|
| 8 people marked this as a favorite. |
So, I got about the first hour and a half of the Know Direction interview with John, Tonya, and Thursty. There was a lot in there, but if anyone caught the rest, I'd love to hear about it.
Here's what I got, made as readable as possible. But I tried to jot down everything I learned. Still, take everything with a grain of salt, I'm definitely paraphrasing.
Story:
The Starfinder Society was formed to study the mystery around the Gap and eventually expanded into general exploration. They were inspired in-world by the fragmentary records of the Pathfinder Society from before the Gap. They use the term "Venture Captain" from the Pathfinders like America pulls "Senator" from Ancient Rome, which I thought was a cool touch.
There will be an arc to each season, with the first season's arc into the second season already planned in broad strokes.
The galaxy is a big place. SFS can make up whole worlds. And if they're cool, they can go back with changes based on the reporting from last scenario. Much more freedom with this than PFS has, because space is a lot bigger than Golarion, so expect more "Living" content. Tonya specifically teased doing some contests in addition to the checkbox tracking.
Schedule:
GenCon will launch with five SFS things: a quest pack, a pregen special, and three scenarios. One of those scenarios will be evergreen. After that, one scenario a month.
Plan is for the AP issues to be sanctioned as each one comes out, rather than waiting for the end. The first issue will ideally be sanctioned around GenCon. John's writing the second one, so that should help some too.
The "one scenario a month" is ready to go up if the numbers show there's demand.
GenCon... looks really cool. Thursday morning has ticketed quest tables, where you can sit down with a pregen (1st level iconics) and go through all the quests, each touching on a new or changed system. Thursday night they start the pregen special (4th level iconics) to get people into the setting a bit more. Then, starting Friday, the evergreen will introduce people to the Society proper and I think factions. So, basically, you'll be able to hit a few games, buy your book on Thursday, make your character that night, and hit the ground running.
They're working on getting GenCon GMs and other launch GMs materials to prep the game. It's complicated, though, so no word yet.
Boons:
Boons are getting some rework to cut down complexity/papershuffling, but still giving that character history.
There might be more to this, but they mostly talked about how boon bonuses are now slotted. After the briefing, you get the chance to slot boons of different types. The types that came up were Starship, Faction, and Ally boons.
So, for example, with Ally boons you choose which person is following you around. Thursty specifically called out that they'll be working to make sure the briefings go into enough detail to make informed boon decisions.
These slots will apparently have some default options available for new characters, but obviously you get cooler stuff from completing scenarios.
Starships:
The society has several standard hulls, which it seems will be offered at the outset of the mission that requires a spaceship. In some cases there may be a choice between multiple hulls (small and fast or space tank with missiles?).
Starship boons (see the slots above) can modify the ship with stuff like hotter lasers or improved target lock. They can also possibly add new ship hulls to the list of options. Which just sounds awesome.
Factions:
You can work for any number of factions, but can only use one boon during each scenario (see above). This represents the faction that you're endorsing or is sponsoring you during the scenario. The boons level up through this process, but it wasn't revealed what exactly is needed to advance them.
The factions are direct extensions of the Starfinder Society, have different visions for the society, and are tied into the metaplot. At least one directly rises because of the events leading into Season 1.
No factions announced while I was listening, although I heard one was revealed later.
Evil:
In general, the Starfinder Society is a little more careful about alignment than its predecessor. They tend more towards good and allowing their agents to perform evil actions could harm their position in the galaxy.
So, no evil characters. No "we're sort of evil, but not really" faction. And apparently less "what if I only cut him five times?" play.
There won't be ratings on the scenarios, but they hope to have information about specific problematic content types. So hopefully nobody gets surprised by interesting boxed text with a family at the table.
Random Stuff:
- Reception at GAMA was very positive.
- Regional support will absolutely extend to SFS.
- Also retail support (I may not have the name right, here).
- GM Credit remains largely the same.
- Replay will continue be tweaked, but isn't going to be opened up completely or anything.*
- Cantina feel will hopefully be alive and well with races.*
- Soft level cap is still probably around 12, but new tiers can be added easily.
- Level 7-8 is a sweet spot for the metaplot towards the end of Season 1.
- Equipment may appear on sheets that isn't in the Core Rulebook at all.
- New material will still be approved in Additional Resources.
- Everyone from PFS is probably dead (and still being used in PFS), so don't expect any Futurama heads in jars.
- Or the SS Drandle Dreng or the Osprey Cannon. SFS will have its own cast that'll develop over time.
- Campaign mode for AP is undecided.*
- They're currently working on the guide to organized play.*
* = "Ask more at PaizoCon."
Overall, really informative interview. If I didn't quite explain something clearly, let me know and I'll try to recollect.
Cheers!
Landon
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
1 faction name was released
Dataphiles: obsession / interest of aquisition/distribution of data, Operating out of the archive section of the lorespire complex (new term from absalom station), Starfinder Society operates from the Lorespire complex.
faction will be data oriented faction, not just for computer specialists
faction where data will be in terms off:
- computer information
- social data
in order to get data, you sometimes need muscle, so there is room for soldiers and other kind of muscle types who want to kick in doors.
faction for people who are interested in futuristic data gathering and how it spreads. It has a vibe of Wiki Leaks
|
|
1 faction name was released
Dataphiles: obsession / interest of aquisition/distribution of data, Operating out of the archive section of the lorespire complex (new term from absalom station), Starfinder Society operates from the Lorespire complex.
Thanks, Psyblade!
They sound a bit like "information wants to be free," which could play very interestingly with the Dark Archive equivalent (if one exists).
And heck, we can switch back and forth as appropriate to the mission. Investigating a repressive state? Pull out my Dataphile boon. Investigating an ancient alien bioweapon? Pull out my Dark Archive-ish boon.
Or I might be misunderstanding them and they're about the responsible spread of information, so they're both sides of the coin already. In which case, they might be my primary faction out of the gates.
And now I have an image of adventurers covered in corporate logos, and droids in specific colour schemes :)
"It's my favorite store on Absalom Station" :)
Cheers!
Landon
Venture-Lieutenant, Minnesota—Minneapolis
|
- Everyone from PFS is probably dead (and still being used in PFS), so don't expect any Futurama heads in jars.
- Or the SS Drandle Dreng or the Osprey Cannon. SFS will have its own cast that'll develop over time.
More like the Osprey drive. Using it only leads to trouble.
Guess I'll just have to fashion a Dreng-bot.
|
|
What really had me a bit hyped is the fact that the AP's are going to be approved for gameplay right away, that means alot tbh and will give people alot of play-ability...
Yeah, I was not expecting that, but it's great news!
Math-wise, that just bumped us up from ~16 XP worth of content the first season to ~34 XP worth of content. Which is even more insane now that I'm actually looking at the numbers.
|
|
Over under on how many players will have characters with last names from PFS NPCs?Or name their ships after those NPCs
My ship names will be looked up from my father Dorn and listed as such (and for those missing the link, wh40k ship names, and then most likely Dark Angel or Black Templar ship names...) Or I can go for an inquisitor named ship :D
|
Pathfinder Society Lead Developer
|
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
Let's be real here: the "stop acting Chaotic Neutral" thing is only going to stick if you lose faction points or something.
There are already some Pathfinder Society scenarios that dis-incentivize evil, cruelty, violence, and/or excessive social disruption through the secondary success conditions.
In the interest of focusing on Starfinder Society, though, I'll stick to an ominous "That can be arranged."
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The interview is also now out on the podcast, so you can listen to it at high speed if you want.
Regarding more PFS news:
-More races will be coming available. There is a master plan of what will be released when, which is getting modified as more races are written.
-Skinwalkers will be the regional support GM boon
-One of the PaizoCon/Gen Con specials will be updated with new content around January so that you can play it again to get more of the story. (So come to Winter War in Champaign-Urbana...shameless local plug.)
|
|
Let's be real here: the "stop acting Chaotic Neutral" thing is only going to stick if you lose faction points or something.There are already some Pathfinder Society scenarios that dis-incentivize evil, cruelty, violence, and/or excessive social disruption through the secondary success conditions.
In the interest of focusing on Starfinder Society, though, I'll stick to an ominous "That can be arranged."
*shudder*
|
|
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
- Everyone from PFS is probably dead (and still being used in PFS), so don't expect any Futurama heads in jars.
- Or the SS Drandle Dreng or the Osprey Cannon. SFS will have its own cast that'll develop over time.
More like the Osprey drive. Using it only leads to trouble.
Guess I'll just have to fashion a Dreng-bot.
The SFSS Adril Hestrem is surely the most reliable ship hull for new agents and totally won't become a deathtrap later on.
|
|
The SFSS Adril Hestrem is surely the most reliable ship hull for new agents and totally won't become a deathtrap later on.
- Everyone from PFS is probably dead (and still being used in PFS), so don't expect any Futurama heads in jars.
- Or the SS Drandle Dreng or the Osprey Cannon. SFS will have its own cast that'll develop over time.
More like the Osprey drive. Using it only leads to trouble.
Guess I'll just have to fashion a Dreng-bot.
I personally was hoping for an incredibly old Drendle Dreng puttering around the SFS lodge announcing a new mission with the same, iconic phrase.
|
|
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
More like the Osprey drive. Using it only leads to trouble.
- Everyone from PFS is probably dead (and still being used in PFS), so don't expect any Futurama heads in jars.
- Or the SS Drandle Dreng or the Osprey Cannon. SFS will have its own cast that'll develop over time.
The Osprey Drive was a very early attempt at traversing the galaxy at incredible speeds. The designers of the engine based their theoretical metaphysics on the principle of Bad News. As it was a generally assumed theory that nothing travels faster than Bad News.
A few years of testing led to a successful maiden voyage. Sadly, while the engine was huge hit it was scrapped within days. It appeared the designers failed to anticipate the local populace would not appreciate so much bad news arriving all at once. Several starships' crews powered by the Osprey engine just escaped multiple riots upon docking.