|
Hey, all! Our local VL suffered a fracture during a skiing trip recently, so I'm stepping up to run a lot of her sessions pro-tem. I've been GMing home games since forever, but I only got into PFS during Season 3, and our local PFS was a mess until about 4 months ago. So there's probably a lot of scenario gems I've missed out on. So who better to ask than all of you guys?
A few notes: since the local PFS scene became less of a cluster-flug, we've been getting a LOT of new players, so 1-5s, 1-7s, and 3-7s are preferable. Knowing about some higher-level goodies will be nice, but I might not see that tier of play as a GM for a while. I'm VERY comfortable behind the screen, but some of my draftees are relative newcomers, so a mix of GM challenge is fine; I can distribute the easier ones to the newer GMs, and keep the complex ones for my tables 'til they're ready. Mixes of RP and combat-heavy (as well as both) are perfect.
Season 3 to 5 I know pretty well, but I just KNOW there's some season 0 to 2 scenarios that are just too good to pass up. So folks, any recommendations?
|
|
The Blackros line is probably going to be first on many lists (Mists of Mwangi, Voice in the Void, and Penumbral Accords). The 1st and last of those are very easy to run on the fly and use the same map.
#39 the Citadel of Flame has a decent story, and had one of the better Cheliax faction missions IMO
#55 The Infernal Vault is a good straight forward one with an OK story.
The first 2 of the Shades of Ice in season 2 were really good on flavor (#1 was the best of the 3). The timing of the writing on #3 in terms of real life issues behind the scenes led it to being somewhat disjointed from my point of view.
I really like the Devil We Know series, but would not recommend running this at tier 1-2, at least the first couple of them.
#24 Decline of Glory is a good story showing some of the corruption in Taldor
#4 is a great one, and the last time I ran it I had the paladin in the party wanting to kill the guy you're working to save so bad it was hilarious
#45 Deliriums Tangle has a neat end boss fight that is fun to run, and the rest of it is fairly straight forward to go too.
It seems like I've rattled off most of them, and there's still some good ones out there. It just seems there's so many 'classics' from the older seasons that I really like.
|
|
Well, you know the new Seasons, so you know that pretty much anything after John Compton took over is going to have some good mixes of RP and interesting fights.
If you're doing a blast to the past, there are a lot where you COULD have a bunch of RP, but it depends on the GM.
S0:
Black Waters offers the opportunity for creepy vibe, RP, and also some fights.
Our Lady of Silver has heavy RP potential and one fight that isn't a joke.
Mists of Mwangi and Among the Living have potential for RP but could also be grindfests. It depends on you for Among the Living and the players for Mists (since the RP is something related to what happens to them).
Decline of Glory has both RP and some fights.
S1:
Assault ("Peace Summit") on the Kingdom of the Impossible can nearly be a peace run with a hilariously amusing twist to the first fight
Voice in the Void has one of the funniest RP encounters ever, but it's not in the 1-2 subtier, so NEVER play it in 1-2
Pallid Plague has potential for both RP and fights.
Delirium's Tangle has plenty of skill based challenges
Fortune's Blight probably has some RP and fights
City of Strangers 1 and 2 definitely has a good mix, especially if you read City of Strangers the campaign setting book
Jester's Fraud has the potential for a lot of possible approaches to the last part.
S2:
Before the Dawn 1 has RP and fights
Rebel's Ransom is a really good dungeon crawl by Jason Bulmahn. Sort of like Bonekeep Part 0.
The Heresy of Man trilogy is pretty cool Rahadoum flavor and good challenges
Fury of the Fiend has some RP challenges that you can really play up before the dungeon crawl
Below the Silver Tarn has a cool RP section early on too
Murder on the Throaty Mermaid can be...very RP heavy. My home group session was memorable because the players refused to let me fast-forward and it took huge amounts of time to run.
Shades of Ice Trilogy: All the Shades have pretty good northern country culture RP
Wrath of the Accursed: Clever use of the adventure's theme, RP opportunities, potentially tough tactics of a smart BBEG
Dalsine Affair: Lost its impact over time, but it's quite a story
You Only Die Twice: Potential for hugely humorous RP as the good-aligned characters pretend to be ravenous ghouls. NPC--"Why are you healing these people?" PC--"Uhhhh...they taste so much better when they're healthy, you idiot!"
|
|
I second what Jayson said above. Rescue at Azlant Ridge is far from perfect, but it has one of the most awesomely memorable moments of any scenario ever, and the look on one lucky player's face when that moment rolls around ... well. Good stuff.
Edit: Derp, you asked specifically for S0-S2. So I've deleted my S3 recommendations, because they weren't helpful. :P
|
|
I second what Jayson said above. Rescue at Azlant Ridge is far from perfect, but it has one of the most awesomely memorable moments of any scenario ever, and the look on one lucky player's face when that moment rolls around ... well. Good stuff.
When I played it, I was excited at that point...and it wasn't even me!
It certainly is one of the most memorable moments in PFS.
|
|
I second what Jayson said above. Rescue at Azlant Ridge is far from perfect, but it has one of the most awesomely memorable moments of any scenario ever, and the look on one lucky player's face when that moment rolls around ... well. Good stuff.When I played it, I was excited at that point...and it wasn't even me!
It certainly is one of the most memorable moments in PFS.
When we played it, at that moment we were actually really pissed off because the GM didn't have it activate immediately for some reason and led us to believe we needed to get someone over to that glowy thing to make it work (and we didn't know what it would be). Our party had only one frontliner, the barbarian, but he was also the only one who hadn't fallen victim to the GM's inventedly high DC (17, after which I said "are you sure about that on a 1st level spell? Might you be reading it wrong?" and he confirmed that he had it right--later he told me he had used the 6-7 DCs by mistake, which is not true because they have the same DC) crowd control. So we lost our front line and kept our three sorcerers instead, having a rough time of it on our part of the battle. The GM also kept our barbarian out of it for longer than required.
Sorry, I might like that scenario more if it weren't for bad experiences with a scenario-changing GM! This is years ago though, and I've only had one experience as bad at several hundred tables since!
|
|
I'm with Andrew on that one. A bad adventure is one thing. An altered adventure is a whole different beast. An altered beast, if you will.
I've had a few scenarios that got run... differently... than the scenario was meant to be run. If the scenarios had stuck in my head, I probably would dislike 'em regardless of actual quality, so I get the feeling.
|
|
Anyhoo, I know you guys have some favorite Season 3-5s you want to share, and to make this thread more enjoyable for everyone, why not list some of those bad boys? I'll start it off:
Season 3
3-01: Frostfur Captives- A local, perennial favorite. I've run it at least twice (I try not to double up, but some are just too fun).
3-05: Tide of Twilight- I haven't run this one, but I played in it. The fighter went feral and ended up kicking more butt than usual (not as badass as when the barbarian had a similar experience in Mists of Mwangi and was sad when the curse had to go away, but close).
3-18: The God's Market Gamble- This one is fun just by itself, but the game was made even more awesome by some of the shenanigans my group got up to. Let's just say I gave one PC a "volunteer fire brigade" no-bonus boon on his sheet for cleaning up another player's insane desire to set off every trap with his wolf.
3-21: Temple of Empyreal Enlightenment- I haven't run this one yet, but I'm gonna. Absolute madhouse. Delicious.
Season 4
4-02: In Wrath's Shadow- I think this one's just personal bias. I LOVE Thassilon, and the BBEG gave my group the most serious run for their money to date.
4-09: Blakros Matrimony- ABSOLUTE GENIUS. My first run-through on this one, the whole table was low-Charisma PCs of assorted classes without any social skills to back them up. But a lot of brilliant roleplaying and (in one player's case especially) stellar rolls got them a lot of friends in high places. The final battle wet south for them basically before it started, but fortunately it's kinda on a time clock, so they were able to hold it off long enough to run out the clock.
Season 5
5-02: The Wardstone Patrol- I had a lot of fun running this one. My group was tough enough that the barbarian actually survived to save a certain NPC from a certain written-in demise (I actually ran two rounds of multiple attacks from the "do not fight" monsters, and he made it out whole), which led to an unexpected but cinematic finale. I liked the two potential paths, though the NPC motivations for the other path I found a bit odd, even for him.
5-04: The Stolen Heir- My group, normally quite comfortable with being murder hobos, amazingly only fought in one encounter, and without someone with the ability to make animals back off, it doesn't have a non-hostile resolution, so they surprised me on that one.
5-08: The Confirmation- WAY better than First Steps, and a fun adventure even without being designed as an intro. Still hoping a group tries out some of the rituals one of these times.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
|
I will second The Devil We Know series. Severing Ties is popular for a season 4, but playing Devil We Know will make it so much better...
TDWK spoiler
Edit, also QfP series is fun, when I ran Pt 3, I started the ventrue briefing with the theme to the Magnificent Seven in the background, and when they had to brainstorm defences, the A-team theme. Sadly half my players had never heard of the Magnificiet Seven.
I'd actually like to run QfP all of them with a team of seven players, just for that.
|
Either the scenario or the GM/table I played with made "You Have What You Hold" really enjoyable. Hopefully I can do it justice- -(I'm GMing it tomorrow for the first time).
It actually reminded me a lot of Before the Dawn 1, for what it's worth.
The Disappeared is another awesome later-season one. I guess I just like scenarios where a skilled party (be it stealth or diplomacy or investigation) has a significantly easier time.
(Contains vague spoilers for Mists of Mwangi, Among the Living, Silent Tide, Night March of Kalkamedes, and Darkest Vengeance.)
Mists of Mwangi and Among the Living have potential for RP but could also be grindfests. It depends on you for Among the Living and the players for Mists (since the RP is something related to what happens to them).
Having played both and GM'd the former, I would second the grindfest warning.
The eponymous mists can provide a neat opportunity for enthusiastic RPers, but they can also lock the casters out of their own character. Outside of the encounter with the transformed scribes, the scenario is pure combat, with no demand or even opportunity for puzzle-solving or social interaction. The gating is also pretty screwy: with the removal of faction missions, two out of the five encounters are entirely superfluous, and the party is fully able to charge straight to the final encounter as soon as they enter the museum.
Not having read the scenario I can't say how much leeway the GM has is mitigating the grind in AtL, but for us it was one social scene of vague importance followed by Oppara's dullest zombie invasion. It might feel more urgent played in person, with the NPC nobles being eviscerated and devoured all about you. On the forums, however, that didn't translate to any real sense of urgency or danger when the zombies were so pitiful in actual combat. And we had to fight three waves of the damn things which, as a spellcaster, was quite the Goldilocks conundrum. None of them posed enough of a threat individually to warrant a spell or similar expendable resource, but they had sufficient numbers and hp to make plugging away with crossbow bolts a stultifying affair.
Scenarios I greatly enjoyed, on a more positive note, include Silent Tide, The Night March of Kalkamedes, and The Darkest Vengeance.
Silent Tide was my very first PFS experience, so I'm sure my impressions are heavily influenced by nostalgia. Even so, I think I can maintain some objectivity in saying it's one of the more epic stories available. It starts off like any other: aid some arbitrary hapless civilian to secure access to some arbitrary magical goo-gog, then suddenly you're rushing to save Absalom itself. When the stakes in many scenarios never go beyond the Society's reputation among some backwater guild members, it's a rare treat to have the fate of the entire city in your hands. The hook is immediate even before the true story is revealed, and you pass through a variety of interesting combat environments. The Torch encounter is a bit of a mixed bag, with an introduction to an important NPC and some fun puzzling on one hand, and an odd break in the urgency of the mission on the other.
Night March is a unique spin on the escort mission. It presents the PCs with several puzzles organic to the environment and transitions effectively from lighthearted to ominous, capping off with an excellent chronicle boon.
I criticized Mists and AtL for being combat-heavy, and the same is true of Darkest Vengeance. Unlike the former two, however, DV provides an effective marriage of backdrop and action. The various reveals are well-paced to instill a sense of foreboding, and the mechanics legitimize rather than subvert the threatening atmosphere. The final encounter can be some seriously deadly business to an unprepared party, however, so the less bloodthirsty GM should make sure the players are suitably game for the dangers that await. If your table has been getting too comfortable and could use a good sweat, this is the scenario for you.
|
|
I like doing that with my balor or Tiamat minis. :)
I actually started using a Balor since it stands out a bit more. :P
On that note, I also enjoy dropping stuff like that or a Gelatinous Cube on the field if players aren't paying attention just to watch them react.
But back to the question at hand, any Blackros Museum scenario is normally quite fun. Don't know if it's been mentioned, but I don't think it has.
|
For Siege of the Diamond City I dropped all the minis I needed for the game on the table in full view. (I don't use GM screens.) I included said balor and other minis I didn't need, just to keep my players guessing about what they would encounter. :)
That's my favorite special so far. I find a lot of the Season 5 offerings to be favorites as well. Weapon in the Rift and Traitor's Lodge topping said list.
|
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
|
I haven't seen anyone suggest 2-16 The Flesh Collector yet, so allow me to cast a vote there. The combats were well designed and kept everyone at my table feeling both necessary and challenged.Additionally, it has a lot of opportunities for fun RP, including
I absolutely adore the entire Shades of Ice series, although I recommend that at the first two be run back to back if at all possible. I've seen several tables get so enthralled by the first scenario that they immediately ran the second one, even if there was not another slot scheduled for the day.
0-35 Voice in the Void is loads of fun, as well. The higher tier encounters can be particularly challenging, though.
|
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
|
I like doing that with my balor or Tiamat minis. :)I actually started using a Balor since it stands out a bit more. :P
On that note, I also enjoy dropping stuff like that or a Gelatinous Cube on the field if players aren't paying attention just to watch them react.
But back to the question at hand, any Blackros Museum scenario is normally quite fun. Don't know if it's been mentioned, but I don't think it has.
Tangentally...
When i ran MoM, I made a point to have minis for all the exhibits. Nothing makes a player more paranoid than to be told that there are bodies writing in glass cases, and seeing the minis on the table (well except the T-rex mini in the other room)
Origins story