It's fun. Don't expect awesome space battles, the system isn't set up for a lot of variety from what I've seen.
I sense a huge shift to skill-based adventures over dungeon crawling.
I played the first two episodes of the Starfinder Society quest thing. I enjoyed myself. Teamwork is definitely needed in battle. Do not split up! My one complaint is that in space the pilot does the bulk of the tactical map work, everyone else just rolls dice, although they do have choices on how they can fulfill their role.
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I ran the first two episodes of the Society quest module (not for Nohwear though!). A rash of crits on both sides made the first quest hard to gauge but it set up not that different than fantasy adventuring.
The starship combat was neat as the players sorted out what they needed to do. The gunner probably felt the least involved as it was just basically waiting for his turn to roll without any meaningful decisions to make. Piloting was by far the most involved, with not only tactical map work but a whole slew of possible stunts to pull while jockeying for position. Because starship combat turns happen simultaneous between players and dm, the pilot game really is a game of cat and mouse.
It's fun. Don't expect awesome space battles, the system isn't set up for a lot of variety from what I've seen.
I sense a huge shift to skill-based adventures over dungeon crawling.
Just had a practice run last night with 1st level pregens and my group (6 players). The combat moved pretty fast - combat between 3 CR 1/2 foes and a CR 1 foe and the six PCs took about an hour, and one character came a hair's breadth away from death.
we had a space combat after that that took about 75 minutes - my experience was different from EC Gamer Guy's - it looked to be a snooze at first, but because of two failed pilot rolls it came INCREDIBLY close. the PCs disabled the enemy ship while they had TWO hull points left, and celebrating at the table when they won it.
Our determination was that regular combat was pretty fast and fun, and the starships were a lot of fun, but might have the potential to run long -- but that might have been just the first time out and the lack of rules familiarity. no one felt that they didn't have fun in either scenario, so that's a good sign. I can say confidently that at level 1, everything was pretty smooth, fun, and worked well. I'll have to see what happens after, say, level 5 or so and all the more awesome weapons and special abilities start kicking in.
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Our experience so far has been amazing. We've had a genuine good time with a group of rag-tag screw ups hired by the Starfinder Society to locate information where Golarion has gone. In every fantasy world the main planet the PCs live on is always the third from the sun, so, they decided to investigate all these planets to see if there is some connection or another disappearance.
Frankly, no one cares, it just give them a reason to drift to various star systems and do their thing while we learn the rules. I'm not sure how other peopel are running their games, but I used Starfinder as an excuse to break out all my old Starjammer stuff (with modernized Sci-Fi upgrades) and the characters are venturing to Krynn Space, Realm Space, and Greyhawk Space. Each fantasy space is simply it's own system in another part of the big fantasy galaxy.
I've even stole some stuff from the old Alternity game that TSR made a long time ago, back before WotC ruined the RPing industry.
I have three players, one is a Vesk and the other is a yskoi. They recently picked up their third party member, a human (Envoy) actor from Earth. The ysoki learned all he could of Earth culture by listening to our music and watch our television broadcasts. The human was a star in a televisions show where her people saved another civilization from their planet 'disappearing'. So they did what any aliens would do... they kidnapped her to save Goalrion... hilarity ensues.
I've been GMing games for 30 years (since I was 10). All combat so far has been smooth and simple, and the space battles have taken off without a hitch. Someone mentioned that only the pilot does anything while everyone else sits around... if that's the case from them, then I recommend the people at your table get more involved, you're a team, play as one. I have 5 people in my group, only three are actually in the game at the moment while the other two are waiting to be introduced they assist me and help the party. You don't have to have a PC in the game to have a good time. I person acts as the ships AI, helps keep track of information while another helps me run the game by keeping tallies in initiative and stats... if you're the GM don't hide behind the screen and horde everything, let the players help you.
Also, if any of you have or can find the d20 FutureTech or d20 Modern books from ages past... the information in those books can meld almost seemlessly with Starfinder. I'm converting the FutureTech's cyberware and Gadget system over for SF, it's a good tweak.
Notable quotes so far:
Vesk: "And we will find this human in 'Calif-orn-eyah'? What do we know of it?"
Yoski: "Accroding to one, Doctor Dre, it's 'where the bomb-ass hemp be'."
Vesk: "And this 'Dre'... you think he's reliable?"
Yoski: "Well, he is a doctor."
Vesk: "I'm packing my demolitions kit, just in case, and configure the scanner to detect for 'hemp'.
Trying to fill in the human on Pact Space stuff:
Vesk: "So, that's that. Everything's been still since that whole Norborger incident."
Human: "Incident? What, they forget to add pickles or something?"
Ysoki: "Borger, not burger."
Human: "Ahh, see, now that makes sense. What doesn't make sense is why a bipedal rat and a talking alligator are in my apartment. I'd scream... but honestly, this I have to hear."
Vesk: "We lost a planet."
Human: "A whole planet? Of course you did, not all solar systems validate parking... if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna call the police now."
There are billions of opportunities for stories for this system, take what you like, cast the rest away. Most importantly, have fun.
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My fiance ran a group of us through the first quests last night, we had at our table the pregens;
operative
mechanic
soldier
technomancer
mystic
There were some gaps in the skills with that group. None of us could really do much socially, although the soldier was ok at intimidating.
The combat in the first quest was certainly not easy; some bad dice rolls on our part led to us having our technomancer blow a resolve point to stabilize at 0 hit points, our soldier down to 2 hit points, and our mystic having to pull out a few stops.
The combat took a while because at the table we had a group VERY familiar with the Pathfinder rules (a PFS author, a former VC, and a former VL) and for almost every rule we were going back to confirm/look up to make sure it did or didn't work like it did in Pathrinder (I'm thinking there needs to be a cheat sheet with ALL of the differences between the two somewhere out there).
The space combat was somewhat new to all of us, and very much reminded me of BattleTech without the terrain with its better pilot going second and weapon firing arcs and damage tables and the like. It was also very slow going since we were new to it, and not nearly as fun as the ground combat, but I'm hoping that will change with familiarity to the rules.
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I've run the Quests and the first 3 SFS adventures several times.
The game holds up quite well so far. There are definitely some rough edges and some errors but I'm sure that they'll get addressed in due course.
The scenarios are VERY evocative of a Science Fantasy setting. One of the scenerios (Fugitive on Red Planet) could just about be used as the basis for a Firefly episode. Another (Yesteryears Truth) could be a Star Trek episode.
Its Barsoon, Star Trek, Star Wars. Its NOT Hard Science fiction by any stretch of the imagination. Don't look at the technology too closely, don't expect the economics to actually make sense, etc. If "Goblins in SSSSSPPPPPPAAAAAAACCCCCEEEEEE!!!!!" sounds fun then this game will likely be fun. If it sounds silly then this game likely isn't for you.
I ran Incident at Absalom Station for my group. While they don't think the game is "bad" by any stretch, they do not, as yet, prefer it to Edge of the Empire. It's not fair really to compare a popular license to Starfinder, but the group only has room for a couple of games. Pathfinder will always be the primary game. The second varies, and for now it is Starfinder. I have no idea how far through the first AP they will get before losing interest. I also don't have the financial ability to invest in that many systems.
I've done some of the first AP. We had a lot of fun, but so far the combat hasn't felt very dangerous. I suspect that may just be the AP going easy on us at the start though.
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Warning: Rambling garbage that answers the OP's question, but not in a structured or sensible way. Sorry!
I have run the first half of Incident at Absolom Station for our Pathfinder group (Well... half of each of two groups.)
Much fun was had by all, despite me breaking an important rule of GMing and pontificating about how cool Absolom Station was. It went something like:
Me: "So, any questions?"
Player1: "No one had any questions."
Player2: "That's because he's been talking the whole time!"
/Facepalm. Yeah... I spent a lot of time talking about information from the Gazetteer... I spent a lot of time making sure the characters had workable, interesting back stories tied into the setting, each other and the campaign. I am ecstatic to have an original setting that isn't tied to existing art in the genre. I have no interest in playing an RPG based off of a movie or a television show. We have tried various flavors of Star Wars, Star Trek and Firefly. None of them were very satisfying to the creative types in the group. Starfinder felt new, different and exciting. We've played other, more original takes on SciFi like Traveller and even GURPS Space and they left much of our group flat. We got a little closer with the Void Core, but some of the mechanics in that system were very annoying... Not the least of which were the Infodumps during the 'investigation' sections of their adventures. This same problem reared its head a little bit during our first Starfinder session.
Anyway after I got out of the players' way, they had a good time. Combat is so very similar to Pathfinder as far as what dice to roll, how to put together your action and move, etc. It's so different in terms of pacing and options. Removing the five-foot-step made such a big difference in the way characters acted I'm wishing it didn't exist in Pathfinder. Cover was attended to, PCs were dropping prone and our Technomancer was shocked at how effective magic actually was in a universe containing energy weapons and grenades.
Then again, it's early. Starfinder may devolve into the Starfinder equivalent of full-attack-action-monkee clusters some day. We'll see.
Research "rolls" reminded me a little too much of a Void investigation. If one can take 20 on Culture, for example, with access to the Infosphere then you're pretty much removing that part of the game and just encouraging the GM to hand out a standard ton of data in one swoop.
Naturally if you have any sense you won't do this, but there's nothing written in the AP or the CRB to discourage that behavior. In fact it is encouraged with the way these checks were laid out in the AP. It's possible this format was chosen because of a lack of space in the book. Or, perhaps this was meant as a sort of introduction... The entire first half of the book seemed very tutorial-like to me, with softball encounters and simple problems. This is not meant as a criticism, but maybe an explanation of the way some of it was presented.
In a setting in which the Internet/Infosphere is a thing I'm interested to see how these skill challenges evolve. I hope they don't look like the ones in Incident at Absolom Station.
At the end of the first session we were all excited to play again this coming weekend. I'm looking forward to their first Starship combat.
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In a setting in which the Internet/Infosphere is a thing I'm interested to see how these skill challenges evolve.
In the SFS adventures, the PCs just don't have access to the infosphere a lot of the time
Which makes sense to me. When you've got the time and the Infosphere it makes sense to me that lots of questions ARE trivially answerable. Not the really difficult ones unless you're already pretty good and "know where to look" (ie, eventually take 20 won't be enough unless you've invested a moderate amount into Culture)
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In a setting in which the Internet/Infosphere is a thing I'm interested to see how these skill challenges evolve.In the SFS adventures, the PCs just don't have access to the infosphere a lot of the time
Which makes sense to me. When you've got the time and the Infosphere it makes sense to me that lots of questions ARE trivially answerable. Not the really difficult ones unless you're already pretty good and "know where to look" (ie, eventually take 20 won't be enough unless you've invested a moderate amount into Culture)
This is also what I assumed. It just so happens that Incident starts on Absalom.
The problem with taking 20 not being enough is that means that the knowledge is completely inaccessible at that point via those skills. In Incident, for example, you could use Culture for just a little bit of the infodump required for the gangs, and the rest were only discoverable through Diplomacy or Intimidate. If you assume that someone puts a rank into Culture every level, and that they have a +3 or +4 starting modifier to Int - there's a very predictable threshold at every point of an adventure. There's no luck involved there.
As far as 'not having access' I see that being a very, very rare occasion - or a momentary inconvenience. If the party is assumed to have a ship, the ship is assumed (because it can, and because a player that is aware they can do so has no reason not to) to carry a downloaded data set. No mechanics are offered on these holographic data sets, but they are implied to contain a substantial snapshot of the entire Infosphere.
On page 430 under Information Networks:
"...all major Pact Worlds ports host basic encyclopedia-like data sets that ships can download to aid passengers in research when not in direct contact with an infosphere"
You can interpret that a few ways, but I feel like it's going to be interpreted that the players can take 20 on relevant checks.
For sure I agree that it makes sense. This is not an age in which information is stored in secret libraries... Well, not most information anyway. My concern isn't that it's nonsense, just that it's boring.
For those of you who have actually had a chance to play Starfinder what did you think? Good? Bad? Indifferent?
Does it feel and play like a good SciFi game?
Trying to see if I can convince my gaming group to give it a try.
I played the second and third SFS adventures. We all liked it -- especially the space combat. There seemed to be an emphasis on skill checks and a deemphasis on combat compared to Pathfinder. It felt like a different game.
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I'm guessing the 2 minutes to take 20 accounts for individual pieces of information, but if you're trying to research a topic there may be specific timeframes presented within the adventure itself.
Otherwise it's a bit silly to say you can be an expert in any topic in 2 minutes.
If perusing the Internet is any indication, there are tons of "experts" out there just from reading a few webpages and maybe the Wiki article.
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I'm guessing the 2 minutes to take 20 accounts for individual pieces of information, but if you're trying to research a topic there may be specific timeframes presented within the adventure itself.
Otherwise it's a bit silly to say you can be an expert in any topic in 2 minutes.
Absolutely. I think this intended for things like:
"The Deadrat Gang hangs out in Puddles"
or
"Space Herpes are only contagious to carbon based lifeforms."
Not becoming an expert on anything in particular.
One other thing to note finding out well known cultural/historical/scientific stuff should be pretty trivial if you have access to the infosphere. But while the info sphere may have some broad overviews of the gangs of absalon station there is a high chance the info is out of date/inaccurate or simply not available because those involved try to keep a lot of their info to themselves.
For a lot of stuff googling it is more than sufficient to answer a lot of basic questions. But when you are on unexplored planets/hunting ancient artifacts from the gap where records are spotty at best/dealing with hidden cults/gangs/criminals/monsters what you can find on the internet is probably not terribly useful. It is things that will require more footwork and or simply may not be available.
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If perusing the Internet is any indication, there are tons of "experts" out there just from reading a few webpages and maybe the Wiki article.I'm guessing the 2 minutes to take 20 accounts for individual pieces of information, but if you're trying to research a topic there may be specific timeframes presented within the adventure itself.
Otherwise it's a bit silly to say you can be an expert in any topic in 2 minutes.
Ha!! Too true!
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Actually, are there rules for enemies or other parties planting false information on the internetinfosphere? Disinformation campaigns? Presumably you can use computers for "forgery" to make fake info sources or hack the actual encyclopedia galactica.
You can take 20 only if there is no penalty for failure. But what happens if there is a hidden DC to realize information you are looking up is wrong or perhaps altered slightly?