Starfinder Play Requirements at Gen Con


General Discussion

The Exchange

So now that some Starfinder events have been posted to the GENCON events page by Paizo I am interested in trying it out.

Although some of the scenarios, such as Starfinder Society: #1-00: Claim to Salvation, said that all materials will be provided including a level 4 pregen. However, the initial scenario for first level characters, Starfinder Society: #1-01: The Commencement, says that materials are not provided for this game. You must bring your own.

My question is, if the core rulebook isn't available until GENCON, do we have to get in line and obtain the book to play in any of the scenarios that don't provide materials? Will there be pregens? Will there be cheat sheets?

I know there are the "Quest Pack" hour long missions, I was just hoping to try out one of the scenarios before getting the chance to purchase the Core Rulebook.

Scarab Sages

I would presume, much like Pathfinder Society, that you can play any scenario with the pregens. Just like I can play PFS's "The Confirmation" with the Iconic pregens (and am generally fine without the core book for the first few sessions), it would make sense for SFS to follow the same rules, letting you play as the iconics for the sessions.

Of course, I'm just spit balling.

The Exchange

I was assuming that was the case as well; however, with the two examples above, one specifically states that a pregen is available and no materials are required and the second doesn't say anything about pregens and says that you must provide your own materials.


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

What are the dates of these scenarios?

Pregens would be required for any event held on day 1.

You could be able to make your own characters from day 2 on.


I'm pretty sure it's an administrative snafu. I would never expect to bring anything other than myself to one of these things.

Paizo Employee Starfinder Society Developer

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'Starfinder Society: #1-00: Claim to Salvation' is a pregenerated character event and all necessary information will be provided. This event, and the first quest pack, debut on Thursday. Subsequent scenarios don't start until the following day, giving players a full day to get their hands on a Starfinder rulebook. These events allow players time to create their own PCs from the Starfinder Core Rulebook, since the rulebook would be 'out in the wild' for a day.

We're preparing to have a large number of pregenerated characters available for use at Gen Con, but we also want to make these events open to players interested in creating their own characters. Scenarios #01-01 to #01-03 are also part of the 'standard season' and will see play at local events, so they're intended for any type of character within the Starfinder Society.

In other words; expect to have pregens available, as well as custom characters (assuming they follow the rules in the to-be-released Starfinder Society Roleplaying Guild Guide).

We'll have more announcements on exactly how the roll-out for the Organized Play Guide and Starfinder Society character creation rules will work in the near future.

The Exchange

Thanks for the detailed response Thurston!

Dark Archive

I'd love some addition explanation on it. I have not ever done a society event let alone a big organized day like that.

Looking at the 00 having the only one with 300 seats and then the rest scattered for much smaller amounts is a bit confusing but I assume its just a big room for the grand release.

As a RPG player that never has done organized play the 01-00/01/02/03/04 is confusing to me. I assumed they would be in order but they definitely seem to be completely unique games for all beginner levels.

The Quest Pack event is also interesting (but I can't attend for other events overlapping) as it seems to be smaller 1 hour "quests" during a 5h session.

If anyone can help clear that up I'd really appreciate it. I figure for now I'm just doing the 00 with the pregens and then grabbing all the core materials I can. (Hopefully there is a GenCon preorder coming up in the coming months)

I want to play as much as I can so curious what people recommend as the best process as 5 hour events don't easily slot some days when you are running 8 hour tournaments and also trying to squeeze in group stuff with friends.


The game is officially on sale at 11AM Thursday at Gen Con, so they have not scheduled any organized play events before then (thus the Quests only before then). Scenarios for organized play are numbered by year and by release, in numerical order, so "#1-" is all of the first year's releases, and "-XX" are the individual scenarios in the order they are released. #1-00 is the big introductory scenario to be played with 4th level pregens, but any time you use a pregenerated character in organized play, you can keep the chronicle sheet (like a "receipt" of your game) and apply it to your own unique character. The regular season scenarios are all scheduled after Thursday to give people time to buy the rulebook and make their own character for future play.

#1-01 is an evergreen scenario, meaning you can replay it with a new character as much as you like. The other two are just the first of the coming season, which I think will have one new scenario per month. It typically takes three successful scenarios for your character to gain a level, so you could leave Gen Con with a second level 1 Starfinder Society Organized Play character.


Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

So do the "Into the Unknown" events include all the scenarios listed as "1-0X?" Or is it something distinct?


Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Mudscale wrote:

I'd love some addition explanation on it. I have not ever done a society event let alone a big organized day like that.

Looking at the 00 having the only one with 300 seats and then the rest scattered for much smaller amounts is a bit confusing but I assume its just a big room for the grand release.

As a RPG player that never has done organized play the 01-00/01/02/03/04 is confusing to me. I assumed they would be in order but they definitely seem to be completely unique games for all beginner levels.

The Quest Pack event is also interesting (but I can't attend for other events overlapping) as it seems to be smaller 1 hour "quests" during a 5h session.

If anyone can help clear that up I'd really appreciate it. I figure for now I'm just doing the 00 with the pregens and then grabbing all the core materials I can. (Hopefully there is a GenCon preorder coming up in the coming months)

I want to play as much as I can so curious what people recommend as the best process as 5 hour events don't easily slot some days when you are running 8 hour tournaments and also trying to squeeze in group stuff with friends.

I would suggest doing some of the quest packs on Thursday, since they've said those are being designed to help people learn the rules. Then do 1-00, and 1-01. If you can find the time and want to do it, then fit in the others.

I suggest at least 1-00 and 1-01, because 1-00 is a special and won't be playable outside of conventions usually, and 1-01 is the evergreen, which means you can play it repeatedly and it's designed to get your character started.

Liberty's Edge RPG Superstar 2008 Top 8

Will SFS have the option to "drop" a scenario run with a higher level Pregen to count towards a 1st lvl character with a requisite drop in credits?

This could potentially allow a player to leave with 4 adventures under their character's belt, still only 2nd level.

Dark Archive

Thanks, that makes a lot more sense so really I can just do the 00 and then add the other numbers if it works out but in whatever order I want.

I am curious as there are some 2am time slots there. I've never seen a 2am-7am event before :O

Really do hope there is reserved pickup. I am looking at getting almost everything offered at initial launch, either way it will probably be my first stop once the hall opens :D


Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Jason Mosher wrote:
So do the "Into the Unknown" events include all the scenarios listed as "1-0X?" Or is it something distinct?

So that's a "no, they do not?"

And as a follow-up, then, is that five hour time frame realistic, or exaggerated? That's a hell of a lot of time to commit to SF for a first-time GenCon'er. Not that I mind, I suppose, it just seems excessive.

Dark Archive

Into the Unknown is still the most confusing with the 1 hour timetable per section as 1 hour almost seems like too little.

It is organized play events so the 5 hours make sense. You want to leave with something accomplished. Last year I went and did a variety of RPGs to branch out that were 2-3 hours long and that is nice to learn.

Generally, Paizo Inc. does just Society stuff and then 3rd parties run their own groups, but with Starfinder launching there only appears to be one 3rd party doing a tablet table tech demo thing.

What I'd expect is closer to GenCon in July more Starfinder events will pop up from 3rd parties with shorter time slots.

Really right now it's the organized play that people will clamour over to get a good timeslot on May 28th. That's my plan. Official stuff May 28th then add filler and new experiences as the months go on.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Society Subscriber

Into the unknown sounds like the questseries.

If they are the same setup as PFS quests (which I'm guessing they are), they consist of a bunch of short standalone adventures in a general theme, which take about 1 hour per adventure.


Five hour slots came about because previously they had 4 hour slots, with no breaks in between, squeezing 4 slots from 8AM to midnight. The scenario itself is designed for at most 4 hours of actual play time, the rest of the hour is for set up and take down and paperwork, plus wiggle room for late starts and bathroom breaks. I'd say since moving to 5 hour slots, I've gone the whole 5 hours maybe 3-4 times in dozens of slots played.


Thurston Hillman wrote:

'Starfinder Society: #1-00: Claim to Salvation' is a pregenerated character event and all necessary information will be provided. This event, and the first quest pack, debut on Thursday. Subsequent scenarios don't start until the following day, giving players a full day to get their hands on a Starfinder rulebook. These events allow players time to create their own PCs from the Starfinder Core Rulebook, since the rulebook would be 'out in the wild' for a day.

We're preparing to have a large number of pregenerated characters available for use at Gen Con, but we also want to make these events open to players interested in creating their own characters. Scenarios #01-01 to #01-03 are also part of the 'standard season' and will see play at local events, so they're intended for any type of character within the Starfinder Society.

In other words; expect to have pregens available, as well as custom characters (assuming they follow the rules in the to-be-released Starfinder Society Roleplaying Guild Guide).

We'll have more announcements on exactly how the roll-out for the Organized Play Guide and Starfinder Society character creation rules will work in the near future.

That sounds excellent hopefully I will be able to see you guys down there I am looking forward to some gen con fun as I have not gone in 5 years.

Paizo Employee Starfinder Society Developer

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'Into the Unknown' is the first Starfinder Society Roleplaying Guild quest pack. It runs 5 quests (roughly 45-60 mins each) in length.

This is one of our first attempts at putting up the Quest Packs as sign-in events, rather than just as walk-up demo tables. This is for a few reasons: first, we suspect that Starfinder should be pretty popular at Gen Con and we want players to get a chance to get a guaranteed introduction to the game. Secondly, the quest pack has a cohesive narrative between all the quests, so having a set slot to run through all 5 of them helps with the narrative element.

That being said, we'll still be offering tons of quest demos throughout the convention. The ticketed seats just ensure you'll get to play through all the quests in order!

Hope that helps clear up some of the confusion.

Contributor

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I made a Google Sheet to help me plan GenCon Starfinder stuff, and thought other folks might find it useful. I'll do my best to keep it updated.
Spreadsheet link!

It's my 1st con ever! I'd like to help out and GM some Starfinder, but I've never GMed time-constrained PFS-style stuff before and am wary of overloading my schedule. Gotta stew on it.


Andrew Mullen wrote:

I made a Google Sheet to help me plan GenCon Starfinder stuff, and thought other folks might find it useful. I'll do my best to keep it updated.

Spreadsheet link!

It's my 1st con ever! I'd like to help out and GM some Starfinder, but I've never GMed time-constrained PFS-style stuff before and am wary of overloading my schedule. Gotta stew on it.

That spreadsheet is great to put it together in my head. Thanks! Also, this is my first ever con AND first ever time GMing society games. I'm super pumped to do Starfinder Society stuff since my main home group will probably stick to Pathfinder adventure paths for a little bit. Anyway, you should definitely think about it! I don't wanna be the only newbie out there.

Contributor

xrayregime wrote:


That spreadsheet is great to put it together in my head. Thanks! Also, this is my first ever con AND first ever time GMing society games. I'm super pumped to do Starfinder Society stuff since my main home group will probably stick to Pathfinder adventure paths for a little bit. Anyway, you should definitely think about it! I don't wanna be the only newbie out there.

Glad it's helpful! Just volunteered for Starfinder, open availability on Thursday. Gonna be a baptism by fire!

Grand Lodge

Thurston Hillman wrote:

In other words; expect to have pregens available, as well as custom characters (assuming they follow the rules in the to-be-released Starfinder Society Roleplaying Guild Guide).

We'll have more announcements on exactly how the roll-out for the Organized Play Guide and Starfinder Society character creation rules will work in the near future.

I'll have the PDF of the core book to make a character. Will tephere be a simple character sheet available before the game release to use at gencon or will we need to use a portfolio?

Liberty's Edge

I don't know if it is allowed but would be interesting to be able to swap pre-gens during the quest series, to try as many of the classes out as possible before making an official first character.


Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

This'll be my first GenCon as well, but I'm not awesome enough to attempt volunteering. You guys are crazy and awesome!

I'll be there Thurs-Sat. Here's my wish list so far. Things are redundant to ensure I get a spot.

Starfinder Society: Quest Pack #1:Into the Unknown Thursday 8:00 AM 5 hrs
SAMB: BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU SEARCH FOR Shadowrun: Anarchy, 1st Edition Thursday 8:00 AM 2 hrs
Starfinder Society: Quest Pack #1:Into the Unknown Thursday 2:00 PM 5 hrs
SAMB: DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT ARCOLOGY Shadowrun: Anarchy, 1st Edition Thursday 8:00 PM 2 hrs
Starfinder Society: #1-00: Claim to Salvation Thursday 8:00 PM 5 hrs

Starfinder Society: #1-00: Claim to Salvation Friday 8:00 AM 5 hrs
Starfinder Society: #1-01: The Commencement Friday 8:00 AM 5 hrs
Starfinder Society: #1-01: The Commencement Friday 2:00 PM 5 hrs
Starfinder Society: #1-02: Fugitive on the Red Planet Friday 2:00 PM 5 hrs
AEG's 2017 Big Game Night Friday 8:00 PM 4 hrs

Hickman's Killer Breakfast Saturday 9:00 AM 2 hrs
Gamers Live: Attack of the Mutants from Planet X (General Seating) Saturday 12:00 PM 2 hrs
The Gamers: Season 0 + The Shadow Menace (PREMIERE) Saturday 3:00 PM 1.5 hr

Mostly SF, obviously, with some Shadowrun and board gaming for variety and finishing off the trip with a comedy Saturday.

By the way, if you haven't seen The Gamers or their related series, you are missing out!


I plan on doing just this...I can't see a reason not to. :)

Rambone wrote:
I don't know if it is allowed but would be interesting to be able to swap pre-gens during the quest series, to try as many of the classes out as possible before making an official first character.

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