I played A Lie Told to Strangers at Paizocon, and we had a high-tier party of a Steam Knight Kineticist (me), a Psychic (the one with amped Guidance), a Bard, a Paladin Champion, an Investigator, and a Rogue (Thief, I think?).
Now then, I’ll start by noting this - A Lie Told to Strangers does everything I’ve come to loathe in PFS scenarios. It has a quest-giver that tells you to go to another quest-giver to get more information about the quest, it uses multiple subsystems, has a ton of skill checks, does not delve much into what makes the setting unique, has idiotic villains, and has some fights with fairly generic enemies too - none of which proved very challenging for my party (and I like a challenge).
So why do I rate this scenario so highly?
Because somehow, in spite of all this, Alison Cybe still made an adventure that I absolutely loved playing!
The opening setup where you meet your first quest giver is great. I loved seeing the bureaucracy that goes into organizing the Pathfinder Society and it was hilarious. A great tone-setter for the rest of the scenario.
Then you go to Kaer Maga. Oh, Kaer Maga - how I love thee! Our GM showed us the old picture of the city sitting on the backs of the mountains carved to look like undead giants, and that really added a lot to the setting. This part of the experience may vary by GM, but I would really recommend that every GM running this scenario do a quick search for the amazing old artwork and show it to players as they’re entering the city. It adds so much flavor! Even though the rest of the scenario could have basically occurred in any city, that one photo cemented the fact that my party was somewhere special. To be fair though, there was also some old Runelord flavor sprinkled throughout the adventure as well, and that helped with bringing the setting alive too.
In any case, after the initial intro to the city, then you get to meet your second contact - and OMG I LOVED THIS CHARACTER! SHE WAS AMAZING! If you get a good GM, this NPC can really shine, and our GM made her shine like the sun! She was hilarious, quirky, and so much fun to interact with! I think by the end of the scenario my super-excitable catfok kineticist had a HUGE crush on this character, and I really, really, REALLY hope she shows up again in the future! Paizo! Please make her an official romance option like Foxglove in PF1! PLEASE! If you do nothing else for me all my life, DO THIS!
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In any case, even without the primary scenario NPC, this story included plenty of opportunities for roleplay, which my party took good advantage of.
Now then - as for the subsystems, this scenario did something unusual for a PFS scenario: it watered them down into a number of quicker, rapid fire skill check challenges. Instead of bogging us down with round after round after round of relentless mechanics, the GM would describe something, we would roll our checks - and then we would move on. The challenges were much shorter than what I’ve come to expect with these particular subsystems in PFS2, and it was actually quite fun and refreshing - even playing a kineticist (who dumped Int and was short on useful skill options to contribute to the party)! I don’t recall either of the subsystems that showed up taking more than 4 rounds tops to complete, and the flavor for the challenges was engaging, fun (sometimes hilarious even - cats, I'm looking at you), and at times even endearing.
There was also a bit of a mystery in this one, and it wasn’t immediately obvious who done it either! I played "Ukuja the First Wall" prior to this, so a more competently-written mystery was a nice change of pace. While the mystery wasn’t super fleshed-out, it was sufficient enough that I felt like we were slowly uncovering a dangerous conspiracy - and that was great!
In the case of the scenario’s villains - the big, master scheme wasn’t all that complicated and the generic mooks were portrayed to be some real idiots. When Paizo has villains that are this idiotic, I normally don’t like it. How did idiots like these manage to accomplish anything before the scenario began? How are they an actual threat? How do they even get up in the morning and know how to tie their own shoelaces? That noted however, the scheme this time was still quite sinister and had some dark, dark undertones. The primary villain also seemed to be fairly crafty too, so I’ll forgive the scenario for having some idiots in the ranks. It makes some sense that the villain would be able to get these particular idiots to fall in line with their plans. Also, with the tone this scenario had already set up earlier, the idiotic villains tended to synch up with the light-hearted tone of the overall adventure well.
As for the fights, in our experience they were nothing particularly special. The first fight was actually the toughest in our playthrough, as the starting positions of our party and our enemies made things more difficult. In my opinion though, this was more of a fun challenge than a problematic encounter design. After that, both of the remaining fights were tough enough to last a few rounds, but not dangerous enough to knock anyone out. As I mentioned earlier, I normally prefer challenging fights with unique and exciting enemies. Here though, it actually felt good dumpstering the bad guys after uncovering their plot. It felt kind of like a reward for completing the investigation, while also continuing the light-hearted tone of the scenario overall. As I mentioned, the fights still lasted a few rounds each so everyone had a chance to show off their character builds and get some good licks in. The final boss even had some interesting abilities, so while he wasn’t particularly dangerous, it was still interesting to see what he could do.
So there you have it. This scenario did everything I hate, but somehow I still walked away loving it and thinking it was one of my favorite experiences in all of PFS2. It wasn’t perfect though, and it definitely had its flaws. Depending on your GM and party, you might not enjoy it nearly as much as I did. Speaking of, the party I had was full of great roleplayers and exciting character concepts. Likewise our GM was laid back, fun, and a good roleplayer himself. Bear in mind that this may have skewed my overall experience more towards the positive. With that duly noted however, I would still highly recommend this scenario to anyone. For players and GMs both, it has subsystems the way they should be run, a setting that could be on the cover of a heavy metal album, dastardly schemes to uncover, goofy shenanigans to be had, some dark undertones that could please even the edgiest of players, and just the absolute best new character to be introduced in Society this season (and possibly ever)!
I love you Nelly! My kineticist misses you already! Please come back soon!
