I have never heard a credible explanation for why sci-fi RPGs have never been as popular as fantasy RPGs. Until Lord of the Rings broke through in the broader culture, the general consensus was that fantasy was commercial death, while sci-fi was both acceptable to the mainstream and able to be taken seriously as a genre. But in the tabletop space, it was the opposite--D&D and its fantasy imitators/competitors dominated, while sci-fi games were often marginalized. Yes, there was Traveller, there were licensed games (especially a couple of well-regarded Star Wars games, none of which, to be honest, I have played), and there are some other excellent games from a design perspective. But nothing remotely approaching D&D, and nothing corresponding to the overall popularity of the genre.
Part of the problem, perhaps, is that I think sci-fi is a broader genre conceptually than fantasy. To take an example, compare the three most recent bits of sci-fi that are in my DVR queue--Guardians of the Galaxy 2, old Babylon 5 episodes, and Season 3 of The Expanse (I suppose you could object that Guardians of the Galaxy is really from the superhero genre because it is part of the all-consuming Marvel Cinematic Universe, but taken on its own terms I think it is definitely sci-fi). These three properties have human-like creatures traveling through space and ships fighting each other and extra-terrestrial life (albeit of radically different sorts), and that's about it for similarities. It's hard to imagine making a sci-fi game which would encompass the feel of all three of these properties, without creating something so open-ended that it is less a game a more a toolkit to design your own game. This might be why, with the exception of Traveller, the most successful sci-fi games have generally been licensed properties--when you pick up a game that says "Star Wars" on the front, you know exactly what you are getting, and in fact that's the point.
Whatever the reasons, fantasy rules the roost in tabeltop RPGs. And so, if you are looking to put out a sci-fi game, it makes sense to find some way to draft on the popularity of fantasy games, and one way to do that is to use the same or similar rules engine as a popular fantasy game. Since most of your potential audience has played the fantasy game, making it as easy as possible to transition to your sci-fi game is a smart play.
This is the exact concept behind both Starfinder and Esper Genesis. Starfinder is Paizo Publishing's reworking of Pathfinder 1st edition for sci-fi, while Esper Genesis by newcomer Alligator Alley Entertainment uses the rules engine of D&D 5th edition. Starfinder has been out for a little over a year, while Esper Genesis is basically brand new.
Despite similar premises, I detect a different feel between the two games. Starfinder strikes me as full-on science fantasy, in the vein of Guardians of the Galaxy. Starfinder is a game of zooming spaceships and humanoid aliens and limited interest in real-world physics and space magic of a couple of different sorts. While Esper Genesis has many of those same elements, it comes across as more explicitly "sci-fi" and less fantasy. The authors of Esper Genesis name-check a number of space opera properties as inspiration, but the one that really jumps out at me in reading Esper Genesis is the video game franchise Mass Effect. No one will mistake Mass Effect for the hard sci-fi of something like The Expanse, but it still fits well within the normal sci-fi space.
Whatever the reasons, fantasy rules the roost in tabeltop RPGs. And so, if you are looking to put out a sci-fi game, it makes sense to find some way to draft on the popularity of fantasy games, and one way to do that is to use the same or similar rules engine as a popular fantasy game. Since most of your potential audience has played the fantasy game, making it as easy as possible to transition to your sci-fi game is a smart play.
This is the exact concept behind both Starfinder and Esper Genesis. Starfinder is Paizo Publishing's reworking of Pathfinder 1st edition for sci-fi, while Esper Genesis by newcomer Alligator Alley Entertainment uses the rules engine of D&D 5th edition. Starfinder has been out for a little over a year, while Esper Genesis is basically brand new.
Despite similar premises, I detect a different feel between the two games. Starfinder strikes me as full-on science fantasy, in the vein of Guardians of the Galaxy. Starfinder is a game of zooming spaceships and humanoid aliens and limited interest in real-world physics and space magic of a couple of different sorts. While Esper Genesis has many of those same elements, it comes across as more explicitly "sci-fi" and less fantasy. The authors of Esper Genesis name-check a number of space opera properties as inspiration, but the one that really jumps out at me in reading Esper Genesis is the video game franchise Mass Effect. No one will mistake Mass Effect for the hard sci-fi of something like The Expanse, but it still fits well within the normal sci-fi space.
Part of the reason that Starfinder feels more like fantasy is that the game is set in the same default fictional universe as Pathfinder, an unknown number of years in the future of Golarion. Unknown, because 300 years ago an unexplained event took away the planet Golarion into some other dimension, replaced it with a giant space station, and erased everyone's memory. Contrived to some degree as this might be, this move effectively breaks any sort of continuity with Pathfinder, so you don't need to know anything about Pathfinder to play or appreciate Starfinder. It is still the same world, however, and so there are still Easter Eggs for Pathfinder fans (many of the deities are the same, the station is named after the featured big city of Golarion, and I think the names of the planets are the same).
In linking Starfinder back to Golarion, the designers do a good job of walking the line between having enough links to satisfy Pathfinder fans, without getting swallowed up by canon. The focus of the setting material is a single solar system with about a dozen planets or other locales, which has been further fleshed out in its own sourcebook. But interstellar travel is available, and the core book only gives a handful of minimalist descriptions of extra-solar worlds. What's smart about this is it allows the GM to mix and match homebrew content with canon material--just put your homebrew stuff in one or more solar systems, and have your game go back and forth between those systems and the Pact Worlds (or not, as you choose). Surely Paizo will eventually detail more solar systems as part of canon--they have demonstrated that they will eventually provide a player/GM as much content as they are willing to buy. But since each solar system is a self-contained unit, none of that needs to muck up the GM's own ideas. This is an advantage sci-fi has over fantasy (which is limited to a defined map), and Starfinder leverages that advantage smartly.
Esper Genesis does a similar thing with its setting. In the universe of the game, certain star systems contain moon-sized hyper-tech artifacts known as Crucibles, and a star ship can travel to any system with a Crucible instantaneously. However, starships can also travel to other systems "the slow way." The setting material in the back of the Core Manual lays out 20 or so key systems with active Crucibles in very rough form, forming the core of the setting a la the Pact Worlds. Based on the statements in the Core Manual, published material will be focused on those key worlds, while leaving the rest of the universe open to GM development. And, if a GM wants to integrate one of his or her creations into the core setting, he or she can just plop a Crucible in that system. Once again, this allows the GM to control the interaction between the "official" material and homebrew material, without worrying about continuity problems.
On the rules side, both games leverage the rules chassis of their parent properties, and indeed that is a big part of the value proposition of the game. Perhaps counter-intuitively, Esper Genesis hews closer to 5e than Starfinder does to Pathfinder, notwithstanding that Esper Genesis is a third-party product and Starfinder is first-party. Esper Genesis makes essentially no changes to the 5e engine--you will find the familiar six attributes, hit points, armor class, advantage/disadvantage, 5e the action economy, etc. Some of the classes use "power points," but that's just the optional spell point rules lifted from the 5e DMG as is. Moreover, the eight classes presented in the Core Rulebook are mostly 5e classes that have been slightly tweaked. So, the Sentinel is basically a Paladin, with the same progression and most of the same abilities, reworked to be a cyber-knight whose cybernetics allow them to talk to God/the universe/the great unknown and which gives them purpose. The class design here is very clever--I particularly liked the way the Warlock is transformed into the Cybermancer, and the Cleric becomes the Engineer (turn undead becomes an EMP pulse that disables drones and other mechanical constructs!). It's more than a simple re-skin, but it's similar enough 5e player will be able to bring forward to Esper Genesis all of their existing knowledge of how to play a particular class. Perhaps the only criticism I can offer is that I was disappointed not to see a transformation of the 5e Bard, though perhaps that reflects the fact that the 5e Bard is a bit OP. Still, some sort of dedicated "face" class would have been nice, and well within genre.
With regard to the classes as a whole, one of the choices I liked was to declare that all of the character classes are basically magical. See, those mysterious Crucibles produce a material called Sorium, which produces limitless energy and powers everyone's technology. Contact with Sorium and the Crucibles also causes some people to become "espers," at a moment of awakening called an "esper genesis." This gives them Phenomenal Cosmic Powers, which manifest in a diversity of forms (i.e. eight different classes). I know some people are really into the idea that "my character gets by through grit and a good weapon, and doesn't need some fancy magic," but for me the "everyone is magic" frees up design space for the less overtly magical classes to still do cool things, and enhances verisimilitude by providing an explanation for some of the D&D-isms like increasing HP (it's one of the reasons I really liked Earthdawn back in the day).
To the extent Esper Genesis is bringing new things to the table, its almost exclusively by addition. There are some simple, and fun, zero-g rules (if you are moving in a particular direction and want to stop, you have to make an Acrobatics check; otherwise, you keep moving in a straight line until you hit something), and a pretty robust set of vehicle rules, including rules for starships and starship combat. These rules are, in keeping with 5e's ethos, pretty simple and abstract, though we are promised more detailed vehicle rules in the forthcoming Master Technicians Guide. I suppose now is an appropriate time to mention that, as of this writing, the core product line for Esper Genesis is not fully available. The Core Manual is basically the PHB with some setting material, with a "monster manual" a/k/a the Threat's Database, and the DMG-esque Master Technicians Guide promised by the end of the year. So, it's not quite a complete game at this point. To that end, there is a free PDF available with a selection of opponents, some rules for Forged equipment (i.e. magic items re-skinned), and a useful set of planet generation charts. That free PDF seems pretty close to essential until the release of the core books, and I wish the Core Manual was more explicit in pointing you in that direction (I stumbled upon it more or less by accident). This unfinished quality makes the game a little hard to fully evaluate--while some obvious things seem to be missing (there's no equipment entry for a spacesuit, as a small example), it could be that those things will be filled in within a few months.
Starfinder, by contrast, "opens up the hood" more on the basic Pathfinder engine, including making changes to some core concepts. Perhaps most interesting is what they did with hit points. They are still there, you get them in more or less the same way (a fixed number per level based on your class), and if you go to zero, you are dying. Only now you also have a pool of stamina points, roughly equal to your hit points (and your Constitution bonus goes to stamina points, not hit points). All damage comes off the stamina points first, and stamina points heal much more quickly. Plus there is a third pool, your resolve points, which can be used to, among other things, fully recover your stamina points after a ten minute rest. In addition, if you go to zero HP, you start to bleed resolve points until you are stabilized or out of points and dead. You can also spend a bunch of resolve points to auto-stabilize, and then if you have resolve left, on your next turn you can spend one point to heal up to 1 HP. By splitting your "take damage" pool into three parts and putting them on different refresh timers (resolve points fully recover after an 8 hour sleep), it allows characters to reflect a wide variety of different states without resorting to permanent injury mechanics or other cumbersome solutions. Because magical and other sorts of true healing seems to be rarer in Starfinder than in fantasy games, losing hit points is punitive without being oppressive, because you can easy get back your stamina point cushion to protect the deeper, more permanent wounds. It's a lot more to keep track of, to be sure, but it does model certain kinds of outcomes in a way that most D&D-based system struggle to reflect.
They also changed the weapon damage math. Weapon damage in Pathfinder, along with all editions of D&D except 4th (and 13th Age, if you want to count that as a "edition" of D&D), doesn't meaningfully scale with level. At 1st level, a long sword does 1d8 points of damage; at 20th level, a long sword does 1d8 points of damage. Even if you have the best magical long sword available, a long sword +5, only does 1d8+5 damage. Meanwhile, hit points increase 20-fold from 1st to 20th, far outstripping weapon damage. Starfinder has levels of gear, so you begin with a weak laser pistol and over time get a better laser pistol that has more damage dice. It's not obvious to me how that is explained in-game, other than "this costs more" and "this is the awesome stuff for more awesome heroes; that is the scrub stuff for scrubs." But I have a high tolerance for that sort of handwaving, so I am not particularly bothered by that. And this change should make high-level combat less of a grind, though I haven't played at those levels to know for sure.
Gear and gear acquisition is clearly a big part on the Starfinder experience. In fact, I got the sense that it might end up playing like an RPG version of a looter-shooter video game such as Destiny or Borderlands--there are mechanics for taking your existing gear and improving it, splicing in various sorts of upgrades, the default assumption is that you will trade in your lesser gear for better gear you find or buy, etc. Actually, Destiny (along with Guardians of the Galaxy) is a good comp for the feel of the setting, in its fusion of science and fantasy elements. Obviously, this gear focus is not some radical new development--every version of D&D is gear focused to one degree or another--but not every sci-fi games goes down this road. But, as D&D and Pathfinder and all of its cousins prove, a high adventure loot-based game can be very compelling.
Part of the gear game involves space ships. The default assumption here is that the party has a space ship, and it levels up as the characters level up, without having to spend money. That's a departure from the approach taken from something like Traveller, where a big portion of game play is (or, at least, can be) running your ship like a small business. Esper Genesis of course has space ships, but perhaps in keeping with the flatter 5e math, there does not seem to be a focus on "leveling-up" your space ship (though, of course, that might be forthcoming in the Master Technicians Handbook). One thing I can say about the space combat in Starfinder is that it is pretty tactical, and pretty slow, especially if you have multiple smaller ships. One space combat in a Starfinder Society game involving our ship fighting off a half-dozen fighters took almost two hours, though to be fair both the GM and the players were pretty green. Slow starship combat is not exactly some radical new problem in tabletop RPGs, but it is a problem and worth throwing out there. Also, it should be noted that I have not used Esper Genesis's starship combat rules "in the field," so I can't really speak to the speed or complexity of those systems (though, just from reading them, they seem simpler).
Notwithstanding the starship combat rules, the consensus among devoted Paizo stans is that Starfinder overall moves the Pathfinder rules in the direction of simplification. As I mentioned in my Pathfinder 2nd Edition playtest post, I am not deeply immersed in Pathfinder enough to be able to have an informed judgment on that. But one shouldn't get the wrong idea--it's still a tactical, crunchy game by any measure. Combat is still on the 5ft square grid. There are in the neighborhood of two dozen status conditions. Character creation is very option-focused, just like Pathfinder (and now with three different major choices--race, class, and theme--as opposed to just race and class). My experience playing some demos and a couple of sessions of Starfinder Society is that all of this fits together smoothly and the table experience is quite good, but reading the 528 page core rulebook while contemplating GMing Starfinder is intimidating. That's not to say it's not doable--it's not brain surgery, I've run more complex games before, and it gets easier the more you do it--but it is still a big task to take on, especially for those with limited Pathfinder background.
As an aside, this might be an issue for me with the way Paizo writes its rulebooks. I pulled the Pathfinder core rulebook off the shelf last night and opened it to the combat chapter, and I thought that I was going to bleed out of my eyes. And, yet, my experience playing Pathfinder (limited though it is) is that it really isn't that bad. Conversely, I've had almost opposite experience with 5th Edition D&D--it reads like it is incredibly simple and straight-forward, but I found running it that there were edge cases and weird nuances that didn't come to the forefront until playing. To be clear, I'm not saying that Pathfinder or Starfinder are poorly written, because they are not (or 5e for that matter). I think that for whatever reason it doesn't interface with my brain as easily or cleanly as other presentations.
As with Esper Genesis, the most notable omission from the Starfinder corebook is the almost complete lack of any monsters, aliens, or other antagonists (there is a CR20 uber-goblin that almost seems to have been thrown in as a joke). If you want to run Starfinder, you likely need the Alien Archive, which has all the critters. In Paizo's defense, there were no monsters in the Pathfinder core rulebook, either; you needed the Bestiary for any kind of antagonists. Also, alien/monster stats are available in the SRD which can be assessed online for free, so it's not completely gated behind an additional buy [in the interest of equal time, Esper Genesis also has a robust free version of the rules for download, though it includes only some of the classes and races a la the 5e SRD]. Still, I would have liked to see even a few opponents, if only to allow GMs to get a sense of what opposition they should be throwing at players. In the case of Pathfinder, because it was so grounded in previous D&D experiences, someone brand new to Pathfinder might be able to fake it without the Bestiary. I for one have little idea of where to go antagonist-wise absent the looking at the Alien Archive material, not just in terms of stats but in terms of ideas. Starfinder might have fantasy elements, but it is different enough that you can't just draw from your pool of normal antagonists. Even a few ideas pointing you in a direction would have been nice.
To be fair, Esper Genesis is maybe worse in this regard. The Core Manual name-checks things like "the Shadow Technocracy" and the "Lorendi Imperium" and gives you either no information (in the case of the Shadow Technocracy) or only the most skeletal information (for the Lorendi) about them. Again, you get a little more help stats-wise with the free PDF, but my biggest complaint with the Core Manual is that it could have really benefited from another ten to fifteen more pages of setting material. I'm hoping the Threats Database is not just stats, but also lore and fluff material (for what it's worth, the Alien Archive is excellent in that regard). That kind of material really transforms a monster book from something totally utilitarian into a truly excellent product (and is why the 13th Age Bestiary is maybe my favorite product I own), but Esper Genesis is particularly crying out for this kind of support.
One last note about the physical presentation--both are beautiful books. For Starfinder , this is not a surprise, as it is basically in line with Paizo's usual high standards. But Esper Genesis is every bit as nice, and for my taste a little nicer, as Starfinder--the Esper Genesis art is a little more photo-realistic and a little less cartoonish, which is purely a personal preference of mine. Alligator Alley Entertainment is a relatively new company, but you would never know that from looking at Esper Genesis, and that makes the visual design an even more impressive achievement. Esper Genesis can stack up toe-to-toe with products from Wizards, Paizo, MCG, and some of the top producers from a visual perspective, and it give me a ton of confidence and encouragement for what they might do in the future.
Six months ago, I would have told you that sci-fi conversions of fantasy games are a bad idea. But Starfinder and Esper Genesis are truly excellent products and product lines, and I'm a convert to them and their virtues. I have very little interest in Pathfinder or Pathfinder Society, but I play Starfinder Society quasi-regularly now. And Esper Genesis has really dug its claws into me. In particular, the setting of Esper Genesis really hits the sweet spot for me--a big part of the reason I am frustrated at the lack of a description of the Shadow Technocracy in the Core Manual is that the Shadow Technocracy seems incredibly cool and I want to know more about its clearly Evil Plans. I could see myself running Esper Genesis, maybe even as part of their new organized play program. While the presentation of the setting is not particularly detailed, what is there is very attractive and flavorful. If the idea was to Keep 'Em Wanting More, then it worked, because I want more.
If you want an accessible way to play sci-fi, one that will not require you or your players to start from scratch with brand new rules concepts, both Starfinder and Esper Genesis are compelling options. Which one is for you depends in large measure on the underlying products they are based on. If you don't like the way 5e plays, then you will not like Esper Genesis; if you think Pathfinder is too complicated, then you will likely find Starfinder to have the same problems. The learning curve for Starfinder is steeper than Esper Genesis, but Starfinder is a more complete game right now. But within their respective lanes, both games do an excellent job of leveraging the familiar fantasy base while presenting a full-featured sci-fi experience.
In linking Starfinder back to Golarion, the designers do a good job of walking the line between having enough links to satisfy Pathfinder fans, without getting swallowed up by canon. The focus of the setting material is a single solar system with about a dozen planets or other locales, which has been further fleshed out in its own sourcebook. But interstellar travel is available, and the core book only gives a handful of minimalist descriptions of extra-solar worlds. What's smart about this is it allows the GM to mix and match homebrew content with canon material--just put your homebrew stuff in one or more solar systems, and have your game go back and forth between those systems and the Pact Worlds (or not, as you choose). Surely Paizo will eventually detail more solar systems as part of canon--they have demonstrated that they will eventually provide a player/GM as much content as they are willing to buy. But since each solar system is a self-contained unit, none of that needs to muck up the GM's own ideas. This is an advantage sci-fi has over fantasy (which is limited to a defined map), and Starfinder leverages that advantage smartly.
On the rules side, both games leverage the rules chassis of their parent properties, and indeed that is a big part of the value proposition of the game. Perhaps counter-intuitively, Esper Genesis hews closer to 5e than Starfinder does to Pathfinder, notwithstanding that Esper Genesis is a third-party product and Starfinder is first-party. Esper Genesis makes essentially no changes to the 5e engine--you will find the familiar six attributes, hit points, armor class, advantage/disadvantage, 5e the action economy, etc. Some of the classes use "power points," but that's just the optional spell point rules lifted from the 5e DMG as is. Moreover, the eight classes presented in the Core Rulebook are mostly 5e classes that have been slightly tweaked. So, the Sentinel is basically a Paladin, with the same progression and most of the same abilities, reworked to be a cyber-knight whose cybernetics allow them to talk to God/the universe/the great unknown and which gives them purpose. The class design here is very clever--I particularly liked the way the Warlock is transformed into the Cybermancer, and the Cleric becomes the Engineer (turn undead becomes an EMP pulse that disables drones and other mechanical constructs!). It's more than a simple re-skin, but it's similar enough 5e player will be able to bring forward to Esper Genesis all of their existing knowledge of how to play a particular class. Perhaps the only criticism I can offer is that I was disappointed not to see a transformation of the 5e Bard, though perhaps that reflects the fact that the 5e Bard is a bit OP. Still, some sort of dedicated "face" class would have been nice, and well within genre.
With regard to the classes as a whole, one of the choices I liked was to declare that all of the character classes are basically magical. See, those mysterious Crucibles produce a material called Sorium, which produces limitless energy and powers everyone's technology. Contact with Sorium and the Crucibles also causes some people to become "espers," at a moment of awakening called an "esper genesis." This gives them Phenomenal Cosmic Powers, which manifest in a diversity of forms (i.e. eight different classes). I know some people are really into the idea that "my character gets by through grit and a good weapon, and doesn't need some fancy magic," but for me the "everyone is magic" frees up design space for the less overtly magical classes to still do cool things, and enhances verisimilitude by providing an explanation for some of the D&D-isms like increasing HP (it's one of the reasons I really liked Earthdawn back in the day).
To the extent Esper Genesis is bringing new things to the table, its almost exclusively by addition. There are some simple, and fun, zero-g rules (if you are moving in a particular direction and want to stop, you have to make an Acrobatics check; otherwise, you keep moving in a straight line until you hit something), and a pretty robust set of vehicle rules, including rules for starships and starship combat. These rules are, in keeping with 5e's ethos, pretty simple and abstract, though we are promised more detailed vehicle rules in the forthcoming Master Technicians Guide. I suppose now is an appropriate time to mention that, as of this writing, the core product line for Esper Genesis is not fully available. The Core Manual is basically the PHB with some setting material, with a "monster manual" a/k/a the Threat's Database, and the DMG-esque Master Technicians Guide promised by the end of the year. So, it's not quite a complete game at this point. To that end, there is a free PDF available with a selection of opponents, some rules for Forged equipment (i.e. magic items re-skinned), and a useful set of planet generation charts. That free PDF seems pretty close to essential until the release of the core books, and I wish the Core Manual was more explicit in pointing you in that direction (I stumbled upon it more or less by accident). This unfinished quality makes the game a little hard to fully evaluate--while some obvious things seem to be missing (there's no equipment entry for a spacesuit, as a small example), it could be that those things will be filled in within a few months.
Starfinder, by contrast, "opens up the hood" more on the basic Pathfinder engine, including making changes to some core concepts. Perhaps most interesting is what they did with hit points. They are still there, you get them in more or less the same way (a fixed number per level based on your class), and if you go to zero, you are dying. Only now you also have a pool of stamina points, roughly equal to your hit points (and your Constitution bonus goes to stamina points, not hit points). All damage comes off the stamina points first, and stamina points heal much more quickly. Plus there is a third pool, your resolve points, which can be used to, among other things, fully recover your stamina points after a ten minute rest. In addition, if you go to zero HP, you start to bleed resolve points until you are stabilized or out of points and dead. You can also spend a bunch of resolve points to auto-stabilize, and then if you have resolve left, on your next turn you can spend one point to heal up to 1 HP. By splitting your "take damage" pool into three parts and putting them on different refresh timers (resolve points fully recover after an 8 hour sleep), it allows characters to reflect a wide variety of different states without resorting to permanent injury mechanics or other cumbersome solutions. Because magical and other sorts of true healing seems to be rarer in Starfinder than in fantasy games, losing hit points is punitive without being oppressive, because you can easy get back your stamina point cushion to protect the deeper, more permanent wounds. It's a lot more to keep track of, to be sure, but it does model certain kinds of outcomes in a way that most D&D-based system struggle to reflect.
They also changed the weapon damage math. Weapon damage in Pathfinder, along with all editions of D&D except 4th (and 13th Age, if you want to count that as a "edition" of D&D), doesn't meaningfully scale with level. At 1st level, a long sword does 1d8 points of damage; at 20th level, a long sword does 1d8 points of damage. Even if you have the best magical long sword available, a long sword +5, only does 1d8+5 damage. Meanwhile, hit points increase 20-fold from 1st to 20th, far outstripping weapon damage. Starfinder has levels of gear, so you begin with a weak laser pistol and over time get a better laser pistol that has more damage dice. It's not obvious to me how that is explained in-game, other than "this costs more" and "this is the awesome stuff for more awesome heroes; that is the scrub stuff for scrubs." But I have a high tolerance for that sort of handwaving, so I am not particularly bothered by that. And this change should make high-level combat less of a grind, though I haven't played at those levels to know for sure.
Gear and gear acquisition is clearly a big part on the Starfinder experience. In fact, I got the sense that it might end up playing like an RPG version of a looter-shooter video game such as Destiny or Borderlands--there are mechanics for taking your existing gear and improving it, splicing in various sorts of upgrades, the default assumption is that you will trade in your lesser gear for better gear you find or buy, etc. Actually, Destiny (along with Guardians of the Galaxy) is a good comp for the feel of the setting, in its fusion of science and fantasy elements. Obviously, this gear focus is not some radical new development--every version of D&D is gear focused to one degree or another--but not every sci-fi games goes down this road. But, as D&D and Pathfinder and all of its cousins prove, a high adventure loot-based game can be very compelling.
Part of the gear game involves space ships. The default assumption here is that the party has a space ship, and it levels up as the characters level up, without having to spend money. That's a departure from the approach taken from something like Traveller, where a big portion of game play is (or, at least, can be) running your ship like a small business. Esper Genesis of course has space ships, but perhaps in keeping with the flatter 5e math, there does not seem to be a focus on "leveling-up" your space ship (though, of course, that might be forthcoming in the Master Technicians Handbook). One thing I can say about the space combat in Starfinder is that it is pretty tactical, and pretty slow, especially if you have multiple smaller ships. One space combat in a Starfinder Society game involving our ship fighting off a half-dozen fighters took almost two hours, though to be fair both the GM and the players were pretty green. Slow starship combat is not exactly some radical new problem in tabletop RPGs, but it is a problem and worth throwing out there. Also, it should be noted that I have not used Esper Genesis's starship combat rules "in the field," so I can't really speak to the speed or complexity of those systems (though, just from reading them, they seem simpler).
Notwithstanding the starship combat rules, the consensus among devoted Paizo stans is that Starfinder overall moves the Pathfinder rules in the direction of simplification. As I mentioned in my Pathfinder 2nd Edition playtest post, I am not deeply immersed in Pathfinder enough to be able to have an informed judgment on that. But one shouldn't get the wrong idea--it's still a tactical, crunchy game by any measure. Combat is still on the 5ft square grid. There are in the neighborhood of two dozen status conditions. Character creation is very option-focused, just like Pathfinder (and now with three different major choices--race, class, and theme--as opposed to just race and class). My experience playing some demos and a couple of sessions of Starfinder Society is that all of this fits together smoothly and the table experience is quite good, but reading the 528 page core rulebook while contemplating GMing Starfinder is intimidating. That's not to say it's not doable--it's not brain surgery, I've run more complex games before, and it gets easier the more you do it--but it is still a big task to take on, especially for those with limited Pathfinder background.
As an aside, this might be an issue for me with the way Paizo writes its rulebooks. I pulled the Pathfinder core rulebook off the shelf last night and opened it to the combat chapter, and I thought that I was going to bleed out of my eyes. And, yet, my experience playing Pathfinder (limited though it is) is that it really isn't that bad. Conversely, I've had almost opposite experience with 5th Edition D&D--it reads like it is incredibly simple and straight-forward, but I found running it that there were edge cases and weird nuances that didn't come to the forefront until playing. To be clear, I'm not saying that Pathfinder or Starfinder are poorly written, because they are not (or 5e for that matter). I think that for whatever reason it doesn't interface with my brain as easily or cleanly as other presentations.
As with Esper Genesis, the most notable omission from the Starfinder corebook is the almost complete lack of any monsters, aliens, or other antagonists (there is a CR20 uber-goblin that almost seems to have been thrown in as a joke). If you want to run Starfinder, you likely need the Alien Archive, which has all the critters. In Paizo's defense, there were no monsters in the Pathfinder core rulebook, either; you needed the Bestiary for any kind of antagonists. Also, alien/monster stats are available in the SRD which can be assessed online for free, so it's not completely gated behind an additional buy [in the interest of equal time, Esper Genesis also has a robust free version of the rules for download, though it includes only some of the classes and races a la the 5e SRD]. Still, I would have liked to see even a few opponents, if only to allow GMs to get a sense of what opposition they should be throwing at players. In the case of Pathfinder, because it was so grounded in previous D&D experiences, someone brand new to Pathfinder might be able to fake it without the Bestiary. I for one have little idea of where to go antagonist-wise absent the looking at the Alien Archive material, not just in terms of stats but in terms of ideas. Starfinder might have fantasy elements, but it is different enough that you can't just draw from your pool of normal antagonists. Even a few ideas pointing you in a direction would have been nice.
To be fair, Esper Genesis is maybe worse in this regard. The Core Manual name-checks things like "the Shadow Technocracy" and the "Lorendi Imperium" and gives you either no information (in the case of the Shadow Technocracy) or only the most skeletal information (for the Lorendi) about them. Again, you get a little more help stats-wise with the free PDF, but my biggest complaint with the Core Manual is that it could have really benefited from another ten to fifteen more pages of setting material. I'm hoping the Threats Database is not just stats, but also lore and fluff material (for what it's worth, the Alien Archive is excellent in that regard). That kind of material really transforms a monster book from something totally utilitarian into a truly excellent product (and is why the 13th Age Bestiary is maybe my favorite product I own), but Esper Genesis is particularly crying out for this kind of support.
One last note about the physical presentation--both are beautiful books. For Starfinder , this is not a surprise, as it is basically in line with Paizo's usual high standards. But Esper Genesis is every bit as nice, and for my taste a little nicer, as Starfinder--the Esper Genesis art is a little more photo-realistic and a little less cartoonish, which is purely a personal preference of mine. Alligator Alley Entertainment is a relatively new company, but you would never know that from looking at Esper Genesis, and that makes the visual design an even more impressive achievement. Esper Genesis can stack up toe-to-toe with products from Wizards, Paizo, MCG, and some of the top producers from a visual perspective, and it give me a ton of confidence and encouragement for what they might do in the future.
Six months ago, I would have told you that sci-fi conversions of fantasy games are a bad idea. But Starfinder and Esper Genesis are truly excellent products and product lines, and I'm a convert to them and their virtues. I have very little interest in Pathfinder or Pathfinder Society, but I play Starfinder Society quasi-regularly now. And Esper Genesis has really dug its claws into me. In particular, the setting of Esper Genesis really hits the sweet spot for me--a big part of the reason I am frustrated at the lack of a description of the Shadow Technocracy in the Core Manual is that the Shadow Technocracy seems incredibly cool and I want to know more about its clearly Evil Plans. I could see myself running Esper Genesis, maybe even as part of their new organized play program. While the presentation of the setting is not particularly detailed, what is there is very attractive and flavorful. If the idea was to Keep 'Em Wanting More, then it worked, because I want more.
If you want an accessible way to play sci-fi, one that will not require you or your players to start from scratch with brand new rules concepts, both Starfinder and Esper Genesis are compelling options. Which one is for you depends in large measure on the underlying products they are based on. If you don't like the way 5e plays, then you will not like Esper Genesis; if you think Pathfinder is too complicated, then you will likely find Starfinder to have the same problems. The learning curve for Starfinder is steeper than Esper Genesis, but Starfinder is a more complete game right now. But within their respective lanes, both games do an excellent job of leveraging the familiar fantasy base while presenting a full-featured sci-fi experience.
Great review! Thank you for sharing that.
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