I’ve found this trope works best when ask players know the secret, but the characters don’t. If it’s a cool, interesting secret, everyone can play into it and enjoy the dramatic irony.

I agree, this reads like a reporter interviewing some grognard to get them to define terms they made up. This didn’t sell me on why I should want to use one style of play over another, just wistful “torturing” themself wondering if anyone still uses this mysterious style of play. It’s not mysterious. As you said, it’s just Play to Find Out.

I think it would be more useful to show the strengths and weaknesses of PtFO and as well as more scripted gameplay, because each has a place in RPGs, and knowing when to use one over another is a great skill for GMs to practice.

I would avoid running any combat where the party is forced to lose. That would make any time spent on it feel like a waste. A short narrated vision would be fine, but if you want to make this a bigger encounter, you should give the party a goal that they can actually accomplish. I can think of a few ways you could do this:

• The party could locate survivors among the dead to gain information about what happened.
• Survey the wreckage, the party could use investigation skills to look at debris and pierce together what happened. Think, crime scene investigation on a grand scale.
• The BBEG may be showing a true vision of the future, but not a complete vision. Perhaps there is something that the BBEG is trying to hide, such as a clue to how to defeat them. For example, the party could use some kind of magic detection to see through an illususory water fountain and reveal a magic MacGuffin or a person who knows the BBEG’s weakness.

I’m in the exact same boat. I’d like to use some of the monster lore and trying to convert the action oriented bosses to be used in PF2e. I’m thinking it would be pretty easy to just treat the Villain Actions as costing two actions in Pathfinder. I think the minion rules would transfer over as well.

This is great advice. I like how this shares the narrative burden with the other people at the table. Mini-encounters like these give you some insight into a characters values, it’s less railroad-y, and there’s always the threat that it could turn into a big encounter if handled poorly. Plus, the players discussing what they want to do takes up some real world time, and that makes the travel seem less instantaneous.

The Player’s Guide for Abomination Vaults includes a ton of information about the major players in Otari: …paizo.com/AbominationVaults_PlayersGuide.pdf

That said, don’t worry too much about contradicting the official lore. This is your game, and if something in the guide contradicts something you made up, just don’t present it to your players, they will never be the wiser.

Take a look at the Roseguard section in the pdf though. That should give you an understanding for why this town exists, and informs some of the politics that are currently going on.

If you are planning to run Troubles in Otari later, you should be aware that it consists of three short adventures dealing with the lumber industry, the delivery service, and an abandoned fishing shack just outside of town. If you want to ease your players into these quests, you may want to introduce them earlier.