This past weekend we had the opportunity to take a run through a little bit of Starfinder: Beginner Box. I will share a bit of my experience as a fairly new game master to the system, and what my players went through. 

I'm fairly new to the universe of Starfinder. I haven't played much of it. I have some of the books and the beginner box at home. I have browsed the rules, the first adventure in the beginner box, and have played one or two Starfinder Society games. 

A group of friends came down to play some board games at our friendly local game store of Gauntlet Games. We played a few board games, but the itch started and the group wanted to role play. I didn't have any of my stuff and didn't want to run home to get something. 

Note to self... Put a starter box together for your vehicle for emergency situations. 

None of the other people had anything to run. So I grabbed the Starfinder Beginner Box. I knew the game rules a little bit. It had pregenerated characters in it which made that aspect fairly easy. 

Opening the box I was met with a nice pamphlet showing off the core book, and a couple of the extra books a person might use. On the back was a nice advertisement for Starfinder Society. I laughed at this because at another table across the room, Starfinder Society as being played. 

The other contents in the box included a heroes handbook, a gamemaster guide, a set of dice, cardboard pawns  showing heroes and enemies that players might encounter in the beginner box. There were 6 blank character sheets for custom player characters, and 6 pregenerated characters. Also included was a double sided map and player aids. 

The players at my table chose Navasi the Envoy, Iseph the Operative, Raia the Technomancer, and Obozaya the Soldier. 
The game master guide lays out a really nice beginner adventure. 

The player characters had been recruited by the star league to defend the frontier... no wait. That's The Last Starfighter. Different thing all together. Though... that makes a decent base for an adventure. May have to revisit that later. 

Things and people have gone missing from one of the lower parts of Absalom Station. A call for heroes had been put out by the station commander. A reward of 1000 credits to those who find out what is causing the disappearances. 
With the map on the table in front of us, the players put their character pawns on the starting room. 

Pathfinder has two main modes with it, Exploration and Combat. During exploration mode players are moving and interacting kind of free form around the rooms. Combat mode is when players take an initiative number and take turns fighting enemies. 

The players arrived at the first room. There were two closed doors exiting from the room. 

Upon opening one of the doors the players were met with a couple of space goblins. A little bit of a fight to warm the dice up a bit broke out. One goblin was left dead by a nicely placed critical and the other was disarmed and set loose. 

As the players continued to explore the station they came across a sleeping pirate. After disarming him and subduing him with a hefty blow to the head. The players looted the room. During the looting the pirate woke up and tried to pretend to sleep. After he woke up and a bit of interaction by the players. He gave up his name and a little bit about what was going on in this area of the station. 

After a slight warning the players decided to head back and explore a different hallway from the starting area. They came across what looked like a bar with a holographic advertisement for magical elixirs. No one was brave enough to try any of the elixirs. 

The next room was a hydroponic garden. They came across the unarmed goblin who was patching himself up. Upon seeing the players he ran off down one of the coradors. A large six legged cat like creature with one central eye attacked the players. The players dice were trying to kill them as they could not manage to roll very high. The six legged cat was able to down one of them. 

The players were struggling a bit and I didn't have a GM's screen to hide rolls so I could modify rolls as needed. I'm a GM that likes to tell a story rather than just simply hack and slash, let players die all willy nilly. Even if it is a beginning adventure with pregenerated characters. 

So I decided to have the pirate from before come up to help. Though by time he showed up the players dice decided to play nice with them and start rolling higher. 

After this fight it was getting late. The players decided that their characters would rest up in the pirates makeshift quarters. We called it a night from there. Some of our players had a considerable drive home before the night was done. 

This was a fun trek into GMing a fairly new game system. My players did seem to enjoy what they played. 

The story continues on into something like 6 more rooms. It varys from exploration, to negotiation, to combat encounters with a fun little final enemy. 

The beginning adventure is one that shows off different elements of the game to new players and did a really good job at teaching a new GM how the game system works. 

My players seemed to really enjoy the futuristic setting. They asked if we could try different settings again sometime. Why yes... yes we can. I have Fallout, Star Trek Adventures, Doctor Who, Cthulhu Dark, Call of Cthulhu, 6s, Elfwood, and more. I can be a lot more prepared with those game systems as needed. 
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It was definitely a fun time to play Starfinder and GM again. 

​Our first game was Saturday. We got to play is Gloom in Space.

In Gloom In Space the goal of the game is to have all of your deceased crewmembers with the most misery. The game starts by players can choose or are randomly dealt their misfit sci-fi inspired crew. Each crew member has their own fun title, and unique story text to bring a creative element to the game. Players set out the crew in front of them and then are dealt gloom playing cards. Each of these cards is transparent. Most are enhancement cards that improve or diminish the misery of the crew they are played upon. Some of these cards have symbols on them that trigger with different abilities. Abilities are in the text box below that have triggering elements. Some are play immediately, some are persistent, Others trigger at specific times in the game. 

When a transparent card is placed on top it may cover up symbols, positive or negative misery tokens, or may kill off the character completely. A death card has a skull in a space helmet displayed on the card. These cards can only be played on characters with a negative total misery of the misery showing. The game also features event cards that have a planet exploding displayed on it that are typically play and discard encounters on them. 
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Once a player has 4 dead crew it triggers end game. Total the misery of all the dead characters of each player. The person with the most misery, that is the most negative score on their dead characters is the winner. 

The game plays 2-5 players, and about 60 minutes. 

The game can be played by just playing the cards down and saying what the title of the card is. If you have creative folks in your group it is fun to tell a story of what is happening to the crew as you play the cards. "The doctor found himself sucked through a wormhole." 
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This is definitely a fun game to pick up. It is a stand alone game in the Gloom franchise. Other Gloom games are available from Atlas Games. Each of these offer different themes and play very similar to each other. Cthulhu Gloom is one of my favorites and features the Elder Gods of the Cthulhu Mythos. There is Gloom of Thrones, Munchkin Gloom, and Fairy Tale Gloom. Of course there is the game that started it all, Gloom, with several expansions available to bring more fun to your games. 

The next game we played was Munchkin: Critical Role. 

Munchkin is a classic game where players are racing to get to level 10. Players start the game with a hand full of cards. They play items, allies, and equipment to their character. On a players turn they will go exploring. In most munchkin games this is "Kicking down the door!" If the player encounters a monster they have to fight it. This may require them to ask for help or run away which may trigger bad stuff to happen. A defeated monster gains the active player a level, and treasure drawn from a treasure deck. If the card drawn is a curse the player does what the curse says. If it is any other card the active player puts this in their hand of cards, or equips it to their player. A player may sell 1000 gold of items to go up levels, or defeat monsters to also go up levels. A player can only defeat a monster to get to level 10. The first person to level 10 wins. 

The Critical Role version brings the Mighty Nein to the table. It uses charcters like Fjord, Yasha, Clay, Caleb, Beauregard, jester, and Nott as playable characters. 
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Muchkin: Critical Role plays 3-6 players, and about 60 minutes. 
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While this is a stand alone game, it can be combined with other munchkin sets for very strange combinations. 

​The group we had playing with us got itchy to role play. So I snagged a copy of the Starfinder Beginner Box. it has pregenerated characters, dice, a map, and a short adventure. The players were familiar with Pathfinder and Dungeons and Dragons so this was easy to pick up. I actually had a copy of the beginner box at home already. I had read through the rules and adventure a while back so it wasn't that difficult for me to pick up and run. That game ran us a few hours before we decided to call it a night. 

Tiny Epic Pirates is from Gamelyn Games, the fine folks who brings us a wide range of Tiny Epic games. Small boxes, with big gameplay. In Tiny Epic Pirates players race to gather gold and bury 3 treasure chests. During setup a map is generated with ocean tiles in the center of the table. Players select a ship color and starting pirate. Following placing rules players put their pieces, two merchant ships, and the imperial navy ship on the board.

During a players turn players will choose a captains action. Once selected they will choose to move their ship based on the number of movement they have available. Then they will complete the captains actions. During the course of the game players will gather trade items, sell trade items for gold. Players can recruit new crew members to their ship, and attack trade vessels. Attacking trade ships, and other players ships may cause a player to improve the quality of their ship. Allowing access to faster movement, more guns, and one time use items. The imperial navy will wreak havoc on the players should they encounter them. 

Once a player is on the right area of the map, has gained enough gold and has a dig treasure action available a player may bury treasure. Losing the required gold, and placing the treasure chest on the location. Once a player has done this 3 times, all the other players get one more turn to play. 
The game plays about 45-60 minutes, though while we were learning the game it did take us several hours for a 2 players.

t has a solo mode, and plays up to 4 players. 

​This weekend we got to play a few games at our friendly local game store Gauntlet Games. 
Gauntlet Games is located in Lincoln Nebraska and is a very fun store to visit. They have quite the selection of miniatures, board games, and paints for your gaming needs. They also have a nice sized gaming space, with a library of games for demo. Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays are usually pretty good days to find new people to play with. Sundays are typically board game days. Saturday evenings has Pathfinder and Starfinder society play. Over the week many different games can be seen played on the gaming tables. 

Author: Joe DeMarco (Shad0fx)