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I'm simply curious why certain scenarios have been retired as there is no explanation on the scenario page or in the comments. I would love to hear the reasoning and would also, for giggles, would love to hear any playthrough stories from other PFS peeps :)
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As you know, they are all written for 3.5 and not Pathfinder. While most convert easily not all of them did.
Another important item, check out the average number of stars those scenarios have from reviews... Most of them were very poorly reviewed, so they are not missed.
Also this has been covered before, see this excellent post by Doug Miles
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I'm simply curious why certain scenarios have been retired as there is no explanation on the scenario page or in the comments. I would love to hear the reasoning and would also, for giggles, would love to hear any playthrough stories from other PFS peeps :)
The 'First Steps' adventures were retired because they were based around introducing the characters to factions that were removed at the start of season 5.
Don't know about any of the others...
Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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This post gives the reasons I remember being discussed for scenario retirement.
Add to that the final two parts of First Steps, now: Taja the Barbarian is likely correct. Two of the characters introduced in those adventures are no longer a part of the Society in Absalom. "Introducing" brand new PCs to NPCs that have been removed from the campaign would be a jarring experience.
Also, those two scenarios continued a "series" that was hard for a single PC to complete. Many players wanted to get a new PC all the way through all three parts, and doing so often proved difficult. The "level 1 only" part made it especially difficult, so often tables just wouldn't happen due to players trying to maneuver their PCs properly around a schedule.
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The second and third parts of First Steps were removed because it was determined that most people weren't playing all three parts. A 12 hour "introduction" was just too long. The prominent position of certain factoon leaders didn't help, but part 2 at least made just as much sense as it ever did (Amara Li is still a Venture-Captain, and presumably is still welcome to throw parties in Absalom.)
Venture-Lieutenant, Indiana—Martinsville
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I will pop in here to say at least one needs Retired as soon as possible.
Scenario number 4-04 King of the Storval Stairs needs to be removed from the field to avoid Party Kills, Bad Feelings and other things. It is a overly deadly scenario that bangs the party into one fight into another and a lot of GM mistakes involving the tactics.
Another one that gets suggested all the time is the Many Fortunes of Grand Master Torch.
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I will pop in here to say at least one needs Retired as soon as possible.
Scenario number 4-04 King of the Storval Stairs needs to be removed from the field to avoid Party Kills, Bad Feelings and other things. It is a overly deadly scenario that bangs the party into one fight into another and a lot of GM mistakes involving the tactics.
Another one that gets suggested all the time is the Many Fortunes of Grand Master Torch.
Mistakes or willful ignorance of? The tactics for one fight in particular are written to be much more forgiving than it could be.
I have both played it and run it, both times had players go unconscious, but no actual deaths. I think it really depends on your party setup, I had a sorcerer with a
I see no reason to retire it.
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Scenario number 4-04 King of the Storval Stairs needs to be removed from the field to avoid Party Kills, Bad Feelings and other things.
My party died in that scenario (no TPK due to my awesome diplomacy), but we got away.
I still think this is one of the best scenarios in season 4, and will run it any day.
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I think it is an extremely bad idea to retire scenarios. I remember when those season 0 scenarios were going to be retired. There was a rush to try and play them before they got retired. People realized that was potential XP that was going away. Once they were retired a bottle neck was created.
With people champing at the bit for more scenarios, It hardly seems a good idea to retire more scenarios.
I do understand for campaign reasons removing First steps part 2 and 3, but I
would have preferred to keep them in.
Just my two cents.
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32
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There are some poor scenarios, especially in Season 0. Some of them can be improved - Among the Living can be made to be a lot of fun if you play up the roleplaying well in the first bit. Unfortuntaely, if you don't, it doesn't make sense why you're there and what you're doing. Some of the Season 0 scenarios don't lend themselves well to this, either. The Many Fortunes of Grandmaster Torch is probably the most egregious of these, however, because the tactics and actions that the NPCs take entirely eliminates any real opportunity for roleplay. Immediately upon entering each scene, the team needs to roll initiative. Unless the GM exercises some leeway that I don't feel is allowed a PFS GM, the scenario is rather awful.
I've recommended in the past that there be some non-mechanical, fan-created and campaign-staff-endorsed alternate storylines for these adventures, but unfortunately, I doubt that will happen.
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There are some poor scenarios, especially in Season 0. Some of them can be improved - Among the Living can be made to be a lot of fun if you play up the roleplaying well in the first bit. Unfortuntaely, if you don't, it doesn't make sense why you're there and what you're doing. Some of the Season 0 scenarios don't lend themselves well to this, either. The Many Fortunes of Grandmaster Torch is probably the most egregious of these, however, because the tactics and actions that the NPCs take entirely eliminates any real opportunity for roleplay. Immediately upon entering each scene, the team needs to roll initiative. Unless the GM exercises some leeway that I don't feel is allowed a PFS GM, the scenario is rather awful.
I've recommended in the past that there be some non-mechanical, fan-created and campaign-staff-endorsed alternate storylines for these adventures, but unfortunately, I doubt that will happen.
My review of Many Fortunes makes it clear how much I dislike the scenario, but if you want to hear some small story adjustments I made when I ran it to allow the characters to not be murdering hobos, PM me. There's still no way to fix "that's the price of honesty" without changing the scenario in an illegal way, but everything else I was able to avoid simply via the allowed means. Granted, it still wasn't a great scenario, but players were able to not be murder hobos (important for the Silver Crusade inquisitor who would have just walked from the mission otherwise).
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My review of Many Fortunes makes it clear how much I dislike the scenario, but if you want to hear some small story adjustments I made when I ran it to allow the characters to not be murdering hobos, PM me. There's still no way to fix "that's the price of honesty" without changing the scenario in an illegal way, but everything else I was able to avoid simply via the allowed means. Granted, it still wasn't a great scenario, but players were able to not be murder hobos (important for the Silver Crusade inquisitor who would have just walked from the mission otherwise).There are some poor scenarios, especially in Season 0. Some of them can be improved - Among the Living can be made to be a lot of fun if you play up the roleplaying well in the first bit. Unfortuntaely, if you don't, it doesn't make sense why you're there and what you're doing. Some of the Season 0 scenarios don't lend themselves well to this, either. The Many Fortunes of Grandmaster Torch is probably the most egregious of these, however, because the tactics and actions that the NPCs take entirely eliminates any real opportunity for roleplay. Immediately upon entering each scene, the team needs to roll initiative. Unless the GM exercises some leeway that I don't feel is allowed a PFS GM, the scenario is rather awful.
I've recommended in the past that there be some non-mechanical, fan-created and campaign-staff-endorsed alternate storylines for these adventures, but unfortunately, I doubt that will happen.
Most of the season 0 mods have so little word count that I assumed you were supposed to put more role playing in between the scenes than there is stated. It reminded me of some of the old 2nd adventures in that respect, which may give a touch of back story on npcs and that's it. I've ran that mod twice and it was a lot of fun both times.
But yes, if you sit there and don't add anything in role playing-wise, then most of those 10 page mods are going to suck.
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It's not the word count that's the problem with Many Fortunes of Grandmaster Torch. It's the plot.
The mission is literally "Go be muggers". Any lawful aligned character who doesn't walk away and refuse to play the scenario after Grandmaster Torch tells them what he wants them to do gets an alignment infraction. I know the Society isn't exactly a squeaky clean organization under normal circumstances, but this one's just a whole lot more blatant about stealing from random people in the middle of a major city, with nothing to even pretend to justify it.
This is the one and only PFS scenario I've ever played that I would refuse to ever GM or put on a game day schedule in the future. I'm treating it as retired, even if Paizo isn't.
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Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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It's not the word count that's the problem with Many Fortunes of Grandmaster Torch. It's the plot.
The mission is literally "Go be muggers". Any lawful aligned character who doesn't walk away and refuse to play the scenario after Grandmaster Torch tells them what he wants them to do gets an alignment infraction. I know the Society isn't exactly a squeaky clean organization under normal circumstances, but this one's just a whole lot more blatant about stealing from random people in the middle of a major city, with nothing to even pretend to justify it.
This is the one and only PFS scenario I've ever played that I would refuse to ever GM or put on a game day schedule in the future. I'm treating it as retired, even if Paizo isn't.
I'm the same way. I won't review it because I can't give it zero stars.
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It's not the word count that's the problem with Many Fortunes of Grandmaster Torch. It's the plot.
The mission is literally "Go be muggers". Any lawful aligned character who doesn't walk away and refuse to play the scenario after Grandmaster Torch tells them what he wants them to do gets an alignment infraction. I know the Society isn't exactly a squeaky clean organization under normal circumstances, but this one's just a whole lot more blatant about stealing from random people in the middle of a major city, with nothing to even pretend to justify it.
This is the one and only PFS scenario I've ever played that I would refuse to ever GM or put on a game day schedule in the future. I'm treating it as retired, even if Paizo isn't.
The scenario makes it extraordinarily difficult to do so, but when I ran it, thanks to lucky ordering of where they went and management on my end, the PCs managed to use Diplomacy to convince some of the buyers that they were in danger from the items. They still wound up participating in all of the encounters as written, they missed the extra gold for not being horrible people, and they did have to sleight of hand it from one person, but they never lay a hand on any of the buyers.
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It's not the word count that's the problem with Many Fortunes of Grandmaster Torch. It's the plot.
The mission is literally "Go be muggers". Any lawful aligned character who doesn't walk away and refuse to play the scenario after Grandmaster Torch tells them what he wants them to do gets an alignment infraction. I know the Society isn't exactly a squeaky clean organization under normal circumstances, but this one's just a whole lot more blatant about stealing from random people in the middle of a major city, with nothing to even pretend to justify it.
This is the one and only PFS scenario I've ever played that I would refuse to ever GM or put on a game day schedule in the future. I'm treating it as retired, even if Paizo isn't.
It's an 11 page mod, so a lot is not clearly stated.
It's clearly stolen merchandise from the Osirion embassy. From the background, I always read it as "To gain the goodwill of Osirion, which we need to mount expeditions in Osirion," which I was told by a VO was the goal of much of season 0/1.
However, I just looked and you're right that it doesn't state what the pathfinders are planning to do with the statues or why they are interested in them. Judging from the Osirion mission, I don't think I was wrong about author intention though.
I would vote for simply adding the sentence "To gain the goodwill of Osirion, which we need to mount expeditions in Osirion" instead of retiring a scenario.
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It's clearly stolen merchandise from the Osirion embassy.
Yeah, but the Pathfinders aren't stealing it back from people who involved in that theft. We're stealing it back from their buyers, who may have believed they were engaging in legitimate commerce in buying these things. We don't know enough about our targets to know if they're good or bad people. We just know we're supposed to steal something from them that they bought, and might not know was stolen.
I don't remember all the details, so maybe there's more to it than that, but my recollection is that the main mission was "Go be muggers", and I was really glad I wasn't playing a lawful or good character that session.
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It's clearly stolen merchandise from the Osirion embassy.Yeah, but the Pathfinders aren't stealing it back from people who involved in that theft. We're stealing it back from their buyers, who may have believed they were engaging in legitimate commerce in buying these things. We don't know enough about our targets to know if they're good or bad people. We just know we're supposed to steal something from them that they bought, and might not know was stolen.
I don't remember all the details, so maybe there's more to it than that, but my recollection is that the main mission was "Go be muggers", and I was really glad I wasn't playing a lawful or good character that session.
You're right. These items were smuggled out of Osirion to begin with, and when obtained are not going to be returned to Osirion (when I played this, we didn't understand the briefing well enough and nearly failed the main mission due to saying too much to the Osirian embassy, since we assumed we were returning to Osirion).
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You're right. These items were smuggled out of Osirion to begin with, and when obtained are not going to be returned to Osirion (when I played this, we didn't understand the briefing well enough and nearly failed the main mission due to saying too much to the Osirian embassy, since we assumed we were returning to Osirion).
It's clearly stolen merchandise from the Osirion embassy.Yeah, but the Pathfinders aren't stealing it back from people who involved in that theft. We're stealing it back from their buyers, who may have believed they were engaging in legitimate commerce in buying these things. We don't know enough about our targets to know if they're good or bad people. We just know we're supposed to steal something from them that they bought, and might not know was stolen.
I don't remember all the details, so maybe there's more to it than that, but my recollection is that the main mission was "Go be muggers", and I was really glad I wasn't playing a lawful or good character that session.
I just read the scenario again and it says NOTHING about where the statues are going or what the pathfinder society wants to do with them. They could have gone to the museum, to the osirion embassy, or some vault in the society. Thus, if you nearly failed the main mission due to saying too much to the Osirian embassy, that was your GM's call.
I read the mission the same way your party did, and that is how I ran it.
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You're right. These items were smuggled out of Osirion to begin with, and when obtained are not going to be returned to Osirion (when I played this, we didn't understand the briefing well enough and nearly failed the main mission due to saying too much to the Osirian embassy, since we assumed we were returning to Osirion).
It's clearly stolen merchandise from the Osirion embassy.Yeah, but the Pathfinders aren't stealing it back from people who involved in that theft. We're stealing it back from their buyers, who may have believed they were engaging in legitimate commerce in buying these things. We don't know enough about our targets to know if they're good or bad people. We just know we're supposed to steal something from them that they bought, and might not know was stolen.
I don't remember all the details, so maybe there's more to it than that, but my recollection is that the main mission was "Go be muggers", and I was really glad I wasn't playing a lawful or good character that session.
I just read the scenario again and it says NOTHING about where the statues are going or what the pathfinder society wants to do with them. They could have gone to the museum, to the osirion embassy, or some vault in the society. Thus, if you nearly failed the main mission due to saying too much to the Osirian embassy, that was your GM's call.
I read the mission the same way your party did, and that is how I ran it.
The main mission was to get the statuettes to the Venture Captain (who implies that she wants them not to "move beyond our grasp", so I'm with the GM with the seeming intent of the reading--other portions talk about Torch using the Society's desire for the items to get what he wants, which doesn't make sense if they are going to just return it anyway). The Osirian embassy people we spoke with wanted us to give it to them instead, since it was stolen from them. The GM said that if we had done that, we would have failed the main mission. Since the characters doing the Osirion mission were actually Grand Lodge, there wasn't a problem, but a true Osirion character might have caused one unknowingly.
When I ran it, this wasn't an issue as we didn't focus on the Osirian authorities (with no one doing the Osirion mission), and I made sure to make it clear that they were to return them to the VC, plus up-played the dangers to make it seem they would be safest under the PFS's lock and key.
