Venture-Lieutenant, Louisiana—Baton Rouge
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Hey guys!
So okay, fair warning - but I'm long-winded.
That typed, if you'd prefer to skip the context of this post and get straight to the point, please scroll to the bottom for the overarching question. I'd appreciate any recommendations you can give & thanks in advance!
That typed however, (& for those of you that may be curious) recently my brother and I (who are both fairly hardcore PFS players) had a discussion with three of our board game buddies. I call them "board game buddies" because we normally only play board games and card games when we hang out with them - no RPGs and the like. That typed however, they've been expressing interest in starting up an RPG home game with us. Of the three, only one of them has any prior experience with Pathfinder (or RPGs in general), but they're all eager to get a game going. One of them (the guy with RPG experience) even wants to GM for the group - which is fine by me (I already GM a decent bit).
So, we ended up discussing the details, and we're currently thinking that the best way to run the home game would be to do a co-GM style of play - one where we can swap out a GM/PC spot between him and myself whenever one of us needs to take a break and doesn't have time to prepare an adventure.
Keeping that in mind, my brother and I thought that running a campaign based off PFS scenarios might be the best way to go about things. This way, since the PFS scenarios are mostly created to be episodic stand-alone adventures in their own right, both the other GM and myself could prepare scenarios in isolation, without spoiling future scenarios for the other when we're playing our own PCs.
Also, considering that my brother and I haven't played many PFS scenarios from Season 0, and absolutely no scenarios from Season 1 or 2, we thought that we could try to organize a campaign around Season 0, 1, & 2 scenarios - capping things off with Eyes of the Ten.
Now, whether you followed my long-winded explanation or not, the bottom line is this:
-My friends and I are wanting to play a series of PFS scenarios that we can string together into a solid campaign. We're hoping to organize a logical progression (story-wise) of scenarios from PFS Seasons 0, 1, & 2 that ultimately culminate in The Eyes of the Ten retirement arch, and to aid that end - I'm asking for help from the forum community.
So, if there's any advice, links to other forum threads, or general guidance you can give to help make this idea a reality in any way - my friends and I would greatly appreciate it.
Once again, thanks in advance guys, and I look forward to hearing from you!
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I've been doing exactly this for the last year with my home group.
Season 0 and Season 1 are a bunch of standalone adventures. Season 2 has an overarching plot, but it has problems in that it's difficult to play a single character through the important elements of each plot.
What I've done is base the mid levels (3-7) around season 2. Early and later scenarios focused on missions assigned by Venture Captain Adril Hestrom. I made him Adril my group's patron and overseer. That way they have a reason to see him again and again. Sometimes I even switch out the venture captain that was supposed to give the briefing and insert Adril in his place.
I also played up the underworld information broker status of Grandmaster Torch as much as possible. The very first mission my group did was Silent Tide (season 0, scenario 1) which introduces the Grandmaster. At the same time, I started scripting in a second underworld figure known as "Madam Web" or "The Mistress of Webs." This figure (who always remains mysterious and flips between helping the group and subtly interfering with them) slowly grows to oppose the group more and more. Sometime around level 4 or 5 - right around the time the group is learning that the Shadow Lodge is a real thing - they learn that Madam Web's true name is Spyder. This is a setup for the ultimate confrontation with Spider (the 'bad' leader of the shadow lodge) in the Shadow's Last Stand couplet at level 7. After that, the back of the shadow lodge is broken, and they just have to clean up the dregs (by running a few shadow lodge missions unavailable until 7-11). One of the final missions, run at level 10 or 11, should be The Mantis's Prey, which is the concluding scenario to the Season 2 story arc.
So the group starts off by running season 0 and 1 scenarios, bonding with Adril Hestrom and being introduced to Grandmaster Torch and Spyder. By level 3 they start realizing that the shadow lodge is real (City of Strangers 1 & 2), then start running missions against them. (Shades of Ice, Heresy of Man) There's a climax at level 7 (Shadows Fall on Absolom, Shadows Last Stand), a few more missions by Adril Hestrom. a few 7-11 shadow lodge missions, and finally the Mantis's Prey. A few more 7-11's by Adril Hestrom to keep him fresh and rank up to 33 experience, then The Eyes of the Ten.
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If you'd like more details on the scenarios I ran my players through, send me a PM. Someone who is really good at research could find the thread where Mark Seifter (then Rogue Eidolon, as it was before his Paizo days) helped me setup the campaign I'm running now.
EDIT: After a great deal of searching, because not being able to find it bugged me, I went through my own post history and found it. To my chagrin, it's the same thread that was linked to by Richard deMorris.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Louisiana—Baton Rouge
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Thanks for the feedback guys!
The links are very much appreciated.
I found this list under VanceMadrox's thread:
1st Level:
5 Mists of Mwangi
1 Silent Tide
35 Voice in the Void
2nd Level:
14 Many Fortunes of Grandmaster Torch
2-11 The Penumbral Accords
45 Delirium's Tangle
3rd Level
51 City of Strangers, Part 1 - The Shadow Gambit
52 City of Strangers, Part 2 - The Twofold Demise
SP2 Year of the Shadow Lodge
17 Perils of the Pirate Pact (ALTERNATE)
4th Level:
2-01 Before the Dawn, Part 1 - The Bloodcove Disguise
2-02 Before the Dawn, Part 2 - Rescue at Azlant Ridge
2-13 Murder on the Throaty Mermaid
5th Level:
2-15 Shades of Ice, Part 1 - Written in Blood
2-17 Shades of Ice, Part 2 - Exiles of Winter
2-19 Shades of Ice, Part 3 - Keep of the Huskarl King
6th Level:
2-03 The Rebel's Ransom
2-25 You Only Die Twice
2-21 The Dalsine Affair
7th Level:
22 Fingerprints of the Fiend
2-23 Shadow's Last Stand, Part 1 - At Shadow's Door
2-24 Shadow's Last Stand, Part 2 - Web of Corruption
8th Level:
2-04 Shadows Fall on Absalom
2-08 The Sarkorian Prophecy
2-10 Fury of the Fiend
9th Level:
2-06 The Heresy of Man, Part 1 - The First Heresy
2-07 The Heresy of Man, Part 2 - Where the Dark Things Sleep
2-09 The Heresy of Man, Part 3 - Beneath Forgotten Sands
10th Level:
2-14 The Chasm of Screams
2-12 Below the Silver Tarn
2-16 The Flesh Collector
11th Level:
2-18 The Forbidden Furnace of Forgotten Koor
2-20 Wrath of the Accursed
2-26 The Mantis's Prey
Jason, I'm especially interested to pick your brain since you're doing this setup already, and looking at the above list, it seems to basically follow the progression that you and Mark recommend. The only mission that's completely missing from the list is Frozen Finger. Any recommendations for when I should fit FF into the list? Also, how does this list compare to your home game? Are there any scenarios that I should switch around in the order they're played?
Also, this is to anyone in general - any recommendations for other scenarios that I should take out/fit in as well?
On a final note, my brother and I have already played through The Dalsine Affair (but everything else is completely new to us). That typed, is The DA adventure necessary to the plot, or could it be taken out and replaced with something else? If so - any recommendations?
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Venture-Lieutenant, Louisiana—Baton Rouge
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Branding - to answer your question, the other guy who plans to Co-GM with me doesn't really seem interested in legal PFS play since he wants to have room to alter the scenarios if need be. We are planning to draw material solely from PFS scenarios though (sanctioned or unsanctioned - either will be fair game). Currently, it also sounds like we'll probably be doing a full- to semi- core game. I say "semi" because we may or may not decide to use the updated Unleashed versions of Rogues, Barbarians, and Monks.
Zack - I have heard that some of the Season 0 scenarios are too easy or just poorly balanced. There probably will be a decent number of tweaks that go into those scenarios (at least when I'm running - I like to give players a challenge. That way, it feels more rewarding when they win).
Also, at DH - thanks for the link! I'll check it out and see how it compares to a few other links people posted in the General Discussion thread.
Edit: Yeah. This is actually the same thread that someone else posted too - but it is really helpful. When I first found it, all the lists were kind of overwhelming, but now that I'm making sense of it all, I'm currently leaning towards the Season 2 list that Vance posted.
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Many details in this post, but I posted a TLDR summary at the bottom.
The Scenarios in planns levels 4 & 6 of the spoiled scenario progression don't matter. (Except that they might have Adril Hestrom in them- I'm not sure. Regardless, they can be moved or switched out.) Mists of Mwangi, Voice in the Void, and Prenumbral Accords all go together (taking place in the Blakros Museum) but don't fit with the overall plot. You can opt to sub them out if you wish. Personally, I'd replace the very first scenario with The Wounded Wisp (season 6, scenario 10). It's the best introduction module made for your purposes. (I really wish it had been out and available when I started my campaign.) It introduces the Pathfinder Society with a focus on Lore, and also has the character tromping around Absalom. The group at the end is left deliberately nebulous, so you can either have them be agents of Spyder (if you go that route), or vanilla aspis consortium agents, or shadowy agents of a custom faction/group that you intend to introduce. Also, I'd rewrite the intro so that it's spoken by Adril Hestrom. He's the VC of Absalom during the early seasons.
City of Strangers Part 2 has a natural lead in to Shades of Ice, so it makes sense to run Shades of Ice soon after Strangers 2. Also, I'd move the Heresy of Man trilogy to level 5 (the earliest you can run it) because you want it to happen during the earlier parts of the Shadow Lodge plot. There's also something you need to keep an eye on for Heresy of Man, from a storytelling perspective.
Heresy of Man isn't actually the beginning of this character arc. I haven't played/run it myself, but I'm told the Ruby Prince's betrayel begins in Echoes of the Everwar IV - The Faithless Dead (season 1, scenario 53). Note that this scenario comes out immediately after City of Strangers 1 & 2 in the production line, so the idea was clearly that this mysterious betrayel (the Ruby Prince steals the McGuffin that the players have been working to get throughout the Echoes of the Everwar series) is part of the leadup to the shadow lodge. A Venture Captain and faction leader goes inexplicably rogue just as rumors of the shadow lodge become confirmed. Then we catch up with what the Ruby Prince has been doing (and link him to the Shadow Lodge) in Heresy of Man, and the story resolves itself in Shadow's Last Stand.
...At least, I think that's how it works. Again, I haven't played/run Echoes 4 or Shadows just yet.
The point is, you'll want to play up the idea of the Ruby Price being a traitor once the PC's start to discover it in Heresy, and perhaps add helpful little backstory tips along the way to deepen his background and make things more real for the player. The really nice thing about doing this as a home game is that it doesn't actually matter what happens in prior scenarios. The only thing that matters is what the players learn in your campaign - and you have a good deal of control over that. So you can add as much or as little backstory as you wish. ;)
The other important thing to keep in mind about the Heresy of Man series is that there is a point in each scenario that gets remarkably deadly. Each part of the trilogy has a moment where the chance of death goes way up for the party. You'll want to keep this in mind as the GM, and either soften the blow or warn the party. These three scenarios, combined with the fact that other early scenarios which take place in Rahadoum can get just as deadly, have spawned the saying "If you go to Rahadoum, you will die."
You're actually going to know more about the Dalsine Affair than I do. I haven't played or run it yet. I'm given to understand that it's a good fit with the overall season 2 metaplot because you see a repeating villain in it. However, I've not run it for my group and at ths point I likely won't. As far as I know, there aren't any major plot points in it.
I can say from personal experience that running The Year of the Shadow Lodge Special immediately after City of Strangers is incredibly awesome. City of Strangers is where the society begins to twig on to the existance of the Shadow Lodge - where the Lodge becomes more than rumor. The YOTSL special is where the Shadow Lodge launches its first attack and confirms its own existance outright. It was pretty thrilling.
If you're doing this for a home game and not for PFS credit, then I recommend running it. That particular special is cooperative as a whole, but you don't really miss any of the experience by running a lone table and simply describing the action of all the other pathfinder agents who are around them. There are one or two spots where the table interaction gets pretty cool (like when the lower tier players have to sneak by a big monster, and the higher tier can opt to sneak by, battle it to distract it, or battle it to kill it outright. If the monster dies, in time, then nobody else has to sneak by)... but overall I'd say that you can capture the heart of the experience with some good storytelling scenes.
I'd probably try to run Shadows Fall on Absalom before the Shadows Last Stand trilogy, as Fall is supposed to increase the tension of the shadow lodge being a threat, and doesn't work quite as well after the confrontation in Last Stand. In my campaign, I have it slotted as level 7 scenario 1 (immediately before Last Stand). My players are playing it this week, actually.
The Before the Dawn duo is fun, and I'd recommend it if you need filler, but it doesn't have anything to do with the season 2 metaplot.
One thing I'm doing to fill space is to run a module at level 8 or 9. I've selected The Harrowing, as that particular module is pure awesome.
TLDR: the important season 2 plot arcs are: City of Strangers (and the Special if you can), Shades of Ice, Heresy of Man, Shadow's Last Stand, and The Mantis's Prey. Outside of those, and stuffing as many scenarios given by Adril Hestrom in as filler, you'll do fine. As mentioned, I've added Adril to a few scenarios that he normally doesn't appear in, just to keep him fresh in the mind of the players.
EDIT: Oh, and one important point is to introduce as much of Grandmaster Torch early on as you can. The spoilered progression in your above post already does that, but I forgot to mention why that's a good thing. You want the Grandmaster to be a set and reoccuring character in your story arc. He's an information broker, so he's a useful resource for the party as a deus ex machina should they need it. He's also the guy who eventually takes over the shadow lodge in the conclusion to the series.
EDIT EDIT: Oh, and when you do City of Strangers, please give my regards to Madam Feathers. She's one of the most infamous NPC's in society play. Be sure to ham her up. ;)
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Venture-Lieutenant, Louisiana—Baton Rouge
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Okay Jason, so I took all of your thoughts into consideration & I looked up every scenario on Vance's list. Here's what I've got currently (my random side notes included):
6-10 The Wounded Wisp
5 Mists of Mwangi – Blackros Museum Pt1 (1-5)
35 Voice in the Void – Blackros Museum Pt2 (1-7)
2nd Level:
14 Many Fortunes of Grandmaster Torch (1-7)
1 Silent Tide – Undead pirate adventure in Absalom’s Puddles District (1-5)
45 Delirium's Tangle – GT scenario (1-5)
3rd Level
51 City of Strangers, Part 1 - The Shadow Gambit (1-7)
52 City of Strangers, Part 2 - The Twofold Demise (1-7)
SP2 Year of the Shadow Lodge
4th Level:
2-15 Shades of Ice, Part 1 - Written in Blood (1-5)
2-17 Shades of Ice, Part 2 - Exiles of Winter (1-5)
2-19 Shades of Ice, Part 3 - Keep of the Huskarl King (1-5)
5th Level:
2-06 The Heresy of Man, Part 1 - The First Heresy
2-07 The Heresy of Man, Part 2 - Where the Dark Things Sleep
2-09 The Heresy of Man, Part 3 - Beneath Forgotten Sands
6th Level:
2-03 The Rebel's Ransom – Perfect Rating! (5-9)
2-25 You Only Die Twice – Rated Highly (5-9)
2-21 The Dalsine Affair – Might should keep it for story reasons (1-7)
7th Level:
2-04 Shadows Fall on Absalom
2-23 Shadow's Last Stand, Part 1 - At Shadow's Door (1-7)
2-24 Shadow's Last Stand, Part 2 - Web of Corruption (1-7)
8th Level:
22 Fingerprints of the Fiend – Mixed Reviews Chelaxian Indiana Jones mission, Rachikan (7-11)
2-08 The Sarkorian Prophecy – Find the key to defeat the Shadow Lodge (7-11)
2-10 Fury of the Fiend – 2nd Rachikan mission, Near perfect rating (7-11)
9th Level:
The Harrowing Module? - Perfect Rating
10th Level:
2-14 The Chasm of Screams – Not too highly rated, seems like it would need refining
2-12 Below the Silver Tarn – Perfect Rating, Nidalese horror
2-16 The Flesh Collector – Mixed reviews, but has good RP & potentially challenging combat in Nex
11th Level:
2-18 The Forbidden Furnace of Forgotten Koor – Near Perfect Rating, Quadiran search & save
2-20 Wrath of the Accursed – Perfect Rating, Osirian mission
2-26 The Mantis's Prey – One reviewer argued that it should come before Shadow’s Last Stand 1 & 2.
My questions are these: Does Silent Tide specifically have Grandmaster Torch in it? Also, The Chasm of Screams didn't have a very high user rating. Is there a reason I should keep it on the list, or should I switch it out for something better? If so - what?
Also, does everything look like it's in order as for as logical story progression goes?
-And with that typed, I just want to also give a big thanks to everyone that's given me feedback so far, guys - and especially Jason. You're awesome man!
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Switch Silent Tide and The Many Fortunes of Grandmaster Torch. In Silent Tide, Torch extracts a favor. In Many Fortunes, the Society pays the favor off.
(Well, you could interpret Many Fortunes as just another exchange in a series of favors, but it's more relevant to a party if it comes as "okay, time to pay up for that favor you owe.")
EDIT: After checking the various scenarios, I got this part totally wrong. I'd still run Silent Tide first, because it's Torch's introduction. However, you finish your business with Torch in Silent Tide with nothing owed. He extracts the Favor in Many Fortunes, and the favor is called in during Delirium's Tangle. Which is why it was presented as the third scenario of level 2 in your suggested order.
Outside of that, your list looks excellent.
I haven't read the one reviewer's post about having Mantis Prey come before Shadow's Last Stand, but I can see an angle there. It depends on how you want to present the narrative.
The idea of having Mantis's Prey come before Shadow's Last Stand presents an alternate story. Spider is the overall acknowledged leader, but a faction of the Shadow lodge grows restless under her continued failure as the Shadow Lodge loses several key battles to the Society. Torch is one of the more influential voices within the Lodge, and he doesn't agree entirely with what Spider is doing. Spider decides to have him eliminated as threat to her power, and this gives him both the motivation and the political pull (gained from pointing out the assassination attempt and having the fortitude to survive it) to become a serious contender for Lodge Leader. When Spider is defeated in Shadow's Last Fall, the majority of the Lodge swings to support Torch, and he becomes head of the Lodge.
However, there's another angle to consider. There's a tier 3-7 season 4 scenario called Rivalry's End that retires the Shadow Lodge as a selectable faction. In that scenario, the party hunts down Spider and captures her for interrogation. Spider is brought back to Torch, who gets some vital piece of information from her, and then promptly kills her. He announces that he has finally secured the final piece of information he needed to blackmail the Decemvirate into letting him go from the Society on his terms. He escapes (or tries to), betraying all of the ideals that he claimed to stand for as the faction leader for the Shadow Lodge.
This revelation puts a more sinister twist to Torch's actions in season 2. You could validly claim that a lot of what he says in Mantis's Prey and early season 3 was a smokescreen to conceal his true intentions. Instead of being the 'good' force to oppose Spider's evil leadership, he was a willing co-conspirator who found a way to capitalize on Spider's defeat. If you put Mantis's Prey before Shadow's Last Stand, then you could paint it as Torch plotting to gain enough power to backstab Spider and take over, and the events of Mantis's Prey are merely the first steps in his takeover of the Shadow Lodge.
Sadly, there's no way to include Rivalry's End in the overall journey without significant modification. Shadow's Last Stand is a Tier 1-7 scenario. Mantis's Prey is a 7-11. Rivalry's End is a 3-7. By the time the group does both Last Stand and Prey, they're out of tier for Rivalry's End. (Plus, you can't have any shadow lodge story after Rivalry's End because it wouldn't make narrative sense.) So the best way to do things without heavy alteration is to run a second group of characters through Rivalry's End to experience the shocking conclusion to the tale.
However, since you're doing this as a home game, you could modify Rivalry's End to your liking. You just need to take the higher tier of the scenario and modify the encounters to be appropriate for 7-11. You'd prolly want to run all the season 2 7-11's you'd care to run, then Mantis's Prey (unless you ran it at level 7 right before Shadow's Last Stand) and then Rivalry's End.
It could definitely work. In that run, I'd probably run Mantis's Prey before Shadow's Last Stand just for pacing purposes. It looks pretty silly if you wait until near the end of the arc and then have Torch say "thanks to your help, I've survived long enough to take over the Lodge and pilot it into a new era" (Prey) and then the very next adventure Torch says "Haha PSYCH! It was a trick all along!" It makes more sense if Torch turned to 'the good' at level 7, became the prime leader as a result of the Last Stand missions, then actively assisted the society by providing information. This leads to the launch of all the other shadow lodge 7-11 scenarios, in which the Society works with Torch to eliminate the more hostile fragments of the Shadow Lodge and secure everything under Torch's banner. Then you run an upgraded Rivalry's End as the concluding scenario, in which Torch has secured enough control of the Shadow Lodge to get the information he needs and abandons everything he's claimed to work for in order to become a future re-occuring villain.
(Having said all of that... I personally wouldn't go that route. You'd be doing Torch's betrayel in Rivalry's End, then running a few Adril Hestrom scenarios to level up to 33 experience, then running Eyes of the Ten... in which yet another key figure ends up being suspected of betrayel. It's a bit too much too soon.)
Basically, it all boils down the story you want to tell. Since it's a home gave, you have full narrative control of the campaign. (Well, the pair of you do.) In my games, I've become accustomed to modifying the VC briefing to suit my continuing narrative. I'll either trade out the venture captain, or introduce little things which better suit the group, or add extra stuff that makes things a bit more personalized and entertaining. If you're interested in doing the same, then it opens up a lot more possibilities that you couldn't do in straight society play.
Kigvan- Woops! I stand corrected. Thanks! :)