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I've played it twice. The first time was definitely more fun than the second time. Things were different-- we didn't know what the encounters were, and some details of the puzzles were different. But, the new NPC, the intro, and the finale were all the same, so while not quite as repetitious as First Steps always was, it was definitely not fresh the second time around.
It is an excellent intro scenario for new players to PFS, and serves its role well there. As a replayable, it's not bad... but the very concept of a replayable does mean that it won't be fresh every time around. (This is why we like there to keep being new scenarios!)
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I've played it 4? times and run it once. 4 was about the limit for me, though the one thing that does make it fun is playing it with wildly different characters and ending up using very different tactics each time. For example, my Witch put the BBEG to sleep after falling in the river, while my Fighter went and clobbered him, my Druid threw fire from distance, and my Bardacle didn't even know the BBEG was there (Clouded Vision), but encouraged others nonetheless with fun roleplay.
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It's a change from the 13th running of First Steps, or Master of the Fallen Fortress, or We be Goblins! (Who am I kidding, WbG! is always awesome), but it's still the same scenario with some details changed to protect the innocent.
I can't wait to see this year's 1-2, #6-10 The Wounded Wisp.
Venture-Captain, North Carolina—Asheville
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As of now, I've played The Confirmation five times, including a rather aggressive speed-run after our party was wiped out in Thornkeep.
I'm probably in the minority on this, but I actually find the 'fixed' bits more interesting. I've enjoyed seeing the different spin a GM brings to the NPC's, and watching how different parties handle the final encounter can make for a potentially harrowing experience.
On the other hand . . .
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I can't wait to see this year's 1-2, #6-10 The Wounded Wisp.
It is going to be awesome! <nudge nudge wink wink, say no more>
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As of now, I've played The Confirmation five times, including a rather aggressive speed-run after our party was wiped out in Thornkeep.
I'm probably in the minority on this, but I actually find the 'fixed' bits more interesting. I've enjoyed seeing the different spin a GM brings to the NPC's, and watching how different parties handle the final encounter can make for a potentially harrowing experience.
On the other hand . . .
** spoiler omitted **
When I run Confirmation I like giving the NPCs random voices and attitudes.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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I've played it twice and run it three times, and I still like it, though I'm also looking forward to Wounded Wisp for something to alternate with.
The following things make the Confirmation fun to replay for me:
* The little rituals in the cave; there's quite a few and I can generally manage to find a few that players haven't done yet.
* The encounters inside the cave don't have scripted tactics. I see that as licence to improvise a bit as a GM. Did you know that quite a few of those monsters could climb and hide? And they're not so powerful that that'll really endanger PCs.
* How will the BBEG be dealt with this time? It's never gone the same way twice yet. I've seen archery barrages, I've seen Valeros sneaking across the river and the bushes to slip Janira a healing potion, or Lini summoning an eagle and using Speak With Animal gnome SLA to get it to carry a potion; I've seen the pregen Ninja use his knowledge of the Giant language to try to convince it that the ninja was a terrible demon.
* Reading the reports as GM.
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As of now, I've played The Confirmation five times, including a rather aggressive speed-run after...How do you play an "aggressive speed-run"?
I would assume, "agressively"...
But, for a party of all experienced players, I would think that would include things like mostly jumping over all the prep stuff at the beginning, most of the interactions with Kreighton Shane and Janira to begin with, other than quick verifying spectrum coverage, a reminder of the mission, quick PC intros, jump straight to the first encounter, without all the flavor text and RP fluff.
Same for several other of the pieces along the way, just jump into the various static pieces, a quick set of rolls for interaction with the NPC, etc.
It offers a fair risk of losing the second PP, but it would go a lot quicker.
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Is that kind of play kosher? Assuming you have a full table of experienced players replaying?
Probably not recommended, but, as long as everyone agrees, I wouldn't see it as being illegal, just a bit... bare bones.
Probably not something I would want to do, because it loses a lot of the flavor, IMO.
Overall, I would say it is probably not too dissimilar to the groups that speed run First Steps in two hours.
Then again, the last two times I played First Steps, we wound up leaving all the decision making up to the one player who hadn't played it yet....
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Is that kind of play kosher? Assuming you have a full table of experienced players replaying?
If you spoil the plot for the table, the GM has the right to ask you to leave the table. Be very careful about character knowledge versus player knowledge. If you’re concerned about possibly spoiling something during the course of play, take the GM aside and ask how she would like it handled. Remember: the goal of replay is to make sure fun gaming happens, not to remove the fun from gaming.
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I do not believe a group of players "speed-running" a replay using player knowledge to skip the flavor to play it faster is within the spirit of the rules.
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I believe I have played the confirmation 10 times. I have GMed it quite a few as well.
With the random encounters I'm not quite sure what will be showing up. I happen to enjoy the fluff and role playing.
For me I enjoy to see how each GM runs the confirmation and portrays the npcs a little differently.
each party is different, composed of different character classes. Some games have been cake walks, others have almost been TPKS. with us being down to 1 conscious player character.
I have enjoyed playing the confirmation.
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I've participated in "speed runs" almost as long as I've been doing PFS. They usually combine 3 replayable scenarios or 2 replayable scenarios and 1 replayable module.
The "First Steps" trilogy accomplished that really well. Once parts 2 & 3 were retired, we started switching it up.
Now it's any combination of First Steps, Confirmation, MotFF, Thornkeep, or Emerald Spire, and instead of ending at level 2, like with First Steps, we finish at 2.2
We can usually do it all in 6-8 hours.
But never with ppl that haven't already played them.
In addition to leveling up a new PC quickly, and basically having them "start out" their career with almost 2500gp and 7-8pp, it adds to your total # of scenarios played.
Say Player A and Player B have 3 PCs each, and each of them are level three. Player A plays new, different scenarios for each PC, and Player B does a 5xp speed run of replayable content for each of theirs, plus one new scenario to get them to 6xp.
Player A ate up 18 new scenarios just to get to the same point as Player B, who only needed 3. Player B can now enjoy those scenarios at level 3, 4, or 5, while Player A needs to find new ones. Player A runs out of new content before Player B does.
Multiply that by the 20ish characters people in our area tend to have, and you get to the point where Player A has nothing they can play in the 1-5 tiers, whereas people that've been doing this for years (myself included) still have 1-5s we haven't done.
If we're unique in that practice, I'd be shocked.
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Venture-Captain, North Carolina—Asheville
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Is that kind of play kosher? Assuming you have a full table of experienced players replaying?If you spoil the plot for the table, the GM has the right to ask you to leave the table. Be very careful about character knowledge versus player knowledge. If you’re concerned about possibly spoiling something during the course of play, take the GM aside and ask how she would like it handled. Remember: the goal of replay is to make sure fun gaming happens, not to remove the fun from gaming.
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I do not believe a group of players "speed-running" a replay using player knowledge to skip the flavor to play it faster is within the spirit of the rules.
Oh dear -- I hope no one gets in trouble over this. Let me go into a little more detail here. It all started when . . .
The survivor happened to be an experienced GM, who offered to run The Confirmation in what time remained until the store closed. We'd had a spectator watching the Thornkeep game, and he grabbed Kyra's character sheet to join us.
No material was skipped, nor was any player knowledge used to circumvent any of the scenario's challenges. We gave the new player the reins on interacting with the key NPC's, which seemed to go just fine. The fickle tides of fortune swung in our favor in the encounters -- given what had already happened that night, I'd call that apropos.
I should have chosen my words more carefully, after the kerfuffle surrounding Aasimarpalooza earlier this year; this was not a non-stop dice-rolling race. Again, I hope that a positive gesture does not end up turning into something less so.
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My online group of friends does Confirmation frequently as a sort of "trial run" of new character concepts and builds. Rather than skip the flavor or do the same story over and over, we invented our own. We've decided that The Smurf Hole (the group's name for the caverns, after they found the "small blue humanoids" endlessly hilarious) is stuck in a time-loop that the Society is investigating by sending an unending stream of summer interns and red-shirts into, where Janeira always gets chased by a besotten minotaur with a massive crush on her.
It's the only PFS scenario we take so lightly, but it's a light-hearted and fun start to a character's career.
I don't think there's a definitive answer to your inquiry, since it's totally dependent on taste.
I've run The Confirmation once; I've never played it, though. I think my one time being GM for The Confirmation is experience too many. Other people have run through it many times and still enjoy it.
Conversely, I can't count the number of times I've played We Be Goblins (and I'm not a Paizo goblin fan). I can't count because we did speed runs with two players, a GM, stat blocks, and virtual dice on the drive over to Gen Con. Not 100% legal, but 100% a blast.
To me, The Confirmation was old before I had finished running it, but We Be Goblins is still quality. Other people think just the opposite; it's purely subjective. Play or run The Confirmation one less time than it takes for you to reach the "Oh god, do I have to play this again?" point.
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The Confirmation did one really awesome thing that players have been asking for for a while: it added random encounter tables.
Where I think it could have gone even further would be to introduce random NPCs:
• Instead of just Kreighton Shaine, roll randomly to determine which of the 3 Masters you get.
• Instead of just the Halfling, roll randomly to determine which of the 4 Iconics you get.
• Instead of just the Minotaur, maybe it could be an Ogre, or maybe a Centaur that's prone to Diplomacy.
• Although the Gillman needs to be consistent, maybe have 3 different class options.
I recognize fully that this may include a higher word count, but it's replayability would increase tenfold.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Nefreet makes some interesting points. The random tables in the Confirmation do work for me.
I've played First Steps 1, and it was fun, but I don't see much point in playing it again.
I was actually a bit disappointed by WBG, mainly because I think PF is not a good game system for crazy goblins with poor risk perception. PF rewards rational, careful play a bit too much for that; if you do stupid goblin stuff and get killed halfway, you're out. For WBG I'd want to use a wackier Indie game system of some sort.
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I am a HUGE fan of Confirmation. I think it is one of my top two or three scenarios to run. I have only played it twice, but I adore running it. I, however, love running things repeatedly, because I feel that it gives my players a much better experience.
I find that NPCs make the difference for how much I will enjoy running something. I adore Janira and Shaine can be a lot of fun.
That said, I also really enjoy Wardstone Patrol and more recently Valley of Veiled Flame for NPCs that are fun to play. (I need more Jorsal in my life)
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My level 2 Elf has been in 3 different scenarios that featured Kreighton Shaine, including The Confirmation, and so part of his backstory has become that he's madly in love with him.
(his Confirmation journal included different ways of hyphenating their names together)
I even gave him the GM Star Chronicle for the Master of Scrolls as icing on the cake =D.
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Another party member with forgery skills wrote up a sealed marriage certificate in the final report between Janira and myself without either of us agreeing to it. We were quite surprised by the congratulations Shaine gave us. The divorce was swift.
Isn't Janira already married? Why else would her wayfinder initials not match her last name?
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I have to admit myself I'm really not interested in speedrunning. I remember during Aasimarpalooza (great name) a lot of speed-runs of Confirmation were being advertised on PSOC. Since I hadn't played it yet, I really didn't want to get into a game that was speed-running it. You miss half (or more) of what a scenario is supposed to be all about by speed-running. The only time it even vaguely makes sense, as far as I'm concerned, if you're rerunning something you've already played a few times. Even then, myself, I'd really rather just not do it, but do something that's going to be interesting.
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Speedrunning is great. I would suggest people try it at least once as a gm. It's really about maximizing combat.
That's an easy trap to fall in.
In most of the speedruns I've GMed or played in we still tried to make room for roleplay and interacting with NPCs. We usually cut out the box text, since we all know what's there, which is a real time saver.
And they're usually hilarious. Over the top roleplay can cement a character concept for games to come. I have fond memories of several hilarious interactions with Zarta, Kreighton, and Guaril. Janira fits well into a medium-sized sack. As the goblins in Thornkeep are raining arrows from their balcony I make up songs for them.
Although it's true that your stats have to be min-maxed for combat to make the fights quick, it still doesn't have to mean it's "just about maximizing combat". I think that's what Pirate Rob was probably thinking out loud about.
That sort of thing.
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None of the stories here come remotely close to the abuse I'm talking about.
If you've got a group that is all replaying the Confirmation, having some fun with the roleplaying and not spending extra time on the setting seems fine.
Example of Abuse:
30seconds later...
Alright with that dealt with do you fight the miniotaur or run into the cave?
Run, okay. There's a pit with a cloak, who remembered to buy rope this time? Alright great there's now a Gillman, roll diplomacy, okay he trades you a wand for the cloak. Left or right.
Okay you encounter 3 skeletons. Okay you killed them and hear Janira. Initiative outside the cave. Combat ensues. Players win.
1 hour down, all flavor skipped, extensive metagame knowledge used by players, GM is complicit.
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Speedrunning is great. I would suggest people try it at least once as a gm. It's really about maximizing combat.That's an easy trap to fall in.
In most of the speedruns I've GMed or played in we still tried to make room for roleplay and interacting with NPCs. We usually cut out the box text, since we all know what's there, which is a real time saver.
And they're usually hilarious. Over the top roleplay can cement a character concept for games to come. I have fond memories of several hilarious interactions with Zarta, Kreighton, and Guaril. Janira fits well into a medium-sized sack. As the goblins in Thornkeep are raining arrows from their balcony I make up songs for them.
Although it's true that your stats have to be min-maxed for combat to make the fights quick, it still doesn't have to mean it's "just about maximizing combat". I think that's what Pirate Rob was probably thinking out loud about.
** spoiler omitted **
This totally reminds me. Hey Kurthnaga, how's Larry doing? :D
Contributor
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The Confirmation did one really awesome thing that players have been asking for for a while: it added random encounter tables.
Where I think it could have gone even further would be to introduce random NPCs:
**Great ideas**
Hmmmmmmmm, interesting. I tend to like this approach as well... :)
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Assuming that everyone involved has played/ran the Confirmation (or First Steps, Fallen Fortress, etc...) multiple times and is simply running the scenario again to get some experience on a character and conserve the few remaining 1-5 scenarios they can play, why is this a bad thing?
There's nothing wrong with playing/gming the Confirmation over and over again.
I understand the drive to conserve playable adventures, I've played Everything. I have 438xp between all my PFS characters.
All I'm saying is that when one plays The Confirmation, one should actually play it, not just treat is as the easiest way to get a chronicle sheet without just cheating and fabricating one out of whole cloth.
The Confirmation is still a PFS scenario with all that entails, replaying doesn't change that.
-12 is Confirmation, First Steps, Snows of Summer
-13 is Confirmation, 1st Steps, Murder's Mark
-14 is Confirmation, Accursed Halls
-15 is Confirmation, First Steps, Murder's Mark
-16 is Confirmation, MotFF, Emerald Spire
-17 is Confirmation, WBG, Snows of Summer
-18 is MotFF, Confirmation, (no further play)
-19 is Confirmation, WBG, Half-Dead City
-20 is Confirmation, WBG, (no further play)
I like to get my characters to 5xp using replayable material before I begin applying non-renewable chronicles to them.
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My level 2 Elf has been in 3 different scenarios that featured Kreighton Shaine, including The Confirmation, and so part of his backstory has become that he's madly in love with him.
(his Confirmation journal included different ways of hyphenating their names together)
I even gave him the GM Star Chronicle for the Master of Scrolls as icing on the cake =D.
Milli does not speak her name. If anyone else ever refers to Janira, Milli just calls her "that b%*$+." ;-)
(I even used a GM star to replay God's Market Gamble so that Milli could be in a Kreighton Shane scenario.)
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Another party member with forgery skills wrote up a sealed marriage certificate in the final report between Janira and myself without either of us agreeing to it. We were quite surprised by the congratulations Shaine gave us. The divorce was swift.Isn't Janira already married? Why else would her wayfinder initials not match her last name?
Forgers don't follow the rules, that is why it is a crime. Plus, I did not even know as a player that they had done this until it came up in the final 10 minutes of play.
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Contributor
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I like the Confirmation, and I have played it twice, and run it once. I think it helps if you space it out enough to sort of half forget most of the ins and outs. I sort of hope that ** spoiler omitted ** shows back up in The Wounded Wisp
Yeah, that would be pretty cool, wouldn't it?
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During the 'Aasimarpalooza' (that really is an awesome name...) we had enough runs of Confirmation that certain players got a little...overenthusiastic. Now whenever we sit down to play Confirmation with experienced players, we take a vote. Do we kill the Minotaur before or after we go into the cave..?
(No, Janira does not get a vote. Janira pissed off a couple of fighters by insinuating they weren't competent enough to take on the Minotaur.)
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I didn't care much for the Confirmation. To me, the interesting part was the Rituals, but I really didn't like the DM pet NPC concept. The encounters are ok, but not really something I think is enough to set this one part. I kind of felt like the background for the scenario was a bit to contrived, going more for shock factor (?) than to make sense.
Now, that being said, it is pretty replayable, and one of the great thing about it, in my opinion, is that it offered a wide assortment of skills and spells to be useful.