Tabletop RPG Journal
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.
Starfinder: Beginner Box from Paizo
Starfinder Beginner Box from Paizo Inc.
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.
It was definitely a fun time to play Starfinder and GM again.
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.
It was definitely a fun time to play Starfinder and GM again.
Author
Joe DeMarco
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