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Though from my dim memories of Rifts, it pretty much lacks the whole space element, right?
You could also point at Shadowrun, if we're looking at gameworlds. Though cyberpunk is a specific SF genre that I doubt Starfinder is aiming for.
That's what the Rifts Dimension books were about, bringing in spaceships and such. :-)
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I'm fine with playing both, I'm not sure why it has to be one or the other.
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Personally I think it has all the potential to be Paizo's Alternity...which if you don't remember it was the final nail in TSR's coffin.
Save that TSR was going under already, for reasons having nothing to do with Alternity. When you have a civil war among the owners, that's never going to end well. That and the frequent fatal minefields that can be encountered with unexpected growth.
@ Vic;
The Edition 'War' will happen, thinking otherwise would be naive, which I don't think you are. Paizo should ready itself for that 'Edition War', learning from its own past successes and failures, but also from the past successes and failures of others.
That would be both a different thread, and promptly closed by the Paizo moderators.
(That said, a "Science Fantasy Adventurers" sourcebook might have been a "safer move.")
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Paizo didn't get to where it is by playing it safe.
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I wonder if there will be Starfinder Charter Subscribers.
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If you mean by that people who subscribe to the adventure path from the beginning, I would have to assume that such people exist (since I plan to be one of them). Whether we get anything for it other than the benefits of the subscription itself is another question entirely.
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I just want the tag to Lord over the peasants.
And the books.
Mostly just the books, anything else will be a bonus.
But no, I don't expect extra perks. :-)
Chief Technical Officer
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Personally I think it has all the potential to be Paizo's Alternity...which if you don't remember it was the final nail in TSR's coffin.Save that TSR was going under already, for reasons having nothing to do with Alternity. When you have a civil war among the owners, that's never going to end well. That and the frequent fatal minefields that can be encountered with unexpected growth.
Those who have educated themselves on TSR's demise don't all agree on the relative import of the various causes, but I doubt many of them would put Alternity in their top 10 list.
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Rifts?*blink, blink* ... *blink blink* I haven't touched anything from Palladium since Robotech in the late 80's. But I think you just hit on the best source. Time to dive headlong into the ultimate edition.
There is upcoming Savage Worlds Rifts book. :)
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Ooo, could I be a double charter subscriber?! That would rule.
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Paizo got where they are by being clever and really good at what they do.
I have every confidence it will be a success. I have every confidence it's not going to sell anywhere near as many copies as Pathfinder has.
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Fantasy RPGs always outsell SF RPGs. I mean the numbers have never been close. D20 modern was never close to D&D in terms of sales. Paizo knows all this and from Vic's words, it sounds like they budgeted and have their expectations set accordingly.
So comparing Pathfinder and Starfinder sales wise is not the best measure of the game's success.
Well, for D&D at least. Not all tabletop games have Fantasy outsell SF (or Space Opera).
For example, though Pathfinder and D&D have been at the top of the heap, over the past few years, selling right behind them have been Warhammer 40K RPGs or the Star Wars RPGs, meaning that those two are probably outselling all those other fantasy RPGs that are out there.
It also means they probably sell better than FFG's Fantasy RPGs (yes, FFG actually has had fantasy RPGs, SW and WH40K are not the only RPGs they produce!).
For tabletop in general, I believe WH40K is a better seller than WH Fantasy for GW.
I think it depends MORE on how it is marketed and how it's taken up than whether it's a Fantasy, Sci-Fi, or Space Opera. Space Opera/Sci-Fantasy seems to be better overall if you don't include D&D/PF in the mix.
In fact, I'd say that FFG might have somewhat to worry about the entire Space Opera idea of SF. Then again, Star Wars and Warhammer 40K are pretty built in audiences.
I think it's going to be all in the marketing. Personally, I'm excited to have something D20 with Space Opera/Science Fiction/Fantasy again.
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I imagine Paizo will take it slow and get a feel for how popular this new product will be amongst players.
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I love the idea of Starfinder. For years now, there have been posts on the boards from people saying, "Okay, eventually Paizo will have to put out Pathfinder second edition," when they clearly don't want to, and most people don't want them to (kinda the thing that grabbed most the 3.5ers in the first place). But this could be a new wonderful thing. And I'm excited.
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I love the idea of Starfinder. For years now, there have been posts on the boards from people saying, "Okay, eventually Paizo will have to put out Pathfinder second edition," when they clearly don't want to, and most people don't want them to (kinda the thing that grabbed most the 3.5ers in the first place). But this could be a new wonderful thing. And I'm excited.
i agree
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One thing tat people hace not talked mucho about, is Star Wars sagaof gilms, and the cchance to grow the fanbase.
Disney is going to produce 1 film per year gor a while. That's going to produce a big bunch of nrw custoners interested un Sci-Fi (with magic, none the lesS). Even witjout the brand, that's going to produce a big wave to surf over. Just like Lord of The Ring movies helped to produce new fantasy stuff in general, even gor setting that were not Tolkien.
Specially with the younger people, I thibk thid might be a selling point. Paizo need new custoners, cant keep selling thibgs to tha same guys forever.
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I think Starfinder will do well, if movies are anything to go by science fantasy is one of the most popular genres out there, but the decision to make it compatible with Pathfinder will limit its potential. Usually in business the most important decision is weighing the risk versus the reward. If Starfinder was developed independently of Pathfinder the potential reward is huge but the risk of failure is also large. Making Starfinder effectively an offshoot of Pathfinder is playing it safe. It is more likely to succeed but its success will always be limited by Pathfinder's success. Developing Starfinder won't have a detrimental effect on Pathfinder.
My hope is that I am being overly pessimistic and that Starfinder is a great success that allows Paizo to negotiate movie, novel, comic and computer game deals and keep producing great RPGs for years to come. At any rate our group is excited about Starfinder and were in the process of switching to 5e so that is at least one group who is sticking with Paizo thanks to the Starfinder announcement.
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science fantasy is one of the most popular genres out there,
That truly isn't much of an indicator. Star Wars RPG is the only science fiction RPG that held its own in the top 5 RPGs. Traveller was popular back in the day, but it never held a candle to DnD. Mongoose has had the Traveller license since '08 and it may have made the top 5 once, maybe. The Warhammer 40k RPGs have been there for a while, but they're gone now.
Mind you, Paizo knows all this and, from the way Vic was talking, budgeted for it. And IMO that is the real trick to making RPGs profitable: budgeting right. So I am confident that Paizo will make the game profitable. They're smart cookies
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science fantasy is one of the most popular genres out there,That truly isn't much of an indicator. Star Wars RPG is the only science fiction RPG that held its own in the top 5 RPGs. Traveller was popular back in the day, but it never held a candle to DnD. Mongoose has had the Traveller license since '08 and it may have made the top 5 once, maybe. The Warhammer 40k RPGs have been there for a while, but they're gone now.
Mind you, Paizo knows all this and, from the way Vic was talking, budgeted for it. And IMO that is the real trick to making RPGs profitable: budgeting right. So I am confident that Paizo will make the game profitable. They're smart cookies
Perhaps you are right although the likes of Star Wars, Traveller and Warhammer 40k were each limited by being setting dependent. Dungeons and Dragons is not limited to any specific setting.
Imagine a good science fantasy game that was not setting dependent that would allow you to run an Avatar or Star Wars or Battlestar Galactica or Stargate or Guardians of the Galaxy or Dune or Lensman or Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers game really well. And that is not even touching related genres like anime and cyberpunk. The potential is huge, I just don't think anyone has made a great science fiction fantasy game with broad appeal and then marketed it well.
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GURPS can handle all of those genres without breaking a sweat, but it doesn't have broad appeal as it is marketed really poorly, even the name is uninspiring!
Despite coming with setting information, if Starfinder Space is anything like Golarion in Pathfinder the setting will be barely limited.
Although I think this makes an extraordinary amount of sense Golarion has drastically different cultures each country over and is often called a 'world soup'. Paizo hasn't really shied from giving really different experiences based on the locale so we're given magi-tech, Pirates, African Jungles, Egypt, Castlevania-land and so on. Extend that logic to entire galaxies and there is so much to do in terms of settings. Then there's the third party things in works. You can just hook those up and call it a different galaxy.
Basically I think that given how Pathfinder works I don't think you'd have a problem with setting limitations even if you stay within the given setting.
If the starship/fighter/mecha (please?) combat works well, I'd probably run alot of sci fi games in Starfinder.
Despite coming with setting information, if Starfinder Space is anything like Golarion in Pathfinder the setting will be barely limited.
Although I think this makes an extraordinary amount of sense Golarion has drastically different cultures each country over and is often called a 'world soup'. Paizo hasn't really shied from giving really different experiences based on the locale so we're given magi-tech, Pirates, African Jungles, Egypt, Castlevania-land and so on. Extend that logic to entire galaxies and there is so much to do in terms of settings. Then there's the third party things in works. You can just hook those up and call it a different galaxy.
Basically I think that given how Pathfinder works I don't think you'd have a problem with setting limitations even if you stay within the given setting.
In a way, yes. In other ways no. You can certainly set up different cultures and races and things like that.
But SF is very tied to how the tech works. If you want to play in a setting with different tech assumptions, you're going to need to change the rules.
Much like Fantasy is tied to assumptions about how magic works. Change that and you need to change the rules. Even just low magic requires a lot of work in PF. Wildly different assumptions about how magic works would require even more.
True but relatively speaking I find Pathfinder easier to homebrew world assumptions than with other fantasy games with a similar baseline for crunch. Especially since the third party scene at Pathfinder has been pretty prolific. That said I don't know much about scifi rpgs so I dont' know how variable they generally are.