Thinking about running this. Best AP for players new to system?

[CapeCodRPGer]

I'm in a group now. We are playing DnD 2nd edition. Most other players have played alot of RPGs. One player is playing in first campaign.

What AP is good to run for people that never played or ran Starfinder before?

[thecursor]

I would recommend Dawn of Flame personally. It's genuinely my favorite so far and seems to be the point when the Starfinder APs hit their stride.

[Yakman]

Against the Aeon Throne is short, simple, and fun.

[Jay Boehm]

Yakman wrote:

Against the Aeon Throne is short, simple, and fun.

I agree wholeheartedly.

[Robert G. McCreary]

The first Adventure Path for Starfinder, Dead Suns, was specifically designed to help new players and GMs learn Starfinder while also presenting a broad overview of the setting and the possibilities in the game that expands over the course of the campaign.

[Ascalaphus]

Yeah I played Dead Suns as my first Starfinder AP and it felt like a natural fit.

[Sandal Fury]

Forgive my terrible crime of necromancy (four years, whew), but for the benefit of anyone in the future searching the forums for recommendations on their first AP to run, I strongly discourage you from running Dead Suns (no offense to those who suggested it those many moons ago).

Narratively, Dead Suns has an interesting premise, but commits many storytelling cardinal sins: events that play out exactly as written regardless of player action, an entire chapter that turns out to be a wild goose chase/red herring, the second half of the AP is almost entirely on-rails with no option to "go back to town," and the course of action that the final chapter proposes the players take is illogical, improbable, and infeasible, to the point that it seems most GMs have to tell the players what the game expects them to do.

SPOILER:

Empire of Bones:

The PCs are expected to board an enemy dreadnought, eliminate the commanding officers, and commandeer the ship. As a crew of about four people, assuming average party size. However, the minimum crew to operate a dreadnought is 125.

Gameplay-wise, Dead Suns was being written before the Starfinder base rules had even been finished, meaning it incorporates a lot of obscenely poorly-balanced encounters, including a boss at the end of chapter one which seems, at least anecdotally, to boast a rougly 40-50% TPK ratio, and a boss in (IIRC) chapter 4 whose AC was miscalculated, and as a result, most PCs won't be able to hit without rolling nat 20s (which, per the rules, won't even result in a critical hit). There's also very little money to go around, so players who are itching to play around with some cool weapons and armor upgrades are going to be sorely diappointed.

Of course, all of these issues can be circumvented if you're willing to put in the effort, but you should know that you've got your work cut out for you.

Again, no offense to anyone who enjoys (or worked on!) Dead Suns, but to give my honest opinion, and echo that of others, it's a mess.

[Lord Snow]

Sandal Fury wrote:

Forgive my terrible crime of necromancy (four years, whew), but for the benefit of anyone in the future searching the forums for recommendations on their first AP to run, I strongly discourage you from running Dead Suns (no offense to those who suggested it those many moons ago).

Narratively, Dead Suns has an interesting premise, but commits many storytelling cardinal sins: events that play out exactly as written regardless of player action, an entire chapter that turns out to be a wild goose chase/red herring, the second half of the AP is almost entirely on-rails with no option to "go back to town," and the course of action that the final chapter proposes the players take is illogical, improbable, and infeasible, to the point that it seems most GMs have to tell the players what the game expects them to do.

SPOILER: ** spoiler omitted **

Gameplay-wise, Dead Suns was being written before the Starfinder base rules had even been finished, meaning it incorporates a lot of obscenely poorly-balanced encounters, including a boss at the end of chapter one which seems, at least anecdotally, to boast a rougly 40-50% TPK ratio, and a boss in (IIRC) chapter 4 whose AC was miscalculated, and as a result, most PCs won't be able to hit without rolling nat 20s (which, per the rules, won't even result in a critical hit). There's also very little money to go around, so players who are itching to play around with some cool weapons and armor upgrades are going to be sorely diappointed.

Of course, all of these issues can be circumvented if you're willing to put in the effort, but you should know that you've got your work cut out for you.

Again, no offense to anyone who enjoys (or worked on!) Dead Suns, but to give my honest opinion, and echo that of others, it's a mess.

thanks for posting this!

Do you have APs that you do recommend?

[Dargoth876]

I've run Against the Aeon Throne as first AP for new players. It is a good one, but written just after Dead Suns, so not ready for many new things.

The best one I think for introcing people to the world and the system would be Threefold Conspiracy. It is well balanced, you get a good feeling of the world, and character backgrounds are not an issue.

Skittershot,skittercrash, skitterhome and Skitterwarp can also make a good introduction.

The worst in my opinion is "Fly free or die", simply because the team is doom to fail for at least the two first books.

[Hilary Moon Murphy]

I really love Drift Crashers, which was goofy, whimsical and just plain fun for this GM to run.