I have a roll20 gaming group that has played together for over two years now. We recently decided to switch to Starfinder and there was much excitement. Unfortunately as the GM I ended up spending nearly 30 hours over two weeks just trying to set up the first couple intro/learning sessions before we kicked off Dark Suns.
Were you trying to do everything with a compendium or something? You get a lot more bang for your buck not trying to prep that way.
An NPC really only needs initiative attacks/damages/ saves, and their big abilities.
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And I run my Starfinder VTTs on Google Slides with the Discord Rollem Bot, and my tables continue to be popular. You can do VTT in a way that is completely primitive and simple. I appreciate doing VTT that way because the tech then does not get in the way of the story.
We'll be starting some limited in person games in June. I say "limited" because the store that we used to run at is now only open until 8 on Wednesday nights, so we're doing in-person Quest and Bounty nights. But we're keeping our online games on alternate Wednesdays so we can keep running full scenarios. We're entering a weird mutant hybrid mode... which actually seems the epitome of Starfinder, so hey!
I do think that the lack of stand-alone quests for Starfinder is going to hurt Starfinder in this instance. My guess is that most people will want to play stand alone bounties and quests rather than have to do 4 nights to get their XP.
Hmm
I do think that the lack of stand-alone quests for Starfinder is going to hurt Starfinder in this instance. My guess is that most people will want to play stand alone bounties and quests rather than have to do 4 nights to get their XP.Hmm
They have started: Starfinder One-Shot #1: Band on the Run
Foundry this, Roll20 that... isn't anyone else running Starfinder games in a cobbled-together macro framework in MapTool?I'm just running Starfinder on msn messenger. Initially by text, but now by voicechat. With a small player party you really don't need an interactive map, any more than you do for D&D.
And I've just got a webcam pointed at my gaming table with a mixture of cardboard pawns and PF1 beginner box tokens.
It's worked great for the ~10 months we've been playing again since after the initial covid problem.
Focusing on making one platform work is a problem when there are many alternatives to explore.
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I do think that the lack of stand-alone quests for Starfinder is going to hurt Starfinder in this instance. My guess is that most people will want to play stand alone bounties and quests rather than have to do 4 nights to get their XPThey have started: Starfinder One-Shot #1: Band on the Run
That is a stand-alone game, but too long to fit in the time slot for a quest or a bounty. We need adventures that can be done in 1.5 hours or less with the hours of our store.
That is a stand-alone game, but too long to fit in the time slot for a quest or a bounty. We need adventures that can be done in 1.5 hours or less with the hours of our store.I do think that the lack of stand-alone quests for Starfinder is going to hurt Starfinder in this instance. My guess is that most people will want to play stand alone bounties and quests rather than have to do 4 nights to get their XPThey have started: Starfinder One-Shot #1: Band on the Run
I don';t think that its much longer than that if at all. I'll let you know
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And I run my Starfinder VTTs on Google Slides with the Discord Rollem Bot, and my tables continue to be popular. You can do VTT in a way that is completely primitive and simple. I appreciate doing VTT that way because the tech then does not get in the way of the story.
Well done tech enables or stays out of the way of the way of the story. With a roll20 macro I click one button an have the attack, damage, and possible effects appear on the screen. That brainspace from adding and looking up an attack modifier that I've got back to put for a description or witty banter. It takes a little bit of time before the session but it saves some time during.
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If they did convert Starfinder to Pathfinder 2 rules, the Ancestry and Background systems might need to be re-examined. Right now Themes serve sort of the same space Ancestries do in PF2, while races seem to work like backgrounds. I think I would like that to continue, if only because the eleventy thousand backgrounds suggests an equal number of ancestries/races can be accommodated.
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I wouldn't expect SF2 until PF3
A SF2 definitely wouldn't use the ancestry mechanics of PF2e, since that would make having tonnes of races immensely difficult.
If they did convert Starfinder to Pathfinder 2 rules, the Ancestry and Background systems might need to be re-examined. Right now Themes serve sort of the same space Ancestries do in PF2, while races seem to work like backgrounds. I think I would like that to continue, if only because the eleventy thousand backgrounds suggests an equal number of ancestries/races can be accommodated.
Iiiinteresting. I'll have to think on this one a bit. Converting SF races for SF2 is a bit of a bear, it'd be nice to have a shortcut.
Foundry this, Roll20 that... isn't anyone else running Starfinder games in a cobbled-together macro framework in MapTool?
A friend of mine built up a framework for both pc and startship combat, but after finishing the first book of dead suns, the gm had to put the game on hold and since then half the party has zero interest in playing more starfinder(including the person who made the framework) so we've just been playing pf1 since(the same two players dont want to play pf2 either, after doing the playtest anyways). Thankfully I recently found a SF game to join, though that one is played in roll20(im not a fan but good luck getting people to use something else, even as they complain about how much roll20 sucks themselves).
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Starfinder can be quite the hard beast at times, at least in Roll20 in my humble experience.
Hell I had up to 500 interested players and GM's in a Starfinder Roll20 game forum in the lead up some weeks before it first came out.
The hype was there, also noting a few outspoken forum posters "It's broken/ won't work/not my thing unless they include XYZ pie in the sky/ Math wrong" types almost all now former forum members here, LOL.
But some got a bit worried about that sad to say, yep the "ship DC checks" as we all know now needed (and now is Errated in) adjusting......
The space combat "mini game" left more than a few feeling like Paizo missed the mark, perhaps should have spent more time on it before release or should have gone a different route than they did. But we have what we have now and it is what it is but at least they expanded the Crew positions a bit more and the cost revamp on ships.
For me and my groups its pretty hit or miss, one thing for sure is that specific theme space battles like the asteroid one that one can hide and seek and one can use different tactics REALLY keep the players and GM's more engaged than the average AP listed ship combats written up so far!!
People now a days even before Covid were really getting used to the VTT buy an AP/adventure and have it all pre set up. And for sure Roll20 really dropped the ball there, BIG TIME as most know by now. Setting it all up by hand was the old and only way to do it before but now people expect it to be the NORM, not the exception!!
I mean if one looks at the R20 stats there are still a lot of people playing it over there, if one looks at the overall 9.5 million users it is still a nice 60,000 + user base. Ya I know the stats and numbers presented by Roll20 is far from perfect but thats what we have to work with.
:) more later as I go through my experiences as a SF GM on Roll20
Tom
Roll 20s thing is that its a box of leggos. It hands users an API script, a bucket of macros, a page and says go forth and build.
This means if you're looking for a huge amount of support you're hosed.
But it also means that since that's how its designed to be run, the DMs can very easily create their own content. I can run a scenario the night it comes out ( I probably SHOULD take a day but i HAVE done that..) Roll 20 content has the odd problem that it has to compete with roll20s ability to make content.
I haven't seen another system that can get 5 random people playing as quickly roll20 can. Other systems have more polish and more automation that increases the step up on that early learning curve. That makes it ideal for organized play where you have a lot of casual people moving in and out all the time. Its clunky and people do (rightly) complain about things that could use improvement (transfering characters, customizing the screen, moving token buttons around) Other systems want me to build my character, and if the parts to do that aren't in the system, it can break. With roll20 since I'm building from the ground up I don't need the mesmerist class to be on roll20s compendium before running a mesmerist.
LOOL, I feel ya, as a GM though and I'm an AP GM its all about the AP's I've hand crafted a lot of that through my 9 years at Roll20.
Well Roll20 is on the Alien archives but to me I don't do homebrew so not a big help for me anyways, yes just sliding over a monster onto the screen so auto token and gives it a NPC sheet one can secret GM auto roll attacks and such or clikc that ballon button and have it shown to the player is nice but have hand crafted tokens and stats enough that not a big deal either way.
Most people who want to try a new system out wants to play the newest thing/hotness and if its not there unless a GM takes a ton of hours handcrafting it, they tend to go check out a different system or forget it all together
But I guess we will see if that meeting has any results in the future of SF on R20. I shutter to think of handcrafting all of King in space game onto Roll20, but I may have to sadly......
Thanks for the post
Tom
PS yes the 1 shot is nice to have but ya know they almost had to have that in as it was PAIZOCON after all and they used them for games there , LOL
s not there unless a GM takes a ton of hours handcrafting it, they tend to go check out a different system or forget it all together
The trick is to only give the monster what they're going to need. They don't need a full character sheet. They need AC, HP, attacks, full attacks, saves, and custom abilities.
Horooth the Star destoyer hits KAC [[1d20+14]]
Horooth the Star Destoryer Full attacks!
First swing Hits KAC [[1d20+14-4]]
Second swing Hits KAC [[1d20+14-4]]
Fort save [[1d20+15]]
Reflex Save [[1d20+8]]
Will Save [[1d20+6]]
Fire breath
60 foot cone
deals [[6d12]] Fire Damage
DC 19 reflex save for half.
/w gm I AM HORROOTH THE STAR DESTORYER MY AC is 23 I start with 124 hit points
These are very easy to stick on the token as a token macro . i find it even easier than meat space because i don't need to remember their attack or add it up myself or look anywhere but right on the token itself.
I 've played in one prepared campaign and I think my biggest disapointment with it was the pictures, some nobles didn't even have art they were just a gold name on a red circle.
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The trick is to only give the monster what they're going to need. They don't need a full character sheet. They need AC, HP, attacks, full attacks, saves, and custom abilities.
Let me challenge even that! All a monster needs is an icon to represent it on the table :D I run with a picture token, a health bar, and then type "/r XdY+Z" for everything else. (Granted, I am spoiled in having two monitors, which greatly speeds things up. Monster stats on one screen, roll20 on the other. By the time you're 1 or 2 rounds into combat, you can just use Up Arrow to recall the same three or four rolls over and over.)
If we were to update SF rules, I agree that ancestry mechanics wouldn't work. I think a general trend in the advancement of technology is generalization. The character's species should play a smaller part than it doesn in Pathfinder.
There would need to be more frequent general feats to fill that gap. I would also keep theme's progression across levels as it is more of subclass than a background.
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You could almost just invert the two. Instead of Ancestry feats and Backgrounds, you could have Themes with their own pools of feats and Ancestries serving as more robust backgrounds.
Hey Big Norse, yep I usually do that route as well, Lately pop in the stat block in the Gen info on the token then fil in the HP and EC & EK AC's. If I don't use the Alien Archives books for an auto token and NPC monster sheet.
Til I noted Nethys if I copied them off my PDF's one has to space em all out every time as they just copy into one big paragraph,..... If from Nethys then its as is with the spacing just with the black background and white words.
For me as usual its the maps, getting hi res maps as I overstreach em out so the party has room to mauever and try different tactics, as well as who they are fighting :)
I just hope to god we get Hi res maps for King in Space, from Paizo here or a BIG IF Roll20 gets it out there and they do get the hi res maps from Paizo, so 2 birds with one stone, again IF it ever happens.....
Tom
Roll 20s thing is that its a box of leggos. It hands users an API script, a bucket of macros, a page and says go forth and build.
I... may need to look at Roll20 at some point. This flexiblity is why i've stubbornly stuck to MapTool over the years. If I need something new, I just write my own macros for it. If Roll20 has that with more stability, that sounds tempting.
How is it with the actual map-creation side of things? The one thing I love about MapTool still (having compared it to FantasyGrounds, which another game is running in) is that it lives up to its name. It's really great for creating *maps*, with drawing tools, image handling, vision blocking and layering.
I... may need to look at Roll20 at some point. This flexiblity is why i've stubbornly stuck to MapTool over the years. If I need something new, I just write my own macros for it. If Roll20 has that with more stability, that sounds tempting.
The sheet and API macros are that good.
The basic macro can do anything I'd want to do for roll20 except crit. (its a LOT more clunky to get it to store a number than it should be but it's doable)I came into roll20 from maptools, which may be why i hate hero lab style character sheets so much. For anything but a crit "i hit KAC [[1d20+5]] for [[1d8+3]] damage" works fine. Starfinders simplified attack routines make calculating attacks easier.
How is it with the actual map-creation side of things?
I could never get maptools to host, so i wasn't the DM, so i don't remember getting a map on maptools. I know they just redid the dynamic lighting system, but the amount of work that adds before the game + the amount of annoyance during the game just doesn't seem worth it to me. If the place is a dungeon I'll fog of war the whole place and reveal as we go.
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What I am missing in any VTT is the option to draw the map right in the VTT (e.g. to explain someting or to quickly sketch a map for an unplanned encounter).
Maybe even with some "automation-function" like place random assets in a room etc. THIS would be awesome.
I mean, do that with Roll20 without issue, there is a draw tool.
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You could almost just invert the two. Instead of Ancestry feats and Backgrounds, you could have Themes with their own pools of feats and Ancestries serving as more robust backgrounds.
I guess I didn’t fully come out and say that, but yes, that was my thought as well.
Only other way I could see it work is if they did a bunch of generalized non-specific ancestry feats that keyed off certain abilities or physiological traits like “fur” or “darkvision”, with no attempt to give each its own pool. But I would prefer reversing the two.
Actually, I suppose you could still have the generalized feats as, well, general feats. The idea of getting new physiological abilities at higher levels does feel appealing, but most of the cultural stuff can probably be set aside.
The trick is to only give the monster what they're going to need. They don't need a full character sheet. They need AC, HP, attacks, full attacks, saves, and custom abilities.
And then your PCs befriend it, adopt it, and suddenly you need to know its carrying capacity and a bunch of other things that are much easier with a full character sheet to hand.
I know it's off the cuff, but carrying capacity is easy. Especially if it already has a str modifier.
Other skills beyond the default, also easy.
...what else is on a character sheet that's not simplified in a stat block?
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The trick is to only give the monster what they're going to need. They don't need a full character sheet. They need AC, HP, attacks, full attacks, saves, and custom abilities.
And then your PCs befriend it, adopt it, and suddenly you need to know its carrying capacity and a bunch of other things that are much easier with a full character sheet to hand.
So it haa a quickie sheet for one session and you make the full hour sheet in between sessions.
having to spend 6 seconds looking up or just eyeballing a monsters stat is hardly so common or such a game breaking item that we need to spend hours extra preparing just in case.
In other words, this is making such a mountain out of a molehill that i have to decide between type A personality taken to an extreme or having sour grapes looking for something another system does batter and only coming up with...that.
It's not like most characters aren't eyeballing their encumberances anyway
I do think that the lack of stand-alone quests for Starfinder is going to hurt Starfinder in this instance. My guess is that most people will want to play stand alone bounties and quests rather than have to do 4 nights to get their XP.
Hmm
I agree completely - quests and bounties need to be implemented across to SFS like there are in PF2.
I don't even mind if it is a 'quest pack' of four quests, but at the moment the Starfinder questythings are just a scenario pretending to have independent parts.
We need short snappy scenarios that we can run easily on a weeknight, especially for FLGS that only offer a shorter window, or even recruitment games. The intro scenarios are the length of a normal scenario - not good for 'recruitment'
It's 2024, and I'll hop on and say I've been interested in Starfinder for a few years, but the PF1 vs Starfinder being a PF1.5 kind of concept, and then PF2e, and now PF2e Revised has kept me from ever buying a book. I'm sure it's hard to synchronize, but as an adult with kids, I'm reluctant to dive into multiple similar systems as it's hard enough to have time to learn a single system well.
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It's 2024, and I'll hop on and say I've been interested in Starfinder for a few years, but the PF1 vs Starfinder being a PF1.5 kind of concept, and then PF2e, and now PF2e Revised has kept me from ever buying a book. I'm sure it's hard to synchronize, but as an adult with kids, I'm reluctant to dive into multiple similar systems as it's hard enough to have time to learn a single system well.
Well, at least I can reassure you that it's not as bad as perhaps you're thinking.
First, you don't have to buy any books to learn the system. It's all there online and freely available on the Archives of Nethys.
Second, PF2 and PF2 remaster are really very close. With a few exceptions (alignment being the biggest), the remaster is more of a massive errata wave than it is a full change in system.
Third, SF2 is going to have the same system as PF2 remaster. Anything about mechanics that you learn for one will fit into the other.
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I came across Starfinder through Humble Bundle deals. When it first came out, some Pathfinder fans were proclaiming that they would not move onto PF2 since Starfinder was a preview of what was to come for PF2. I therefore assumed that PF2 was Starfinder with minor changes to fit a fantasy theme better. It has been 7 yrs since SF first came out and if they are seeing a sales slump, a new edition may be in their best interest. In the meantime, I'll stick with SF until they offer it on Humble Bundle.
It's worth saying that SF1 and PF2 are very different games. SF2 is going to be interoperable with PF2, but SF1 is its own beast.
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From what I can tell interest in Starfinder is up. We got a lot of new Starfinder players after the OGL mess. It was reported that at the convention where SF2e was announced last year, the original Starfinder core Rule book sold really well. The SF2e play test book and adventures come out in July. The main reason for SF2e is to remove the OLG from it, also there are lots of PF2e players that prefer the 2e system and have stopped playing Starfinder until SF2e comes out.
One thing that seems to have changed is that a lot of the general talk about Starfinder has moved to Reddit and Discord. I see several new players weekly on Reddit.
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That's true; the Starfinder Discord is constantly active.
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I just checked a Reddit post I made last month on the original Starfinder subreddit and it only got 9 comments, and 41 thumbs-ups, but had 6400 views. It was just a link I posted fighting some misinformation about SF2e so wasn't something people commented on a lot, but that it got 6400 views shows that people are still thinking about Starfinder, even if you don't see a lot of comments or likes.
The same likely happens here we just don't have a way to measure it like you can on Reddit.