One difference I anticipate between the quickstart and the official book is the application of booster rockets.

One difference I anticipate between the quickstart and the official book is the application of booster rockets.

The quick start is full of specific names and objects. This quickly meshes players in the world and gives them subjects to improvise on (“tell me about your friend Casta”) and the item list gracefully hops over the ugly shopping bit of character generation. Full approval!

Then there comes that point in the game where the scales start to tip. You’ve generated more unique NPCs than started on the sheets, and those have all been interpreted and are in a larger framework. Your game has figured out how the starting gear works, and shows off a bunch of other campaign-specific gear.

I think there comes a point you need a character sheet that doesn’t have default equipment (because there are guidelines for what you can put in your war-chest for quality and quantity, or you just let the players figure out their own toolboxes without mechanizing it.) You move the list of friends to another resource or a second sheet on the character sheet. There’s more blank space and room to breathe and focus in on the mechanics of the character, and the social and networking parts migrate to other resources in the campaign.

Then new people make characters in this more custom and venerable campaign, and they need those blank spaces to adhere more closely to the world and the other players instead of being tugged back towards where the campaign started (like the quick start.) Their starting friends are other established people, maybe some of the ones they’d otherwise have are dead by now.

Much of that quickstart information is to get the campaign off the ground, and achieve exit velocity. Once you’re in orbit, your needs change.

Just a little rumination.