RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8
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Scenarios in SFS could allow for the players to choose between one or two (or more!) factions to gain reputation with as a result of their decisions. Allowing for a more player driven campaign (more check boxes, more "did they side with A or B") and allow players to develop the kind of character they want over the course of their SFS career.Ask and ye shall receive! Did you see this part of the blog post?
The second most noticeable change is that characters have a means of belonging to more than one faction at a time. Unlike the current Pathfinder Society faction rules, Starfinder Society characters will be able to gain favor with multiple groups, choosing which they want to champion on a scenario-by-scenario basis. But just like multiclassing, focusing on several groups won't see the same benefits as focusing on a primary faction.
Perfect! I knew I'd heard it before somewhere. :)
Venture-Lieutenant, Minnesota—Minneapolis
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On the topic of how to make factions matter, what if it worked sort of like fame?
In terms of the various factions, you are an independent contractor that occasionally does things that faction likes. You slowly build a reputation with them.
Assume that each character has an overall fame, and separate fame and prestige with each faction. You do something that the faction likes, it gains you more fame and prestige within that organization.
Now if you want something like a Hellknight Armageddon suit of powered armor, you better have really good connections with the Hellknights. Be one of their preferred contractors and potentially even made some sort of pledge or other agreement with them. The other factions don't have that sort of stuff -- you would have to get by with ACME powered armor instead.
On a smaller scale, perhaps you want a micro-drone. There is this faction that tends to do a lot of information trafficking and it is rumored they might do espionage. You've done them a few favors, for the correct amount of currency they can probably hook you up with that drone.
Each faction would have areas that they are strong in. You could either get slightly better quality equipment, specialized equipment, or just afford it sooner if you have a connection to a faction that deals in that sort of stuff. Some stuff may require a certain fame with that faction, others cost a certain amount of prestige as you call in favors.
You could even work this into a boon. Do this salvage operation for the Abbadar Corp, they will provide you access to the widget after their engineers have successfully reverse-engineered it.
Having factions give a slight edge in what can be acquired could make a big difference to characters.
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Personally, I am not a big fan of the Faction Cards. I understand that many people are, and if that's what draws them into the faction, more power to them.
The factions as they exist now, some are very niche ideological quadrants, while one is the catch-all: Anti-slaver (Liberty's Edge), noble-recruiter (Sovereign Court), mercantile guild (Exchange), intentional do-gooders (Silver Crusade), not-quite-too-sure what the former ParaCountess actually does faction (Dark Archives), Sacred servants of Osirion (Scarab Sages) and the catch-all, my character's motivations don't fit into any of the other 6 factions (Grand Lodge).
We had the same 'issue' with the national factions. Great if your character was from that nation, but not all Pathfinders were from those nations.
The rewards, though cool, for me aren't what draws my characters to a faction. When I do come up with a character concept, some fall strongly into a faction other don't. For instance, I love what is happening with the drama in the Exchange and the internal disagreements on how to proceed in the future. I now have two dedicated Exchange characters, each taking a different direction, one was simply a GM blob until a certain scenario came out. Then, the character became clear to me and what his motivations are and who he is. I did have a straight merchant before this season.
I don't need a faction card to have those two characters take their role in the faction seriously. They already do because they've internalized it. It's part of who they are.
For my characters who aren't in that ideological niche, they end up in the Grand Lodge. I liken it to your place of employment. Some people are super-dedicated and go to every event with bells on. Some just want to do their job and go home.
Factions matter if they matter to your character. It's OK to have some characters who aren't super into the factions.
I could get behind belonging to multiple factions at the same time. Nothing says you can't be a sage of history past and care about freeing slaves. Though, it would be difficult to be involved in more. There is only so much time in the day. I can barely find time for all my hobbies, so I focus on the ones I love the most, which is one or two.
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On the topic of how to make factions matter, what if it worked sort of like fame?
In terms of the various factions, you are an independent contractor that occasionally does things that faction likes. You slowly build a reputation with them.
Assume that each character has an overall fame, and separate fame and prestige with each faction. You do something that the faction likes, it gains you more fame and prestige within that organization.
Now if you want something like a Hellknight Armageddon suit of powered armor, you better have really good connections with the Hellknights. Be one of their preferred contractors and potentially even made some sort of pledge or other agreement with them. The other factions don't have that sort of stuff -- you would have to get by with ACME powered armor instead.
On a smaller scale, perhaps you want a micro-drone. There is this faction that tends to do a lot of information trafficking and it is rumored they might do espionage. You've done them a few favors, for the correct amount of currency they can probably hook you up with that drone.
Each faction would have areas that they are strong in. You could either get slightly better quality equipment, specialized equipment, or just afford it sooner if you have a connection to a faction that deals in that sort of stuff. Some stuff may require a certain fame with that faction, others cost a certain amount of prestige as you call in favors.
You could even work this into a boon. Do this salvage operation for the Abbadar Corp, they will provide you access to the widget after their engineers have successfully reverse-engineered it.
Having factions give a slight edge in what can be acquired could make a big difference to characters.
I like this idea a lot!
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In the beginning we were teased with factions being nations vying for control of the Pathfinder Society as a shadow war to gain control of Absalom. Some of the first faction missions were diametrically opposed so that if one faction succeeded another could not. What faction your character was, was supposed to be secret.
This failed. There was really no way to have a shadow war without PvP. Additionally, the campaign leaders at the time did a really poor job of gathering information and updating the factions (this may have been because the rudimentary reporting system did not have a way to really track things appropriately.) Being a member of Andoran or Taldor was meaningless, really, because everything stayed static. Furthermore, most of the faction missions also felt tacked on and were often dumpster diving macguffin hunts for items that seemed absolutely meaningless to the shadow war. Why was it important to humiliate yourself as a Taldan in one specific scenario? Why was it important to recover a tea set? For the most part they were kinda silly little things that would detract from actually playing the scenario.
In Season 3 and going into 4, an attempt was made to weave 10 different faction storylines (and then 8 when two factions went belly up) throughout each season with meaningful faction missions. This became really untenable on a development and storytelling standpoint, because if you are weaving meaningful stories for 10 factions through 26 scenarios, when do you get to tell the meaningful metaplot stories? And in season 4 we had 2 major ones that needed attention. We were promised reports of how the factions were doing. And we sorta got updates with Maldriss getting promoted and Zarta having a whole series of scenarios essentially politically assassinating her. But the updates were generally vague and uninteresting and still did not affect play, not really, for those members of the faction.
By season 6, we changed the factions again to move away from the idea of a shadow war and more into aligning interests. This seemed to actually be a direct result of Season 5 meta-plot with everyone working together for one goal. That's cool. And the faction cards came out. This, I believe, was an attempt to actually give characters something for belonging to a faction successfully. Thus the small bonuses you get from the cards. But removing faction storylines (but for a couple scenarios a season for 1 or maybe 2 factions) from the scenarios themselves and putting the faction stuff in the hands of the players made them uninteresting for many players in a different way. The story of the factions wasn't there anymore. It wasn't driven by the story or metaplot of the season, and so most players just didn't care anymore. I know I largely don't really do anything faction related right now. And I'm a huge proponent of keeping factions around. I like them. This experiment with the cards though, did not really work as intended. I applaud the attempt and experiment though. Something needed to be done and I did not foresee how uninteresting it would become anymore than anyone else did.
Part of the failure of the cards, I feel, is the fact we still really aren't getting updates on how successful each faction is and what's happening to advance each faction's storyline. Everything is static again and so players don't feel like their character's actions have any impact on the faction itself.
So you ask me what we should do about factions in Starfinder Society?
1) Make them interesting. Make them important to the plot of each season. Drive their story with scenarios and don't leave it to the players to drive the factions themselves. This means there needs to be a small number (3 or 4 max) of factions. Too many, and you'll have Season 3/4 problems with this.
2) Keep them dynamic. Have them evolve and update their storyline. Let people know if they are successful or not. At the end of each season, each faction should represent a static bonus and penalty based on how well they did during the last season. This could be changed each quarter or half of a season to represent specific scenario goals and whether they were met or not. For example: What happens if Dark Archives fails to secure a particular artifact? Maybe they get a penalty of -2 on any Charisma based rolls vs. Pathfinders, Blakros, and any other artifact collecting agencies but they get a +2 on saves vs. mind effecting representing their renewed determination and focus to succeed on the next series of artifact collecting missions.
That's about it. Interesting and Dynamic vs. the various versions of uninteresting and static we've had for 9 seasons.
Caveat: Some of my favorite scenarios have been those where the plot both ties to the season's metaplot and the specific plotline for a faction. Do more of that.
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Why was it important to humiliate yourself as a Taldan in one specific scenario?
Because it was a secret coded message to show, not tell you knew the truth, unlike lesser folks.
Why was it important to recover a tea set?
Because they had been lost to time outside of a few possible vague references in old letters and books, and IF they still existed, someone wanted them back for cultural and historical reasons.
All in all I agree. Early seasons where really awesome with Factions and those Factions where meaningful, and it really just sort of went down hill around Season 4.
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All in all I agree. Early seasons where really awesome with Factions and those Factions where meaningful, and it really just sort of went down hill around Season 4.
We're running through Season Zero into Season One at home right now and it's been a pretty mixed bag so far.
Having some handouts every time is awesome and it'd be cool to see more like that, even if it's just "hey, here's what our faction knows about this planet, good luck."
And some of the missions are amazing. Like, in some cases, they're hands-down my favorite part of the scenario (like the Andoran mission in Black Waters). Then there are a few every time that totally make sense (like Osirion missions whenever folks are smuggling artifacts).
But a lot feel pretty tacked on, which is completely understandable when you're talking about involving 8 factions every single scenario.
And I think this might be a place where players working with multiple factions really helps. If the Exchange just... doesn't care about this scenario, try for one of the other groups you work with.
One of the things from that era that I think really works is Torch getting actual screentime. My players are going to have strong opinions about the Shadow Lodge by the time they get there. But having the faction leadership actually involved in Society and giving briefings (like Amenopheus giving the Beacon Below briefing rather than just being mentioned) could help a lot to build opinions.
Now I'm just wishing there was a Drandle Dreng faction. There's a guy I'd recover a tea set for! And some people are already wanting nothing to do with it, but isn't that what factions are all about?
Cheers!
Landon
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Venture-Lieutenant, Minnesota—Minneapolis
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Thought of another change I would like to see.
Make it so that every scenario has at least one result box checked. I don't care if it is "Check box A if you ran this scenario." Make it so that someone can look at the reporting sheet can immediately tell if the GM forgot to mark the result boxes. I think it would improve the likelyhood of the results getting reported, and allow you to ignore any without the reporting.
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Make it so that every scenario has at least one result box checked. I don't care if it is "Check box A if you ran this scenario." Make it so that someone can look at the reporting sheet can immediately tell if the GM forgot to mark the result boxes. I think it would improve the likelyhood of the results getting reported, and allow you to ignore any without the reporting.
I wouldn't want a system to penalize human error with a required check box for running; when a scenario is reported, the system notes that the scenario was run.
I would like having a meaningful check box, like "Check box A is the Exchange successfully dragooned one of the two named NPCs in this scenario into a trade deal", for each scenario which connects to a developing world and ties to the faction system that makes the PCs actions and faction cards have merit.
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The difficulty with having 'season narrative' arcs is compounded by the very nature of PFS itself (as happens with most organized play).
Short of restricting characters to only play after a certain season due to taking on a given 'arc', there's no good way to address someone who played different scenarios from several different seasons with several different arcs active in them.
To a certain extent, this has been apparently tried out in a couple of different organized campaigns, and it has gone over about as well as can be expected... ie, not very well at all.
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Not sure I understand what you are saying. Every season from 2 on has had a season narrative arc.
I'm not suggesting you only get factional bonuses if you play x, y, z scenarios from season a. But rather your character gets faction bonuses and penalties based on where the faction is currently regardless what se as on is being played.
Venture-Captain, Minnesota
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I think he is saying that seasons are played out of order, so it is difficult for players to understand the season narrative arc.
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I am really surprised to see how many negative comments there are about the faction cards. I love watching my players get excited when they figure out something they can do with the goals on their faction cards.
Locally, I have seen tons of acting out of faction allegiances. Sovereign Court people warning about not being too hasty about joining up with dangerous revolutionaries. Liberty's Edge people making a heartfelt speech about oppression. Silver Crusade being worried for the oppressed, but concerned about starting a war. The three groups discussing it out, and then deciding on a course of action.
I think the faction cards are awesome. I love them, and have really enjoyed slowly earning boons. Still, I would like to see more faction heads appearing in missions. Part of my affection for Dark Archive is that I've seen Zarta so often in scenarios, and she's become a delightful acquaintance for me. What a narrative arc she's had! So many wonderful stories.
As much as I love Zarta, maybe some of the other faction heads can get screen time? Has the head of Silver Crusade once had a checkered past that Pathfinders need to help her with? What is Lady Morilla really been up to with Sovereign Court? When will we ever ditch the head of Liberty's Edge? Tell us more about the dragon running things with Scarab Sages! Let the Exchange get a little dirty again. They miss it so.
Bring back the Shadow Lodge, or have former Shadow Lodgers have more influence on the Grand Lodge. Let's have more body recovery or rescue missions. Let's make Grand Lodge less bland, and actually have some tension from those who support the Decemvirate in everything and those who distrust them a bit.
Also... Darn it. I wrote this essay in the SFS forum not the PFS one. Bad me.
Hmm
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All in all I agree. Early seasons where really awesome with Factions and those Factions where meaningful, and it really just sort of went down hill around Season 4.We're running through Season Zero into Season One at home right now and it's been a pretty mixed bag so far.
Having some handouts every time is awesome and it'd be cool to see more like that, even if it's just "hey, here's what our faction knows about this planet, good luck."
And some of the missions are amazing. Like, in some cases, they're hands-down my favorite part of the scenario (like the Andoran mission in Black Waters). Then there are a few every time that totally make sense (like Osirion missions whenever folks are smuggling artifacts).
But a lot feel pretty tacked on, which is completely understandable when you're talking about involving 8 factions every single scenario.
And I think this might be a place where players working with multiple factions really helps. If the Exchange just... doesn't care about this scenario, try for one of the other groups you work with.
One of the things from that era that I think really works is Torch getting actual screentime. My players are going to have strong opinions about the Shadow Lodge by the time they get there. But having the faction leadership actually involved in Society and giving briefings (like Amenopheus giving the Beacon Below briefing rather than just being mentioned) could help a lot to build opinions.
Now I'm just wishing there was a Drandle Dreng faction. There's a guy I'd recover a tea set for! And some people are already wanting nothing to do with it, but isn't that what factions are all about?
Cheers!
Landon
Im only partially being serious. While Id love a return to the old school Factio set up, I know plenty of others have different likes/dislikes about the different styles.
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Part of my affection for Dark Archive is that I've seen Zarta so often in scenarios, and she's become a delightful acquaintance for me. What a narrative arc she's had! So many wonderful stories.
Oh man, now I need to play all of these scenarios. Or at least run them.
I'm already a fan of the Dark Archive's mission, so having real opinions about Zarta would add a great layer of depth to that.
Im only partially being serious. While Id love a return to the old school Factio set up, I know plenty of others have different likes/dislikes about the different styles.
No worries! In the process of writing that response, I learned I like more about the old approach than I'd realized.
So, even if you weren't being entirely serious, your comment got me to really think about my stance on the early factions. Thanks!
Cheers!
Landon
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Venture-Lieutenant, Minnesota—Minneapolis
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Make it so that every scenario has at least one result box checked. I don't care if it is "Check box A if you ran this scenario." Make it so that someone can look at the reporting sheet can immediately tell if the GM forgot to mark the result boxes. I think it would improve the likelyhood of the results getting reported, and allow you to ignore any without the reporting.I wouldn't want a system to penalize human error with a required check box for running; when a scenario is reported, the system notes that the scenario was run.
I would like having a meaningful check box, like "Check box A is the Exchange successfully dragooned one of the two named NPCs in this scenario into a trade deal", for each scenario which connects to a developing world and ties to the faction system that makes the PCs actions and faction cards have merit.
I wasn't looking to punish anyone for anything. I wanted the host to be able to quickly notice if information was missing.
Perhaps an example would help.
Check box A if BBEG survives.
Check box B if Imprisoned Creature escapes.
Now if the BBEG dies and the Imprisoned Creature also dies, you wouldn't check any boxes. There would be no way to quickly determine if the GM correctly filled out the sheet (having checked no boxes) or forgot about the A/B/C/D boxes when filling out the session sheet.
I ask for this change because when I host I look at the scenario reporting sheets to make sure I can read the PFS ID numbers (or ask before the people all leave) and make a quick check that everything is filled in correctly. If no boxes are checked off, is that an error or a case like the above example?
On Paizo's side, if the leadership wants to analyze the data they also have no way of knowing if the boxes were forgotten or correctly filled in. It could incorrectly lead to them believing that everything got killed when really a percentage of that was GMs forgetting to fill in the boxes. I know that as a GM I've needed occasional reminders to do that.
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I think faction cards are fine.
However, one possibility that the campaign leadership should consider is just not bothering with factions at all. The "faction" we all work for is the Starfinder Society. (In the old "Faction Guide", the whole Pathfinder Society is listed as a faction from which you can get Prestige and Fame, and I think that's how it worked in Shattered Star.) Don't bother subdividing the group further with either annoying conflict or with Prestige-granting missions that are gratuitous and often distract from the main mission of the scenario (which was my observation of what happened in Season 4).
The way factions are done right now is fine. If SFS is going to have factions at all, handle them more or less the way they're handled right now. Don't do anything to make them more intrusive. They give a little extra RP boost for characters, and occasionally a mechanical boost. Everything else I've seen, and a number of the proposals in this thread, would just bring the factions back as an annoying distraction from the scenario. Given that a lot of scenarios, especially from the last three or four seasons, really struggle to fit into a 4-hour slot, we don't need additional distraction and additional stories to be told every scenario.
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Also, if we're going to have factions, please let their goals in a given scenario be 'rough' and 'open to interpetation'.
I realize that this could cause table variation, but one of the PFS ones that have been written of late was so narrowly focused that literal-minded GMs couldn't accommodate players who utilized 'creative means' to attain a synergistic path to corporate satisfaction.
I do have to wonder, though.
Where *is*
IN!
SPACE! ?
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No worries! In the process of writing that response, I learned I like more about the old approach than I'd realized.
So, even if you weren't being entirely serious, your comment got me to really think about my stance on the early factions. Thanks!
Cheers!
Landon
No worries. But, I am curious how your view has changed, if it's not too much to ask?
Like I mentioned, I'm really not even interested in SFS, only posting here in hope that PFS itself will improve, (at least in my view). :P
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No worries. But, I am curious how your view has changed, if it's not too much to ask?
Sure! But it'll take some explaining.
In the process of running Season 0 and 1 stuff, I've seen a ton of faction missions... really, a pretty overwhelming number of faction missions. So my thoughts on the faction system back then was really tied to the missions.
I feel like, as more missions have to be added to a scenario, two things happen: the scenario necessarily gets more complex and the more you have to stretch for hooks. So the groups are "paying" more for the missions in terms of prep and table time, but actually getting less good missions. I think moving away from every faction having a mission every scenario was a great decision.
So that's basically where I was. But, on further thought, there are a lot of things outside the faction missions themselves that were really cool. Getting handouts is always cool and made the factions have impact at the table. The leadership showing up, like Torch, adds a lot to the players' connections to the faction. And some of the missions, even ones that were probably added to fill out the factions, end up being really cool.
To sum it up, I went from "the new way of handling factions is a strict upgrade" to "the new way of handling factions is better, but there is some stuff that'd be cool to pull over."
Like I mentioned, I'm really not even interested in SFS, only posting here in hope that PFS itself will improve, (at least in my view). :P
Yeah, even if SFS isn't your cup of tea, there should be some good cross-pollination.
But you're missing out on all the sweet space battles and laser swords :P
Cheers!
Landon
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I really like the chronicle boons. Whether they are one-shot (reroll a single attack roll) or all time (get a +1 on diplomacy vs grippli). Please keep them around.
When I receive a chronicle with no chronicle boon on it I am a little disappointed. The experience that my character has just gone through should form him / her, and not only with regard to XP and PP.
Currently the system can be gamed by applying all GM boons that give a certain bonus to a single character. My bard has a lot of circumstantial modifiers on diplomacy with different people / at different locations. If this is to prevented that could easily be done by creating a special modifier category "boon" that does not stack.
When we are in a very difficult combat and are all riffling through our boons to see where we can get that additional edge: love it!
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I really like the chronicle boons. Whether they are one-shot (reroll a single attack roll) or all time (get a +1 on diplomacy vs grippli). Please keep them around.
When I receive a chronicle with no chronicle boon on it I am a little disappointed. The experience that my character has just gone through should form him / her, and not only with regard to XP and PP.
Currently the system can be gamed by applying all GM boons that give a certain bonus to a single character. My bard has a lot of circumstantial modifiers on diplomacy with different people / at different locations. If this is to prevented that could easily be done by creating a special modifier category "boon" that does not stack.
When we are in a very difficult combat and are all riffling through our boons to see where we can get that additional edge: love it!
It really depends for me. I play a lot of Silver Crusade, and secondarily Liberty's or Edge Scarab Sages, and most of those tend to be very lack luster. More of what I can already do or something that's probably never gong to even come up. Similarly with the very generic Faction Cards.
To me, that's terrible design. On the other hand, I can see why fans of the Grand Lodge and the Darkive would actually like them, as both of those tend to be very favored on basically all accounts.
It also just doesn't make any sense to me why 90% of those Faction Only Boons only apply to a given Faction. Wait, so I've literally saved not only the Blakros' family and heirs on multiple occasions, and their famous museum only stands because I did some stuff, but they want to give Draleen's slaves a pat on the back, just because.
:P
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Not sure how tech and magic items are going to work in Starfinder, but maybe expand the always available list. Expand it to include more of the weakest versions of the most common items. Things like the equivalents of +1 rings of protection, +1 cloaks of resistance, and +2 stat items.
I feel the exact opposite.
I think that always available and even fame chart should only include some very, very basic magic.
Special Materials should be restricted by Fame at the very least if not restricted to chronicle access (that being said, chronicle access should be for a lump of adamantine to make whatever you want out of it, not just an adamantine axe or whatever.)
And regardless of fame level, characters should not be able to just buy whatever items they want and work those into their build plans.
I feel this is why we see a large amount of power creep in PFS.
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Off the top of my head:
1) Longer more engaging storylines. PFS has a few 2 or 3 part storylines but I want more. PFS does well enough with one-off episodic stories but it really struggles with maintaining an interesting long-term narrative.
2) Chronicles/rewards that matter. I realize the campaign admins are in a tough spot. On one hand, they need to help sell books and making feats/archetypes/etc available sells books. On the other hand, it's hard to make chronicles relevant when everything's open access. In PFS's later seasons' chronicles are a lot more interesting but they still rarely provide any kind of worthwhile rewards.
3) A convincing villain/threat. I know PFS was started with the notion that the Society was, as a whole, more knowledge-focused and mercenary but I miss the good-vs-evil heroics that was more common in Living Greyhawk and Living Forgotten Realms. In PFS the villains are often underwhelming, non-threatening, or just not compelling.
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A three parter takes up over twenty percent of the first years output. I suspect the design brief for first year would be different types of starfinder adventures. If you want a story arc go for the adventure path. The first year has an awful lot of heavy lifting to do. Let's not try to run before we can walk.