Starfinder Bounty # 3: "A Green Place" [RPG]

NO SPOILERS

A Green Place  is another instalment in the Starfinder Bounty series of adventures for Level One PCs designed to be playable in an hour or so.  I played this one through play-by-post with my journalist character and frankly thought it a bit "meh".  It has a simplistic Saturday morning cartoon approach to conflict resolution combined with one of those cheap "hidden treasure seek and find" point-and-click computer games.  The more I see adventures like this, the more I start to think that maybe I'm just not in the target audience for Starfinder.

SPOILERS!

The adventure starts in Thamal, a small city in a pastoral region of Verces.  For some reason unexplained to the reader, tourism and its accompanying development has started to really flourish in the area around Thamal.  But, the PCs are told by a city councilor named Kirslin Auganir, there have been frequent energy-flow disruptions from the nearby power plant, causing flickering lights and so forth.  Drones sent to the computer-run power plant mysteriously disappear.  The PCs are hired (for an indeterminate sum of money) to investigate and make sure Thamal's newfound growth doesn't end prematurely.  It's a fine premise for an adventure.

When the PCs arrive, they need to overcome some minor obstacles (electrified oil puddles and little "scrap rats") before they learn the cause of the problem.  A hesper (a type of fey) named Qhibell has taken up residence in the power station and is dampening its output to stop or slow the new tourism industry from destroying natural habitats in the area.  The PCs can instantly solve the problem by getting her to agree to a vague compromise to preserve a portion of the natural habit around Thamal from development.  In effect, the scenario creates a very realistic dilemma with deeply contentious political, moral, and practical dimensions and then presents a nicely gift-wrapped solution that instantly satisfies everyone involved.  Done! (Or, the PCs can just kill Qhibell, which the scenario oddly sees as an equally satisfactory resolution).  Anyway, after dealing with Qhibell one way or another, the PCs then need to hunt around for four missing parts of the reactor, each of which is hidden in a different part of the station.  

It's all a bit saccharine for my tastes, though I guess the scenario would be a good introduction to the game for young players.