Starfinder Society Scenario #4-02: Settling Accounts

I very much respect how this module can feel like a bait & switch - we're expecting to see the return of everyone's favorite pink-haired dunderhead, but instead you're cleaning up his mess after he completely bungled first contact. Thus, this is indeed a very RP-heavy scenario. However, I found the setpieces of going around and interacting with the locals very fun to depict, and my party was constantly cracking up at seeing the consequences of Envar's actions. I do also like the examination of how the sudden intrusion of the greater galaxy affects the culture and society of the people, though the effects of it might go over players' heads if they're just focused on their primary objective. Overall, I enjoyed it, but I certainly hear the criticisms of others and encourage you to take my thoughts with a grain of salt.

I agree with the more critical reviews. This module is a bait and switch. You are given a mission and when you get to the planet it becomes clear that your stuck between a rock and a hard place. Not in a fun challening way, more like "the writters wrote the mod to frustrate the players and nothing you do will change the NPC minds." You get bogged down trying to handle NPCs that are written so that their is only one solution. It just isn't fun and my party got bogged down for roughly 1 hour and a 1/2 trying to convince the NPCs so we could move the module forward. Successful skill checks did not matter as we did not say the answer in the way the module wanted.

Adding in the fact that Starfinder always wants to put in "you don't know the local language" but then you need to have a very detailed encounter with the NPCs means its just badly written. Don't force the party to rely upon a translator or spells when you have pick up groups in society play. Or if your going to dont make a heavy RP session where language is also a barrier. Its not fun.

Most of these adventure paths are ususally written for a 4 hour block of time but we passed the 3 1/2 hour mark and did not make much progress.

The chase scene was kinda cool, the NPCs were ridiculous in how xenophobic and hateful they were, and the combats were just strange. I wish I could rate this a little higher but the module is needlessly furstrating, gets bogged down in the weeds, and is just not much fun to complete.

This is one of those cases where the plot hook was entirely unrelated to the actual content of the adventure is a way that was pretty disappointing.

I have been so jonesing to see Envar again only for him to...not really be in this. Just weird. But to the content of the ACTUAL adventure we did go on I really liked it. The choices made for the aliens from this one were interesting - picking up on the "prey species" vibe we have seen cropping up in sci-fi and doing a pretty good job with it.

I will say my one and only complaint is that with the influence scene there weren't sharp enough contrasts between the three NPCs which made it difficult to have a truly great scene.

I think post release after playing it I might have given this 4 stars since it does have lot I like, but my opinion on it has bit cooled off in long run. I think main reason is that when I played this, I had bit of feeling like "we are being led by a path and we can't really affect things much", I think its bit because of "you arrived too late to do anything". Like by time you arrive to see bear, you have arrived too late and when you have situation to calm down the isolationists again you are going to be interrupted by the space fish. Heck it feels like first impression you do when talking to leaders doesn't really affect xenophobes' reaction towards you at all either.(which probably makes sense, but contributes to feeling of being led down by a path, sometimes literally with space fish chasing you ;D)

Like I still think its good scenario, I like that majority of combat is avoidable and I do find premise of it hilarious, but you never actually get to meet Envar again so while you can get message from him, it does feel more like "intro to series of scenarios" but we don't actually know if this scenario will get ever followed up upon sadly.

I do like that scenario is overall more about "let's introduce you to new culture", but it feels bait and switchy even if it is amusing situation with you seeing aftermath of Envar's shenanigans. But uh.. Ixtl's art is too uncanny valley to me? Like it looks like they should be cute looking, but them being rabbit people with human facial features just feels uncanny. Like details we get about them are interesting, but art kinda makes me feel like "aww, but I want my bunny people to look more like bunnies and less like humans"

I do like art for both creatures in the scenario though even though both are "combine earth animal with another thing" type of deal that is common in starfinder scenarios. Tentacle bear and plant cat are great as is the space fish!

A great little adventure for low level characters. Not a lot of combat, but a lot of potential for RP which is good.