I played Truth
Keepers via play-by-post some months ago. Some of the core gameplay is very similar to
that of a lot of other Starfinder Society scenarios in that it has the space
equivalent of a dungeon crawl. On the
other hand, there’s at least one really fun, perhaps even unique, element to
the scenario that I loved. The
underlying story is an interesting one.
As for the repeatable nature, I would say the first half of the scenario
showcases this well, but the second half of the scenario doesn’t. All in all, it’s a really good, but not great,
adventure.
SPOILERS!
My favourite part of Truth
Keepers, and what makes it stand out from every other PFS and SFS
scenario I’ve played or run, is that it doesn’t start with a briefing. Instead, as I’ve often advocated, it departs
from the conventional format and tries something different. The PCs begin in a bar on Absalom Station called
Seeker’s Respite. The idea is that this
is a favourite spot for Starfinders between missions to socialise with their
fellow agents. Adding such a location to
the setting makes the idea of the Starfinder Society seem more “real,” and is
surely a place that can be utilised in future stories. The scenario provides an interesting bartender
for the place (a witchwyrd) and several different brief role-playing/skill
check scenes (only a few of which are used in each run) to get the PCs
socialising. In a fun addition, two of
the scenes involve NPCs who were the “losing” candidates in the election for First
Seeker in # 2-07 Four for the First (glad to see they haven’t been
forgotten!).
Suddenly, there’s an
explosion and the sound of gunfire outside!
Rushing out to the street, the PCs see a Starfinder Society cargo escort
team under attack from several unknown assailants. Once the PCs intervene to save the day (with
the help of one of three randomly-chosen NPC agents), Venture-Captain Naiaj
contacts them and explains what’s going on.
The attackers were members of a secret society in the Veskarium called
the Keepers of the Lie—a group that believe the “Gap” is a hoax or conspiracy,
and that there was never anything before it. The attack the PCs witnessed was
just a distraction, as the Keepers have actually succeeded in stealing a (randomly
determined) recently acquired, pre-Gap magical artifact from a docked SFS
vessel. As the Keepers have already made
it into the Drift, Naiaj says she’s sending the PCs to Vesk Prime to track them
down before they can figure out how to destroy it (magical artifacts being
pretty much indestructible by definition, after all). In an interesting addition, if there are four
or fewer PCs in the group, Naiaj assigns the NPC that helped the group in the battle
to come with them for the duration of the scenario. It all comes together nicely to make the
scenario start out with a bang instead of the conventional “sit through some
exposition” opening for scenarios. Free
idea to Paizo writers: have a SFS scenario start in media res as the PCs’ ship
is crash-landing on an unknown planet; the scenario can skip the mission
briefing altogether, since the mission is obvious: survive until rescue!
The journey through the
drift is uneventful, apart from a little tidbit referencing the brass dragon
Zafeldrin of Triaxus from a memorable past scenario. When the PCs’ starship arrives on Vesk Prime,
there are some meaningless skill checks to get through security and then they
meet Paxel, the memorable vesk commander of the Veskarium’s Division of
Disloyal Organizations. The repeatable
nature of the scenario works well here, as Paxel presents the group with a
randomised selection of leads (3 out of a group of 6) for tracking down the
Keepers of the Lie. Each of these leads
involves some role-playing and a few skill checks, and the scenario does an
excellent job incorporating and expanding on what we know about Vesk Prime and the
organisational structure of the Veskarium.
I particularly liked the “skitteracracy” (skittermander bureaucracy) in
one of the investigations. Again, there
are little bits of previous SFS lore dropped into the scenario, such as one of
the NPCs being the pawnbroker Julzakama’s cousin; Truth Keepers
was obviously written by someone who paid attention to previous stories! The PCs need to return to Paxel after completing
each of the three leads, and at one point they’re ambushed by Keeper of the Lie
agents.
Although the first part of
the scenario is really innovative, the second half is pretty pedestrian. The leads point to an “abandoned military
research station” that the Keepers of the Lie are holed up in. This is the Starfinder equivalent of a
dungeon crawl (just trudging through a complex instead of a cave network). There’s nothing particularly wrong with it, but
it’s fairly forgettable (and the randomised elements here are just the
different mix of Keeper agents that are encountered). As an aside, I wish the awkward treasure
drops could be avoided—they’re really not necessary and always appear
forced. Once the PCs reach the final
room and fight off some more Keeper agents, they’ll find the purely Macguffin
artifact and can head home.
I wish the second half of
Truth Keepers could have been as strong as the first half. I do appreciate the attention to setting
detail and past SFS adventures. I’m not
confident it succeeds entirely as a repeatable scenario. Overall, the scenario mixes some really
clever elements with some uninspired choices, but I’d say it’s still worth
playing.
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