I haven't played Starfinder yet (but have played plenty of Pathfinder.) I also have never tried to organize a "lunch break" game at work, but I'm starting to toy with the idea, and since I work in tech I am thinking it might be a cool time to try Starfinder.
So, would it be possible to play Starfinder during a lunch break? I know we wouldn't be able to do more than one encounter in an hour, but could we even fit a single encounter in?
Also, does Starfinder have any mechanics to make continuity-breaking more believable if people have to miss sessions? (a la "Beam me up, Scotty!") Or maybe I could just add that in?
Any stories of playing hour-long sessions in any system would be appreciated. Thanks!
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If everyone commits to getting straight into playing without chatting or screwing around, then you're already basically playing a longer session.
In theory you should be able to do it. You'll want to come up with a bunch of small encounters. Base the game on Absalom station and make them part of station security or something. The missions will be things like "break up a fight currently going on in the market" or "investigate a robbery." You want stuff that they can either spend the session investigating or get straight to the combat.
You won't want to make encounters too complicated, but the benefit of playing station security is that if the encounter is threatening to run over time, you can have reinforcements show up. Backup arrives, bad guys surrender.
Very cool idea! I'm imagining a "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" vibe already.
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I ran a Pathfinder game in 2-hour sessions after work once a week - we were doing the Kingmaker adventure path, so it was pretty easy to hand-wave "Welll, I guess the magus is back in the capital, or explores on his own" when people weren't around.
I think the #1 thing I ran into was people running late or just not being into the session coming off of a long day at work - imagine if someone gets off a stressful call or a meeting right before the session - so don't put too much pressure on yourself or the players. Just focus on having fun and helping people enjoy each session, whatever you can provide them in that time.
Then being security on Absalom Station, or as Stewards, could be fun and fast. Investigate, rp,maybe a fight. Like an episode of law and order. Being on absalom opens the entire station and makes for an intimate setting, while stewards offers more variety but may be less grounded. But they could escort an ambassador, stop a murder, busy a drug ring. All kinds of cop show stuff, and that would probably be pretty quick. Alternatively ñ they could also be pulling heists and evading the law,of that's more your thing. Space pirates?
I'm digging the cop idea because it makes for quick hooks, interchangeable PCs, and short missions.
Plus, I am already enjoying Lord Riffington's idea of having the backup arrive if things are threatening to go long - specifically, I'll have one super-smug a$$#*!& cop who is relentlessly condescending when he needs to get called in, to hopefully shame the players into moving quickly and hurrying the mission (and providing that timeless unifying factor of a big ol' jerk to hate.) Then the a$$#*!&'s partner will be the even higher-level "fixer" who is impressed with the PCs when they can finish the mission without having any help.
Not the way my group plays. It takes them an hour to dawdle in role playing in an bar on Absalom Station. XD
Which is fine too! I'm sure not every session will have a combat.
My group has been playing with at least one player missing for so long, we've just gotten where we ignore it. We just say the acme tomato truck ran off with them. I know it's not realistic, but we're all adults with real lives, just trying to have fun, so you make do. If you're doing it with work mates, that should be understood.
In addition to the Law and Order:Absalom Station idea, which I think is awesome, I think "monster of the week" style campaign can be quite fun. The one Star Wars campaign I played (20-ish years ago) ended up playing out that way. It was silly, but it was a lot of fun dropping on a planet (we were Bounty Hunters) and just hunting something new down every week.
I would try to see if it is still possible to arrange every now and then a longer block of time. So you can have a bunch of smaller encounters, and then work up to a BIG one.
I love this whole idea. It's great because you can easily make use of downtime for your PCs, plus you have a way to string encounters together on the fly as you go. That guy yyou caught last week, we'll we offered him a plea deal and now have dirt on the momlb boss, go being him in. Of that guy you saved from having his store robbed, he's offering a discount on the armor he sells. It could play just like a cop show and would feel real for doing so. I'd definitely want to brew up some fun npcs for touchstones. That will make it feel more like a role the players are filling and less like fight of the night.
And see what your players want to do OUTSIDE the session. This will allow them to be invested in the game when they can't play for long and probably give you a bumcg off fun plot hooks. So tone of your guys has a shop they own with their family and run. Well the baddies found out who gave them trouble and threatened to burn the place down, but you can't legally do anything about it. Do you skirt the law and bust some heads, or play it straigh? Or do you try to convince your boss to help you get a warrant to do some hacking to get the dirt needed to bust the guys? All of a sudden you can have a great social encounter, or a great fight and the ramifications bleed into the next week. Wonderful!
I would think that would be very hard. Table top role playing games usually take a long time!
I'm also encouraged by the Glass Cannon Podcast, which consistently excels at fitting a lot of great content in a 60-90 minute episode. Granted, that 60-90 minutes is after being edited down in post-production, but they are often able to fit both a combat and some roleplaying into a single episode, so if I just focus each week on one or the other, I'm hoping it should be doable.
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Brainstorming names for the campaign - "It's like Deep Space Nine meets Brooklyn Nine Nine... Aha!"
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I'm digging the cop idea because it makes for quick hooks, interchangeable PCs, and short missions.
Plus, I am already enjoying Lord Riffington's idea of having the backup arrive if things are threatening to go long - specifically, I'll have one super-smug a$$#*!& cop who is relentlessly condescending when he needs to get called in, to hopefully shame the players into moving quickly and hurrying the mission (and providing that timeless unifying factor of a big ol' jerk to hate.) Then the a$$#*!&'s partner will be the even higher-level "fixer" who is impressed with the PCs when they can finish the mission without having any help.
You have taken my idea and made it much better.
Obviously you know what he needs to be called (though you could deliberately obscure it. Depends on how obvious you're going to be about the Brooklyn 99 connection.)
Don't forget to include a Die Hard mission!
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This thread has given me tons of great inspiration.
Here are some ideas for NPCs.
Would love to hear everyone else's ideas!
Hour-long Starfinder scenarios, where PCs are cops on Absalom Station.
The Precinct House
- The chief: Got the job by pure nepotism after the previous chief quit in protest of budget cuts. Tries to compensate for the department’s increasingly poor pay and hours by focusing all his attention at keeping up morale (a la Michael Scott in The Office,) but is almost entirely inept at everything else. His main policy initiative has been “merit-based requisition”, i.e., allowing officers to loot criminals and keep the proceeds for themselves.
- The lieutenant: The “straight man” of the group, although she is a gay woman. And an android. By-the-books, very competent. She runs the show at the precinct house. Loves candy.
- The jerk: A punchably smug hotshot gunslinger. His role is to come in when the session would otherwise go into overtime and mop up the enemies and take all the loot, all while relentlessly mocking the party for not being able to finish the job. He likes talking about “the blue and the goo”, i.e., the police and the criminals he blows up with his grenade launcher.
- The fixer: Partners with the jerk, she plays good cop to his bad cop. She is a high level mystic, and helps solve cases when the PCs don’t finish in time. She shows her approval when the PCs are able to complete a mission, in contrast to the jerk who mocks them when they can’t finish.
- The virtual companion: In near-constant radio and video contact with the party, monitors their body cams while they’re out on a job (a la Wade from Kim Possible.) Also the “Q” character who fixes them up with custom equipment. Gives the PCs clues to move the action along.
- The chaplain: Almost fanatically inter-faith, Mother Beeper was initially drawn to her calling in order to help evoke the best aspects of each religion in the convicts and officers. This has slowly morphed into a spiritual desolation that is based more on ever-more-desperate rationalizations of the behaviors of those around her using whichever religion is the most permissive on the matter. This descent was accelerated by the introduction of “merit-based requisition”. Her drinking problem has now reached never-before-seen heights.
The Station
- The merchant: The go-to merch is a gnome who keeps a dizzying array of items in stock at his store, The Very Very Good Stuff. He knows that police have been excellent customers since “merit-based requisition” has come into effect, and tries to keep in their good graces by offering valuable information. Often this information is about extremely shady characters to whom he has just sold extremely dangerous weapons.
- The doc: This Shirren takes perverse pleasure in nickel-and-diming her patients, and her Shirren sensibilities mean she often offers her patients disconcerting choices in potential treatment options that have introduced a question mark to the phrase “Doctor knows best?” But all her patients know she does excellent work (even for the most experimental treatments) and so her clientele keeps returning.
- The bartender: Although just as bloodthirsty as most of his kinsmen, he's also much less willing to get his hands dirty. He gets his jollies by deliberately liquoring up the rowdiest customers and goading them into fights, or at the very least keeping a steady stream of bloodsports on the TV. He offers free drinks to cops to keep them around for breaking up fights that get too out-of-hand, and his convenient location near the precinct house ensures that many take him up on his offer.
- The snitch: Working for a crime consortium, he feeds info to the cops, either to take out rivals, or just so that they’ll look the other way regarding his own activities. Probably best not to get too attached to this one.
- The janitor: Wherever the PCs leave a wake of destruction, this whingy Ysoki has the distinct displeasure of cleaning up. He is personally responsible for the maintenance of every public space in the district, with only the help of his robot horde. Despite the fact that he receives a princely compensation for doing the work of 35 people, he seems temperamentally incapable of spending any money on himself, but seems to have no problem doling out a seemingly endless amount of money on station maintenance.
- The politician: This alderman’s complete inability to see anything bad about anyone else is the only possible explanation for why he recommended the police chief for his job. It’s also what makes being on his security detail so difficult.
- The urchin: This 14-year-old orphan looks up to the police with wide-eyed admiration. He even had made numerous attempts to join the force, which have been stymied not as much by his age as by the fact that he flagrantly and frequently breaks just about every law that he can think of.
- The HR guy: This Kasatha takes notes on all the inappropriate behaviors he sees in the office, confident that one day this place is going to get hit by a massive lawsuit or twelve. His reports are ignored.
- BlueTube: A video sharing network for police. Although it was originally designed to share training videos and BKMs, it’s used almost exclusively to share humiliating body cam videos of fellow officers and civilians. Ending up on BlueTube is a badge of shame that almost all rookies go through.
That looks absolutely awesome and I for one hope you'll share stories of how this goes when you get around to playing. Best of luck to you in your games, and have fun. ^_^