Starfinder

If I play 3.75 Pathfinder, I could play OG Starfinder. Am I getting the 2E version? Likely not, I have a shelf full of books I barely explored, and the original Starfinder is still a good game. I have struggled with it, but this game lasted longer than many other sci-fi games in my library.

The jump between Starfinder 1e and Pathfinder 1e is close; if you play one, your mind is set up to play the other. So, alongside my 1e campaign, I will kick-start my Starfinder game.

Starfinder needs a GM Guide. Why it never got one, I will never know. The closest book we have is the Galaxy Exploration Manual, which covers the essential genres and gives lots of charts - but I wanted a book that went a little more in-depth into some of the topics the Pathfinder Gamemaster Guide went over (I know, I can use that book too).

There are many planet types and plot hooks, and the book ends with various toolboxes for NPCs, starships, treasure, and more. Stars Without Number does an excellent job of tables and random generators, but this will do in a pinch. SWN does a better job listing conflicts and factions on world types and plot hooks with locations.

What makes me raise an eyebrow is the section of the book listing science fiction subgenres that imply they can be played with Starfinder. Could I play The Matrix or Robocop with Starfinder? I guess. What about hard sci-fi, like 2001? It would be a stretch, but I am tossing out all the magic and crazy races. For a one-shot? What about The Martian? The Walking Dead is mentioned under post-apocalyptic. How about Back to the Future?

Starfinder is its own thing.

It isn't a roleplaying game that could do Back to the Future, but it could do an adventure inspired by that. Same with the other genres. Starfinder does its own thing and sucks in inspiration like a lint roller. To play Starfinder, you need to play all or most of it.

It is like the pop-modern version of Space Opera to me. Where Space Opera was Wheaties, Rice Krispies, and Corn Flakes poured in a bowl; Starfinder is Fruit Loops, Frosted Flakes, and Fruity Pebbles. It isn't bad, just brightly colored and random.

And sweet.

There are times when being just as random as the game when running works in your favor. In other sci-fi games, I tend to overthink things and grind to a halt. Here? If you start dragging or hitting a dead end, make a combat, chase, or other action happen. Who sent you?! A clue or confession sends the players to the next arc.

Don't think.

Do.

That is Starfinder.

Keep it moving.

T-bone the plot with a sudden WTF moment. Have a starship combat. Force yourself out of your box. Use a part of the rules you never did before.

Don't think.

Lean in, dive in, and go.

It isn't a generic system either; a definite leveled progression system powers you up like a JRPG. Many sci-fi games have a flat progression curve and simulate a 50% skill moving towards a 100% one. Starfinder is a progression on an upward-moving curve.

If you were to redo the Star Frontiers adventures, such as Volturnus, in Starfinder, there would be parts of the planet "too high level" for you. The bad guys who show up by the end of the series would all be level 12-15 enemies. It's d20 gaming, a video game in pen-and-paper format.

You could do Volturnus as a "not Volturnus." Do a hex-crawl on a desert world - and let the terrain go from there. To be a heretic, some of the modules in this series had problems; they were railroads, and a few points felt forced. I have done Starfinder as a sandbox and hex-crawl before, and it was fun. I could drop some of the signature module locations wherever I feel they should go, and that works.

Also, I could rip a copy of Volturnus out of the original SF universe and drop it straight into Starfinder as a system - with no other Frontier existing. It makes sense since this planet was 90% of our campaign and the only world we cared for. I would make the ship that crashed there a giant colony ship, and then the task isn't to escape but to gather all the shipwrecked survivors and build a home.

I will miss those space drow so much if I ever get into 2E. They are classic, Buck Rogers-style villains in my universe. If I play 1e, they are still here.

There is much to like in Starfinder, but also lots to pull apart and make sense of from a story perspective. Its scope, sheer amount of stuff, and too-much-mojo nature make it difficult for coherent storytelling - too much is happening. There are too many power systems. There are hundreds of alien types. The weapons and spell lists go on pages. There are far too many caster classes and different styles of magic.

In a game like Star Frontiers, you have your iconic laser pistol, 13 skills, a page of weapons, gear, and four races. There are no magic or psionic powers. Stories in this game are easy to tell.

Today, the far-superior Frontier Space is my replacement game, with a far better action economy, a similar d100 mechanic, and a more streamlined system. The stories here are easier, too, since the selections are tighter, the game has a narrow focus, and all the classic story motivations and frameworks work well.

Another game with easy stories is the Cepheus Engine, which now has so many versions and games that it can fill up a small solar system, but I still love non-Traveller 2d6 generic sci-fi.

Sometimes, I play Starfinder and need a college course to understand how to tell stories in the setting. I need to narrow down what the game gives me to get started. There is a solid d20 sci-fi game in Starfinder; it just takes sorting through a million options to find it. This is one of the reasons my Starfinder games have consistently failed; I would start off well, complete an adventure, and then when it came time for me to create something on my own - my game would die.

I got overwhelmed instantly.

There is too much going on here.

There are a billion conflicts, or no conflicts defined at all.

Is the galaxy at war with evil or not? Is being at peace with the undead "a thing?"

What is evil? What is good? There are gods and demons, but what do they do? Sit on the sidelines?

You can start seeing Paizo's slide into moral neutrality in this game, where nothing is truly evil, and nothing is truly good. Would an undead star empire killing billions of people on a planet and turning them into undead be considered evil in this game? This is the time to call the star paladins in and start smiting the bad guys. If the forces of Hell opened demon gates on a world, killed an entire planet's population, and turned the place into the Doom video game, would it be considered evil?

I spent a few hours reading the books last night, and I could not find an answer to those questions. There are listings for Asmodeus the archdevil, but he sounds more like a Wall Street CEO than the end boss of Doom. An entire planet of undead is in the Pact Worlds, and there is open cannibalism in the world (Pact Worlds, p90). There is this feeling in Starfinder that if something is presented as a valid character option, then anything that goes on to support the background is okay with everyone. After all, we have cool pictures of bone-guy characters!

The books say, "Not everyone is okay with it, but politics keeps it the way it is."

But taken to its logical extent, space truckers would be shipping living people to the world to be consumed. Is that evil or not?

Politics keeps it the way it is.

Okay, then the Pact Worlds are evil.

My version of Starfinder is much more black-and-white than this morally ambiguous mess of a default setting. I would leave the Pact Worlds as messy, confused, morally relativistic place and make a new good-aligned Confederation of Light that good-aligned worlds are joining in reaction to the rampant neutrality of the Pact that invites evil to consume planets. Starfinder was written before the Ukraine war, and you see the same "well, both sides have points" relativism in the setting as you hear today when people try to support evil.

Evil would also be drawing ranks in my version of the setting. Demons would turn planets into Doom levels, and undead would destroy worlds to get more legions of the dead. The space drow will naturally align with the demons of Hell, and they will create an Infernal Empire. The undead will align with an Axis of Death and be undead space Nazis.

Sorry Pact Worlds, I don't see you lasting another 5 years when these space empires start clashing. People will be forced to pick sides, and the default structure of the original setting will be in decline and discussed in the past tense. They will be seen in the same light as the pre-WW1 German liberal free-thinker parties, sort of that failed 'grand society' that broke apart because it ignored the rot from within that gave rise to greater evils.

B&W Starfinder is a game I can easily tell stories in.