Starfinder Society Scenario #1-29: Honorbound Emissaries

REVIEW:
I ran this scenario for a table of six players at the 7-8 subtier.

Honorbound Emissaries is Starfinder Society's first foray into the 7-10 tier, and offers the veteran crew an opportunity to reunite with old friends as they pursue peaceful contact with a potential ally in the Vast, and battle against familiar foes with new tricks.

While the scenario is certainly entertaining, it possesses a number of flaws that prevent it from being a noteworthy first mission at tier 7-10, beyond simply being the first mission at tier 7-10.

The first of these flaws is its cast of NPCs. The mission reintroduces the players to an old friend and an old favorite, and the majority of my table became very excited when they heard the character's description. He exudes personality, but that personality is mostly constrained to someone yelling at you over the comms like the disembodied voice of some plot-exposition character in a video game. The starship crew the PCs befriend is equally colorful, although that color is constrained to a sentence or two personality and meaningful (or perhaps I should say "gainful") interactions are locked behind particularly narrow interpretations of how those personalities might manifest. There is too little room for the cast to fully express themselves to the PCs and become truly memorable, beyond the eccentric captain who is already known because of his prior escapades.

The next issue follows from the cast. When I said "gainful" interaction, I meant exactly that. The PCs must interact with these NPCs in order to gain story-specific, and rather arbitrary, rewards. Failure to interact with the crew within the narrow context set by the scenario means the PCs actually lose out on end-of-scenario rewards. This is not the only time the scenario encounters issues with its reward system, however. In another scene, the PCs are given the choice of retrieving an object or performing a more humanitarian task. If they choose to act in a humanistic manner, they actually lose a monetary reward, but gain nothing for it--no boons, no benefits when it comes to interacting with other NPCs--nothing. It seems strange to me to punish players for valuing lives over profit, but that is exactly what happens.

The final issue is with the narrative itself. The entire plot of the mission is kicked off by the discovery of alien art that prompts the Society to investigate further. However, the scenario has no information about the art or its significance to the alien culture that produced it, even in the event the PCs ask about it directly, as my table did. I found it frustrating, since it seemed like a thoughtful line of questioning that I couldn't reward appropriately.

This is not to say the scenario is entirely bad, however. Although I found part one to be rather tepid, part two picks up significantly, and culminates in a fantastic set-piece that is definitely the highlight of the adventure. If I have one thing to say, it is that, perhaps, it ended too early because the players were too good at being action heroes.

In summary: Honorbound Emissaries brings back a familiar and popular character, and attempts to generate an expanded cast of colorful characters with mixed effect. Its questionable reward scheme and constrained narrative make for a frustrating time, but one that is easily forgotten in the excitement of the final act. It is a passable first attempt at a tier 7-10 adventure, but I should like to see tighter, more thoughtful storytelling as the heroes advance toward unmasking the truth about the Scoured Stars and its inhabitants.