Videmus's page

Launch into an exciting universe of science fantasy adventure with the Starfinder Beginner Box! Create and customize your own futuristic hero to play through challenging adventures and action-packed battles against dangerous foes! With streamlined rules, this deluxe boxed set is the ideal introduction to the Starfinder Roleplaying Game, an imaginative tabletop roleplaying game for 2-7 players. Welcome to the best launchpad for a lifetime of pulse-pounding adventure among the stars—the only limit is your imagination!

Cool.

Videmus wrote:

A PFS GM should be advising players and introducing them to the rules, not ruining their fun.

Since in this case everyone apparently had fun, that seems a bit harsh.

Posting is acting up here...

The GM and players can't assume that player was having fun. He may have been upset and just didn't say anything. As a PFS GM, you should still advise the player what will happen and let the player decide. If you want to let players be jerks in homebrew games, that's perfectly acceptable...the players can choose to play or leave the game. At PFS, it's supposed to be regulated for a reason.

Players shouldn't be allowed to work against each other, as I said before, it's not in the Society's interests.

This happened in a PFS game?

No wonder there's 1-2 tables max on PFS nights at the local gaming shop, while there are 8-10 on 5e AL nights.

GMs actively allowing players to work against each other (and possibly metagame) in PFS is super cool...

I heard PFS was there to introduce people to playing PF, not making them want to play everything but PF.

A PFS GM should be advising players and introducing them to the rules, not ruining their fun. And the player that tricked the Paladin should have been removed from the table and probably PFS completely because they're acting against the Society's interests.

"Explore, Report, Cooperate!"

I don't understand this GM. When it's so easy to adjust an encounter on the fly to make the game fun for everyone, he's imposing ludicrous rules to ruin it for one player because he's using things that are in the game. Gasp.

What he could have done, instead of that, was simply say there were more of the creatures that you just fireballed and write them into the story to give the rest of the team something to fight, had them come in from behind you guys, flank, etc. Reinforcements, or whatever. You trigger an alarm. So many choices other than "Oppress Player".

He's already got the stat blocks right in front of him to do it...

Did you read the staff posts?

Yes, I did.

Unfortunately, despite the fact that I've purchased the Starfinder rulebook and AA, my opinion no longer matters anymore because my group on Slack has decided that they want to try out SW:EOTE instead.

They weren't sure how they were going to like the feel of the futuristic setting over the fantasy setting of Pathfinder/DnD, so the three of them went in on a beginner's box on Amazon. And they apparently think it'll be easier to get people to try a well-known IP since we struggled to find enough people to even run a game of PF initially.

Can't say I disagree with the last point since everyone I've asked to play has cringed when you mention "DnD" but them not wanting to try a fresh space IP is frustrating. Guess I'll be learning to DM some cliché junk this weekend and figuring out funny looking dice instead. At least I'm only out 20 bucks on the PDFs.

See ya on the PF forum.

No, my post does not suggest "immense value" for a STARFINDER Beginner Box.

You probably don't know the history of Pathfinder and why a Beginner Box is important for that rules system.

You probably also haven't done your research to discover how big the regular product list was for Pathfinder before staff created the Beginner Box. By that timescale, we're a long, long way from a Starfinder Beginner Box even being considered. [which it already has been]

Starfinder fixes most of those problems from the beginning, right there in the Core Rule book. There's no need launch with a new product written for just for beginners, since they've already been addressed.

Explaining how to get new players into the game isn't going to impress anyone, especially those of us who have a great deal of experience getting new players into the game. See, for instance, the post by Wertz, above.

Well that's a lot of assumption about what I do and do not know, but I'll let you keep on assuming. If you think there isn't a need for a Beginner's Box, that's your opinion and I won't knock it. As someone who IS a new player, I'll just respectfully disagree and say that I would find value in that product despite already owning the Core Rulebook and AA.

I'll just be over here sulking, trying to devise new and improved ways to impress tabletop RPG players since that approach did not achieve success!

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Weird.

Well, I run a lot of Pathfinder Beginner Box sessions. As a matter of fact, that is mostly all that I GM.

So, in my experience running Beginner Box sessions, it's much easier to use a search command in a pdf than to wait while someone tries to remember whether the point they're trying to make was discussed in Hero's Handbook or in the Game Master's Guide. And even when they remember which book it is in, it's still painful as they go through trying to find the sentence.

What you imagine about how "people" act when they are learning to play RPGs may be true for you, but has not been borne out by my experience. There is an occasional player who prefers print while playing, but not many. Mostly they're on their phones looking everything up on the fly.

So, then you're saying you run a lot of sessions with players who have Beginner's Boxes?

The reason I ask is, the thread is about the value of a Beginner's Box being created for Starfinder. Your quoted post seems to suggest immense value to a Beginner's Box, because that's nearly all the games you run.

Reference rules however you would like of course, but obviously the players are getting great value out of the boxes and the boxes are selling quite well if you get that much Beginner Box exposure.

Starfinder could use that, which is the point of the thread.

You're speaking from the position of a veteran gamer and a GM, and seem to confirm the disconnect I'm suggesting exists between seasoned players and beginners. Beginner Boxes are for beginners.

You can learn anything by having all the information dumped on you (full core rulebook and AA) and figuring it out yourself, but it's certainly not the most comfortable way of learning things. When you're trying to get new players you want them to be comfortable with what's going on or...they'll get frustrated and perhaps quit.

Videmus wrote:

(people like books more than PDFs because it's kind of a pain to reference a PDF on the fly).

In my experience it's much much easier to ues a search command in a pdf than to flip pages in a print book when trying to find an obscure rule or something you think you remember.

I really hate when people stop game play to read page after page of material because "I know it's in here somewhere"

Frustration goes up exponentially the more print volumes that need to be checked.

In general I would agree with that, but the subject of the post was about Beginner's Boxes, not obscure rules.

I think people prefer something tangible to hold and read when they're getting started rather than sifting through a lifeless PDF.

Thank you! For some reason, I've searched your site and those did not pop up...I managed to find the Pathfinder ones with few issues.

Still need a beginner's box though =D

First post, sorry for my opinion with a lack of experience or rep. I do have an MBA if that helps =D (We love rounded and estimated math!)

I think not having a beginner's box is a huge mistake from a marketing standpoint. In fact, it should have been the FIRST priority and used to introduce the game to the masses as a teaser with the Core Rulebook coming out slightly afterwards or simultaneously.

As someone that is just now getting into tabletops, I've purchased both the Pathfinder and DnD 5e beginner boxes in the past couple months. The Pathfinder one, is btw, far superior to the DnD version...kudos to Paizo on that. I really appreciated the Beginner's Box.

I realize that for a veteran tabletop gamer, the Core rulebook and AA probably suffice just fine...and it might not seem complex. But let's be honest, you're trying to push a new IP/game out to the market, you probably want new customers and to create a new market rather than cannibalizing your current market, and many of the people you draw in may be completely unfamiliar with DnD/Pathfinder. I know I was personally disappointed that there was no beginner's box equivalent for Starfinder; I'm sure I'm not unique. When I read through the Starfinder Core Rulebook, I was pretty confused especially when it came to things like creating a Mechanic's drone.

This is all not to mention that everything about Starfinder is "new" and unconventional, or modified from Pathfinder. You can't simply glean knowledge by knowing traditional fantasy like with elves, dwarves, swords, etc. How am I supposed to know that a Lashunta is good or bad with a plasma rifle? (making up an example). There's so much in-between-the-cracks knowledge that a Begginer's Box could help fill in.

The classes are completely new, the races are completely new, the worlds are completely new. The game is more complicated than Pathfinder. Multiple ACs, the character sheet is a mathball, new stuff EVERYWHERE.

How this doesn't specifically warrant an "easy entrance" product is beyond me. And some pawns would be nice, especially with absolutely no miniatures out in the market for the near and intermediate future.

I know it would really be terrible to make more money by having a Beginner's Box, because you'd have to put investment dollars into creating it, but I think you should consider it. The folks that I know that convinced me to start looking into tabletop gaming hadn't even heard of Starfinder...I introduced it to them. And they have played both DnD and Pathfinder. They seem interested in trying it out, but trying to convince them to try it without a Beginner's box is challenging because the investment is higher (people like books more than PDFs because it's kind of a pain to reference a PDF on the fly).

If anything, release a bunch of pre-gen characters like with Pathfinder. Those were handy.