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Would you like to see more books like Drift Crisis?
If so what would you like it to cover?
My vote is yes!
I never thought Paizo would do a book on the Gap until Drift Crisis was released, I don't know if they ever will but it seems more possible now. Even if Paizo never tells us how or why the Gap happened, a Drift Crisis-like book covering the years AG:0 to AG:3 covering waking up to the Gap and all the chaos, confusion, and conspiracy theories on how and why it happened. Add to the end of that book The Year AG:3 is equally exciting with Triune sending the Drift single, and the race to be the first to fly into the Drift. Would make for one exciting book, if not a full book, some Starfinder prequel adventures in those years would be fun to have.
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I wouldn't personally. I find metaplot stuff primarily just lowers the accessibility of the setting and I'm not going to run setting-event type stuff because of my gming style preferring to build my own campaigns heavily tailored.
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I'm waiting on The Vast splat, and hopefully after than an "Interstellar Organizations" splat -- something that goes more in-depth on Hellknights, Knights of Golarion, Xenowardens, etc.
Also tag me as someone who is not as interested in metaplot. My group are the heroes of the story, they're not tag-alongs who do all the work while others get the credit/glory.
I can't picture what utility there is in a splat that goes into the history of a setting -- we're playing in AG 322. So all the other splats you own (Near Space, Pact Worlds, etc.) are rendered mostly useless.
Sounds more like something that should be explored in tie-in novels.
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In fairness sake, from what I've heard I don't think SF's metaplot has the players as tag-alongs while NPCs do all the important stuff, with it assumed your PCs were the ones who solve the Drift Crisis.
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I wouldn't personally. I find metaplot stuff primarily just lowers the accessibility of the setting and I'm not going to run setting-event type stuff because of my gming style preferring to build my own campaigns heavily tailored.
If Drift Crisis is a metaplot it's the least typical one in print. I think the biggest value of the book is that it adds a lot more character, depth, and flexibility to how GMs and players can use the Drift, in or out of the crisis. I see the adventure seeds in the book not as a metaplot but as examples of ways of creatively using the drift. The Drift Crisis book seams like a lot of cloth just begging to be tailored. I love the title of the 2nd AP related to the drift crisis, "Drift Hackers." If you can hack the drift the possibilities are endless, for both GMs and players.
Add some times travel to a drift crash or malfunctioning drift beacon, and you have a great GM tool for doing a retcon in character.
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If you have read Drift Crisis and it doesn't fit your game style nothing wrong with that, but if you haven't read it thinking it's just another metaplot book you might be missing out. I'm starting to think of it as a bit of a Drift Exploration Manual that uses more adventure seed than charts. But having said that I'd still love to see a full Drift Exploration Manual on its own.
I've been wanting to build a band in Starfinder, just now flipping through Drift Crisis and found a table on page 63 labeled "PANTHTRA MUSICAL WEAPONRY" I know what I'm reading up on today!
I have Drift Crisis. There's some good stuff in it, there's also some stuff I was very nonplussed about -- mainly the special NPC's in pages 170-175 -- except Zo!. Everybody loves Zo.
I'm definitely not looking to "retcon" anything my players have already accomplished.
In fairness sake, from what I've heard I don't think SF's metaplot has the players as tag-alongs while NPCs do all the important stuff, with it assumed your PCs were the ones who solve the Drift Crisis.
Give them 5-10 years. PF1 had this creep, mainly in Iron Gods and Wrath of the Righteous where two NPC's ascend to deity or near-deity status. (These were hilariously parodied in this bit about Guild Wars: Nightfall where an NPC who didn't do most of the work got the big reward at the end of the adventure)
And of course Tyrant's Grasp, six books of trying to make Tar Baphon look scary and dangling him over the party's head.
If Drift Crisis is a metaplot it's the least typical one in print. I think the biggest value of the book is that it adds a lot more character, depth, and flexibility to how GMs and players can use the Drift, in or out of the crisis. I see the adventure seeds in the book not as a metaplot but as examples of ways of creatively using the drift. The Drift Crisis book seams like a lot of cloth just begging to be tailored. I love the title of the 2nd AP related to the drift crisis, "Drift Hackers." If you can hack the drift the possibilities are endless, for both GMs and players.
Add some times travel to a drift crash or malfunctioning drift beacon, and you have a great GM tool for doing a retcon in character.
And I'm not interested in any of that really. I also don't see how any of that makes it less metaplot. Of course people can reflavour and retool things, home games can do that for anything, but why bother when I can just buy rpg books that I'm actually interested in and use them straight forwardly? Especially when the only parts of the book I have any interest within Drift Crisis will end up on Archives of Nethys one day.
Give them 5-10 years. PF1 had this creep, mainly in Iron Gods and Wrath of the Righteous where two NPC's ascend to deity or near-deity status. (These were hilariously parodied in this bit about Guild Wars: Nightfall where an NPC who didn't do most of the work got the big reward at the end of the adventure)
From what I've heard, you aren't tag alongs. Just because you're not made into literal gods doesn't mean the player actions didn't matter.
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PF1 had this creep, mainly in Iron Gods and Wrath of the Righteous where two NPC's ascend to deity or near-deity status.
How does two characters getting something like that nullify the PCs achievements? Neither of those APs are about becoming gods, so they are depriving the PCs of nothing. Like, those characters don't get that way on accident. That's part of the story of the addventure path. The PCs are also in the adventure path. Do you think NPCs should just sit around not doing anything?
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I really don’t understand looking at Iron Gods and thinking it was some metaplot adventure that your PCs are dragged along on. Casandalee doesn’t stop Meyanda, or Hellion, or Unity… she’s not even in the first 4 books, if I remember right.
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I mean, all paizo adventures are metaplot because they're events that are canonically moving forward the official setting of the rpg. But metaplot isn't synonymous with NPCs doing everything important.
Not all metaplot is bad metaplot.
Correct. While Kingmaker "did happen" in Pathfinder, I'm pretty sure that if Paizo ever decided to canonically write-in who rules the Stolen Lands there would be a riot.
Also in Kingmaker, the expectation is the player characters become the ruler. I find myself similarly attracted to like-minded AP's like the upcoming Blood Lords, or Frozen Flame, where the characters become important people rather than enabling important people.
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I can't picture what utility there is in a splat that goes into the history of a setting -- we're playing in AG 322. So all the other splats you own (Near Space, Pact Worlds, etc.) are rendered mostly useless.
Sounds more like something that should be explored in tie-in novels.
never read a tie-in novel before, not likely to start, I'd rather live the lore a bit. Pathfinder 2E has 1E for its history, Starfinder has nothing like that to fall back on the Gap even prevents it. Currently, we just accept that the gap happened and move on, just like how before the drift crisis we just accepted that the drift is how we move around in starfinder. Now the drift feels more interesting and deeper part of the setting, I think the gap deserves the same treatment someday. A day 0 of AG:0 adventure would be about crazy and interesting RP chalange I can think of.
1: It would add lore to Starfinder
2: It would add "new" old tech items and thasteron ships, the kind of things you might dig up in Junkers Delight, or are of new interest and value to people fearing drift drives during the Drift Crisis.
3: The Gap is magnitudes bigger Crisis than an intergalactic traffic jam It would be a chance to explore the gap without ever saying why or how it happened, and at the same time give it more meaning and depth.
4: The gap didn't happen everywhere all at once, so can we be sure it's over? maybe there are bubbles or waves of gap still out there.
5: Staring a campaign in the year AG:0 would let you play the entire history of Starfinder if you chose so.
6: Running a few characters in the Year AG:0 make for great ancestors for a AG:322 character
7: More Zo! Immediately after the Gap, Zo! founded a media empire
8: "Old" new class features, skills spells, and feats that would still be usable in AG:322 but in AG:322 you might have to research the past to find them.
9: The gap is likely the single biggest source of conspiracy theories in starfinder, there are likely cults or even religions around some of them some may even still exist in AG:322
10: could be done with time travel involved to have it start and end in AG:322
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i finally cracked open my hardcover of Drift Crisis this weekend, and it's really, really good.
I definitely enjoyed the various homebrew skeletons in the document, there's a bunch of fun monsters (one of which I might drop in my session tonight!) and when we start up Attack of the Swarm! I am going to set it in the Drift Crisis framework. (If we hadn't already decided on the next AP, we'd be running Drift Crisis).
As far as the metaplot stuff, whatever. Ignore it or not. The Drift as it was originally written had some issues and post-Drift Crisis, some of those are improved upon. This is clearly not intended to be something like the Spellplague from Forgotten Realms 4E where entire nations were wiped from the face of Faerun - it's an additional set of changes which you as a DM can readily ignore or not w/o much rework.
So yeah, I'd like to see another book like this in a few years, w/ the accompanying APs.
They should have used the opportunity for a complete retooling of Dead Suns - it's the one AP most people have and/or have played, changing it completely would've gotten more mileage out of the thing.
They do that a bit in book 1 of AtAT.
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I thought Deskari was the setting's big bad... But of course, gotta find a replacement for him for 2e.And of course Tyrant's Grasp, six books of trying to make Tar Baphon look scary and dangling him over the party's head.which is how the AP dealing with the setting's big bad should be...
It's still Tar Baphon.
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I'm still digesting Drift Crisis and haven't read absolutely everything yet, but my initial impression is: it's great. I'm not sure if I'd like to see more books like this, though, for the simple reason that I'm one of those GMs that mostly runs APs and Scenarios. So while a book that's predominantly just "here's a bunch of crazy adventure ideas!" is fun to read and there's lots of interesting thought experiments, the sandbox/toolbox nature doesn't add much for me. (That sentiment may change once Drift Crashers & Drift Hackers are out, though - it will be interesting to see the extent to which you need, or don't need, the Drift Crisis book to run those two APs!)
Don't get me wrong, it's neat lore, and I appreciate that the adventure seeds are still interesting examinations of the setting. But given the choice between another Drift Crisis-esque book versus, say, another Near Space or Pact Worlds style book, I'd choose the latter.
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I also think Drift Crisis is a good book and inspired a few adventure ideas in me.
I like the metaplot format where it is easy to add, remove and use in a campaign depending on what you want. I can easily set adventures in the Drift Crisis or before, without much mucking about. If I decide on a canon resolution (or play through it), after would be an option too. Though, I play loosely with time between different adventures/groups etc. which other GMs might not.