I am currently playing Starfinder, and while it is that good-ole d20 fun, I find the need to use the Starbuilder computer program to manage my characters taxing. I know, the program makes it easy, and I do highly recommend this one if you are bought into Starfinder (with a subscription) like I am.
I miss the days of DIY, sheet-of-paper no computers needed character sheets, so I am giving Stars Without Number another look. The OSR seems universally against character building apps, and the games are so simple they rarely need them.
There are times I feel the model Paizo, Wizards, and a lot of other companies are using by using system complexity as lock in makes me tired. I love the complexity, and who am I to complain having a complete collection of Pathfinder 1e and 2e books, but there are times when I feel all that complexity gets in the way and is 99% of the time fluff, unneeded minutia, and gets in the way of stories and playing.
Ultimately the fun in some of these big-box complex systems "is" navigating the rules and figuring out the puzzle. Pathfinder 2E has this appeal of building a valid character and seeing how they work as a part of a team. I am feeling the same thing in Starfinder, it is fun building your character and working through the adventures the team wrote for you to have fun with. It is a sort of "turn on the steaming movie and watch" sort of fun for me, where you build your team, make theories and plans on your group, and play through and see what happens.
What worked? What didn't? What could we do better next time? What is our next step? What gear do we need? What do we do when we level up?
On a lower mechanical level it is fun, and the tinkerer and builder part of my brain loves this stuff.
But I do like systems that step out of the way and focus on story. Stars Without Number can even be used "with" Starfinder as the "space generation game" part of an exploration game. However, when I started reading deeper into the rules, which are only about the first 25% of the book and under 100 pages, the system started to grab me. The starship combat system especially, being a d20-style space combat system that I am feeling I prefer to Starfinder's system.
To be fair, I also have the excellent Traveller system, and also the fan favorite classic, Star Frontiers. While I love Star Frontiers I feel the system needs a revision, especially in the area of unarmed combat. I played the first Volturnus module and having a group of unarmed, unskilled in melee adventurers pound on space pirates with their fists and do 2 points of damage a turn to 45 STA with a 23% chance to-hit (knockouts on 01-02, and every tens rolls, 10 and 20 in this case) was pretty painful.
I know, grab a club, but having a group with the martial artist getting the space pirate in a hold while three other characters beat on the poor idiot turn after turn felt sloppy and not the fun, pulp-adventure sci-fi that I crave. At that point I may just swap out the older rules and use Savage Worlds instead. I love the universe and the aliens of Star Frontiers, but the rules I am not so tied to. I am currently playing in this universe with the Starfinder system and it is different, but fun.
Traveller I have a good set of books with, but I have not played as much lately. The system feels deeply tied to the 3rd Imperium, and while I am fond of the setting, I have not found it compelling enough to start a game in yet and explore. The layout and organization could be better, and I find myself struggling to find things and wishing someone would do an Old School Essentials style reorganization of the rules and split the system from the setting.
I know, heresy, but I like the split between rules and setting since it makes everything ten times easier to find during play, and the setting book becomes very useful and rich by not having to sacrifice page-count for basic rules concepts.
Stars Without Number seems like it holds a lot of promise, and with a little work I could reskin this to cover either Star Trek or Star Wars - or both. Or not, and just play it as-is. There is something to be said for generic sci-fi adventures with a simple-to-play system, and this game seems like a great fit. I know there is a licensed Star Trek game out there and it has good reviews, but I remember the days where people hacked Basic D&D to play Star Trek style games and it worked just as well, without the need to use computer programs or an hour's worth of work to generate a character.
Or buy a new book, though I like doing that too.
Again, the DIY sort of "play a Space Federation" style Star Trek game with an OSR rules set appeals to me, and I just may do that with this game for fun. And also, an OSR Star Trek style game would take the focus of the game off of "getting cash" - which the other three games discussed here all focus on, to a more adventure and mission based game that is not so focused on profits and space cash.
If there is one flaw in a lot of sci-fi games, and Starfinder has a really strange way of dealing with this (keep pocket cash poor and give ship upgrades for free), it is the constant focus on wealth equals power. Admittedly Star Frontiers in a Star Law style campaign can also sidestep this (and you could do this in other games), but still, having the cash to load up on the best weapons and defenses is still the path to victory. Traveller is very "space capital" focused and you often start the game in debt and struggling to make mortgage payments on your ship.
Is that fun? For some, but I don't feel it is a reason to get out and explore the stars since it is just a numbers game.
Yes, fantasy games have this "cash equals power" problem too. It is part of the genre, honestly, and there is that Diablo-style fun to equipping your character and powering up.
I like the stories, and I like the OSR style space games that I can mod into anything I like. For this reason I am giving Stars Without Number another look since it checks a lot of boxes and can sim most anything I want to play in a fast and easy way, a lot like Savage Worlds but this game has a structured d20 style ship combat system that I find interesting.
More soon as I hack, mod, and play.
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