hangman henry V's page

personally, i love gming this. it is a very flawed scenario, but those flaws give you so much space as a gm.

the first time i read through it was in prep for gencon 2014, and right off the bat i noticed that it is probably the worst written scenario ive ever seen. there is a complete page missing! the motivations of npcs and the players for that matter are left wide open, which leaves it open for me as the gm to fill in those gaps.

i will say if you are not good at coming up with info on the fly, or being creative with npcs, this scenario can come across as dry and jumbled and complete garbage. if you are like me however and you like the freedom to make up silly things for creatures to say and do, this is the scenario for you!

what a great scenario. one of the most memorable villains in pfs, with some cool fights to boot. this scenario could prolly be run cold, but i think to give it life you should prolly read it over a couple times and make sure you understand the villains motivations and the mechanics for the last battle so that things stay interesting for the players.

to start off, don't run this cold. there are plenty of other things that are easy to run cold, and this scenario deserves better. the players will hate it, you will be confused why people are doing things, its just not going to go well.

that being said, properly prepared by a gm that knows how to give the npcs life here, it is prolly the best investigative sandbox scenario in pfs.

i can see some players who like dungeon crawls being disappointed with this scenario, but i feel that the boss fight should have enough payoff for them (what a tough fight!)

sorry guys, but this is actually an entirely different game for the first half. sure you use your "characters" as leaders of armies, but the only relevant stat is your charisma or profession (soldier).
the five star reviews are from people who like the idea of shaking things up. for people that rarely get to role play or play pfs in general, this will be a huuuuge disappointment. even the last two fights are nonsense.

this scenario seriously needs to come with a warning in the description saying that it is not using the pathfinder rules for the first three quarters. again, if you are a coordinator and you are thinking of scheduling this for your local, please read through it and let your players know they are signing up to play a different game. and by different game i mean an advertisement for paizo's mass combat rulebook.

so there seems to be wayyyyy too much info in this scenario for the amount of payoff you get. the scenario pretends to be a sand boxy investigation when it is anything but.

it is hard to discuss this without spoilers, sorry bout that.

overall a disappointing scenario, made fun by clever gming and a good group to laugh at the bizarre decisions made by npcs.

personally, i actually remember darkest vengeance fondly. sure it was hard but it was at least interesting. darkest abduction also has some interesting fights, and difficult ones to boot. the fights aren't my problem with this scenario.

my problem with this scenario is that if run properly, the best thing for the group to do is classic murder hobo their way through it. one of the encounters actually penalizes the team worse than any penalty i have ever seen on a sheet if they use diplomacy to get through it.

honestly i cannot understand the justification for this. personally i think this scenario is the worst product for society play because it only encourages being murder hobos. actual investigation will yield no results and will actually make it harder for the team to get prestige. crazy, just crazy.