Organized Play Schedule Update

it allows us capacity to bring the popular Bounties program of self-contained shorter adventures to the Starfinder Society campaign starting in January of 2022, with six new Starfinder Bounties introduced over the course of next year, as well as publish new four Pathfinder Bounties for level 3 characters over the same period.

Oh heck yeah!

Let's face it, PFS2 scenarios are taking a lot of time to run well. As we go up in level, the standard scenario is going longer than 4 hours. I would like to see some quality 2-part scenarios that when combined take around 7 hours of play. That would be a lot better than trying to compress them into the standard 4 hour block. Having a mix of scenarios, bounties, and quests can help meet some odd time schedules as well. I know for my lodges it can really help.

I saw also that WotC is moving to shorter adventures. This might be a reflection of changes to attention spans over a long period of time, but also could be an effect of the pandemic. Time is something we do not have an abundance of. Maximizing the time is important and this change might help with that.

In short, I would rather have quality over quantity in 2e.

I'm interested to know how Bounty rewards will work in Starfinder, since that system doesn't use the 12 XP model.

Looking forward to all the Starfinder one shots and bounties! I try to GM all the latest scenarios so this will give me a chance to catch up on playing them too!

Any chance bounties will be included in society subscriptions now?

Excited to see some Bounties for Starfinder! Great little bites to introduce players to the game without necessarily all the trappings of the Starfinder Society.

Not to mention all the neat short stories that could be told!

Highly encouraged by reading the above. What impact, if any, will this have on length of Society seasons in real time? Will the seasons become two years in length (real time)? Will the average number of seasonal metaplot scenarios decrease or remain about the same?

Starfinder bounties sound great!

I do have to say that the increased focus on One-Shots over scenarios when I get to play my own characters is sad. Pre-gens just don't do it for me as far as a gaming experience goes.

I understand I'm probably in the minority since you have the data to back it up, just saddens me that Organized Play is moving away from what I like, even if only a little.

Will the seasons become two years in length (real time)? Will the average number of seasonal metaplot scenarios decrease or remain about the same?

No to the first, unsure on the second. My guess is that the number will get a little smaller but ultimately that's up to the individual line developer.

Paizo is producing a lot of content these days, and even though the changes will be unpleasant for some, protecting your employees from burnout is absolutely the right call.

Personally, less numbered PFS scenarios is less pathfinder my group will play. We do not enjoy the one-shots, don't run APs due to rotating players because of schedules, and don't play SF or SFS. This announcement just means we need to find a new game system to play multiple times per month now and frankly, that's a bummer.

Additionally, this makes having the Paizo advantage less advantageous by decreasing the actual value of the free subscription. Not really a fan of that either since one of the primary reasons I have 4 subs is access to the PFS scenarios as they release.

With a reduction of available scenarios... are you looking at ways to increase replay?

Obviously this really sucks and I wish it hadnt come to this.

I cant help but notice you suggesting the One-Shots can reliably supplement the organized play schedule and respectfully I have to strongly disagree with this sentiment.

The first one-shot came with a double ACP incentive and the next two launched at Paizocon which I think combines to inflate the normal buy-in from the org play crowd.

These adventures are typically shorter and less intensive than your typical scenario, are locked to a single level of eligibility, have no scaling for parties larger than 4 and frankly are so catered to the pre-gens that attempting to shoehorn them to accommodate org play characters and backstories would be a significantly worse experience. And typically most organized play regulars dont want to play pregens unless the experience being offered is pretty extraordinary.

All this to say - they're nice little supplemental pieces and great for recruitment events, but the notion that they can fill the same niche for organized play is simply wrong.

Will the introduction of Starfinder bounties see changes to how XP is tracked or XP per level in SFS?

These changes are really disappointing. Personally I have no interest in bounties and the one shots are not particularly engaging either, being divorced from Society content. They may be sanctioned but they dont offer PFS reputation.

I dont particularly see the basis for this change at all.

If we're increasing the number of one-shots, then I want to put in a request for a "We Be Space Goblins" series.

I don't mean to be negative, but bounties are the least compelling content I've played in PFS, and side conversation with other players have yielded similar feedback (though perhaps biased). I'm struggling to see this as a positive change as I've really enjoyed working through the meta plots of the PFS scenarios.

Apologies, but is this today's Blog post or is there another one due?

I thought there would be news about Adventure Paths today from one of the product comments..

I dont particularly see the basis for this change at all.

Given the increased focus on One-Shots and Bounties, which are more accessible to new players, I'd say the goal is to expand the number of people involved in the PFS campaign.

The one hour quests in PFS1 were our biggest recruiting tool at cons here, as we could demo PFS to con goers in a short time. I expect the bounties will perform the same function.

Apologies, but is this today's Blog post or is there another one due?

I thought there would be news about Adventure Paths today from one of the product comments..

No worries. This is not the only blog post of the day. The Strength of Thousands Adventure Path Player’s Guide blog is on its way. Adventures Ahead!

Personally I've enjoyed the Bounties way more than I expected to. They provide a nice taste of roleplay and Pathfinder tactics. Several of them are quite unique and entertaining. I would love to see some Bounties for characters above level 1, but since they are so great at onboarding people into PF2, then those two ideas might be in conflict.

I appreciate that there are only so many encounters and words of content that an editing team can process. Having said that, I'm sad to see the loss of PFS scenarios at the expense of one shots. Sadly I have zero interest in one shots. For me PFS is about creating a character and experiencing their story and discovering who they are as they advance. I can't rationalize the time it takes to play a one shot as I'm not invested in a pre-gen the same way. It sounds like there's a big audience for the one shots - and if they're growing the game, that's awesome. But they're just not for me.

These sound like positive changes to me, but I only play Starfinder, not PF2. I will say it does seem to decrease the value of subscribing if I'm losing on the number of scenarios I currently receive for free in favor of one-shots and bounties I would have to pay for. I also agree with one of the comments above that I would like to see bounties for levels higher than 1st. Looking forward to seeing some of these new short releases in Foundry VTT as well if they're made available there.

I guess my excitement is in the minority, but I should admit that, if you're producing more One-Shots *and* producing fewer Scenarios, you should start giving full Reputation for the One-Shots.

Offering zero Reputation is hard to swallow and seems punishing for no reason. I have to Slow Track the One-Shots to mitigate the Reputation loss, and it's always a sour note when I have to explain it to others.

You should also default to offering double AcP for all of them.

Making those two changes will get more people to purchase and play these, new players and experienced alike, which sounds like it's the ultimate end goal.

If you are going to reduce the number of regular PFS scenarios, can we please get more (read: many more) replayable scenarios? Picking scenarios is getting tough for my group as things are right now because we're getting several new players and the vets have already played most of the 1-4 scenarios. We don't always have enough tables to seat two tables a week. Having more repeatable scenarios will let all of our players keep playing

Related, make Mosquito Witch replayable. It's easily one of the best 2e scenarios and great for drawing new players in because they have time to get used to playing and their characters before combat happens.

I don't mean to be negative, but bounties are the least compelling content I've played in PFS, and side conversation with other players have yielded similar feedback (though perhaps biased). I'm struggling to see this as a positive change as I've really enjoyed working through the meta plots of the PFS scenarios.

As Alex mentioned here, metaplot scenarios shouldn't be impacted much. If it's specifically story content you're afraid of, I don't think you need to worry much. I do agree that more Bounties aren't an equal tradeoff, but I know they're big hits, so I won't complain.

Related, make Mosquito Witch replayable. It's easily one of the best 2e scenarios and great for drawing new players in because they have time to get used to playing and their characters before combat happens.

Oh I love Mosquito Witch - and would not mind seeing this as Replayable - perhaps with a...

Overall I support the move of Quality over Quantity - each Scenario is truly epic and stands on it's own, squashed into a 3-4 hour slot, but easily expands into 1.5 times that. Cheers!

Weird. It's my least favorite, and it's the only Season 1 that I won't/haven't GMed.

My biggest concern with this update lies with AcP.

AcP has a problem where people who earn enough points to obtain an ancestry boon start running out of scenarios to play. Some ancestries require running about 30 games or playing about 60 games when there's currently less than 70 scenarios available to play. Reducing the number of new scenarios each month will exacerbate this issue.

I'm not hugely thrilled with the reduction in Starfinder scenarios, since I don't play much PFS2 - and with (seemingly) more of the One-Shots going Pathfinder 2's way, it doesn't seem like there'll be as much to make up for what looks to be a more drastic reduction.

So, I'm disappointed.

But constant crunch isn't crunch anymore, it's a workload management problem. We've all been able to see the problem for a long time, and it's not a good place to be. Something's gotta give. You either need to do less work or hire more people, and it looks like it's the former.

Considering that and reacting to a long-standing problem is a really, really good thing, and I'm glad something's being done. I don't want to jump too far ahead, but maybe in time you'll all be able to hire someone new and bring the total scenario count back up to where it was--with less psychic damage this time.

What, Mosquito Witch hate?? It's my favorite!

Okay, so you have to run it very differently from most PFS scenarios. The ending's in a very different style. If you're expecting your typical PFS romp, it's not for you.

But mystery! Horror! Laid out in a way that you can make it work well in PFS!

(I might be a dork.)

Overall I'm not happy about this news, though I can see some of the reasons for the change.

Bounties, to me, have been the best version yet of the 1-hour adventure. I'm glad we'll see some at a higher level, though I'd prefer that they weren't for a single level. With a gap like that going from level 1 bounties to level 3, it's harder to schedule a consistent bounty group, as once they hit 2nd level, they have to go off and play scenarios and might not all get to 3rd at the same time. But in general, more and higher level bounties is a good thing.

I've got very mixed feelings about the one-shots. Like others, I enjoyed Sundered Waves more than Lionlodge, though I didn't dislike either. But I like to play my own characters, so having fewer opportunities to do so is very disappointing to me. I don't particularly care about the lack of reputation from the one-shots. It's been disappointing that the main additional boon from them has been being allowed to play those characters as pregens in regular scenarios. That's not really a boon to me, since, as mentioned, I prefer to play my own characters.

I would feel a lot better about all of this if we were to get the guidelines on running modules in "event mode" that were mentioned way back pre-pandemic. I realize the pandemic interrupted a lot of things and that everyone has been busy, but at the moment I'm effectively locked out of playing any of the modules or adventure paths due to the time commitment required for both. I much preferred the multiple chronicle sheets per module format from the latter part of 1E sanctioning, where I could play part 1 of a module, get my sheet, and play the other parts whenever I had time or could find them scheduled. Much as I feared at the time, I've not been able to play any of the 2E modules, despite attempts of people organizing "speed runs" (which still end up being about 12 hours or more). Note I'm not asking that modules be worth any more XP or gold than they are currently. Just that I could play a single part and get a 4XP chronicle sheet (or whatever makes sense for the particular module). Then play part 2 and 3 later. Maybe with a different group, and maybe even with a different character.

I appreciate the improvements in the speed of the sanctioning, and I realize that simplifying the sanctioning of modules and APs helps make that possible. I just wish that they would go back to a multiple chronicle format so that I'd ever be able to play any of them. If they are meant to be compensating for fewer scenarios, that would go a long way towards them actually doing so.

EDIT: Afterthought... It also feels as though this will slow down the progression of higher-level scenarios. If we're getting fewer scenarios each season, then it's harder to fit in a wider spread of levels for the scenarios. We already will only have 2 7-10s. With fewer scenarios next season, can we really expect to get more 7-10s and start on 9-12s, while still having enough new lower level scenarios?

The part that I guess I don't understand is how having MORE bounties and one shots than we currently have helps bring in new players.

By definition, new players won't have played the existing bounties and one shots (not all of them, at any rate). 12 bounties and 3 one shots seems more than enough for almost all cons, almost all recruitment n9ghts at the local game store, etc.

Is the problem that GMs are getting bored and not volunteering?

What, Mosquito Witch hate?? It's my favorite!

Okay, so you have to run it very differently from most PFS scenarios. The ending's in a very different style. If you're expecting your typical PFS romp, it's not for you.

But mystery! Horror! Laid out in a way that you can make it work well in PFS!

(I might be a dork.)

As someone who used to live in Florida under a constant threat of malaria, I found the scenario rather unpleasant.

Yeah, I did not have the greatest time with Mosquito Witch.

Ok, someone pointed out to me that the one-shot sanctioning documents only "recommend" using the included pregens. If those start being offered by GMs allowing you to bring your PFS character instead, then we're likely at about the same place we were before. How much that affects the story in any particular one-shot remains to be seen. Sundered Waves seemed to have a little more tie-in to the characters' backstories, while Lionlodge it felt like it could work for any group of adventurers. But both more or less just seemed like a way to set up getting the characters there with some roleplaying cues that are useful for new players. Neither adventure felt like it would be adversely affected by having different characters taking part (at least in terms of story. Some PFS characters might have overwhelmed the enemies, where there's more control over what the pregens bring).

Yeah I was just going to mention that you don't *have* to play the provided Pregens if you would rather play your own character. There's even no threat of death.

But you do need a GM who's okay with that.

Reading the tea leaves of the post it seems to me that they've sold the One-shots and bounties better than expected, particularly in the market segment which purchases books and APs, but not Org play content. With that said, I have to concur with Paul. Once there is sufficient quantity of low-level one shots and bounties there isn't much reason to continue to produce more unless you think the people who run such content will continue to purchase it, which is a pretty shaky proposition. The one thing the one-shots have over PFS early content is there's story hooks that allow a GM to launch a campaign from, which is great, but its a different product from org play content that really just doesn't mesh well. I expect that org play die-hards will continue to run the one-shot content, but the ones who don't pick it up are going to off-set any gains in non-org play customers. (For instance, I haven't purchased bounties past #4, and never got the second one-shot). I believe that Org play is a good place for future GMs to practice and get better, for players to learn and find others they like to adventure with. And frankly it broadens paizo products to a different market segment than APs and one-shots. Trying to blend them will run you into what Furious Thrune talks about.

Putting the 700k words per year into context, the 2e APs are ~60k each book meaning each year the OP team is putting out two six book APs worth of content (split between the two systems). What it means is that org play character adventures are significantly more costly per word than an AP character given that there are at most 8 levels of content produced for org play use each year. Doubtless this is because PFS/SFS has a lot of green-text, and context not given in APs, though significantly less art.

Overall, this reduction being a big deal to Org Play will hinge on how many repeatables are produced each year, and expanding them upwards to 3-6. We all know they are longer and cost more to produce, so if this is a re-allocation of time and money I don't see more being produced sadly. But bounties in the 3-6 range can help here, so fingers crossed for level 5 and up bounties :)

Yeah I was just going to mention that you don't *have* to play the provided Pregens if you would rather play your own character. There's even no threat of death.

But you do need a GM who's okay with that.

You're saying if I bring my own character to a table the GM could turn me away? That doesn't sound right..

If this helps provide the devs and OP team with a more balanced schedule then I'm 100% for it regardless of the impact on the exact amount of playable Society content. The Paizo employees are not machines who can churn out an endless supply of content and not suffer for it, hopefully this is a move to help them get a better balance, more time to work in a way that fits them best and the chance to move from a permanent crunch schedule to one that actually lets them breathe, and that gets my full and unequivocal support.

Nefreet wrote:

Yeah I was just going to mention that you don't *have* to play the provided Pregens if you would rather play your own character. There's even no threat of death.

But you do need a GM who's okay with that.

You're saying if I bring my own character to a table the GM could turn me away? That doesn't sound right..

They're not published for Society. They're Stand-alone Adventures.

A GM can turn away your Org Play character just the same as they'd do when running an AP.

Highly encouraged by reading the above. What impact, if any, will this have on length of Society seasons in real time? Will the seasons become two years in length (real time)? Will the average number of seasonal meta-plot scenarios decrease or remain about the same?

Running a bit off the tracks with that train of thought, I would not be opposed to seeing a "season" for society play go longer than a year. Not only could this allow for a more complex story line for the season goals in general, it could still have specials and such with major points to the plot and it might allow those who are not "caught up' on all the meta scenarios a little more time to get there...

I was just thinking of this as sometimes the meta plots feel like they could be expanded on more as they are really interesting. Just wanted to share my thoughts, cheers for all you guys do and thanks for the wonderful gaming!

The two-year Year of Scoured Stars was quite satisfying.

Happy with the introduction of SFS Bounties.

These will be an enormous aid for recruitment activities and a better pathway to SFS Org Play than the new Into scenarios that I think missed the mark.

Most of our FLGS only offer 3 hour slots, and people attending a 'geek event' (as opposed to a gaming con) keen on trying out some learn-2-play will happily drop an hour or so, but are extremely unlikely to table up for the next five hours. Bounties now gives us better tools for this. PF2 has benefited greatly from these, now SFS gets the same love.

dropping 8 scenarios a year in SFS seems like a lot, but then when I add back in the bounties and modules we still get plenty of content, it is just the mix that changes. One shots are ok, no real change from the FreeRPG content that drops every year.

Overall, fine with the change, and if it gives people a break then awesome.

I hope we still get to see cool new content from the fresh new writers :)

Really hope there are more repeatable scenarios with the reduced number. Season 2 was very disappointing in that regard.

As for bounties they are fine, but I don't like how they are for a single level as my society characters graduate out of them quickly combined with the regular scenarios.

Personally I preferred the quest format, but then I have a feeling I'm not the target demographic.

As for bounties they are fine, but I don't like how they are for a single level as my society characters graduate out of them quickly combined with the regular scenarios.

To save yourself on character numbers just set aside one PC solely for Bounties.

You could even have them go Slow Track for extra longevity.

Although not as viable an option for SFS since they don't offer Slow Track.

I play almost exclusively play by post, and I play few enough games at a time that I'm not worried about running out of content. I mostly ignore repeatables at the present time.

I would like to get similar value out of the free Pathfinder Society scenario sub I get from having 4 subscriptions. Maybe add the oneshots in as bonus content for people getting that deal?

--

Since this has apparently turned into an Organized Play content feedback scrum I'll add my own to the pile:
- I love metaplot scenarios
- the next best thing are scenarios that are closely related in an arc. I would love to see at least 3-4 scenarios worth of these in every season
- the next best thing are faction oriented scenarios
- of course it is still good to have a few scenarios that fit none of these criteria

Bounties don't do much for me, as I usually don't have level 1 characters. I liked quests a fair bit more partly for the reason.

I haven't tried the one shots yet but it sounds like I need to.

I really appreciate the pace at which new non-PFS content is sanctioned; kudos for that!

Looking forward to all the Starfinder one shots and bounties!

If you're a happy GM who has things to run at events that you have been requested to be at in the past, but then been unable to fufill their needs because they want 1hr "How to Starfind for newbs", not 4hrs of plot and so the Event Organisers sigh at you and apologise for taking up your time, clap your hands! clap clap

I can go places with Bounties now. I think USyd's nerd groups have been pestering the NSW lodge for games, but getting sad over lack of short games. Now, I can. Thanks Paizo <3

But agree on the repeats. Running out of content or replays is a problem.

Maybe make replays an AcP thing to purchase too?

The bounties tend to be low level things. But I"m not sure why you need MORE low level things for new players. It doesn't matter if you have one bounty or 12, newguy can sit down and have a brand new experience with the bounty whether its hot off the press or collecting more cobwebs than a drow silk farm.

Having something be consistently twice a month keeps my mind on it. One scenario a month if you're out or nearly out of content just isn't enough. People at that level may be a smaller percentage of the population, but they're also the ones buying a lot of products and running a lot of those games for the new people to get into.

I'll say again. If the bottleneck in producing a scenario is the editing and polish I'd be more than willing to go full philistine and skip on editing polish and layout. Especially if the other option is halving play.

The scenarios exist as pdfs. they only exist as pdfs. And if I'm going to print them out i need to edit them anyway (since they've been edited for style > Usability and to kill the verbotten white space) They don't need to look good on the store shelf when you're flipping through it.