Review: Deck of Many Worlds and Space Station Flip-Tiles (Paizo)

In the futuristic universe of Starfinder, players can experience an endless number of fantastical and unique planets, all teeming with curious, exotic, and often dangerous species and locations.

But before the player characters can launch their explorations, some trusty game master needs to imagine, create, and design everything.

From the atmospheres and occupants of a system’s planets to the twists and turns of an all-too-innocent-looking space station’s corridors, creating the concepts and maps for every adventure takes an incredible imginative investment.

Two new tools from Paizo will definitely lighten that creative load. With the Deck of Many Worlds and the Filp-Tiles Space Station Starter Set, a GM with a few minutes to spare can invent anything from a whole solar system to an abandoned space station without breaking a sweat.

Let’s take a closer look at top things you need to know about these official Starfinder accessories.

Many Worlds in a Deck

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It’s incredibly difficult to create, design, and populate a whole star system of unique planets. It’s apparently so hard that even our real solar system of eight (or nine — we’re rooting for you, Pluto) planets has four made up mostly of gasses. Talk about running out of ideas quickly.

Thankfully, this is where the Deck of Many Worlds comes into play.

The deck allows you to create a nearly unlimited number of unique and amazing planets, all immediately open for exploration and adventure. And you do it by drawing and matching cards.

Laying out the Cards

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The majority of the 110-card deck consists of double-sided cards showing a planet type and general options on one side, with a race, creature, general description, and an innovative attribute key on the other. The rest of the cards explain what the various entries mean and how to use the deck.

Creating a planet is simple. Draw a random card for the planet type, such as “terrestrial world” for example. That starts you with gravity, atmosphere, biomes, and an inventive story hook for developing your stories.

Next, draw another card and filp it to the race/creature/attribute side. Line up the attribute bar next to the planet card to see the planet’s approach to technology, alignment, religion, magic use, and internal conflict. Boom — instant planet, complete with population and problems!

To Space (Stations) and Beyond

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Now that you know about the planets, it’s time to populate them with places of interest. For that, turn to the Starfinder Flip-Tiles Space Station Starter Set.

This boxed set contains 42 double sided full-color map tiles. Mix and match these 6” square tiles to create mazes of corridors, staterooms, labs, and recreation areas.

Feel free to sketch in furniture, crates, or destroyed areas because the tiles use the same marker-resistant coating as Paizo’s maps. Use your choice of wet, dry, and even permanent markers, because they all come off the tiles. It’s as close to magic as we get these days.

As the GM, you can use the tiles to create whatever sort of station you want. Float it in the atmosphere of a gas giant that’s incapable of supporting a surface settlement. Place it into orbit around mineral rich world where corporations and guilds squabble over mining rights. Make it a planet-side outpost on a lush jungle planet where pretty much everything wants to kill the player characters. Whatever kind of station you want, you can map it with these.

More Tiles to Come

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If you like the idea of the mix-and-match map filp-tile system, Paizo has a lot of treats in store through the coming year.

The Space Station Starter Set gets the “Emergency” expansion sometime in fall 2020. The preview art shows a giant reactor throwing off bolts of electricity which immediately filled my evil GM story-telling brain with dangerous ideas.

The City Starter Set is also expected in fall 2020, followed later in the year by the City Hazards expansion. Judging by the preview art, these will be every bit as gorgeous and engaging as Paizo’s regular double-sided map packs.

Rounding out the offerings in early in 2021, we have the Alien Planet Starter Set, which promises to give GMs a flexible way to lay out planet-side encounters. Regardless, we’re looking forward to it.

Verdict

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There’s plenty to like about both of these accessory packs. The Space Station Starter Set flip-tiles come in a box large enough to store both this set and future expansions, so Paizo is obviously planning ahead. The set also comes with six divider tabs to keep your tiles neatly organized by set or by how you plan to use them in your scenarios.

The Deck of Many Worlds will find a home with every Starfinder player, as well as aspiring science fiction writers. Anyone can use the deck to build a planet, stock a solar system, flesh out a character’s backstory, or add an interesting plot hook to a new world.

We highly recommend both sets. Pick them up and turn your creativity loose!