Welcome to my final GM diary! It’s been a wild ride, and I’m so glad I got to share it with you. One last time, here we go.
Building a Final Boss
The final boss is one of the most important encounters of the whole campaign. You want them to be difficult, you want them to be a challenge, but you don’t want them to be insurmountable. You only get one shot at a final boss fight; if it goes poorly, you end on a sour note.
My final fight here had two bosses. The good corporal was a soldier, naturally; it’s an easy NPC to build and run, and it deals damage like crazy, so why mess with what works? The bolida species abilities are fun to play with; I didn’t quite give him a big enough room to build up a rolling charge, but having him able to curl up just added a fun dimension.
Vionni was built as a witchwarper, and I know what you’re thinking, but hear me out. I wanted a support caster, someone who could buff the soldier, and witchwarper worked for that. I also liked the witchwarper as a kind of innate ability caster; Vionni wouldn’t have had to study magic or have a deep spiritual connection, the witchwarper abilities could have just manifested within her, so that worked well for flavor. On top of that, it was a Charisma class, but most importantly, I had just finished GMing a group through The Liberation of Locus-1. The PCs included a witchwarper, and that guy shut my encounters down. I wanted to give the same taste of “fun” to my players, and maybe, just maybe, show that witchwarpers shouldn’t be underestimated. Yes, they’re a weaker class, but if you build them right, they can be terrifying.
Beyond that, I loved Vionni’s tactic of buffing then running to call in reinforcements. It gave the fight distinct “phases” and very much felt like what she would do. She knows she’s squishy! She knows better than to tango with the PCs one-on-one! You saw how quickly she fell once Gary got up in her business.
I’m really very pleased with that final fight sequence. I’m not always great at enemy tactics, but I took time with this fight to plot out my moves ahead of time and make sure I had contingencies in place. I think it was a tough fight, but a fair one, and one that allowed for some very interesting tactics. Speaking of which…
Chaos
Look, I can talk a lot about player tactics here, but there’s really one moment I have been dying to talk about for six months, and that’s Hopper’s final spell. I have never, in my life, seen Zone of Truth used in combat. Moreover, that the dice decided to speak, and say “no, she’s critfailing this spell” gave us the best possible payoff to using it. Chelsea was so incredible for this move, and Michelle immediately deciding Camembert was going to use it to turn the guards against her was inspired. This is why I play RPGs. I’ll be talking about this moment forever, hoisting the BBEG by her own petard in the most poetic way possible. I swear to you this moment was not scripted, I didn’t even realize Hopper had this spell until she cast it, but I can’t imagine a more perfect ending.
Really, what else is there to say about it? It was perfect.
Endings and Beginnings
I had always intended for the “good ending” of the ship being rescued, I knew that from the start. Nobody was gonna let me get away with a downer ending. When it came to the rescue, I knew I had to bring in my besties in the Starfinder Society, here to lend a hand. Captain Cidrint is actually my first Starfinder Society character; he’s a brash, bold envoy whose build is terrible, but I love his dumb bluffing. I get to do one (1) self-indulgence, as a treat.
While this story may have ended…I mean, the story’s not over yet. The Void Empress is still stranded, still dead in the water, and everybody is a long way from home. There are plenty more stories of the Drift Crisis to be told, and while I have some ideas of where people ended up…you’ll just have to persuade Paizo to give us a season 2 to find out what’s happening now!
Before I go, a note on theme: it would be easy to reduce this to a story of “capitalism bad.” And yes, it is. But the theme I wanted was not “capitalism bad,” but more “this is what people do in peril.” Vionni panics and tries to take control of the situation, unable to be dissuaded from making bad decisions. Serion Vex found safety and hid. The first class passengers pretended nothing was wrong, the lower decks banded together to survive, and the PCs stepped up as heroes. Everybody reacts to a crisis differently. As Mr. Rogers tells us, look for the helpers.
Without getting too Real (TM), we live in challenging times. The Drift Crisis is a crisis, yes, but the story I wanted to tell, that I hope I told, is one of hope. Hope that we can band together against mistreatment and injustice. Hope that when the going gets tough, we’ll stick together as a community. Hope that the villains will be easy and punchable, and hope that a better future is possible.
I believe it is. I’m fighting for it every day. I hope you are too.
Thank you for watching. Thank you to my players for a great game and a great show. Thank you to Paizo for taking the chance on me. Thank you to 2 Kings Entertainment for the assist. Thank you to my husband Ted, who tolerated my stress and my disappearances. Thank you to every single person who plays Starfinder. I love this game, I love what I get to do, and I hope I shared some of that with you.
I have been honored to be your GM.
Alex Speidel
March, 2023
Alex Speidel 