Usually I do these review videos completely off the cuff. (With maybe an outline to go off of) This time I actually wrote a script so you can read the script below the video if you’d rather do than than watch the video. I did go off script here and there to elaborate on things, so it’s not verbatim what I said, but it’s pretty close.

Introduction

Up to this point, if you’ve seen any of my TTRPG videos, you’ve mostly seen me talking about D&D or Tales of the Valiant. However, Cosmere’s 3 action economy combined with a desire to get back to my Science Fiction roots led me to check out Starfinder second edition.

Because I like having both the PDF and the physical book, I ended up doing some Paizo subscriptions as that gets me the PDF for free. The first Starfinder subscription item I got was Tales from the Vast.

As a newbie to Paizo one of the things I’ve read a lot is that Paizo is known for year-long Adventure Paths that can sometimes take players all the way to level 20. (A rarity in the TTRPG space) I don’t know if they always treated Starfinder differently or if I’m jumping in as Paizo is changing their strategy, but this book is an anthology.

This is the 3rd published adventure for Starfinder second edition, not counting Starfinder Society or Playtest materials. The first one was Murder in Metal City - a deluxe one-shot. The second one was Guilt of the Grave World - which features Zo! and a reality TV plotline. Both take place on the Pact Worlds. What’s interesting is that this third one takes place in The Vast - the equivalent of being out beyond Pluto in our solar system.

This anthology-style book has 4 adventures in here, each covering 3 levels of player advancement. Interestingly compared to other TTRPG anthologies I’ve purchased, there are instructions in here both for running this as one campaign taking place in The Vast as well as 4 of what they call “one-shot campaigns”. That’s a first for me hearing one-shot and campaign in the same sentence like that, but it does convey pretty well what they mean.

From here on in there will be spoilers. I will put a timestamp to skip to if you don’t want spoilers.

Adventure 1

The first adventure, Expedition to the Drowned Planet, takes place in Kazmurg’s Absurdity. Not having played Starfinder first edition, all I know from the Galaxy Guide is that it’s a region of space where The Drift doesn’t work and exploration requires slightly lower tech methods like using maps.

I don’t know the inspiration of the writers of this adventure, but it definitely seems to have themes of colonialism, but IN SPAAAAACE! More recent scholarship of the pre-Columbian Americas reveal that, for example, the forests of the Northeast USA were relatively young. Between some archaeology, research into oral traditions, and other methods, it’s pretty clear that just before Europeans started arriving, something (probably a pandemic) wiped out huge portions of North American peoples and they were still reeling from the consequences of that. (In short, a few hundred years earlier and there might have been the North American equivalent of the Incan or Aztec empire to meet the European settlers) Additionally, the fact that the players are meant to think this is either an uninhabited or uncontacted planet echoes a lot of assumptions made by Europeans who were discovering these people for the first time, but didn’t know about their trade routes now as well as the past. (eg we now know that the ancient Romans traded with the Chinese) One last thing that struck me as potentially inspired by history: Modern history shows that as much as the Europeans were making use of ancient rivalries to pit tribes against each other, the North American inhabitants were using the Europeans to take out their rivals and get access to horses and gun powder.

As a segue into the adventure itself, one of the first big things the characters have to do is to deal with a warship from the Eimehre Virtuum. Again, the Pact Worlds are ignorant of the “wilderness” and there’s a whole conquest going on out here on this supposed uncharted planet. This early part of the adventure focuses on social encounters (diplomacy) and, depending on the outcome of the social encounter, a victory point system section. (This also reminds me of The Cosmere and its use of an equivalent point system during cinematic scenes)

Once the players arrive on the planet there’s a hexploration mode as they try and find a good place to make camp. Obviously there are also creature battles with local non-sentient creatures. Eventually the players meet the local inhabitants and there are further social interactions and battles. The climax involves helping the locals deal with some separatists who have chosen an unfortunate area for their new town. This leads to a dungeon crawl section.

So, like that SNL Skit, “this adventure has everything”. It’s got social encounters, victory point sections, hex crawls, dungeon crawls, fights. It’s a great adventure that should keep your table from getting bored as it should have at least a little something for each person.

Adventure 2

The second adventure is called The Moonside-250 Terror and is meant to be a horror campaign. This adventure combines themes of corporate raiders (that’s the 80s term, think hedge funds now), a rest stop chain that reminds me of the destination rest area Buckee’s, and a twilight zone episode.

As the players explore in the first chapter, there’s definitely a feeling like Bioshock. There isn’t really anyone (except some non-sentient enemies and like the equivalent of space fey) and the players are learning everything through the discovery of various artifacts. Eventually they come across a monster that is meant to up the scare factor. For me it just signaled haunted house vibes. For some younger folks on reddit, they said it gave them Five Nights at Freddy’s vibes. I guess your mileage may vary.

Continued exploration maintains the haunted house/haunted spaceship vibe. Many empty rooms or rooms filled with ghosts of the dead. The players don’t know what’s up yet, but each new discovery reveals just how wrong things have become in here.

Eventually they come across other humans and see that the folks who aren’t yet dead have gone nuts. This section, and the scenario as a whole, have a lot of commentary about hyper-capitalism. There’s definitely a strain of this throughout Starfinder as a whole, but I’ve also seen more actual plays (whether Paizo or D&D) tackling this topic recently. There is also an encounter using the Influence System.

As the players move into the final chapter, a timer of sorts may come into play if they don’t have the ability to protect themselves from radiation. Once they shut off the power there’s another clock running to get everyone out in time.

Adventure 3

The third scenario takes place on Salvation’s End. This planetoid gives me strong Portal/Portal 2 vibes. An AI is running hundreds of experiments in individual chambers that seem to function like Star Trek’s holodecks. (Also maybe some similarities to Brandon Sanderson’s The Grand Machine)

The exploration of a newly opened vault, and the warning given to the players during the brief, makes me think of a First Contact story a la Star Trek. The first part of the adventure is essentially Stardew Valley by way of Starfinder. The characters have to catalogue the biomes and collect samples from the water, forest, and cave systems. In fact, the section around exploring the town has the players building relationships with the players as in Stardew Valley or Harvest Moon. (page 92’s sidebar acknowledges this influence) It’s capped off with a town festival and everything.

Chapter 2 has the AI escalating its experiments to try and see how the inhabitants react to disaster. There are some crazy things that happen in this chapter that I don’t want to spoil.

Finally, chapter 3 includes 2 “clocks”. I believe I’ve read about the clock system on a Kobold Press blog post, but I wish more adventures included them as a way to guide GMs on including a sense of urgency and tension. TTRPGs can suffer the same fate as JRPGs, CRPGs, and any story-based game with a bit of a sandboxy nature: there’s an imminent disaster and also, somehow, enough time to do as many side quests as you want. The clock system fixes this while allowing flexibility instead of depending on an actual clock. Essentially, certain events or actions “move the clock forward”. When it reaches the end, time’s up and something happens. Maybe something good if the players succeeded or something horrible if they failed.

Adventure 4

The fourth, and final, adventure takes place in The Vast on a planet that is being attacked by the Azlanti Empire. This adventure seems to eschew a lot of the absurdity of the first three adventures. On the one hand, this means a table playing all four adventures as one campaign gets to have a little of everything. On the other hand, it could be interpreted as whiplash.

In an interesting echo of the first adventure, the planet is inhabited by a people who have chosen to abandon technology and live simply. The players are summoned to the planet by a distress message from the planet’s inhabitants. The adventure is well written as the players are given many choices on how much they want to help the oppressed. I mean, there’s no adventure if the players simply abandon the planet or choose not to help at all, but their degrees of help are up to them and gives them agency and makes the story feel more real.

Eventually, unless the players abandon the plot, they are fully integrated into the rebel forces. The end of chapter 2 presents several missions for the players to engage in for the rebels. They are listed as a series of skill checks with battles as a consequence for failure. The book suggests this might take place over many sessions, but it doesn’t seem like it would take that long if the players are lucky and get mostly successful rolls. Since the book has been holding the hand of the GM until now, I’m not sure if they are expecting the players to do lots of roleplay or are leaving room for the GM to use Victory Points systems from the GM Core. Without having run the adventure it’s hard for me to say whether or not this would take multiple sessions. (Certainly if the players constantly fail and have to fight complex combats, it could take at least 2 sessions)

The overall plot of this adventure has lots of similarities to season 2 of Andor, but given how long it takes TTRPG books to be written, it’s most likely a coincidence of telling a more serious story in a science fantasy setting involving an evil empire.

The adventure has cinematic space battles, regular combat, good opportunities for roleplay.

The book concludes with a bunch of potential plot hooks to keep things going, including one that leads into their next adventure path, Secrets of the Swarm.

For conclusion:

• Real Ren and Stimpy vibe to the gutter images
• Lots of great GM tips - more than I am used to from other TTRPG companies. This should help anyone who is nervous about being a GM for this anthology.

• Starfinder
• Paizo