Chapter 1: Running the Game

Before a campaign begins, check in with your players—as a group or individually—to find out what types of content they want to allow in the game and which topics they would prefer to avoid. Because the story unfolds in real time, it's essential that you discuss these topics before the game starts, often in a session zero.

It can help to start with a rating, like those used for movies or video games. Starfinder games often include violence. What's the limit on how graphically violence should be described? Does anyone have phobias they don't want to appear in the game, such as spiders or body horror? Does anyone have pet peeves that might anger or irritate them and should be avoided? Are there any vices a player would prefer to remain off-screen or omit completely, such as gambling, alcoholism, or drug use?

After you figure out the limits on objectionable content, you have four important tasks:

• Clearly convey these limits to the other players.
• Ensure you and other players abide by the boundaries.
• Act immediately if someone becomes uncomfortable about content during a session, even if it wasn't banned in a prior discussion. Once the issue is resolved, move on.
• Resolve the issue if any player deliberately pushes these boundaries, tries to find loopholes, tries to renegotiate the limits, or belittles people for having a different tolerance to objectionable content.

The following is a set of basic assumptions that works for many groups, which you can modify to fit your group's preferences.

• Bloodshed, injuries, and even dismemberment might be described. However, excessive descriptions of gore and cruelty should be avoided.
• Romantic and sexual relationships can happen in the game, but players should avoid being overly suggestive. Sex always happens “off-screen.” Because attempts at initiating a relationship between player characters can be uncomfortably similar to one player hitting on another, this should generally be avoided (and is entirely inappropriate when playing with strangers or minors).
• Avoid excessively gross or scatological descriptions.

The following acts should never be performed by player characters:

• Torture
• Rape, nonconsensual sexual contact, or sexual threats
• Harm to children, including sexual abuse
• Owning slaves or profiting from the slave trade
• Reprehensible uses of mind-control magic

Villains might engage in such acts, but they won't happen “on-screen” or won't be described in detail. Many groups choose to not have villains engage in these activities at all, keeping these reprehensible acts out of mind entirely.

As important as it is to take care of yourself and the other players in your game, be mindful of your group's impact on the other people around you. If you're playing in a space that's not your own, respect your hosts. If you're playing in public, consider the comfort of the people around you, not just what your group is comfortable with. Be aware when you're making too much noise, leaving a mess, alarming passersby with graphic descriptions of violence, or even just giving the cold shoulder to curious spectators witnessing RPG play for the first time.

Prewritten adventures include background information and nonplayer characters needed for the story, plus all the locations, maps, and monsters necessary for both exploration and encounters. Prewritten adventures can speed up your preparation, since you can simply read the relevant sections of the adventure before a game, and you don't have to create everything from scratch. A published adventure already includes the expected amount of encounters and treasure, and you can find adventures built for different character levels to match your group. Reading a published adventure or running one as your first game can help you see how adventures are structured, which makes it easier to write one later if you choose.

A published adventure is prewritten, but it's not set in stone. Changing the details of an adventure to suit your group isn't just acceptable, it's encouraged! Use the backstories and predilections of the player characters to inform how you change the adventure. This can mean altering adversaries so they're linked to the player characters, changing the setting to a place some of the player characters are from, excising particular scenes if you know they won't appeal to your players, or including additional scenes and side quests tailored to the interests of your players or the background and preferences of their characters.

Building your own adventure can be much more challenging than using a published one, but it lets you express yourself, be even more creative, and tailor the game directly to the players and their characters. Chapter 2 contains guidance on building your own adventures, as well as tools and resources for designing content for your players.

Adventure plotting can start at many different points. You might begin with a particular antagonist, then construct an adventure that fits that villain's theme and leads the group to them. Alternatively, you could start with an interesting location for exploration, then populate it with adversaries and challenges appropriate to the setting. You can start with even less—perhaps a moment or interaction you'd like to see occur, an item or subsystem you'd like to incorporate, a genre you want to explore, or simply an atmosphere you'd like to create.

Some groups prefer to have everyone create their characters in advance and show up ready to play. However, getting the group together to make characters can be fun and can benefit your game down the line. A session for building characters is commonly called “session zero.” Session zero is typically shorter than other game sessions, so you might plan a short introductory scene for when everyone has finished building their characters or just hang out and do something else after you've planned your characters.

Having a session zero lets players share character details, making it easier for their characters to have links and relationships with one another before the adventure starts, and gives players the chance to become invested in each other's characters by organically learning what decisions other players made. It also enables the players to ensure a variety of skills and abilities are represented across the whole adventuring party and plan strategic synergies between their characters. These sessions also give veterans the chance to help less experienced players through character creation. Lastly, session zero can give you a better understanding of the characters and help the players integrate them into the adventure in interesting ways.

Most sessions should have lulls in the action punctuated by challenges such as intense encounters, puzzle-based exploration, and investigation. Presenting players with a variety of such obstacles can help them feel more engaged at the table. Information flow matters, too. If the group meets a large number of NPCs in short order, that can make it harder for them to remember individuals. It helps to break things up into smaller scenes and memorable moments.

Knowing when to end a session takes practice. About 20 minutes before a play session is scheduled to conclude, it can be beneficial to figure out how you'd like to end. It can be memorable to end with a cliffhanger—a moment so curious and abrupt it raises questions about what happens next. Examples include ending play before combat, when the PCs find vital information, or as they discover treasure. Doing so can inspire the PCs to discuss the game between sessions. Note anything that could be satisfying to resolve over media, such as email. This could include divvying up treasure, leveling up, roleplaying casual character interactions, or completing downtime tasks.

Once everyone is ready, get everyone's attention and cover the following topics. These are in a rough order that you can change based on your group's style or a session's needs.

• Recap what happened during the previous sessions.
• Establish where the characters are at the beginning of this session. Have they been resting since their last challenge? Are they in a deserted hangar, preparing to break through the airlock into a derelict shuttle? Tell players whether their characters had time to rest or recover since the last session.
• Remind players that they each have 1 Hero Point at the start of the session.
• Establish goals. The players should have an idea of what they want to do next. Reestablish any goals the group already had, then let the players weigh in on whether these goals still apply, and on whether there's anything else they hope to accomplish in this session.
• Commence adventuring! Decide which mode of play you're going to start in, then lead off with a verbal prompt to get the action started. You might ask a question related to a particular character, have everyone immediately roll initiative as a monster attacks, or briefly describe the environment and sensations that surround the player characters, allowing them to react.

As you run the game, keep track of who has the spotlight. It can be easy to keep attention on the most outgoing player or character, but you need to check in with all the players. If a player hasn't contributed in some time, stop and ask, “What's your character doing at this point?” If the player's not sure, add a detail or nonplayer character to the scene that the player might find interesting.

A GM should always convey a clear picture of the stakes and consequences of the PCs' actions or inaction. What horrible things will happen if the PCs fail? What can they achieve if they go beyond what's expected of them? A well-constructed adventure conveys the stakes at the outset, but it's also important to remind the players of those stakes throughout play. A game where the stakes are extremely high all the time cuts out the opportunity for low-key scenes, and can be overwhelming or even monotonous. In most games, players enjoy having some scenes where their characters can relax and socialize with low stakes as well.

Consequences should be specific and evocative. Don't just tell the players what happened after success or failure; let their characters witness it in the game universe. Are they treated as celebrities or pariahs? Does the reactor deep within the derelict ship stutter and ignite, exploding as the PCs escape? Does a failure lead to the death of an ally and a somber funeral? It's usually best if the PCs can foresee the consequences, at least in a general sense. If a villain demonstrates their intention to attack a planet, and the PCs don't stop them, then the planet is invaded by imperial troopers or hired guns. It's okay if you have an idea for an interesting subversion occasionally, but keep those to a minimum or the chain of cause and effect will become too muddy.

As a GM, you often make things up on the fly. You can find tips for improvising rules within Adjudicating Rules. When an issue seems to pertain to the story instead of the rules, ask yourself the following questions.

• Does something already established in our story so far tell me what should happen here?
• What would the NPC's personality lead them to do?
• What does the player expect to happen?
• What would best fit the themes of our story?

You might not have a good answer for every question, but asking them can inspire useful solutions. If what you need to invent is significant in the storyline or setting, there's nothing wrong with asking the group to take a little break while you fill in the gap. You can even ask players to invent details. If it's not particularly significant and you can't come up with anything more compelling, it's also okay to say “Nothing happens” and move on.

Often, a player will ask, “What happens when I do that?” This is a good indicator that the player expects that what they've done will draw a reaction from an NPC or the environment. Unless the player is way off base, provide an ingame response, even if it's minor. The player has telegraphed what matters to them, and the perceived importance of their action can draw them into the game.

During play, you roll some checks in secret instead of allowing the player to do so, as explained under Secret Checks. This rule helps ensure that a player remains uncertain at times when their character is unsure of how a situation may resolve, immersing the player in their character's perspective. It can be handy to keep a list of the PCs' modifiers on hand to help you roll secret checks more quickly. At least, you should record each player's Perception modifier, their saving throw modifiers (especially Will), and the skill modifiers of any skills they often use to Recall Knowledge. Check in anytime the PCs level up, and consider asking the players to update you when any of these modifiers change.

You can still have the players roll the checks even if an action has the secret trait. This is usually best done when the results are going to be immediate or when stakes are low, like when the PC is trying to recall something during downtime that they'll see is false through the course of their research. You can instead have the players handle all their rolls, secret or otherwise. This works best when the group is interested in leaning into the dramatic irony of knowing a PC is wrong and playing up their characters' mistakes.

Knowledge the players have that their characters don't is often called “metagame knowledge,” and using it to influence characters' decisions is called “metagaming.” Some metagaming results naturally from play and is wise to disregard. The witchwarper aiming corrosive haze precisely enough to include three enemies in the very edge of the spell's area is probably unrealistic, but isn't that disruptive to play. Things get more questionable if the player says something like “That's a cybernetic zombie, so don't get too close because they self-destruct” regardless of whether their character has encountered a cybernetic zombie before or identified the creature. Each group is different, and the assumption of what the characters know varies. If metagaming starts to get out of hand, you might use some gentle reminders, like “I'm not sure your character's aware of that” or “Can you explain your character's thinking when they do that?” If the problem persists, see the guidelines mentioned in the Problematic Players section.

Although the PCs are the stars of the game, NPCs make the universe around the PCs vibrant. They can become a part of the campaign, sometimes for years, weaving into the story right alongside the PCs. Portray NPCs however it works best for you. Some GMs keep it simple, describing the NPCs simply by their looks or their hook (see below). Others go into more detail, using accents, mannerisms, or acting.

Because NPCs have smaller roles than PCs, imparting enough information to convey their identities while they interact with the party can be challenging. When you create an NPC, start by integrating a single “hook” into their concept: a retired space pirate, a refugee from a war in distant space, or a contemplative who constantly asks awkward questions. Each hook hints at a backstory but is easily described in a synopsis. If the NPC continues to interact with the party, you can then add to their backstory later.

NPCs from adventures and other sourcebooks often include basic information about their personality, gender, and role in the game. Important NPCs often include more in-depth roleplaying tips, personal edicts, anathemas, and more.

As Game Master, it falls on you to adjudicate the rules. This means you're making judgments and decisions about the rules, especially when their application is unclear. Roleplaying games encourage creativity, and however well crafted and well tested a set of rules is, players will always find situations that require interpretation and judgment by the GM. You need at least some familiarity with the rules to run a game well, but you don't need to be the foremost expert on the rules. You don't even need to know the most about the rules at your table to be a great GM! There's a key difference between “knowing” the rules and “adjudicating” the rules.

While GMing, strive to make quick, fair, and consistent rulings. Your rulings should encourage your group to work together to interpret the rules and be creative with their characters' decisions and actions. If your group is satisfied with the interpretation, you've made the right adjudication!

Being a Game Master and running a game can be a tremendously rewarding and fulfilling experience: you get to sit down with friends old and new, roll some dice, tell stories, and have fun. That said, being a GM and running a game can present unique challenges. When dealing with problems at the table, keep in mind the primary reason to play Starfinder is to have fun. And that's true for everyone—player or GM. Don't “solve” a problem by reducing everyone's enjoyment of the game or their ability to chart a course for their characters. Of course, sometimes your solution might not make everyone deliriously happy. Play style is very personal and individualized; rarely does a group agree on all things all the time. Solving problems can be as collaborative as the rest of the game. It's not a good idea for a GM to ignore the players' opinions—but that said, the final decision in resolving a problem rests with you.

The relationship between you, your players, and the story is what makes roleplaying games successful and memorable. If all the players at the table contribute ideas, the game holds more surprises for everyone—including you! While some players like to sit back and let the Game Master control everything, most players want their contributions to shape the campaign's story. This is central to the concept of player agency—making players feel like the choices they make really matter, and that the world is a living place they can change through their decisions. In some games, the players can step beyond the traditional divide between GM and players to directly influence how the story progresses. Below are three methods you can use to balance the narrative control of your game.

No two Starfinder groups are exactly the same. At each gaming table, the GM and players work together to find their own style for the game and to tell their own stories. Some of these differences require the GM to make adjustments, especially for groups participating in Starfinder Society Organized Play, large or small groups, and groups in which one or more players has additional needs.

A player might want to create a character with a disability, or their character might end up with a disability over the course of play. Work with the player to find ways to respectfully represent the disability. Conditions such as blinded and deafened aren't a good fit for a character who has been living with a disability long-term. Here are suggestions for rules you might use for PCs with disabilities.

The rarity system is a powerful tool that helps you and your group customize your story, your characters, your worlds, and your universe to better match your game's themes and setting. You can also use it to keep the complexity of your game low by limiting access to unusual options.

Encounters typically begin when you ask your players to roll initiative, which sets the order that the characters will act in. See the full rules for rolling initiative, but in brief, initiative involves each character rolling a check—usually a Perception check, but possibly a different skill if you deem it appropriate—and then acting in order from highest result to lowest. Below, you'll find specifics on how to run certain types of initiative or deal with problems. These are guidelines, and you might prefer to execute initiative in a different way at your table.

When do you ask players to roll initiative? In most cases, it's simple: you call for the roll as soon as one participant intends to attack (or issue a challenge, draw a weapon, cast a preparatory spell, start a social encounter such as a tense negotiation, or otherwise begin to use an action that their foes can't help but notice). A player will tell you if their character intends to start a conflict, and you'll determine when the actions of NPCs and other creatures initiate combat. Occasionally, two sides might stumble across one another. In this case, there isn't much time to decide, but you should still ask if anyone intends to attack. If the PCs and NPCs alike just want to talk or negotiate, there's no reason to roll initiative only to drop out of combat immediately!Alternatively, many GMs running for larger groups or in Organized Play settings prefer to run social encounters and skill challenges using initiative order but likely call for players to use a skill such as Deception, Diplomacy, or Performance, depending on their approach to the scene.

Once you've rolled initiative and set the scene, it's time to dive into the encounter. Go around the table in initiative order, asking each player what they would like to do on their turn; when it comes time for any NPCs, monsters, traps, or features of the environment to act, you control them yourself.

A combat encounter typically ends when all the creatures on one side are killed or knocked unconscious. Once this happens, you can stop acting in initiative order. The surviving side then has ample time to ensure that everyone taken out stays down. However, you might need to keep using combat rounds if any player characters are near death, clinging to a cliff, or in some other situation where every moment matters for their survival.

You can decide a fight is over if there's no challenge left and the player characters are just cleaning up the last few weak enemies. However, avoid doing this if any of the players still have inventive and interesting things they want to try or spells they're concentrating on—ending an encounter early is a tool to avoid boredom, not to deny someone their fun. You can end a fight early in several ways: the foes can surrender, an adversary can die before its Hit Points run out, or you can simply say the battle is over and that the PCs easily dispatch their remaining foes. In this last case, you might ask, “Is everyone okay if we call the fight?” to make sure your players are on board.

One side might surrender when almost all its members are defeated or if spells or skills thoroughly demoralize them. Once there's a surrender, come out of initiative order and enter a short negotiation. These conversations are really about whether the winners will show mercy to the losers or just kill or otherwise get rid of them. The surrendering side usually doesn't have much leverage in these cases, so avoid long back-and-forth discussions.

It can help you to think of exploration as a series of scenes, where encounters break up exploration and function as subsections within it. Many of these are based on geography; for example, exploring a starship's corridors is one scene, and entering the starship's bridge begins another. Other times, you'll break out of a scene at a point of interest. If the PCs decide to stop their travels and investigate a computer terminal, that's a new scene.

When you transition between scenes, describe what was happening to reinforce where the group was, then describe what they now face to show the change. For example, “You've been making your way through the dark corridors of the abandoned starship, but after a moment of debate, you stop, your footsteps and voices still echoing down the corridor. The computer terminal before you is five feet wide and built into the wall. It has a touchscreen interface, but the screen is cracked, and the text it displays is garbled and difficult to discern. What do you do?”

When playing out a scene, your initial description should set the expectation of what level of detail the scene might go into, with you and the players adjusting as needed during play. Since players aren't bound in a strict initiative order in exploration mode, it can be useful to proactively call on PCs to avoid everybody talking at once. If possible, start with someone who instigated the scene change, or perhaps with the PC using the most relevant exploration activity, like a PC Hacking, Investigating, or Repairing the terminal, Deciphering the text, or Searching for secrets in the example above.

The more narrative pace of exploration mode means that you, as the GM, have a lot of freedom to emphasize important parts of the adventure to your players through evocative language and dramatic timing.

In exploration mode, each player who wants to do something beyond just traveling chooses an exploration activity for their character. The purpose of these activities within the game is to clarify what a PC focuses on as they explore rather than unrealistically allowing them to do everything simultaneously. This adds variety within the group's behavior and can show you where players want the story to go. For example, a player whose PC is Investigating wall carvings shows you that the player wants those to be informative.

Exploration activities that happen continually as the group explores are meant to be narrative first and foremost, with the player describing to you what they're doing, and then you determining which activity applies and describing any details or alterations for the situation. If a player says, “I'm Avoiding Notice,” add more detail by asking what precautions they're taking or by telling them which passages they think are least guarded. Likewise, if a player says they're looking for traps and keeping their shield raised and covering the group's tracks, ask them which of these they're prioritizing to narrow down the activity. Consider the advantages and disadvantages of an activity given current circumstances. For instance, someone Scouting might trigger a laser turret before their group can reach them, or someone Investigating ancient alien carvings might critically fail and lead the party in the wrong direction. This doesn't apply for exploration activities that are discrete and occur when the group is taking a pause or zooming in on a particular action, such as Treat Wounds. Characters can always drop out of a continual exploration activity to perform a discrete one (even if they are fatigued and can't sustain an exploration activity as they travel), and they can change activities at any time.

The main exploration activities described in Player Core and what PCs can accomplish with them are as follows.

• Analyze Environment: Check for hazards.
• Avoid Notice (Stealth): Sneak around undetected.
• Defend: Keep a shield raised.
• Detect Magic: Repeat the detect magic spell (advice under Detect Magic).
• Follow the Expert: Improve your bonus with another tactic by following an ally's example (advice under Follow the Expert).
• Hustle: Travel faster.
• Install Upgrade: Use a repair toolkit to upgrade items.
• Investigate: Recall Knowledge of your surroundings (advice under Investigate).
• Livestream: Broadcast or record footage.
• Recharge: Charge a battery.
• Repeat a Spell: Cast or sustain a spell over and over.
• Scout: Look ahead for danger.
• Search (Perception): Seek out hidden things as you travel (advice under Search).

Skills also have exploration activities linked to them.

• Access Infosphere (Computers): Search local networks for information (advice under Access Infosphere).
• Borrow an Arcane Spell (Arcana): Prepare a spell from someone else's spellbook.
• Coerce (Intimidation): Threaten a creature so it does what you want.
• Cover Tracks (Survival): Obscure the PC's passing.
• Decipher Writing (Varies): Understand archaic, esoteric, or obscure texts.
• Gather Information (Diplomacy): Canvass the area to learn about a specific individual or topic (DCs listed here).
• Hack (Computers): Access, control, or make changes to a secure computer system.
• Identify Magic (Varies): Learn about a magic item, location, or ongoing effect (DCs listed here).
• Impersonate (Deception): Create a disguise.
• Implant Augmentation (Medicine): Use a medkit to implant augmentations.
• Learn a Spell (Varies): Use the skill corresponding to the spell's tradition to gain access to a new spell (Learn a Spell DCs).
• Make an Impression (Diplomacy): Make a good impression on someone.
• Navigate (Piloting): Plan a short journey overland or in space.
• Plot Course (Piloting): Plan a long journey in space.
• Repair (Crafting): Using a repair toolkit, fix a damaged item.
• Sense Direction (Survival): Get a sense of where the PC is or determine the cardinal directions.
• Squeeze (Acrobatics): Squeeze through very tight spaces.
• Track (Survival): Find and follow creatures' tracks (Tracking DCs).
• Treat Wounds (Medicine): Treat a living creature's wounds.

In exploration mode, it often matters which characters are in the front or back of the party formation. Let the players decide among themselves where in the group their characters are while exploring. This order can determine who gets attacked first when enemies or traps threaten from various directions. It's up to you to determine who gets targeted based on the situation.

When you come out of exploration mode, the group usually remains in the same general formation. Decide the PCs' exact positions, with their input, if you're moving to a grid. If they come out of exploration mode on their own terms, they can move around as they see fit. For example, if they detect a trap and the operative starts attempting to disarm it, the other characters can move to whatever locations they think are safe.

Characters require 8 hours of sleep each day, and they can gain the benefits of resting only once every 24 hours. A character who rests for 8 hours recovers in the following ways.

• The character regains Hit Points equal to their Constitution modifier (minimum 1) multiplied by their level. If they rest without any shelter or comfort, you might reduce this healing by half (to a minimum of 1 HP).
• The character loses the fatigued condition.
• The character reduces the severity of the doomed and drained conditions by 1.
• Most spellcasters need to rest before they regain their spells for the day.

A group in exploration mode can attempt to rest, but they aren't entirely safe from danger, and their rest might be interrupted. The 8 hours of rest don't need to be consecutive, however, and after an interruption, characters can go back to sleep.

Sleeping in armor results in poor rest and causes a character to wake up fatigued. If a character would've recovered from fatigue, sleeping in armor prevents it.

If a character goes more than 16 hours without going to sleep, they become fatigued.

Taking long-term rest for faster recovery is part of downtime and can't be done during exploration.

Modern armor has built-in environmental protections that, when activated, protect characters from the dangerous environmental effects of a vacuum and facilitate self-contained breathing. These basic environmental protections allow characters to survive and breathe in thick or thin atmospheres, in space, and underwater. They don't protect characters from other inhaled threats, such as smoke. Armor can maintain environmental protections for a number of days equal to the armor's item level (minimum 1 day).

When creatures can't eat or drink enough to survive comfortably, they're fatigued until they do. After a number of days without water equal to a creature's Constitution modifier + 1, the creature takes 1d4 damage each hour that can't be healed until it quenches its thirst. After the same amount of time without food, it takes 1 damage each day that can't be healed until it eats.

Determine how involved your group wants downtime to be at the start of the game. If your players vary greatly in preference, you might need to find a middle ground, or some way to give the players least interested in downtime something they would find compelling. You can adjust downtime depth as the game goes along, and you might find it becomes more important to the players as their connection to the setting grows stronger.

Pay attention to the amount of real-world time you spend in downtime and the level of detail. Downtime should rarely last a whole session. Usually, a half hour between significant adventures is about right, and 15 minutes for shorter lulls in the action, such as when PCs return to a port of call briefly in the middle of an adventure. You can extend this time as needed for more detailed roleplaying scenes.

For the level of detail, it's important to give more than just an overview, but often the basics will do. “A fleet of ships await boarding clearance, and a uniformed vesk officer puts you to work double-checking manifests” might do for using Piloting to Earn Income, and “Your shipment of UPBs arrives late, but you're able to complete the armor” could be enough for Crafting. Go deeper if the player sets out to do something specific or asks questions you think have potential for an interesting story, but be careful with too much detail, as you run the risk of boring most of the table with minutiae.

Downtime is more satisfying when the PCs work toward longterm goals rather than perform disconnected tasks. You can ask players what their PCs' goals are, and also look for storylines they're interested in that you can use as seeds for long-term goals. Long-term goals might include running a business, befriending their starship's artificial intelligence, establishing an arcane academy, returning a species from the brink of extinction, running for political office, or becoming a pop star. If players don't have clear ideas for their goals, look at their backgrounds, NPCs they know, and things they've expressed interest in during adventures to develop some suggestions. Remember that you're not trying to get them to accept your exact suggestions but to pick a goal they really like.

Long-term goals should shape the game, and reinforcing their progress is key. Show changes, good and bad, that result from the PCs' efforts, both in downtime and on their adventures if applicable. This doesn't have to be subtle! You can directly say, “You've been trying to get an audition with a media label, but the infosphere gossip campaign orchestrated by your rival diva means nobody's calling you back.”

Think ahead in stages. For instance, if a PC wants to be a pop star, you might have them...

• Start by performing on the infosphere as a virtual avatar.
• Get enough fans that you plan a live show.
• Sell so many tickets you book another concert at a bigger venue.
• Get a small but loyal following.
• Sign with a media label.
• You're invited to perform with Strawberry Machine Cake as the opening act in their upcoming galactic tour!

And so on. You can deliver each of these details through a little vignette. For example, if you use the fifth bullet point, you might describe the bodyguards, manager, and other label staff as NPCs in later downtime activities or skill encounters. Downtime goals are a great way to weave the PCs' agency into the story.

At the start of a given day of downtime, have all the players declare what their characters are trying to accomplish that day. You can then resolve one character's efforts at a time (or group some characters together, if they're cooperating on a single project). Some activities, such as Earning Income, require only a simple roll and some embellishment from you and the player. Other activities are more involved, incorporating encounters or exploration. You can call on the players to play out their downtime activities in any order, though it's often best to do the simplest ones first. Players who aren't part of a more involved activity might have time to take a break from the table while the more complex activities are played out.

Characters can undertake their daily preparations if they want, just as they would on a day of exploration. Ask players to establish a standard set of preparations, and you can assume the characters go through the same routine every day unless their players say otherwise.

Running downtime during a long time off—like several weeks, months, or even years—can be more challenging. However, it's also an opportunity for the characters to progress toward long-term plans rather than worrying about day-today activities. Because so much time is involved, characters don't roll a check for each day. Instead, they deal with a few special events, average out the rest of the downtime, and expend any resources, such as crafting materials.

Players will often look to you for tasks they might take on during downtime, especially if they're looking to Earn Income. You should also interject special events to surprise your players and add interesting scenes. If you need some quick ideas for tasks characters might offer a PC, look at the tables below for inspiration. The Earn Income tasks are arranged with tasks appropriate for low-level PCs first, but most can be adapted to the level you need. For the events, you might need to “zoom in” to focus on a special scene or even a short encounter or adventure.

After an adventure yields a windfall, the characters might have a number of items they want to sell. Likewise, when they're flush with currency, they might want to stock up on gear. It usually takes 1 hour of downtime to sell off a few goods or shop around to buy a couple items. It can take longer to sell off a large number of goods, expensive items, illegal goods, or items that aren't in high demand.

An item can usually be purchased at its full Price and sold for half its Price. Supply and demand can affect these numbers, but only occasionally. However, the game leaves it up to you to determine what items the PCs can and can't purchase and the final market Price for them. Settlements the size of a town or bigger typically have at least one vendor for basic, common gear, and even magic and pharmaceutical items of 1st level. Beyond that, it all depends on how much you want to allow the players to determine their abilities and how much verisimilitude you want in your game. If the settlement has access to a planetwide infosphere, it's usually possible for your PCs to find what they need that way, even if it takes 1-2 days for their item to be delivered via courier or drone. You can set the specifics where you need, but let's look at three possibilities.

PCs can buy what they want where they want. You gloss over the details of markets. PCs can sell whatever they want for half the Price and buy any item to which they have access at full Price. This approach is focused on expediency over verisimilitude and is likely to reduce the number of unusual or distinctive items the PCs have, as many players seek out the ones that most directly support their characters' strengths. This still means there's a limit on purchasing uncommon or rarer items, but you could even do away with rarity if your group wants, or add a surcharge instead (depending on your group's play style, that could be anywhere from 10% to 100% for uncommon items, and 25% to 500% if you also want to open up all rare items).

PCs can buy what they want but must put in additional effort. If they want to sell or buy items, PCs must be in a location where the markets can support that. They can usually sell a single item for half its Price, but the Price for selling something already plentiful on the market could be as low as 25% (or they can ship it to a buyer in another market, if they can find one, making 40% of the item's Price after paying for shipping). Buying an item usually costs the full Price; buying higher-level items (or uncommon items if they're available at all) requires seeking out a special vendor or NPC and can take extra time, representing getting the item shipped to the PCs. They might be unable to find the item at all even after their time investment, based on the settlement's parameters. This approach allows PCs to determine some of their items, but it forces them to really work to get more powerful items and discourages looting every enemy to sell off fairly ordinary armor. This can be the most work for you but can make the world feel diverse and complex.

High-end markets are rare or nonexistent. PCs get what they find in adventures and can Craft their own items, if you allow them to get formulas in some way. If you have high-end marketplaces at all, their selections are small. They sell items at full Price and have difficulty attaining the funds to buy more items. They might purchase items for half of the Price but are far more selective about what they take. If you use this approach, PCs are far more likely to use strange items they find but might be dissatisfied or even underpowered depending on what items you give them. Even in this style of game, you might want to allow them to get upgraded weapons and armor fairly easily, or make sure you award those on a regular basis.

Universal Polymer Base Conversion: You can reduce the amount of time it takes for PCs to sell items by allowing PCs to reduce the items to UPBs. These services can be found at most major settlements and allows the conversion of any tech gear into its base components, resulting in 50% of the equipment's value in UPBs. You might lower the redeemed value up to 10% to represent the cost of using the facilities or the material lost in the process. Magitech and magic gear will only give up to 25% of the item's value, as most of the cost of those items is in the magic that's lost in the process of converting the items to UPBs.

While the amount of credits the PCs can earn during short periods of downtime is significantly less than the value of the loot they gain while adventuring, it can still serve as a satisfying bonus. The PCs might use their credits to outfit themselves better, donate it toward a good cause, or pool it together to save for a major purchase. If you find that a PC tends to forget about their credits or save it up more cautiously than they really need to, offer them rewarding opportunities to spend it. For instance, they might be approached to contribute to a charity in desperate need or sponsor an artist looking for a patron.

Each full 24-hour period a character spends resting during downtime allows them to recover double what they would for an 8-hour rest. They must spend this time resting in a comfortable and secure location, typically in bed.

If they spend significantly longer in bed rest—usually from a few days to a week of downtime—they recover from all damage and most nonpermanent conditions. Characters affected by diseases, long-lasting poisons, or similar afflictions might need to continue attempting saves during downtime. Some curses, permanent injuries, and other situations that require magic or special care to remove don't end automatically during long-term rest.

The retraining rules allow a player to change some character choices, but they rely on you, as the GM, to decide whether the retraining requires a teacher, how long it takes, if it has any associated costs, and if the ability can be retrained at all. It's reasonable for a character to retrain most choices, and you should allow them. Only choices that are truly intrinsic to the character, like a mystic's connection, might be off-limits without extraordinary circumstances. Consider what effort each PC puts forth as they retrain, so you can describe how they feel their abilities change. What kind of research and practice do they do? If they have a teacher, what advice does that teacher give?

You can run a campaign without retraining if you want the PCs to be more bound by their decisions or are running a game without downtime. However, if your campaign doesn't use downtime rules but a player really regrets a decision made while building or leveling up their character, you might make an exception for them by letting them simply change the decision.

Some players enjoy making retraining into a story. Use NPCs the character already knows as teachers, have a character undertake intense research at a university, or ground the retraining in the game's narrative by making it the consequence of something that happened to the character in a previous session.

Sometimes you need to quickly set a difficulty class. The easiest method is to select a simple DC from the Simple DCs table by estimating which proficiency rank best matches the task (that rank is usually not required to succeed at the task). If it's something pretty much anyone would have a decent chance at, use the untrained DC. If it would require a degree of training, use the DC listed for trained, expert, master, or legendary proficiency, as appropriate to the complexity of the task. For example, say a PC was trying to uncover the facts behind an infosphere rumor. You determine this requires a check to Recall Knowledge, and that only someone with master proficiency in Infosphere Lore would know the information, so you'd set the DC at 30—the simple master DC.

Simple DCs work well when you need a DC on the fly and there's no level associated with the task. They're most useful for skill checks. Because there isn't much gradation between the simple DCs, they don't work as well for hazards or combats where the PCs' lives are on the line; you're better off using level-based DCs for such challenges.

When you're determining a skill DC based on something that has a level, use the tables below to set the DC. Find the level of the subject, and assign the corresponding DC. Since spells use a 1–10 scale, use the Spell Rank table for them.

Use these DCs when a PC needs to Identify a Spell or Recall Knowledge about a creature, attempts to Earn Income by performing a task of a certain level, and so on. You can also use the level-based DCs for obstacles instead of assigning a simple DC. For example, you might determine that the walls of a space station were constructed of smooth metal and are hard to climb. You could simply say only someone with master proficiency could climb them and use the simple DC of 30. Or you might decide that the 15th-level mechanic villain who built the station crafted the wall and use the 15th-level DC of 34. Either approach is reasonable!

Note that PCs who invest in a skill become more likely to succeed at a DC of their level as they increase in level, and the listed DCs eventually pose very little challenge for them.

You might decide a DC should differ from the baseline, whether to account for PCs' areas of expertise or to represent the rarity of spells or items. A DC adjustment represents an essential difference in the difficulty of a task and applies to anyone attempting a specific check for it. Adjustments happen most often with tasks whose DCs are based on their level. You'll often apply the adjustments for uncommon, rare, or unique subjects.

The DC Adjustments table lists the categories of adjustments. The adjustments' names are relative to the base difficulty of the task itself—a very hard 2nd-level task will not be “very hard” for a 10th-level PC to accomplish! PCs who invest in a skill will become better and better at that skill as they increase in level. For example, even the best 1st-level PC has grim odds against an incredibly hard 1st-level DC, with a huge chance of critical failure, but by 20th level, an optimized character with a modicum of magic or assistance can take down incredibly hard 20th-level DCs over half the time, critically failing only on a 1. At higher levels, many groups will find that the very hard DC is more like standard for them; keep that in mind if you need a check that presents a true challenge to a high-level group.

You might use different DCs for a task based on the particular skill or statistic used for the check. Let's say your PCs encounter a magical tome about dragons. The tome is 4th-level and has the arcane trait, so you set the DC of an Arcana check to Identify the Magic to 19. As noted in Identify Magic, other magic-related skills can typically be used at a higher DC, so you might decide the check is very hard for a character using Occultism instead and set the DC at 24 for characters using that skill. If a character in your group had Physical Science Lore, you might determine that it would be easy or very easy for them to use that skill and adjust the DC to 17 or 14. These adjustments aren't taking the place of characters' bonuses, modifiers, and penalties—they are due to the applicability of the skills being used.

Sometimes succeeding at a particular task requires a character to have a specific proficiency rank in addition to a success at the check. Locks and traps often require a certain proficiency rank to successfully use the Pick a Lock or Disable a Device actions of Thievery. A character whose proficiency rank is lower than what's listed can attempt the check, but they can't succeed. You can apply similar minimum proficiencies to other tasks. You might decide, for example, that an electronic trap that uses a console requires training in Computers to understand. An untrained soldier can't succeed at the check, but she can attempt it if she wants!

For checks that require a minimum proficiency, keep the following guidelines in mind. A 2nd-level or lower task should almost never require expert proficiency, a 6th-level or lower task should almost never require master proficiency, and a 14th-level or lower task should almost never require legendary proficiency. If they did, no character of the appropriate level could succeed.

You as the GM set the DCs for certain checks or determine other parameters. Here are guidelines for the most common tasks. Remember that all of these are guidelines, and you can adjust them as necessary to suit the situation.

As characters adventure, they earn Experience Points (XP). These awards come from achieving goals, completing social encounters, exploring new places, fighting monsters, overcoming hazards, and other deeds. You have a great deal of control over when the characters gain XP, though the following guidelines are what you're expected to give out in a standard campaign.

Normally, when a player character reaches 1,000 XP or more, they level up, reduce their XP by 1,000, and start progressing toward the next level, though you can choose to advance your players more quickly or slowly if it suits your group. These other means of advancement are noted in the Advancement Speeds sidebar below.

Unlike Experience Points and treasure, which stay with a character, Hero Points are granted and used on a per-session basis. At the start of a game session, you give out 1 Hero Point to each player character. You can also give out more Hero Points during the game, typically after a heroic moment or accomplishment (see below). As noted in Player Core, a player can spend 1 Hero Point for a reroll, or they can spend all their Hero Points to recover when near death.

In a typical game, you'll hand out about 1 Hero Point during each hour of play after the first (for example, 3 extra points in a 4-hour session). If you want a more over-the-top game, or if your group is up against incredible odds and showing immense bravery, you might give them out at a faster rate, like 1 every 30 minutes (6 over a 4-hour session). You might also give them out at a faster rate during a shorter session. Try to ensure each PC has opportunities to earn Hero Points, and avoid granting all of the Hero Points to a single character.

Brave last stands, protecting innocents, and using a smart strategy or spell to save the day could all earn a character a Hero Point. Look for those moments when everybody at the table celebrates or sits back in awe of a character's accomplishments; that's your cue to issue that character a Hero Point.

You can also give out a Hero Point for a less impactful, but still notable moments. A PC landing the killing blow on a difficult foe or successfully navigating a social challenge could earn a Hero Point. There are times when the PCs' actions aren't exceptionally dramatic or world-shattering, but that shouldn't prevent you from handing out a Hero Point as a reward.

The party could also gain Hero Points for their accomplishments throughout the game. For a moderate or major accomplishment, consider giving out a Hero Point as well. This point typically goes to a PC who was instrumental in attaining that accomplishment.

As the GM, it's your job to distribute treasure to the player characters. Treasure appears throughout an adventure, and the PCs obtain it by raiding treasure hoards, defeating foes who carry valuable items or currency, getting paid for successful quests, and any other way you can imagine.

The game's math is based on PCs looking to find, buy, or craft items that are the same level as them—this includes improved weapons and armor, weapon and armor upgrades, augmentations, magical items, tech items, consumable items, and items that help with the PCs' favorite skills or tactics. A PC who gets the item at that level will typically be ahead of the monsters, hazards, and skill DCs briefly, before their challenges start to catch back up. The guidelines for awarding treasure, meanwhile, have you give the party items 1 level higher than the PCs. This means the items found on adventures are more powerful than those a PC could make (which are capped at the PC's level).

The treasure assignment is measured across a level instead of per encounter because some encounters won't have treasure, some will have extra treasure, and some treasure hoards or rewards might be found outside encounters entirely. You always have the freedom to assign extra treasure for a high-powered game, less treasure for a gritty survival horror adventure, or any amount in between.

As you choose treasure, look at the flow of treasure in the campaign, and see which PCs are ahead and which are behind. It's usually best to mix “core items,” treasure linked to a PC's main abilities, with treasure that has unusual, less broadly applicable powers. For instance, the party's envoy might not go out of their way to purchase a diva's microphone, but they'll likely use it if they find it. These items should always be useful—a party without a close-quarters martial character won't have much use for hardlight handwraps. The number of core items to give out depends on you, but make sure the characters have plenty of core options. Consider opening up other options for parties traveling to other parts of the galaxy or visiting other planes.