Session Recap #1 – Starfinder Horror Game

Hey all, unlike Steve’s posts my gaming related posts are going to be from the perspective of the player. This blog series will be the first in likely a four (maybe five) part series covering the horror Starfinder campaign my gaming group (different from Steve’s group, which also includes me) is running for the month of October.

My gaming group is very large so this blog will cover a little bit of how the Starfinder system deals with many players as well as the pluses and minuses of such a large number of players in the system.

As a final note before we dive in, this is a horror themed game in which we as characters are probably going to die or fail our mission or worse. Also our characters have a “sanity” rating for the campaign. It functions mechanically like a wisdom-based disease.

The Hook

Our party is part of the Starfinder society, an organization that explores the galaxy seeking knowledge. Members of the Starfinders are explorers and scholars who focus on finding information about the Gap. In this case however, our party was sent on a rescue mission. A colony ship launched from the Pact Worlds has been lost in the Vast for 6 years. It was presumed lost when debris matching its specifications were discovered. A vesk cargo ship received a distress call from the ship.

The ship also has an unusual background involving an architect that went crazy during the building process as well as many missing engineers and construction crews. All the other ships designed by the architect have met terrible fates. If this story line becomes important to the campaign I will elaborate on this more.

Our Party

• Zip – Ace Pilot Ysoki Ghost Operative
• Vondormathian – Mercenary Vesk Armor Storm Soldier
• Byte – Outlaw Ysoki Drone Mechanic
• Gallows – Spacefarer Android Mystic Overlord?
• Hunhow – Spacefarer Human Technomancer
• Chonk Torquemata – Bounty Hunter? Vesk Exocortex Mechanic
• Alicia DeVries – Icon Human Envoy
• Jehir – Priest? Kasatha Solar Weapon Solarian
• TR-16 – Bounty Hunter Android Ghost Operative
• Dex (Me) – Scholar Android Technomancer

Into the Thick of It

Due to her superior social skills the players decided that Alicia DeVries would be the captain of our crew. My character along with Hunhow and Byte were assigned to the engineering crew. Chonk Torquemata took the role of science officer, Zip was the pilot, and Jehir took the job of first officer. First officer is a position that doesn’t actually mean anything mechanically but roleplaying-wise it made sense. Everyone else went on guns. The game begins with our team in Drift space heading towards the missing ship. We are told that we are the only ship going to investigate because the missing ship’s coordinates are dangerously close to the Azlanti empire. The captain put us on high alert as we left drift space. This ended up being a good call as we were immediately beset by three Azlanti starfighters.

Our first starship fight began. Combat for starships is done in phases as follows:

1. The first phase is engineering,
2. The second phase is helm,
3. And then, last, gunnery.

For a small group this doesn’t mean too much. For our group, it meant that we had a bunch of players who couldn’t do anything while other players made decisions like how the ship would move. Our ship is a large destroyer and we were up against three faster more agile fighters. The fighters weren’t heavily armed so the battle was fairly straight forward after we learned the rules.

The fighters made a tactical mistake as they only had forward and aft firing arcs. Our ship was able to get to the sides of a few of the fighters and down them with minimal damage. Our party decided to salvage what we could from the wreckage, and during that we discovered one of the pilots was alive and adrift in space. We brought the pilot on board for questioning.

Gallows and Jehir questioned the pilot. He said that the Azlanti empire sent their own ship to investigate the colony ship’s transmission. We didn’t detect their ship but we decided to proceed anyway since it is our mission. The lost colony ship was orbiting a nearby gas giant. The gas giant was causing interference with our sensors so we could not tell the state of the ship at long range. The captain ordered the ship to get closer. When we did get closer we noticed that a large Azlanti ship was “docked” to the side of the colony ship and that neither ship showed any sign of power. The Azlanti ship used some sort of boarding arm to punch through the side of the colony ship. After some debate the party decided that instead of docking with either ship we would space walk over to the Azlanti ship first and see what is going on. The fact that both ships were without power greatly concerned all of us.

After a short space walk our party got to an airlock on the Azlanti ship. Byte used her computer skills to open the airlock and we entered. After stepping inside the GM made us roll fear checks, many of us failed the check resulting in a loss of sanity. Chonk Torquemata failed the check with a natural 1 which means he lost two levels of sanity (but more on that later). We ended up inside a cargo hold that was a truly gruesome sight. There was blood covering the floors and walls and the bodies of crew members were strewn all over the place. The first thing we noticed (besides the dead crew) was that the ship appeared to be running solely on backup power and many of the wall panels in the area were damaged. After a quick inspection we determined that the crew caused the damage and were stealing parts from the ship. The captain suggested that they may be stealing the parts to fix the colony ship but without more information we don’t know for sure. The other thing we discovered was that the crew was killed by some kind of animal with a spiked appendage.

The captain had Zip and TR-16 scout ahead while Byte used the nearby computer console to attempt to bring some power back online. Byte ended up shorting the console out so she and Vondormathian went to a lower level of the hold to get to another console. Meanwhile Chonk Torquemata started showing some symptoms of the sanity loss, including hallucinations. As a result, the doctor, Gallows, looked him over and determined that the party may have been exposed to some sort of disease. Without a medical lab, Gallows could not provide more details on that.

TR-16 radioed that she saw some sort of movement heading our way, as a creature jumped out of a vent next to Byte and Vondormathian on the lower level. It screamed with an almost human voice and had large spiked appendages. This is where the session ended. Next time we will see what happens to our team in the creepy ship.

Now that some time has passed, I have reviewed the starship combat rules. While I think the DCs are quite high, players need to consider that a starship in this game could have a crew of 30 or 40 people that support a single section. At the GM’s discretion these crews could all be assisting one or two officers to complete the actions (with the exception of piloting). For example, a level 20 ship with 35 engineers and a PC officer (20 ranks + trained + 9 modifier = 32 ranks) would have a +32 engineering skill to do a DC 70 action. Not possible, but with 19 assists that is now +70 engineering. Think Star Trek’s Enterprise, not Star Wars’ Millennium Falcon. In Star Trek, the engineer does amazing things but behind the scenes there are many more crew members helping them. As for the piloting, it makes sense that it’s hard (or even impossible) for a large ship to do some maneuvers. The only issues I can see are with the Captain’s actions. For a tier 20 ship, the only action a Captain can realistically do is Encourage. But this area is where the GM can help by allowing officers to aid in administering the Captain’s orders.