“So who's going to GM now that Eric's taken that job in Australia?” Alice is the youngest in our gaming group… which isn't saying much: We're all within a year of each other. A petite and athletic redhead who's very clearly NOT interested in guys. She has a steady job selling jewelry at one of those big all-in-one stores.

  “One of us will need to bite the bullet,” that's Charlene, a tall busty brunette who also happens to be the reason we know not to bother hitting on Alice: They're very much the couple. They've told us they “don't do that chauvinistic monogamy nonsense that's founded on oppressing women,” and that it's an open retionship, but… well, Charlene clearly isn't into guys either. They're good gamers and fun friends, but that's where it ends for me. She sells makeup to bored housewives in one of those multi-level marketing schemes… works for her, at least.

  “There was a ‘looking for pyers’ posting at the game store that looked fun… Starfinder, from the description… which was entirely in character, I might add.” That's Brett. He was a linebacker when we were in college together… he has a doctorate in culinary arts and is a chef at a rather fancy restaurant downtown. He hasn't stopped his workout routine, though: I would not be even slightly surprised to see him bench press a small car. He had an on again/off again thing going with Eric for a while… but I have also caught him checking out Charlene, and am pretty sure he's Bi.

  “We can check it out; what's the worst that can happen?” and that's me, David. Soda bottle gsses, noodle arms, and I'm flipping burgers at a fast-food joint despite having a doctorate in Artificial Intelligence… all the good jobs seem to be elsewhere, so I expect I'll be moving soon too… although I suspect Eric left mostly due to the test blow-up with Brett. I'm the only straight man in the bunch.

  Also, yes: A, B, C, D, and E. That rampant coincidence led to the name we always use for our parties.

  “Great…” Brett nods, “The guy who posted it was talking to Gabby about renting one of the open tables at the shop when I was there not five minutes ago… he's probably still there.”

  “Let's go, then…” I agree, Charlene and Alice nod, and we all pile into Brett's van.

  Brett drives us to Gabby's (she finally put her name on the store after the third time she moved into double the previous location's space… it's just a little tiny note compared to the rest of the sign, but everyone refers to it as Gabby's, and has since she bought the first one). The pce isn't crowded at this time of day… most of the staff are busy setting things up for ter: Checking stock, filling the shelves, making sure the tables are clean, and so on… because there won't be time or elbow room in a few hours when csses let out at the local high school… but it's open for the handful of shoppers that have evening work schedules, like us.

  The prospective Game Master is obvious: Partly because Brett is walking right up to him, sure. But he's also sitting patiently at a table with four tablet computers waiting at chairs, him at the end of the table with five tablets on mounts in front of him. The man himself is wearing a business suit, his bck hair is neatly trimmed, and for some odd reason he has a wristwatch on each hand.

  Brett starts, “Are you still looking for pyers?”

  “I'm recruiting, yes,” The man smiles, “I am Ferdinand, and I need four souls to brave the sea of stars to bring an end to the reign of Garret Garibaldi. It will be a long and perilous journey fraught with danger: Battles on nd, at sea, in the air, and among the stars. Strange worlds and creatures. You are not ready as you are… we will need to empower you for the journey. Are you willing to join the cause?”

  Okay, this guy seems fun and prepared, a little over the top but… well, worst case scenario we can simply ghost him. I gnce at my friends, “I'm game.”

  “Sounds like a bst,” Alice assents with a smile.

  “Count me in,” Charlene comments with a Cheshire grin.

  "Let's get this party started," that's Brett.

  The man nods, “Wonderful! I have four seats avaible, so if you'll sit down we can begin setting you up for your mission.”

  We all sit down and the tablets boot up… Macrohard's Doors operating system? Huh, it must be some Linux distribution. The tablets go into a character creation screen immediately… looks like Starfinder to me, which makes sense with the pitch.

  “Now, I have a budget for rules bending for this new world you'll be joining; what advantages do you think you need?” our game master starts.

  Alice speaks up first, “I've been shafted by the dice before in stats and treasure rolls… can we get a generous point buy and assured wealth by level?”

  Ferdinand nods, “Easily; that barely touches the budget. Does a starting array of eighteen, sixteen, fourteen, twelve, ten, and eight work for you? As to the other… yes, but that makes disposable items… problematic. ” Huh, that's a graph, not just formatting on the left? The bar at the edge just went up a little.

  “I can understand that concern,” Alice nods along.

  “So… yes, I can have you reset to ay least standard wealth at long rests, but disposable items bought out of that cost five times as much as normal… because they become daily resources.” Huh, bar went up a bit more… we have a lot of room left, though, based on the outline.

  “Mama like,” my friend who is a girl (but not my girlfriend) nods. For comparison, the core rules have starting arrays of eighteen, fourteen, eleven, and three tens; two sixteens, one eleven, and three tens; or three fourteens, one eleven, and two tens. That array is basically double the standard point buy.

  “I never have enough build resources… can we get Gestalt, and maybe get some extra feats?” That's Brett. He's always toying with builds, trying to get some new concept or other running.

  “Not an issue,” the man in the suit agrees. Basically it means we're getting double the normal css features. And that bar went up again, more this time. He has some kind of a point buy for this? Huh.

  Charlene's turn, “I'd like access to all the things - items from other systems, subsystem that don't come with inherent downsides like Mythic and combat stamina from Pathfinder, all those nutty spells in Pathfinder and 3.5, 3rd party d20 content, and so on.”

  “There's some limits, but I can go through the adaptation for anything you want, no problem. Mythic… I can tie to your experience gain from the enemies you defeat. Say, every even level, so starting with Mythic-1 at second and end with Mythic-10 at level twenty.” Okay, that got the bar almost all the way to the top.

  “Sounds good,” the busty brunette is all smiles.

  “If it's going to be dangerous… what about repcement characters?” I consider, “Can we reroll without losing levels?”

  Huh, this one makes the GM pause, “Hmm… a simple version would put me over budget, but not by much…” his mouth moves for a bit, like he's talking to someone… he even pauses like he's listening to a response… and then he speaks again, “all right, we can mostly make it work as long as at least one of you stays active to work as the entry point, but you'll need to come back during a long rest and there's a few side effects…”

  Eh, he probably means temporary negative levels or something… “Sounds good,” I jump in as I watch the bar hit the top.

  “Great!” Ferdinand smiles, “So now that we're all on the same page, let's get down to business….”

  For our ship, we do the Squad Combat option, having two Fighters with a Unification Matrix. The “joined” ship has long-range sensors, a gray cloaking device (minimal for now, but sensors that can penetrate it still need to be nearby), a basic Drift drive, shields, and the fastest engines we can fit on her. The component fighters are slow and have an actual weapon (one each: A magic torpedo unit because of their long range and ability to shoot sideways), but no jump drive or cloaking device. We figure once we hit sixth or seventh level we'll drop the Unification Matrix and go with the HQ option for our Squadron; it's better point-wise, but it's not viable until at least tier six due to the requirements on an HQ and the low points for it).

  We additionally grab the Mech variant from Starfinder, building two Tier-1 mechs using the Skyspy frame (we pn to make that four tier-1 mechs next level… or maybe not, there's some fun things we can do with two pilots per mech), going with a high-end Eternal power core. We make sure to grant them two ranged weapons (Laser Rifle and Rocket Launcher), a melee weapon (chain whip), and then focus on mobility (the Skyspy frame flies natively, and we add the Auger legs to give it a Burrow speed), stealth (the Skyspy qualifies for a cloaker for invisibility and reconnaissance array for better senses; we fill the third auxiliary slot with an ammo reserve for ranged endurance), and we otherwise focus on various defenses with the leftover points (hit points, shield points, saves, and such via the Upgrades). They're good for scouting, and should do fine in a fight we expect… or just be good for loading the cargo bays in the ship; whichever. We won't be able to deploy them quickly until we can afford a mech bay, though… which should be level two.

  We all take variations on the same race, using Pathfinder's Race Builder at twenty-five points: We go with the undead type (it comes with a ton of immunities, and lets us use Charisma in pce if Constitution to make our status array even better, because that's part of the description in Pathfinder's race builder), get Focused Study (for the free Skill Focus feats at first, eighth, and sixteenth... which we trade out for Skill Acuity from the Vocation sphere in Spheres of Power, because skill difficulty checks scale at one and all half with level in Starfinder, which means that plus ranks keeps up perfectly), Fast (because we might need to run away occasionally) and a second level at-will spell-like ability (which we vary). We also all take Profession(UPB Production) and Sleight of Hand for our background skills, so we can make money easily when we're not in an adventure.

  Alice goes with an Operative//Conscript, doubling down on skills and the mundane, getting a biped mech suit from the Pilot sphere… which increases her Dexterity and Strength, nets her scaling armor that will keep up with game expectations, gives her a bunch of bonus hit points to py with, and lets her have weapons while keeping her hands free. She uses the Barrage Sphere to get unlimited ammunition as well. Further, she does team py and takes Advanced Warning to let us stop being ft-footed on her turn. For her spell-like ability, she grabs Divine Insight, a nice little spell from Spell Compendium that gives a rge, scaling bonus to a skill check; as an at-will, she can simply repce it each time she uses it. She skips Computers and Mysticism (Brett and Charlene have those covered, including a scaling css bonus), but for most practical purposes she ends up with all of the Starfinder skills.

  Brett goes with a Mystic//Incanter, taking the Dreamer connection (for the sixth level feature, he tells me; I look it up: Okay, yes, that's very broken), swapping out his first level connection power for the Sor Fre Epiphany (essentially a small arm that scales, with infinite ammunition… and he can upgrade it with Sorion Weapon Crystals). He takes Invisibility for his at-will, and goes hog-wild on his Magic Talents on the Spheres side, focusing heavily on that.

  Charlene goes with a pet focus. A Technomancer with the Drone Technomancy alternative css feature, also selecting Incanter for the Gestalt css. With Creature Companion Adept for her feat, she picks up a klikharp companion: A move action to tell her drone to fire and a standard to tell her Creature Companion to do the same, she won't need to use a actual weapon directly until she qualifies for Creature Companion Expert at fourth level. She goes with Wings of Cover for her spell-like; it interrupts incoming attacks at a rate of one per round. Her Incanter side goes to long-duration Conjuration Companions; there will be no ck of bodies while she's around, even if she can only natively afford to summon one a day for now.

  I skip Starfinder csses entirely (Alice has skill checks covered quite well), and focus on being a survivor. I take the Spheres Arcanist to be able to have any magic talent I like quickly, and the Spirit Bde Armorist (also from Spheres of Power) to be the loot rather than a target. For general interaction I grab two Conjuration Companions from Spheres of Power Summon (with some drawbacks that will usually be meaningless for me to make them stick around all day and get a spare for when they're first gets… forcibly un-summoned by getting shot to death), the Tech sphere to keep all of our gear charged up, and then Destruction Sphere in my Moldable Talent (I can swap it out quickly with the Quick Study exploit if I need). For my spell-like, I go with Heroic Fortune, as it gives anyone a free hero point to py with each time I cast it… which can be used to recharge per day abilities, such as spell slots, spell points, a Mystic's base healing ability, and so on: I'm pnning on being the party's recharging station (which means everyone will be at full power all the time). In battle, I'll have pre-summoned a minion, whom I will have wield me as a gun. The summon fires with its actions, and I fire again with mine. Sadly, the minion is an Outsider, so I will need to provide armor so it can breathe, but that's not a big deal as I don't need to wear armor myself, nor do I need to pay for a weapon.

  When we're done sorting out our first level, Ferdinand speaks up, “So, before we get started: Do you have a name for your group?”

  I giggle, and Alice starts the routine with a smile, “We are your first bet.”

  Brett can't help chuckling a little as he does the second part, “We are your best bet.”

  Charlene is grinning like the Cheshire Cat as she does her setup for the group speech, “We are…”

  We all join in, speaking in sync for the final bit: “...The Alpha Bet Club!”

  Ferdinand smiles, there's a sound like electrical buzzing, and then the world goes white….