You can play every Starfinder Society Scenario as many times as you like, earning full rewards for playing, so long as you play with a different character each time.

So, effectively, every scenario is replayable? I like this change but also hope the scenarios have enough to keep them from feeling stale on a replay

No scenario tags? Those weren't really mechanical per se, just a "Hey this scenario has X in it"

Is there a specific reason for that informational piece being excluded?

Really looking forward to this!

A little sad to see appendices going away. I find having the stat blocks separated out makes prepping and running easier.

REALLY hoping we get some of this in PFS season 7. The paring down of society-specific rules is great, as are things like higher level character creation, smaller tiers, and replayability.

REALLY hoping we get some of this in PFS season 7. The paring down of society-specific rules is great, as are things like higher level character creation, smaller tiers, and replayability.

We will not be porting these changes (or any others we'll be discussing) over to Pathfinder Society Year 7, just to set expectations. We anticipate very few changes to the structure of Pathfinder Society for Year 7.

DthAlchemist wrote:

REALLY hoping we get some of this in PFS season 7. The paring down of society-specific rules is great, as are things like higher level character creation, smaller tiers, and replayability.

We will not be porting these changes (or any others we'll be discussing) over to Pathfinder Society Year 7, just to set expectations. We anticipate very few changes to the structure of Pathfinder Society for Year 7.

Shame. Hopefully the changes make the jump to PFS eventually. At least given this info, it sounds like a much better organized play experience.

So by "no tags" do you mean no Starship, Vehicle, Replayable, etc tags; or no tags at all, like Wayfinders, Metaplot, etc? Because some of those tags were absolutely useful for letting us know what to expect from the scenario, in fact, all of them were. I for one would very much like to continue seeing which scenarios tie into the metaplot, which factions are represented, whether we can expect vehicular or starship combat, etc.

All of the other changes seem great. I'm glad to see the number of scenarios returning to 2 per month, I appreciate the expected time of 2-3 hours and the 2-level level range. These all sound great!

Universal replayability is a dream come true! Nonetheless, I'm right there with Lavabeing in hoping that each scenario has at least a little room for variation.

Stat blocks right in the text instead of way at the back should be nice, but I hope they're formatted nicely and don't spill over onto the next page. The coolest abilties tend to be at the bottom of the block, and if they wind up on a seperate page, I'm way more likely to forget about them.

Sounds good to me! Especially playing the adventures as often as you like with different characters; that's something I've always felt strongly about!

Starfinder Society Scenarios in Second Edition do not include ... challenge points, treasure bundles

Oh dang, sweet! As someone who's run a lot of 1e SFS but with very little familiarity with PFS2, having to figure out and memorise the maths for CP, treasure bundles, dayjob checks, etc, was one of the things I wasn't looking forwards to. One less thing to have to figure out in August :) And everything being replayable per character?! FeelsGoodVelloro.jpeg

I really dig how much more flexible y'all are sounding here. Looking forward to it!

I suspect the community can come up with replacements for the useful parts of scenario tags. One way might be to add, say, the equivalent of the Metaplot tag to pages on the Starfinder Wiki. Just saying.

I think we already lay out the metaplot scenarios on the page for each season. (If I’m misremembering, we should definitely do that.)

(Full disclosure: we formed a nonprofit recently to formalize the structure behind the running of the PF and SF wikis. I am the president of the nonprofit. But I would make this suggestion anyway.)

Love the focus on simplicity and replayability!

"If you don’t have a character of the appropriate level, you can still play if you use a newly created character"

Should be interesting if you could play with any character you have.

Alex Speidel wrote:

DthAlchemist wrote:

REALLY hoping we get some of this in PFS season 7. The paring down of society-specific rules is great, as are things like higher level character creation, smaller tiers, and replayability.

We will not be porting these changes (or any others we'll be discussing) over to Pathfinder Society Year 7, just to set expectations. We anticipate very few changes to the structure of Pathfinder Society for Year 7.

Shame. Hopefully the changes make the jump to PFS eventually. At least given this info, it sounds like a much better organized play experience.

My guess is that they will want to test these for some time at least, to gather feedback, before porting these changes.

How much will the launch adventure cost, and will the 4 others be the standard price or even included in the subscription. Do we simply loose out on them and start at the 5th or get all 4 and the launch adventure the first month subscribed?

How much will the launch adventure cost, and will the 4 others be the standard price or even included in the subscription. Do we simply loose out on them and start at the 5th or get all 4 and the launch adventure the first month subscribed?

The special will be a higher cost than the other scenarios, prices to be announced when we create product pages. Stay tuned for more on those as we continue the rollout!

I should note that two of the launch scenarios will drop on August 1 and two will drop at the end of August on the 27th with the PFS releases.

Love these changes and streamlining!

Interesting...

2-3 hours is disappointing. Driving 30-60 minutes each way for a 2 hour game could be underwhelming. And it complicates simultaneous scheduling with PFS games.

My hope is that they quickly settle in towards one end of that range of the other. If they're usually 2 hours you can run two games in a 4.5 hour block. If they usually run 3 there'll be enough there to be worth the trip.

I just hope , this change doesnt put shackles on the creativity of the mods. i would put the PF1 mods up against any games mods as some of them were absolutely fantastic, though the combats with a few exceptions were often lacking.

2-3 hours is disappointing. Driving 30-60 minutes each way for a 2 hour game could be underwhelming. And it complicates simultaneous scheduling with PFS games.

My hope is that they quickly settle in towards one end of that range of the other. If they're usually 2 hours you can run two games in a 4.5 hour block. If they usually run 3 there'll be enough there to be worth the trip.

If we ever get bounties in SF2e that would make a good mix to play with a scenario that runs closer to 3 hours.

Also, especially with all the SF2e scenarios being repeatable taking advantage of the newer relaxed or clarified "run as written rules and guidelines, will be more important to making repeat games more interesting. Having shorter scenarios could give GMs some time to get creative to make games run longer. Might not be something everyone wants to do but it's a nice option to have. Here are 2 threads talking about the "run as written" update.

Revising "Run as Written".

How far have you pushed not "Run as Written"?.

"If you don’t have a character of the appropriate level, you can still play if you use a newly created character"

Should be interesting if you could play with any character you have.

I think the advantage of only being able to use a newly made character you haven't played before encourages making more characters. I'm courious to see what the exact definition of a "newly made character" is, and if there is any other limits other than having not played them before.

Why make SFS in to a Quest only system?

It really does look like it is continuing the 'Starfinder is an afterthought' appearance it has had since inception...

I'm concerned that shorter scenarios will be less deep and screw up scheduling, that allowing GMs to slide the scale how they want will create vastly different experiences (and satisfaction) and that Infinite Replay will be as bad as it was for D&D.

I hope these changes stay out of PFS far beyond Season 7.

I do like the idea of no subtiers and making characters freely. Why couldn't we start there?

Why make SFS in to a Quest only system?

It really does look like it is continuing the 'Starfinder is an afterthought' appearance it has had since inception...

The longest public playtest in Paizo's history doesn't seem like an afterthought to me... Or having two hardcover books out before the Players Core is even out... Or having a novel and in-lore deck and card game come, and a boxed deluxe adventure all out at release... To me it sounds like they really care about the game and want to have it succeed.

I'm courious to see how the 2-3 hour-long scenarios play, but some of the best in-person PF2e sessions I've played were 2 quests played back-to-back, so I'm open to seeing how all 2-3 hour-long scenarios go. My big concern is if that's enough time to develop an interesting story, but that's easily fixed by doing more multi-scenario mini-polts.

I'm concerned that shorter scenarios will be less deep and screw up scheduling, that allowing GMs to slide the scale how they want will create vastly different experiences (and satisfaction) and that Infinite Replay will be as bad as it was for D&D.

I hope these changes stay out of PFS far beyond Season 7.

I do like the idea of no subtiers and making characters freely. Why couldn't we start there?

During the SF2e playtest I played Shards of the Glass Planet 3 times back to back, each time with a different character class, GM, and group of players, it played and felt different each time. Although I played D&D for decades I never played it in organized play, what about repeatable adventures made it bad for D&D? Also how frequently did new organized play adventures come out for D&D?

During the SF2e playtest I played Shards of the Glass Planet 3 times back to back, each time with a different character class, GM, and group of players, it played and felt different each time. Although I played D&D for decades I never played it in organized play, what about repeatable adventures made it bad for D&D? Also how frequently did new organized play adventures come out for D&D?

Having GM'd that back-to-back that many times... I don't feel there's enough variation there at all to make it interesting. There's no discovery, no changes, I'd rather double the length of it and add more depth to a single adventure.

Replaying is difficult for some people. Some players can't properly 'play dumb' like some scenarios need you to do. There's no mystery, no surprise. Some players can't help but say "OH LAST TIME I DID THIS [story time]", which makes my personal experience at the table less special.

DnD Org Play had an issue where people would get together, 4 people had played the scenario, and they'd all just say "Well, we have 3 characters that want credit for this, so lets just speedrun this" and new players didn't get a chance to actually experience the scenario at all. No, that won't happen everywhere, everyone will say "No, we won't let that happen", but somewhere, it will, because it's not technically against the rules.

I'm courious to see how the 2-3 hour-long scenarios play, but some of the best in-person PF2e sessions I've played were 2 quests played back-to-back, so I'm open to seeing how all 2-3 hour-long scenarios go. My big concern is if that's enough time to develop an interesting story, but that's easily fixed by doing more multi-scenario mini-polts.

I tried quests and bounties a few times, but found them utterly lacking. One skill challenge, followed by one encounter. There may have been some nice (short) stories in there, but mechanically, there just wasn't enough meat for me. I REALLY hope the SFS2 scenarios will have more mechanical depth than that. Otherwise I can't see myself becoming invested in that part of organized play. Which is a shame. I always liked the Starfinder setting and loved much about the playtest, so I was fully prepared to jump into Starfinder Society more with the release of second edition!

Driftbourne wrote:

DnD Org Play had an issue where people would get together, 4 people had played the scenario, and they'd all just say "Well, we have 3 characters that want credit for this, so lets just speedrun this" and new players didn't get a chance to actually experience the scenario at all. No, that won't happen everywhere, everyone will say "No, we won't let that happen", but somewhere, it will, because it's not technically against the rules.

PFS2e already has this in parts. When browsing Warhorn for games, I often see Speedrun Sessions for repeatable adventures. Some of them even as Theater of the mind and "you can roll any way you like and just tell us the results", which invites even more shenannigans.

Driftbourne wrote:

I'm courious to see how the 2-3 hour-long scenarios play, but some of the best in-person PF2e sessions I've played were 2 quests played back-to-back, so I'm open to seeing how all 2-3 hour-long scenarios go. My big concern is if that's enough time to develop an interesting story, but that's easily fixed by doing more multi-scenario mini-polts.

I tried quests and bounties a few times, but found them utterly lacking. One skill challenge, followed by one encounter. There may have been some nice (short) stories in there, but mechanically, there just wasn't enough meat for me. I REALLY hope the SFS2 scenarios will have more mechanical depth than that. Otherwise I can't see myself becoming invested in that part of organized play. Which is a shame. I always liked the Starfinder setting and loved much about the playtest, so I was fully prepared to jump into Starfinder Society more with the release of second edition!

I agree bounties are really short even in a slow play by post game they are done as soon as they start. I think they make good extra encounters in a home game. In SFS one GM ran 4 of them back to back with the same group of players which made the overall experience better for me. But compared to PD2e 2-3 hours long is a series 2 quest which is longer than a quest or bounty.

I only own 3 of the series 2 quests, one of them has 8 encounters areas with 3 of them being combat. The other has 6 encounters with 2 combats, the last is not structured into encounters so hard to compare. Those are all longer than a bounty or series 1 quest, so I'm cautiously optimistic. There are a lot of changes going on so really need to see how they all work together to really judge the new scenarios, especially without actually seeing one yet.

Driftbourne wrote:

I'm courious to see how the 2-3 hour-long scenarios play, but some of the best in-person PF2e sessions I've played were 2 quests played back-to-back, so I'm open to seeing how all 2-3 hour-long scenarios go. My big concern is if that's enough time to develop an interesting story, but that's easily fixed by doing more multi-scenario mini-polts.

I tried quests and bounties a few times, but found them utterly lacking. One skill challenge, followed by one encounter. There may have been some nice (short) stories in there, but mechanically, there just wasn't enough meat for me. I REALLY hope the SFS2 scenarios will have more mechanical depth than that. Otherwise I can't see myself becoming invested in that part of organized play. Which is a shame. I always liked the Starfinder setting and loved much about the playtest, so I was fully prepared to jump into Starfinder Society more with the release of second edition!

So to be fair, what you are describing are the 1 hour quests & bounties, and yes, those are fairly lacking (but do have a place). I've played and GM'd several of the 2 hour ones, and they are more involved, and can be a lot of fun. Back-to-back 2 hour quests are a satisfying game day (and can let you share GMing duties).

I am nervous about the changes. I certainly have no problem with all being repeatable. Give more value to the scenario for the GM and much more worth its price. So its a shame that isn't planned for PFS2. I didn't play SFS1 so I don't know how complex it was, but I instinctively bawk at "simplicity". I often hear generic and cookie cutter when I hear something is being made simple. Especially because this is being sold as easier for the writers. I don't want writers to suffer, but I also don't want the quality of the product to go down. That said I didn't play SFS1 so I don't know how complex it was. I didn't think anyone had a problem with tags. There aren't any wasted tags in PFS2. Obviously SFS2 won't need the repeatable tag, but nothing wrong with letting players know which factions are taking a leading role and if it is metaplot. Losing those seems like a negative even if a small change.

So to be fair, what you are describing are the 1 hour quests & bounties, and yes, those are fairly lacking (but do have a place). I've played and GM'd several of the 2 hour ones, and they are more involved, and can be a lot of fun. Back-to-back 2 hour quests are a satisfying game day (and can let you share GMing duties).

You are correct - after my not so great experiences with the older quests / bounties, I mostly ignored the newer ones. The two I did play ("The Swordlord's Challenge" and "Infernal Infiltration") felt pretty much like Intro - Skill Challenge - Encounter - Conclusion. But maybe I misremember something there?

pH unbalanced wrote:

So to be fair, what you are describing are the 1 hour quests & bounties, and yes, those are fairly lacking (but do have a place). I've played and GM'd several of the 2 hour ones, and they are more involved, and can be a lot of fun. Back-to-back 2 hour quests are a satisfying game day (and can let you share GMing duties).

You are correct - after my not so great experiences with the older quests / bounties, I mostly ignored the newer ones. The two I did play ("The Swordlord's Challenge" and "Infernal Infiltration") felt pretty much like Intro - Skill Challenge - Encounter - Conclusion. But maybe I misremember something there?

Swordlord's Challenge was the first Series 2 and I think they were sticking close to an established formula, and I think Infernal Infiltration spends a lot of page space on the titular Infiltration (It might also have a second fight if things go bad, but I don't know for sure). Most series 2 quests tend to have multiple fights or major RP sections.

I didn't play SFS1 so I don't know how complex it was, but I instinctively bawk at "simplicity". I often hear generic and cookie cutter when I hear something is being made simple. Especially because this is being sold as easier for the writers. I don't want writers to suffer, but I also don't want the quality of the product to go down. That said I didn't play SFS1 so I don't know how complex it was.

I don't see it that way at all. This isn't about overall game complexity, it's about not having new rules specific to a short scenario that stops the game to explain new rules to the players, that are just used for one scenaro. Writers are not suffering, it just takes longer to write new rules than it does to write the adventure parts. The side effect of the change is that it lets writers write adventures faster.

"we’re avoiding unnecessary deviations whenever possible."

That still leaves the door open to do so, but only when it really matters. In SF1e, deviations seemed to be added as often as possible.

Two-level adventures as listed, with no apparent overlap could cause issues.

As described, there are level 1-2 and 3-4 adventures, but no 2-3; so 2nd and 3rd level characters cannot be at the same table.

Imagine that you have a group of friends who go to a regular event together, always playing the same characters. One of them misses one of the first six games (assuming three games to a level), and is now still second level whilst the others are all already 3rd. They can't play together next time; and will have to go through hoops levelling that one character to catch up.

This will be a great and welcomed change. I firmly support most changes that focus on reducing barriers of entry. We need to continue finding ways for the game to get new casual entry while allowing deeper play. Maybe levels should help support that type of play? Gradually leveling creates a scale of casual to veteran difficulty scaling? Maybe it already does to some extent.

26 scenarios is a tall order, however one thing I would like to see more of is single hard backed scenarios. Much like we have noticed Pathfinder 2e start to transition to, rather than the multi booklet campaigns.

How does this part “If you don’t have a character of the appropriate level, you can still play if you use a newly created character” work?

How do you use a new character (level 1?) when you don’t have a character in level?

How does this part “If you don’t have a character of the appropriate level, you can still play if you use a newly created character” work?

How do you use a new character (level 1?) when you don’t have a character in level?

The topic next week, April 22, is Character Creation. I bet we find out then.

I think newly created characters will be a great option to have in addition to pregens. With scenarios only covering 2 levels, I'm wondering what levels the pregens will be.

Really getting excited for 2nd edition Starfinder Society play. I always found the Starfinder scenarios to have a lovely tongue in cheek side to them.

Driftbourne wrote:

During the SF2e playtest I played Shards of the Glass Planet 3 times back to back, each time with a different character class, GM, and group of players, it played and felt different each time. Although I played D&D for decades I never played it in organized play, what about repeatable adventures made it bad for D&D? Also how frequently did new organized play adventures come out for D&D?

Replaying is difficult for some people. Some players can't properly 'play dumb' like some scenarios need you to do. There's no mystery, no surprise. Some players can't help but say "OH LAST TIME I DID THIS [story time]", which makes my personal experience at the table less special.

DnD Org Play had an issue where people would get together, 4 people had played the scenario, and they'd all just say "Well, we have 3 characters that want credit for this, so lets just speedrun this" and new players didn't get a chance to actually experience the scenario at all. No, that won't happen everywhere, everyone will say "No, we won't let that happen", but somewhere, it will, because it's not technically against the rules.

That's speaking like this hasn't happened in PF1e Society.

I know I came in towards the end, and even with making people aware I had not played or run a scenario, and it was a plot important to my character so I would like to experience it fully, they sped-ran it. It could just be about who I was playing with, but saying that's just DnD Org Play is blatantly false.

One of the ideas I had for higher level content for PFS was to shrink the tiers to have one set of stats for the content, instead of low and high tiered stats for the monsters and challenges. I go back to when PFS1 had sanctioned modules and the level range was three levels, the level of the mod, one lower and one higher.

So, for a 5th level mod, the players could have characters at 4th level, 5th level or 6th level.

This would make higher level content more streamlined and have less work for encounter makeup.

Sadly, my idea has gone the way of the single level module, as PF1 had expanded modules to include three levels of play throughout (making them slightly bigger) and complicating the sanctioning of them before we actually went to PF2.

I believe, if PFS keeps going as is instead of adopting SFS2 more streamlined version, we can still have 15th level + content by using this three level range.

Might be something to look at for Starfinder higher ranged content if the time comes that higher than 10th level content would be wanted.

If there's no appendices, where will we find the stats for the monsters? In-line with the scenario text like in early pf1? Will it be all the monsters there or just custom monsters?

I like removing treasure bundles, and understand removing CR for a 2 level range game. But removing tags.... why?

Also not a fan of the shorter scenarios as it messes with convention scheduling and badges.

How does this part “If you don’t have a character of the appropriate level, you can still play if you use a newly created character” work?

How do you use a new character (level 1?) when you don’t have a character in level?

Level 3, 5, and 7 characters can be created using the rules for doing so found in the GM Cores, per this week's article.

The Article
The rules for gear for newly created characters above level 1

Keith Apperson wrote:

Driftbourne wrote:

During the SF2e playtest I played Shards of the Glass Planet 3 times back to back, each time with a different character class, GM, and group of players, it played and felt different each time. Although I played D&D for decades I never played it in organized play, what about repeatable adventures made it bad for D&D? Also how frequently did new organized play adventures come out for D&D?

Replaying is difficult for some people. Some players can't properly 'play dumb' like some scenarios need you to do. There's no mystery, no surprise. Some players can't help but say "OH LAST TIME I DID THIS [story time]", which makes my personal experience at the table less special.

DnD Org Play had an issue where people would get together, 4 people had played the scenario, and they'd all just say "Well, we have 3 characters that want credit for this, so lets just speedrun this" and new players didn't get a chance to actually experience the scenario at all. No, that won't happen everywhere, everyone will say "No, we won't let that happen", but somewhere, it will, because it's not technically against the rules.

That's speaking like this hasn't happened in PF1e Society.

I know I came in towards the end, and even with making people aware I had not played or run a scenario, and it was a plot important to my character so I would like to experience it fully, they sped-ran it. It could just be about who I was playing with, but saying that's just DnD Org Play is blatantly false.

I don't think I said or implied that at all, but free replay makes it much more common.

In PF1, it was much harder to replay - we didn't even have ACP to just buy replays whenever we wanted. Even in PF2, it at least has _some cost_ involved to do it. Free Replay would have that type of instance happening a lot more often.

So, all scenarios are repeatable, but do we know if some of the other formats will also fall under that rule (I am looking at you, Free RPG Day adventures)