Now in its seventeenth year, Free RPG Day for 2024 took place on Saturday, June 22nd. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Thanks to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day.
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In 2017, Paizo, Inc. published Starfinder: First Contact, a preview of and teaser for its then forthcoming Starfinder, the Science Fantasy roleplaying game which takes the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game forward thousands and thousands of years and to the stars. So it is most appropriate that as a preview of and teaser for the forthcoming Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Second Edition, Paizo, Inc. has released Starfinder: Second Contact for Free RPG 2024. Where the task of Starfinder: First contact was to introduce the new roleplaying game and highlight some of the differences between it and the Starfinder Roleplaying Game, the task of Starfinder: Second Contact is to reintroduce us to the Starfinder Roleplaying Game and highlight some of the differences between it and the Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Second Edition as seen in the Starfinder Playtest Rulebook.
The introduction highlights how the Starfinder Roleplaying Game is going to evolve to be in line with Pathfinder, Second Edition, before jumping straight into ‘What’s New?’. These start with elements and skills that appear in the monster descriptions given in the booklet’s following pages. For example, the ‘Integrated Weapons’ appears in the entry for robots and new skills include Computers and Piloting used by both the Asteray and the Glitch Gremlin. Similarly, several of the spells are used by those creatures. They include Delete, a spell used to remove a limited amount of data, whilst the cantrip, Recharge Weapon, reloads a weapon with a round’s worth of ammunition upon a touch. The new weapons are a couple of laser guns, whilst the rest of the Starfinder: Second Contact is really all about the monsters. These start with the Asteray, Fey Tricksters born where the void and the First World overlap, they wander space looking for distractions and starship crews to consume, and end with the Cybernetic Zombie, which might have an arm cannon or a shriek module or repair nanites! In between, there are Security Robots, Glitch Gremlins—which of course, want to cause mayhem, Laser Wolves, and Ferrofluid Oozes, sentient puddles of ferromagnetic fluids that interfere with technological devices of all sorts. Every creature is given a full page description, stats, and an illustration.
Like the earlier Starfinder: First Contact, there is little to the background of the Starfinder Roleplaying Game to Starfinder: Second Contact. There is mention that Golarion, the setting for Pathfinder, is missing, that rumours arose during the Drift Crisis of super-size versions of Ferrofluid Ooze, capable of consuming whole ships, and that the AbadarCorp is responsible for the manufacture of most robots in the Pact Worlds, becoming a byword for guaranteed quality, but making their weakness commonly known so that criminals and spies can take advantage of them.
Being a release from Paizo, Inc., it should be no surprise that Starfinder: Second Contact is a slickly produced and well-presented booklet. Much like with Starfinder: First Contact for Free RPG Day 2017, Starfinder: Second Contact is very technical in nature in comparison to the other releases for Free RPG 2024. Nevertheless, Starfinder: Second Contact is a solid introduction to the technical elements of the roleplaying game, one aimed more at fans of the roleplaying game rather than the general roleplayer.
The introduction highlights how the Starfinder Roleplaying Game is going to evolve to be in line with Pathfinder, Second Edition, before jumping straight into ‘What’s New?’. These start with elements and skills that appear in the monster descriptions given in the booklet’s following pages. For example, the ‘Integrated Weapons’ appears in the entry for robots and new skills include Computers and Piloting used by both the Asteray and the Glitch Gremlin. Similarly, several of the spells are used by those creatures. They include Delete, a spell used to remove a limited amount of data, whilst the cantrip, Recharge Weapon, reloads a weapon with a round’s worth of ammunition upon a touch. The new weapons are a couple of laser guns, whilst the rest of the Starfinder: Second Contact is really all about the monsters. These start with the Asteray, Fey Tricksters born where the void and the First World overlap, they wander space looking for distractions and starship crews to consume, and end with the Cybernetic Zombie, which might have an arm cannon or a shriek module or repair nanites! In between, there are Security Robots, Glitch Gremlins—which of course, want to cause mayhem, Laser Wolves, and Ferrofluid Oozes, sentient puddles of ferromagnetic fluids that interfere with technological devices of all sorts. Every creature is given a full page description, stats, and an illustration.
Like the earlier Starfinder: First Contact, there is little to the background of the Starfinder Roleplaying Game to Starfinder: Second Contact. There is mention that Golarion, the setting for Pathfinder, is missing, that rumours arose during the Drift Crisis of super-size versions of Ferrofluid Ooze, capable of consuming whole ships, and that the AbadarCorp is responsible for the manufacture of most robots in the Pact Worlds, becoming a byword for guaranteed quality, but making their weakness commonly known so that criminals and spies can take advantage of them.
Being a release from Paizo, Inc., it should be no surprise that Starfinder: Second Contact is a slickly produced and well-presented booklet. Much like with Starfinder: First Contact for Free RPG Day 2017, Starfinder: Second Contact is very technical in nature in comparison to the other releases for Free RPG 2024. Nevertheless, Starfinder: Second Contact is a solid introduction to the technical elements of the roleplaying game, one aimed more at fans of the roleplaying game rather than the general roleplayer.
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