Long-Range Sensors Picking Up New Adventures!

Returning to bi-monthly?

Is Starfinder not doing well sales wise?

Excited for these! I love the module format, and I’m glad to see it coming to Starfinder!

So, bi monthly adventure path, and bimonthly modules?

Returning to bi-monthly?

Is Starfinder not doing well sales wise?

I'd be concerned about that too, except they said that in the months there was no AP volume, they'd have standalone modules. I suspect they are going with this because:

1. On the PF side, the individual modules are doing well
2. A single module is a LOT easier to develop and support than an entire Adventure path.

Considering SF is my favorite offering from Paizo, I'd hope it was doing well.

How will this new line interact with subscriptions? Will it be a separate subscription, will it be part of the AP subscription, or something else?

Can't wait - and that picture is pretty boss!
*urge to Warforged intensifies*

Can't wait - and that picture is pretty boss!

*urge to Warforged intensifies*

Large SROs when?

How will this new line interact with subscriptions? Will it be a separate subscription, will it be part of the AP subscription, or something else?

These adventures will be standalone and not part of their own or another subscription, at least for now.

So, how will these interact with Starfinder Society, some people would like to know. :)

So, how will these interact with Starfinder Society, some people would like to know. :)

Yeah THAT is an awesome question :)

Keldin wrote:

So, how will these interact with Starfinder Society, some people would like to know. :)

Yeah THAT is an awesome question :)

Look for guidance in a future Thursday Organized Play blog in the months to come.

rknop wrote:

How will this new line interact with subscriptions? Will it be a separate subscription, will it be part of the AP subscription, or something else?

These adventures will be standalone and not part of their own or another subscription, at least for now.

Please consider making them their own subscription. I assume that your subscription for standalone Pathfinder adventures is doing okay?

Aaron Shanks wrote:

rknop wrote:

How will this new line interact with subscriptions? Will it be a separate subscription, will it be part of the AP subscription, or something else?

These adventures will be standalone and not part of their own or another subscription, at least for now.

Please consider making them their own subscription. I assume that your subscription for standalone Pathfinder adventures is doing okay?

We may, but we have more surprises ahead. Stay tuned!

rknop wrote:

How will this new line interact with subscriptions? Will it be a separate subscription, will it be part of the AP subscription, or something else?

These adventures will be standalone and not part of their own or another subscription, at least for now.

I would prefer if they were part of a subscription. Mainly due to the free PDF I get when you subscribe. If I now need to purchase the print and the PDF separately, I will most likely just pick up the PDF since I find that format most useful when it comes to adventure material.

Since the APs will be moving to a every two month schedule, couldn't these new adventures just slot in to the months that don't have a Starfinder AP?

Aaron Shanks wrote:

rknop wrote:

How will this new line interact with subscriptions? Will it be a separate subscription, will it be part of the AP subscription, or something else?

These adventures will be standalone and not part of their own or another subscription, at least for now.

I would prefer if they were part of a subscription. Mainly due to the free PDF I get when you subscribe. If I now need to purchase the print and the PDF separately, I will most likely just pick up the PDF since I find that format most useful when it comes to adventure material.

Since the APs will be moving to a every two month schedule, couldn't these new adventures just slot in to the months that don't have a Starfinder AP?

Understood, but that’s not quite the product release plan we have for 2021. Great to hear of your enthusiasm for PDFs. More soon!

Well, my obozaya tokens just got a serious upgrade

Well, my obozaya tokens just got a serious upgrade

You and I think alike. Lol

ograx wrote:

Returning to bi-monthly?

Is Starfinder not doing well sales wise?

I'd be concerned about that too, except they said that in the months there was no AP volume, they'd have standalone modules. I suspect they are going with this because:

1. On the PF side, the individual modules are doing well
2. A single module is a LOT easier to develop and support than an entire Adventure path.

Considering SF is my favorite offering from Paizo, I'd hope it was doing well.

Diversifying the product line could mean a lot of things, but it feels to me like Starfinder is doing pretty okay. It has the 3rd highest number of total sessions on Warhorn (granted PFS 1E has six times the sessions and D&D Adventurer's League has about four times as many) and, as of this spring, ICv2 listed it in the top five:

https://icv2.com/articles/markets/view/46309/top-5-roleplaying-games-spring -2020

I feel like we have enough APs now that a monthly release is a little too breakneck (who is playing them so fast that they need a new book every month?). Standalone adventures are a boon to homebrew campaigns and groups between APs, because they can just slot in where required. While Starfinder Society releases have served well as a stopgap for this purpose, individual scenarios can't really go into as much depth as a full book adventure, where you can blow space on background, sidebars, alternate solutions, new monsters, and such.

Well, my obozaya tokens just got a serious upgrade

I suppose she's holding the doshko instead of wielding it, so she can grapple the robot - her grip looks a bit odd.

https://icv2.com/articles/markets/view/46309/top-5-roleplaying-games-spring -2020

Looks like all the third-party publishers moved on to D&D!

Dracomicron wrote:

https://icv2.com/articles/markets/view/46309/top-5-roleplaying-games-spring -2020

Looks like all the third-party publishers moved on to D&D!

Let's be real, here.

D&D has always been the choice of 3rd party publishers, since the 1980s. It only dropped off because Necromancers of the Shore and their master, Hasbro, didn't like the Open Gaming License idea and started nailing the coffin closed in 2008 so they could reap all those profits from 4E themselves.

After that didn't happen and they had a minor brand catastrophe, they learned the lesson that a thriving 3rd party market is a good thing for a niche product like TTRPGs, and pried the OGL lid open in 2016. The 3rd parties started reanimating, because NOTHING in tabletop has the name recognition or cultural cache' of D&D.

Starfinder doing as well as it does is only because people who play D&D graduate to wanting to do different stuff. It was never meant to go head-to-head with the dracolich that is D&D.

I'm less than thrilled about this if I'm gonna be honest. I'd personally prefer setting heavy books that provide more info for crafting one's own adventure than pre-written adventures, but that's just me.

Still, more starfinder is always good.

More Starfinder is ALWAYS a good thing.

If you're looking for more adventures in between the modules and APs, I'd like to remind you that the Starfinder Society is always recruiting. We'd love to see you join us for Organized Play, if you haven't already! :)

More Starfinder is ALWAYS a good thing.

If you're looking for more adventures in between the modules and APs, I'd like to remind you that the Starfinder Society is always recruiting. We'd love to see you join us for Organized Play, if you haven't already! :)

Appreciate the offer but in the politest terms I can possibly manage I find the concept of organized play deeply unappealing, personally.

Appreciate the offer but in the politest terms I can possibly manage I find the concept of organized play deeply unappealing, personally.

you can use the scenarios without being in organized play. We don't send a mischief of ysoki mechanics to your house to saw the legs off your gaming table if you do it on your own (not after that note from humanoid resources anyway...)

For society, at most tables, once the game starts its not any different from any other game.

FormerFiend wrote:

Appreciate the offer but in the politest terms I can possibly manage I find the concept of organized play deeply unappealing, personally.

you can use the scenarios without being in organized play. We don't send a mischief of ysoki mechanics to your house to saw the legs off your gaming table if you do it on your own (not after that note from humanoid resources anyway...)

For society, at most tables, once the game starts its not any different from any other game.

And don't tell anybody but I've been recycling adventures since the 90s. It used to be relatively easy to get old 1E and 2E D&D adventures at game shops and used bookstores. It saves loads of time and hassle with prep. I find it to be really easy to change a few stats as needed or switch out a monster here and there and reskinning a dungeon adventure as a smash and grab job for a cyberpunk game is as easy as changing the description from dank and dismal dungeon to dank and dismal rundown research park. So far no gaming company hit squads have kicked down the door.

Count me in for also wanting a subscription option for these new adventures.

Count me in for also wanting a subscription option for these new adventures.

Me too!

So this is the adventure where the Junkmaster Technomancer shines! All the junk spells!

I am excited for these SF adventures! I personally don't have time to get through my many many volumes of AP and SF APs but plan to once jobs, family, parenting and other demands on my time allow and then coordinating with people who have similar demands on their time. I love reading the modules even when I don't get to play them.

The direction of the last few Starfinder APs has been amazing, I love the new themes coming in and think the Starfinder setting has the most potential out of any to just really run any kind of game you can think of.

Also more adventures exploring aspects of different core worlds is awesome and yay Akiton! Love the post apocalyptic feel of the place.

Any chance if we preorder the adventures individually and maintain the AP subscription for the duration that we could get the adventures pdf for free similar to how some of the off subscription maps are handled? I’ve found having both the physical and the digital is nice.

I have a question for the module line that doesn't need to be answered right away.

How do we plan to integrate these into the Organized play? I LOVE the modules of PF1 era including the one under Gamemastery.

I would like to request that we treat the upcoming new Starfinder modules like we did with Dragon's Demand and have campaign mode as an available option.

I can't wait to get this in my hands.

I want subscriptions to this as well.

Count me as intrigued by this, though I also wish there was a subscription option for the free PDF option.

Does the transition to bimonthly Starfinder AP content mean that the APs could become 96-pagers like their kin on the Pathfinder side?

Starfinder is doing fine. When we launched with bi-monthly APs, the community told us they wanted more adventure content, so we doubled production on the APs. One of the upshots of that decision is that, outside of Organized Play, there really haven't been a lot of "short" options for people to pick up and play. To date, it's been "do you want to make a 6-month commitment with a 3-volume AP, or a year or longer with a 6-volume?"

Some people just want to try it out, or want a fun adventure where they can explore a different character outside of the campaign environment.

While the line is successful and sells well, it doesn't sell well enough to justify adding new staff and new sub-lines to the brand. At the same time, our market research is telling us that people are taking longer to get through Adventure Paths than they did at the game's launch, so over the last year or so we've begun to suspect that a monthly AP for Starfinder probably _is_ too fast of a release schedule for our second most popular game.

This seems like a good way to shore up a strategic flaw in the Starfinder offerings (not enough stand-alone adventures) while shifting the Adventure Paths to a schedule that more reasonably matches the audience's appetite for that kind of content.

We are always listening to the players, and will continue to adjust things accordingly. That could at some point mean shifting BACK to monthly APs, but we're going to give this new product mix (plus some upcoming surprises) a try for a while to see how it works.

We're continuing to discuss the best subscription options for these adventures, and will share news on that front when we get it. We know there is a lot of interest, which is fantastic to see.

Starfinder is an important part of Paizo's offerings, and we plan to support it robustly far into the future. Some of the rulebooks the team is working on now are among the best and most exciting releases for the game so far, in my opinion, and I am very very excited about what the future holds for Starfinder!

Good to hear that Starfinder is doing fine and I have no real issue with slowing down the AP release schedule (I have more than enough PF and SF content to last me a lifetime - but please don't stop!!). I also think standalone adventures are a welcome addition to SF content. My only real issue with this announcement is the lack of a subscription option out of the gate. I will really only buy these in hard copy from Paizo if the subscription option is available as paying for PDF and hard copy plus shipping to the UK doesn't make a direct purchase from Paizo worthwhile for me. I would really rather not give more money than I have to to a certain multinational named after a South American river and would rather pay it direct to the wonderful creators of Starfinder and Pathfinder.

Wait a minute...ZOOM AND ENHANCE!

Starfinder is doing fine. When we launched with bi-monthly APs, the community told us they wanted more adventure content, so we doubled production on the APs. One of the upshots of that decision is that, outside of Organized Play, there really haven't been a lot of "short" options for people to pick up and play. To date, it's been "do you want to make a 6-month commitment with a 3-volume AP, or a year or longer with a 6-volume?"

Some people just want to try it out, or want a fun adventure where they can explore a different character outside of the campaign environment.

While the line is successful and sells well, it doesn't sell well enough to justify adding new staff and new sub-lines to the brand. At the same time, our market research is telling us that people are taking longer to get through Adventure Paths than they did at the game's launch, so over the last year or so we've begun to suspect that a monthly AP for Starfinder probably _is_ too fast of a release schedule for our second most popular game.

This seems like a good way to shore up a strategic flaw in the Starfinder offerings (not enough stand-alone adventures) while shifting the Adventure Paths to a schedule that more reasonably matches the audience's appetite for that kind of content.

We are always listening to the players, and will continue to adjust things accordingly. That could at some point mean shifting BACK to monthly APs, but we're going to give this new product mix (plus some upcoming surprises) a try for a while to see how it works.

We're continuing to discuss the best subscription options for these adventures, and will share news on that front when we get it. We know there is a lot of interest, which is fantastic to see.

Starfinder is an important part of Paizo's offerings, and we plan to support it robustly far into the future. Some of the rulebooks the team is working on now are among the best and most exciting releases for the game so far, in my opinion, and I am very very excited about what the future holds for Starfinder!

Mona, you sneaky bag of foxes!

I love AP's but I am also very happy to see a release pace that can keep Starfinder going for years so I get the chance to play many of them!

Starfinder is doing fine. When we launched with bi-monthly APs, the community told us they wanted more adventure content, so we doubled production on the APs. One of the upshots of that decision is that, outside of Organized Play, there really haven't been a lot of "short" options for people to pick up and play. To date, it's been "do you want to make a 6-month commitment with a 3-volume AP, or a year or longer with a 6-volume?"

Some people just want to try it out, or want a fun adventure where they can explore a different character outside of the campaign environment.

While the line is successful and sells well, it doesn't sell well enough to justify adding new staff and new sub-lines to the brand. At the same time, our market research is telling us that people are taking longer to get through Adventure Paths than they did at the game's launch, so over the last year or so we've begun to suspect that a monthly AP for Starfinder probably _is_ too fast of a release schedule for our second most popular game.

This seems like a good way to shore up a strategic flaw in the Starfinder offerings (not enough stand-alone adventures) while shifting the Adventure Paths to a schedule that more reasonably matches the audience's appetite for that kind of content.

We are always listening to the players, and will continue to adjust things accordingly. That could at some point mean shifting BACK to monthly APs, but we're going to give this new product mix (plus some upcoming surprises) a try for a while to see how it works.

We're continuing to discuss the best subscription options for these adventures, and will share news on that front when we get it. We know there is a lot of interest, which is fantastic to see.

Starfinder is an important part of Paizo's offerings, and we plan to support it robustly far into the future. Some of the rulebooks the team is working on now are among the best and most exciting releases for the game so far, in my opinion, and I am very very excited about what the future holds for...

Thanks (as ever) for being so open and informative, Erik. This sounds awesome.

For our group the slowdown in AP releases will be perfect. We're basically playing all of them in order and were beginning to fall behind.

REALLY excited to see some one-offs with all the variations in story and theme that offers.

Thanks!

Oh! Forgot the main thing i wanted to request/comment on:

I love the tie-in with flipmats that youre doing with PF and would really love that to continue with SF.

For me, I'd also love to see a set of flip tiles themed to a specific adventure too one day. I feel like with the right adventure, this could mean running the whole thing with awesome maps from go to woah - albeit it would likely be an eclectic collection for those who didnt run the module.

That's a fun idea. Takes an _enormous_ amount of coordination, but it would indeed be fun.

One thing worth noting is that although we've run a fantasy RPG business for more than a decade and many of us have been paying attention to D&D for three times as long, there really aren't the same kind of established play patterns or "received knowledge" when it comes to science-fiction RPGs.

Candidly, Starfinder has _already_ lasted longer than most science fiction RPGs tend to, so we're blazing new trails here in terms of accessories, product cadence, etc. Naturally, one of our first instincts is often "if it works for PF, it'll work for SF," but that isn't always true (and honestly SF offers some intriguing possibilities that would never work for Pathfinder).

So to some degree we are figuring out this business as we go along, and will make shifts and changes to accommodate our observations.

Thanks for your support of Starfinder! Amazing things are just beyond the next Drift Beacon! :)

We're continuing to discuss the best subscription options for these adventures, and will share news on that front when we get it. We know there is a lot of interest, which is fantastic to see.

Awesome! Glad to hear it!

Oh! Forgot the main thing i wanted to request/comment on:

I love the tie-in with flipmats that youre doing with PF and would really love that to continue with SF.

For me, I'd also love to see a set of flip tiles themed to a specific adventure too one day. I feel like with the right adventure, this could mean running the whole thing with awesome maps from go to woah - albeit it would likely be an eclectic collection for those who didnt run the module.

In a perfect world we would release a blog with a free encounter that takes place on every Flip-Mat and Flip-Tile we release. I’ll see what we can do about getting at least a few started. There are always more good ideas than there is capacity to manifest them. :)

That's a fun idea. Takes an _enormous_ amount of coordination, but it would indeed be fun.

One thing worth noting is that although we've run a fantasy RPG business for more than a decade and many of us have been paying attention to D&D for three times as long, there really aren't the same kind of established play patterns or "received knowledge" when it comes to science-fiction RPGs.

Candidly, Starfinder has _already_ lasted longer than most science fiction RPGs tend to, so we're blazing new trails here in terms of accessories, product cadence, etc. Naturally, one of our first instincts is often "if it works for PF, it'll work for SF," but that isn't always true (and honestly SF offers some intriguing possibilities that would never work for Pathfinder).

So to some degree we are figuring out this business as we go along, and will make shifts and changes to accommodate our observations.

Thanks for your support of Starfinder! Amazing things are just beyond the next Drift Beacon! :)

Starfinder is very easy to support. Such a high quality game, by great people.

I also really appreciate your willingness to try new things with it. I remain as excited for the upcoming year’s releases as I was for the initial launch. :)

Starfinder is doing fine.

Great now can we talk about get some planet stories back? :-)

Glad to hear it’s doing fine.

I think this is a great idea, personally. I have wanted standalone adventures for Starfinder since the beginning and the APs come so fast, I had no idea when I was going to play them all. The solution you've outlined here is smart, imho.

We’ve been wanting to create self-contained one-book adventures to Starfinder for a long time, since before I joined the team. It’s a big gap in the line. I mean, imagine you’re in the game store and you have the core rules in your hand (hopefully the pocket edition, cause that thing is sweet), and you’re like, okay, I need an adventure. But I’m not sure my group is gonna go for a six month commitment. Or maybe I want to just buy one good model self-contained adventure so I can use it as a template to write my own. There’s not really anything for you! Well, now there will be.

Oh, and one last thing:

So this is the adventure where the Junkmaster Technomancer shines! All the junk spells!

You are gonna love this adventure. LOVE. IT.