A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 1-2.
The Aspis Consortium pays well, but few can stand its underhanded tactics for long. One operative fed up with the Consortium's practices has contacted the Pathfinder Society with a tempting offer: assist her in leaving the organization, and she will supply the Society with years of insider intelligence about their longstanding rival. It's up to the PCs to navigate Diobel—a proud town run by cutthroat smugglers—earn the defector's trust, and deal a telling blow to their Aspis foes.
"The Consortium Compact" is an evergreen, replayable scenario designed to help introduce players to the Pathfinder Society, the Isle of Kortos, and one of the Society's longstanding rivals.
Written by Mike Kimmel.
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I ran this over Play by Post and really enjoyed it.
The challenge with evergreens is replayability, and I thought that this one did an excellent job of giving the GM plenty of options to keep things fresh and just unpredictable enough for players to not get bored with multiple runs.
The scene and encounters were explained exceedingly well, I had very few questions, and no questions that I couldn't figure out myself with a quick re-read of the relevant material. The complexity of having multiple possibilities for different encounters was taken care of quite well I thought, with step by step methods to make sure you cover all of the bases.
Most importantly, the players enjoyed it, and I enjoyed telling the story for them. I would highly recommend this for any low tier characters who plan on enjoying lots of season 7 scenarios.
This review is from an experienced player perspective.
This is a really good scenario but the things that make it so good were also it's flaws. You have three potential lines of action and the players need to pick two. Each was somewhat frustrating because they are set up a scene and then let the players blag their way through it. Normally in a home game this would be fine but because of it we overran our time slot (local staff were understanding though).
After completing these it feels like the end of the scenario but you get dropped into an awkward third encounter which I think had everyone let out a sigh of frustration.
I give bonus thumbs up for having a scenario that allows players to come up with their own means of dealing with it and I enjoyed that a lot but on the flipside I found them frustrating which did spoil some of my enjoyment.
Before even running this scenario, I found it very refreshing.
Both of the previous two years' "evergreen" (1-2 repeatable) scenarios were fairly formulaic: Location X, GM rolls 1d6 to determine what's there, Location Y, GM rolls 1d4 to determine what's there. That is not to say that they aren't fun - in fact I do very much enjoy The Confirmation (#5-08) and Wounded Wisp (#6-10), but this one was good enough that I wanted to write a review saying so!
The Consortium Compact poses three challenges to the PCs, and lets them decide on which two to tackle. Unlike in the previous two evergreens, though, there are many different ways that PCs can approach all three of them. Got a combat-oriented party? Tackle Option C and go in guns blazing! Sneaky? Try Option B, and maybe C too! Talky-Diplomatic? Option A screams for player and GM creativity, and so does Option B! And those are just the "examples" that the scenario gives for newer GMs!
That, in and of itself, is another great thing about this scenario - it lends itself well to GMs of all levels. New to being a GM? Stick to the suggested encounters. Veteran GM? The scenario calls out "GM creativity" many times, which was great when I ran it and my party strayed very far off the beaten path going after Objective A!
The "roll 1d6 to determine what's there" does come up, but only at one location near the end of the scenario, and even there, PC/GM creativity and PC ideas/plans really dictate how the encounter(s) transpire, rather than having the either-or of talking-or-fighting (the only two options in several instances of the other evergreens). Want to be sneaky? Aggressive? Sly? Diplomatic? Something I haven't mentioned? Anything can work!
Having the PCs go after 2 of 3 options means that replay will likely never be dull, as you can go after different objectives in different ways, and the final area that is "fixed" has random elements that contribute to it (different entrances/exits used, different gear found, different enemies) that has been a strength in previous evergreens.
Combine all of that with good writing and no major editing flubs in box text or GM instructions (an unfortunately regular bane in many PFS scenarios), plus a very strong chronicle sheet for level 1-2 characters...in my book, that all results in a big 5-star scenario rating!
The only error I noticed:
In Area C, the ladder is in the northwest corner of the map, while the scenario text says northeast.
That's how good this scenario is - I had to nitpick to find anything wrong!
Why are there so many
Scenarios about Aspis
And those on the other side?
These archvillains have visions
And some have bronze badges
The Aspis they hide in plain sight
So we've been told
And some choose to believe it
I know they're wrong, wait and see
Someday we'll fight them
The Consortium Connection
The Pathfinders, your players, and me...
I'm currently running four (!) PbP tables of this.
One of my frustrations is that the races and genders of the NPCs aren't specified in the stat blocks. Digging through the text some are identified as women (the port inspector, for example), but I feel this information should be in the stat blocks.
Similarly, I'm assuming most everyone is human, if it doesn't specify otherwise ...?
Uhm, in the 'Warehouse Location 5: Loading Platform' chart, the #4 entry seems to be missing for the randomized d6 die roll.
While its easy enough to re-roll a result of '4', could we get a hint as to what #4 was supposed to be?
Please?
Also, 2 of the generic 'Healing' NPCs (the Acolyte and the Mercenary Healer) are both listed as Clerics. Can we get clarification on which Gods they follow, or do we need to try and puzzle it out from the alignment, domains, and weapon choices?
