Announcing the Starfinder Roleplaying Game!

Distant Scholar wrote:

Pax Rafkin wrote:

My all-time favorite game. I'm pretty sure I'll use the Star*Drive setting for Starfinder. No way they're going to put out a better setting than that one.

Remember that Starfinder is space fantasy, not science fiction. How much space fantasy is in Star*Drive? [I honestly don't know.]

None, other than psionics, which could be used to explain "magic".

The "FX" system gave you Arcane and Faith magic as well as comic book super powers.

Alternity had everything I ever wanted in a game system all wrapped together in a nice package.

I ran a Dark Matter/Star*Drive mashup in which magic and super powers were rare but not unheard of.

SM

Alternity looked great on paper, but when actually playing tended to break down as players I encountered did not care if something was "almost" a complete success and only wanted to either win or win.

Alternity looked great on paper, but when actually playing tended to break down as players I encountered did not care if something was "almost" a complete success and only wanted to either win or win.

Can you expand on what that means?

My experience with players during two separate Alternity campaigns was that the players did not have an interest in degrees of success and only wanted to roll dice and win, they did not take not wining well. When they were rummaging through a district office for a pharmaceutical research lab on the lighthouse space station, for instance. I tried to get them to accept various results based on the roll of the dice and how much effort they were willing to put into the search.

After explaining how it would work, for like the tenth time, one player simply announced

"Can't you just tell us everything we are supposed to know so that we can move on to the next encounter."

But this was just my experience, maybe I had players who just did not take to the Alternity system with the same sort of interest I did.

In 1980 I ran Annic Nova, using a combination of my own rules and Traveller. The bulk of that adventure was figuring out what happened on the ship, where it came from, and how to operate it.

We had a lot of fun with that one.

The two games of Alternity I ran did not go so well, and most of the time the players never tried to understand the levels of injury that could be caused, and so never really understood if their characters were in danger or not.

I feel that most of the problem was that we only had one set of rule books, and the players were the kind of people that if they could not have the rule book memorized by session two, the game was not worth playing.

But, as far as I'm concerned, the system reads well. The rule book is easy to follow, once you wrap your head around a few new mechanical concepts. I enjoy the rules for Alternity, I'm just not sure it is as playable as it reads.

This sounds like it was a player mentality issue. i have seen the same in Pathfinder and other systems too, if the PCs built for combat than that is what they want from a game.

I remember that from alternity. It was a frustrating, if realistic, aspect of the system.

Alternity certainly had its quirks but that's definitely a player type issue and there isn't a whole lot you can do about it except find different players.

SM

I tried to get them to accept various results based on the roll of the dice and how much effort they were willing to put into the search.

After explaining how it would work, for like the tenth time, one player simply announced

"Can't you just tell us everything we are supposed to know so that we can move on to the next encounter."

This seems like a playing style clash than anything specific to Alternity.

Here's the problem: you have a thing you want players to find.

How critical to the campaign is the thing you want them to find? If it's holding up the game and they can't do anything else till they find it, then maybe success should be automatic, or there is another element in play (short on time) which imposes a penalty if they take too long.

If it is something the players can skip and still complete the quest/mission/job/dungeon/whatever, then it's okay to let them quit and you don't have to put any pressure on them. Put a possible detour or workaround in the scene that lets them give up and move on, though they might miss out on other loot or a side quest or something else interesting.

Playstyle is one issue, some players like to play in a similar fashion to say Halo, where the game is playing through encounters, and the story is just there to tie the encounters together and be enjoyed somewhat distantly.

Further, Always Fail Forward. If finding something is required to move on, then a check should not be "find it" vs "don't find it," but rather a check should be "everything goes according to plan" vs "oops, I think we might be in trouble."

The Gumshoe system has some ideas that might help.

Playstyle is one issue, some players like to play in a similar fashion to say Halo, where the game is playing through encounters, and the story is just there to tie the encounters together and be enjoyed somewhat distantly.

Further, Always Fail Forward. If finding something is required to move on, then a check should not be "find it" vs "don't find it," but rather a check should be "everything goes according to plan" vs "oops, I think we might be in trouble."

The 'Always fail forward' thing is actually very awesome advice - thank you!

It's strange, I've been playing and GM-ing for 15 years and have never heard that saying. Makes great sense and will be pilfering it immediately.

TheAlicornSage wrote:

Playstyle is one issue, some players like to play in a similar fashion to say Halo, where the game is playing through encounters, and the story is just there to tie the encounters together and be enjoyed somewhat distantly.

Further, Always Fail Forward. If finding something is required to move on, then a check should not be "find it" vs "don't find it," but rather a check should be "everything goes according to plan" vs "oops, I think we might be in trouble."

The 'Always fail forward' thing is actually very awesome advice - thank you!

It's strange, I've been playing and GM-ing for 15 years and have never heard that saying. Makes great sense and will be pilfering it immediately.

Interestingly, I heard the saying first from a game designer at Rincon back in '08. I am surprised it isn't more widespread. Certainly it is near the top of my list for the GM Academy videos I'll be making this year.

I don't know where else to put this comment, so I'll put it here:

While the whole "Golarion in the Far Future" concept does sound interesting, what I would like from Starfinder is more of a "Basic" rules set for making your own sci-fi adventures.

I know I'm going to get a lot of "Boos" for this, but I for the most part did like D20 Modern. It gave you a basic rules set for playing 'Modern' era games, then put out various supplements for settings based in the Historical Past to nearly any Sci-Fi setting you could think of.

They even did their own vesion of the Fantasy-meets-Modern-World concept with "Urban Arcanna", which the base setting of Starfinder reminds me of.

I will be buying "Starfinder", in hopes that it will give me that update of "D20 Modern" I've always wanted (i.e., Modern/Sci-Fi Pathfinder Rules), but I'm not sure if I will be using their "Elves in Space" concept (and I always have my old "d20 Modern" books to fall back on for inspiration, in necessary ^_^)

I'll add more, after reading some of the comments above:
I also ran Alternity for a little while (before DnD 3rd Edition took up all of our attention). All I can say is that I and my small group had fun, the rules didn't seem to confuse anybody. That being said, my group was heavy on Role Playing as well, so that probably had something to do with it.

I don't know where else to put this comment, so I'll put it here:

While the whole "Golarion in the Far Future" concept does sound interesting, what I would like from Starfinder is more of a "Basic" rules set for making your own sci-fi adventures.

I know I'm going to get a lot of "Boos" for this, but I for the most part did like D20 Modern. It gave you a basic rules set for playing 'Modern' era games, then put out various supplements for settings based in the Historical Past to nearly any Sci-Fi setting you could think of.

They even did their own vesion of the Fantasy-meets-Modern-World concept with "Urban Arcanna", which the base setting of Starfinder reminds me of.

I will be buying "Starfinder", in hopes that it will give me that update of "D20 Modern" I've always wanted (i.e., Modern/Sci-Fi Pathfinder Rules), but I'm not sure if I will be using their "Elves in Space" concept (and I always have my old "d20 Modern" books to fall back on for inspiration, in necessary ^_^)

I'll add more, after reading some of the comments above:
I also ran Alternity for a little while (before DnD 3rd Edition took up all of our attention). All I can say is that I and my small group had fun, the rules didn't seem to confuse anybody. That being said, my group was heavy on Role Playing as well, so that probably had something to do with it.

I got less an elves in space vibe and more an aliens with techno magic vibe, with elves and dwarves seeming more like a background race. I'm not sure I'd really be that into playing an elf with all the new and cool aliens out (and I ALWAYS play an elf in pathfinder). The contemplatives seem cool. It seems to me that pathfinder lore will be only a fraction of the lore and story behind Starfinder. I think aliens with technomagic and laser pistols seems like an interesting game. Just my thoughts.

I don't know where else to put this comment, so I'll put it here:

While the whole "Golarion in the Far Future" concept does sound interesting, what I would like from Starfinder is more of a "Basic" rules set for making your own sci-fi adventures.

No boos, but be aware that Starfinder is space fantasy, and not science fiction.

No boos, but be aware that Starfinder is space fantasy, and not science fiction.

I may wait for a few reviews of the product before I pick it up then.

Again, what I would like is just the 'base' set of rules that can be used for any Sci-Fi setting, whether its the "Hard Science Fiction" of "2001", to the campy Space Fantasy of "Battle Beyond The Stars" (What? You thought I was going to mention that other franchise? This one had "John Boy" in it, Dammit!! ^_^)

You can argue that Pathfinder is a good set of 'basic' rules for a Medieval Fantasy setting, and with all the books out now you can really fine tune it to your likings (changing the magic system for example, or even injecting High Tech into the setting). I'm hoping that Starfinder will do the same for 'generic science-fiction' (just saw the premier of Season 2 of "The Expanse", and I wouldn't mind setting a short campaign in that universe ^_^)

Presumably you can switch over to harder sci-fi by just not using the elements that are too fantastical, no hand held energy weapons, just balistics, no FTL drives or Drift, double all ship sizes with the extra space as fuel tanks and increase travel times between locations in system. Obviously i know as much of the actual rules as the rest of us but the feeling i have is that much like Golarion you just take out the elements you dont want and you end up with a good alternate setting with what ever is left over.

No boos, but be aware that Starfinder is space fantasy, and not science fiction.

No boos either, but if Science Fantasy is not your cup of beverage of choice, you might want to look at the new Science Fiction game Alternity (which you have played before as noted) that is being developed over at Sasquatch Game Studios.

As for me, I plan on getting both Starfinder & Alternity 2017; as they are different genres I want to create my Science Fantasy (Dragonstar) and Science Fiction (Babylon 5) campaigns in. :)

Distant Scholar wrote:

No boos, but be aware that Starfinder is space fantasy, and not science fiction.

No boos either, but if Science Fantasy is not your cup of beverage of choice, you might want to look at the new Science Fiction game Alternity (which you have played before as noted) that is being developed over at Sasquatch Game Studios.

As for me, I plan on getting both Starfinder & Alternity 2017; as they are different genres I want to create my Science Fantasy (Dragonstar) and Science Fiction (Babylon 5) campaigns in. :)

Its always interesting to see where people draw that line... i would say that B5 started out as fairly solid Sci-Fi and took a seriously turn to Science-Fantasy at... gosh its hard to point to a single event... i doubt this would count as Spoilers this far afterwards but here is a bunch of blank spaces just in case.

Time traveling to create a link between species in pre-history so that they could share souls.

Hyper evolving to the point of being an energy based super life form

Sharing portions of life to bring the dead back using what i assume was magic or soul power or something

An alien race of angels

Zathras

I think what really pushed B5 into Science-Fantasy was the confirmation of souls as a thing and being able to use them to do stuff... but i guess you could debate on if they were really souls of just something else that science couldnt yet define. at that point though is there really a difference?

Also, it was still an awesome show whatever label it gets stuck with.

Its always interesting to see where people draw that line... i would say that B5 started out as fairly solid Sci-Fi and took a seriously turn to Science-Fantasy at...

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

The above quote sums up my view on the matter. (Grin)

Also, it was still an awesome show whatever label it gets stuck with.

As a future Alternity Babylon 5 GM, I could not agree more. :)

<quote>"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
Arthur C. Clarke, "Profiles of The Future", 1961 (Clarke's third law)</quote>

I prefer "Any technology, no matter how simple, is magic to those who don't understand it." (a tweak of quoting Ambrose Florence from Freefall)

Distant Scholar wrote:

No boos, but be aware that Starfinder is space fantasy, and not science fiction.

You can argue that Pathfinder is a good set of 'basic' rules for a Medieval Fantasy setting, and with all the books out now you can really fine tune it to your likings (changing the magic system for example, or even injecting High Tech into the setting). I'm hoping that Starfinder will do the same for 'generic science-fiction' (just saw the premier of Season 2 of "The Expanse", and I wouldn't mind setting a short campaign in that universe ^_^)

I definitely thought of Starfinder while watching "The Expanse." The proto-molecule certainly seems like a good hook to work into a campaign.

I find this to be an odd business move considering:

*Lisa is the one who pointed out part of TSR's downfall was due to self-competition with different campaign settings

*Paizo's reluctance to reprint old APs as that would mean competing against current APs

I hope this doesn't come back to bite Paizo in the behind.

TSR marketed multiple fantasy settings that were essentially the same genre. Starfinder is a different game with a vastly different setting, it's not looking to poach Golarion's audience, but grow a new one.