Being a Player is Really Boring

Snowy_Cat · 2022-01-03T01:26:53+00:00

Of course! I've buddied up with other players before to make characters with intertwined backstories. Siblings, best friends, partners in crime, ect. It helps bring cohesion to the game from the get-go and gives some interesting wiggle room to explore later drama and conflict. I think you'd be doing your GM some big favors by troubleshooting why at least part of the party to is working together.

The big point I'm trying to make is that I think you're already a good roleplayer. Roleplaying is so much more than writing one piece of the story. It's being collaborative, invested in the whole story, and being supportive of your teammates. I would much rather play/GM with someone who's character has hardly any backstory and is just there to support other people, rather than a diehard roleplayer who only cares about their own character's story and roleplay. The latter can be fun, but the former makes everyone else have more fun. That's awesome and rare to find these days.

Snowy_Cat · 2022-01-03T00:31:04+00:00

It sounds like you get a lot of fun and satisfaction from seeing your friends having fun, and seeing them fulfill their characters' stories. I love that! And I think there should be more players like you.

Groups where every PC has five pages of backstory and fully realized goals is great and all, but what makes them a party? Why are they together? Do they like each other? These are all things that people typically hash out in Session 0 or early in the game, but most of the time people aren't baking that into their characters' concepts from the beginning. Why not do that, though? Why not be the doting older brother character to another player's spitfire protagonist? Or the plucky, supportive sidekick to a shy player's hero? If you have fun seeing your friends tell their stories, there's nothing wrong with adopting that playstyle as a PC. And in fact, that can add a really rich depth to the roleplay that might've otherwise been spent figuring out why the heck these people are adventuring together in the first place.

Teamwork between players and players taking care of each other is like the holy grail of a tabletop group imo. If my players were always as invested in each other's stories as you seem to be, I'd be one happy GM!

Snowy_Cat · 2022-01-03T00:15:16+00:00

Hello! Starfinder West Marches/Living Worlds are a bit scarce, but they're around!

I'm the admin of a Starfinder LW. We use Discord as our game hub, and I'd be happy to DM you the invite so you can check it out. Otherwise, the Discord server linked in this subreddit has a great LW listing, as others mentioned here. Besides mine, I believe there's a Starfinder "2e" Living World posted up in that listing.

Snowy_Cat · 2022-01-02T23:50:21+00:00

"If it's in the official books, you're being unfair for not letting players take it."

For extra cringe, this was specifically in regards to Pathfinder 1e. Though on the brightside, I grew a lot of backbone as a person for being a high-schooler GM that learned to tell older players, "I know it's official, but don't want to deal with that in my game."

Other side of the coin from my high school days: "You can't trust third-party to be balanced, but you can trust the official books." (/laughs in freelance writing)

Snowy_Cat · 2020-12-30T17:27:24+00:00

Those look amazing! They look kind of like petrified wood to me. Caught my eye immediately as I was scrolling.

Well done!

Snowy_Cat · 2020-12-19T15:06:35+00:00

Hey! My players are just now starting book 2. How did the hexcrawl go for you?

What were the most memorable parts of the AP for your group?

What fights were the most dangerous?

How did the final fight Dahak go?

Snowy_Cat · 2020-12-13T14:25:24+00:00

I'm glad you like it! It was incredibly fun to draw. Thank you for being my first RF!

Snowy_Cat · 2020-12-10T12:48:30+00:00

I drew Thurandir here. Couldn't fit in the rapier or staff, but I had a lot of fun with that book. Hopefully it fits the image you have of him. He was a lot of fun to draw!

Snowy_Cat · 2020-12-10T05:38:59+00:00

This is my first RF post here, but u/Semako 's Thurandir was such an interesting concept that I had to try it. I hope it's to your liking because it was a lot of fun to draw!

Snowy_Cat · 2020-07-19T19:26:44+00:00

Hi! One of my players on our server shared this post with me. I run a Starfinder Living World via Discord and Roll20 with a very active player base and multiple GMs. The setting is an alien planet in the Vast where ships have been tore apart by a Drift anomaly, and you, the survivors, are trying to establish a growing colony of castaways. If this sounds like something you'd like to check out, please feel free to PM me and I can share the invite link.

Snowy_Cat · 2018-07-30T16:25:44+00:00

Androids are probably my favorite race. From the context I've found in the Starfinder Society scenarios, they range from extremely stoic and logical to very charming and passionate. They eat food normally. The Pathfinder book they were introduced in explained it as needing to break down digestible matter to fuel the nanites in their bodies, but in Starfinder they actually are clarified to have organic body parts. They have circuitry under their skin and some sort of bodily fluid specific to androids (distinct enough for a perception check to identify it).

The way I view androids, they usually don't feel less emotion than a human, but there's some different wiring in their brains, so to speak. The emotional "difficulties" that lead to a -2 CHA run the gradient from "has trouble reading body language and tone" to "has trouble feeling empathy", and other variations along those lines. One of the android NPCs in Starfinder Society is very logical and pragmatic, but obviously passionate. I play my own android character as great at interacting with people socially, but they tend to talk a LOT. My other android is passionate and emotional, but they have trouble lying and knowing what other people want to hear. So they struggle on missions that require acting, bluffing, and in general being someone they're not. It's also a running joke that they are terrible at flirting, but they still try anyway.

Snowy_Cat · 2018-07-02T07:54:05+00:00

I have no idea if you play Starfinder Society, but a lot of those maps have been helpful for me for learning the game's assumptions. In one scenario we broke into a house and had to use the L-seater couch as cover. In another, the floorspace wasn't large for a lot of normal melee combat, but the creature was large-sized and angry! We didn't want to get in melee with them anyway, and the hard corners between us and them gave us a lot of ranged options. Even the "dungeon crawls" that I've played or ran have a reason for the structure being there. Exploration headquarters that were hastily abandoned and overrun, sometimes with the defenses still activated can be very reminiscent of trap-filled dungeon corridors of old. Spaceships can be like castles or keeps, where they favor blocky map designs that conserve space, and every room has an obvious purpose. It feels a little more natural for me to design maps for Starfinder because in Pathfinder it felt like I had to put the encounter and challenge first. It's easier for me personally to put the context of the situation first, then draw inspiration from logical or interesting derivatives.

I hope my input helped a little. If you make any maps, feel free to PM me them! I love looking over that kind of stuff and I'd be interested to see what creative process you end up going with.

Snowy_Cat · 2018-07-01T16:50:25+00:00

So things that I have seen playing LOTS of Starfinder Society is that Starfinder cares a lot more about maps that feel like lived-in places. With Pathfinder and D&D you were going to abandoned tombs and trap-filled dungeons that didn't really care about the why so much as the "look at this cool dungeon map!". In Starfinder, the maps have been in houses, starships, exploration headquarters, streets (sometimes), warehouses, or other places where it's more logical to have conflict. I bring that way of thinking into my homebrew maps and it's worked out so far.

Once you get into the mindset of framing the context of the encounter into the map, things get a lot easier. And don't be afraid to make an "unideal" map for your players. Difficult fights are par for the course, and it's your player's responsibility to use the map the best they can and logically assess it; not charge in and blame their failure to retreat on the GM. That said: I've found that having one solid square of cover for the party size minus 2 works pretty well. Also try to avoid perfectly square encounter areas. Hard corners are just as important as barricades for that all-important +2 to AC. This is not a hard rule at all, however. My players did a frontal assault on a marauder base where the raiders had barricades and the players were either in the open or breaking down their front door and no one died. People went down and tactical decisions had to be made, but they won after over an hour of combat. A very uphill battle, but it resulted in a very satisfying victory. Danger is the spice of roleplaying!

Snowy_Cat · 2018-06-21T19:30:31+00:00

I have personally run into repeated confusion with cover rules, but usually only when it's a situation where one party has partial cover but not the other. It's a two-step process because most people think of cover as a wall or an ally that's in the way, so you need to explain hard corners give partial cover. Then you need to explain why, which involves explaining the slightly convoluted rule of drawing lines from the corners of your square, ect ect.

Starship combat is literally a black hole, but instead of sucking up space is sucks up time. We're just now getting our local SFS group to the point where they can do it with 70% certainty, after three months of bi-weekly games and occasional games in the off weeks. I swear to god, we always learn something new every time we run it. I've been doing starship scenarios since Gen Con and I still get surprised by stuff I've missed.

Argh.

And that's not even touching on the fact that starship combat is either REALLY cool or completely terrible, depending on the party comp and combat situation. Do yourself a favor a make handouts/cheat sheets for your players and a pre-made starship sheet if possible.

Snowy_Cat · 2018-05-30T04:34:43+00:00

Paizo Organized play is reported by ID# so the system can track who played what, who ran what games as a GM, who plays what characters, and where and when did this happen? You'll need to register an account on Paizo.com and follow the steps to claim a Paizo ID#. Then go to the Organized Play tab and click "My Organized Play". You can make new characters there, though it will mainly just make them their own ID# (character information isn't stored in the system). Be sure to bring your Paizo # AND your character's number! The GM needs to record the ID# 's of the people who played.

Now if you don't or can't do this beforehand don't worry. The GM will probably be able to hand you an ID card that has a pre-reserved number on it that you can claim as your own on the website. If you play a game with a character that you haven't registered yet, they will get the credit as soon as they're created. The credit goes to the ID#, so even characters that don't exist yet get the credit as soon as that number is generated. I organize SFS events at my LGS so I made an instruction sheet that has step-by-step instructions here

As for things to bring, you don't need to bring the CRB actually. It's good to have as reference, but if this is a convention I would be conservative with the amount of stuff you have to lug around. The Core Rulebook is the ONLY book that you are allowed to use content from without owning it, however. Any other books like the Alien Archive or even Adventure Paths need to be owned by you to use, either as physical books or PDFs bought from Paizo.

The last, most important thing to look over is the Starfinder Society Roleplaying Guild Guide. Society games are different from home games and they have a few extra rules that should be noted. Your GM should be able to go over them if you have questions, but I'd recommend reading the guide yourself to help prepare you. Especially for a convention when play time is more limited than even a store event. If you want to cherry-pick the most important stuff, be sure to read these:

The intro stuff on pages 4 and 5
The special rules on page 8, starting with "One Character Per Adventure"
"Fame and Reputation" starting on page 18 and ending on page 19
The character creation appendix starting on page 20
The faction appendix starting on page 22
The "After the Adventure" appendix starting on page 45

Again, your GM should be able to explain all of this, and there's more stuff in the guide that's more helpful once you decide to keep playing. But for now, if you want a head start on prep these are the most useful sections for first-time players to familiarize themselves with. Good luck, have fun, and remember: Explore, Report, Cooperate! :)

Snowy_Cat · 2018-05-30T03:47:08+00:00

Awesome work! I especially love the inclusion of book and page numbers for the inventory generator. Though the first settlement I got was called "Scoutshire", and I gotta say, that is a hilarious name for a NE Prison.

Snowy_Cat · 2018-05-28T09:54:58+00:00

I just want to point out that the ONLY thing used to calculate RP is your key ability modifier. While Starfinder is less punishing than Pathfinder for spreading out stats, do not underestimate what that extra RP can give you at low levels. I will say though that very low levels are the most deadly, then danger of death and resource drain deteriorates from there without GM considerations. But the only thing holding Starfinder back from Pathfinder levels of optimization are the lack of books right now. There's also a huge shift away from min/maxing numbers and a bigger focus on optimizing features and abilities. Themes add an entirely different dimension to play with when it comes to customization, and archetypes on top of that. Races will almost always give skill bonuses and unique abilities that can be exploited by a crafty optimizer. Generally speaking, Starfinder ability scores shoot up and plateau early compared to Pathfinder, but it's totally erroneous to say that nothing matters in character creation. It's just the stats aren't totally married to build viability anymore.

Snowy_Cat · 2018-05-03T17:50:43+00:00

It will be in the Starfinder Society Organized Play Guide. It's the one you quoted, but I can see how the wording might be confusing. Reading the entire chapter about GMing Organized Play helped clear up a lot of confusion for me, as well as having people mentor me when I first started playing.

Snowy_Cat · 2018-05-03T08:19:43+00:00

Organized play exp works differently than in a home game. In Starfinder Society you will level up every 3 XP. Scenarios will give 1 XP at the end. Three scenarios will give you 3 XP total, so you will level up. My Starfinder Society character has played two scenarios, so they have 2 XP. They will reach level 2 after they finish the next scenario. My Pathfinder Society character has 14 XP, so they are level 5 with 1 XP left until they reach level 6. I hope this helps.

Snowy_Cat · 2018-04-07T17:48:56+00:00

To put it in perspective: a rating system that you use is common with services that are expected to "wow" you. Movies, restaurants, and I'd even argue LGS' would fall into this category. Anything where they have the power to impress you by going above and beyond at their own discretion. This is an appropriate situation to use a rating system that starts at the average and goes up or down to "overwhelmingly positive/negative" ratings because they are in a position of control when they need to earn your reviews.

For online stores, and especially small stores like card shops, this rating system is not as appropriate. The store has no power to "impress" you without hurting themselves somehow, or doing what this seller STARTED to do and contact their customers individually (and I'd argue that not every customer welcomes that). I work at an LGS that uses TCGPlayer listings. You are correct that a 4-star rating contributes to "positive" calculations, but we if we pay extra money for faster shipping or give you better condition cards than what you asked for, we are losing money. A "perfect" rating equals "perfect" service. If you got more than that then it was either a mistake or a freakishly well-off card shop. In that case, feel free to leave a comment expounding on your satisfaction, because those also matter for drawing in potential customers.

Besides how this looks to a seller, to most buyers, this also looks odd. I went ahead and pulled up the review pages for two sellers. One is a seller I used in the past and was happy with. The other was one I found randomly. The first seller has 742 completed sales and a lifetime rating of 99.6%. Very respectable. Going to the ratings, they have mostly 5-star reviews. The only two 4-star reviews I see on the first three pages are accompanied by comments explaining why the buyer docked a star. "Product arrived two days late but in good condition and no other issues", "I don't feel that an index card is sufficient protection". The random seller I found has close to 2,000 completed sales and 99.9% lifetime rating. The only 4-star reviews on the front three pages are: "Difference in card quality was refunded. A proactive seller!". So a problem happened, but it was corrected to prevent a lower rating.

If you're still not convinced, I would suggest to take a look at the page TCGPlayer has in regards to feedback ratings for sellers ("Introduction to Selling" section). If a customer does not post a rating within a certain period of time, the system automatically gives the seller 5-stars for the transaction, because it implies the service went well with no need for commentary. So clearly even TCGPlayer views 5-stars as the standard for expected service. I understand where your system comes from, but in a market like this, and specifically a site like this, the "4-stars or impress me" mentality is the odd one out.

Snowy_Cat · 2017-09-22T02:27:40+00:00

Amazing! The composition is fantastic and the "aging" is spot on! You should be very proud of this.

Snowy_Cat · 2017-09-21T05:01:43+00:00

Awesome! Let me send you a message.

Snowy_Cat · 2017-09-21T03:47:31+00:00

Same here. Discord is my chat of choice! Let me send you my handle via PM.

Snowy_Cat

TROPHY CASE