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
