The Starfinder 2e playtest helps Paizo reach beyond D&D’s gravitational pull

polygon.com:

Paizo is making big changes to its science fantasy tabletop role-playing game Starfinder, kicking off a playtest phase at Gen Con for a new rules set while also shaking up the setting by starting a war and blowing up a planet.

Starfinderfirst released in 2017 as Paizo was working on Pathfinder Second Edition and relies on the Dungeons & Dragons Open Game License, aka the OGL. When Wizards’ plans to change the OGL leaked last year, Paizo quickly moved to protect itself, releasing new versions of the Pathfinder Player Coreand Pathfinder GM Corein November and shelving planned Starfinderbooks until Paizo could change the mechanics. Starfinder is set in the far future of the world of Pathfinder, and the games will now both be fully compatible with the Pathfinder Second Edition rules, which should make combining content easier.

“We had a whole section of the first edition Starfinder Core Rulebook dedicated to converting Pathfinder 1e content, but that was way too much of an investment for the GM,” Paizo associate publisher Thurston Hillman told Polygon. “In Starfinder First Edition there are three to four different stat blocks for a hellhound, which was a creature that already existed in Pathfinder First Edition. That just eats up our words. We ended up in this situation where we were just recreating Pathfinder stuff, which just became more and more annoying and took away from our ability to really build the brand.”

“[Now] we can just have a hellhound and maybe give it a gun,” Paizo senior developer Jenny Jarzabski added.

Compatibility also means more options for players who might otherwise be dissatisfied moving from the 100 alien species and fantasy creatures they could play in the original Starfinder to the 10 ancestries featured in the Starfinder Second Edition Playtest Rulebook. Hillman assures fans who want to create the diversity of Star Wars’ Mos Eisley Cantina that they can both play some of the odder Pathfinder ancestries, like the doll-like Poppets, along with