Starfinder Society Scenario #3-10: Live Adventure Extreme!

In the low tier Match One Encore, if you roll 5-6 then the players fight pterosaurs, but there is no page in the appendix with the stats and box text.

I have the pterosaur stats from Alien Archive 2 and I can make up color commentary if I need to, so I really only need to know how many of these things the players are supposed to face.

I'm guessing it must be 4 because that's how many CR 3 creatures it takes to make a CR 7 encounter.

I mean, we had Dragonbot's Gorgon-class destructo-ship, The Stormreaver, to do ridiculous damage per turn, but that's beside the point.

I'm trying not to be overly negative about a scenario I haven't run/played yet, but I've read through this one, and... I mean, is there anything else to this one but "Combat! Ship combat! Combat again! OK go home!" at all? Near as I can tell there is zero story or plot to this. It's a backdrop to trot out some monsters that don't get used a lot, and nothing else. There are literally not even any ramifications to the society; the debriefing is just Naiaj saying "Hey good work, thanks."

I get that not every mission a Starfinder takes is going to involve an amazing discovery, and sometimes you gotta make those credits, but... really, this is such a plotless scenario at first glance that I'm wondering "why bother?" I guess I could use it to help teach the combat system to new players, but as a 5-8 scenario I have to imagine my players are going to be severely unimpressed by this. After anime mecha fights at a SMC concert and epic tales of survival after starship crashes, this feels so hollow.

Am I missing something on skimming the scenario?

I have never seen a mod bad like that for Starfinder Society, and it's really the winner and what to avoid to do. And I must say that I am very concern because usually most of module are good and you have almost a story behind, and I like the character Zo! and I have fun in the previous Modules 1-09 and 2-01.

This one is Repetable but I never going to play again this mod after this first time, zero interest and no fun. Too long, to much fight and only that, it's a mod who going to disgust a bunch of players for sure, particulary those who have play previous mods with Zo. Try to play an envoy in this mod, and after the middle of the first combat you cannot help anymore the team, your skills and capacities are not usefull anyway in the mod because we have no social stuff in it.

We can make module focus on combat, but almsot it's must be fun, and playable by all kind of class. It's not the case of this one, nad he have no interest only for those who want make combats and only that.

To avoid

When I hear "adventure", I'm thinking a trek into the jungles of Castrovel or the dodging space pirates while mapping blackened waters of the Diaspora. The last thing I expected was gladiatorial combat in arenas.

Live Exploration Extreme was great because your party was going into the unknown. The reality show filming, live audience, and private interviews with the ghast assistant producer were a perfect compliment to what would otherwise be a normal Starfinder adventure.

More of that, please!

Marking the encores as optional, or giving a random chance for there to be no encores could help cut down on run time. I did warn the players this one could run long, after my reading and prep work, but they wanted to complete it, in spite of it going long.

The session I ran first was played at high level, but had 2 players using Level 5 characters. Between the arena effects and the combat being more difficult for them, as well as having had a party of 4 Operatives (Operative 5, Operative 5, Operative 6 / Biohacker 2, Operative 8) and a Mystic (Mystic 8), it caused the 3 hour 1st encounter of 5. I ran the scenario for the second time today with a party that had a better mix of classes (Mystic 7, Operative 5, Mystic 7, Envoy 1 / Soldier 6, Envoy 7 / Soldier 1), and it was finished in just over 5 hours. Though I do believe making the encores either optional or have the encore rolls have the possibility of not including an encore would be beneficial in keeping it to the time in which a scenario should run), I also fully realize the 7 hours was caused partly from the party mix and the need to add and create effects in the VTT that may not have already existed, combined with the complexity of the scenario.

I also had one player in the session on the 26th ask (in character) if the Starfinder Society was now condoning the murder of sentient beings, having signed up the PCs to participate in a competition that did not require the use of nonlethal damage the way the final encounter in 2-01 Pact World Warriors did. They also mused, out of character, about what this may mean for the Society and its reputation.