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I'd start with the Confirmation, as I believe it's the strongest of these introductory adventures. If you're playing PBP, it should give you plenty of time to find out from your players which parts they enjoy the most, and maybe pick a next adventure to suit.
First Steps part 1 is still legal.
Regarding picking factions: they should pick factions when they create their PCs, but if they have second thoughts, they can change faction between adventures as part of the 1st-level retraining rules.
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I think both The Confirmation and The Wounded Wisp are very strong evergreens, though with a different focus - The Confirmation is the classic "wilderness and dungeon" setup and a guide to bring them to where they need to be, whereas The Wounded Wisp is based in the city with a heavier focus on roleplay. If your friends have no experience with P&P The Wounded Wisp can drag on, I think, especially if they are insecure. I'd start with The Confirmation and go easy on them with some encounters (no swarms against newbies, for example).
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There's a brand new evergreen scenario, 7-10, that also takes place near Absalom and introduces one of the themes of this season, which is the conflict between the Pathfinder Society and the Aspis Consortium. You could do all three new ones in order, or do all four with one at 2nd level, or your players could do two of them on slow advancement so they get to do all four at 1st level.
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I'm partial to Master of the Fallen Fortress for the first adventure. It assumes that the PCs are not Pathfinders at the start of the adventure, but has a great hook for inviting them to join the Society.
Also, it's FREE. :)
The downside to it is that it grants only 1 prestige point.
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I'm partial to Master of the Fallen Fortress for the first adventure.
Agreed. If you are looking to introduce the players slowly into the hobby, this is a great start. The adventure is relatively linear and doesn't have a lot of role-play required that often can be intimidating to new players. Let's them focus on the basic game mechanics. It is also not a huge time sink as it can be played in a few hours. And it has a nice little tie-in with the Pathfinder Society that can lead them into my next two recommendations.
Thereafter, I would recommend playing the PFS scenarios, 5-08 The Confirmation, followed by 6-10 The Wounded Wisp. Both are introductory in nature and designed to expose the players to many of the common themes encountered both with regards to game mechanics and to role-playing opportunities.
After these three events, the players should be more comfortable and ready to dive into a regular schedule of scenarios. All three of these are "evergreen" as well, meaning you can replay them for credit.
Just remember to have your new players download and read the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild Guide. It contains all the info required to build your own characters, the unique rules applicable to PFS, and an introduction to the faction system. Most of this, you already know, but just a reminder
If you have any specific questions about the society or need more help, don't hesitate to contact your local Venture-Officer. We are here to help anyway we can. You can find the appropriate contact person HERE.
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I'm partial to Master of the Fallen Fortress for the first adventure.Agreed. If you are looking to introduce the players slowly into the hobby, this is a great start. The adventure is relatively linear and doesn't have a lot of role-play required that often can be intimidating to new players. Let's them focus on the basic game mechanics. It is also not a huge time sink as it can be played in a few hours. And it has a nice little tie-in with the Pathfinder Society that can lead them into my next two recommendations.
Thereafter, I would recommend playing the PFS scenarios, 5-08 The Confirmation, followed by 6-10 The Wounded Wisp. Both are introductory in nature and designed to expose the players to many of the common themes encountered both with regards to game mechanics and to role-playing opportunities.
After these three events, the players should be more comfortable and ready to dive into a regular schedule of scenarios. All three of these are "evergreen" as well, meaning you can replay them for credit.
Just remember to have your new players download and read the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild Guide. It contains all the info required to build your own characters, the unique rules applicable to PFS, and an introduction to the faction system. Most of this, you already know, but just a reminder
If you have any specific questions about the society or need more help, don't hesitate to contact your local Venture-Officer. We are here to help anyway we can. You can find the appropriate contact person HERE.
I echo the statements regarding both Wounded Wisp and The Confirmation. Not too long ago, those were the scenarios I started PbP with my old gaming group. MOFF is very straightforward to run and easy to track and makes an excellent first foray into running a PbP game, for both players and GM. The Confirmation is a bit more involved but is well structured and I found it to be very GM friendly.
I have not run many scenarios, but the more linear ones seem to lend themselves better to PbP. Scenarios that ran well for me include The Glass River Rescue and Slave Ships of Absalom.
I also recommend these excellent community generated posts relating to PbP:
10 Questions that will make your PFS roleplaying blossom. An excellent post by KestlerGunner designed to help flesh out your PFS character.
Building a Better Doomed Hero: Painlord’s Advanced Play-by-Post Play. My go to guide on how to play play-by-post games in PFS by the one and only Painlord.
Thanks for stepping up to the plate and firing up more PbP games. Best RP community around in my opinion.
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I'd start with the Confirmation, as I believe it's the strongest of these introductory adventures. If you're playing PBP, it should give you plenty of time to find out from your players which parts they enjoy the most, and maybe pick a next adventure to suit.
First Steps part 1 is still legal.
Regarding picking factions: they should pick factions when they create their PCs, but if they have second thoughts, they can change faction between adventures as part of the 1st-level retraining rules.
I would not do the Confirmation as the introductory scenario. There is a lot of story based around "why did you become Pathfinders" and "where are you going to focus: Swords, Spells, or Scrolls". If the players have no background and aren't sure whether they will rebuild their character complete before level 2, they will miss out on a large part of the "cool factor" of the Confirmation.
I will also never allow a new player to play a pregen in the Confirmation again. I had a table of brand new players in the Confirmation at a convention, all running pregens: first, the "why did you join the society" section was a staring contest backed up by awkward silence, and then the section where Janira checks out their gear was just painful. If I have new players with pregens, I will find something else to run.
I still like First Steps 1 as the first scenario for new players, but Wounded Wisp is also good choice: there's a lot of background on Absalom and the Grand Lodge.
For a "first level" path, I've also done Master of the Fallen Fortress, Gods Market Gamble, and then Confirmation. I have a "PFS Intro" for Fallen Fortress, where Marcus Farabellus and Aram Zey send the players to go find their missing bard and finish exploring the tower. That way, before the players play the confirmation, they've at least met each of the masters once.
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I've only run the Confirmation once in person on tabletop, but I'm gearing up to run First Steps, Confirmation, Wounded Wisp for a 'home' group (via R20) to get them to 2nd.
First Steps gives the player some exposure to Society play, Confirmation allows players to do certain things that may influence interactions in Wounded Wisp (not many, though).
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I will also never allow a new player to play a pregen in the Confirmation again. I had a table of brand new players in the Confirmation at a convention, all running pregens: first, the "why did you join the society" section was a staring contest backed up by awkward silence, and then the section where Janira checks out their gear was just painful. If I have new players with pregens, I will find something else to run.
I think that is a harsh stance to take. Its more about knowing your audience and adapting, IMO. If I know I have pregens and/or brand new players at the table, I will have a different approach to The Confirmation than with experienced players. I think that nearly all of our scenarios require a certain level of tailoring to accommodate new players. For the Confirmation, I would probably have Janira just give some of her gear to the pregens if they lacked it completely and didn't have any loose change to buy something. I mean they're gonna get them anyway later on, so what's the harm?
I'm not a fan of First Steps anymore. Two of the three faction leaders listed aren't even in charge of their faction anymore, not to mention that the factors no longer carry the same name. Sure, they can be replaced with the new ones, but that is really no different than adapting any other scenario to new players. YMMV
Since this seems to be a good spot to discuss paths of evergreens... I'm not necessarily running this with new players; however, I am looking to start up a PBP and gather some folks to do the Evergreen scenarios. I'd like to do all four (First Steps, Wounded Wisp, Confirmation, & Consortium Compact). For continuity sake, what would you all suggest the order to do those in?
I was thinking about starting with First Steps, followed by Wounded Wisp, then Confirmation, and wrapping it up with Consortium Compact. Or would it be better to do the Confirmation first and then follow it up with Wounded Wisp? Anyone have suggestions?
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I have not reviewed Consortium Compact yet, so I cannot speak to it, but given that list, I would go
(1) The Confirmation...it is both an intro to some game mechanics as well as the society without a lot of faction expectations
(2) First Steps I...I would change the faction heads to the appropriate people who are currently in charge
(3) The Wounded Wisp...I would run this last of the three because it sort of assumes you have already met Janira and have a better grasp on how the society functions
I can only guess that the suggested order will change to Confirmation, Wounded Wisp, Consortium Compact, with First Steps being left out of the cycle. I like to offer Master of the Fallen Fortress as the first offering since it focuses more on game mechanics and not so much on the nuances of society play. I really wish TC1 Into the Haunted Forest would get sanctioned as another evergreen option. I think it could be just as effective as MotFF, but with more opportunities to role-play.
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I will also never allow a new player to play a pregen in the Confirmation again. I had a table of brand new players in the Confirmation at a convention, all running pregens: first, the "why did you join the society" section was a staring contest backed up by awkward silence, and then the section where Janira checks out their gear was just painful. If I have new players with pregens, I will find something else to run.I think that is a harsh stance to take. Its more about knowing your audience and adapting, IMO. If I know I have pregens and/or brand new players at the table, I will have a different approach to The Confirmation than with experienced players. I think that nearly all of our scenarios require a certain level of tailoring to accommodate new players. For the Confirmation, I would probably have Janira just give some of her gear to the pregens if they lacked it completely and didn't have any loose change to buy something. I mean they're gonna get them anyway later on, so what's the harm?
I'm not a fan of First Steps anymore. Two of the three faction leaders listed aren't even in charge of their faction anymore, not to mention that the factors no longer carry the same name. Sure, they can be replaced with the new ones, but that is really no different than adapting any other scenario to new players. YMMV
The problem I have is that most of the roleplay of that scenario has to get dropped completely with brand new players at the "What's a d20?/What's an RPG?" level. Since I run a lot of demos at conventions, I have a very high percentage of this type of player, and I've seen this just not work a number of times.
Also, much of the story of the Confirmation doesn't work with pregens. "Hey, why did you join the society?" "I don't know--my character sheet doesn't say." "Hooray--you've completed your training. Which of the paths in the society do you want to commit to?" "I don't know--what does any of that mean?" Running Confirmation with pregens feels like attending someone else's college graduation and being forced to walk the stage, shake hands with professors you've never met, and maybe even give a speech. It just feels completely wrong to me.
Note that I didn't say I wouldn't run anything: I said I would run something other than the Confirmation. I have a long list of prepared 1st level scenarios in the trunk of my car: I'd poll the players to see what type of games they like and pick an appropriate one.
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For all scenarios I like Confirmation, First Steps I, Wounded Wisp in that order... the new evergreen is heavily tied to the concept that you are pathfinders and have a good idea of the tenets of the Society; thus it is pretty interchangeable with Wounded Wisp in my order of play. Those are my personal preferences at any rate.