Castamir's Flaxseed Station

Game Master Chris Marsh

I realize all the chronicles are set up for 7--. In otherwords, if you make 99 characters, it doesn't go onto 800? I hope we ain't limited to 99 characters, cause I make a new one every time I get a race boon, even if it is to add to existing race. There are 8 scenarios with race boons in season 1. If you play and DM those both, that is 16 new characters, with the exception that you may stack 2 race boons on 1 character to get the existing boon that aren't legacy races. Not to mention, Gameday and Outpost hand out race boons. If seasons 2 and 3 go crazy on handing out race boons like season 1 did, then people like me would reach 99 characters during season 6 if you DM a lot or 10 if you DM a little, maybe even sooner than that if you include racial boons not from scenarios.

If you get to your 100th character, cross out the 7 and write in an 8. I believe that you may be limited to 300 Starfinder characters since ACG numbers start at 1001.

You can have 700 PFS1 characters! You can have 500 ACG characters! Oh no, they have bounded us in with this limit!

Hmm

The thought of that number of profiles in my Aliases page makes me shudder! More power to you for making sure you get to use your race boons, DoubleGold, but man I can't even think of having that many characters.

Few those numbers make me feel much better.

I feel like I have too many characters with 15 and won't make any more.

But then, my highest level one is 6th.

Yeah, I'm at 14 PFS (highest lvl 10), 6 SFS (two lvl 4s), and a couple PF2 toons. I feel like I've left the majority of my PFS PCs out in the cold, and there's at least one of my SFS that is lagging behind the others. Getting anywhere near numbers where I'd have to worry about exceeding the numbering system's potential limitations is just mind-boggling to me!

I went a bit overboard in PFS and have 19 (although four are core and one is a never played GM blob). That said, it is over four years of playing, and I have one seeker in that lot and another that could be.

I'd love it if we could mark an alias as inactive so they didn't appear any longer.

I've got 4 SFS, although another of those is just made of GM credits on evergreen scenarios that I've run too many times. I learned from PFS.

I agree about making aliases inactive.

13 PFS characters with 7 being my highest level. I haven't even played 6 of them.

15 SFS characters with 4 being my highest level. Still hoping to play 5 of them including one DM credit dump.

I just don't feel Double Gold's concerns at all.

With SFS and its initial slow scenario release, I made a conscious effort to keep to two, and then added a third when the scenario releases became more frequent. I didn't want to be stranded with no content that I could play.

That didn't turn out to be an issue, but three seems to work really well for me for starfinder. I can normally keep them all busy. One is 4th and just about to level out of the low level scenarios, the others are fifth and sixth. So that 4th SFS character will become active soon just so I can play some of the new low level content.

Actually I kind of wish that SFS had a slow progression mechanic. I'm glad to see that PFS 2 has it. Most of my PFS core characters are slow and some of the regular ones. Though that may also be because I prefer the lower level content. More story and less mechanics.

You can actually deactivate aliases, but not by default. I STRONGLY recommend this tool, regardless. With more than 40 characters, default posting aliases and the color options are a must:

Paizo Campaign Tools

My solution to too many race boons is to give away the ones that I can, and use the others in interesting ways. I was fortunate enough to get an alien allies boon at GenCon, which allowed me to funnel some of those scenario race boons into a fight club to follow Mu around.

I'm at 7 SFS characters, with my top three characters at levels 9, 8, and 6. I don't want to have too many characters, but I'm also reluctant to waste GM credit when it shows up!

In PFS my goal was to have one PC of every race available to me. Between that and some extra character concepts I have probably too many PFS characters. Most of them 3rd level or lower.

I've decided that's an unreasonable goal for SFS, so mostly I just want to be sure I have a character at every level (or at least every tier) as often as possible. So when my current 0xp character hits 3xp (or 6xp), I'll start a new one, etc.

I have one race boon from Alien Archive that I haven't used yet, and I'm fairly certain I'm soon to acquire some more (although one I believe to be redundant).

I'm looking forward to the next Alien Archive boon!

I give away most of my race boons as well. I've got 3 characters now, and 1 more pending the release of the next source book. Since I generally like to avoid replaying scenarios, 4-5 characters will keep me covered for a while. Plus at the moment, my highest level character is 5... and I'd like to try out some of the higher level content, so I should focus just a few for a bit.

What's the race boon from Alien Archive? I've seen it mentioned a couple times but since I just got the book, I haven't really paid attention until now.

There are quite a few boons that let you play additional races from the Alien Archive.

From memory, there was a boon that is specifically called Alien Archive. This required players to play 6 games within a certain time period to unlock access to a specific race or instead play 12 games within the same period to unlock a different race.

There are quite a few boons that let you play additional races from the Alien Archive.

From memory, there was a boon that is specifically called Alien Archive. This required players to play 6 games within a certain time period to unlock access to a specific race or instead play 12 games within the same period to unlock a different race.

Yup. That time period has passed. Many of us expected (still expect?) that there will be another similar "achievable" boon in the future.

Okay for those that say you can't reach 99 characters

Edit: Though not getting near the 300 limit before they move onto Starfinder version 2, I doubt anyone will reach it, unless they are making aliases just to reach the limit.

I think you may have a little wrong with your maths. Unless you really want to have 100 level 1 characters. Which even for me doesn't sound much fun.

I'm not sure about APs and modules, but just sticking to scenarios and season one...
There are 5 tier 1-4 scenarios that are evergreen, so lets assume that all your characters get credit for them and start on 5xp.

There are 15 (including skittershot) other tier 1-4 scenarios that can get you up to level 5 (12xp, so 7 scenarios per character). Given both playing and GMing that makes thirty xp worth of material, so four characters can get to 5th using them. With 2xp left over (and I know we have the 3-6 tier as well, but you'll probably need them for levelling to access other higher tier content).

There are ten 3-6 scenarios, but one of them is evergreen, so lets work with nine. Those four level five characters each need another 6xp. One of them can be the evergreen, so that is 25xp worth of scenarios. But only 18 available. So at most three characters can get to level 7.

There are seven tier 5-8 scenarios, so 14xp there with GM credit. Needing 6xp each, that is two characters at level 9, Add in the special and that is another 2xp, so not quite enough for another level nine just yet.

With only two 7-10 scenarios I don't think (outside of APs and modules) you can get to 10th yet.

So you can get pretty much unlimited characters to level two (1xp off three), AND another to level three (7xp), AND another to level five, AND another to level seven (or maybe eight), and two more to level nine.

My point being, that to play most of the content, you are going to need to have higher level characters, and to do that you will not be able to make use of all those racial boons outside of evergreens.

Okay, that was far too long a post.
And this edit makes it longer. I can only see Dead Suns as a sanctioned AP at the moment. That is six chronicles, each giving one level. Actually by my calculations (which can be off) - nobody can actually apply that last chronicle yet, as it is only for level 11-12 characters, and even if your level 9 character got a 3xp boost, they would still be one xp short of applying it.

And that is a huge amount of game time. A staggeringly large amount. Scenarios alone that is one scenario a week (either GMing or playing) and some weeks doing two. Fitting in an entire AP on top of that... (or two if you are GMing and playing...)

Don't forget to take into account SS-JA faction which can help level a person, seeker of knowledge, lets you replay any one scenario per tier of reputation you have.
And Against the Aeon Thrones and Signal of Screams are both sanctioned as well.
Edit: I am assuming Season 2 will have as many evergreens as Season 1, thus you can have really high level characters in later seasons.

Okay for those that say you can't reach 99 characters

** spoiler omitted **
8 Characters +4 Characters +2 Characters +3 Characters + your original character you had to make to play these games =18 Characters during season 1. Now, chances are you probably made other characters as well not related to boons. 18 Characters not including non-boon Characters, non original character. If every season gave you that many race boons, you'd have over 100 characters by season 6.

Edit: Though not getting near the 300 limit before they move onto Starfinder version 2, I doubt anyone will reach it, unless they are making aliases just to reach...

I never said you couldn't reach 99 characters. I could create 99 Vesk Soldiers.

Given the themes, races, classes, and class options in the core book, you could easily make 99 unique characters even without taking into account differences in Feat and Skill selection.

I just don't understand why anyone would make that many characters.

Although I do recognize your reason and have already rebuilt one of my 0XP blobs using a boon I got.

Where are the sanctioning documents and chronicles for the second and third APs?

The individual product pages have a link to the chronicles at the end of the scenario description.

Starfinder Adventure Path #7: The Reach of Empire (Against the Aeon Throne 1 of 3)

Starfinder Adventure Path #10: The Diaspora Strain (Signal of Screams 1 of 3)

Um, I've noticed something. Why are Stafinder Adventure Paths shorter than Pathfinder ones? Obviously they are 2 dollars cheaper as they should be since they are using less resources, but why did Paizo make them so much shorter? Like 30 pages difference per book.
It could be that way with the scenarios too, I didn't compare.

I don't know if the answer to that has ever been posted. I do know that Starfinder APs are tightly scripted books where every word counts.
The words that are there matter, if that makes sense.

(There's even awesome content from people in our PBP OrgPlay community. Both Vanessa Hoskins and Kate Baker have written AP adventures, and there's been some other folks who've written AP backmatter like GM Stephen from Roll for Combat.)

Back to the size issue. The Starfinder AP volume length really works for me. I have never missed those 30 pages. If and when they bring back Starfinder Wednesday on Twitch, this would be an awesome question to ask though. I'd love to see a response on why they went with the slimmer profile.

Hmm

I'm leaving out the specials.
From a very non random sample - namely my season 1 SFS PDFs, it looks like they are mostly 20-24 pages, with most being 22.

No I don't have much in the way of recent PFS to compare this to.

Season 10, just a single scenario at 24 - which seems in keeping
Season 9, two at 26 and one at 35 (to be fair, high level, and end of a faction story arc)
Season 8 (and ignoring FToRR) 23, 33(but seeker),
Season 7 26, 33 (repeatable), 30 (high tier), 25, 36/34/52(seeker arc)
Season 6 25, 26, 31, 29, 21, 24, 25, 22, 25, 35 (repeatable), 32, 33
and I get bored.

On the surface it looks like PFS are slightly longer. However the worst outliers tend to be higher level or otherwise special scenarios.

Specials in SFS are also longer
01-00 is 27
Commencement and Ashes of Discovery (repeatable) come in at the top end of SFS at 24 - though to be fair The Confirmation was only 28.

Stat blocks tend to be slightly longer in PFS, but that might be due to the higher level stuff as well. Actually this is kind of interesting. I might try to do a better analysis of this.

Need to vary by season, tier, repeatable, special, system.
level SFS season 1 against season 9 of PFS.
Probably make the tiers low (1-5 or 1-4 depending on system) growing (3-7 or 3-6), mid (5-9 or 5-8), high (7-11 or 7-10). Won't be enough high tier stuff in SFS to really be fair, and no SFS seeker stuff to compare either.

Have there been any updates on when the SFS Guide 2.0 will be released, or did I possibly miss something? Last I heard it was supposed to release around the week of Origins which has now passed.

Okay, I redid my maths.
Using the first thirty (not including 01-00) SFS scenarios we have a median page count of 23, lower quartile of 22 and upper of 25. Nice tight grouping. (mean is 23.5 for those interested).

For comparison to PFS, I took twelve season ten scenarios and a further 20 season 9s. Now one of these is a bit of an outlier - (09-09 at 91 pages), and there is 10-08 which comes in at 45 as well. These have a median page count of 27, lower quartile of 25 and upper of 31.5.

So there really is a significant difference between the page count of a SFS scenario and PFS one.

Looking at it by tier (and remembering that there are not so many higher tier SFS scenarios, so if there is a PFS vs SFS distinction, it will show up even more here) High tier scenarios have a median page count of 27 - which is way above the upper quartiles of any of the other level groups (aside from seekers, but there is only one seeker scenario in my selection, so we can't really draw any conclusions from that). All the other tier groupings had a median of 25 pages, with upper and lower quartiles of 23 and 27.

Taking the higher tier scenarios out of the picture we still get a significant difference between PFS and SFS page counts. Which is interesting when you consider they cost the same.

Aerondor, you have too much time on your hands. I suggest running more games.

School holidays for this week and next. Then I'm back into class. I started up two new games a couple of weeks ago in the hope of getting them more or less finished before class starts again.

But yes. Home with a sick kid today and no readings for class. And I more or less refuse to watch daytime TV. Although I confess to enjoying the new version of Magnum PI.

Have there been any updates on when the SFS Guide 2.0 will be released, or did I possibly miss something? Last I heard it was supposed to release around the week of Origins which has now passed.

It has been delayed, but I'm not sure if the why is for public disclosure (not that it's any kind of sensitive thing).

I blame Cosmo.

Nice analysis, Aerondor.

So... Here's my thought on scenario length. There seems to be little to no difference between the play time length of PF1 and SFS, or between the amount of adventure packed into an SFS vs a PFS scenario. I think we get just as much story, combat, and roleplay opportunity. But SF is a leaner system than PF1, which even its most devoted adherents believe is a complex and sprawling ruleset. Statblocks are shorter in SF. Rules are streamlined. I am thinking that the difference may be just simply fewer statblocks and less rules complexity so that the scenario can concentrate more on story than on weird special abilities.

That's my theory, anyway!

Hmm

I find SFS plays quite a bit faster. But again, you are right the system is a lot cleaner.

Over my last three years of PBP I've been tracking my game time (GMed, not played). My mean table times have been:
Classic PFS : 43 days.
Core PFS : 41 days.
SFS : 36 days.

If I use the median rather than the mean to get rid of some long duration outliers I have:
Classic: 36 days
Core: 39 days Interesting how most Core games take longer!
SFS: 34 days

Um, I've noticed something. Why are Stafinder Adventure Paths shorter than Pathfinder ones? Obviously they are 2 dollars cheaper as they should be since they are using less resources, but why did Paizo make them so much shorter? Like 30 pages difference per book.

It could be that way with the scenarios too, I didn't compare.

So... I asked this question in the Starfinder Wednesday Fan Club thread, and Jason Keeley answered it. The design choice to go with slimmer volumes was simply because the Starfinder staff was so very small at first -- and they were designing the Core Rulebook, Incident at Absalom Station and Alien Archive all at the same time. So they decided to go with a slimmer AP volume that they could manage with the staff they had.

I find SFS plays quite a bit faster. But again, you are right the system is a lot cleaner.

Over my last three years of PBP I've been tracking my game time (GMed, not played). My mean table times have been:
Classic PFS : 43 days.
Core PFS : 41 days.
SFS : 36 days.

If I use the median rather than the mean to get rid of some long duration outliers I have:
Classic: 36 days
Core: 39 days Interesting how most Core games take longer!
SFS: 34 days

I haven't noticed much difference in time between my live plays of PFS and SFS -- but you're right, that my SFS games in PBP in general flow a little faster. Maybe it's that we don't get bogged down with as many rules conundrums? Sometimes games slow way down when I have to ponder how to do something.

I am awed that you track your games in this manner, Aerondor!

Hmm

I'm a stats geek at heart :-)

It's the final "completed" page on my signup sheet if anyone really wants to look at the details.

The biggest conclusion that can be drawn is that SFS has pretty much replaced my Classic PFS tables. Since I've been tracking it, I've done as many Core as classic/SFS tables combined.

That and I'm slowly GMing less PBP.
2016 - 23 tables of PBP
2017 - 18 tables
2018 - 16 tables
2019 - 8 tables so far. Half way through the year, so on track for 15/16 I'm guessing at the moment.

Hello, Online Peoples!

A bit late but general player signups for PbP Gameday VIII are officially open! You may sign up for up to 3 RPG games and/or 2 ACG games - and this includes Specials - at the link >>HERE<<. These limits are to ensure that everyone has a fair chance to find seating for games. Unlimited player signups will open later, on July 22nd.

Have fun and I hope that everyone gets the spots they've been hoping for! :D

I have played only The First Mandate among Scoured Star scenarios. Should I try to play 2-0 Scoured God now or hold out for it to be run after I've completed the set?

Chances are it would not be run on here again, so you don't see it likely to play in F2F, think you should go ahead and sign up now.

Ok, you persuaded me.

Chances are it would not be run on here again, so you don't see it likely to play in F2F, think you should go ahead and sign up now.

That's been true of most specials in PBP, but it won't be true this time. In fact I think that we're likely going to run it at least 2 more times (and likely more) in this lodge. Why? Because it's repeatable at different tiers of play.

It's tag is Repeatable (Tier 1–4, Tier 5–8, Tier 9–12).

This means that you can play it once in Tier 1-4, once in Tier 5-8, and once in Tier 9-12. Each time you play it, it should be with a different character. So the next time you play it may be with another character who has reached Level 5.

Since it will only take three tables to muster this special, we can and will likely run it again. It is locked to conventions until June 2020, chances are good that we will only get 2 runs of it in PBP before then, one at PBP Gameday VIII and one at OutPost III. But after that, it will be open for small runs of three tables, which we could organize outside of conventions in order to help players play at higher tiers. I suspect that we will have a few smaller runs of this one happening after June 2020 as people start to level their characters, and more newcomers join the lodge.

TL/DR: Play now. Play again with different characters later. Play it only three times -- unless you have characters that belong to the Second Seekers Jadnura faction.

Thanks everyone!

Hmm

Apologies to those who have been waiting for an 'official' announcement but unlimited player signups for PbP Gameday VIII are now open. This means that you may sign up to play as many games as you think you can handle*. That said, please take care to be responsible and avoid signing up for more than you can reasonably keep up with as it can become quite the burden on your fellow GMs and players to have people dropping out mid-game.

You can find the signup spreadsheet for games here.

Enjoy and Happy Gaming!
______________

*Though SFS #2-00 Fate of the Scoured God may be played for credit once in each tier, we are currently restricting players to one signup for Gameday. We plan to offer this particular special again in the not-too-distant future and would rather not see the majority of our SFS players burn through their opportunities to play it all in one shot.

Hey GMs --

We regret to tell you that we have to cancel SFS 2-00 for PBP Gameday. We are rescheduling it for Outpost III in March 2020.

HILARY, WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?

We had some unhappy news regarding the SFS 2-00 special today. The OPF leadership team told me today that they want to reserve new specials to the face-to-face conventions for the first six months. This is to help local conventions fill their tables for specials.

Although this is profoundly disappointing, I know that we will have a great run of SFS 2-00 at Outpost III. Also, we online GMs want the local conventions to have their chance to be great too.

HILARY, I PLANNED ON RUNNING 2-00! WHAT DO I RUN NOW?

The good news is that I negotiated with Tonya to allow us to resubmit our scenario support request. If you were running 2-00, please resubmit for something else on the GM form. Here is the link to that GM form:

https://forms.gle/8hGUxNbEFJfewfdDA

Please fill out the request for your new tables by July 31st. Please only add your replacements for 2-00. For my sanity, don’t submit unless you were involved with the SFS special. Thanks!

HILARY, HOW DO I NOTIFY MY PLAYERS?

Go ahead and post the news to your tables. Feel free to copy this email if you wish. We will be posting notices in all the PBP lodges as well.

I know this is not what we hoped to do, and I’m sorry. Thank you for understanding that we’re scrambling to fix this.

Hugs,

Hmm

Well, I wish you PbP organizers all the best.
A lot of hard work washed away, and now more work to do...
Thanks for organizing this and I am sure you will make the best of a sad situation.

Hey Folks,

Keep in mind that there are plenty more tables open for SFS. Keep in mind that if you have the bandwidth and would like to play more games and you don't have a character in that tier you can play a pregen.

Let's try to keep some of these wonderful volunteer GM's engaged and employed. :) Let 'em do what they love to do.

"So, ah, my player is being all 'Human' and citing um, ah, 'heavy involvement already'. I.. I would ah, um, like to er... do more Starfinding!"

*facepalm* Gets out the PC Herding stick to gently guide the errant character back to the Character Hotel.

You don't have to tell me twice. :-)

At this point, I would have to create new characters (or get a replay for 1-05 to unblock my soldier) to sign up for more games. I don't think any of my race boons are available just yet, so... (I'm also probably in enough games for this gameday)

Congratulations #820. Well deserved.

OSP - Skitter Crash needs to be added, trying to report the sessions that I'm now completing. Could they be the first done by PbP??

Will let them know Shifty.

Edit: Nvm Saw it was already posted. :P