Most Starfinder books don't bat an eye at throwing a half-page weapon chart at you. Want some more weapons? Sure, here is a massive list of them! Here are a few dozen races. Here are a half-dozen more character options. I have a shelf of Starfinder books, and none feel compelling.
It is funny. I don't feel the same way because I have two shelves of Pathfinder 1e books. Fantasy is a genre you can instantly narrow down to a simple, core story and theme. The village is under attack. The heroes pick up a sword and cast a spell. The adventure that lasts a lifetime begins there.
99% of the time, I could play with the core rulebook and pull in a few things from one other.
With Starfinder, they give me a ton of stuff, but finding something to do with it takes time and effort. The game expects you to know and use the conflicts of Pathfinder 1e in this new world, so you need knowledge the game doesn't provide. The book describes gods and races and expects you to make that 1:1 jump yourself. Orcs hate elves in fantasy, so orcs...? Dark elves worship demons, so...?
Thousands of years have gone by.
I wanted a new world with new conflicts.
One of Starfinder's huge problems is it requires you to be a Pathfinder fan. Only some things translate, and the stuff you think would - doesn't.
Shadowrun does Starfinder a lot better. What? That makes no sense. Different games! Let me explain.
Both games are about a team of characters in a futuristic setting who are motivated to solve problems and follow their motivations. The structure of the parties' relationships and goals are the same. The environments they operate in (dungeons, cities, wilderness, and vehicles) are the same. While one setting has starships, the other setting has hover vans. You get in a thing and go to a place.
Where Shadowrun beats Starfinder is in story motivation. The world is a fantastic sandbox filled with conflicts, factions, societal forces, and stories waiting to be told. Everything you learn unlocks a new secret and a new chapter. Deep conflicts are built into the setting. The tradeoffs, like magic, are built into the rules. Even cultures and races are in conflict.
Starfinder books are content to give you more and more until the game becomes an unintelligible, muddled pile of confused lists. They will list the original Pathfinder gods, but I need to see conflicts built into the setting or rules. There are hundreds of races in Starfinder, and in Shadowrun - there are five. If I play one of those, I feel special. If I add a few - each one of those is special.
Add too many, and nothing means anything.
What is the point of a dozen cute races? Marketing?
Quality over quantity is one thing that escapes Starfinder. It is different in Pathfinder 1e, despite having twice the books. In fantasy, I have a world model in my head. That takes precedent. With Starfinder, I have no frame of reference, and every time I try to settle on one, a book contradicts me. I override 90% of my reading, and my mind goes, "Why bother?"
I could play Starfinder with one book and focus on a core conflict, but I am doing a lot of the heavy lifting myself to create deeper conflicts and stories. Evil and good get along together. Space goblins exist to season dungeons and abandoned starships with cheap combat encounters. The gods are meaningless since magic comes from anywhere. Why even have them? Fantasy races are tossed in the back of the book like an embarrassment.
They wanted a sci-fi game but needed to learn how to build a universe. They had to do a 'great reset' and wipe memories. What Hollywood wishes they could do with the last few years of superhero entertainment. It is a universe built upon a deus ex machina.
For all its "D&D with guns" feel, Shadowrun feels plausible. It has a history. You can have a dragon as the head of a megacorporation, an orc street gang, or an elven Yakuza. It oozes style and panache, and those tiny examples create a thousand stories in my mind.
They are the same game, but instead of throwing more and more at you to justify hoarding and collecting, Shadowrun focuses on story and conflict first. Nothing works in Shadowrun unless the core story conflicts are solid. In Starfinder, there is always another book of stuff I always need help with.
And three or four more tables of weapons.
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