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Episode: 3373
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Title: HPR3373: HPR RPG Club reviews Starfinder
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Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr3373/hpr3373.mp3
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Transcribed: 2025-10-24 22:19:43
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---
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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 3373 for Wednesday, 7th of July 2021.
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Tid's show is entitled, HPRPG Club Reviews Star Finder, and is part of the series' tabletop
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gaming that is hosted by Clot 2, and is about 86 minutes long, and carries an explicit flag.
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The summary is, Star Finder is a C5RPG using dungeons, and Percent Dragon's 3.5 rules.
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This episode of HPRPG is brought to you by Ananasthos.com.
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Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code HPRPGR15. That's HPRPGR15.
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Better web hosting that's honest and fair at Ananasthos.com.
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This is a group of listeners like you who want to get together and play a tabletop RPG
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game, role-playing game, on, I think, UTC Sunday. That's New Zealand Monday.
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We play one game for approximately four weeks, and then we review it.
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That's what we're doing today. We got on to a call and reviewed our experience with Star Finder.
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Star Finder is...don't lose track here. Star Finder is an offshoot of Pathfinder,
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which is a fork of dungeons and dragons at 3.5 edition. So Pathfinder is Dungeons and Dragons,
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3.5, except rebranded with some rules changes here and there, and further development done on it.
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And Star Finder is sort of a Pathfinder, but written for space at let's call it a 3.75 edition,
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because some of the rules are different, but generally it's the same. This one generated a lot
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of discussion about the strengths and the weaknesses of the system. We do a lot of comparison,
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obligatory comparison, probably, between Star Finder and Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition,
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which if you've not played either, those comparisons probably won't resonate with you.
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We tried to keep it down to a minimum, but at a certain point you just can't quite help
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but compare. So you'll hear a lot of that in this recording. We also talk a lot about the
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spaceship combat. Of course, being set in space, it's rather inevitable that you're going to get
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into a skirmish with another spaceship. And so a game set in space needs to have rules to
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govern that scenario. The rules for that in the book, as it was published, are somewhat
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infamously, shall I say, intense. And you'll see lots of different opinions online, no surprise there,
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but I think that the general consensus, and I'm aware that I am hazarding an assumption here,
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but the general consensus tends to be from what I can tell, that spaceship combat,
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as written in the book, is a little bit burdensome. It is probably from what I've heard,
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or I think it is probably quite a good system if you are getting together with friends
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to play a spaceship combat simulator. And if that is your only expectation, I think,
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reasonably, that would be a good system for that. If you're getting together with your friends
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to play a role-playing game in which people play individual characters with their own choices
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and their own personalities, that spaceship combat scenario isn't quite maximized for that setting.
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It's the difference, if you've ever heard people talking about the difference between the
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tabletop role-playing game and the tabletop war game. It's kind of the difference between those
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two things in many ways. So I have an alternate rule set for Starship Combat that I tried
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during the game, and then as a special bonus session at the end of the game,
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we played a traditional or a rules-as-written spaceship combat scenario. So we do touch on
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the differences a little bit between those two systems, although probably because we were all
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there and played it, we don't really go into detail. And so I will simply say that the alternate
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rules try to maximize individual character choices, tries to speed up combat by only requiring
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you to play until one or the other of the ships reaches half of its hit points. It does away with a
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lot of the, well it does away with the phases of combat turns. It just kind of lets everyone go
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in sequence, do whatever they want to do, using all of their character abilities, or some of their
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character abilities, and sort of ignoring the spaceship itself, which seems counterintuitive.
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And again, if you're looking for a spaceship combat simulator, it is counterintuitive,
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but I find for people who want to get together to play people running around in space doing
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cool things, a simpler, quicker system to resolve spaceship conflict seems to be pretty nice
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and well appreciated. So I've had good luck with it so far. It is available undrived through RPG,
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just look up simple starship combat for StarFinder, and it'll come up. It's free or two dollars,
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depending on which you prefer, and I highly recommend it. So that was a completely unsolicited ad,
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which hopefully will get past the sensors. But to be fair, I am recommending it not only because I
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wrote it, but also because I truly believe that it's a good alternative to starship combat as written.
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So if you are playing on playing StarFinder, just kind of keep that in the back of your mind that
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alternate rules do exist, people have been trying it out and seem to be pretty happy with it.
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I certainly have been quite happy with it with the games that I've been playing.
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So let's get into the review on this call. You'll hear Benny, Ken Fallon, Padregg, Baffelt,
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and me.
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So let's first roll for initiative. So roll a D20, and if you have your character sheet,
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you can add your initiative bonus. If you don't have a handy, that's fine. We'll just roll your D20.
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Oh, I should have gotten my character sheet. It's a plus six, right? Yeah. So that's 20.
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20 for Padregg. Six. Six for Baffelt. 21. 21 for Ken. I rolled at 16, and I'm trying to find my
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character sheet that I think it was plus two, but let's just go with the 16 then. 16. All right, Ken,
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how did you get 21 on a 20-sided die? Did you add your, you have your character sheet? No, I put
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in the number 21 into this. So let me roll that again, Sean. 21 sided die on my favorite set.
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This could be an inkling as to my review of this game, by the way. 20. That is me. 20 for Ken.
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Let me just try that one more time. Well, I rolled, I rolled a 14, but I added what I think is my
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initiative. All right, and I just checked in my character sheet. It's actually two, so my roll is 18.
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Oh, it is an 18. Okay, so the first question that we should talk about is the character build process,
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not how the character played, but how it was to actually build the character. Only a few of you
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on this call did that. Actually, it was basically one. Okay, that's what I thought.
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I wasn't sure if the lore that I had heard was true or not, but I think it sounds like it's true.
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Two people have a custom character, but only one person really built the character. Got it.
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So, Patrick, how did you find the character build process? I got my core rule book. I look at the
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part where it says, this is how to build a character. And I followed the steps closely. I made a
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character when I knew what to actually do. I made a character for Ken. How was it? Do you feel
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paired to like five fifth edition build process? It's more complicated, definitely, definitely more
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complicated. There's a lot more stuff. There is the themes which I like. I like the themes.
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Also, I like the fact that you can choose not to have a theme, but there is a little less
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options in races and in classes, which I don't necessarily think is a bad thing, but it is a thing.
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There's definitely a lot more looking through the book. What is this? There's a lot more writing down
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on the actual thing. Fifth edition, you just basically, it mostly is just rolling for stats is
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mostly it, and then a few other stuff just reading from the book. But with this, it's a lot more
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math and complicated stuff like the KACA, that kind of stuff, not something you can do in your head.
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Yeah, I feel like I agree with you. I think it's more complex, impossible, a good way, or not
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even a good way, just like an alternative way. And I do like the themes as well. And I think
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that you see this a little bit in fifth edition, and you see it a little bit in Starfinder,
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and I hope other RPGs take note. And that is this idea that there's the way to build the character,
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and then at the end of the paragraph, and if you don't care to figure all this stuff out
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yourself, here's a quick example, or here are some sane defaults to take. I feel like even in
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fifth edition, how you have that standard array, if you don't want to roll the die for your stats.
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I just, I kind of like that sort of thing, where it's just like you have whatever.
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In fifth edition, you basically, it's, you also have that in fifth edition, you have that in
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Starfinder, you have basically, but there they literally just lay down the path, which you should
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take in a fifth edition. They do a start, like they just have that kind of basically like a small
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sentence, like, okay, if you don't, if this is your first time playing, and you have no clue what to do,
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this is what you should, and you want to play this clash, this is the background you should pick,
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this are, these are the spells, yeah, do this, but not really impeding on your thing. It doesn't
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really do that in Starfinder, but it's very much if you, if you want to follow the thing, it goes
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way further. One cool thing about Starfinder that I'll quickly mention here too, is that the,
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the equivalent of the monster manual called the alien archives, it, it has a bunch of playable,
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new playable races. So you can, not all aliens are playable, but there's, there's a good handful of
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aliens in the, in the alien archive that are playable races. So you get a bunch of new races pretty
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quickly, just, just by expanding your library a little bit. Oh, I didn't know that, that's definitely
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a good thing, but I overall just like the character building thing, it's different, but it's not
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necessarily bad. The only thing I would add is just like background, because that's not really
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there. You have a description, and that's everything for what you basically can do with your
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background and stuff. Yeah, that is an interesting omission. That would be a nice thing to have,
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yeah. It's probably, they probably do have it in a separate book for all I know, but yeah,
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it's not in the court rule. Yeah, it's not very clear on what you should do with defactions,
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because they're like factions, and it's there in the court rule book, and it even says that you
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can be one of these factions, and you can believe in these gods, but it doesn't say that anywhere
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on the character sheet, and it doesn't really, it's not really clear if you should, or should not do
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it. Those are primarily aimed at organized play, where you go to conventions, and there's record
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keeping, and it's a very organized process, and factions play a big role in those games, but yeah,
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they don't make that clear in the court rule book at all. For someone who's never been to any of
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those things, it's completely, yeah, yeah, totally. I like them, and I chose to include it,
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but I didn't find anywhere where to do it. Well, Benny, I know that you do have the
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court rule book. Did you ever try building a character for Starfinder or no? No, not at all. I
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just read through the part where it explains how to do it, but I just came over it, so I couldn't
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have a foreman opinion in this one. Fair enough. Back up to the top of the initiative says,
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Ken, now, how was it to play your character? So in other words, did you feel like your character
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had lots of features and abilities and things like that? Ken. No, I think I made a fundamental
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mistake in choosing a coward for my character, and as such, I didn't have any of the weapons,
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or basically all I had was a Swiss Army knife, and that was a major disadvantage. Granta,
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they sitting along while Patrick created my character for me was quite enjoyable,
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and I felt this was a really cool character, but I think it was probably a good character for
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a different universe than this one. Yeah, great point. I mean, there are games where that would be
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completely doable, I think, but oh, and I mean, I could have run Starfinder to make that possible,
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but I was running a pre-written adventure, which, you know, focuses, I mean, it was in fact the
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first adventure that they published for this game system, so it really does focus as you can almost
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tell on like hitting all of the mechanics, and combat is, you know, a big mechanic in D&D style
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RPGs. There are other RPGs where that's not such a big deal developing a coward for your
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character is, like, strangely brave as a player, but it does kind of cripple your actual character
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sometimes. Yeah, I did warn him. I did warn him. I also warn him that his character was a great
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utility character, but we had a lot of engineers and he was an engineer, so it wasn't really.
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We had no control over it. Yeah, that was interesting how many people chose the same character type.
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Patrick, how did you, yeah, to be fair, everyone chose mechanic, which is for all intents and
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purposes, the tinkerer in Starfinder, and we're on hacker public radio, so yes, it was predictable
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in retrospect. Patrick, how did you feel about your character? Was it easy and nice to play your
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character? Lots of features, lots of abilities. Yes, I definitely enjoyed playing my character.
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It was fun having a character which was actually, if you, if you looked at the details acted
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quite different from other characters, running headlong into stuff without forming a plan,
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is very much not the thing I usually do. Up close combat was also very fun.
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Had lots of abilities, especially after I leveled up. The thing is it's actually with numbers
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are too big, I think. Yeah, you make a good point about those numbers. They do get really big
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in Starfinder and it is a little bit strange and it makes, at least for the game master, it makes,
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it makes the specifics of following the pre-written module very important because those numbers,
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like I mean, one thing will be a DC-15 and then later it'll be like a DC-35, you know, and it's
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just like, it's completely like, how do you get to 35 on a 20-sided die? Well, it's all those
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those modifiers and that's, that's very different than really a lot of other games, I think,
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those are big numbers. I basically have to specialize into something. You can't not
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specialize. It's a great point. I generalize my character and basically have it be able to do
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lots of different stuff and do combat but this was like, okay, so you have to specialize in this
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and you have to specialize in that other right shall fail. Any role under the 10 basically felt
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like, okay, well, this is a failure. Usually it does have even like any role under the 15 is like,
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okay, this is not very good. Vinny, what did you think of playing your character? The first problem
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of my character was this, as you already pointed out that there were too many copies of my character
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joining the game because we used the prechan mechanic and others use, I think, Bathold used the
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same character and at the beginning there was someone else. At first I chose like two or three of
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the prechan characters and then in the first session we were only three people and I was the only one
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using this character so that's why I kept it. I think I would have gone with another character if I
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knew that the next session there will be more copies of myself. Apart from this, it was fun
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character to play because you have all this options. You even have this drone you can use when
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you attack, you get an attack for yourself and you can have your drone attack. The other thing
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I enjoyed having but never used except for once in the first session is my cheek pouches where I
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can keep like for the size of the character a huge amount of stuff in cheeks. Yes, that's because
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you're a rat person and they they could stuff their cheeks full of whatever random stuff they want.
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Yeah, exactly, exactly. It was like a third of my height cute and I could stuff in my cheeks so
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it was like, I'm not sure how this physically works, but it was fun having. There were a couple
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of things in the in the correct character I'd never quite got how to use them so I'm not sure
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whether those were just numbers that were calculated into the stats anyway and didn't matter or whether
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I just didn't get what they meant and never used it but I think some of it might be a bit too
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complicated for a preaching character which is meant to be played in an introductory game. I think
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that's how they designed the character. It was it was like saying well if you don't want to go
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through the whole build and everything just use those characters and characters and do this
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this adventure. I think they give in I'm not sure whether it was in the choral book or whether it
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was in the starter kit where they give you an adventure to play along with those characters.
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Yeah, I think that's in the starter kit. The introductory end of Starfinder is just it's
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non-existent. It's like even as an introductory thing where your characters are already built for
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you. The place where you're starting is just way up here and you just have to know all of this
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information. A simpler level one character sheet would be a nice thing to have. I think it also
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adds to the complexity that your characters live in a world which is completely different to our
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world. It's not just our planet and another reality popped over it. It's like it's
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complete different in space and everything but well we'll discuss I think we'll discuss the world
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right later. Staffold, what did you think about playing your character? It was fun. There were so many
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parameters to the character and being relative newbie to RPGs. I didn't and I still don't know
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what the large majority of those things are. I could just sort of only follow along and go yeah
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sure I'll go with that and with a lot of help being explained what they all did you know I think
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one of the things is that a lot of people chose mechanics as you pointed out they were the things
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that we're already familiar with as hackers. A lot of the other character types that were offered
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as far as pre-gen characters went are things I just have no feeling for or connection to so I didn't
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feel I could choose one of as they were sort of totally alien to my mindset of what would I do
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as a biohacker? What would I do as a necromancer? Whatever it was technical rants. I mean I don't
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even know if those things are so I ended up sort of speaking to mechanics because that's as a hacker
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that's what you know. To be fair as the game master I could have and in retrospect maybe should have
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had people choose their character beforehand and then made sure that nobody was choosing the same
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character. I just kind of felt like it might be interesting to see what would happen if people
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chose the same class because in theory that shouldn't be a problem however I think since they were
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pre-generated and people were literally taking the exact same mechanic I probably should not have
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gone that route so that's a little bit on me. It was fun though I mean I had no problem with having
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the good thing was eventually we knew we knew the stats of the characters that were literally in
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wrap the modifiers off. Yeah totally. May I clarify something I said? This is highly irregular
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this is out of the initiative order but I'll let you take an exception. Just in case someone
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listens to this and gets and thinks like oh yeah there's a lot of features there were a lot of
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features when I got to second level and I got to choose this feature thing and I had my heavy bone
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blade that's the only reason there were a lot of features for me because I could do this combo
|
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during combat that's the only reason features yes there are lots of features but definitely not
|
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early and it's harder to get than you might think from what I just said. A soldier was the
|
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soldier you played correct yeah okay let's talk about rules what did you think of the rules of
|
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the game at least in so far as you understood them and that can be part of the question is did you
|
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understand the rules let's start back up at the top with Ken? Yes it all seemed fairly logical I have
|
||||
to admit I don't know how much of that is down to I completely knew this is the first game I've ever
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played but I've listened to a few so it all kind of made sense and although I did need to rely
|
||||
both you and Patrick from time to time to explain what I needed to do math wise yeah but you kind
|
||||
of get the feel of it pretty quickly right yeah yeah no it was it was obvious we can very
|
||||
obvious to me I could have done with some more weapons yes just for the record like in the future
|
||||
if you're ever playing in a game that I'm running ever again you just you realize that you've
|
||||
made a horrible mistake with your character choices you can totally talk to me and we can we can
|
||||
make sure that that is repaired either in story or just magically as a hand wave so just so you know
|
||||
like yeah just talk to your game master anybody you ever it was interesting to play the character
|
||||
out fully okay cool Patrick would you think of the rules yeah they made sense they were very
|
||||
similar to what I already know from fifth edition D&D though there were some differences
|
||||
note to believe what I already said the higher numbers that was one thing which really kind of
|
||||
annoyed me but other than that it was pretty logical the the AC will split into two pieces because
|
||||
it's the future yeah everything apart from like starship combat was fairly logical starship
|
||||
combat is weird it's not necessarily bad not necessarily good it's weird the one thing I would
|
||||
change is just if numbers were smaller it would be near or the perfect game I would say because
|
||||
numbers are so big I can't do my preferred style of play which is special is it which is only
|
||||
specializing in combat yeah no I think you're making a really interesting point about the forced
|
||||
ability of specialization in order to hit those high numbers I haven't heard it expressed that
|
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way but it's actually really insightful it really really annoyed me I was until we had like I was
|
||||
like second level and we had combat stuff where I could do my cool combos until that I was like
|
||||
really like why did I have these large numbers I can really do anything I made my character in
|
||||
in a way where it was a little bit spread out only one rank into anything which yeah and so I had
|
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to go to second level which no one else did and to actually be useful also I chose to theme pilots
|
||||
yet just because my dexterity was a little lower um 10 got to be the better pilot before I reached
|
||||
second level right interesting how is that supposed to work just because he's got a steadyer hand
|
||||
he beats the the nerdy pilot guy don't really understand that we're secretly talking about the
|
||||
character build rules again but I mean I I wonder if the reasoning behind this was well we want
|
||||
each player to feel like they that they have a special sort of talent that nobody else on the team has
|
||||
and and and and so they're kind of don't mind that people are forced into specialization because
|
||||
that's kind of part of the thing it's like well that's why you're playing this role because you
|
||||
want to be the guy who can do such and such if you do that that there are other ways to do it like
|
||||
features or just having or class just uh being able to roll higher for this kind of stuff
|
||||
just having all the numbers be higher is a possibility and it will work for those who want to
|
||||
specialize but if you don't want to specialize and you just want to be a general character it's
|
||||
very annoying. Benny what do you think of them rules? As everyone else already said they're
|
||||
pretty close to two fifth edition D&D so a lot of them already make sense if you know
|
||||
the D&D rules except for certain stats that that are different there are don't exist like the
|
||||
the fact that you have KAC and yes he was a cult and not just normal class and hit points hit points
|
||||
work work differently because you've got stowing up points first and when there you used up you
|
||||
hit on the hit points but apart from this was was mostly clear actually point is I like the fact
|
||||
that the numbers were higher to make a counterpoint here because it kind of felt right in this world
|
||||
what that everyone has to to specialize in something and as a team you felt more like you depended on
|
||||
each other than in a D&D game where everyone plays whatever he likes right and here you actually have
|
||||
to make sure you have a pilot on the team because otherwise you won't be able to fly a starship
|
||||
and you have to make sure that you have a mechanic on the team who's also good with computers because
|
||||
eventually you want to fix this starship or like hack another starship or something and the downside
|
||||
was at some point McNally left the game so we were the only the only person with healing powers
|
||||
was kind of gone and so we had problems staying alive because of this you have to put more effort
|
||||
into designing the team and not just just the character and I think that's also what what the
|
||||
pre-gen characters were built built to do that's why the mechanic was actually specialized in
|
||||
in engineering and computers and there was no pre-generated like general ability character
|
||||
I think in fifth edition one of the common complaints or criticisms I guess is that yeah
|
||||
character like everyone can cast spells now in in D&D whereas it used to be that wizards could
|
||||
cast spells or clad wizards and clerics and that was it and if you wanted magic but nowadays you
|
||||
can just play a rogue and get spells at a certain point so it's it definitely encourages the
|
||||
generalization of the characters this seems to take a different tact it's not only that the
|
||||
numbers are higher it's also the ranges are on larger so for for some checks you might not need
|
||||
such a high number and for other checks you might need a high number so it's kind of it's kind
|
||||
something like you always for everything you need a specialized person to to do it is sometimes
|
||||
their toss that can be done by everyone and sometimes their toss where you have to have someone
|
||||
who specializes in in something we get into our head that we have to roll high but I mean sometimes
|
||||
the DC is only five you don't have to roll high you know you just have to not fail completely
|
||||
and so it's fine with a DC of five it also makes sense that some people just succeed without
|
||||
even rolling a die because they they're just specializing in something and this task is so easy
|
||||
that obviously they they can't fail because they're they've got the ability to to do like more
|
||||
difficult things in in this field yeah and once again the sort of the mythos of dnd style games
|
||||
is that if you roll a one it's a crit fail critical failure but in reality that's not true that's
|
||||
the rules say that that's in combat situation so in if it's like yeah you're you're rolling to I
|
||||
don't know log into a computer or something and it's only a DC five you can easily roll a one
|
||||
and your bonus of four or five will get you over the over that DC and so you succeed even though
|
||||
you have literally rolled the one so people forget that a lot I think I will bring up some things
|
||||
that you made me think of though that I took that I took a note of during play one is the weapons
|
||||
remember we had a little bit of a problem understanding how to know whether a weapon targets
|
||||
of players KAC or EAC and that was a little bit odd I thought because there's a lot of terminology
|
||||
around the weapons and there's it doesn't really just say in the weapon stat you know like targets KAC
|
||||
which would be beautifully easy it says like analog and then I think you go off of the damage type
|
||||
to figure out whether it's EAC or KAC and I thought that was needlessly complex yeah I I guess
|
||||
that's where this science part of science fiction to play yeah um I don't want to think that hard
|
||||
in my RPG in Starfinder you have resolve points which you can spend to regain stamina points
|
||||
once you're depleted from your stamina points you have health points the idea is that you have
|
||||
resolved to stay alive and so you're just pushing through and this builds up your stamina to continue
|
||||
going but once your stamina and your resolve has drained for the day then when you take damage
|
||||
you're actually taking like physical mental sort of like actual damage to your body and that can
|
||||
kill you so this is obviously a timer technique because they don't want you to be able to just replenish
|
||||
your health points whenever you want but they do want you to be able to stay alive so you can
|
||||
spend the resolve if you have it to get your stamina up and that gives you a little bit of a boost
|
||||
but then you start to get drained back down so it's it's a timer mechanism which D&D fifth edition
|
||||
does quite elegantly with hit die where you can take a short rest and you have a certain number of
|
||||
hit die that you can spend to boost your health points back up and once all your hit die are finished
|
||||
then you'd better rest for the day because now you're starting to actually be damaged two different
|
||||
approaches to the same problem of how to keep characters alive while also making it a risk to
|
||||
to be in this world and I feel like the resolve stamina hit points is a little bit clunky I feel
|
||||
the the number of resolve points you have to spend starts to increase as your character level
|
||||
increases which seems weird to me why does it take a level five character more resolved to stay alive
|
||||
than a level one character or whatever just feels a little bit weird and then just having to
|
||||
track three values for your health seems really really kind of clunky to me I do like that system I
|
||||
like the in the in the fifth edition I usually whenever it's possible I take a long rest instead of
|
||||
a short rest because I don't really like to die things this makes it way easier for me to use
|
||||
because it doesn't feel like oh no I have to spend the thing it's like it's there you could
|
||||
it's so you supposed to be used it's not an option but what I really think was weird it does
|
||||
make kind of sense but you can't gain HP back through taking a long rest because it would make
|
||||
sense because it's not a hostile and because of that sole reason my fight my soldier wasn't
|
||||
really able to do a lot in the fight against out space demon thing which it should have been
|
||||
able to do more it was not for the fact that its entire HP was completely gone because of the
|
||||
space zombies to revolt the day before but I think I like the idea that you need medical attention
|
||||
when you lose hit points you you can't just rest and then you you're you're fine again because
|
||||
that's that's how you gain stamina that's not how you gain health back in this game if you use
|
||||
I feel if you lose health points it actually means you're you're physically damaged and you
|
||||
need you need some attention to get this fixed listening to this conversation is brought up
|
||||
some thoughts about it is this universe I think part of the reason it has is may have as many attributes
|
||||
and different types of values resolution stamina that type of thing is it appears to be a very
|
||||
in-depth long-term universe playing style and coming to it as a pre-gen character and
|
||||
not being familiar with RPG general there's no way in the realm of one scenario or two if you
|
||||
want to call the starshifting another scenario that you can really become comfortable with why those
|
||||
rules were set up and why those rules give you so many options because really it appears from
|
||||
my perspective that it's a system meant to be played through many different scenarios and have
|
||||
characters build those qualifications and those abilities over a period of time and not through
|
||||
a series of adventures we sort of took a shortcut it seems to me at least from my perspective that's
|
||||
why I don't understand or didn't understand a lot of what all those things I was able to do I
|
||||
mean for instance the cheek pouch I thought they were cool that I was never clear whether cheek pouch
|
||||
man in my cheek until you guys talking about cheek pouch just now and we're talking you know
|
||||
five weeks into the process I wasn't clear what they meant I just thought oh wow it's a hip pouch
|
||||
that I wear on my butt sort of thing so I think the rules are probably fine for people who engage
|
||||
in many scenarios of this game who really get into the universe and really want to play a lot
|
||||
constantly different scenarios and stuff like that I mean it seems to me that having specialized
|
||||
in mechanics or wizards or whatever and having the ability or the wish to take on other
|
||||
aspects so whether a mechanic should be able to do healing or something like that would need to
|
||||
have some sort of a system of education and they could work towards other capabilities maybe that
|
||||
they didn't have automatically you know because I think everybody gets into a scenario and then
|
||||
they wish they could have something or they had something they didn't necessarily have when they
|
||||
started out you know there's a couple of times when I was sitting back in the ship being a coward
|
||||
I was a better coward than Ken was because I stayed in the ship and just did everything through
|
||||
my drone but I was wishing that I had the ability to move the ship around to be a pilot because
|
||||
there I was all by my own son and you know I didn't have the ability to move the ship I've
|
||||
needed to be moved sort of thing there's probably an eternal push and pull for RPG designers
|
||||
where by you have to decide like when your players start the game are they going to feel like a
|
||||
hero now or they can feel like a loser now with the promise that they're going to be heroic
|
||||
five games from now and Starfinder and I think D&D Fifth Edition and that style of game the D&D
|
||||
style of game at least today the style is let's start out everyone sort of as a hero we're going
|
||||
to assume that they're all like the characters or adults they've been through a lot already and so
|
||||
they have a bunch of skills and a bunch of abilities and that's where they're going to start and I
|
||||
think for players the disadvantage to that is now you have to know a lot when you look at that
|
||||
character sheet you have to know about all of these crazy abilities and features that you suddenly
|
||||
have and you know yesterday you didn't know those things existed in the real world and in the game
|
||||
world you've been doing this for for 20 years or however old your character is and the counterpoint
|
||||
to that is just to start everyone out really low where no one has any abilities and they're just
|
||||
regular joes but I think the the criticism to that is that that's kind of boring to play and
|
||||
that's why not that's not why people play in RPG they play because they want to feel heroic and
|
||||
do really cool things wasn't that earth a bit like this I mean you start out as a loser and you
|
||||
kind of stay a loser or or you die but it was still was still fun to play the there was wasn't like
|
||||
a way to develop your character to a hero at least I felt that way yeah I agree yeah I think
|
||||
it can be done but well both ways and I mean even I don't I've never quite understood why D&D
|
||||
didn't just use level one through five let's say to be yeah you're just a loser developing your skills
|
||||
and for people who don't want to start out as a loser you can just say well I only play in games
|
||||
that start at level five or whatever you know like I don't understand why why we use one you know
|
||||
like why we can't have both in other words scenarios that aim at people's skill level within that
|
||||
universe sort of thing in D&D fifth edition I think that they should add like zero level four
|
||||
level eighth level because that's like in CR that those exist so they should add that for people
|
||||
want to play it like that when I say like I don't like that I have to specialize I mean with
|
||||
skills because I like skills not just because they're useful but mostly just because I now have more
|
||||
numbers on my character sheet and I like that doesn't Shadowrun has this concept of like three
|
||||
different ways to build a character you either can build like a character that just starts out
|
||||
in the shadows and or one that's already accustomed to it a bit and or a hero hero shadow
|
||||
runner and then I think everyone has to build the same type of character and then the the
|
||||
adventure you play is adapted to whatever however you decide to start off. Yeah and I quite like
|
||||
that about Shadowrun I like that you can your your game master can say okay everyone build a street
|
||||
level character or build a professional character and and you can kind of adjust tweak your settings
|
||||
as to where you're actually starting out because of that that sounds like a like good system I think
|
||||
well the tradeoff is that it takes eight years to learn Shadowrun apparently um okay
|
||||
next next question is the world setting and what did you think of the shadow the star finder
|
||||
universe can what you saw that at least I like to very much I must say I did uh the one thing about
|
||||
the the whole universe which we didn't get to cover in the in the book are in this uh game
|
||||
period but that is the fact that there's magic in there seems a bit odd to me that there's magic but
|
||||
that's just uh my personal yeah funny that you would mention that because that that was gonna be
|
||||
the question that I specifically asked you so you so it sounds like you you don't prefer your sci-fi
|
||||
with magic you prefer your sci-fi with sci-fi yeah because sci-fi with magic is you know just
|
||||
cupping out all of a sudden we can do something and then that's fine I think I do like
|
||||
that star finder actually does separate science from fantasy pretty sort of well like once you
|
||||
get into the monsters it gets a little bit dicey here but then again monsters are interesting anyway
|
||||
and what looks like quote unquote magic to when a monster does it doesn't necessarily mean it's
|
||||
magic kind of depends on what you're choosing but if you were to play if you wanted to play a very
|
||||
science heavy uh star finder game I it is my belief although I've not actually done it but it is
|
||||
my belief that it could be done you could just say nobody's gonna build a magic user and we're not
|
||||
gonna have this planet of the undead push that off to the side and have a sci-fi yeah could do but then
|
||||
I suppose you could do the indeed in a in a space universe as well it's built into the game so
|
||||
not using it is kind of defeating the game you know if you were playing with somebody who really
|
||||
is into magic then that wouldn't be a great game for them with it no no yeah I would well yeah
|
||||
and that's why I haven't done it yet I haven't found it uh I believe that if you had a group of
|
||||
players who who said we want to play in space we don't like magic in space then I think you could
|
||||
run star finder as as that so that's my assertion but it's it's as yet unproven there was some other
|
||||
type of game that was more a spacey game but didn't have magic in it so why not play that one
|
||||
will be my answer uh well the reason would be because I know for instance as a game master I know
|
||||
D&D rules really really well so you star finder super easy for me to game master I don't
|
||||
have to learn really anything new whereas if I were to run say traveler uh then I would have to be
|
||||
learning a whole new system so yeah okay yeah yeah yeah purely functional uh Patrick what do you
|
||||
think of the world setting I loved it I love it it's my favorite chapter in the cool
|
||||
rule book just the whole background of the world and stuff the fact that they're there's the gap
|
||||
it's the gap is so annoying it's so great because I want to play the game and um figure out the
|
||||
lore of the game at the same time the gap is a is it a gap in history nobody who people who live
|
||||
through it can't remember anything it's some sort of weird unexplained phenomenon no one knows
|
||||
what it is so there are if you read closely there are some stuff which like weren't affected as
|
||||
much by the gap or which lived through it but all normal conventional historical stuff is pretty much
|
||||
gone and I like that and I like the fact that there is a blend of magic and um and of sci-fi the
|
||||
fact that there's also um like a part in the back which uh let's you're able to convert your
|
||||
pre-existing uh pathfinder characters into uh this game and that made me think wait I don't
|
||||
know anything about pathfinder but could this be like the future of pathfinder or a pathfinder
|
||||
thing where it's like in the future and that's why there's magic yeah I like all the planets
|
||||
I like all the factions I I love just the entire background of everything and anything and
|
||||
stuff and that there's in timeline there's a massive timeline of stuff and a map and anything
|
||||
anything anyone who likes lore should definitely read the last the packs world chapter
|
||||
well as you know by now I'm I'm a fan of sci-fi settings anyway more than like the the traditional
|
||||
fantasy setting and I'm like can I also don't mind magic I like I mean I like sci-fi and I like
|
||||
magic and dragons and and stuff that's why I also enjoyed Shadowrun and I think the one thing that
|
||||
I mean I don't know a whole lot about the world but the one thing that makes kind of sense is that
|
||||
you have different races in this world because it's it's a space travel right so those races can
|
||||
come from different planets unlike with Shadowrun where you have this weird awakening where suddenly
|
||||
there are like trolls and and elves in the world where there have been none before or at least
|
||||
not visible I think the one thing that I found a bit difficult was what I already said before
|
||||
the world is so different from what we are used to on our planet I mean even we kind of had a
|
||||
hard time orienting because there was no north or south and sometimes we started again with
|
||||
north and south but there were there are no poles so how do you how do you know where north and
|
||||
southeast and also with with the space fight I mean it's a three-dimension world with no gravity so
|
||||
where is up where is down why are are the spaceships generally traveling on the same plane I think
|
||||
at one point you said the spaceship can go over the other spaceship and this kind of doesn't even
|
||||
make sense because there is no over or under I mean they they don't even have to have the same
|
||||
alignment with regard to where their wings are and everything so it's kind of hard to imagine how
|
||||
how a world in space works and where where it's a lot easier if you're just on earth in a different
|
||||
future century so let me get the straight you're basically saying that space is hard to no because
|
||||
we're humans and we live on a round ball floating through space but we don't actually live in space
|
||||
but yes exactly if you are on another ball floating through space with the same laws of physics as
|
||||
us because we can navigate them because we can well I haven't played the game where you are on
|
||||
the on a different planet so all the other games we played were on earth in a fantasy setting
|
||||
or in a in a future setting and then you can we in in the game we just normally play it's
|
||||
torrent completely different planets yeah true technically even earth exists in the indie uh
|
||||
fifth edition if I'm pretty if I heard it correctly yes so we don't be on there so it's just the fact
|
||||
that we weren't that we weren't on the planets which we could technically do so you're basically
|
||||
saying that space is hard to navigate yeah you you you all what you keep applying you keep applying
|
||||
your your uh physics the physical rules you know from from earth right and a lot of them just
|
||||
don't apply in space and that's where it kind of gets difficult to to figure out what's actually
|
||||
happening yeah yeah I definitely I definitely definitely agree it's complicated I feel like
|
||||
Starfinder does make it a little bit even more confusing in a way because at least this
|
||||
adventure that we played through dead suns because at times they would have artificial gravity
|
||||
that's you know basically sci-fi magic gravity and then at other times they'd say there's no gravity
|
||||
here so at one point there was like a door where on the other side of the door there was artificial
|
||||
gravity so we didn't know how how does this work if you open the door already then pull into the
|
||||
door by gravity or are you unaffected until you step over over into into the the whole way
|
||||
baffled what did you think of the world setting yes that you saw um thinking about stuff that
|
||||
people have been talking about here and I found some disconnects I'm not a big fan of zombie
|
||||
stories and vampire stories so I found myself saying or thinking how can you kill
|
||||
an undead with a bullet like I mean I'm thinking while we're playing this they're already dead
|
||||
how you gonna kill them one of the other disconnects that happened for me was with Ben and Podrick
|
||||
we're just saying was so many of the activities flipping over the spaceship or barrel rolling you
|
||||
know those are airborne techniques that we are aware of from aerodynamic you know airplane fighting
|
||||
which certainly would have absolutely no relevance to an in-space adventure or in-space scenario so
|
||||
they were kind of disconnects I didn't mind having them but those thoughts still crossed my
|
||||
mind like you know how is it that I'm going to kill a zombie with a gun you know it just didn't
|
||||
make sense to me but then even in reality when we're talking about what is accepted technology
|
||||
and what is not accepted technology we have difference of opinions in real life so for instance
|
||||
you've got the standard model of the big bang theory versus the electric universe model
|
||||
which is quite a bit different than the big bang theory and we have people arguing about those
|
||||
things in real life over time and people who are adherents of one universe are not adherent
|
||||
of the other universe whether something is magic or something is science or whether it's
|
||||
real science or pseudoscience I don't know how you actually nail that down so I think I'm going to
|
||||
play a game that's in a in a universe that has a world and and stuff like that you just need
|
||||
to be able to say okay these are the rules we're going to accept because we want to play this game
|
||||
and we want people to have a good time and you're just going to have to suspend into thoughts or
|
||||
feelings you have of other realities or you don't see it that way sort of thing because
|
||||
certainly there are disconnects and and I have them and maybe I'm just not maybe I'm just not
|
||||
used to sinking myself and developing myself in these RPG universes yet and that's why I find
|
||||
they're kind of weird I wasn't sure how what kind of answers I was going to hear that was
|
||||
it's really really interesting I'm I'm a fan of the world setting myself but then I'm kind
|
||||
of a fan of any world setting is just kind of it's fun and I will say that I quite like the one
|
||||
of the things that I quite like about Starfinder is that it does encompass the whole universe so
|
||||
like whatever you want you can pretty much do like if if you have a bunch of players who are like
|
||||
we really just want to play on a desolate wasteland well then you set your adventure on a planet where
|
||||
everything is a wasteland if they want to play a game set in the jungle yeah you know it's just
|
||||
like you've got everything you could possibly need and everything is just as likely as anything else
|
||||
so like I was saying to Ken if you want to play without magic then you can play without magic it's
|
||||
it really is a sort of an all-purpose science fiction setting and I mean even heck you wouldn't
|
||||
even have to go to a different planet like even absolute station the sort of default setting of
|
||||
Starfinder the central point even that has multiple levels and you can just say well it's a really
|
||||
big station and to you your your universe quote unquote is this one level that's all you know
|
||||
in the world you don't have the money to get on a starship and jump around space this is the adventure
|
||||
we're gonna play so it's it's very flexible which I quite like yeah I agree for instance she could
|
||||
also solve the solve the problem with like how do you imagine navigating in space by just
|
||||
saying okay so so the packed world decided for navigation in space we're gonna go decide that this
|
||||
is off that is down that's that that's that way that's that way and stuff and for instance doing
|
||||
something like okay it's lighting to the packed world Sun or it's in line to the center of the
|
||||
Milky Way or something and that's something people would do because people are very bad at
|
||||
navigating space otherwise and that would be so standard for for space navigation yeah absolutely
|
||||
not you want to go step further you could just say okay artificial gravity aligns in this way
|
||||
so even then even the spaceships with a line so I just think that's that might be a solution
|
||||
some great ideas there let's talk about combat kind of have a feeling that everyone is going to
|
||||
I mean combat is basically the same as combat in D&D really so I don't think we're gonna have
|
||||
differing opinions there if you do you can speak up but let's also encompass space combat
|
||||
boy this is a complex question I'm gonna just ask lots of different questions to each of you
|
||||
Ken what did you think of combat and by combat I mean right now on the ground combat it would have
|
||||
helped to have more than a pen knife yes well yeah for club yeah that's true well the pen knife
|
||||
when I only had a pen knife I was able to throw a D20 and kill a zombie so that that was good
|
||||
I was really phenomenal when I got the club I had a false sense of security and then
|
||||
did all more than I could chew but standing as an observer and by standing I mean lying down dead
|
||||
suspended animated state it was actually quite fun and that was kind of the reason I went on to
|
||||
the android asteroid because it's boring if you're working going to be involved in the combat
|
||||
and I didn't have a remote drone to do any of the to sit back and safety and have a remote drone
|
||||
which in hindsight would have made more sense yes sir about the I don't know what you've good
|
||||
against swimming knives I mean I live like I live like two kilometers not even one kilometer from
|
||||
the factory where they were made so they're great tools I've got a couple of them I don't know
|
||||
that he gets just in fact that was the only thing I had to have a weapon and that was the only
|
||||
thing that I thought my character recovered would have ground combat was good was just general good I
|
||||
look I just I just liked it I like I like that they split the AAC in the KAC I didn't think that
|
||||
was confusing at all the only thing was what I already said with the hit points and stuff and at
|
||||
that first level you have of course not really many features when I was at second level I just had
|
||||
a heavy bone blade which for some reason is cheaper than a long sword and better at the same time
|
||||
so definitely if you're making a character and you're thinking oh I want a sword get a heavy
|
||||
bone blade because it's cooler it's it's cheaper and it's better and basically I could I could
|
||||
attack twice if I hit I could attack twice and also it would make them staggered which would
|
||||
mean that they could only either move or attack not move and attack which was very handy it's huge
|
||||
yeah yeah you have to hit though it won't it won't work if you don't hit if you miss then sorry
|
||||
you're out of luck as you as you already said it's kind of the same as in as in Dungeons and Dragons
|
||||
with a KAC and YAC once you figure this out and once you figure the stamina points and hit points
|
||||
out it's basically more or less the same thing the one thing I enjoyed is having having a drone so
|
||||
you could technically attack something from from two different angles which kind of was kind of fun
|
||||
was was different from Dungeons and Dragons while you're just standing wherever you're standing
|
||||
and attack from there either with a melee or a ranged weapon you also had the benefit of being
|
||||
able to double up your attack because you had that drone yeah drones are really powerful
|
||||
yes yes I don't remember how the rules were but I think I had to use if I wanted it
|
||||
roamed to move and attack at the same time I had to use my own move action for this so I could
|
||||
only either move myself or or the drone in one in one round which I think is kind of a beautiful
|
||||
system I really like that you can you can get the two attacks but you have to sacrifice the
|
||||
sort of security of movement which you know not that's not always a big deal but sometimes
|
||||
it's a very ideal also as soon as you're you're positioned you can attack with the drone and with
|
||||
your own weapon so you don't or you can you can move yourself and just have to drone hover in
|
||||
in the same place and then it still gets to attack it's generally recognized that in fifth edition
|
||||
the combat really is the main mechanic in combat is the action economy you know you get you get
|
||||
one attack generally speaking and getting more than one attack is a very special I mean Benny
|
||||
doesn't know this because he's playing a monk but to most people more than one attack is a huge deal
|
||||
like that's really hard to get so I don't feel like it says much of a thing in star finder they kind
|
||||
of they don't seem to care as much which I think it's fine I think it works out well and I think
|
||||
the move the the action economy in fifth edition is kind of probably my least favorite aspect of
|
||||
this edition I think I don't mind the action economy like I don't mind it I'm just saying it's my
|
||||
least favorite part of I don't I also don't think it's my least favorite but that might just be me being
|
||||
only really playing a fifth edition or only really caring for it because I don't I have those
|
||||
books yeah but yeah I like it mostly I do kind of like the action economy I don't hate it if
|
||||
they change it it wouldn't be too bad for me I guess would depend on what the what it would be
|
||||
replaced with me for instance when it does make some abilities like you get an extra attack that's
|
||||
and it will take up like and you have to be fifth level you have to have this thing and it will
|
||||
take up another thing that's definitely worth it like compared to another thing where you do extra
|
||||
damage you're like ooh I don't really know do I want an extra attack or do you want extra damage
|
||||
extra damage means that if I hit I'm guaranteed to have more damage yet if I don't hit I can
|
||||
attack again and if I hit twice I can do way more damage than that just one time so that's what
|
||||
like fifth edition it's not Starfinder but yeah they just wanted to say that yeah no it's definitely
|
||||
I mean it's a design choice and I don't think either one is wrong it's just a different different
|
||||
different way of approaching it baffled what did you think of combat I liked the drone that we had
|
||||
I didn't think I was gonna like it before we started the game out but considering that I
|
||||
hit behind my drone for pretty much the entire game I didn't have the issue with having to share
|
||||
moves like like Benny did with coordinating whether he was going to move or taking a move for
|
||||
the drone to be able to fight I just got to use the drone as a my my basic proxy the battles
|
||||
themselves I'm very like I keep hiding behind this newbie persona I don't know what didn't know
|
||||
what to expect from a combat thing I mean I wish real life's fighting was as nice as rolling
|
||||
a piece of dice and having it over with immediately it was dicey I mean I guess that's good if
|
||||
if you felt like there was some some risk but not too much risk and I think it's really interesting
|
||||
the the fact that so many did so many people did take the mechanic we did get a lot of variety
|
||||
as it in the end of of play styles because yeah it's it's worth noting that baffled played his
|
||||
character is such that his character stayed in a spaceship and just sent it out his drone to do like
|
||||
literally everything all of the exploration all the combat which like you know like in real life
|
||||
that's exactly what we would do like if you had the choice of going out and risking your own life
|
||||
or just sending a drone who could basically do everything you could do except I think your drone
|
||||
couldn't open doors right that's one drawback but other than that like it was such a smart smart
|
||||
thing to do and really a fascinating way one thing I had to depend on my teammates for is somebody
|
||||
to recover the drone and repair it thank you Benny for that when he didn't manage to get zapped I
|
||||
mean that was it's made drawback I couldn't do it I recovered it and Benny fixed it like I think
|
||||
Zach really was like the Zach wasn't smart enough it was smart apparently smarter than the average
|
||||
person which is disturbing but he really just was like oh look a room let's go into it really just
|
||||
first intuition not planning at all no planning whatsoever needed and it for some reason worked
|
||||
out usually except with the zombies cool all right let's talk now about space combat and you'll
|
||||
all know that we played two different styles of space combat one was a custom rules set developed
|
||||
by me for really I thought to fit better into the RPG game because I felt like the rules for
|
||||
star finders star ship combat it's basically a separate game Ken what did you think of the
|
||||
the of the space combats that we played first one I per token and the second one I didn't
|
||||
and the first one seemed fine all the much better actually that was quite cool I'm excited
|
||||
to be honest what it really felt it appealed to me on the story level it felt like you were in
|
||||
I don't know but the strong electric aerosol it was actually going on the first one I can't really
|
||||
remember but I didn't really hate it wasn't I I liked it but I'm pretty sure the the only problem
|
||||
my hat was that it was rolling terrible so all my epic stunts which I did were not great I also
|
||||
didn't have a plus nine in piloting yet so that yeah that wasn't very helpful the second one though
|
||||
was a difference it wasn't bad but then again we didn't play it with more characters than roles
|
||||
because there's like five roles you can do and we played with three people three characters basically
|
||||
and so we didn't really experience much limitation except for the fact that you had to follow
|
||||
the guide thing it wasn't like you can scan first a fix later no it was fixed first scan later
|
||||
which might which kind of makes sense to sit the the the the the fact that you can't choose which
|
||||
one you're going to do first is a little weird the fact that you scan during the piloting
|
||||
is also a little weird I would put it in the engineering phase but basically it does make sense
|
||||
like it's supposed to be middle round so it like you acted before then you're going to fix the
|
||||
wounds of your ship you're gonna fix your shields you're gonna fix your hole and stuff and then
|
||||
you're gonna move and scan and then you're gonna shoot that makes sense and then I think they
|
||||
thought like okay so you're going into combat so you're gonna skip the engineering phase if it's
|
||||
like your first round and you're immediately gonna scan and move but in fact no you don't skip
|
||||
because you can do helpful stuff which would be which is why I think they should do the scanning
|
||||
part in like the engineering phase because you're gonna scan first then you're going to be like okay
|
||||
we're gonna divert more power to these things um because now you have a plan and then you're
|
||||
gonna move and shoot stuff but it would you could easily like fix those problems with just
|
||||
making the characters be able to decide what they're doing like a normal fight but it's not
|
||||
necessarily bad it's not necessarily good it's different it doesn't really feel out of place
|
||||
too necessarily the one point that kind of confused me with the second the the Starship Combat
|
||||
session we had last week was why would they even put a completely more or less completely
|
||||
different game into this game and to be honest I didn't enjoy this Starship Combat as much as
|
||||
everything else in StarFinder so it kind of seemed a little bit needless to me to put
|
||||
put another game into into StarFinder I would have enjoyed it more if Starship Combat was just
|
||||
an adoption of the regular fighting rules and without all those all those special rules that made
|
||||
it technically a different game I think to me it was to the whole Starship Combat was too
|
||||
restricted it felt more like a board game and less like an RPG and I prefer playing an RPG
|
||||
where you have use your own fantasy to to figure out what your character is doing then to a board
|
||||
game where you stick to strict rules and then follow the rules I didn't necessarily equate
|
||||
that it felt like a board game now that I think about you definitely act like a board game more
|
||||
strategizing than normally as Patrick stated I know remember the first games space combat all that
|
||||
detailed to to be honest I just skipped over this one it was a more realistic thing I think the
|
||||
second Starship Combat I wasn't crazy about to tell you the truth a we outclassed the other
|
||||
ship by so much it was kind of to me like a game of risk whoever has the most armies on a property
|
||||
is gonna win because all they got to do is keep throwing dice until they got it and I don't think
|
||||
that this game with the space combat the spaceship combat thing I don't think we could have lost
|
||||
considering we outclassed them three to one on just about everything except whatever that AC
|
||||
was that that they had higher than us but it was clear right from the outset all we had to do
|
||||
was hang in there and we were gonna wait just a game to me yeah and that was my my bad I should have
|
||||
gotten the correct enemy Starship stats but I I think that Benny's analogy of the official rules
|
||||
being like a board game is spot on and yeah the player agency just is completely removed in Starship
|
||||
combat to speak to Padre's point like the fact that you can't scan when you want to scan you have to
|
||||
wait for a certain phase it's just like this isn't role playing this is this is like some weird
|
||||
sort of simulations board game system it just doesn't make any sense by any stretch of the imagination
|
||||
so it's you go from complete freedom as your role playing character to like this bizarre restrictions
|
||||
of of spaceship combat and it just feels it is it's a different game and the fact that none of you
|
||||
seem to remember the initial space combat is great that's essentially what it was designed to do is
|
||||
just to fit right into the rest of the game doesn't remove you from the role playing experience you
|
||||
get to do what you want to do it should feel very fluid it is essentially like ground combat except
|
||||
you all do happen to be in a spaceship but you're there's a lot of agency you get to do stuff and it
|
||||
doesn't last long either which is another benefit even with you outranking your enemy in that
|
||||
final combat I mean it took us like an hour and a half to get through that process that's just
|
||||
crazy that's a huge investment on a role playing game is it's like every combat every spaceship
|
||||
encounter is going to take at least 90 minutes and if you only play for two or three or four hours
|
||||
that's that's a big chunk of time of not actually role playing for the record though playing
|
||||
starship combat with you guys the official starship combat with you guys was the first time I ever
|
||||
had fun playing that system like I've played it and game mastered the official starship combat
|
||||
several several times now and it was miserable every single time but I actually had a lot of fun
|
||||
playing with you guys yeah maybe this was just because we have classed the other ship it that
|
||||
definitely probably colored things differently although honestly baffled says that that's not
|
||||
very sportsman like but it it actually kind of it did help because trust me we wouldn't have
|
||||
even gotten through the spaceship combat if if you hadn't outranked that other starship because
|
||||
what ends up happening from experience isn't they keep fixing their shields they keep rebalancing
|
||||
their shields you keep hitting them they keep hitting you you fix your shields it goes on forever
|
||||
I mean it can go on for just hours at a time of time it is not fun it's just not fun the fact
|
||||
that you could actually get their shields down and then explode them was a huge benefit to us all
|
||||
I didn't think of that yeah that's that's really possible just you could be in an eternal fight
|
||||
constantly shooting constantly fixing never getting any progress on yeah I mean there is a
|
||||
system eventually that will cause their systems to glitch and do unpredictable things there is
|
||||
entropy eventually but it takes a long time to get there from my experience generally people
|
||||
agree that it goes on way too long on at the best of times so basically what you're saying is it
|
||||
would feel like that bomb battle we did in the in the fifth edition the anything which baffled
|
||||
wasn't in but the sorry that make the reference but yeah basically where we were fighting
|
||||
this one guy who would regenerate oh that's right and every time yeah yeah and it would
|
||||
at it literally took us like a two sessions or something yeah and the session in the middle
|
||||
no there's sessions finish it and it was so long I'm so glad I skipped that troll that one time
|
||||
that would have been horrifyingly long too yeah yeah um okay let's do final thoughts final thoughts
|
||||
Ken would you play again for instance no oh that's surprising you seem to have very glowing
|
||||
reviews all the way through but your answer is no you'll never play again no I'll never play again
|
||||
I think it completely turned me off role-playing games the whole combat thing the the fact that
|
||||
there was very little character development or anything interesting happened we arrived at a rock
|
||||
and we've killed some monsters and the way flew away it seems going to superficial to me in the same
|
||||
way that you know we're in a tavern and we go to a cave when we kill a vampire yeah yeah um well
|
||||
for the record though that is that is this that is this style of game like you can definitely find
|
||||
RPGs that are not all about combat so yeah it just kind of depends on I told them yeah yeah maybe
|
||||
we should find one of those for for our next review yeah I could definitely drum up a system that
|
||||
actually actively discourages combat I would say dead earth for instance discouraged combat
|
||||
because you were pretty fragile in in theory but I think a period I would need a period
|
||||
away from it to be honest yeah yeah okay I'll invite you back to the live the first the first few
|
||||
games was was good and oddly enough listening to the games that she did on HPR or even
|
||||
lost and bronx's one that was more interesting to me and it was more interesting listening to the
|
||||
combat in that for some weird reason but being in it myself I just felt yeah I'm sitting here
|
||||
now I can't do anything yeah I have to wait for six people to go whereas in real life it doesn't
|
||||
happen like that but listen to the podcast of the show it's kind of weird because okay now we're
|
||||
cutting to the action scene the first guy has shot and then the second guy has shot third guy
|
||||
shot but I'm sitting there wondering okay what am I going to do I've got this excellent Swiss army
|
||||
now I've highly recommended one we're going to do in the next thing yeah it wasn't as interesting
|
||||
to play as it was to sit down and listen to oddly enough I think one point you mentioned is also
|
||||
our our party was maybe a tiny little bit too large so it kind of took a long time until you got
|
||||
to do something again in in a fight because there were so many people fighting yeah that was
|
||||
generally in the beginning I'm sure after that like with four people four people is it still takes
|
||||
a little time but it it's a lot less yeah it's amazing even in fifth edition and we only
|
||||
play with three player characters that can take time so I think yeah I think RPG combat because it
|
||||
breaks out into those turns it it is I think some people do find it pretty pretty boring I don't
|
||||
find it boring personally but I know lots of people who find combat in RPG very boring which is fine
|
||||
the default setting for dnd style game like yeah the dnd derivative games such as star finder
|
||||
and fifth edition is like pretty heavy combat like that's just part of the game people there's
|
||||
there's a crowd that really really likes that and I get really impatient with RPGs that are too
|
||||
strangely enough well to me I felt was a bit of a bit of a missed opportunity we had this cool
|
||||
spaceship oh yeah this cool got one two three four different spaceships that were all cool and
|
||||
we didn't get to I felt there were a bit like a two-dimensional thing it's probably what they were
|
||||
because it's just a map but it didn't really matter that you know there was there was no
|
||||
novenous about any of the spaceships it was just you're on the spaceship and it's going to be
|
||||
faster you're on this spaceship and it's going to be slower there was no there was no meat on the
|
||||
bone of the spaceships that felt yeah I mean the fact that we were playing an adventure path that
|
||||
is very much like you know get the players here get them here get them there that is quite restrictive
|
||||
for a four-week game that's it's kind of almost I think kind of important but there is a different
|
||||
style of playing where you just let the players decide what they want to do you know they they
|
||||
get into spaceship they decide where to go they go to a world you decide what the world has on it
|
||||
and they explore it you know that sort of thing different style of game and probably not my specialty
|
||||
frankly I had a game master who who really really did that sort of thing really well where he could
|
||||
just come up with all kinds of stuff off the top of his head and it was always amazing but yeah I
|
||||
think for for the short games anyway if you give the players too much agency strangely I think
|
||||
that it starts to stall because then everyone's just sort of puttering around without any purpose so
|
||||
I think for the shorter games railroading the players is a little bit of an essential thing I could
|
||||
be wrong on that that's just my opinion I think that's really interesting Ken that that you you
|
||||
want a little bit more story development out of your RPGs I think that's totally a fair criticism
|
||||
to be fair you guys on our fifth edition game um you you guys do a really surprisingly good job
|
||||
of avoiding combat sometimes which is cool so and it does demonstrate I thought yeah it can be done
|
||||
it's just the game master has to be open to it which is easier to do like I say when there's like
|
||||
this just this great expanse of endless time you know it's like I don't care how long it takes
|
||||
you to get through the abyss like you can take five weeks or one week you know it doesn't matter
|
||||
whereas in the Star Finder game I knew that I needed to get us through this adventure in four
|
||||
weeks and that was that so yeah a little bit of a different different requirement in the in the
|
||||
in the D&E fifth edition thing we like I mostly try to avoid combat for the sole reason of it takes
|
||||
time it takes more time to do combat than to avoid combat it takes more in game time maybe
|
||||
overall it might take more time but we can do more in one session if we don't go into combat
|
||||
I like combat I love I might even love combat but it takes lots of time and I just want to play
|
||||
D&D um and I want to progress in the story otherwise it doesn't feel like we did that much
|
||||
so yeah that's why I usually try to avoid combat plus than it's easier with you have all your
|
||||
spell levels all the stuff safer oh and similar to me rushing you through the Star Finder game
|
||||
I'm gonna have to rush us through the rest of this review because we've only got about 15 more
|
||||
minutes padrig final thoughts would you play again yes definitely I enjoyed it wouldn't say it's
|
||||
better than fifth edition I like fifth edition more that might also just be because I have more
|
||||
books I have more experience I have better characters and stuff um but yeah I do like this um yeah
|
||||
I just don't I I just like fun to see a little more than sci-fi but yeah it's enjoyable definitely
|
||||
would play again yeah seven jades out of ten seven point five I'd then I would say if you ask
|
||||
me whether I want to play another Star Finder game or what should this just I'd definitely go
|
||||
for Star Finder if you if you ask me but I want to play Star Finder or Shadow Run I'd go for
|
||||
Shadow Run because I can't I can't exactly pinpoint it to to anything but to me the whole story
|
||||
in the game also felt a bit flat I enjoyed I enjoyed the first session on the
|
||||
base station I don't know for what the reason but as soon as we entered this starship it kind of
|
||||
at some point it was was a bit boring even even the fights weren't that I I thought the best fight
|
||||
was the first one where I'm not sure who was who was there I think that's the first session where
|
||||
Phil and Phil yeah oh yeah oh yeah oh what's just be a philly something like that yeah for for
|
||||
some reason this was more enjoyable I think I'm just I just prefer as I say I said before I just
|
||||
prefer like close worlds where where I know how they work and where I know where my character lifts
|
||||
and everything to open space this is really interesting almost feedback I would say because it's
|
||||
interesting because that first session was the least scripted session that we had because I was
|
||||
stalling for time so a lot of that was just me making stuff up to to sort of give you guys something
|
||||
to do which maybe it's just your imagination is better than the books I mean I think maybe this
|
||||
book wasn't the best adventure which kind of surprises me and and I I kept going back and forth
|
||||
between should I run this adventure or not and then I thought well this was the adventure that
|
||||
they put out concurrently with the game like it was the first adventure they came out upon
|
||||
release that's the adventure everyone sort of had to choose if you wanted to play a pre-written
|
||||
adventure that was what was available so I thought that's what we'll do sort of like to emulate
|
||||
the everyone else's first impression I don't know if that was the right choice I feel like now
|
||||
maybe it wasn't but then again you know no the purpose of this is to try the game and that's
|
||||
what we were doing I mean at the same time we could we can try the game with a made up story too
|
||||
and I think that would be equally valid it would just be a different tactic I definitely agree
|
||||
that the the first few sessions were a lot more enjoyable than it kind of kind of is I think I liked
|
||||
being like I wasn't there at the very like first you could put the one where the people who I'm
|
||||
who like I'm pretty sure that was with the people who mistook the time the day yeah maybe I
|
||||
should have mistaken the day but I like the spaceship Basel the most yeah the the the the
|
||||
the battles on the on the spaceship with the with the dog things those I liked exploring the thing
|
||||
it was very scary though like sci-fi is very scary than fancy I sometimes in the fifth edition
|
||||
thing I got scared like when there was when when Lenny was attacked for instance in the very first
|
||||
adventure and we didn't know what it was he just saw a creepy doll there and then he was attacked
|
||||
and so we burned the house that that was how I felt like I was so I was I was scared because oh no
|
||||
something attacked it there's a creepy it's it's in in the abandoned house let's burn it down
|
||||
it's it's in single reaction but this adventure was scary it was just the zombie dog things the zombies
|
||||
it was all pretty all the space stuff just makes it way more like um with with firefly you also
|
||||
how about you know sometimes with some of those episodes which isn't a bad thing but it's definitely
|
||||
something you should know yeah yeah baffled final thoughts slash would you play again well I
|
||||
don't have a lot of experience so I would say yeah I'd play a man because I had a really good time
|
||||
I don't know really what I was expecting I really enjoyed the interaction and watching everybody
|
||||
else play and everybody else's ideas and come up with different scenarios and how they would do
|
||||
things I found that fascinating I did not find at any point that I was bored waiting for my turn
|
||||
to be on screen again because it was for me just enjoyable to watch what everybody else was coming
|
||||
up with and doing and I had a good time with that I wish we would have spent more time exploring
|
||||
the spaceship before moving over to the asteroid because I was having a good time finding out what
|
||||
was in all the different rooms and what was behind door A and door B and outdoor C killed me so I think
|
||||
so I had a good time I at this juncture I don't think I'd want to play that starship combat
|
||||
thing again but the actual scenario we played or more in that universe yeah I'd have a good time
|
||||
with that I did have cool great thanks guys for the for the thoughts it sounds like
|
||||
sounds like we have reviewed starfinder so next week we'll start a different game which I'll
|
||||
announce on the hacker public radio mailing list everyone is of course welcome to join in
|
||||
anyone listening to this is welcome anyone on the mailing list is welcome to join in um thanks a lot
|
||||
you've been listening to hacker public radio at hackerpublicradio.org we are a community podcast
|
||||
network that releases shows every weekday Monday through Friday today's show like all our shows
|
||||
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|
||||
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|
||||
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|
||||
at binrev.com if you have comments on today's show please email the host directly leave a comment
|
||||
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|
||||
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|
||||
Reference in New Issue
Block a user