I would make one where the PCs are in charge of colonizing a new (unexplored) planet. Sort of like Kingmaker in space.
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I would make one where the PCs are in charge of colonizing a new (unexplored) planet. Sort of like Kingmaker in space.
Good news! That's the plot of horizons of the vast.
I've always toyed with the idea of a near immediately post gap adventure where the PCs wake up in the drift and have to deal with a lot of confused outsiders and other ships who all got sucked in as the drift was created.
I'd like to see more exploration of the Pact Worlds.
But to the question: What's stopping any of us from creating one?
I really enjoyed watching the X.T.R.E.M. adventure. That would be a fun AP, have them roleplay interviews and fans, pick who is endorsing them. I really like the Xcrawl design to adventure, but the modules don't convert well to the starfinder setting.
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I'd love a proper heist + cyberpunk adventure, with expanded/fixed hacking rules, lots of high quality joint-casing, infosphere sleuthing, and so on. And then really high quality infiltrations.
What I've found from existing Starfinder "heist-themed" adventures is that they always account for the 4x soldiers team. You can always break in and do a bunch of combats and get out. I'd want a heist adventure where straight up fights are deeply inadvisable.
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Grav-Train definitely sparked the thought for me because I'm playing it right now. It's an A+ adventure, but its small size means it cuts out all the juicy investigation leading up to the heist, and though it has some options in approach, it's pretty linear. The structure is more "here's the plan, let's execute it" and less a "how do you achieve your goal given what you know" sandbox. It's otherwise really good though.
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Starfinder is pretty overdue for a cyberpunk, urban, possibly-corporate intrigue kind of AP - Shadowrun is one of its big influences after all, it'd be really cool to have an homage to that kind of thing.
Plop it on Absalom Station, Verces or Apostae and have minimal starship involvement - though potentially with a permanent vehicle in its place, to spice things up.
Another big niche not yet handled by existing APs would be something post-apocalyptic - scavenging ruins, fighting mutated wasteland creatures and other survivor bands (or perhaps entering uneasy alliances), protecting and building up either a stationary settlement or a nomadic convoy - loads of fun possibilities.
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I'd love a proper heist + cyberpunk adventure, with expanded/fixed hacking rules, lots of high quality joint-casing, infosphere sleuthing, and so on. And then really high quality infiltrations.
What I've found from existing Starfinder "heist-themed" adventures is that they always account for the 4x soldiers team. You can always break in and do a bunch of combats and get out. I'd want a heist adventure where straight up fights are deeply inadvisable.
I feel this! The rules, as they are, are not gret for this premise, though - once a combat starts or a PC is spotted, it's basically impossible for an alarm not to be raised, considering everyone has a comm unit integrated into their armour. Even things like comm jammers are fairly indiscriminate and should tip off guards to their presence once activated. Even accounting for like, Subtle sniper rifles and such, it all comes down to "can the party incapacitate all guards within 1 surprise round." If not, it's a given that the first thing competent guards will do is radio in to sound the alarm. And NPCs are designed with enough HP that dropping them in 1 Surprise Round is challenging, especially if there's >1 NPC.
I understand that Mark of the Mantis has some really slick mechanics for stealth, investigating a location, and preparing for obstacles, which circumvents a lot of those problems. I wonder if that could be applied to a Starfinder heisty stealthy adventure? Or, bring in some sort of 4E-style "minion" concept for guards, so that it's plausible (and maybe even expected) to be able to take out a foe in 1 or 2 shots, rather than however-many 'hits' an at-APL foe is supposed to be able to absorb?
I think one clear answer is that guards at the door should be APL-4 or lower. It takes a lot of manpower to cover a whole building, so most of your guards are there more to raise the alarm than serve as a credible defense. Then you have more elite defenses to handle the threats themselves (APL+4 or higher).
In my imagination, a heist target would have many different infiltration angles, including more than one that would bypass guards entirely.
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I’m begging for a Dominion of the Black storyline. It’s wild to me that one hasn’t happened yet - the signature space baddies of Pathfinder are almost nowhere to be found in Space Pathfinder?
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I'll be honest, a lot of my various "itches" for Starfinder stories are already scratched by various APs already, like Horizons of the Vast for my space city building itch, Attack of the Swarm! for my Mass-Effect-military-style itch, and Fly Free or Die for my working-class-hero-in-space itch.
One of the only itches left is something that's probably too niche for a full six book AP; a Grand Prix storyline in the vein of F-Zero, Speed Racer or the podrace sequence in The Phantom Menace, where the players get to customize their own cool racing vehicle, meet a colorful cast of alien racer NPCs, and race on a variety of different tracks on different worlds, each with their own unique environments and obstacles! Side-stories involving drama between racers, sponsors and other personalities, people trying to get the PCs to throw a race or sabotage them!
I feel like it'd be a very, VERY hard concept to pull off for a number of reasons, though: it depends on the GM doing a lot of the legwork for all the other racers and everyone else attached to the racing scene, it doesn't leave much room for the mandatory space combat encounters, there'd need to be a way for every PC to be involved in the race sequences besides just the player in the driver's seat, and even then, having them all do the same thing each race would get boring, even if the locations and hazards change each time, so I'm not sure there'd be enough "story" to fill even a 3-part AP, let alone a 6-part one...
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I think for the race idea it would depend if you want the entire path focused on the race itself or as mentioned multiple races. I think doing more then 2 maybe 3 would wear thin in a lot of peoples eyes but the PCs might start as additional workers for one of the teams, doing some security. Maybe some engineering work to ensure the racer is up to scratch and detect sabotage. Working out who did said work and eventually for maybe the last half of the races, the race teams driver is unavailable (Quit, bribed, threatened, dead) you can have one of the PCs take over.
Bonus stuff could include learning the other teams plans/tactics, promoting your own team
Sometimes I think I want a three-part AP where the PCs are a band or holo-actors or such, rising through the (often physically dangerous) entertainment industries of the Pact Worlds and beyond, but then I think I just want some toolbox content that adapts Fly Free or Die's galactic trade rules to producing entertainment content (concerts, holovids), etc.
I gotta admit, the Nascar-style campaign suggested in SOM sounds like a ton of fun...
The PCs begin this campaign as rookie starship pilots in a popular Pact Worlds racing circuit that includes Skydock on Verces, Arl on the planet Akiton, and Triaxus’s city of Zo. These in-atmosphere races use single-pilot racing fighters made by Redshift Revolution, Terminator, and other specialized firms. As the PCs strive to build their reputation as rising stars, they’re contacted by a mysterious person claiming to represent an unnamed corporate interest. This contact tells them of a terrorist plot to destroy a notable landmark, such as the space elevator on Verces. The attack could injure or kill thousands. Clues indicate prominent members of the local racing scene are involved in the plot, and the mysterious contact asks the PCs to assist in the investigation by monitoring (spying on) the competitors.
A Mech AP, or an AP with alternate ship rules where all the players control a capital ship and you get crew stats that you use in conjunction with your own so each person can act as an entire crew.
I’m begging for a Dominion of the Black storyline. It’s wild to me that one hasn’t happened yet - the signature space baddies of Pathfinder are almost nowhere to be found in Space Pathfinder?
I was going to suggest that as well. I figure each book could take place on a different planet controlled by them, with the final book being on their "capital" planet, and the PCs would get to kill one of the 5 leaders.
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I would have an AP where most of it takes place in the same planet/city/station so stakes are easier to establish, reason to care is greater, and characters can reoccur easier.
@NameViolation
I agree with your suggestion, adding to it probably the crash occurs after a drift drive malfunctioning during transfer back to normal space, exiting into an unknown world in the vast. It also damages the drift drive significantly enough that it can't be fixed without uncovering some relatively rare components. (at least rare on this world)
After a book or two they might be able to repair the ship enough to use it to travel along the planet. After another one or two they gain capability to travel up to the world's moon(s)/ring(s)/satellite(s)/station(s).
Might introduce a planetary gate somewhere in one book, allowing them to jump personally to a new world to get another component. Maybe that world might be littered with some 'mechs' and giant robot monsters. that might be guarding useful components.
The end of the AP you finally get to then end and discover someone trapped you in the system... responsible for your getting pulled there. Turns out they are trapped and are hoping for a rescue. [do the players assume the person responsible for pulling them and creating the situation that trapped them, is evil?]
The individual needing rescued has the last component needed to fix the drift drive, and they can then finally leave and return 'heroes' or at least potentially more wealthy now they know where a system that can be scavenged from.
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Ooh -- Escape from Daegox-4.
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That's an awesome idea, Loreguard!! To take your premise and run with it a bit, in an Organised Play direction:
(Also, just in case it's of interest, the "crash down and survive on a weird planet" idea is the premise for Society Scenario 3-01: Crashdown. It's just a scenario, not a full AP, but it may scratch that itch?)
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The adventure that I always wanted to play for Starfinder would be a homage to Wizard in Spite of Himself/Warlock of Gramarye by Christopher Stasheff.
PCs crash land on a planet that never left medieval times, using primarily magic with very limited technology, similar to Old Golarion.
The ship itself is a huge science vessel, so there's adventures related to what the PCs brought with them by accident (lab creature escapes, disease, etc.). The ship also has UPB stashes and fabricators so the party can upgrade their equipment without relying on local stuff entirely. Needless to say, using lasers and plasma guns and flame doshkos and whatnot give the PCs a rep as magicians of a sort.
The PCs get introduced to various planetary factions which try to claim their ship and the secrets within. Politics ensues.
Perhaps they meet other stranded (or not so stranded) space travelers, or find the facility of some ancient spacefarers, possibly leading to the mystery of the planet, and why it resembles Golarion.
Anyway I figure now that we have Galactic Magic it would be a good time for this adventure path, since even nanocytes can now lean into the magic part of the setting and archery is a valid combat style.
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given that there are massive space stations / space ships out there, you could set a whole AP where the PCs are salvagers on one of these abandoned titans. they'd have to find out its origins, battle off rival gangs, defend their prize against pirates, face its traps and guardians, and at the end, the original owners might come back... could be a great 3-parter.
I already have two ideas for Starfinder Infinite content rattling around in my head that I aim to write if I ever lose my job in the next 3 years:
1st is "Realm of the Mech Lords" which is exactly what it sounds like - a Starfinder sourcebook for what happened to the Mammoth Lords in the far future and where they went, making callbacks to the "Quest for the Frozen Flame" AP and using the info in there that elaborates on their cultures. And mechs, obviously.
The 2nd is "The Wyld Hunt", an AP about an outlaw MC called the Wyld Hunt based on Akiton.
For folks asking for mech stuff - did you see the new Adventure that was announced (To Defy the Dragon) where everyone gets a mech?
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Another thing that I'd like to either make (or see made) would be something akin to Renraku: Shutdown but as a mega-dungeon for Starfinder.
You're trapped in an arcology on its opening day, and you have to find your way out through various floors filled with killer robots and body horror.
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For folks asking for mech stuff - did you see the new Adventure that was announced (To Defy the Dragon) where everyone gets a mech?
YES. I SHALL JOIN WITH THE DRAGON AND CRUSH ANY WHO DEFY US UNDER MY METALLIC CLAW. THEN I SHALL DESTROY THE DRAGON IF IT DOES NOT PLEDGE SERVITUDE TO ME, THE NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION.
It would be bad. I'm not a talented person.
If I could make an AP, what would it be like?
Two words: Time travel.
If I could make an AP, what would it be like?
Two words: Time travel.
Oh ya. I love time travel stories. How would it work? I'm guessing someone would invent a time machine. As for why they haven't been invented before, maybe they require some really rare exotic fuel that's only found on one planet.
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They have been invented - in the future.
For an AP, how about, you wake up in a stasis bed. You know more or less who you are up to a certain age, but you don't know why you are where you are. You wake up with several others in a stasis bed/medical bay. You aren't allowed out until the droids give you a clear medical report (which is close to just time spent) but even if the droids get destroyed, the door will eventually unlock. You appear to be a crew of a ship. But the computer/robots refuse to provide you with any information/communication from outside the room.
When you do get out, you find the ship outside is badly damaged. There are potentially signs of fighting, potentially signs of biohazard conditions, likely even signs that there may have been fighting between members of the ships crew. (but maybe also signs of some external hostile)
The crew works to get the ship back into control. Works to get their memory back, and look for their way home. (or maybe this is a colony ship, and the end will require fighting to carve out a space for the colonists to be able to survive on the surface of their new home.
There are plenty of potential hidden truths that could be under the story. Maybe it was actually a prison ship, holding frozen political dissidents that were stashed away, and the original society decided it was time to dispose of the no longer needed non-conforming citizens and so they were being sent to be decommissioned and some 'agents' managed to redirect the ship but died achieving it.
Alternately, it could be that the stasis beds were an experimental time travel device that the current colonists decedents finally managed to finalize. They send you back in time, to be the saviors of their history. Armed with the knowledge to make the future an even better place since you know what mistakes you made. What wasn't known was that your brain undergoes a strange change through time travel and you forget such details. And this explains why in your history of your past, you made decisions that appeared to be mistakes to those from the future.
But the question is, will you meet the destiny of saving your people, or will you prove time travel doesn't work, and doom your future to an untold story that they will never know they had it better. (or was it worse, who knows)
Or maybe you were intended to be the Coupe de Grace destroying the ship... being a planted team of insurgents/spies intending to destroy this colony after the ship goes into lockdown due to the arranged set of catastrophe's it was set upon with. However, a glitch causes them to lose their recent memory and mission profile. This leaves them only with the 'covert/cover' information of the team being the 'trouble' team to take care of, an fix the ship and get things back/right in the end. Leaving them until the end before they have a chance to understand 'who' they were really before the mission, and what the original goals were. Do they about face and honor their original goals, or do they honor who they have since chosen to become, and continue to save the lives of all those they have met and become friends with?
(sorry if I am giving too many spoilers for the concepts)
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Oh ya. I love time travel stories. How would it work? I'm guessing someone would invent a time machine. As for why they haven't been invented before, maybe they require some really rare exotic fuel that's only found on one planet.If I could make an AP, what would it be like?
Two words: Time travel.
If we could integrate a Gundam-style military conflict over the source of said fuel, even better.
Now I'm wondering if the Azlanti would have Zakus...| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Battlestar Galactica type campaign for me in some form
Capital ships / CHECK (IE Main Base)
Indivigual Fighters / CHECK (Small and big scale defending, attacking or patrol type scenarios)
Known or new unknown as of yet enemy / CHECK ( What your base is running from, or allies one might be running to for help from the big bad)
Various types and diverse (and flavorfull) ships / CHECK (that could be assembled into the rag tag convoy your capitol ship is protecting and pushing along)
Mechs / CHECK (for away team missions)
Man this could be quite dynamic in my humble opinion, and perfect as the Drift Event is almost upon us, so just regular space travel or risk the entire convoy, as well as your own base ship.........
And then a more traditional Star Trek exploring new/unknown Solar system and even perhaps Galaxy.
We have Vast for planet exploration but scaling up the exploration as we also have this type as well.
Could get a whole lot of variety and quite strange and new things out of this.
**What both of these type campaigns have in common is a nice big ship as your mobile home base (and cool maps!!) Having simple and complex NPC crew members to interact with that live alongside you, along with your PC Party.
The potential is almost endless honestly!!
Tom
Is there already an AP where the players go to a resort planet, only for it to not be the paradise it seems (as it wouldn't be a very interesting AP otherwise)?
There is one that starts that way. Resort asteroid, not planet.
Devastation Ark starts on a resort planet gone haywire just before it opens.
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Is there already an AP where the players go to a resort planet, only for it to not be the paradise it seems (as it wouldn't be a very interesting AP otherwise)?
How about a "posh asteroid resort"?
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AP where the heroes are bounty hunters. Let Paizo writers get creative and use over-the-top, wild, bizarre tropes to toss against the PCs. The criminal underworld, bounty hunter organizations and rivals, mad androids, bring in a Dragon to face justice, the Wild Hunt, assassins and spies, a vital piece of data inside a datajack implanted on a space corgi, hunting a vampire (ala Vampire Hunter D style), etc.
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Another AP idea, the PCs are the employees of a mining operation in the Disapora (totally inspired by Deep Rock Galactic). They have a colorful cast of roughneck NPCs to work with. They have to deal with pirates, the natives, saboteurs, and asteroid monsters.
And then they find clues to where the Axe of the Dwarven Lords (or similar artifact important to dwarves) is hidden. Now it's a treasure hunt to find a relic of dwarven history.
Should include a Starfinder update to the Belt of Dwarvenkind, involve the Hobgoblin empire, a dragon, dangerous mining locations, information on dwarf clans, a visit to the aloof elves, and a pirate crew that keeps hounding after the PCs who are also after the treasure.
This might work better as an adventure or just one part of an adventure path, but I think a Dead Space like horror thing on a Dwarven Sky Citadel ship would be really cool. I know we already had Dead Suns as a horror AP, but that was more Event Horizon than Dead Space.
Essentially the party would be trapped on this citadel during the outbreak and have to open up different areas of the citadel to escape/stop whatever's causing the outbreak. Each major region of the ship could be their own adventure volumes, or this could be a smaller part of another AP.
Keep forgetting to add this: I think there should be a one-shot module based off of Running Man (the movie with Schwartzengger), as ever since I first saw it in 2002 I thought it would make a good DND module, but couldn't really think of how to implement it, since, for one, there are no TVs in DND. The other idea I had was for a Starfinder version of Strength Of Thousands i.e an AP set at a military academy (that also teaches magic and stuff.)
Keep forgetting to add this: I think there should be a one-shot module based off of Running Man (the movie with Schwartzengger)
How about a "posh asteroid resort"?
This place will kill you. The intro the AP is such a slow boil your characters won't know they needed Ghost Killer and bigger guns until it's already too late.
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So I would want to have a campaign that has a strong focus on starship combat, specifically with the party members manning individual fighters instead of the usual Star Trek vibe.
Storywise, it would take place during the early wars of the Veskarium establishing itself on other planets. Specifically, on the planet to-be-named Vesk 6. It would focus on the war between the vesk and the pahtra.
In the spirit of Hell's Vengeance and Hell's Rebels, it would consist of two half-APs that have interweaving timelines. One through the point of view of pahtra defenders, which might have the feel of a Star Fox game. The other side would feature a group of vesk-aligned pilots, and might feel a bit more like an Ace Combat game.
You start off as a ragtag group, salvage/earn better equipment, and deal with corruption and mismanagement within your own organization while also dealing with external threats and probably some kind of rival squadron on the opposing side.
As a sort of prequel adventure, the ultimate ending would be pretty obvious, but I'd like to add a special Epilogue to each side to give some form of closure to their adventures.
Eoxian media AP. I just want to run a lethal gameshow.
Is that a viable idea for an AP? Almost certainly not. But this is my answer for a hypothetical scenario, and I'll abuse it for personal satisfaction at hypothetical-Paizo's expense if I want.