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Though the temptation will undoubtedly be strong to do so, humbly request that the Themes for Pact Worlds are not put behind a Boon unlock -- one of them is *perfect* for one of my characters and they've already had to go through one Boon unlock for their Race.
Thank you very much for your time and consideration in advance.
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I would hope most of the stuff in what amounts basically to the campaign setting book will pretty common and openly allowed, saddly I think the races will all get locked behind boons but I reeeeeeeeaaally want to play one of the SROs.
The SRO is arguably the most powerful race they've put out so far so I doubt it will be very open availability.
Starfinder Society Developer
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i really hate the boon restrictions starfinder really should allow more of the alien races in play.
personally I would love to play an SRO "which imho should have been the race they used instead of the android"
and of course skittermanders , dwarves and gnomes
I can certainly understand the sentiment. One way to combat this, without going into specifics, is to make sure to keep playing scenarios. Not every race is locked behind a convention/GM/special boon. Some of them are showing up more and more just on standard scenarios!
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i did like this about the half orc, i think part of the frustration is that if you cant get to many sfs events then unlocking new race means you have to reset , then you can no longer play with your group who are still moving down the module line.
which means you may never get the chance to play the race you want to play or you can start from scratch redoing modules you have already done.
in pathfinder this made a bit more sense, but in general it really makes little sense in starfinder which as one of its major draws offers a multitude of interesting races to play.
why even put races like the sro's in office books if the odds are you may never get to play one.
i worry that the race rules in society are needlessly copying pathfnider for no better reason then to copy pathfinder.
apologies for venting :)
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Starfinder Society Developer
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i did like this about the half orc, i think part of the frustration is that if you cant get to many sfs events then unlocking new race means you have to reset , then you can no longer play with your group who are still moving down the module line.
which means you may never get the chance to play the race you want to play or you can start from scratch redoing modules you have already done.in pathfinder this made a bit more sense, but in general it really makes little sense in starfinder which as one of its major draws offers a multitude of interesting races to play.
why even put races like the sro's in office books if the odds are you may never get to play one.
i worry that the race rules in society are needlessly copying pathfnider for no better reason then to copy pathfinder.
apologies for venting :)
No apologies necessary; these forums are a place for constructive critique. Comments like this help me gauge the community feeling (of course I have to be cognizant of more metrics than just people who post on forums!)
I do want to address the concern of "needlessly copying Pathfinder" which is plain false. We chose to go with our current model of race availability to tackle two major concerns we had when launching an entirely new RPG:
1) GM Awareness. Time and time again we've learned that GMs are an invaluable resource to the campaign and anything we can do to make their lives easier or add incentive for GMing is overall good for the campaign. When we started the campaign, we wanted to make sure that GMs would not be expected to know about every potential race in Alien Archive and all the races that are getting released in subsequent material. Prior to the launch of the campaign, I had several long-time GMs contact me and say that anything we could do to curb some of the spiraling rules increase, especially in the first year, would be greatly appreciated. The reason for this request is that people wanted to learn the game, and at the time of launch, the prospect of 20+ additional races entering weekly tables was daunting. This was a big factor in starting the campaign (remember those last three words) with just the core races.
2) The Core races are core. Yes, Starfinder is a setting where we want to explore the cantina aspect a lot more. That being said, it's still a setting where we have a cast of core races and we want to make sure that these core races get some time in the spotlight before PCs go off to create something entirely different like a sentient ooze or a sentient robot with chainsaws for feet.
Overall, I like to think that we're handling races in a far more open manner than Pathfinder has been able to, or even did at the start of its Organized Play campaign. We've got boons in scenarios that offer access to new species (heck, we've introduced a species in a scenario and then provided a boon to play that species in the same scenario.) We've already got almost every possible race from the game available in one form or another within less than the first year of the campaign being active. We have #Plans™ to make more races available in more unique and accessible ways.
As a player of numerous games, I understand that people want things to be available. I understand that when buying a book, it's frustrating to not be able to use everything out of that book immediately in an Organized Play setting. However, I also understand that what's more important is the ongoing health of the campaign and that it's MUCH easier to open options up in the future than try restricting things because you've found out that you've made a terrible mistake.
Anyways, just some insight from *spooky voice* "behind the curtain!"
Now, it's time for me to get back to work. These convention scenarios won't develop themselves!
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While I obviously don't have any insight into when/which/how Pact World races will be introduced, I was just commenting to a friend of mine how I'm actually a really big fan of how Paizo has gone about racial introductions in Starfinder. Sure there are the core races, but beyond that there are several avenues for getting access to additional racial boon content. At the risk of repeating what Thurston just mentioned, multiple scenarios offer access to additional playable races (some immediately, some after certain conditions are met), players get additional racial boon access through just playing scenarios via the Alien Archive boon, regular GMs get racial access through the RSP program (which everybody should be in if you play semi-regularly at the same location - if you're not, contact your venture captain/lt/agent for more info and have them get the paperwork in), GMing at cons has the potential to get even more racial boons that rotate/refresh based on region, and even beyond that there are the crazy rare ways like skittermander boons or limited Gen Con boons.
While I'm hoping at least some of the Pact Worlds content will come online/not-boon-locked with the next AR update (hopefully the day after the book's release!), I think Starfinder has done an amazing job organically cultivating "that cantina feel" to use Thurston's words. As regular players start to expand to their second (and third) characters, with two scenarios/month coming online in a week I really think the experienced player base will start to see more and more "everybody at the table playing a different non-core race" party make ups as we go into the second half of 2018 and 2019. And new players will still have the option to play as a four-armed alien or a telepathic, formerly-hive-minded insectoid because those are core races. I'm looking forward to it!
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The reason for this request is that people wanted to learn the game, and at the time of launch,...
I can't stress enough how much I appreciate the slow valve release of new material and options. I think everything is going swimmingly and I'm especially happy as a GM these days.
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i did like this about the half orc, i think part of the frustration is that if you cant get to many sfs events then unlocking new race means you have to reset , then you can no longer play with your group who are still moving down the module line.
which means you may never get the chance to play the race you want to play or you can start from scratch redoing modules you have already done.in pathfinder this made a bit more sense, but in general it really makes little sense in starfinder which as one of its major draws offers a multitude of interesting races to play.
why even put races like the sro's in office books if the odds are you may never get to play one.
i worry that the race rules in society are needlessly copying pathfnider for no better reason then to copy pathfinder.
apologies for venting :)
No apologies necessary; these forums are a place for constructive critique. Comments like this help me gauge the community feeling (of course I have to be cognizant of more metrics than just people who post on forums!)
I do want to address the concern of "needlessly copying Pathfinder" which is plain false. We chose to go with our current model of race availability to tackle two major concerns we had when launching an entirely new RPG:
1) GM Awareness. Time and time again we've learned that GMs are an invaluable resource to the campaign and anything we can do to make their lives easier or add incentive for GMing is overall good for the campaign. When we started the campaign, we wanted to make sure that GMs would not be expected to know about every potential race in Alien Archive and all the races that are getting released in subsequent material. Prior to the launch of the campaign, I had several long-time GMs contact me and say that anything we could do to curb some of the spiraling rules increase, especially in the first year, would be greatly appreciated. The reason for this request is that people wanted to learn the game, and at the time of launch,...
thanks for your response
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So I would like to go ahead and add my voice to the crowd and say that as a GM I am super happy with the slow roll-out of races. Especially of some of the more 'weird' ones being harder to get access to.
My hope really is that all but the races is sanctioned sooner rather than later and not boon locked. Especially the themes, because right now some of the new themes will fit character concepts much better than current themes (I imagine we will see less Outlaws and more Space Pirates, and also less Scholars as there are more Int-based themes). I also believe that if the Archetypes are allowed right away we might start seeing some more players picking up Archetypes (some of them seem pretty neat at first glance!). I think the weapons added in Pact Worlds fill a lot of the holes from the SFCRB and will hold many people over until the Armory Guide comes out (I'm looking at you Weapon Crystals!)
Races though, I would like to keep sort of the way they are. Some of the races need to be individually considered before releasing them into the wild. SROs most definitely and even Astrazoans have some pretty important racial abilities
