Starfinder Drift Crisis

Drift Crisis is a new kind of book for the Starfinder line, full of ways to complicate your player's lives with twists on existing adventures and seeds for entirely new ones. Tons of great content and beautiful art.

It's a good book with interesting plot hooks and artwork but it is NOT the cosmic catastrophe that it's been hyped out to be and is just a vehicle for advancing the metaplot slightly forward without any substantial long term changes.

Art - good

Adventure hooks - good

Metaplot advancement - mostly good? A bit annoying that the Pact Worlds seem to have been minorly inconvenienced while the Veskarium and the Azzies have had earth-shaking events occuring.

Integration with prior AP's - terrible.

In my opinion the main drawback that keeps this from being a 5/5 is that for all the narrative talking-up of things, there is approximately only one mechanical effect shown in the book that affects the day-to-day of players, and that's that it takes longer to jump through the Drift.

That's it. No new random encounter tables. No effects from long-term drift travel. No possibility of mis-jumping and getting spat out into a place on the other side of the galaxy from where you intended. No, things just....take longer.

It's underwhelming to say the least.

Similarly, the end of the book talks up the new "drift lanes" and new tensions....you know what would have been useful to try and see how the galaxy has changed? A star map, but the writing staff refuses to engage in even some basic stellar cartography for us, so a lot of these "BATTLE LINES ARE BEING DRAWN...." paragraphs promising future conflict are impossible to really comprehend in your head. Which systems are threatened? Who knows. Go re-read the last few paragraphs and write down all the planet names and maybe you'll figure it out.

Finally, and I don't ding the book on this because honestly I could do without it, but the half-hearted attempts to "integrate" the Drift Crisis with existing AP's is ham-fisted and terrible. For instance in Fly Free or Die, not a single mention is given to how to adapt the Wintermourne and its crew to the new circumstances. Which is strange because in book 2 half the plot is about trying to beat them to your destination! But if they're flying in slo-mo and you can get there in 2 weeks, what's the tension?

Drift Crisis is without question the strangest book in the Starfinder lineup - possibly even in Paizo's entire publishing history, if not in the history of tabletop RPGs in general. Seasoned TTRPG players might think of it as 'metaplot' (though Paizo themselves likened it more to a comic book crossover event), but there are a number of key differences that distinguish the Drift Crisis from the likes of Time of Judgment (World of Darkness) or the End Times (Warhammer Fantasy), or even aforementioned comic book crossovers. But novelty alone does not a great roleplaying game supplement make, so how does Drift Crisis hold up?

So what even is this Drift Crisis? It’s simple, really: the Drift, Starfinder’s hyperspace and default means of FTL travel, suffers an unexpected catastrophic failure - first in the instantaneous Drift Crash, and in the ongoing Crisis that follows. However, with the sheer importance of the Drift to trade, travel, military strategy, communications and even faith, every strata of galactic society is affected - and in turn, every type of Starfinder adventure.

The Drift Crisis is, above all else, a toolbox for storytelling, a surprisingly flexible one at that - although there is a canonical cause and conclusion that Paizo themselves are sticking to in this and other upcoming products, the bulk of the material works just as well if you diverge from the canon (indeed the book even encourages this to some extent). In fact, there isn’t even a default start date like you’d expect with a typical metaplot event - you could have your campaign start off pre-Crisis and only introduce it midway into your usual Adventure Path (more on this later), and you could just as easily start things off with a brand-new adventure that takes place with the Crisis well underway, using one of the many provided adventure seeds that constitute the bulk of the book.

There is 20 of said adventure seeds, which vary in length (between 2 and 6 pages each), cover a wide range of levels (a few can go from 1 to 20!), and in some cases can be chained together (with advice on a few possible arcs presented at the start). Each one features a general outline of possible events, as well as NPCs, creatures, factions and locations involved. Most also have a few new player options (which might be given out as rewards for the adventure, or used independently), and there is a new creature in the back associated with each one. They’re less detailed than a typical standalone adventure or Adventure Path, and this can be either a boon if you enjoy filling in the blanks to suit you and your group, or it can be a little intimidating if you’re a flaky GM like me. Regardless, they are very actionable tools that can help you bring the Drift Crisis to the table, which is the main thing that matters in a book like this.

While the canonical Crisis will be resolved (sometime next year with the Drift Hackers Adventure Path), it may damn well never end in your home game if you so desire, or you might end up with a very different set of consequences once it does resolve. Paizo has even provided reasonably detailed advice on adapting almost every already-existing Adventure Path to take advantage of this book, some of which can pretty radically alter the feel of the APs, and might reincorporate material published in this and other Starfinder books.

Which leads me to another strength of this book - very little of it is about resolving already-existing conflicts or killing off your favorite NPCs, the way that some metaplot-style books in the games of yore might have. While a few corner cases may be slightly invalidated due to the shift in circumstances, the vast majority of what’s on offer here only exacerbates, complicates, and overall enhances the already-presented story hooks scattered throughout the rest of the game, while obviously creating a whole host of brand new ones. You get references to all sorts of already-published Starfinder products, and not just the expected hardcovers - a number of Adventure Path issues and even an organized play scenario get a shoutout here, which can be either great payoff if you have a large collection of Starfinder materials, or it might feel a little annoying to have to hunt down disparate products like that. Your mileage may vary, but I for one enjoy when a game remembers to reincorporate stuff published earlier in its lifespan.

Not only that, but because of its global scale, the Drift Crisis serves as excellent connective tissue for what in the past might have been rather disparate areas of the setting - everything feels a lot more dynamic and interconnected, and although you can still just as well run a self-contained story that doesn’t touch on the greater ongoings of the Crisis, you get a much richer and livelier backdrop to do so against now.

It wouldn’t be a hardcover Starfinder book without some new player options, and there’s all sorts to be found here - although not every class gets dedicated toys here (sorry, soldiers!). For those concerned that the new options are only relevant to the Drift Crisis (and might not be of use to those not interested in the Crisis, or are worried they’ll be outdated once it’s resolved), fear not - most of them, while thematically linked to it, work just as well outside of its context, whether that’s the class options (like the Drift connection mystic), the equipment, or the spells. They are somewhat scattered, with a solid chunk in chapter 1, and then sprinkled throughout some of the adventure seeds in chapter 2, but thankfully there is a nice index in the back that collates them all, and it will all eventually be on websites such as Archives of Nethys or the Hephaistos character builder anyway.

A few final miscellaneous points that I didn’t have a great place to mention elsewhere:

- The art is, as always, top notch. Starfinder’s art direction has always been one of its strongest points, and it shines bright as ever in this book. Some fan-favorite species make an appearance here (check out the shield-throwing vlaka on page 48!), and we finally get a look at what Drift beacons look like in here.

-There is a section further describing the Drift as it exists before the Crisis, which will be universally useful even to groups opting out of the Drift Crisis storyline.

- The final chapter has rolling tables for treasure you might find, generally in the wake of the Crisis, either to sell for credits or to use as further story hooks. If you’re a fan of this stuff and you felt that Starfinder was missing genre-appropriate loot tables, you will enjoy this one.

- There is a section on concluding the Drift Crisis and what consequences it might bring to the larger setting moving forward. It’s not immediately clear which of these will become ‘canon’ (though I have my own suspicions), but at least a few of them could be really interesting moving forward (or even just in your home game). So keep an eye out on the Drift Hackers AP in 2023.

Sometimes it can feel as though Starfinder exists in the shadow of Paizo’s bigger game Pathfinder, but Drift Crisis proves that there is a very passionate team still hard at work on this d20 science-fantasy RPG, and Starfinder isn’t going anywhere. It’s a revolutionary approach to a setting book, and it will be interesting to see how it affects the game as time goes on.