Hello my darling Paizo fans and welcome to a special edition of our favorite Paizo update for EN World! It’s not every day we get to do product reviews, and this one is a particular honor – we’re cracking open the Starfinder Beginner Box and giving it it’s due!
Let’s just take it from the top and work our way through. The packaging art is beautiful and evocative of the adventure contained within, as can be expected from all Paizo products. There’s also a lovely heft to the box – maybe it’s just the materialist in me, but I love a bit of heft to my RPG products. Also, for a bit of Christmas-morning glee, there’s a bit of rattle when you shake it. Colorful, heavy, and fun to shake – a perfect box in my opinion!
Now, onto the innards! Continued commendations to the thoughtfulness put into the layout of this product – top to bottom largely what I’d want beginners to see and experience in that order. As you might have seen in an unboxing video, first you find some dice and some token stands – I would personally prefer the token stands to come with the tokens themselves, but allowances can be made for packaging limitations and such.
Next out of the box is the instructional insert very clearly laying out where new players should look in the box going forward, complete with detailed illustrations for easy reference and recognition. There are also some player reference cards to keep handy as reminders to new players about how to interact with the game, and the common conditions that can afflict their character. I could stand to use some of these in my games even with more seasoned grognards!
The player and GM content in here is top notch. I have some minor quibbles with layout and focus in the Heroes’ Handbook; for example, the information in the booklet isn’t presented in the same order for character creation as is described on the character-creation inset on the inside cover, and I would probably prefer more prominent section and subsection titles to make it clear that the reader has moved on to a new section.
These are minor issues, however, and don’t detract at all from what honestly feels like a masterclass in introducing new players to a game system. It starts off with a rules-light choose-your-own-adventure-style…well, adventure, strongly reminiscent of the text adventure found in the original D&D Red Box. All the rules are constrained to their relevant sections, so new adventurers don’t have to go hunting all around a different book section to find their spells and descriptions. It’s also incredibly thoughtful and very much intentional that the designers have limited not only the options for spells, classes, feats, and so on, but also removed crunchier details like KAC/EAC, ammo, and armor and weapon levels so that they don’t bog down what should be a quick and enjoyable play experience. Top marks all across the board.
The Game Master’s Guide is equally excellent, filled with useful information not only for Starfinder GMs but also ideas and things to steal for fans of other games. Like the Heroes’ Handbook, it starts with the important stuff first: adventure and excitement to get you hooked, then everything you need to make your own.
Bottom line: the Starfinder Beginner Box is an excellent introduction to Starfinder. If you’ve been holding out on Starfinder for whatever reason (the new AC nonsense, the new character creation weirdness), you’re out of excuses. Pick this up and feel that rush of falling in love with a new system all over again.
This article was contributed by Ben Reece (LongGoneWriter) as part of EN World's Columnist (ENWC) program. If you enjoy the daily news and articles from EN World, please consider contributing to our Patreon!
Let’s just take it from the top and work our way through. The packaging art is beautiful and evocative of the adventure contained within, as can be expected from all Paizo products. There’s also a lovely heft to the box – maybe it’s just the materialist in me, but I love a bit of heft to my RPG products. Also, for a bit of Christmas-morning glee, there’s a bit of rattle when you shake it. Colorful, heavy, and fun to shake – a perfect box in my opinion!
Now, onto the innards! Continued commendations to the thoughtfulness put into the layout of this product – top to bottom largely what I’d want beginners to see and experience in that order. As you might have seen in an unboxing video, first you find some dice and some token stands – I would personally prefer the token stands to come with the tokens themselves, but allowances can be made for packaging limitations and such.
Next out of the box is the instructional insert very clearly laying out where new players should look in the box going forward, complete with detailed illustrations for easy reference and recognition. There are also some player reference cards to keep handy as reminders to new players about how to interact with the game, and the common conditions that can afflict their character. I could stand to use some of these in my games even with more seasoned grognards!
The player and GM content in here is top notch. I have some minor quibbles with layout and focus in the Heroes’ Handbook; for example, the information in the booklet isn’t presented in the same order for character creation as is described on the character-creation inset on the inside cover, and I would probably prefer more prominent section and subsection titles to make it clear that the reader has moved on to a new section.
These are minor issues, however, and don’t detract at all from what honestly feels like a masterclass in introducing new players to a game system. It starts off with a rules-light choose-your-own-adventure-style…well, adventure, strongly reminiscent of the text adventure found in the original D&D Red Box. All the rules are constrained to their relevant sections, so new adventurers don’t have to go hunting all around a different book section to find their spells and descriptions. It’s also incredibly thoughtful and very much intentional that the designers have limited not only the options for spells, classes, feats, and so on, but also removed crunchier details like KAC/EAC, ammo, and armor and weapon levels so that they don’t bog down what should be a quick and enjoyable play experience. Top marks all across the board.
The Game Master’s Guide is equally excellent, filled with useful information not only for Starfinder GMs but also ideas and things to steal for fans of other games. Like the Heroes’ Handbook, it starts with the important stuff first: adventure and excitement to get you hooked, then everything you need to make your own.
Bottom line: the Starfinder Beginner Box is an excellent introduction to Starfinder. If you’ve been holding out on Starfinder for whatever reason (the new AC nonsense, the new character creation weirdness), you’re out of excuses. Pick this up and feel that rush of falling in love with a new system all over again.
This article was contributed by Ben Reece (LongGoneWriter) as part of EN World's Columnist (ENWC) program. If you enjoy the daily news and articles from EN World, please consider contributing to our Patreon!
