I dont really understand organised play, but I'm curious why some scenarios get retired and others dont. Can anyone enlighten me?
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As I understand it, season 0 scenarios were written for version 3.5 of D&D, before Pathfinder became a separate game. Some of the scenarios in that season required more work than others to convert to the new Pathfinder rule set, so they just retired them instead of converting them. To my knowledge, none of the scenarios from season 1 or later have ever been retired.
If I'm mistaken about any of this, I'm sure someone will be along to correct me.
Director of Brand Strategy
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There are many reasons a scenario might be retired, but none we have discussed or plan to discuss publicly. You'll note that only Season 0 scenarios have been retired thus far, and none have been retired in over a year. There are currently no plans to retire additional scenarios.
There are many reasons a scenario might be retired, but none we have discussed or plan to discuss publicly. You'll note that only Season 0 scenarios have been retired thus far, and none have been retired in over a year. There are currently no plans to retire additional scenarios.
Intriguing! I'll get to work on some conspiracy theories. :p
Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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Far be it from me to gainsay a Paizo employee, but I did actually see Josh Frost discuss why some scenarios got retired. Mind you, this is from memory, but should be as accurate as any other speculation (and is spoilered in case people plan on playing any of them for fun):
The BBEG at the end had a proclivity to TPK groups. It was a tier 1-5 scenario wherein the sub-tier 1-2 stats for the BBEG had him at large size with reach in a small room with no cover for PCs. Too many dead PCs was bad publicity.
This one, too, was a module that included a sub-tier 1-2 size large (or huge?) assassin vine which resulted in lots of dead PCs. Keep in mind that this scenario was originally planned as a tier 3-7. When management realized they needed more low level scenarios, they created the tier 1-7 scenarios by attempting to adjust encounters down for sub-tier 1-2. Sometimes the results were less than well balanced.
I don't recall seeing this one discussed, and really liked it, so am not sure why it got dropped. The Indiana Jones style escape at the end may have proven too dangerous for many groups, but I think that's been outdone by some of the more recent scenarios. Again, it was meant to be tier 1-5, and it was pretty challenging. Beyond that, I dunno on this one.
A super sandboxy style adventure where the encounters could all blow up in your face at once. If groups had to handle them all one at a time it was a great adventure. But fight them all at the same time and it was too much to handle. I heard a lot of GMs had a propensity for allowing things to get way out of hand, and the scenario didn't have very many "outs" written into it.
Quite simply, the PCs were on a time clock. If the clock ran out of time then the pocket dimension they were in went out of phase and the group "died" because they wouldn't be able to get back to Golarion for another 100 years. And, seeing as there was a random mechanic that would potentially send you in time wasting circles due to no fault of your own, this pissed a lot of players off who otherwise successfully completed the scenario. This was another scenario that was meant to be 3-7 and ended up 1-7, by the way.
Another one I don't recall being discussed. What I do recall is a BBEG with a lot of "save or die" effects with high DCs. Again, this likely ended up with too many TPKs for Josh Frost's tastes.
Another 3-7 scenario converted to 1-7 which included an assassin vine. Worse, the PCs started the encounter with the exit on the opposite side of the vine, and the tower begins collapsing around them. Stay too long and get crushed. Try to run by the assassin vine and get AOO'd to death. It was a pretty rough final encounter.
The BBEG in this was an invisible medusa, if memory serves correctly. You specifically had to go looking for her to fight her. She, of course, worked pretty hard at staying hidden, sniping from around cover (which there was a lot of in that room). The moment you found her, you had to make a save. Fail and you're a rock. Succeed at your save and you might get one attack before she disappeared again for you to go hunting once more. Lots of new statues were created out of PCs. Not very many of them stayed silent about their dislike of this encounter.
Second, the "objective" of the scenario included a way to recharge wands, staffs and such. Frost specifically mentioned that he was aware of lenient GMs allowing their players to "farm" this module to recharge high-powered consumables, and that irritated him (understandably).
This is what I remember from following a lot of different discussions back when Josh was retiring things. Again, it's as much hearsay as anything else, but at least provides a little bit of an explanation for you. Hope it helps with your conspiracy theories. (-;
Well, those are far more reasonable than the "explanations" I'd started on.
Cheers.
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Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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By the way: Josh stated on more than one occasion that he intended to retire *all* of Season 0, eventually. This created a lot of hue and cry, as there weren't nearly as many scenarios to play through at the time, and modules were not a sanctioned form of play. When Josh left, I think the incoming team wisely listened to this argument and dialed back on those plans (obviously). I specifically recall Black Waters being on the chopping block and getting a reprieve when Mark and Hyrum took over.
That said, I would not be surprised to see some of those old scenarios dropped from play in the not-too distant future. Some of them are stinkers. Some of them just don't lend themselves very well to being converted to PFRPG rules. In those cases, they just need to go, as there are plenty of options now, with more coming out regularly. I would love to see them all be converted, but there are certainly plenty of more important things to spend time and/or money on, I think.
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Far be it from me to gainsay a Paizo employee, but I did actually see Josh Frost discuss why some scenarios got retired. Mind you, this is from memory, but should be as accurate as any other speculation (and is spoilered in case people plan on playing any of them for fun):
It sounds like if someone were wanting to expand the PFS1 campaign options, Eye, Blood, Third, Trouble, and Eternal could just be labeled Hard Mode (and/or all the 1-7's moved to 3-7).
Stay and Asmodeus would need adjustments it sounds like.
Hands should be easy to include with
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Given the move to 2E, I don't see any reason to review and/or retire 1E scenarios. They don't take up any space in the warehouse so aren't hurting anything by remaining for sale and with support for PFS1 being status-quo, why reduce the available options for players who still want to adventure in that campaign?
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Given the move to 2E, I don't see any reason to review and/or retire 1E scenarios. They don't take up any space in the warehouse so aren't hurting anything by remaining for sale and with support for PFS1 being status-quo, why reduce the available options for players who still want to adventure in that campaign?
Is someone suggesting retiring more 1E scenarios?
I believe Majuba is saying "can we bring these back out of retirement?"
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It sounds like if someone were wanting to expand the PFS1 campaign options, Eye, Blood, Third, Trouble, and Eternal could just be labeled Hard Mode (and/or all the 1-7's moved to 3-7).
Stay and Asmodeus would need adjustments it sounds like.
Some of them would definitely be Hard Mode. I believe I recall there was a 5d6 fireball in Tier 1-2 in one scenario.
But all of these would need "touch-up" to varying degrees. None of them were given new Secondary Success Conditions when that document went live in Season 5. And some of these granted a max of 1 TPA. Eternal Obelisk had one really weird map that made a hash of the Pathfinder combat rules. Attempting to get out of the Asmodeus Mirage needs to have an "automatic out" clause added. When you actually look at the probability of getting stuck it's pretty bad. The big (spoilered) concern with Hands of the Muted God has only gotten worse with items on later chronicles. Several scenarios have serious lore problems.
So yeah, it's possible. But it would require effort by Paizo if they were to become PFS legal. Given that the bandwidth was never available even when PFS1 was the only campaign I don't see it happening now.
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I believe I recall there was a 5d6 fireball in Tier 1-2 in one scenario.
It involves an ambush where a familiar delivers a held 5d6 shocking grasp on the same round the caster unleashes a 5d6 lightning bolt specifically at the same target.
One of the adventures also has:
Enkendu the Mad CR 19
Male very old brass dragon
CN Huge dragon (fire)
And Hands of the Muted God's answers to the questions of the Muted god have been contradicted in cannon as well as its impossible/broken reward and the presence of drow.
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One of the adventures also has:
Enkendu the Mad CR 19
Male very old brass dragon
CN Huge dragon (fire)
At least that adventure takes the time to give the GM this direction:
Remind your players of this repeatedly—attacking Enkendu will lead to a TPK.
And Hands of the Muted God's answers to the questions of the Muted god have been contradicted in cannon as well as its impossible/broken reward and the presence of drow.
Hands of the Muted God is a scenario of "15 pages of lore that would rewrite what you know about Golarion if any of it was canon."
The Third Riddle is "you made a discovery as big as any Durvin Gest ever did. And you're a third of the way to reshaping Golarion."
Clinton Boomer did not think small in his Pathfinder writing. (He also wrote the Spawn of Rovagug article in the Legacy of Fire AP.) But it might have been too big (worldshaping) for what Paizo wanted in the Pathfinder Society product line.
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So the drow there are out and about on the Isle of Kortos, having sailed to the island and bribed their way past customs.
Their ongoing presence on the surface is problematic, as well as their male drider leader who doesn't line up with how drow are presented in golarion.
There's also potential for problematic player conflict regarding faction missions and Andoran and Cheliaxian PCs.
There's also the canon problem where the Muted God definitely failed the test of the Starstone, but the scenario says he's definitely alive and leaves open the question of did he ascend or not.
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I believe Majuba is saying "can we bring these back out of retirement?"
yeah, it's possible. But it would require effort by Paizo if they were to become PFS legal. Given that the bandwidth was never available even when PFS1 was the only campaign I don't see it happening now.
Releasing them back into the wild officially would be a nice option and much preferable. It sounds like the only *real* issue for the five I mentioned first is Third Riddle in some sort of world lore way.
A community effort could be made to draw up the method of reintroduction (secondary success conditions, Hard Mode classifications, any absolutely required changes). Though I was also simply considering as the PFS campaign (1e) is left unattended, a wide-spread agreement to accept chronicles for them would be fairly straight-forward. Definitely a very slippery slope for maintaining the.. structural integrity of the campaign of course.
Not having played any of them (despite playing during season 0), I'd rather not spoil myself on *all* of them to develop such lists.
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Releasing them back into the wild officially would be a nice option and much preferable. It sounds like the only *real* issue for the five I mentioned first is Third Riddle in some sort of world lore way.
Third Riddle doesn’t really create a problem with the world lore so much as it is out of scale (how huge it could be to Golarion lore) from other adventures of its level. It leaves a massive plot hook dangling that never got addressed anywhere else. And probably can’t be addressed without making changes to Golarion. PFS did make big changes to Golarion occasionally - especially in Tier 12+ scenarios - but not in the early years.
A community effort could be made to draw up the method of reintroduction (secondary success conditions, Hard Mode classifications, any absolutely required changes). Though I was also simply considering as the PFS campaign (1e) is left unattended, a wide-spread agreement to accept chronicles for them would be fairly straight-forward. Definitely a very slippery slope for maintaining the.. structural integrity of the campaign of course.
This is at least the third proposal I’ve seen for some form of “community takeover” of PFS1 and continuing/expanding 1st edition play. I’m not opposed to such an idea but there are significant challenges. First and foremost being getting enough players to agree on such a change. If one group accepts an updated Stay of Execution chronicle but another does not then people are going to get their PCs caught in limbo. If two or more different people put out their own competing versions it gets even worse. The more times the campaign forks the more it’s not really a consistent world-wide Campaign.
What would really be needed is one person (or a small group) with: the game skills to make updates (and possibly publish new scenarios), the time to manage a huge campaign, the organizational skills for such a campaign, enough legal knowledge to avoid transgressing the OGL or CUP, good communication skills, and (most importantly) enough respect from the community to get buy-in from a majority as “the new Authority.”
I’m definitely not volunteering for such a position (and don’t meet the qualifications anyway). Maybe there is such a person, but so far no one has been willing to step forward and say “and I will lead this effort.”
