I'm a brand-new, completely untested GM. My son plays 5e with his friends and wants to grab one of them and a couple of new people with no RPG experience and have me run a Starfinder campaign for them.
I'm excited, but I'm also terrified (and a bit lost). I've got the Core Rulebook and am reading through the first two books of Dead Suns, but I'm wondering if there's an even more "base level" place to start?
Since two players have no RPG experience and the others come from 5e, I'm wondering if, instead of starting with Dead Suns, Book 1, I should have the players create throwaway characters so that they get a feel for character creation and run them through the first PFS Starfinder scenario so we all can see how the mechanics work.
Does this sound like a sound plan? I know a lot of folks have homebrewed "Session 0" content, but as a new GM, I'm more comfortable with pre-printed materials (until I get the hang of things, at least).
Yup, that's exactly what I was thinking about doing, Andy (I just didn't get the terminology exactly right). I'm split on using the pregens. On one hand, they can get a feel for everything without investing a ton of prep work. On the other - creating characters is FUN!
What I've considered in my approach is "Hm, maybe we should run some stuff beforehand to get a hang of the mechanics"
Like, instead of jumping in with your personalize char immediately, you run some of the stuff using premades and kitbashed scenarios to try out combat, and space stuff.
No threat of loss or 'we made bad builds' while you're trying to learn the mechanics, if the premades die, no biggie, its not your real chars. A nice way to GM/Player suss out, "Can we get a ruling on some of the ideas we might have, before we actually build chars around ideas that won't work"
The worst sessions I have ever played were ones just made up on the fly. A lot of umms and ahhhs as you are waiting for the DM to describe where you are and what's in front of you. If I am the player I feel board and if I am the DM I feel really bad for not telling a more engaging story. Unless you are really great at thinking of scenarios in a matter of secs I would avoid that.
I have put a few of these quick missions together and run them when I don't have enough time to add to my main story.
A Night on the Town [Investigation]
Sometimes, you’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Contact: A soon to be dead body
Details: The Freelancers are in a relatively secluded part of town, possibly walking down the street, or getting into a hover car when a man comes running around the corner with a couple of guys in close pursuit. They shoot at the man and kill him. If the players don’t engage in combat, perhaps the shots come a little close to them or the attackers decide to take care of any witnesses?
In the end, the players will respond. After the dust clears the only thing of note on the body will be a thumb-drive with files on it. The files are worth money to somebody and somebody else desires to keep them out of their hands. It’s now up to the players to dispose of the valuable files as they have no idea who wants them and might not even know what they are. Meanwhile, men will be searching for the files.
Notes: Quick scenario for the unplanned game session. It instantly drops into combat and can be scaled to any group. It’s a mystery so the GM can string the players along until he decides where he wants to go with it. Resolution can also be scaled to any group and can be a simple hand off of files perhaps with another combat, or a long cloak and dagger game between companies.
Skills needed: Acrobatics, Bluff, Computers, Culture, Diplomacy, Intimidate, Pilot, Profession, and Sleight of Hand.
Starfinder Society adventures are good introductions to the game and background.
They have the added benefit that they're shorter and have fewer moving parts than the bigger adventures.
Thanks guys! I think I'll give them a choice, but push them towards playing the iconics. My son already has a Solarian build in mind, so I know he'll be itching to roll one up, but he might change his mind after seeing how they play in-game.
I'm definitely going to go with the Starfinder Society intro mission. It'll be a good way for all of us to get comfy (bonus, they're shorter sessions).
I appreciate the advice and I'll pop back in here to let you know how it went!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The session went really well and my players had a great time. That first SFS session in Into the Unknown is exactly what they needed to get comfortable with the system.
There was a nice amount of room in there for some light roleplaying and just enough combat so that they could try out powers and see what they liked and what they didn't. Interestingly, none of them kept the same class when we rolled new characters after the session. Even more interestingly, my son, who was convinced he was going to roll a Solarion, ended up going Mechanic w/ Combat Drone.
Going to do some character building sessions the next couple of weeks, then diving into Dead Suns!
I just hope the Docking Bay 94 map is out by the time we start!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Cool thread! Good luck Anthony.
Here is a suggestion, since this is a Sci-Fi themed game:
Similar to the X-men Danger Room, set up scenarios where your players remotely use the Pre-Gen characters in certain scenarios. This would allow you to test our different character types and races only as a test. You could then download your consciousness into a new body, similar to the new Altered Carbon series on Netflix.
Also, someone mentioned Starfinder Society modules. You can run these in a short period - normally 4 hours per adventure. Also, you can play the pre-gens, get XP, and then use that XP to build a character later. So you could play 3 different pre-gens at level 1 and then build a 2nd level character with the XP from scratch.
Lots of options!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I like the Danger Room scenario - definitely a possibility if they decide they want to try out a different character type.
And it was me. I mentioned the Starfinder Society modules. In the post right about yours, even. ;)