A Starfinder Society Scenario designed for 3rd- through 6th-level characters.
Regarded by many as the cultural center of the Pact Worlds, Absalom Station plays host to hundreds of different holiday traditions each year, shared by the hundreds of diverse species who live and work there. But while holidays are normally a time for celebration, not everyone's feeling particularly festive. A whimsical raxilite appears to a group of fledgling Starfinders and asks them for help in spreading cheer. The Starfinders are tasked with doing a few good deeds for Station residents and experiencing three different Pact World holidays.
Written by: Ivis K. Flanagan
Scenario tags: Repeatable
[Scenario Maps spoiler - click to reveal]
The following maps used in this scenario are also available for purchase here on paizo.com:
Despite the repeatable tag, this scenario doesn't feature any alternate outcomes or variance between sessions - it will run the same path and events each time. Thus, like the Intro Year scenarios, the Repeatable tag is for accessability, not for replayability.
Lack of change nonwithstanding, this is a really nice feel-good scenario. No threats to interplanetary life, no nefarious plots to destroy the Starfinder Society, no shocking ancient secrets to unearth. Instead, the group is tasked with helping with three holiday celebrations - one is a gift-giving exchange, one is Android Pride, and other is a celebration of family (both found and blood). I especially liked the change of pace in the first scenario, which ends with a tense situation and requires a solution more complex than "shoot it until it stops moving."
Second and third scenarios follow a very similar pace, with a centerpiece combat sandwiched between skill checks. I do like especially in the third mission, how actions and choices made before the centerpiece combat carry over afterwards. It's choices like those that make the game feel more meaningful instead of a rote series of tasks to complete.
Your more heartless loner characters may feel a little out of place in the midst of all the holiday cheer this scenario aims to bring, but otherwise, it's hard not to have your heart warmed by all the earnest care and connection embodied in this scenario.
A Festive Operation is certainly something different and memorable! It's a very low-stakes, low-drama scenario that features the PCs helping ordinary people navigate holiday stress! It would be right at home on something like the "DisneyKids!" channel. That doesn't mean it's not well-written and fun, and it could be a good, relaxing game to play with friends and family over the holidays. I wouldn't want to see *most* Starfinder Society adventures be like this, but an occasional change to a light-hearted tone is fine. I played it via play-by-post.
SPOILERS!:
The scenario begins with the PCs having a meal at a cafeteria in SFS headquarters during the winter holiday season on Absalom Station. Is it a bit weird that "winter" holidays are so big on a space station where such a thing like winter doesn't exist? Yes, but I guess we have to go with it. The PCs are approached by a little plant person (a "raxilite") named Camellia and (seemingly out of the blue) asked for help in spreading holiday cheer "because it's the right thing to do!" Again, I guess you just have to go along with it, even though Neutral-aligned PCs might struggle. Camellia is the link between what are essentially three unrelated mini-adventures, each themed to a different holiday.
"First Choices" is a shirren holiday that involves gift-giving. Camellia asks the PCs to help a shirren named Kinnik who is throwing a party but struggling to find the perfect gift for his best friend/secret crush. The answer is a hoodie with the logo of a cult-fave rock band called Sonic Tumult, but to find one, the PCs have to visit the stall of an NPC named Dot in the Freemarkets. I liked Dot, and it's always good to have more "civilian" NPCs in the game that authors can use (and there are some really nice connections to Intro: Year of the Data Scourge here). Dot sends the PCs off to her storage unit to find the hoodie, but while the group is searching, a couple of skittermanders named Olive and Violet accidentally set the place ablaze with fireworks! Essentially, it's a skills challenge to keep the fire contained and recover the merch. It does contain one of the Starfinder organized play things that really irks me: an NPC giving a crazy-valuable gift (here, a 3600 credit armor upgrade) just for some trivial help (here, cleaning some shelves).
"Newspark" is an android holiday that celebrates android liberation with a street parade of very-elaborate floats. Camellia asks the PCs to help an android named Yichen to finish their float in time for the parade. There's several options the PCs can use in terms of skill checks to get the float ready and to make it fun while it's going down the street, though they will have to pause to fight a living hologram created by a malfunctioning projector. Olive and Violet make a fun return appearance.
"Reunion" gets the PCs off Absalom Station and on to Akiton for a holiday feast celebrating family and kinship. A shobhad named Alora (love the apron pic!) is trying to prepare the traditional meal exactly like her recently-deceased grandmother would have done, but she's not much of a cook and is struggling. The adventure plays this for laughs, but I think there was actually a very real and relevant story that could have been told involving grief, family, the holidays, and the stress of trying to make everything "perfect." (an episode of The Bear comes to mind) And I didn't think the idea of the PCs having to go hunting and butcher a wild boar-type creature called an arabak was really the right angle--diversity includes vegetarians!
In a brief conclusion, Camellia thanks the PCs and gives them a magic flower from the First World.
As I said, the theme and tone is right on the edge of being unbearably saccharine to me, but I appreciate what it's trying to do. It is well-written, and I really like the attention to detail and that consequences are set out for failed skill checks. Let's just make sure scenarios like A Festive Operation are few and far between!
This was very pleasant and entertaining to play, especially with the holidays coming up. If I would have one criticism it would be that it ran short, our lodge played 2 tables of this today and mine was done in 2.5 hours, and other even faster. But, thoroughly enjoyable.
(based on 5 ratings)
