hardcover release Pathfinder Unchained. In the future, our plan is to provide more exclusive quests coupled with new hardcover rulebooks upon their public release.

In this initial launch, the Unchained quest will only be provided to registered retailers. The registered retailers may schedule it as many times and on whatever days as they like, and it will be store exclusive through the end of PaizoCon. After PaizoCon, it will be made available as a free download for everyone! It is the registered retailers' responsibility to provide printed copies of the Quest to GMs to run the event.

Although the onus is on the retailer to make the most of this exclusive quest, I encourage all of you to speak with store owners and help them make the most of this opportunity. If your local store is not a registered retailer on Paizo.com, point them to our Retailers page to sign up!

We hope that the start of this new program, with the help of our VOs, will generate more interest in retailer exclusive content. This program will allow players and GMs the opportunity to familiarize themselves with new hardcover rules content, while allowing retailers to highlight a new product and hopefully boost sales in their stores.

To round out our latest hardcover release, next week's blog will feature how Pathfinder Unchained is being integrated into Pathfinder Society. This blog will highlight all the information you need to not only have a successful product launch in store, but how it will be be utilized for the foreseeable future in organized play.

Please let us know what you think, and as always, thanks to all of you for making PFS as awesome as it is today!

Mike Brock
Global Organized Play Coordinator

Improvements Are A-Comin'

Monday, November 17, 2014

Illustration by Taylor Fischer

Over the past several months, there have been some growing concerns with Pathfinder Society Organized Play. As we would like to take action to correct the concerns instead of let them grow and fester, we reached out to all 395 Venture-Officers a month ago to receive their feedback on what was wrong with the campaign, what was good about the campaign, and what we could do to improve or correct things to make Pathfinder Society even more awesome. Even though there were some difficult opinions expressed, most were true and it caused us to take a hard look at the organized play program.

After receiving feedback from the Venture-Officers, we formed a team of Paizo employees to work on solutions for the concerns that were expressed. This team included Lisa Stevens and Erik Mona, Mark Seifter and Mark Moreland, John Compton, and me. There were 327 responses from our VOs regarding thoughts and feedback on the current state of PFS. I went through each and every post and listed every one of the concerns expressed on a large white board in our conference room. The meeting took upwards of six hours, and through debate, discussion, and some give and take, we came up with some solutions to most of the concerns that were expressed.

The Venture-Officers are aware of many of the initatives we have set forth to accomplish the goals. There are still other topics we are continuing to discuss on the Venture-Officer message board to make sure they are the best we can make them for the campaign at large. I wanted to write this blog to bring the player base up-to-date on some of the initiatives we have set into motion with the awesome collaboration that took place between the VOs and the Paizo team.

Factions

First, let's talk about factions and their roles. After much discussion here at Paizo, specifically on some problems that were brought up in the long discussion with all of the Venture-Officers, we agree that factions currently don't play as important a role as we would like them to. We want factions to have meaning and substance. We think our factions help to set PFS apart from other organized play campaigns. We have strategized a four-pronged plan of attack which we think will help return factions to a more important role in the campaign.

• The five new factions are receiving a professional makeover for their faction symbols. Grand Lodge and Silver Crusade faction symbols will remain unchanged. If you have suggestions on what they should look like, please start a different thread. The target goal for this to be implemented is by the end of 2014.
• There will be revised and improved write-ups of each faction for both the PFS landing page at paizo.com and the Guide to Organized Play. We plan to implement these write-ups by the end of 2014.
• We will be adding "The Story So Far" type of pages to the PFS landing page at paizo.com. John is assembling a team of writers to help him accomplish this goal for all past seasons. These will be spoiler-lite and help to sum up each season for new and old players alike. The target goal for this is end of February 2015.
• We will be producing Faction Journal cards, similar to the PAXPort or the quests cards we provide at Gen Con. There will be one Faction Journal card for each of the seven factions.
• • The front of the card will list a series of goals (likely 10) to complete for the current season. These goals will be generic enough that they can be accomplished from playing not just the current season, but past season scenarios as well. For example, the Dark Archive Faction Journal may have one of their 10 goals be to find and recover five named manuals to bring back to the archives in Absalom. These could include the Inward-Facing Circle book from Silent Tide, the dozen black vellum scrolls in Voice in the Void, and any other documents or manuals that are found in sanctioned adventures. Each time you accomplish a goal, the GM will check off or initial a box on that particular goal.
  • The back of the card will include three award thresholds for accomplishing a set number of these goals. For example, if a PC completes three of the 10 goals, they will receive a small favor from their faction or a unique, faction-specific item. If they complete six of the ten goals, they could possibly receive a unique title that provides certain benefits or a better unique faction item. If they complete all 10 of the faction goals, their clout with their faction is sufficent to extend benefits to other PCs at tables where the character is present, while making their presence (and that of their faction) important to every character at the table. As a working example, a Silver Crusade PC who has completed all 10 of her faction's goals on her card might be able to use the her renown to call in a favor and reduce the prestige point cost of any PC's raise dead by 4 so long as she's there to flex her faction's muscles. Although this might not be the reward that appears on the Silver Crusade faction card when we finish this project, it gives a good example of the type of reward we're aiming for.
  • To reward GMs, we are considering adding an 11th optional goal that would be applied to the three different thresholds of rewards. For example, we may list 10 check boxes and for each scenario GMed in the current season, one check box could be completed. Once all ten are filled, one goal toward the a reward threshold would be met, leaving only two more to complete through playing the character.
  • The back of the card will also feature a form of the revised write-up of the faction described in bullet number two above, as well as a summation of season-long goals in descriptive text. This descriptive text will explain why the PC is trying to achieve the 10 goals for the faction and how it will aid the faction in the future—likely in the form of the faction head letters.
  • We realize that we are introducing this half way through the current season so everyone may not be able to complete the card for this season. On day one of Gen Con 2015, no more faction goals may be checked off from the Season 6 card. On the same day, a new Season 7 card will become available that may include a bonus reward depending on if the character completed five or more goals from the previous season. We hope this fresh approach will help to build the excitement in factions for future seasons as we plan to introduce updated faction goal cards every season at Gen Con.
  • These Faction Journal Cards will be provided as a free download on paizo.com, so anyone can print one off for a new or existing character at any time.
  • Every character may have one card assigned to him. If the PC changes factions any time in the future, he would lose all benefits from the card.
  • The Faction Journal card would not override the primary and secondary success conditions set forth in the scenario. Those are still in place to continue enforcing the importance of being a Pathfinder. The Faction Journal card will allow for more depth by adding greater meaning to the factions.
  • Use of the Faction Journal card is optional. A PC never has to take one, use one, or try to complete one.
  • The Faction Journal cards should be available by the end of January.

Scenario Length

Over time, scenarios have become longer, both in terms of word count dedicated to the adventure (rather than to faction missions, for example) and in terms of run-time. To an extent, it's also tied to the increased number of lengthy role-playing scenes and tougher combats intended to match the six-player assumption (i.e. more PCs means more enemies means more time spent in combat). In most circumstances, the longer scenarios are, the harder they are to schedule and run.

We are taking the following steps to address this issue and bring the expected run time (time from mission briefing to the resolution of the final encounter, not including set-up and paperwork) to four hours:

• Cut one encounter from Tier 5-9 and Tier 7-11 scenarios. These higher-level scenarios run over most often, and it's mostly a matter of high-level combat taking longer.
• Revise encounter expectations for Tier 3-7 to minimize long, drawn-out encounters resulting from especially high challenge ratings. If necessary, we will cut an encounter from Tier 3-7 scenarios, but preferably these can still work under approximately the same model.
• There are no changes expected on this front for Tier 1-5 scenarios, which generally fit the four-hour model without much trouble.
• You should start seeing these changes implemented in scenarios in December 2014 or January 2015.

Scenario Difficulty

We have heard your feedback that scenarios have become harder to just pick up and run. In part this is due to a large number of scenario-specific subsystems that require the GM—and sometimes the players—to learn a new set of rules during the scenario. In part, it's also a result of the reliance on the Pathfinder Reference Document when providing only short stat blocks for encounters. There's also the matter of the increasingly involved stories that scenarios are telling.

We are taking the following steps to mitigate these issues:

• Provide an appendix that includes the full Bestiary and NPC Codex pages referenced in the adventure as well as an un-tagged copy of any custom maps that appear in the scenario.
• Cap the number of required GM resources at four books per scenario (including the Core Rulebook). This should be relatively easy if the Bestiary pages are already included in the back of the adventure, as in most cases approximately half of the books referenced are Bestiaries.
• Include full stat blocks for creatures modified by the advanced, giant, or young simple templates. The exception to this would be modifications that appear in the "Scaling Encounter XYZ" sidebars. For example, if the adventure says that there should be an advanced otyugh, the full stats for an advanced otyugh will be there and ready to go. If the scaling notes say that a four-person group should instead face a young otyugh, those stats would not appear. This should at least cover the essential modifications and reduce the amount of on-the-fly adjustment that a GM needs to do.
• Limit the number of rules subsystems in scenarios. Subsystems aren't going away entirely, but we need to avoid relying on subsystems and simply save them for the times that they'll have the greatest impact. Should an especially large subsystem such as mass combat appear in a scenario again for whatever reason, it would be advertised on the product page. Simple point-tracking mechanics that only the GM sees (for example, keeping track of how many clues the PCs uncover) are likely to show up a little less often but are still a useful tool.
• You should start seeing these changes implemented in scenarios in December 2014 or January 2015.

Season Plotline

Over the past four seasons, the Pathfinder Society Organized Play campaign has based its season-long plotline on the most recent Adventure Path products. In some ways this has worked well due to the new campaign setting content available to players, GMs, and authors, but nearly as often, this decision has caused problems—either by binding the story of the campaign to that of a different product (and the continuity difficulties that can arise), driving the Society to do things that don't necessarily fit its mandate, or subjecting the community to a long storyline when many participants begin losing interest after the first several months. As the list of scenarios grows longer, the list of metaplots grows as well, providing a barrier to newer players getting involved.

To combat these trends, we are taking the following steps:

• Stop tying the campaign's story to those of the Adventure Paths. Player responses suggest that the Destiny of the Sands model of using a current Adventure Path as inspiration for a three-part series is about right, and even then it's not mandatory that every Adventure Path receives this treatment.
• Provide Pathfinder Society its own storyline using its own existing plot threads and creating new ones.
• Expand the number of stand-alone scenarios that explore a wide variety of locations rather than get tied down in one location with an ongoing story that is tough to follow if one misses a few pieces.
• Provide a "The Story Thus Far" handout that provides a low-spoiler summary of each season's storyline so that a player can quickly catch up on the critical plot concepts when sitting down to an adventure that deals with ongoing metaplot elements. The working length for each handout is about four paragraphs or 300-400 words. There would be one such document for each season and perhaps one for a few of the most complex ongoing metaplots (Grandmaster Torch, for example).
• You should start seeing these changes implemented at the beginning of Season 7, though some like "The Story Thus Far" handouts are likely to appear sooner.

Quests

From our feedback about the success of the Silverhex Chronicles quest line, we are aware we need more Quests and Quest-like events. Since we already have nine different Beginner Box quests broken up into parts one and two, this was topic was a no brainer.

We have added two Chronicle sheets to the development schedule for the Beginner Box Demos. One will be for the four demos in part one and the other will be for the five demos in part two. These should allow for you to draw more interest from players wanting to try the system out, as well as give you another two sets of quest-style adventures to run, bringing the immediate total of quests to three sets with the inclusion of the Silverhex Chronicles quests. Look for these two Chronicle sheets by the end of 2014.

We have quite a few more changes and additions in the works, and I can't wait to tell you about them. However, some are more ideas than polished action plans, so we need a bit more time to make sure we get the other exciting changes to PFS in order before we release the rest of this information publicly.

As always, we look forward to trying to create the best Organized Play experience we can for all of you. Please read our collected thoughts above and let us know what you think, how we might improve upon the ideas, and what we could change to make them better. Thanks again for being the best fanbase any game company out there has. Without your input, as well as that of the awesome Venture-Officer corp, we certainly could not make PFS the best organized play campaign available anywhere in the world.

Mike Brock
Pathfinder Society Campaign Coordinator

Open Call Thoughts

Monday, October 20, 2014

As I noted earlier this month, about three weeks ago I began really diving into the Open Call submissions and getting back to authors with feedback about their work. I'm more than halfway through the pile now, and so far it's been really productive. It looks like we might see Open Call authors showing up on the front covers of scenarios in a matter of months! I gather many of you are working on submissions now, and I'd like to share a few recommendations and tips that have come up frequently.

Scope: A Quest is a quick, self-contained adventure that is restricted to 2,000 words or less. Keep this in mind when outlining and writing a Quest, for it can be really tempting to try to squeeze a full scenario- or module-worth of ideas into this short format. The most successful Quests typically have a combat encounter and a brief non-combat encounter, and some are able to manage two combat encounters with style. I find that when a Quest tries to fit in three combats, it often comes at the expense of the background, area descriptions, or some other important section.

It's certainly nice to have a definitive end to a Quest, not a "to be continued." Sometimes longer adventures have that type of cliffhanger, but I'd rather your submission leave the players high-fiving and knowing they won rather than looking worried and feeling like they barely scratched the surface of the story.

Organization: Be sure you're modeling the overall organization of your submission after other Paizo adventures. Ambush in Absalom is an excellent reference for making sure you have all of the important pieces in the right place, including the Summary, Getting Started, and Conclusion sections. Where does the "Creatures" header appear in an encounter? What types of information appear in the "Development" section rather than in the room description? The more of this that an author can internalize and demonstrate, the easier it is to develop and use that person's work.

Subtiers: Pathfinder Society scenarios use a system of tiers that enable play at two different level ranges (e.g. Subtiers 1-2 and 4-5). With the exception of several early scenarios, every such adventure's subtiers are three levels apart, so it's important that you design your encounters so that the difference in the two subtiers' challenge ratings is three as well. That means if the lower subtier is facing a CR 3 encounter, the higher subtier should be a CR 6 encounter (not a CR 5 or CR 7).

Remember the Players: Keep your audience and the game format in mind when creating your stories and encounters. A Pathfinder Quest should be approachable enough that a group of somewhat experienced players are likely to succeed, so I would avoid including really powerful combats that are likely to devastate the PCs in a round or two. This is especially true for Subtier 1-2, where it is possible to leverage the challenge rating system to make a very effective yet low-CR creature that deals an average of [an average PC's hit points] per swing. Table 1-1 on page 291 of the Bestiary is a great resource for judging whether your NPCs are a reasonable challenge.

On a related note, also remember that the players are agents in the story limited only by their creativity. Unlike in a video game that presents an uninterruptable cut scene, the PCs have the potential to interrupt monologues and intervene when the villain tries to do something dastardly. Writing cut scenes into an adventure rarely goes over well, and it shouldn't appear in your Quest.

Stylistic Notes and Trends: Paizo's adventures tend to avoid future tense, passive voice, and second person references. Exceptions show up in dialogue and in a few other circumstances. If you find yourself using "you" or realize you've written "will" without referring to inheritance documentation or a type of saving throw, it's probably better for you to revise it.

Review Your Submission: Remember that your submission is a reflection of your writing and adventure design abilities. Reading your work out loud or giving it to a friend to read can help pick out a lot of errors, making it easier to wow your reader with your creativity rather than distracting him with grammatical concerns.

Once again, I'm excited to see so many submissions, and I hope that the recommendations above can help many of you create even more engaging adventures. Keep them coming.

John Compton
Developer

Update: Open Call!

Monday, October 6, 2014

"Why haven't you been writing for us all along?"
Illustration by Tayler Fischer

With the recent release of The Silverhex Chronicles, I've been really excited about Quests. The short, fun adventures are easy to use as demos at conventions and game days, and now that we have a solid way to give Pathfinder Society Organized Play characters credit for playing them, I think they're going to get a lot of traction in the community. Several writers from the last batch of Quests came from the Open Call, and since I'm already excited about Quests, the last several days have been a great opportunity to read through more submissions. I've gone through a large swath of the Open Call's inbox, reviewed those submissions, and nearly finished sending out responses—including feedback—to those authors. I'll be reading through more in the coming weeks.

As noted back when the "Write for Pathfinder Society" adventure pitch turned into the Open Call, reviewing a Quest gives the developer a much better sense of how a prospective author can assemble encounters, execute stories, and wield the English language. As the medium for publishing these adventures has transitioned from individual entries in independent publications to larger compilations roughly the size of a full scenario, it's a little trickier to pick up and publish a submission, yet I've already seen a few that might find their way into a future product.

Even if your first submission didn't meet Paizo's standards, learn from the feedback, practice those skills, and try again. My best authors are the ones who have handled criticism well and incorporated it into the next project. If you haven't submitted an adventure to the Open Call yet, what are you waiting for? This could be your first step toward writing for Paizo!

John Compton
Developer

Quests for All!

Monday, September 29, 2014

Pathfinder Society Organized Play serves many purposes, among them the opportunity for a group to sit down and play a short adventure. Most scenarios have a run-time of 4-5 hours, but even that can be a little too long for some people, schedules, and venues. Sometimes it's just a matter of finishing one game early and needing something quick to play to pass the time until the next convention slot begins. Over three years ago, the campaign introduced a solution: Quests. The first was "Ambush at Absalom," which appeared in Kobold Quarterly #17, followed a little over a year later by "Urge to Evolve" in the publication's final issue, #23. Since then, the campaign has produced several series of demos released at major conventions or as part of a major product release.

These have worked really well as introductions for new players of any age, yet the feedback I've heard is that they're not an attractive option for more experienced players. Is that an issue? Thinking back to myriad discussion threads inquiring about adding more Tier 1–5 scenarios to the schedule, I believe the answer is yes. Any chance to sit experienced players with newer ones is an opportunity to build the community, share tips, and impart good roleplaying values. To facilitate this, the experience should provide an incentive to make it more immediately worthwhile for the veterans as well as sufficiently appealing for the beginners to keep playing. The feedback I received about previous Quests was that no matter how fun they were, they provided no gold, XP, or Prestige Points to participants. No rewards meant virtually no use.

So what should a successful set of Quests do?

• Deliver a Society-friendly RPG experience that lasts about one hour
• Provide a solid introduction (i.e. diverse, fun, and generally nonlethal) for new players
• Reward participants with gold, XP, and Prestige Points
• Serve as a testing ground for new authors.

These were my goals when assigning and developing the latest batch of Quests, a six-part series called The Silverhex Chronicles. While working on the outline, I also remembered conversations I had with venture-captains over the past year, requesting 2-hour adventures that could be played on a weekday evening yet had enough substance to warrant traveling to a game day. Changing the 1-hour model was unlikely, but it was possible to link the Quests to one another loosely as part of a longer, flexible story that participants could experience in any order.

Balancing the rewards structure was tricky. If the Chronicle sheet were to provide only gold or Prestige Points but not XP, then a PC could complete the adventure and get ahead of the wealth curve. If the Quests were to provide minimal gold and Prestige Points with 1 XP, then veteran players would consider them suboptimal and avoid them. Instead, the Chronicle sheet provides scaling rewards depending on how many of the Quests one finishes before starting a different scenario. It's even possible to play the Quests over multiple sessions or with different groups and still get the full rewards. What's more, these Quests are replayable.

Of course, I had to find authors for the series, so I took this as an opportunity to draw upon the Open Call submissions. I wasn't disappointed. Josh Foster, Scott Sharplin, and Walter Sheppard did a great job of working together to integrate their adventures and vary the types of challenges presented so that these Quests provide a wide range of combat, roleplaying, and puzzle-solving opportunities.

The series was a blast at Gen Con. It was a hit at PAX. Now it's available as a free download to the public. Let us know what you think!

Happy gaming!

John Compton
Developer