Starfinder creates a lot of its own problems by not taking a stand on anything. I get the entire "neutral approach" to presenting a setting, but many of the setting's assumptions feel at odds with great storytelling. They want every player's choices to be equal and to minimize intra-player conflicts at the table. Of course, you can play an undead! Look, we have no space paladins in the setting!
Please! No fights at the table! All choices are equal!
Your adventurers are these semi-generic space rogues who never really take a side. This extends to most of the factions presented as good guys; the Pact Worlds is an "all-inclusive" setting where good and evil get along and go on random space adventures together.
The first adventure path sets the tone by forcing you to work for an undead ambassador and return an undead space terrorist to their hands. I had players from a fantasy game wanting to kill the ambassador for being evil undead, and they would not work for him.
Full stop, end of adventure.
I can't criticize them; this is their choice. To them, the undead are the things that crawl out of the graveyard, and clerics can use turn dead on. To them, it is like me saying, "The demi-lich Acererak walks up to your party and says, I have a mission for you..."
Someone is saying, "Well, good role players would..."
Free choice and determination before assuming anything about anyone. They have a right to refuse. And nobody should ever say someone's roleplaying is "good or bad."
This is why railroad adventures killed AD&D 2nd Edition for us in the 1990s. They turned us off to both the books and the game. You give us no choices? Okay, we choose another game.
Eox is a planet of undead where cannibalism is practiced, yet it is a member of the Pact Worlds? How can you eliminate slavery from a setting but ignore cannibalism? Being used for food is slavery! Do they ship live people in as food? Their being in the Pact Worlds makes the entire alliance "sus" to me as if they ignore an apparent evil. I need help seeing the Pact Worlds as the good guys or worth supporting; they are just a wishy-washy appeasement faction stuck in the middle and on some of the most important real estate in the galaxy.
I swear, some of the writers of these games.
Sure, nobody gets upset, but nothing makes any sense.
I can't run a game like this. To me, the Pact Worlds are a hopeless, doomed appeasement crowd that will end up making concessions to evil to the point where it blows up in their face. Starfinder was written pre-Ukraine. We know what evil is these days and how it brutalizes and invades the innocent. We can't ignore it like the Pact Worlds do in this setting. The best I can do is create a good guy faction and make the Pact Worlds a hopeless between-sides space faction that supplies the enemy with recognition and resources and sadly buys time for evil to prepare.
In my game, the Confederation of Light is my LG faction, and they have worlds, planets, and fleets that will likely come into conflict with the Pact Worlds. The setting needs a lawful good faction. They can be occasional pains in the butt, but the alignments need representation in the game setting, and there should be a clear good-guy side. Some players work better being the noble, sword-of-light, good-guy space paladins swooping in and dispensing justice like He-Man.
Give them a place to play. This faction doesn't need to be huge, and it works better as a more minor faction where players can make a difference, so keep them the noble underdogs and away from being annoying righteous jerks.
Forget the "exiled corpse fleet" - my undead faction will be a space empire called the Death Fleet, controlled by the Axis of Undead - undead space Nazis. Vampires and liches will dress up like Rommel and cackle evilly.
Eox? Weaklings will be crushed when the Death Fleet shows up and takes over the world. These jerks swoop in, kill a planet, and then raise dead to add a few billion more to their armies and fleets. Plus, you can do space Indiana Jones with evil undead space Nazis. It is good stuff, and they make perfect bad guys who show up to steal artifacts for themselves.
The Infernal Empire will be the forces of Hell, conquering worlds and turning them into Doom video game levels. Since the setting's dark elves (the classic 1e ones) worshipped demon lords, they will work with them as commanders and Hell priests.
Doom is my inspiration here. Demons want to condemn a planet's souls to Hell and make them work in infernal factories, making weapons and ships for the fleet. The drow will be the fleet's commanders and sorcerers, backstabbing each other like in the V miniseries or even Ardalla in Buck Rogers. They are likely their worst enemies, but they are fantastic fun to fight when you grab a BFG, shotgun, and chainsaw and save a colony world.
Gods, demons, alien spirits, and devils are the only source of magic! Period. Full stop. Arcane magic died in the galactic reset. You get your powers ala DCC from the setting's gods, alien intelligence things, otherworldly patrons, or other forces. They ask you for favors, their beliefs shape your actions, and making them angry shuts your magic off.
You can't act counter to their wishes or risk disfavor, having higher level (or all) spells turned off until you atone. Magic must be like this; the setting has no "free" magic. Otherwise, you get into a situation where a magic user of good powers is healing the undead. Or working for them. And using good magic to advance the plots of the dead.
No "generic source" magic that is "free to use for anything."
All magic is faith-based and granted by otherworldly forces.
Even the space nature spirit cloud thing has an alignment and sphere of influence. Don't pollute or hurt a planet's atmosphere. The spirit may be angry if you help colonize and "ruin" a pristine world.
Your character must abide by the will of your source of power.
There is no machine god. God is the machine. The prophecies say machines will eventually replace all gods. This will be the end of the universe, as the god-device consumes all.
There are no magic powers, no mysticism. There is just steel and electricity, plastic and coal, carbon fiber and oil.
Mining. Refinement. Factories. Production. Profits.
This sets up a conflict between magic and technology, which is perfect. This setting's mages? Mechanics. Techs. People who build and fix machines. The machine is the arcane power. Robots. Mechs. Starships. Guns. Yes, you can have magic-enchanted things like that, but technology constantly threatens to replace magic and do away with faith.
Those who use magic should keep a wary eye on those who answer every problem with technology.
This mirrors today's central conflict between faith and machine, the soul versus AI.
The setting's conflicts are good versus evil and technology versus faith.
This is MY Starfinder.
One with explicit conflicts that use the 9-axis alignment chart and play to the central battles of our time. The Pact Worlds are still there but doomed to be a footnote in the history of a much larger conflict between greater forces. Unlike the setting's source material, the lines and civilizational conflicts are clearly drawn.
Black&White Starfinder.
No comments:
Post a Comment