One sign of a good tabletop roleplaying game is how well it lets you emulate different campaign styles, and how many options it generally gives players with which to build new worlds and stories.
Are there any types of sci-fi campaigns (or themes) that you feel Starfinder would NOT emulate well in its current state? List and discuss. If we're lucky, maybe the game developers will take note and broaden the game's horizon.
I'll start:
- Being geared for group command situations (like those often seen in Star Trek), Starfinder does not (at present) lend itself well to a starfighter squadron campaign, such as Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, or Star Wars.
- Since starships have no listed value, a game in which the PCs are mercenaries or pirates making a living off of captured salvage is...difficult to pull off, to say the least.
Any other ideas?
Does Hard Sci-Fi count?
Really, given the focus on having access to shops and gear drops, it can be rather difficult to have something like a colonization campaign, or anything else where realistically you won't have access to shops or UBP income for a prolonged period. Particularly if it's in such a way where you won't realistically be fighting enemies with leveled equipment (like most colonization campaigns would be, since if they have leveled gear chances are good the planet you're on isn't really available for colonizing. Depending on your group's ethics you'd probably be fighting mostly animals even.)
It's pretty specifically pitched toward the zanier end of sci-fantasy space opera. I think you can probably execute most concepts, with the current rules as written, that would fit within a space-opera wheelhouse as long as you're willing to play in that end of the pool.
There would have to be an awful lot of house-ruling and homebrewing if you wanted to play...
1. A more austere flavour of space-opera, Traveller-style, where the economics of fuel and travel and ship maintenance are a big deal,
2. Pirate or merc campaigns that feature a detailed marketplace in new and salvaged ships.
3. Hard-SF campaigns which limit or don't include magic or most forms of FTL travel.
I would not personally go to Starfinder for playing something like Eclipse Phase or something specifically in the Star Wars universe (as opposed to "broadly in the style of Star Wars").
The fighter squadron concept I'm not so sure about. It's possible to conceive of a campaign based aboard a big carrier ship where the party is a squadron or runs their own assigned missions from the base ship (I'm kind of contemplating such a campaign for the future, maybe). Specifically fighter squadron, maybe not, it would depend.
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You can't easily do The Expanse with Starfinder. That sort of gritty, realistic physics-based story doesn't go well with all of Starfinder's high-flying disregard of minute details like "Newtonian laws."
While you COULD do Warhammer 40K with the rules themselves, the tone of the setting isn't quite right... with their easy access to "magic," the PCs would not be welcome anywhere in Imperial space without crippling restrictions. Also the power armor in 40K has some key differences (Space Marines can fight for hours with no concern of their suits powering down), and also most light armor in 40K is basically archaic in Starfinder, providing no protection to elements or the void).
I bet you could do a bang-up Stargate SG-1 campaign, though.
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On the other hand, the ever creeping guns and armor stuff makes for Borderlands (game) pretty well. And in general there's sorta 'magic' in Borderlands with tech. The mooks and opponents scale similarly.
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So, what are you actually doing with SF? Just a PF porting in space?
Personally, no. Starfinder has a bunch of stuff going on which isn't found in Pathfinder, so trying to straight-up play the former as the latter doesn't work that well IMO. That said, enough of the conceptual scaffolding of PF is still around that with a little creativity one could bring Pathfinder stories forward and adjust them.
I think it is otherwise pretty good for broad-strokes kitchen-sink-of-subgenres space opera. As a fan and former player of games like Shadowrun, Star Trek: The Role Playing Game, the old classic Space Opera game and Star Frontiers, it's pretty easy to adapt concepts and stories like that to the Pact Worlds. It would be easy enough to make one's own setting, for that matter... though it's pretty hard to Out-Zany the Pact Worlds and fun enough to create within that setting that I'm not tempted to build a setting from the ground up just yet.
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So, what are you actually doing with SF? Just a PF porting in space?Personally, no. Starfinder has a bunch of stuff going on which isn't found in Pathfinder, so trying to straight-up play the former as the latter doesn't work that well IMO. That said, enough of the conceptual scaffolding of PF is still around that with a little creativity one could bring Pathfinder stories forward and adjust them.
There was a discussion thread early on that was doing exactly this, brainstorming ideas for converting Pathfinder adventure paths for use in Starfinder.
Edit: Found it.
Someone is also running a Runelords in Space campaign that looks pretty dope, and quite clever about adapting the source material in a way that plays to the new system's strengths.
(This can go badly wrong, too, of course. I played in an attempt to adapt Jade Regent that fell flat; despite a lot of re-skinning the GM just ported the basic gameplay over a bit too literally.)
Does Hard Sci-Fi count?Really, given the focus on having access to shops and gear drops, it can be rather difficult to have something like a colonization campaign, or anything else where realistically you won't have access to shops or UBP income for a prolonged period. Particularly if it's in such a way where you won't realistically be fighting enemies with leveled equipment (like most colonization campaigns would be, since if they have leveled gear chances are good the planet you're on isn't really available for colonizing. Depending on your group's ethics you'd probably be fighting mostly animals even.)
There was never an option in Starfinder since you have FTL-ish Drift Drives. It takes a week from anywhere to get to Absalom Station. So unless you lost your Starship, you were never going to have a problem of "don't have access to stuff". Scarcity campaigns don't really work in a setting with FTL. You can make them work for a short while with the setup of "Hey, you've become stranded on this planet because your ship ran out of fuel/the engine broke/etc" but that only lasts for a limited amount of time in a believable manner. I also suspects that's not what most players sign up for with Starfinder.
I'm trying to imagine rebuilding a starship from scratch on some backwater world without any ship-friendly crafting rules whatsoever.
There was never an option in Starfinder since you have FTL-ish Drift Drives. It takes a week from anywhere to get to Absalom Station. So unless you lost your Starship, you were never going to have a problem of "don't have access to stuff". Scarcity campaigns don't really work in a setting with FTL. You can make them work for a short while with the setup of "Hey, you've become stranded on this planet because your ship ran out of fuel/the engine broke/etc" but that only lasts for a limited amount of time in a believable manner. I also suspects that's not what most players sign up for with Starfinder.
Does Hard Sci-Fi count?Really, given the focus on having access to shops and gear drops, it can be rather difficult to have something like a colonization campaign, or anything else where realistically you won't have access to shops or UBP income for a prolonged period. Particularly if it's in such a way where you won't realistically be fighting enemies with leveled equipment (like most colonization campaigns would be, since if they have leveled gear chances are good the planet you're on isn't really available for colonizing. Depending on your group's ethics you'd probably be fighting mostly animals even.)
To be totally fair to this, even with a functioning starship there are reasons you might not be able to spare a couple weeks to jump away to Absalom Station and back. To use the sample colonization game from my post, simple matter of not wanting to leave the colony un- or under-protected for that long of a time. Or for that matter just anything involving a time-crunch where a week or three might put you beyond the threshold for victory (like an ancient cult is going to summon the Devourer to this neck of the woods in, oh, 3 days? You're already on the planet so you have plenty of time to stop it right now but even a simple trip to Absalom station could easily take longer than your time span, let alone the trip back. Granted that's not in and of itself that long-term, but the basic idea holds.
As for what players sign up for, I remember talk of converting Kingmaker was decently popular back when the game released. It's just... you would have to take steps to allow for steadily upgrading tech along the way.
Eh...that gets dicey though.
Because then you have something like "One player runs back to Absalom station for supplies while the other do their best to hold back the coming disaster until their supply of Ultra-Bombs arrive from the station".
There are ways to make it work short term, but as a player it strains believability for me when you have access to FTL but are always under a time crunch and can't ever stop for gear.
As for a Kingmaker style game in Starfinder, I think it would focus on exploring an unknown world and administering the arrival of new people but doesn't need to focus on scarcity. You can do a lot with founding a settlement on a new planet without scarcity being the main issue.
It need only be easy to travel to Absalom if the GM wants it to be. Mainly I think the point is just to provide an option for relatively easy fast-travel "back to town" for adventurers in the Vast.
Any number of things could interfere with this, though: it could be some obstacle to navigation (like the Godshield in the Scoured Stars, but it could be almost anything); some malfunction in the Drift drive or interference with the ship's power by some tricksy Void sprite or Imp of the Black (there's no reason this has to happen anywhere that repairs are easily available); an unfortunate encounter with something that's no Moon, it's a space station; just a straight-up crash on a primitive world and so on.
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Being stuck away from town is exactly why Crafting rules and scrap / UPBs exist.
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There was never an option in Starfinder since you have FTL-ish Drift Drives. It takes a week from anywhere to get to Absalom Station. So unless you lost your Starship, you were never going to have a problem of "don't have access to stuff". Scarcity campaigns don't really work in a setting with FTL. You can make them work for a short while with the setup of "Hey, you've become stranded on this planet because your ship ran out of fuel/the engine broke/etc" but that only lasts for a limited amount of time in a believable manner. I also suspects that's not what most players sign up for with Starfinder.
Does Hard Sci-Fi count?Really, given the focus on having access to shops and gear drops, it can be rather difficult to have something like a colonization campaign, or anything else where realistically you won't have access to shops or UBP income for a prolonged period. Particularly if it's in such a way where you won't realistically be fighting enemies with leveled equipment (like most colonization campaigns would be, since if they have leveled gear chances are good the planet you're on isn't really available for colonizing. Depending on your group's ethics you'd probably be fighting mostly animals even.)
Ignoring the fact that you could be running in a setting that isn’t golarion specific, then the week to Absalom station has just been shown to be a “when everything goes right”timeline.
There’s a whole swagnof things that can happen to a ship in Drift space that will prevent it reaching the destination it wanted. Including a prolonged stint of travel in the doldrums. Or running into a pocket of planar matter, or being invaded by rift beast s feeding on the power conduits etc etc
So if you wanted to make travel for help really difficult for the PCs, it’s not that hard.
And then of course, there’s the very real option that Starfinder rules are just being used in a non Paizo specific setting. In which case you can do whatever.
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Eh...that gets dicey though.
Because then you have something like "One player runs back to Absalom station for supplies while the other do their best to hold back the coming disaster until their supply of Ultra-Bombs arrive from the station".
There are ways to make it work short term, but as a player it strains believability for me when you have access to FTL but are always under a time crunch and can't ever stop for gear.
As for a Kingmaker style game in Starfinder, I think it would focus on exploring an unknown world and administering the arrival of new people but doesn't need to focus on scarcity. You can do a lot with founding a settlement on a new planet without scarcity being the main issue.
Well, FTL isn't instant.
If your adventure locale is in the Vast it could be anywhere from a week to 5 weeks to get to Absalom and back - longer if you're not going to Absalom.PCs are assumed to have a ship, but that's not a necessity. They could be stranded with a damaged one. The campaign set up could lack one as part of the premise. A newly established settlement could have scraped up the money to get passage out, but not to have a ship of its own or to get common supply runs.
It does kind of break the system though, since regular gear upgrades are assumed. Which falls back into "colony surviving on their own" not being a kind of campaign SF lends itself to. Despite being a pretty common SF trope, even in settings with FTL.
Nah, you can just work,around that by having the colony developing technology as it manages to bring newer systems and buildings on line.
“Hey, we’ve managed to find a local supply of bruzenium 4! In a few weeks we’ll have the materials we need to mod that armour of yours. Also, Franger Jones says the Cordilon Reactor is nearly ready to switch on, so hopefully I can get those charged Springer Coils for the new rifle you’ve been hankering for”
Access to levelled gear just comes with successful levelled ng of the colony (pretty much like playing an RTS computer game).
Yeah, the biggest issue then really becomes affording it. Especially since part of the assumption for Starfinder seems to be that you'll be picking up and using dropped gear for 1/10th cost. So you wind up needing to produce at least a fair bit more money from what should logically be less valuable drops. Have fun hunting the local wildlife to extinction, and/or wiping out the indigenous peoples if any.
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Yeah, the biggest issue then really becomes affording it. Especially since part of the assumption for Starfinder seems to be that you'll be picking up and using dropped gear for 1/10th cost. So you wind up needing to produce at least a fair bit more money from what should logically be less valuable drops. Have fun hunting the local wildlife to extinction, and/or wiping out the indigenous peoples if any.
Or the colony pays them in guns and equipment for doing the jobs and dangerous work that adventurers do.
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There was never an option in Starfinder since you have FTL-ish Drift Drives. It takes a week from anywhere to get to Absalom Station. So unless you lost your Starship, you were never going to have a problem of "don't have access to stuff". Scarcity campaigns don't really work in a setting with FTL. You can make them work for a short while with the setup of "Hey, you've become stranded on this planet because your ship ran out of fuel/the engine broke/etc" but that only lasts for a limited amount of time in a believable manner. I also suspects that's not what most players sign up for with Starfinder.
Does Hard Sci-Fi count?Really, given the focus on having access to shops and gear drops, it can be rather difficult to have something like a colonization campaign, or anything else where realistically you won't have access to shops or UBP income for a prolonged period. Particularly if it's in such a way where you won't realistically be fighting enemies with leveled equipment (like most colonization campaigns would be, since if they have leveled gear chances are good the planet you're on isn't really available for colonizing. Depending on your group's ethics you'd probably be fighting mostly animals even.)
It depends. Starfinder could actually do a decent job for a pulp-inspired space adventure, as well as space opera. The old Star Frontiers trilogy of Crash on Volturnus, Volturnus, Planet of Mystery, and Starspawn of Voltunus is an example that could be converted fairly well; most of the conversion issues lie with the setting differences.
The first iteration of Star Frontiers (Alpha Dawn) didn't have rules for actual starships, so nearly all of the published material was set on planets (with one or two scenarios involving space stations or moon bases). Travel between systems was pretty much glossed over ("you spend x days traveling and arrive").
The Knight Hawks boxed set added rules for spaceships and space combat. The included adventure (The Warriors of White Light) is a decent representation of the PCs as members of a system "customs patrol" organization, for those that want to run a more military flavored type of space opera. This is another example that could be converted fairly well. For a more wide-ranging space opera, the trilogy of Mutiny on the Eleanor Moraes, Face of the Enemy, and The War Machine can be ported over to Starfinder, as well. The first module is another "stranded on an alien planet" scenario, but the PCs are allowed a bit more in the way of resources and it's more of a "beat the clock" than a "find a way to survive without support" challenge.
The three things I cannot imagine running with starfinder
1 Anything with economics/trading as a feature. Pathfinder had enough economic problems applying them to Sci Fi makes them worse, so I could not run a campaign focused around trading/mercenary work were the economics of this were important.
2 Hard Sci Fi it is not even close to realistic. Which is fine even good but not for a hard sci fi game. I prefer system with a focus and the space opera/fantasy focus of Starfinder is good but if I want to run a hard sci fi game I will go elsewhere
3 Low power gritty games, in some ways a continuation of the hard sci fi limit. If I want a game about ordinary people in space I have many which do it better, however most of those do not do heroic magic wielders in space. One reason I am dissapointed with the focus on low level adventures.
For the above poster Star frontiers strikes me as exactly the sort of setting not to use starfinder for, the characters are ordinary people with ordinary abilities with no magic or even psi powers. Exactly the sort of setting I would port to GURPS , FATE or traveller.
A Lensman style setting could work well, or star wars style, or better it's own style which emphasises the technomagic and heroic style of the game rather than trying to use it for settings it does not suit.
I read Mutiny on the Eleanor Moraes and the Volturnus adventures quite recently, and they don't strike me as being particularly difficult to adapt for Starfinder, excepting that you'd want to adjust them to take advantage of magic in the setting. In the main they revolve around the premise "you crashed and now you must hike," It's actually a good idea if you want to lean into wilderness adventure, which Star Frontiers did a lot of.
I would love to adapt some of scenarios from Jim Starlin's old Dreadstar comic for Starfinder. It occurred to me that it has to have been a direct inspiration for at least some concepts in the game; Vanth Dreadstar is too like a Solarian for it to be coincidence, Willow is a technomancer, Syzygy Darklock is a mystic...
Dune.
I read Mutiny on the Eleanor Moraes and the Volturnus adventures quite recently, and they don't strike me as being particularly difficult to adapt for Starfinder, excepting that you'd want to adjust them to take advantage of magic in the setting
The concept of the scenario is perfectly fine and workable. It is the fact that the setting you are converting from has no magic , assumes a low individual power (which goes out of the window in starfinder after a few levels) and has an economy and equipment availability based around money not suitablity for power level of character.
It fails my suitability for conversion citeria for being built for low powered individuals , having an economy and not having magic.
Starfinder works just fine for "medium" scifi like Mass Effect. You just need some house rules. For instance:
* Mystic "spells" are actually psionic powers... or even just strip out their spell progression and give them progression from Complete Psionics. In this latter case, unless you're intending to increase the power level of the class, you'd probably want to give them the Psychic Warrior progression but with the Psion power list. If, say, Metacreation powers don't feel right for your setting, just don't allow access to that discipline.
* Technomancer "spells" are actually hyperscience invention widgets that work on minovsky physics. During the period of the day where they would be "preparing spells," they are fiddling with their widgets to prepare them for the day. Only the technomancer is familiar enough with the weird science involved to make them work, so they can't just hand out their "spell slots" to other party members to use. Remove any spells from the list that directly interact with alignment or magical energy.
* Weapon fusions are either psionic, entirely hyperscience, or some combo of the two rather than magic.
* Drift is just hyperspace and doesn't yank out sections of other realities. Or alternately replace it entirely with a system like, say, you travel 1 light per day (or per hour if you want civilizations to spread farther) per point of Drift rating of the drive.
* Monsters with magic powers are psionic instead, etc.
I think one of the biggest stumbling blocks would be a campaign where low power protagonists have access to high power equipment.
Maybe Blake’s Seven would be difficult to pull off, for example. The Liberator and ORAC were both pretty clearly high tier equipment in the hands of low level players.
Similarly, a campaign where equipment has little impact and/or doesn’t improve over time. It’s going to be a translation glitch - either Luke skywalker keeps upgrading his lightsaber as he learns mastery of the force or he falls behind the WBL curve. Neither really “fits” with the universe (albeit it’s not hard to tweak the campaign setting to accomodate such things).
Dealing with the ramping equipment madness could be handled in a grittier game by simply saying you can only buy the lower level equipment, but then it automatically "upgrades" to its higher level equipments in the hands of a higher level character. So if you have a cryo rifle, you just start doing more damage etc as if you had a higher level cryo rifle as you get more experienced with it. Then you can drastically reduce the WBL, and maintain the flavor of stories where people hold onto their weapons and armor through their whole sagas but just get more talented.
That requires a lot of forethought though, and would have to be systematically approached with a full writeup and rethinking the equipment tables before you start.
I think one of the biggest stumbling blocks would be a campaign where low power protagonists have access to high power equipment.
I actually think this could be a solid campaign concept. Especially with starships. As a low level player, a high-tier starship penalizes you but also offers awesome rewards if you succeed. It can even be an adventure setting as the characters try to figure out what-all stuff is happening around here. Shows like Blake's 7 or Lexx were about low-level characters trying to master something far beyond them. Starfinder, mechanically speaking, could completely do that.
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Dune.
how not?
sardukar - soldiers
fremen - operatives
bene gesserit - mystics (akashic channel)
bene whatevers (the gholam guys) - technomancers
mentats - exocortex mechanics
there's plenty of envoys, operatives, and soldiers throughout the dune series. just cut out the solarians and limit the technomancer spells (no necromancy, no offensive spells, etc.)
and of course, everyone is human.
Dune.how not?
sardukar - soldiers
fremen - operatives
bene gesserit - mystics (akashic channel)
bene whatevers (the gholam guys) - technomancers
mentats - exocortex mechanicsthere's plenty of envoys, operatives, and soldiers throughout the dune series. just cut out the solarians and limit the technomancer spells (no necromancy, no offensive spells, etc.)
and of course, everyone is human.
Even the hydration suits are emulated very well by standard armor. Once you environmental reserves run out (its ability to recycle water is overtaxed), the desert kills you.
Phew boy.
Gimme a while im on my phone. Lets just say youd have to throw out pretty much 3/4 of the book and ignore not insignificant portions of the setting to make that work.
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Ummm it does Starfinder well. That's it.
Too many simulation-ist sacrifices for fun mechanics or ease of play. The more a rules set simulates things realistically (like interacting ship and player mechanics) the more you can use it for other things.
This makes the tying of mechanics with setting material make more sense. But I don't think it wise to pull Starfinder too much out of it's own niche.
I don't think it's that strict; I've run quick games in both Halo and Starcraft universes without issue. I don't think "patina of hardness" universes like The Expanse would be all that bad either.
Realistic hard Sci-Fi, with the unremittingly bleak setting that implies, isn't generally well suited for RPG but something like FATE or cypherless Cypher would be preferable.
Dune.
Starfinder can do Dune. Just takes some houseruling.
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Realistic hard Sci-Fi, with the unremittingly bleak setting that implies, isn't generally well suited for RPG but something like FATE or cypherless Cypher would be preferable.
GURPS, Savage Worlds, ect.
Hard Sci-fi with little to no combat? Yeah FATE probably more right, but I wouldn't say ttRPGs in general shouldn't.
You could do something set in a version of the Dune setting, but otherwise almost entirely unlike Dune.
Most party-focused high-adventure stories would be unlike Dune, which was (at point of inception) basically "E.E. Doc Smith meets Lawrence of Arabia."
House-ruling a Dune game would be doable. Player races would have to be recast as subtypes of humanity, you'd ideally want to craft a class for the Bene Gesserit (who are somewhere between Operatives, Envoys and Mystics) and a set of combat feats for the Weirding Way and have a separate ruleset governing lasguns and shields. It would be a fair amount of work, but Starfinder has the basic systems in place to do it. (It's also not like there are a huge number of alternatives out there: a couple of incomplete fan-created stabs at the concept, an old GURPS product and the impossible-to-find Chronicles of the Imperium FWICT. So it might actually be worthwhile.)
Oh, the party-focus thing is the least of the problems, there's any number of ways to do that. The old Chronicles of the Imperium game focused on an Entourage of a House Minor model, which strikes me as a pretty good way to introduce a party-focused adventure with a window on the full majesty of the setting. You could play Band of Arrakeen Smugglers, War Party of a Fremen Sietch, Guild Task Force, Raiders in a War of Assassins (like the little party Gurney Halleck leads, off-screen, to destroy the Harkonnen spice stockpiles in the original Dune)... the books were actually rife with hooks like that and hints of adventurers outside the main frame doing all manner of adventuresome things.
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Oh, the party-focus thing is the least of the problems, there's any number of ways to do that. The old Chronicles of the Imperium game focused on an Entourage of a House Minor model, which strikes me as a pretty good way to introduce a party-focused adventure with a window on the full majesty of the setting. You could play Band of Arrakeen Smugglers, War Party of a Fremen Sietch, Guild Task Force, Raiders in a War of Assassins (like the little party Gurney Halleck leads, off-screen, to destroy the Harkonnen spice stockpiles in the original Dune)... the books were actually rife with hooks like that and hints of adventurers outside the main frame doing all manner of adventuresome things.
concur.
there's tons of stuff that's taking place off the page by various functionaries - many of whom are hardcore dudes - which are related to the main characters through report and rumor.
remember-dune is a fantasy setting with sci-fi elements. guys are running around space ships with daggers. starfinder does most of that stuff really well - you just have to cut out some of the starfinder fat ... namely some of the magic and the solarians.
And most of the tech.
The thing to understand about Dune is that it's NOT space opera.
FTL travel is is monopolized by a single guild which is happy to do all sorts of legitimate and illicit trading to move people around the galaxy. But the point there is that it's not a pick up and go space adventure in the way most of the series that this book pulls from.
Computers? Forget it. The Butlerian Jihad all but guaranteed that the only way you'll get something more elaborate than an e-reader is if you happen to find a Mentat, whose capabilities aren't well supported. Just like Benegesserits are a poorly covered by Mystics.
Than of course you have the issues of combat. The reason why daggers and the art of swordsmanship is prized so highly has a lot to do with the rather unfortunate relationship between lasguns and personal shields. Personal shields that, by the way, pretty much deflect anything that moves beyond a certain speed.
Sure, there's plenty of opportunity for "adventure" but those are more for games like Traveller than starfinder. Hell tbh I think Pathfinder would cover it better.
Investigator, for example, would cover the Mentat extremely well, Monks or a monk archetype would take care of just about all the bene gesserit stuff.
Yakman I feel has it more right than he may realize.