What if: 3rd Party Starfinder Organized Play

Welcome back to the world of deep space where only the tentacle lives. In no attempt is this space creature attempting to get oxygen chords twisted. Just laying out some examples for race acceptation of organized play of third party material available on StarfinderSRD.com in a logical thought process.

What if: Starfinder 3-Play open gaming organized play

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away the Admiral of the D20pfsrd.com fleet, John Reyst, put forth the idea of a collective of starship captains to take up arms and guide ships to the unknown quadrants of the universe. Through many talks and deliberations with wonderful ideas, time to explore the opportunity to lead the squad of ships was a restricting factor for many.

How do you qualify and quantify cargo and list what is contraband from so much material that is floating in atmo?

A new Verse, Explore the Void.

Starfinder is still a new toy fresh from the packaging that has a fantastic future to explore. Several companies have set up campaign settings, such as Legendary Planet: Worlds, Starfarer’s Companion, and even Starjammer. There are plenty of worlds to explore and traverse in your starship. The galaxy is open and the best part about these books is that you can take some or a whole of it and make it your own. Qualifying what worlds should and shouldn’t be in is something we’ll discuss in a further in another article.

Let us talk races.

Races of the Galaxy.

Starting off we should look at what races should be incorporated and “legal” by the material that is available. Let’s nail down a transmission. StarfinderSRD.com. Makes sense, right? Since it’s part of the Opengamingnetwork.com, that should be a primary source. Bring it up on your view screen in a new window.

So we have the set list of Starfinder races from the core book. Make them legal, because they are the start of the system. Standard fantasy races are from the core book, so why not? (Personal opinion, you can use them, but I like to stray from them)

Next up click the “Races by Other Publishers”.

Oh look, the first one is Amora Game, Umvee. Enough detail on the homeworld, how they interact and follows a basic standard format presented in the core book. Accepted (based on bias opinion).

Next up is D20PFSRD.com Publishing: Abiarazi, manu, pasimachi, & transgenic. Again, the information presented follows the same format as the core, and pretty well balanced. Accepted.

Rogue Genius Games is next up. aasimar, catfolk, grippli, kitsune. As the other two, they come off as balanced with the detail needed on the world, alignment, etc to be incorporated into your home game. Accepted

Then last but not least, STROH HAMMER races; given that we have accepted StarfinderSRD.com as the source of our material, we have to reject the asquenti and bethonir races. This is due to the quantifying of the cargo.

We have accepted the fact that the standard format for races should (if not MUST) adhere to the Starfinder core book to help us get the information we need, or at least conform to the setup of the “standard fantasy races” section with enough detail to add to your galaxy. In no way, shape, or form am I saying you can’t use these races, but for an organized play document, they don’t adhere to the format of a unifying information for all to use. It leaves too much for the GM & PC to come up with the information needed. Of course, I always recommend you buy the 3PP PDF at all times for the race you want to play. Not everything on the StarfinderSRD has all the information needed for the race. Like our Umvee, if you want to know more of the goddess Daji, you need to buy the Xeno File issue that it appears in.

But it does raise the question, what data do you need to qualify the cargo? It has the racial stats you need to play the race. It fails to give alignment advice on playing or even a description of the race. With this in mind, let’s forget the sections: Homeworld & Adventures.  Society and Alignment, IMHO, is a required field for the race. Tell us about it. Relations is a grey area. There are a lot of races in the Quad to deal with. Names, it is the small flavor text that helps in the growth of a character and makes it a little more personable. Physical Description is a MUST have. What does the race look like, what am I looking for, is it a fish or a bird?

Quantifying Cargo

In my opinion as a GM and Player of Starfinder rules, Races should have at a minimum format for organized play:

  1. Small intro like they do
  2. Ability Adjustments, HP, and Racial Traits
  3. Physical Description
  4. Society and Alignment
  5. Names
  6. Adventures (helps, but not needed)

Bonus: Homeworld, Adventures, Relations.

If I was in charge of a Third Party Organized Play system (for Starfinder), I would require the above.

Thoughts? Comments? Questions?

I would love to hear from you.

-Tentacle out!

Products Mentioned in this Review





About TentacleGreg

Tentacle Greg (Greg LaRose) is the owner of Amora Game. He likes the anime and manga. Martial arts & samurai films. All things food. Gaming. All Platforms.

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