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Yes, but you have to get the opportunity to complete them all. Having a character in limbo until you can find the quests being offered again is a headache.
What several people are suggesting is that the quests would be offered more often if players were allowed to bring their own characters.
During the semester, I usually teach a class until 6pm one day a week. Which puts me getting to the local game shop around 6:30. The store closes at 9m, with everyone having to be out by then. We tried a midweek game for a while, but because of the stores hours, it had to run at someone's house. Running full scenarios, it would often go late, meaning people who had to work early were up late. So after a few tries, the idea was abandoned.
Being able to schedule quests, I could run once a week or every other week pretty consistently during the semester. Especially if there's a new set for season 8. But without players, there's no point. And with the pregen requirement, the interest hasn't been there. Right now, the card game is being run on a weeknight, but no PFS.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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At first I was quite skeptical about playing these quests with non-pregens, mainly because of the power issue. Then again, even with most pregens they're easy. And if you don't need to explain all the rules every time (because people stay at the table) running all of them in a row shouldn't need to take six hours either; that's only if you have to introduce stuff six times.
Anyway, I think the thing that's really been holding these back from seeing much play among existing players is the level band; you have to have an entire group of people wanting to start L1 PCs at the same time. It's one thing to play an occasional quest if you're already on-site for something else, but it's not really something you schedule and travel to do.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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To add: I suppose the shorter duration could open up the play to a different crowd, for example on weekday evenings for people with busy lives; but then the L1 thing makes them essentially a dead end. Nothing of the same time size comes after it. (Which kind of connects to Drogon's point.)
Venture-Captain, Minnesota
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Wnen a friend of mine started up a Rise of the Runelords home game for a very large group, half the group had never played Pathfinder. So we did a combination of "Let's make characters!" and "Let's play quests with those characters!" for everyone.
While Bret and Kris took people one at a time to help them make characters, I ran Silverhex most of the evening for their shiny new characters, so those not currently building could play right away. Not for PFS credit. Just as a fun teaching exercise. Silverhex was ideally suited to this due to its episodic nature, and because everyone could drop in and out. Everyone learned aspects of the game -- how to fight, how to cast spells, how to deal with terrain and obstacles. The person with an animal companion learned she needed handle animal and the "flank" trick.
Some of them realized things that helped them immediately rebuild before we did Runelords, and everyone had fun. I'll note that the PCs were weird. In Kris's homegame, he allows every race and class. So I had a whole bunch of weird characters running through Silverhex. It didn't break the game in any way, and it was one of the best teaching exercises we could have done.
Everyone started Rise of the Runelords at the next game with a much better idea of who their characters were and what they could do.
This experience for me was part of the reason why I'd like to open up the quests in PFS. I loved seeing the rising confidence, and the quickness of the quests let us both game and run character creation in the same night.
Hmm
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Hmm, your story is also part of why I'd like to see the quests opened up. They work great as an introduction to Pathfinder. But new players benefit not just from learning how the system works, but from learning how *their* characters work. Pathfinder's ruleset can be intimidating, to say the least. So for a new player, it's easiest to start with learning how their own character works and what they can do. If that character isn't going to be exactly like the pregen, then they aren't learning their character. Running Valeros as a TWF fighter is different than running a Greatsword wielding fighter with Power Attack at first level. Running Lini with a cat companion is different than running a Human Druid with a wolf. Not to mention if the player wants an archetype. or even just a different kind of Wizard, Sorcerer, Oracle, Cleric, whatever.
For a single session at a convention, it's not that big a deal. For stretching out a beginner series over several weeks of 1-2 hour sessions, it would be beneficial for players to be able to switch to their own characters sometime before the end of the quests.
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I don't believe the pre-gen requirement should be lifted. The quests are designed to give people a taste of PFS play at things like conventions.
At PAX South, we had a bunch of people who were brand new to PFS and even table top RPGs. The most important thing is for players to have fun and there are few things like a munchkin character steamrolling all the encounters to ensure they don't come back to play. While that's true of any scenario, you have much less control and input at a convention with a player who is going to play and never comeback. The quests were designed with pregen's in mind, they should remain that way.
There has been also been some talk about updating the pregens in this thread. While that's fine, I also don't think they should be updated with the express idea of making them stronger. They're there to be flavorful and give new players a taste of lots of different aspects of the class. They aren't intended to be optimal characters nor should they be.
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There has been also been some talk about updating the pregens in this thread. While that's fine, I also don't think they should be updated with the express idea of making them stronger. They're there to be flavorful and give new players a taste of lots of different aspects of the class. They aren't intended to be optimal characters nor should they be.
Good players can make a pregen work despite not necessarily being at the same power level as other characters.
New players might not be able to do that.
Then add in, say, the only thing running in a slot is a higher tier scenario and someone wants to play and the only option is a L4 or L7 pregen.
Sure, the new ones have nifty notes on them, but not all of the old ones do, and some of their flaws become painfully apparent (even with tweaking over the years).
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We used to have a great trilogy once upon a time called 'First Steps', and in that magical trilogy you could take your own character and nothing broke.
I'd love to stitch together the Phantom Phenomenon and Siverhex and have those as a fun replacement for the awesome scenarios that were so tragically taken from us :)
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Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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...there are few things like a munchkin character steamrolling all the encounters...
I'm sorry, guys, but I just can't get behind the idea that there are munchkin/tricked-out/all-powerful 1st level builds.
Again, there are plenty of things in the Core Pre-Gens that perform that function just fine: sleep cast by Lem, Power Attack from Amiri, entangle cast by Lini, Smite Evil combined with Power Attack from Seelah, a scroll of color spray from Seoni, or a bonded object recall of color spray from Ezren.
Every single one of those options can "steamroll" the one-encounter model that is a Quest. Stop obfuscating the issue.
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Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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We used to have a great trilogy once upon a time called 'First Steps', and in that magical trilogy you could take your own character and nothing broke.
I beg to differ. Lots of people broke when confronted by Ledford. O_O
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I don't believe the pre-gen requirement should be lifted. The quests are designed to give people a taste of PFS play at things like conventions.
This is a misconception. Go back and read the Quests for All Blog when Silverhex was launched. John listed four goals, none of which mention conventions. In fact, I don't think the word convention even appears in the blog entry at all. It does mention wanting to accommodate people who prefer something shorter than a 4-5 hour scenario, as well as schedules and venues, though, and a convention would be one of the possible venues. A store that closes early on a weeknight would be another.
Yes, one of the goals John listed involves introducing new players. But the first goal listed is "Deliver a Society-friendly RPG experience that lasts about one hour." While I think the quests do that for people willing to play a pregen, they are not accomplishing that for people who prefer to play their own characters. "Society-friendly" should include providing a similar experience to a regular society game. When you cannot bring your own character, for some people, it is not a similar experience.
EDIT: An excerpt from that blog:
While working on the outline, I also remembered conversations I had with venture-captains over the past year, requesting 2-hour adventures that could be played on a weekday evening yet had enough substance to warrant traveling to a game day. Changing the 1-hour model was unlikely, but it was possible to link the Quests to one another loosely as part of a longer, flexible story that participants could experience in any order.
From this thread, it sounds to me like people are still looking for something to fill that need.
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16
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I'd love to be able to do a con coming up in November doing nothing but the 3 sets of quests and "make a character" tables, to introduce PFS to more players. Pregens are good in a pinch, but if we can help a new player feel connected to a character from the start, I think they are more likely to want to come back and play them again.
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Venture-Captain, Minnesota
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If it is anything like Phantom Phenomena and Silverhex were, all of the legal level one pregens may be used. Though you can of course roll for what pregen the entire party uses... The MN Lodge has had GREAT fun with this approach at cons.
Hmm
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I don't think I've ever seen anyone play Lini... I do love Druids though. I second the motion.
Conversely, when I do need to play a pregen, I almost always play Lini. XD
(Except the one time I played the level 7 pregen Lini, but cast airwalk and wildshaped into a bison, and was called Appa thereafter...)
SERIOUS QUESTION: Does this make the Silverhex Chronicles an evergreen? I wanna know if I can get GM credit again when I run my new group through it. =)
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I'll be running an online table of this in about 28 hours, and will be giving my players the option of running through the whole thing without rest in between.
And THEN I'll be running it again for my home group with the same option. =)
Not quite the Ironhex method, but pretty impressive nonetheless.
Ironhex involves playing one of the quests (traditionally Silverhex, hence the name) wherein every player rolls randomly for their pregen to start. And then rerolls again between each part for a different pregen.
Will the party be balanced? Will they be six Harsks? No one knows!
I only recommend Ironhex for experienced players. Newbies might get confused with the rapid character swapping.
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I'll be running an online table of this in about 28 hours, and will be giving my players the option of running through the whole thing without rest in between.
And THEN I'll be running it again for my home group with the same option. =)
Not quite the Ironhex method, but pretty impressive nonetheless.
Ironhex involves playing one of the quests (traditionally Silverhex, hence the name) wherein every player rolls randomly for their pregen to start. And then rerolls again between each part for a different pregen.
Will the party be balanced? Will they be six Harsks? No one knows!
I only recommend Ironhex for experienced players. Newbies might get confused with the rapid character swapping.
I'm sure that if they rolled 6 Harsks, the characters would be quite beside themselves.
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This makes me want to run a non-pfs back to back run of Bonekeep 1-3 with randomly chosen pregen characters for a group that already played the series(so I don't spoiler the series). Just to see how far they make it. "Iron"Keep :) I think I'm going to throw this out as a challenge at the upcoming local Con.
Edit: Even better... multiple "Iron" keep runs going on simultaneously just to see who makes it the furthest!
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This thread is great stuff - thanks to all of you for making the effort! I am currently running quests in short sessions for younger Pathfinders, and it's nice to be able to offer them the chance to create their own 1st level PCs (with their pregen credit from Honor's Echo) as they now embark on Phantom Phenomena...just in time for Halloween!
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I'd also like to report in with a positive experience so far with the quests. My schedule has been busier than I expected, so I've only managed to run two sessions (one this month, one last month) of 3 hours/3 quest parts each. But We grew from 3 people in the first session to 5 people in the second (lost one to a change in work schedule). The 3 new (to the quest night, not PFS) players have asked me to run the parts they missed this week, so that will be the third session. All of these have been at the shop on a Thursday night from 6pm-9pm. All of them Silverhex. I'll switch to Phantom Phenomena next month.
I also ran an entire run of Silverhex at the start of the month at a local con. We had Venture Officers at the table playing boon races who had never played or read Silverhex before, due to the pregen requirement. And we were competing opposite Brett's Ironhex table (and competing for flip-mats!)
Overall, I'm happy with the change, and it's helping me schedule some extra games.
EDIT: And an amusing story from the run-through at the con.
This, obviously, could derail the scenario, but I tried to roll with it. Instead of the scene in the town square, I had Foloch show up with the entire village, complete with burning torches and pitchforks, ready to burn the party out if necessary. He then gave his speech from the back of the crowd, raised the staff only to have nothing happen. He ran off after giving the crowd orders to stop the party. Torches are applied to the house, and the party goes into the modified chase scene, having to figure out ways to get through the crowd.
The final scene played out as expected with the fight at the wall, only the group almost didn't wait around to make sure the town recovered. At the last minute, they changed their minds and stayed, so they didn't lose out on the reward, which the mayor granted them despite being in need of a new residence.
Good times.