A Starfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 1–4.
Recovering from its recent trials in the Scoured Stars, the Starfinder Society finds itself the target of a vicious media smear campaign. To combat this unexpected threat, the Society sends a group of agents to build up some standing in the Pact Worlds by taking part in a series of televised events orchestrated by the undead media mogul, Zo!. What these heroic agents don't know, is that their competition is willing to do whatever it takes to stop them from restoring the Society's tattered image.
Content in Pact World Warriors begins the Year of a Thousand Bites storyline.
I played Pact World Warriors at subtier 3-4 with my skittermander Steward, Officer Swizzers. I thought it was a really enjoyable, original scenario that was challenging in a good way. There's one encounter I thought was problematic from a moral perspective, but on the whole I had a blast. This is a fun scenario, and good for players brand-new to Starfinder Society or experienced with the game.
SPOILERS!:
The scenario begins in an underground complex on Eox (the planet of undead), where the Starfinders are briefed by Radaszam. The system-famous media mogul Zo! is present, and players who played the classic scenario Live Exploration Extreme! can probably guess that they're in for an unorthodox mission. This time around, instead of reality TV, the PCs are told that they'll be contestants in a game show called "Pact World Warriors" where they compete against another team to accumulate the most points and emerge victorious. The briefing is done well, however, as the reason the Starfinder Society is participating is made clear: the mysterious smear campaign against the Society is burning up the infosphere, and something needs to be done to get some positive publicity. I liked the description of examples of the anti-SFS ads, and I like that the GM could customise some additional ones for their specific group of players.
Before the show starts, two things occur. First, PCs with the right boons are allowed to choose from an array of additional equipment to take into the competition. This was a reasonable way to pay off the boons, but I find this sort of thing slows the game down as every piece of equipment is looked up, compared, and the choice is made. Second, the Starfinders meet their competition. There's some good trash-talking written into the scenario here, which is always fun.
There are four events in the game show.
The first event an obstacle course full of traps, hazards, and challenging terrain. It was a cleverly difficult course, and I liked the array of surprises that came out. Our group didn't do very well in the competition, and I think one of the PCs didn't even finish in time. But it was enjoyable nonetheless.
The second event is a "Combat Cooking Challenge." Essentially, the contestants have to kill a variety of animals, slaughter their carcasses, and then cook particular meals while the rival team tries to sabotage their efforts. I thought the whole idea of slaughtering animals just for a game show pretty gross (with the food going to waste since the undead judges can't eat it), but even worse is that at least one of the creatures (tashtaris) are endangered, intelligent magical beasts! I think a little more awareness by the scenario writer that plenty of eco-minded PCs could balk at the task would have been good--perhaps a sidebar of story developments that could then eventuate, for example.
After the first two events, there's a brief interlude for the PCs to relax. They'll meet an NPC named Datch, who has a major role play in later Season Two scenarios. I won't spoil anything here, and only say that I thought her introduction (and a call back at the end) was handled well.
The third event was mindless fun--it's a battle against wave after wave of skeletons to see which team could accumulate the most kills. The little twist that some of the undead would explode while others were worth bonus points (accompanied by fireworks) was great. Sometimes it's nice to have a completely risk-free combat encounter to just go wild and show off a bit.
The fourth event is an interesting "capture the flag" challenge set in zero-G aboard a derelict spaceship. Each of the two teams has their own flag to protect, and there's also a third flag somewhere aboard the ship that can be recovered for extra points. It was a good challenge, and I have to say the NPC team put their plan to effect much better than the PCs did! We got our butts kicked--but in a perfectly fair way.
There's a great, ominous epilogue. After the competition, when the PCs have returned to Absalom Station, a news report indicates there was a shuttle explosion over Eox--and the rival NPC team was killed! Early evidence may point to the Starfinder Society's involvement. I'm excited to see how the smear campaign storyline evolves throughout Season Two--it's more intriguing than I initially thought it'd be.
Overall, apart from the morally-backwards cooking challenge, I thought this was a fun, fast-paced scenario that's sure to please.
Like many others have said, super fun and super flavorful if your GM is willing to indulge, but it can run long. Also, it is really heavy on skill checks, so if you don’t have the skills highlighted in the segment, you feel useless.
It was a lot of fun to play, the pacing felt good, and there's plenty of room to really amp up the game-show feel. There's a good variety in challenges, allowing players to use a variety of skills and even equipment to help them out. Plus combat for the ones that want to cut through a bunch of enemies.
On the roleplay side, there are so many great opportunities for some great moments. The undead commentator duo, the rival team, and rather enigmatic ysoki.
BUT it does run pretty long. It's very easy for this to take a good few hours to play through, especially if you're amping up the game show feel, having the commentators interject, describing scenes and letting the party mess around with the rival team. The first part can also be pretty rough for certain players, considering how hard some mechanics can hit.
I wrote a pretty good review here, but Paizo's website hates you if you take too long and it will destroy all the work you did writing it and disrespect the time you spent as well.
I was really hyped to see a new TV-Show based scenario including Zo!. Sadly this adventure could not keep up with mine or my players expectations when I gmd it on low Subtier. This scenario is just mediocre even if it includes great scenes. I will not go into detail that much, because I am quite on the the same line as most other reviewers. Especially since oliviasEule as one of my players wrote a comment, too.
First the positive sides:
The whole setting of a gameshow includes some great NPCs. I very much like the duo of moderators commenting on everything the players do but my personal favorite (beside Zo!) was Mia Moxie from the enemy team. My players managed to get her furious with their first comment, mentioning how small she is. And last but not least the introduction of the plot relevant NPC Datch. It was great and I would like to see more of her. The different events themselves differ in quality. Obstacle course and Combat Cooking are two great parts and even if the first one is quite deadly it was fun to run. Even though the whole execution of Combat cooking isn't that great, the idea itself brings it to the positive side.
But now the negatives:
The main counter-argument is the length of this adventure. In a standard timeslot there is just not nearly enough time to savour this adventure. This is mostly because of the number of events the PCs have to go through. The two events not mentioned before, namely Kill Count and Capture the Flag, even seem just like unfinished placeholders. Kill Count is just beating skeletons to pulps while Capture the Flag at least fulfilled the players wish to finally confront the enemy team directly. But why does this have to happen in zero-G? It just costs a lot of time and brings no real gain for fun or even plausibility. I know there are reasons for these events (collecting points and a final encounter with the other team), but this could be implemented much better in another way.
Conclusion:
This could be such a great adventure, but most of its potential is wasted. If you have an open end timeslot or plan to do it over two sessions this is fine, but it is too much for one session. The four events range from great to dull, from dangerous to laughable. In my humble opinion this could be easily converted to something great by omitting Kill Count as well as Capture the Flag, expanding the Combat Cooking part and concluding the Obstacle Course with some sort of King of the Hill to fight the enemy team. This would easily lift this scenario to a great one.
They wrote a sequel to the best Starfinder Scenario?
Will we find out Zoe! is the undead form of Grandmaster Torch?
Will these wacky competitions be sabotaged by Aspis Consortium Agent Snidely Whiplash?
All I know is when it comes time for the Confession-Cam, I didn't come here to make FRIENDS!
I have a group of newcomers to the game and we are playing a few scenarios before the special at GenCon. Will playing this beforehand spoil stuff from the special?
I have a group of newcomers to the game and we are playing a few scenarios before the special at GenCon. Will playing this beforehand spoil stuff from the special?
There’s a bit of background in this scenario that’s a very minor spoiler for the special, but overall I feel you’ll be able enjoy this adventure without any significant plot spoilers for #2-00.
Thanks John! They’ve played part of Into the Unknown. But, I thought it would be fun to expose them to some of the other scenarios y’all have done that really highlight that science fantasy encompasses space stations, starships, and aliens. But, it can also encompass reality television, pop stars, and so much more than people default to when they hear sci-fi or fantasy.
Ran this over the weekend, it was awesome! The players all said they loved it and its a nice kick off for the season. Follow it up with 2-02 like we did and it really gets your second season off to a good start. I can't wait to find out what happens in future scenarios!
Just played this yesterday. Everything was great until the final event. Environment slowed everything down to a crawl. Soooo many rounds spent just double moving over and over.
I played this and man is it bad..... written well but bad game mechanics.. our dm refused to do the final fight because it would be a tofal tpk with no chance of survival no clever answer no outside the box thinking just total death if he just did it as written. Even timed portions showed that it was shown to be bad you would need jump jets and it says that it is a level 1 to 4 at level 1 you got nothing.
I played this in my first organized play about three weeks ago. I thought it was a really fun adventure, and I think our gaming group is going to use it this year at our annual getaway [we need to be able to run more than one group at a time, and this scenario is perfect for that as a one shot]. We were able to get through the Zero-G in the last scenario just fine, well, in an awkward, bouncing off the walls kind of fine. I listen to a Starfinder Podcast and they went through a Zero-G scenario as well, and it was Grueling but, to be honest, it is one of the better Zero-G systems I have played. It would be really tough to fight in that environment unless you had specialized gear. I am looking forward to mayhem our two groups are going to have to face this fall.
This Scenario is marked as Repeatable in the reporting section, but dose not have the repeatable tag; obviously one of these is in error; which one is it?
I played this today, and it's poorly game designed. Dc was way too high for level 1 characters and filled with deadly trap that could kill off the level 1 out right. We played this with 3 of level 1 characters which one was pregen, and one level 2(total 4 pc characters). On the first event one of level 1 almost died and one other level 1 actually died, so gm had to stop the party to go further ,because he was afraid that it going to be TPK if we go on with 3pc
This scenario does not have 4 member party adjustment, the traps work like low level meat grinder.(after we failed scenario, we count oddes and rounds to figure out what went wrong and more and more we do math, it seems almost impossible to win the event as level1 characters that can not afford a jump jet)
If your party is mostly new level 1s and under six people party. I highly recommend to not to play this.
I am highly disappointed that this is start of the new season.
I played this today, and it's poorly game designed. Dc was way too high for level 1 characters and filled with deadly trap that could kill off the level 1 out right. We played this with 3 of level 1 characters which one was pregen, and one level 2(total 4 pc characters). On the first event one of level 1 almost died and one other level 1 actually died, so gm had to stop the party to go further ,because he was afraid that it going to be TPK if we go on with 3pc
This scenario does not have 4 member party adjustment, the traps work like low level meat grinder.(after we failed scenario, we count oddes and rounds to figure out what went wrong and more and more we do math, it seems almost impossible to win the event as level1 characters that can not afford a jump jet)
If your party is mostly new level 1s and under six people party. I highly recommend to not to play this.
I am highly disappointed that this is start of the new season.
My experience pretty much mirrored your own
spoilers ahead:
we almost died several times and we only pulled through because my character was 3rd level. There's nothing for a character with no acrobatics, athletics or jumpjets to do in the first and deadliest part. While the scenario provides you with a grappler to get over the first wall, it won't help much when trying to skip over the lava and falling into certain death. The second challenge feels like it could be cut entirely and the last part feels like the adventure is actively cheating as the enemies seem to have gone through the same ordeal as you have but are somehow at full spell/resolve point/HP capacity. They have also bugged your flag and use actual harmful spells on you despite it being against the rules.
Finally, this scenario runs too long! There needs to be a warning prior to it as some people might not have 5-6 hours to spare.
Do not play this scenario without the specific skills it calls out for.
Organized Play Lead Developer
