Starfinder Society Scenario #1-01: The Commencement

4.30/5 (based on 23 ratings)

Our Price: $8.99

Add to Cart
Facebook Twitter Email

A Starfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 1-2.

All Starfinders complete their training by conferring with Guidance—a network of uploaded personalities embodying paragons from the Starfinder Society's history. Before receiving the blessing of Guidance, the PCs must meet with and assist critical missions on behalf of key leaders of the Society's leading factions. With the events of the Scoured Stars Incident still fresh in everyone's memory, there's plenty that needs doing to set the Society back on track.

The Commencement is a replayable scenario designed to help introduce players to the factions of the Starfinder Society and areas of importance on Absalom Station.

Written by Eleanor Ferron.

Scenario Tags: Repeatable

Other Resources: This product is also available on the following platforms:

Fantasy Grounds Virtual Tabletop
Archives of Nethys

Note: This product is part of the Starfinder Society Scenario Subscription.

Product Availability

Fulfilled immediately.

Are there errors or omissions in this product information? Got corrections? Let us know at store@paizo.com.

PZOSFS0101E


See Also:



6 to 10 of 23 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | next > last >>

Average product rating:

4.30/5 (based on 23 ratings)

Sign in to create or edit a product review.

5/5


A perfect introductory scenario

5/5

This session is divided into 4 parts that allows players to experience different parts of starfinder. It would of benefited from a portion of Starship combat but it was a great scenario for new players.


Excellent Intro to the System and the Setting

5/5

This model is fantastic. First off, it's totally modular--the setup for the party's goals allow the players a lot of latitude in how they undertake their mission. Because the missions are really modular, you can go in deep on all of them for a home game or just expand the portions that the players are the most interested in if it's a regular society game.

This module gives you an opportunity to introduce the leader of every faction to the players, with the exception of the Second Seekers. Since the Second Seekers faction goal is basically "support the First Seeker," players should have a good idea about what the factions are about and be able to connect the very well described and vivid faction leaders with the group they lead.

My players had a lot of fun with this one. They had a favorite faction from the start and they ultimately affiliated with that one. But, they all admitted that they enjoyed another faction's mission far more.

Definitely use this as an intro to the system and the setting.


Best to start with this one

5/5

Best scenario to start Starfinder with since this sees your entry into the Society!
I find it has a lot of humor, fun parts, a tough fight, some interesting and original parts.
It is good to prepare it well, especially the race part, but I find it a very enjoyable story.


Setting the Scene for Starfinder Society

4/5

Recently played through this scenario (by PbP on the forums, for what its worth) and then went back with my GM glasses on to take a look at the scenario write up. This scenario is great fun and more than a little bit silly & lighthearted. The stakes are low (for the most part) and there are colorful and ridiculous NPCs wherever you turn. As an introduction to Starfinder Society it falls a bit flat, only providing the vaguest of outlines about each of the factions. It also has some issues for tone, perhaps an over-reliance on skill checks, and a lack of unifying narrative. As a result, I don't think this is the best scenario to introduce a new player to Starfinder Organized Play, though its certainly a very fun scenario on its own merits.

The Good:
There are some great and varied mini-quests here. The junk race is a subsystem done incredibly right. Its well tuned to provide a decent chance of success if the players prep well, while also allowing for plenty of suspense as the dice can spell doom for the PCs efforts. The scenario write-up manages to provide a lot of hooks and advice for the GM in a fairly small space, covering most of the approaches the PCs might attempt: social, skills, trickery, and more.

The Exo-guardians pit players against a very bizarre alien, and while its unlikely to down any players, it can feel pretty threatening at first level! At the same time the PCs get a juxtaposition against buying an album for a diehard fan. This scenario does an amazing job of characterizing Ziggy as an eccentric to match some of the colorful VCs we met back in Pathfinder.

The Bad:
The Wayfinders mission feels like it was crunched for page space. There is almost nothing to subduing the alien. Not enough detail about the creature and environment is provided to allow for RP-ing a solution that makes sense. Instead, skill-checks stand in for narrative development in a terribly awkward way. This is one of my pet peeves in PFS scenarios (when what could be interesting encounters/tasks are reduced to a series of skill checks), so I'm sad to see it here.

The worst is probably the Dataphiles mission though. Some of my issues with it:

  • The mission requires you to steal previously stolen data, and then rather than returning it to its rightful owner, you need to hand it over for the personal enrichment of the Dataphiles faction leader. Lawfully aligned characters will likely have an issue with such an act, and even chaotic characters may balk (as it seems suicidal to go up against a giant corp for such a vague benefit).

  • While the briefing prioritizes recovery of the data, with recruitment of the hacker as a secondary objective, the write-up focuses almost entirely on helping the hacker. There isn't even any information on where the data (the contents of which is never explained) might reside for players that want to prioritize the stated objective! This mission presupposes that the players will follow a very narrow track and provides little to no detail on alternative solutions (literally the only alternative suggested is what happens if the PCs kill Ceren, even though there should be plenty of other options).

  • Furthermore managing to fool a giant corporation and all its resources is thematically out of line with what a 1st level character should be able to accomplish. If the players (seemingly rightly) assume they don't stand a chance of forging Ceren's death and new identity, they are likely to try a different strategy. There is simply not enough structure or information here for the GM to resolve alternative solutions without creating things entirely from scratch. On top of that, a PC group that invents their own method of helping Ceren and/or retrieving the data is explicitly rewarded with 0 bonus rewards (the scenario only grants the bonus if the death certificate / new identity are well prepared).

  • This is another mission where things boil down to out-of-character GM prodding and skill checks (especially if you want to do your players a solid and not let them miss out on rewards). Ugh!
  • Despite a few issues, there is a lot room here for both fun RP and interesting encounters. With the junk race as a highlight, I can absolutely recommend this scenario to existing PFS/SFS players!


    6 to 10 of 23 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | next > last >>
    51 of 51 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>
    Silver Crusade

    Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Accessories, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber

    Just to let everyone know, this seems to finally have been fixed. :)

    51 of 51 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>
    Community / Forums / Paizo / Product Discussion / Starfinder Society Scenario #1-01: The Commencement All Messageboards

    Want to post a reply? Sign in.