Ran this to close out a con last night. 4 out of the 6 players were Scarab Sage characters, had a lot of familiarity with the feel of Osirion delves, and were very excited for the culmination of the story.
It is, as many people stated, long. Especially if you enjoy the RP. As a GM, conversing with the party as so many different, intricate NPCs with a lot of deep history with the society and providing insight into their personalities, (as well as the few who were introduced in this scenario) was an absolute joy.
This scenario is challenging, and it WILL run long. We played for 6.5 hrs and I think we could have played for 8 hours easily, exploring more of the interactions between characters.
My group, though they didn't all play together frequently (this being a con), took the time to get to know each other and figure out how to support each other. I gave them that when we sat down. No one knew much about each other's characters until we sat down.
Matt has done an amazing thing with this scenario. It FEELS as difficult as it should considering the stakes and the amount of emotional and temporal investment the players and characters it is geared towards have invested in it.
I love Golarion, and I love the Pathfinder Society. Scenarios like this one need to happen more. I prepped for a month, and I still could have improved my live performance. I really want to run it again, for another group of people who love these characters as much as I do.
I think there are some aspects of the mechanics that as GMs we need to make sure we telegraph earlier on. I like to build suspense and paranoia, and I don't like to "prompt" for rolls as I feel it breaks the flow of the game. There were a few places that I as a GM needed to plant the seeds of what would become future mechanics. There are promptings within the scenario for how to do this - but planning out how to do this well is a lot of work. There were a few places where I needed to reconsider my plans on how to frame a specific event, and I'm glad I knew enough about the world and context to make that make sense within the scenario.
This is certainly a challenging scenario for players. It is a very challenging scenario for GMs, too. Purely prepping the mechanics is NOT going to do the trick. Figuring out how to help your players come to the right conclusions, infer what steps they should and shouldn't take, will take some time and seat-of-the-pants work. I've never felt more rewarded as a GM as I watched my players reign victorious, even after setbacks (over half the party were full or partial casters, and there was some real deduction by the players in order to figure out what was happening to them). One of the potential "scenes" at the end brought more than one person at the table to tears. I've never felt so good playing a scenario.
Thank you, Matt, for bringing us this.
