Warning – this contains spoilers for scenario 1-18 – Lodge of the Living God.
I have a complete collection of PFS2 tables – well – give me a week or two after new ones come out to catch up again. Skill challenges are seldom implemented – but they can benefit a lot if you prepare for them.
In this regard 1-18 – out just Wednesday – has a beautiful new challenge. But this one also is a challenge how to GM it in a fashion that players have fun and you keep inside the time – and that you use the advantages that a virtual table can offer.
Paizo offers F2F games a handout that you can fill out manually:
Here is the issue with the handout. You need to share across the table – so you need to computerize it. You have 17 NPCs to keep track off and up to 108 decision points (18 days x 6 characters or 27 x 4). All NPCs have individual values, they have a background, you have to keep track of money as well.
Here is an overview of my sheet that I use for Building Fort Agate:
The artwork is just that – a nice piece to set the scene. Thanks for Paizo to provide these.
I then converted the text into a grid that fits in roll20. For that I used Excel, played around with borders, kept each row at exactly 70 by 70 pixel and then copy pasted into paint to get an image of everything. The text from the handout is also in each row – number of boxes is number of days. Just one extra box at the start for each task.
I use an empty token in the first column to keep track of progress,
The token is controllable by everyone. So players who use a health bar will be able to increase the progress and get direct feedback how far everyone got. The lock is one of the build in token you can toggle – it means that this tasks is not yet open to be done.
Green circles mean – no skill needed. Brown mean you need crafting or a specialist.
I then have set up all 17 NPCs from the Village.
Each has his name visible and I use color tokens to keep track of the attitude. It goes from red2 – red – yellow – green – green 2 and denotes hostile to helpful. A color code is given to the right of the picture.
Running the challenge:
Each character places his own token into a box of the challenge. They can gather up to three NPCs to come with them. All they need is move up to 4 tokens. This can be done with everyone together.
Initiative tracker:
At this stage I use the initiative tracker to ensure each player has done a task on that day. Money gets deducted, rolls are made, progress gets increased, locks can be removed if they are unlocked. Tokens might change attitude.
Rinse and repeat for the next day.