We are starting a new group. My vision is to keep the sessions Society legal (both Path/Star) so the characters can also be played at official events locally and also give a feel of growth. Primary goal however is to use a lot of the published AP content also starting with Dead Suns and Runelords. One, because its been years since I have GM'd and Two, they look great!
I am extremely confused however of how advancement works with society legal characters with AP's. If they can only level once per module, how can they keep up with the level curve of the campaign?? Dead Suns 2 starts at level 2, right? Or am I reading this wrong and it is supposed to be every part, not every module? I do understand you can apply credit to a legal toon later, but what I envisioned was possibly running into scenario like Commencement and then going straight into Suns book 1 and straight through that module. It seems very story breaking to have to stop and do random adventures in between just to continue where you left off in an Adventure path, especially when we are starting way behind and want to get through some of these AP's from years and months ago.
Can someone please clarify?
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I have no experience with PFS so I cannot, in any way speak to that.
There are two modes for the APs in SFS. The first is 'Event Mode' in which the AP volume is played as if it were an SFS scenario with SFS legal characters. In this case, the characters must already be in tier, and they don't get a chronicle until the end of the AP volume and that chronicle provides them with enough XP et al to advance a single level.
If you're going to play it in event mode, you do in deed need to play other scenarios between the adventure volumes with those society characters in order to level them up. The tiers for each volume start on the odd levels, (DS1 is Tier 1-2, DS2 is Tier 3-4 and so on) but they don't provide enough experience to get you to the next tier. This generally doesn't make sense for an ongoing campaign, and will cause some pretty weird story breaks and possible TPK's, but if it's what you and your players want to do, yes, you will need to work in other missions between the AP volumes.
The other mode for the APs in SFS is 'Campaign Mode'. In this mode, you just play through the APs like you would normally. At the end of each AP volume, you provide your players with a chronicle as if they had played the AP volume with a pre-gen. That chronicle gets applied to a SFS legal character in the appropriate tier (or held for that character if they aren't in the appropriate level range yet). In campaign mode, the characters in the AP do not have to be SFS legal, and the GM is free to introduce their own house rules.
Outside of the occasional 'Dead Suns in a Day' events where people attempt to play through all of Incident at Absalom Station in a single sitting (or similar events with AAT1), I don't see anyone playing the AP's in Event Mode. The fact that you can't level the characters through them makes them extremely dangerous and, as mentioned above, you can't really flow from one story to the next. The event mode games are usually played with characters at the high end of the tier (so 2nd level for DS1), because of this, but they don't have to be.
I'm currently running (and playing) both Dead Suns and AAT in Campaign Mode. I'd recommend going that route rather than trying to play through it in Event Mode.
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Or am I reading this wrong and it is supposed to be every part, not every module?
Every book earns 3XP. AP1 is 3XP, AP2 is 3XP, AP3 is 3XP, etc.
pithica42 already covered this, but to summarize you have two options:
1) Run in society mode with society PCs. You'll need to run 3 scenarios between each book to keep them in-tier, but as society agents this makes sense. There's certainly great choices for SFS scenarios between Dead Suns books.
2) Run in campaign mode with homebrew PCs. They can be any race, including 3rd party content, can use house rules, and play through the AP books back to back as intended. Chronicle sheets apply to separate society PCs effectively resulting in the society PCs skipping every other level.
For Dead Suns, I'd suggest the following narrative order:
Level 1: Quests: Into the Unknown, #1-03: Yesteryear's Truth, #1-18: The Blackmoon Survey
Level 2: AP1: Incident at Absalom Station
Level 3: #1–24: Siege of Enlightenment, #1-08: Sanctuary of Drowned Delight, #1-15: Save the Renkrodas
Level 4: AP2: Temple of the Twelve
Level 5: #1-06: A Night in Nightarch, #1–21: Yesteryear's Sorrow, #1–25: The Beacon Code Dilemma
Level 6: AP3: Splintered Worlds
Level 7: #1-19: To Conquer the Dragon, #1–35: Rasheen's Riches, #1–37: Siege of Civility
Level 8: AP4: The Ruined Clouds
Level 9: AP5: The Thirteenth Gate
Level 10: Three future tier 7-10 scenarios
Level 11: AP6: Empire of Bones
The tier 7-10 are the most difficult here since all of these released so far are connected with the main season plotline which I specifically avoided in this list. Trying to run that on the same PCs playing through Dead Suns would tier them out really fast.
But you can run most of these for different PCs and the bolded ones for the Dead Suns society PCs to cover the level 10 gap.
Season 1: #1-05, #1-11, #1-13, #1-17, #1-99, #1-23, #1-29, #1-31, #1-34, #1-39, #2-00
Salvation's End: #1-00, #1-05, #1-09, #1-20
Azlanti: AP7, AP8, AP9, #1–27: King Xeros of Star Azlant
The Board: #1-01, #1-07, #1-14, #1-33, #1-38
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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As Arc Riley shows, "it can be done", but I would advise against trying to play in Event Mode. It really breaks up the narrative of the adventure path for the PCs to just wander off to go do some side adventure to grind for XP. By the end of the second book of the AP at the latest, you should have a clue that you're doing something very important, hot on the heels of people with very bad plans. It makes no sense to just go do something else for three sessions.
What pithica alluded to is the big and better alternative. You can play the adventure path, and sort of as a side effect, get chronicles worth XP. You can use those to give your SFS PCs a head start. You can build more or less the same character in SFS but you don't have to, if you'd rather try something else as well that's fine.
So how does it work with XP in the adventure path? There's two ways to go about it:
A) the classic way. Each monster is worth XP, and some story challenges and puzzles and traps are also worth XP. If you're following the standard route through the story you should run into enough of them that you'll have gained enough XP to level up at about the time the encounters get harder. You should expect to level up halfway through each book and at the end of it. If you don't, then the GM should add some more random encounters or sidequests.
B) the newer way, often called Milestone Leveling. Each book of the adventure path has a table in the beginning telling the GM where in the story the PCs should be about what level. When you use Milestones, each time the PCs reach those points, they go level up. You don't track XP at all.
I'm a big fan of the Milestone approach because:
* You don't lose XP for ignoring distractions/sidequests/random encounters and focusing on the main quest.
* It's easier for the GM to remove an encounter they don't like, without messing up the PCs XP.
* As a player you're not constantly counting up your XP, thinking "if I slay ten more boars I'll go level up before facing the endboss and that'll be easier".
* There's no problem if a player misses a session and isn't there for some encounters.
* You'll always be at the right level to face the challenges as designed by the author.
So what we do locally is that people play the AP in "campaign mode", leveling up at the milestones. At the end of each book, they get a chronicle and apply that to a character they like. My friend has remade her AP character in SFS, I didn't. And that's fine, it's a nice flexible system.
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My SFS AP group does it a little more unusually. We only do 1-day adventure paths, but are going through more than one path at once to keep our characters leveled.
Level 1: Reach of the Empire
2: Incident at Absolom Station
3: Temple of the Twelve
4: Escape from the Prison Moon
5: Rune Drive Gambit
6: Shattered Worlds
We just got to level 7, so it's prospective from this point:
7: Diaspora Strain
8: Ruined Clouds
9: Penumbra Protocol
10: 13th Gate
11: Heart of Night
12: Empire of Bones
We have been able to do them in a way that makes pretty good sense so far, though I suspect that there will be cognitive dissonance when we get to the climaxes of both Dead Suns & Signal of Screams.
Still, it's a pretty fun endurance trial, and an opportunity for us to go nuts on character specialization in a way that's normally difficult to do in Society play.
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As Arc Riley shows, "it can be done", but I would advise against trying to play in Event Mode. It really breaks up the narrative of the adventure path for the PCs to just wander off to go do some side adventure to grind for XP.
I wouldn't phrase it like that.
They're society agents and running scenarios between APs is a way to continue to tie them into that. Instead of moving from one AP directly to the other, you just use the natural breaks between the books for the society to research next step.
One of my largest complaints about the Dead Suns series is the whole "Welcome, new Starfinder Society Agents" bit is largely forgotten after part 1 of the first book.
That is kinda what started this whole post / thread. I plan on running The Commencement first and go straight into Dead Suns. It seems the natural path of my limited knowledge. I know next to nothing about the story of other scenarios. I kinda dig what Riley is suggesting. It seems the fact there was a pause between books being published, that there was some sort of break in the story. It might be fun to look into coming up with a seamless (or acceptable) segue.
So, a bit off topic side step, but you mention seasonal story lines, this is one of the other questions I have. How do you pick what to run? I am guessing you want to hit those main seasonal story lines for sure (APs aside for the moment) but what about faction based and others? I can't imagine it is common to have a group that picks all the same faction, but what's in it for the other players just to run it for one or two others? Or should I actually discuss this with the group to pick a faction together?
Maybe as our normal group, hit primary story lines and then at the wider local events, hit up the faction runs each want?
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#1-01: The Commencement links better with #1-07, #1-14, #1-33, and #1-38. I call this "The Board" plotline which begins with the Star Sugar Heartlove!!! album you get in #1-01 and learning about the conspiracy in #1-07, which beautifully connect at the concert in #1-14.
To help with the survivability of AP1 try to get your players PCs to level 2 before running AP1. The difference between level 1 and 2 PCs is a huge step and the final encounter can be deadly for 4 level 1 PCs.
I'd suggest the order I posted above to get there. Quests: Into the Unknown is a great introduction for first-time players with level 1 PCs. In it they recover information leading to #1-03: Yesteryear's Truth which is a solid first contact scenario and IMHO what being a Starfinder is all about. Lastly #1-18: The Blackmoon Survey is really relevant to AP1 part 2 and later to AP3 when the party will return to Eox.
#1-18 leaves these existing Starfinder agents returning to Absalom Station which is where AP1 kicks off. Just modify the final part of #1-18 to discussing the outcome with Venture-Captain Arvin over comms while returning to the station, and end it with Arvin: "Ok, I see your shuttle will land in Docking Bay 94 momentarily. Since that's a rough part of the station I've sent a guide to meet you, he's a dwarf by the name of Duravor Kreel." Then finish the #1-18 debriefing with Arvin after they meet with Chiskisk.
Similarly, #1-08 and #1-15 are a great two-parter that naturally leads to AP2 - which can be a miserable hellscape.
Final tip, the three goblins from AP1 part 2 should be one of the bystanders in AP1's first encounter. They don't have weapons but one of them is shot and needs medical attention. When station security arrives they first assume the goblins were behind it. This typically leads to the PCs helping/defending the goblins and humanizes them, helping both to connect part 1 to part 2 and to guide the PCs into treating the goblins as citizens, not monsters when they encounter them again. This tiny flavor shift also softens the player's introduction to undead being citizens later in AP1.
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Dead Suns has a really tight narrative arc with a clear deadline pervading the entire story (well, from book 2 onward). There are no real breaks in the story. It's going to cause some cognitive dissonance to be told one minute, "The big bad is about to blow up the universe, hurry!" and the next, "Ignore the fate of the universe and go to this concert instead." That might work for some groups, I would make sure it works for yours before considering it.
While there are potential gaps between some of the books, Book 2 immediately follows book 1 and Book 6 immediately follows Book 5. There's no place for downtime or side quests between either transition. There's a very real risk, even if you hold off on doing DS1 until level 2, that the characters won't be able to survive DS2 at level 3. The same is true with book 5-6. You can almost certainly get through book 5 at level 10, but at level 11, the end game on book 6 might TPK the party.
Others have obviously made it work, but they're also really experienced GM's who really know the storyline and how the game works. I wouldn't recommend this plan for a new GM starting with a new group. I think you're much better off playing in campaign mode.
That's my 2cr. That being said, it's your game, so if you do decide to do it, I hope it works out for you.
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Dead Suns has a really tight narrative arc with a clear deadline pervading the entire story (well, from book 2 onward). There are no real breaks in the story. It's going to cause some cognitive dissonance to be told one minute, "The big bad is about to blow up the universe, hurry!" and the next, "Ignore the fate of the universe and go to this concert instead." That might work for some groups, I would make sure it works for yours before considering it.
I agree, the AP books need some adjustment in their interconnections to make this work. The sense of urgency is broken up by other missions, but most of the books have natural breaking points that accommodate for this.
AP1 to AP2, you're left with the Sunrise Maiden at the end of AP1 but instead of being attacked immediately (Hostile Witness, AP2) they're able to return to the station and get debriefed. As new Starfinder Society agents their lives return to normal and they go on other missions completely unaware of the threat to the galaxy.
AP2 instead begins with returning to Absalom Station from Castrovel (#1-15: Save the Renkrodas) and are attacked en-route (Hostile Witness). The video from the Acreon was distributed while they were on their last mission.
AP2 to AP3, you're left knowing there's Devourer cults elsewhere in the Pact Worlds, and the transmission was to somewhere in the Diaspora - but its a big place and will take the Starfinder Society some time to narrow your search. Chiskisk will meet with them after returning from #1-25 and provide the society's analysis of the narrowed location within The Diaspora leading them to the events of AP3.
AP3 to AP4, the drift coordinates of Nejeor are unfortunately encrypted and will require the Dataphiles some time to decipher it. At the beginning of AP4 the coordinates are unlocked and AP4 begins from Absalom Station after a brief meeting with either Chiskisk or Historia-7.
... and so on.
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I don't think you're allowed to make adjustments like that in event mode. Event Mode explicitly states that all Society Rules must be followed and one of those rules is that you have to run the scenario as written. It's so strict I honestly don't understand why anyone does it. Especially with Dead Suns, as it was written before the rules were finalized and really needs adjustments.
I don't think this is a problem for most of the books as most of them have a 'You can return to Absalom Station here, but stress urgency' at the end and/or beginning. A few of them even mention downtime you take while the society or some other ally does research on your behalf. So there are gaps you could exploit to put in other scenarios.
But neither the transition between 1 and 2 nor 5 and 6 have that. Those two pairs are essentially written as if they were one big volume with the very first thing happening in book 2 happening immediately after the last thing in book 1. Five to Six is even worse than 1-2.
In event mode, I think you have to run those transitions back to back.
I think this can be done. I just don't think it should be a recommendation for a new GM/Party's first experience with the game. It might work. Or they might find themselves TPK'd by a ship full of Akatas or a random OP Solarian (or two).
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I don't think you're allowed to make adjustments like that in event mode. Event Mode explicitly states that all Society Rules must be followed and one of those rules is that you have to run the scenario as written.
There's a lot of disagreement over how much flexibility society GMs have.
IMHO - and how we have always held in society play locally - you don't mess with combat encounters. You don't mess with skill checks or other scenario mechanics. But you can absolutely adjust flavor and flesh the story out where things aren't detailed to the contrary.
Specific to this discussion you can very much make flavor adjustments to the beginning and end of adventures, especially APs, to tie them into personal and group narratives. It has zero effect on the difficulty of the scenario, but the personalized touches are what brings society play to life.
For example, if the group at your #1-03 table just played Quests: Into the Unknown at your last session, you can absolutely have Arvin frame the mission as following up on the data they just recovered. Even red text can and should be adjusted slightly where its common sense to do so, so on #1-03 page 4 instead of "The starship that discovered it..." Arvin might say "According to the data you recovered, the starship that discovered it...".
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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I don't think you're allowed to make adjustments like that in event mode. Event Mode explicitly states that all Society Rules must be followed and one of those rules is that you have to run the scenario as written. It's so strict I honestly don't understand why anyone does it. Especially with Dead Suns, as it was written before the rules were finalized and really needs adjustments.
I think "run as written" is overinterpreted to be stricter than it is really meant to be. Consider the text about it in the Guild Guide:
TABLE VARIATION
While the goal of the Starfinder Society Roleplaying Guild is to provide an even, balanced experience to all players, doing so would require all PCs to be exactly the same and all GMs to be restricted to a stiflingly oppressive script. We understand that sometimes a Game Master has to make rules adjudications on the fly, deal with unexpected player choices, or even cope with extremely unlucky (or lucky) dice on both sides of the screen.Scenarios are meant to be run as written, with no addition or subtraction to the number of creatures (unless indicated in the scenario), or changes to armor, feats, items, skills, spells, starships, statistics, or weapons. However, if the actions of the PCs before or during an encounter invalidate the provided tactics or starting locations, the GM should consider whether changing these would provide a more enjoyable play experience.
As a Starfinder Society Roleplaying Guild GM, you have the right and responsibility to make whatever judgments, within the rules, that you feel are necessary at your table to ensure everyone has a fair and fun experience. This does not mean you can contradict rules or restrictions outlined in this document, a published Starfinder RPG source, errata document, or official FAQ on paizo. com. What it does mean is that only you can judge what is right for your table during cases not covered in these sources.
Additionally, the GM may consider utilizing terrain and environmental conditions when those effects have been written into the flavor of a scenario but the mechanics that are normally associated with them by the Starfinder Core Rulebook have not been added to the encounters. GMs are always encouraged to reward role-playing when adjudicating the reactions of NPCs or the outcome of in-game encounters.
GMs may use other Starfinder sources to add flavor to the scenario, but may not change the mechanics of encounters. Specifically, the mechanics of an encounter are the creatures presented, the number of opponents in the encounter, and the information written into the stat blocks for those opponents. If an encounter is a trap, or skill check that needs to be achieved to bypass a situation, then the listed DCs and results are not to be altered, as they are the mechanics of that encounter. Additionally, if an encounter already includes mechanical effects of terrain, weather, or hazards, please be aware that these things are also considered mechanics that may not be altered. Roleplaying Guild GMs cannot ban legal character options at public events.
CREATIVE SOLUTIONS
(...)
But what if your players accidentally or intentionally kill an important NPC who was supposed to give them a crucial piece of information that’s needed for the scenario to progress? This is a tough problem for the GM and requires improvisation. Don’t decide the scenario is over just because the old man with the letter was caught in a crossfire and roasted alive by laser rifles, destroying both him and the important letter. Reveal that the letter survived by some freakish miracle (it was in a fireproof augmentation in his arm!) or maybe that the old man had a lackey who was watching from a nearby alley and knows everything the old man did, or another similar explanation. Improvisation will keep your scenario moving forward and help you work around unforeseen obstacles.
It looks to me that the primary meaning of "run as written" is: "don't change the mechanics". Don't contradict what is written. It's okay to massage the story a bit to make it come out better. Almost every bit of box text says "read aloud or paraphrase this". If something goes horribly wrong, move the plot-critical clue around a bit so the story doesn't end.
There are a few scenarios in PFS that specifically want you to play them with nothing in between (Rats of Round Mountain, Eyes of the Ten; to a lesser degree To Judge A Soul). Others have text about playing them straight in one line but that has been later relaxed (The Devil We Know). In the absence of an explicit instruction that all AP volumes must be run with no interruptions or air gaps, I don't think it's breaking the rules to massage them a bit to intersperse enough scenarios to keep the XP at intended levels.
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I don't think you're allowed to make adjustments like that in event mode. Event Mode explicitly states that all Society Rules must be followed and one of those rules is that you have to run the scenario as written. It's so strict I honestly don't understand why anyone does it. Especially with Dead Suns, as it was written before the rules were finalized and really needs adjustments.
I don't think this is a problem for most of the books as most of them have a 'You can return to Absalom Station here, but stress urgency' at the end and/or beginning. A few of them even mention downtime you take while the society or some other ally does research on your behalf. So there are gaps you could exploit to put in other scenarios.
But neither the transition between 1 and 2 nor 5 and 6 have that. Those two pairs are essentially written as if they were one big volume with the very first thing happening in book 2 happening immediately after the last thing in book 1. Five to Six is even worse than 1-2.
** spoiler omitted **
In event mode, I think you have to run those transitions back to back.
I think this can be done. I just don't think it should be a recommendation for a new GM/Party's first experience with the game. It might work. Or they might find themselves TPK'd by a ship full of Akatas or a random OP Solarian (or two).
Technically you don't have to do squat in regards to the transitions. You could play through Dead Suns 5 and then just never play 6, move on to something else (should level 11 adventures ever be released). You could just do Dead Suns 6 (or Signal of Screams 3, or whatever) solo. It takes some suspension of disbelief, sure, but the rules don't decree that you are locked into anything, except during the bounds of a particular adventure.
We have been tinkering with reality-warping explanations for certain discrepancies, particularly since we used a playtest Witchwarper for one of the books, and another book had some dimension-warping stuff happen.
Quite frankly, I don't think it is a good idea for an event-mode group to jump right from Dead Suns 5 to Dead Suns 6. Being underleveled in the endgame seems like it would be suicide. Better to just have the team fall into an alternate dimension for a little bit, have an adventure, and fall back to the exact place and time they left originally.
If you are familiar with Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion books, this happens all the time when the multiverse needs heroes to team up to fight existential threats. They find themselves sailing into some mist, meeting other champions and having a huge adventure, and then sail out of the mist barely remembering the event, as if it were a dream.