Director of Brand Strategy
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Hey PFSers!
We're deep in the throes of putting the Shadow Lodge to rest, and I'll be so glad to never hear their blasted names again in any PFS product! We know where season 3 is going and are already getting back in many of the manuscripts from authors for the first few months of that metaplot. And that means that we need to start planning for Season 4! So, loyal players and GMs, what do you want out of a PFS metaplot? Are there any villains or organizations you'd like to see make things tough for the Pathfinder Society? What "MacGuffins" would justify the entire Society's resources for an entire year?
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There are really two things I'm interested in Pathfinder Society doing:
1. Being able to utilize and not just collect the artifacts Pathfinders find. In fact, a large enough threat should enable the Society in a perfect place to figure out what's going on and finally start utilizing their resources.
2. I'd like to see a mechanic to see how successful the Society is as a whole. Kind of like what the idea is with PA, except enlarge that to determine if the Society is able to stave off some catastrophic event.
For instance:
Random temples of mystical energy all across the Inner Sea are mysteriously activating. You could have a 3 part introduction to explore these places and then dedicate the rest of the Season to go to great lengths to gather more information and tools needed to stop whatever has been activated. The last scenarios could have you return to these temples, now reaching critical mass with whatever doom they bring.
I would then take this opportunity to write in unique magical items specific to what's found in some of these scenarios. These would help PCs towards the end of the Season to shut down whatever doomsday device has been activated.
And based upon the percentage success (or failure) on the final arc in shutting these temples down, something could change in the Inner Sea. Maybe the Worldwound opens up more. Maybe a huge region now becomes a magic dead zone. Maybe an entire population is turned into undead (Geb would be pleased). I'm sure if I have more time, I can think of more creative things.
But yeah, make something big happen where the Pathfinder Society needs to utilize the resources they've been collecting.
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It would be an excellent idea to develop the initial background of the campaign: the shadow war for control of Absalom. Developing the five primary factions, having them make power plays and conduct proxy battles, with the PCs as their agents.
Of course, the Pathfinder Society itself would be caught in the middle, with various leaders within the Society (who could also use some development) working for the various factions, or of course getting killed for staying out of it entirely.
There's no need to introduce anything new... it would be excellent to develop what was already conceived.
-Matt
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Off the top of my head:
What happens if some entity decides to invade Absalom again? I mean its only happened at least half a dozen times in the last 1000 years right? So what happens if the House of Thune isn't moving quickly enough and the Demons/Devils make a move on their own? Or the Impossible Kingdoms decide they want some of that candy? What if Absalom actually gets taken over and an entire season meta plot arc is in some way connected to retaking Absalom (none of the factions, but they of course would all be vying for control of the newly freed city).
Actually having a two or three (maybe four?) parter, or a series of serial modules with conflicting agendas. Instead of going on a mission to stop BBEG X from doing Y without having a choice in who to support. Pathfinder Society is kinda a shade of gray right? So as long as the Society gets what it wants (whether that be the Shadow Lodge or the Decemvirate) what happens if some Venture Captains try to install some of their own agendas into missions and halfway through another VC tries to thwart it? The characters have to now choose who to support.
Seems there are a lot of Tian in Golarion, so why not bring in some Tian influence as protagonists? or Antagonists?
Some Unique creature or entity "arrives". Of course not on the scale of the Tarrasque, since that would be silly for parties less than 20th APL. But something suitably epic.
Truly Indiana Jones style modules would be fun. An archaelogical mystery or treasure hunt along the lines of Ark of the Covenant, Temple of Doom, Romancing the Stone, National Treasure, et. al. where clues have to be deciphered across several modules to eventually find the lost city or treasure of renown and legend. This would be difficult if its done in a serial way, since not every character (or player) will play all in any particular order. Some some characters (or players) might have some clues that others don't, which may or may not help when combined at the next module (or at the final one). Of course this meta plot would include a suitable recurring bad guy who's minions and mooks keep thwarting or trying to thwart the plans of the characters. Can you imagine a 24 episode (ala "24" where each module is 1 day (would hour be too difficult?) in a 24 day arc?) "season" in which each module is one more clue to the final?
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I agree with Todd, something involving the Whispering Tyrant would be pretty awesome and fairly epic. Also a metaplot involving the Worldwound expanding and gain influence would be nice to see. Something that involved more of the Aspis Consortium wouldn't be to bad either. We've encountered them a couple of times and definitely been at odds with them.
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I want to see the Pathfinder Society begin to dig deeper into what happened to Aroden, as I can see a lot of people getting very interested in what could ruin a God - whether to lock it away to protect, or to take such a powerful artifact and turn it upon less worthy gods.
I don't think this will happen - James has said they want to keep this a secret and up to individual GMs
I think there could be some cool 2-3 parters with part 1 be "go find artifact X" and part 2 "travel to location Y and use Artifact X" with lots of things (woundworld? I liked the idea of the lodge there in seekers) trying to sunder the artifact. and a storyline reward for sucessfully using the artifact or not, actually using this some way in the part 3 "fallout from parts 1&2"
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I would be like to see a(all) faction(s) be targeted for complete anhilation by their rivals. Since we will have 10 factions, and you can only have a max of 7 at a table at a time, it leaves it open so at least 3 factions not represented at the table could be behind the events directly tied to trying to decimate the targeted factions.
Specifically, Id like to see at least one mod where, for example, the members of one faction are targeted for assassination, so it turns into more of a 'survive the onslaught' type thing, opposed to 'go do X'.
Example, Cheliax and Andoran are opposed factions, but Andoran is sided with the new goody goody faction, so if Andoran is at the table and Cheliax is not, its the Chelaxians that are trying to take out the Andorans. The new faction would hopefully help their allies, but Taldor might be more interested in questioning a member of the assassination force than ensuring the Andorans live.
I realize that might be kinda difficult to work properly while avoiding the 'no pvp' rules, so basically, Id like to see more mods where you have to survive what happens or comes at you, opposed to what you go and find.
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I want to see a meta plots that are:
- Interesting
- Innovative and maybe risky.
- It shapes the world. It matters.
- Can be quantified and tracked week-to-week. It's fun to track #s and achievements.
The Pathfinder creed is to Explore, Report, Cooperate. Player's want to see more heroic scenarios. So it makes sense that we explore areas that are causing the world problems, that way we meet the requirements of the Pathfinder Society and players can feel heroic.
I'm brainstorming now, but maybe we should take some lessons from the WoW MMO. The events that were the most fun were:
In PFOS, you could label certain scenarios as gaining an artifact of type "#1" or "#2" and keep a running total of how many artifacts we've retrieved of a certain type. If we retrieve enough of each artifact by PaizoCon/Gencon, we get to play an interactive where we attack Z. If we don't retrieve enough (or enough of a certain type), we get the fallout from that and have some kind of invasion/nastiness (where the Pathfinders get blamed for failing). It sounds epic to me.
Each and every PF season, we should have some COMMON measurable goal we're trying to meet, and that goal should be known and trackable each and every week (on the Paizo.com website). Even if it's updated manually, we don't care.
This is probably my most important suggestion I can give you. Having a common measurable goal really brings people together, and it's something everyone can be enthusiastic about. And if we fail... we fail together! And that could be fun too.
We should definitely start tracking (in both the chronicles and the website) whether we completed the Pathfinder mission or not. It's seems counter intuitive to care about faction missions and not the Pathfinder missions. PF missions should matter!
If the shadow lodge reached its goals (either through enough successful (%) missions or through enough participation), maybe the shadow lodge should have taken over the Pathfinder society! But, more likely, we'd want them to lose, but it would have been fun to:
1) Track how close the Shadow Lodge are to their goal each month.
2) Track how close the Pathfinder Society were to their goals (of stopping the Shadow Lodge) each month.
3) In each scenario, if there are any players of the shadow lodge faction, having the opportunity of stopping them (non-PVP, stopping them is merely catching them or preventing their mission) from completing their missions and being suspicious of your fellow player.
At the end of the season, there could have been a "shadow lodge faction only" scenario. And at the end of the season the shadow lodge faction members (assuming they lose!) get absorbed into other factions of the PF society (faction change).
I think a lot of really cool opportunities were lost by not taking chances with this storyline this season. I would have liked to see how many people played "traitor" to the PF society! It could have been really interesting, it could have been a # we tracked every week, instead it was just meh... another day at the office. It didn't amount to anything.
Four part scenarios should only be able to be completed (or special rewards available) when all prior parts are complete. Or maybe when all parts are complete, it allows you to play a "challenging" scenario (see below).
The bottom line is that something special should occur when you bother to play every scenario in a 3-4 part chain, whether that something special is a reward, the permission to play a special scenario, or an Achievement (see below).
If we want to award special magic items, perhaps those items should only be available to character during a certain calendar year (for example, Holy Sword cost is 0g and only available in 2011).
Achievements could be a reward that is tracked in your Paizo profile. You could have lots of achievements, I think people would go crazy over them. Like: "Completed 10 Andoran faction mission", "Completed 10 Chelaxian faction missions", "Had 5 character deaths", etc.
This would involve development and design effort (and you should start small), but I think people would really like them! And it would give people a reason for reporting their scenarios.
Even a scenario where one of the PCs is abducted and replaced by a doppleganger or gets mind controlled and must convince the party of Y, would be fun.
In PFOS, you gain reputation with only one faction. Your ability to purchase non-chronicle items is based on TPA, but nothing special can be purchased (I guess that was a problem in season 0?). But maybe adding a small title to each current level of PA would be fun?
Maybe your 'encounter' or 'quest' program is small enough that it could have a few "faction only" quests, where only people from that faction participate? I think that might be cool.
An end-of-season interactive where you work with your faction members (of various character levels) only might be a lot of fun! Imagine that, wow, that would be awesome if everyone from Qadira / Osirion / etc was working together on a scenario.
I have a question related to PA, why don't chronicles track BOTH current PA and TPA? I'm not even sure which one the chronicle tracks tbh (I'm guessing TPA?).
While we don't have that in PFOS, we could track some numbers by region. I know Paizo doesn't want to release actual numbers, so the numbers could be a %, based on last year's participation. Regional pride? This is another "achievement" in a way.
If whatever numbers we're tracking can be broken down by region, even in a %, I think it increases interest, enthusiam, reporting, and participation.
Hopefully this helps sparks some new ideas and fresh concepts. I want meta plots (and PFOS) to be meaningful and something we can track (with a quantitative #) each week. And whether we succeed or fail, I want the outcome to actually mean something, especially in the story of the interactive at the end of the season.
Thanks,
Jason
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I'm not sure how you should go about adding these elements to a story, because quite frankly, if you did right now, you'd probably end up TPKing most groups or they'd be lost the entire session. lol. But maybe these skills, if you don't have them, should soften up PCs a bit (less hp, fatigued, ability damage) before the scenario proper. Anyway, I thought it would be worth mentioning, since we're supposed to be explorers.
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No WoWifaction of Pathfinder.
Now for the Meta Plot a series of Modules where the intrepid pathfinders have to seek out and recover a series of artifacts or powerful magic items in Mendev, Ustalav and Numeria that have effects on limiting or closing the World Wound and the plots of those who want to stop he Pathfinders from ding so.
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Exploration ** spoiler omitted **
For me, on metaplots, I would love to see something dealing with the shadow war between the factions, too.
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No WoWifaction of Pathfinder.
That seems like an awfully close minded comment, especially when you actually read what he says. IMO what he's saying is "In WoW, X is lots of fun" and you're saying, "He said WoW, his points are invalid."
Now for actual feedback.
Measurable Goals +1: When people actually know why they're working for something it involves them more. I see far to many missions where the point of the mission seems pointless.
Quest Chains: I would say yes to this as long as the quests can feasibly be done in any order. For example, if you have all 4 scenarios complete each adventure or chain has a boon on it, or some kind of free item.
Achievements: PFRPG already has some achievements in the form of feats. Though the feats aren't all that great. Something worthwhile would be cool.
Hardcore!: I think it would be cool if there was 1 hardcore scenario every season, and wouldn't detract from the overall player basis. Maybe one that can only be run by a 3-star GM. More accessible than a exclusive 4-star but still needed to be run by at least an experienced GM. IMO VC status wouldn't grant access to it. The actually having 3-stars would.
PVP: Going to have disagree here. I think introducing this outside of the context of mind control that this would be a bad idea knowing people in general.
Reputation: I like the idea of ranks both in context of the faction and within the society. Definitely needs to be more than Initiate, Field Agent, VC, and Decemvirate. If people IRL are willing to take pay cuts for just a title, then surely players will go out of their way to get the shiny title before their name.
The idea of faction only quests is also a really cool idea. I wouldn't like full blown 4 hour faction only, but the idea of a short quest sounds really cool.
Regional Pride: Other than for the sake of knowing who has done more of whatever. There would have to be some extremely difficult or long quest train for this to be of any interest to me. Maybe first region under "X" venture lodge to complete every scenario in a season? Maybe whatever region finishes, then that region gets an exclusive adventure that only GM's from that region can run. Better reason to travel to that reason, gencon, or paizocon?
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Venture-Lieutenant, Indiana—Northwestern Indiana
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There are many threats to Absalom and Golarion, and many come from distant places. Perhaps some entities on other planes, or some dark places beyond Golarion's sun have designs that the Pathfinder Society is in a unique position to stop.
Different factions could vie to be leaders in stopping this threat, and in uncovering strange lore. There could be elements of horror in many of the adventures. Perhaps a good introduction to such a metaplot is to have some rival organization such as the Aspis Consortium having unearthed something that they should not have -- and the Pathfinder Society having to deal with the mess. (It might be amusing to Pathfinder players to have members of the Aspis Consortium begging for help -- but we could see a metaplot where survival makes strange bedfellows.)
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No WoWifaction of Pathfinder.That seems like an awfully close minded comment, especially when you actually read what he says. IMO what he's saying is "In WoW, X is lots of fun" and you're saying, "He said WoW, his points are invalid."
I sort of agree with him though, only because 4th Ed felt so much like playing WoW on the table top so that is where my hesitation to disagree comes from.
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I think great villains almost always increase the fun of a game. I would like to see more of some of the Pathfinders traditional enemies like the Aspis Consortium and the Red Mantis Assassins. Possibly in a more competing role in some scenarios. I also find the evil religion organizations make for fun scenarios. Possibly have a cult of a Rovagug threaten to destroy an artifact the Society is trying to protect. It might also be nice to see some new enemies the Pathfinder’s have not really tackled such as the Hellknights, the Old Cults, the Church of Ramirz, Golarion has a wealth of potentially hostile factions and enemies players can grow to hate, and GMs to love to run. Why not use them?
I think it would be cool to have the Pathfinder Society go up against a significant and massive new menace that is starting to threaten Golarion such as some malevolent force from the Dark Tapestry, Leng, the Whispering Tyrant, another rising Runelord, some Azlanti lord reawakened and trying to take back the Inner Sea, or some other similar threat. Something that would help showcase the Pathfinder’s abilities at discovery, exploration, research, combat, magical aptitude, and other important skills the Society has available. The Pathfinders can discover this newly awakening threat, research it, gather artifacts to fight it, and take the fight to it (and of course reporting all along the way).
I would also like to see some of the achievements we have, the artifacts and knowledge we collect, and the missions we complete successfully have a visible effect. Maybe artifacts the PCs collect on missions get added to their Chronicle sheets, and can be used in a later scenario to deal with the big threat of that season. Or possibly some kind of bonus to skills, saves, or attack checks.
Also chances for Pathfinders to prove how great and exceptional they are is always great. In some of the scenarios I have ran or GMed, there doesn’t seem to be much urgency in succeeding or not. Many times it does not seem to be a big deal or not if the Pathfinders succeed or not in collecting the MacGuffin as it is never hear, spoken, or seen of again. There is oftentimes a blurp in the conclusion about how the Pathfinder’s succeeded improve relations with some group, or how a bad guy was put away in jail, or some threat was ended. But it does not really feel concrete to me. A lot of times, the scenario seems to feel like to end like this:
PCs: Drendle Dreng! We risked life and limb securing the Letter Opener of Krushion!
Dreng: Oh… *Takes the Letter Opener.* Umm, good job I guess.
PCs: So umm, that’s it?
Dreng: Well, here’s some tier appropriate gold. *Throws Letter Opener onto the growing pile of trinkets behind his desk.* Now get out of my office! One of these nights I’ll actually get half a nights rest!
I’m being a bit harsh here. Really I think Pathfinder Society has been getting better and better, and I have seen mostly positive changes. Especially in the quality and fun of scenarios since Pathfinder Society started, and I expect to continue to see further improvement. I think with the inclusion of metaplots such as the Shadowlodge for Season 2, and the Ruby Phoenix Tournament for Season 3 are really going to help focus future scenarios and make players really feel like they are contributing towards a goal rather than just going out on random missions that don’t mean much in the wider scheme of things.
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No WoWifaction of Pathfinder.
I was pretty sure someone would read the word WoW and stop reading there. If you know anything about WoW (you don't) or read my ideas (you didn't) you'd know that I was trying to take the good aspects of WoW and see if we could steal some ideas and convert those ideas into something cool for Pathfinder. If you did either, you'd know that some of my brainstorming is in direct opposition to how WoW works. For example, WoW is stateless, I want our PF missions to matter. Right now, PFOS is stateless, our PF missions don't matter (we don't even track success/failures).
Anyway, there's no sense in arguing with someone who can't even take the time and be logical enough to read your ideas and judge them on their own merit.
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Venture-Agent, Utah
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I would be excited by a "Spanish Armada/ Mongolian Invasion" fleet which could threaten the shores of all the current factions. Early adventures could be to discover the reality of such a fleet in foreign lands, to root out implanted agents in local Inland Sea agents. Mid-period adventures could be to attack fleet elements at sea and in outlying harbors. End of the year could deal with stranded forces from the fleet or guerilla actions against a successful invasion.
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Jason. I belong to the grochy old gamers sub faction of Pathfinder/ D+D. Just saying the word WoW causes us to froth at the mouth and our heads to spin around and round. So don't take my comment personaly
it was not aimed at you.
In your last post you talked about facion missons not matering I agree with you they don't seem to a matter a great deal. I think Jason and the guys need to find a way to maake them matter. Perhaps they could give each faction access to treasure that is not availble to another faction based on how many PA we garrner for the faction.
A aside My Taladan Paladin so wantss to Smite Barron Jacko for sending him on missions to get bad things that are going to be used for evil ends in my characcters eyes. Perhaps a Mendev or Malthoune Faction
could be created so I don't have to kill my faction leader. Had to blow a PA point in the last Hersey of man 2 because I could not in good faith complte the faction mission and be a Paladin.
Pazio staff the Season 2 Modules that I have palyed just seem to be getting better and better so keep up the good work Just completed the first two Hersey of Man modules and had a geart deal of fun with with both.
Perhaps in some future module you could have to Pathfinders run into
their faction leaders in some socail setting and let the Characters have some revenge on those who send them on foolish missions.
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OK, no problem Lou.
Btw, I didn't say the faction missions didn't matter, they do (we track PA/TPA) and our purchasing power is based on them. It's the Pathfinder Society missions that don't matter, we don't track their success/failures, and success / failure has no mechanical (or even fluff) ramifications.
Whatever metaplot Paizo picks, I'd like to see us track PF mission success and use it to set goals for the season, something we're all working towards when we're playing these scenarios. See my Shadowlodge example for what could have been done.
Paizo could use some of my ideas as a carrot to get people to play a better variety of scenarios (goals), a bigger variety of factions (achievements), and more participation (goals). Building towards a common (trackable!) goal is quite fun. (Our latest "goal" was getting more friends for the Paizo Facebook page).
Btw, WoW is a great game. Pathfinder is a great game. 4E is not a great game. You shouldn't compare them. I've had experiences playing WoW that were on par or better than any roleplaying moment, especially when it first came out. At times it seemed like they took my imagination and put it on the screen (kind of like what LotR did for movies).
The ideas I was attempting to steal from WoW were not unique to WoW, many of them are universal concepts, things PFOS does now, they just need to be expanded and developed further.
For example, PFOS has achievements because of the GM star system (which is highly successful). We have factions and reputation right now (the levels are numeric only, they don't have names attached to them). We have (vague) goals for factions. We have no common goal for the PF society as a whole. We have quest chains (scenarios linked together) without anything special happenning at the end (which many people have asked for) or even an epic ending. We have regional pride right now, without any stats (faction participation % by region would be interesting among other things).
Anyway, it's these types of things I mentioned are the things I'd like to see from PFOS in the future. If Paizo wants to send me an email to work out specifics, of things they could track, I'd be open to talking to them.
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So I've also given thought to mechanics for metaplots a bit. I don't have experience in Organized Play outside of PFS, but I was wondering if there has ever been "mini-specials." I mean, I think at a good number of gamedays, you can at least field 2-3 tables per slot (common in the Atlanta area). I was thinking, why not create a scenario that would involve 2-3 tables? You have a really big temple and one table has to go one way, another has to go the other. They both have to solve a puzzle before they can enter the last area or unlock the artifact they want to get to shut down the terrible magics emanating from it.
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Aboleths trying to finish off what they started millennia ago and sink the home of the Last Azlant now that he is gone. I'm sure the Pathfinders have found relics of the Aboleths that could help (or hinder). Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if there was an Aboleth bomb hiding in the depths of the Vaults just waiting for the telepathic signal to explode!
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So I've also given thought to mechanics for metaplots a bit. I don't have experience in Organized Play outside of PFS, but I was wondering if there has ever been "mini-specials." I mean, I think at a good number of gamedays, you can at least field 2-3 tables per slot (common in the Atlanta area). I was thinking, why not create a scenario that would involve 2-3 tables? You have a really big temple and one table has to go one way, another has to go the other. They both have to solve a puzzle before they can enter the last area or unlock the artifact they want to get to shut down the terrible magics emanating from it.
Year of the Shadow Lodge is playable by 3 tables (9 players minimum, 4 GMs).
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A return to an Absalom focus (like many of the season 1 scenarios) would definitely be fun. I haven't played the majority of the scenarios, so some of these ideas may already have been played out:
-A secret hunt for one of the Cornucopias and a means to use it. Imagine the prestige and power the Society would gain! And imagine the people who would do anything to stop this from happening.
-Since the cracking of the code to enter the Spire of Nex, adventuring parties have explored it quite a few times. It is thought that the inside is different every time...but is it really? Patterns seem to be repeating and converging. What are they converging to?
-A plague of unknown Starstone hopefuls is arriving. And a stunning number of them appear to be succeeding. They seem to have godlike powers but they are...different than they were before. Is Ascension now possible for everyone? Or is someone or something trying to pull a fast one?
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Year of the Shadow Lodge is playable by 3 tables (9 players minimum, 4 GMs).
I was not aware. The two times I've seen it ran was with 8+ tables I believe. I guess it's sort of similar, but the way I envision it is with 2-3 tables and each goes in a different part of the complex for one specific task, as opposed to doing roughly the same thing (just at different CRs).
I've halfway convinced myself to start writing this one out. Needs more planning though.
