Starfinder 2e - A Cosmic Birthday [New Game] [Level 1]

everything

Knowledgeable GM, good roleplayer, great for beginners. Does go above and beyond upon player's requests as long as they are reasonable ;)

I'll break the review into three parts: --- 1. The Good (a). The Possibility of Failure (b). Use of Foundry, Visual Aids, and Music (c). Adherence to the Adventure Path 2. The So-So [a]. Rules [b]. Roleplaying Opportunities 3. Conclusion {a}. TL:DR {b}. Overall Rating Out of 5 --- 1.) The Good (a). The Possibility of Failure Lucas allows dice rolls to decide the fate of adventuring parties, with little recourse. Allowing for a truly nail-bitingly tense experience of wondering if the party will manage to make it through the session at times, but also allows the enemies to fail if the rolls go against them. This creates real tension that I've felt other sessions I've played lacked. Where a single move saved us from what may be certain TPK. Players that enjoy DMs who are willing to allow players to fail, willing to TPK, and has a more true-to-the-rules approach will greatly enjoy what Lucas has to offer. This is not to say that he actively plays against the players, he is fair and equitable in his judgements and amenable. When you succeed, it's a high like never before, when you fail, it's a low, but I find that games where I feel as if I can fail have more stakes and greater opportunities for character development than those where I merely always succeed. This playstyle is not at all for all players, and that is 100% ok. Some will prefer a more lenient fun-having approach, and that is absolutely fine. (b). Use of Foundry, Visual Aids, and Music DM goes the extra mile to use Foundry VTT for his sessions, including full visual aids for most if not all encounters, along with music that is situation appropriate. Going into a difficult fight hearing, "We're the Desperate Measures," from Halo 3: ODST, or hearing soundtracks from Mass Effect only ever added to the experience, and made me feel more engaged. Amusingly, I had the aforementioned Halo OST up on another tab and was confused when it started playing in Foundry. Truly, excellent. Having used both Fantasy Grounds VTT and Foundry VTT, I can say that both offer a satisfying level of engagement for all those involved. Even if I prefer Fantasy Grounds, Foundry is still excellent to see used by any of my DMs. (c). Adherence to the Adventure Path Lucas knows when to push the adventure path forward, and there is very rarely not something exciting happening for characters to engage with. Whether that be interstellar locusts rushing in and pushing your party to the limits of their resources, or gathering civilians for exfil. There are moments of downtime, but the balance between activity and downtime feels mostly excellent. 2.) The So-So [a]. Rules I'm currently in Lucas' Starfinder campaign, and there are times where we need to pause and look into the rules to check if things are working the way they are supposed to. This doesn't become a major issue, and isn't draining tons of time from the session. I can't speak to his ability to know the rules for other systems, but for Starfinder, perhaps due to the rarity of its play in general, it's middling. An example is when I used a laser weapon to fire through a transparent surface to hit an enemy beyond, which is a hallmark feature of the weapon category. This is, of course, all very minor, and maybe ten minutes total are lost in a session at the very most. [b]. Roleplaying Opportunities This tends to be more of a personal quirk than one that I can solidly place against Lucas, but I enjoy describing what characters are doing during their downtime and maybe roleplaying that out a little bit. The Soldier with engineering is still surveying the passageways of an underground tunnel with a fellow party member, holding drafting paper and pencil, noting places of weakness that could cause collapse. The Witchwarper with excellent diplomacy is speaking amongst the crowd, affably keeping spirits high in dire situations. The Solarian with computers, is hunched over a terminal, having to lean in really close to see the tiny script as he does maintenance. These are small touches that add further depth to the game, but are somewhat player specific, so I can understand why this is avoided to a degree. Everyone values their time differently, so perhaps pushing through the adventure path at a more generalized pace is preferred, so I could and wouldn't put this as necessarily bad. 3.) Conclusion I'm satisfied with my games, and enjoying them enough to look forward to each and every one of them. Even when I'm not always eager to, when I sit down and play my mood rapidly shifts to being very glad that I played. I feel tension of not knowing for sure whether or not we'll make it through this week's challenges, and that makes the successes so much more powerful. I enjoy logging into Foundry VTT, and having everything I need already readily available, as if I were in-person with all my supplies perfectly organized in front of me. I enjoy the pacing of the adventure path, and the adventure path itself. Certainly there's moments where rules need to be looked into, and there's a personal need for more roleplaying in those quiet inbetween moments, but I very much love my time at this table. I would highly recommend Lucas to anyone looking for a more grounded, to-the-rules, and serious game. {a}. TL:DR You can fail in Lucas' games, making success feel real. Lucas uses Foundry VTT, visual aids, and plenty of good situation fitting music. He has a good balance of active adventure path, and downtime between. Has a middling level of knowledge of Starfinder rules, and some time looking into them will be necessary. Albeit minimally. Somewhat lacks some downtime roleplaying opportunities, but this is more subjective than objective. {b}. Overall Rating Out of 5 I rate Lucas 4.3 out of 5. I am very satisfied, and happy with the sessions.

Luc is a great DM, He takes the time, to make the tokens, makes the maps, makes the loot, has to convert the dcs to make the party work to win. He makes sure everything is as automated as possible in order to have the smoothest gameplay possible. I have been playing Pathfinder for many years with many DM's and Luc has more passion and dedication to making sure his party has the most fun possible, than anyone I have ever played with. I would highly recommend playing in any of his games whenever you get a chance.

Lucas is an amazing GM. He does a great job adapting to each players style and incorporating creative ideas into each game.

Just had an amazing fight in Fist of the Ruby Phoenix Pathfinder 2E module. The NPCs felt like real PCs. We ended up losing the fight, but it was epic. Never had so much fun in combat. Highly recommended.