Had an aha moment today. The players gave me this concept of a storm that transforms those caught in it into violent mindless creatures. I think it would be cool if the clues to uncover what the storm is, where it came from, and how to stop it are somehow embeded as the abilities and features creatures gain when transformed by the storm. Pathfinder2e has a recall knowledge mechanic that characters can use in combat to learn about weakest defenses, strong attacks, and the like. The party is very likely to use this action regularly. If I can make the descriptions and names of the abilities have enough of a clue in them that as they get more they realize they are in fact clues. If I can time this well, about the time they are done with the politics and ready to turn their attention outside the city these clues would come together and create a direction for action on what is likely to be a new goal of stopping the storm. I realize I am getting dangerously close to the writing a plot problem, but there ought to be something fun I can do here with hiding clues in abilities.

SESSION ZERO - Wow!!! I have never had a session zero run more smoothly. Everyone got on the same page very quickly and had the language to talk about what they were looking for. We struggled a bit through the session -1 but it payed off last night. Facts -> Conflicts: this had the interesting effect of generating discussion about how facts were connected and related Picking Main Conflicts - everyone was on exactly the same page on what they wanted to explore and a few were deffered to higher levels, they also started talking about switching between the outer city conflicts to the inner vs outer city as a transition from season 1 to season 2. They posed questions about how or why that transition might happen. Brainstorm Characters [my own addition] - everyone suggested three characters (not necessarily pcs) that might be involved in these initial conflicts. There was overlap with 2+ suggesting very similar characters. A few got modified into PCs, but I have 12 great NPC ideas. Party Roles - I use a table in a google doc where they talk about the roles they might fill in different situations. Bonds - Started by asking how they know each other and they all picked a location where they hang out and a NPC they connect with (luckly me). That flowed quickly and naturally to how they know each other and left me with tons to work with. The Party: Sybil is an NPC who has a hidden greenhouse where she grows herbs for her teas and occasional medicines. This is the location where the party hangs out and decompresses, each allowed in because they won Sybil's respect in some way. PC1 - the aspirational peacemaker that wants everyone to be happy, a big brute that wants to approach everything with diplomacy, and not be known just for their big muscles, "but unfortunately their big muscles are really awsome." They won Sybil's respect by helping her carry a lot of soil one day when she was quite tired. Got invited in for tea and never really left. PC2 - a sneaky rogue that stumbled across the greenhouse and was being interrogated by Sybil when PC1 came in and started chatting, turning the conversation friendly. Now PC2 is Sybil's friendly aquirer of things.

@James Willetts Odd numbers hit is awesome flavor and very not the way pathfinder people think, super fun.

I tried something like it, sort of a play-in to our current season of ghosts game. We did the session zero ahead of time and characters had an outline and some desired connections. We played about eight 45-minute moistly roleplay vignettes over two sessions to explore those parts of the character and the town. After the vignettes they finalized their connections to each other, the setting, and their backstory. The feedback was that they were helpful, but I would mention that they suggested the vignettes they thought would be useful. In one example, Sloane came to willowshore to assassinate Kimiko and ended up as friends (from a MotW character web table). They asked to play out Sloane attempt to poison Kimiko to see how that came about. The Magus wanted to play out a bit where he discovered his powers. The Witch wanted to play out meeting her patron. Etc. I am not sure the same familiarization with the setting could have worked with reading materials or with traditional play. The players were in on it, so to speak. One of the best running jokes came out of the scene when one of the players not in the scene interjected "you wrote them didn't you, i knew it" when speaking about trashy romance novels in the town library. Now they are the favorite of one of the characters, a bunch of the characters are wishcasting by the librarian, and everyone makes jokes when they meet new NPCs about whether they are the inspiration of a character in the books.

@Tristan Fishel Is this sort of a concious decision at the table, as a response to the players running the train off the tracks (going in a different direction), or as the players starting to assert goals on their own?

Welcome Anthony. I looked at a time travel setting idea for one of my games, though we ultimately went with something a little different. I would suggest setting up the time travel elements as givens for your discussion of setting and goals and begin the 'campaign' with arival in the new time, maybe with some play-in or flashbacks of how you get there. If you try to steer them towards the time travel it might feel forced or railroady and be hard to get them back proactive.

For my in-person games we tend to roll physical dice and reference a table in my notes, in a book, or on a piece of reference paper. For my online game, I am making more and more use of the rollable tables in Foundry.