Starfinder Update from Gen Con

While I was at Gen Con, I got the opportunity to chat with a couple members of the Paizo staff about the future of the Starfinder brand.

With the the Playtest of the new Starfinder Edition, I met up with Jenny Jarzabski, Senior Developer of Starfinder, to discuss what the reception has been like for Starfinder and what we can look forward to in the future.

Dawn Dalton (DD): Talk to me about Mechageddon.
Jenny Jarzabski (JJ): It came out this spring and we are having a great reception to it. I’ve had a lot of people coming up to me asking to join the New Valor Defense Force. I was able to give out the patches for it. It was a really great finale for Starfinder One.

DD: How do you feel about Starfinder One being over and the playtest starting?
JJ: I know a lot of people in Starfinder have had their moment to mourn the first edition. I have been playing and writing for Starfinder since the beginning so there is the bit of wistfulness of seeing it go, but I am so excited about the playtest. So much hype is coming off of the demos we’ve been running. People are having a blast and telling me about their characters and talking about how we weren’t kidding about it being compatible with Pathfinder. We’re hearing stories about gunslingers going into space. We sold out of the adventure I wrote, A Cosmic Birthday, which you can still get on Paizo.com. It is a first through third or fourth level adventure depending on if you play all of the encounters. It tells the story of the Newborn, which is a new eldritch entity that sends a psychic wave of energy across the Pact Worlds.

DD: What is your favorite part in the playtest?
JJ: It’s so hard to say because when I look at it I can see things that our whole team did. I feel like we all Barathu melded (just as a note, Barathu are now a core ancestry). I will say that I am in love with the new Solarian and Witchwarper, they are definitely changed from the first edition iterations. You don’t have to track attunement points, you are attuned. Witchwarpers have anchors that keep them in their reality that you get to choose to further define your character. I’m also partial to the new gods like Zon-Shelyn, a merging of Shelyn and her brother Zon-Kuthon, who is the god of overcoming suffering through art and expression. Our Mystic, Chk Chk, is a worshiper of Zon-Shelyn. He’s a little emo boy. He has a little pain journal.

DD: Is this one of the shortest playtest periods you’ve ever done?
JJ: Yeah, it is because we’ve already stress tested the system. We are using the Pathfinder 2 rules, so we know those rules work. We just need to try out the six new classes, ten new ancestries, and almost a hundred spells. None of the base rules are in the playtest book. You will need the Pathfinder Player Core and GM Core for the base mechanics for this playtest. When the Starfinder Player Core comes out next year, it will be stand alone with all of the rules intact.

DD: You also announced some new classes coming out next year.
JJ: We did. Because we are never done, in January we will be playtesting the technomancer and the mechanic. In the spring, we will be releasing the Galaxy Guide. That will be a setting book that will have cool stuff about the galaxy and differences from Starfinder One. That will also have six ancestries in it and backgrounds to tie into the different planets in the book. There will also be a bunch of GM tips and tools for running different types of games. We wanted to try something different this time and instead of grouping our book in an encyclopedic manner, we decided to group it by types of adventures (genres like space horror, dystopian, etc.).

DD: Is there anything exciting that you want to talk about coming down the pipeline?
JJ: In October, we will be releasing a tenth level playtest adventure called Empires Devoured. Starfinder Player Core releases next year at Gen Con. GM Core will be hot on its heels soon after. We also had the debut of an intergalactic pop star at Gen Con called Prisma. She is in the playtest rulebook and was featured in the demos at Gen Con. If you missed out, don’t worry, she will be back next year for her reunion tour.

I want to extend a huge thank you to the staff at Paizo for giving me their time during a very busy weekend to talk about everything and to share in their excitement for the new products!

 

[Prof_Dogg]

I'm still in mourning

 

[TheAlkaizer]

I own all Starfinder 1st edition books. Haven't played enough for the amount that I sank into it. But I really love their setting and I had two amazing campaigns with it.

I was very excited at the mention of a second edition. When they mentioned compatibility with Pathfinder 2e I thought it was a great idea: there's some really good rules in PF2E that fix some of the issues in Starfinder, it will bring it more players. However, the more I'm seeing it the more it seems that the compatibility might actually be more restrictive. They take design decisions to make it compatible, even if it's not the best for Starfinder.

We'll see. It's only a feeling. I'm not really a playtest type of guy, things change too quick. But I'll definitely give 2E a look next year.

 

[dead]

How easy is it to use Starfinder for another setting, like Greyhawk in the far future? Or is the Pactworlds setting pretty baked in?

 

[Prof_Dogg]

How easy is it to use Starfinder for another setting, like Greyhawk in the far future? Or is the Pactworlds setting pretty baked in?

Frankly, that will be a much easier option for the 2e version as it is will already be an enhancement for the fantasy game (which is why I'm not happy bc it ought to be able to stand on its own and diverge as needed but I can definitely see it being the advantage to someone who intends to use it in that context).

 

[kronovan]

I like much of what I've read here in terms of the direction Paizo is taking the playtest.

I just got the 2e Playtest Rulebook, as I'm joining a playtest in a few weeks. I'm more or less completely new to Starfinder, having only played briefly in 1 SF1e adventure which all other players in my group bounced hard off. Those players were fans of other SciFi TTRPGs and felt SF1e was too much like D&D in Space for their tastes. I personally liked it enough to continue playing, but only invested af far as the CRB, Armory and Character folio PDFs and never did get another opportunity to play.

Working with just the freebie 2e Playtest Rulebook, I was able to build a PC. It took me piecing together some things - particularly how attribute boons work. I've been pleasantly surprised at how it seems similar to Green Ronin's True20 TTRPG, but with HPs instead of wounds and continuing with a traditional damage system. True20 is something I ran a lot of campaigns with and did a lot of homebrewing for (especially SciFi), so with some things similar in SF2e it's felt familiar and not too hard to navigate. I've been saying for years that either WotC or Paizo needs to move towards just using attribute ranks/bonuse like T20 did, and here we finally have it with attribute boons in SF2e and the PF2e Update. I liked enough or what I saw in SF2e to be compelled to buy the PF2e Player Core PDF, which I've been impressed with.

...which is why I'm not happy bc it ought to be able to stand on its own and diverge as needed but I can definitely see it being the advantage to someone who intends to use it in that context).

This was initially a bit off putting for me too. While I'm a homebrewer more than anything, I'm not so keen on mixing major genres. That said, I've done lots of SciFi homebrewing with universal TTRPGs like True20, Savage Worlds, M-Space (BRP-Mytrhas based) and Cepheus Engine (Mongoose Traveler 1e based.) And at times I've milked and borrowed from Fantasy or Horror settings for those TTRPGs, when the Fantasy or Horror themes and elements of those settings felt appropriate for a particular world or star system.

Admittedly, the new PF2e isn't something I'd likely make a major focus for any SF2e homebrewed adventures or campaigns I might brew up. And I probably wouldn't be so keen on playing in a SF2e campaign that had lots of the elements of PF2e. Still it's nice that it's there for GMs and players who want that option, and it does make SF2e more open and allow for the possibility of blending genres like a universal TTRPG does.

 

[Morrus]

How easy is it to use Starfinder for another setting, like Greyhawk in the far future? Or is the Pactworlds setting pretty baked in?

That's like asking 'is Faerun baked in to D&D?' It's a game system, and it has a setting, just like D&D does, but you can make your own.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

How easy is it to use Starfinder for another setting, like Greyhawk in the far future? Or is the Pactworlds setting pretty baked in?

Certainly worth another thread "Greyhawk in the far future"

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Also, I felt like in 1e the pactworlds/Golarian in the future setting was pretty baked in. We played a 15-20 session campaign, and I enjoyed it - but that was due to the setting in spite of the rules, not because of them.

Gave away all my books, as did the GM of the campaign, so I don't think I'll be getting 2e - however I'll be reading about the releases so never say never

 

[Steel_Wind]

It's easy peasy to strip out the Pactworld stuff from SF2. You can use it for whatever you want. Now, the Ancestries and Heritages flavour may (or may not) be to your liking - depending on what you want to use them for. But they can be reskinned without difficulty. You want to make it Star Wars instead? Go right ahead; most of SF2 works for that with a mere shrug of effort on your part. Same applies to most SF settings; it's very flexible.