Hello there. So if I was just starting out in this game line what particular books would be essential, besides the main Core Book itself. Any help on this would be appreciated.
As an aside, is the Player’s Guide and the Gamemaster’s Guide unique books or Core Book material seperated into other books. I ask cause the Player’s Guide one seems like core book stuff though I a not sure on the Gamemaster’s Guide.
The Players Guide only contains part of the Core Book, so you don’t need it if you have the Core Book.
The GM’s Guide on the other hand is really an essential resource for an Infinity GM, as there are lots of chapters on things that would have pushed the core book over 800 pages (it already has 560 pages, so isn’t a light-weight book in the first place).
I recommend getting and studying the GM’s Guide in addition to the Core Book.
Then, depending on how you want to proceed with your Infinity campaign, faction books are often really useful to give more detail about, well, the factions and often a closer look at some of the colonized planets under control of those factions.
Cool stuff man, thanks.
Okay, so I’m thinking Core, GM, and the Adventures in Human Sphere book. After reading them I might get faction books if any of them call to me in a “I need more info” way.
Oh, so I just realized I was using the UK shop and not the US shop. Which doesn’t have the GM book nor anything Coriolis. So hmm decisions decisions.
I agree with getting the GM guide, I’ll even say that it’s a very good gm guide, which is imo very rare in the industry. I’ll add that not every faction book is equal, but that maybe more a matter of taste than a quality gap. I really like the post scarcity setting of the game, so I have particularly enjoyed the Nomads and aleph faction book. Both take a deeper look at what it means to live in the human sphere, from a quasi divine Ai and its ability to transform humans into posthuman, to the eclectic and weird cultures of the nomads nation. I have also enjoyed reading the tohaa and combined army faction books, but I’ve actually used very little of the material presented in the books since I’m more interested In letting my players explore what it means to be human in the 26th century than the war against aliens.
Hey all thanks for the info. So I bought Core and Adventurers in the Human Sphere (and two Coriolis books but that is a different line) to get a feel for things. Once I find myself loving them as much as I figure I will I will get the Gamemasters Guide and then probably one or more faction books, which ones will depend on which factions I come to like or want to use. (I can’t say that yet.)
I will say I LOVE, absolutely LOVE, the lifepath character creation system. It reminds me, in all the good ways, of the Mechwarrior RPG lifestyle character creation system (the previous to the ‘current’ edition). So yeah, love it.
Which leads me to another question, are there any books that provide many new lifepath options? I would totally get them in second wave of purchase.
Most of the source books for the different Factions and the Tohaa and Combined Army source books provide new Lifepath options for the typical faction careers (PanO includes Helots as alien race, Nomads have uplifted animals).
And the ALEPH book includes Lifepath generation for your character’s Geist, too.
Sounds awesome thanks. So basically I’m gonna have to wait to dig into the meat of things (I have the pdf but I am waiting for my book to arrive to fully dig in) before I discover which factions I super like.
From teaser and quick looks I am pretty sure I will end up buying a bunch of the faction books. Aleph probably due to cool AI bro, and Combined Army less beause of wanting to play them and more from quick reading they seem to have a Zerg sort of vibe and that might be fun. The O-12 or whatever it is named also sounds like something potentially useful. Oh and Nomads ahve stations and I love stations.
PanO is where Earth is right, so I might get that.
Lots of options. haha
A few notes, earth isn’t in the influence sphere of panoceania. Earth and the sol system is basically divided between the major factions. But more than thag, earth is actually fairly irrelevant in the infinity universe. Better worlds have been found, cleaner, more ressources, easier to plan the development of and basically free of the cultural and historical problems. Earth is the past.
About the combined army, they aren’t zerg at all. While the evolved intelligence is ubiquitous in the territory it controls, it doesn’t work like an hive mind. It conquer, control and improve. It has brought together dozen upon dozen of species in an heterogeneous but cohesive empire, forged to attain one goal: ascension.
Ah on Earth, interesting to learn. Thanks on that.
And yeah okay, I wasn’t super explanative of what I found in my look up that makes it Zerg. From what I read they modify races and other such genetic engineering and such. Which was what I was thinking.
But I guess I shouldn’t speak when I don’t know. hehe
Actualy, random question - does this universe have something like psionics or it is tech and science.
Tech and science all the way.
That is one refreshing aspect of the Infinity setting: no supernatural mumbo-jumbo, no space magic, no psionics.
That said, some technology is way beyond explainable, there are a handful of “neo-materials” that are essential for quantronics and space flight, but that simply cannot exist from a natural science viewpoint. Those are necessary to make spaceflight, augmentations, Lhosts, quantronics, artificial intelligences work in the first place, so they are a prioris, set not to be questioned, or else humanity wouldn’t have been able to even colonize Mars in 180 years (considering the speed of space exploration as of today).
So going through the faction list the ones that call to me are Haqqislam, PanOceania, and O-12. The Corporations might be fun too since corporations have a lot of potential.
On the matter of psionics, cool. I mean I like them in sci-fi so I wouldn’t have objected to their inclusion in some way, but its also fine that they aren’t there.
The Infinity setting is massive. Like wow. Lots of potential.
–
Addendum
Oh, my bad on something. So when I said ‘Zerg’ I misread the Tohaa as the Combined Civilization. Its the Tohaa that do the genetic engineering and all that biotech stuff. No Overmind or whatnot but yes on the tech.
So I ‘gave in’, hehe. So in my first purchase I obviously got the Core but also got Adventurers in the Human Sphere. It looked like that was useful.
Then I made a second purchase, and that got the Infinity Gamemasters Guide, O-12, Haqqislam, PanOceania, and Tohaa.
At some point I will buy the Technology Guide and the Ships of the Human Sphere, though on them I will wait for physicals.
Actually, speaking of Ships, does that book have ship building rules?
Not the way Traveller or Star Trek does have those.
But you find lots of Ship Upgrade rules there and very numerous base ship types.
So, pick a ship, and upgrade it as you wish. That is a rather easy way without evolving into any kind of actual “engineering” task (as many other ship construction systems appear).
Interesting.
So I also bought the Coriolis core book too and it has a nifty ship creation system. I wonder if they could be combined.
The big thing I like about ship design is adding modules and features and such.