A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement Infinite Starships: Small Trader

Infinite Starships: Small Trader by A.J. Kenning is a role playing game supplement published by the Avalon Game Company for use with Infinite Futures 2.0. Infinite Futures 2.0 is a science fiction conversion of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game that precedes either Starfinder or Starjammer by some years. As it is derived from Pathfinder, the supplement is covered by the Open Game License with some of it being considered Open Game Content as a result. This is one in a series of supplements that describe starships.

The PDF is available from RPGNow for $3.99 but was purchased at the reduced price of $1. One page of the supplement is the cover, one the front matter, one the Open Game License and one ads for other supplements.

One page covers the concept of a total conversion, where a game system is rewritten to fit a design concept, which is what has been done with Pathfinder for Infinite Futures 2.0 (and Starjammer and Starfinder). This considers space craft in Pathfinder, the Infinite Futures Fringe setting and design concepts; running costs aren’t included. There is then a brief section on traders in general.

The ship in question is the CL-S Stock Light Transport “Caravel.” The first page has an image of the ship and its Infinite Futures game stats. Two more pages describe the craft and its history and use; this is a trader where much of the cargo space has been given up for powerful engines. In other words, it’s a fast craft able to deliver small, valuable cargoes quickly whilst outrunning other spaceships – a smuggler.

Next is an index of map icons. This takes up another five pages and has icons from the deck plans with descriptions of what they do. One page then has labelled deck plans for the ship – it has two decks – and the final page duplicates these two deck plans but without the labels.

Infinite Starships: Small Trader in Review

The PDF lacks bookmarks and, despite its length, these would have been useful. Navigation is therefore fairly poor.

The text is mostly in a two column format but on one page switches to a single column (the pages where the map icons are described have one column of text and one of images). This swapping of formats is common in Avalon products and always seems a bit odd. For once, almost no errors were noticed in the text.

There are a number of illustrations in the PDF. Most of these are related to the full colour deck plans; there are the plans themselves and larger images of the icons. Other than that, the image of the craft is repeated multiple times.

This is a decent enough supplement, although perhaps a bit pricey. It is intended for Infinite Futures, rather than the more popular conversions, so could it be used with these? Well, yes and no. The deck plans could be used with Starfinder and Starjammer – and perhaps many other systems, including such as White Star and Cepheus Engine – but the stats would need converting. In such a case it would probably be easiest to chuck the stats and come up with new ones. The quality of the deck plans is decent as well, better than seen in images in many Avalon products; they may have been created in some mapping software. The quality in general appears to be above average for the publisher. Infinite Starships: Small Trader is not a bad supplement, if a bit expensive, and can be found by clicking here.