Starfinder's Warframe crossover, Operation Orias reminded me that TTRPGs don't have to last years

The number of folks rolling dice, telling stories, and playing tabletop RPGs has exploded over the past decade, thanks in no small part to things like Critical Role, Dimension 20, and high-profile film releases like Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. But with that rise, I think so has the notion that to get a “real” TTRPG experience, you need to invest tens if not hundreds of hours down the kobold-hole of the hobby. As someone who has run a homebrew campaign for half a decade, I’ll admit I sort of fell into that camp too, crafting a large homebrew world, with weekly/bi-weekly recurring game over six years. I burned out. But recently, I checked out Starfinder's new Warframe crossover oneshot, Operation Orias, and it reminded me that it's a lot of fun and pretty easy to have a great time, even over your lunch break at work.

Paizo and Digital Extremes partnered to create Operation: Orias, a short adventure in which players take on the roles of Arthur, Amir, Aoi, and Lettie from Warframe 1999 to infiltrate a Corpus facility, rescue a hostage, and get out. Using Paizo’s Starfinder 2nd Edition RPG system, what you get is a fun little romp around the world of Warframe that you could easily finish in an afternoon and have a great time with.  While I was flipping through the book that was smaller and thinner than most of my old school folders, it struck me just how enticing and refreshing something like Operation Orias is.

While short, the Orias mission is fun and gives players all they need to play as the various members of The Hex team with fun toys for the GM too, like Moas, and the grotesque Infested Charger enemies. The story itself spans just seven pages, with the remaining eleven being devoted to player characters, their abilities, and giving the table a brief primer on the Warframe universe. There isn’t enough here to start running a Warframe in your main Starfinder campaign, but like I mentioned before, it’s quick, fun, and is all about presenting a gaming group with a fun session. An idea that, while I wouldn’t say I had lost, but perhaps changed my perspective on what a fun session could and should be.

Looking at my 100-page Google doc of lore, storylines, NPC biographies, and other details of my world, and then at the short & concise Operation Orias booklet in my hand, was a bit of an awakening. I will always love the idea and its potential for character growth and evolution that longer-form TTRPG campaigns lend themselves better to, but Orias reminded me that both players and the GMs can have a great time with sessions that last even an hour. These short one-shot or short mini-campaigns are also great ways to get new friends or even coworkers into the hobby!

That brings up something else - there is no rule for how long a game session has to be. As someone who started up a weekly board game lunch at my previous job, looking through Orias has made me realize you could also run at least small encounters and puzzly sessions well enough during your lunch hour at work, too. As a game master, the idea of working within a constraint like only an hour of playtime, honestly, sounds sort of fun. It reminds me a bit of old video games and how they could create such wonderful adventures with the limited resources of the time. Why can’t this be the same? 

At only $9 for a digital PDF or $13 for a physical booklet, Warframe’s Operation Orias will cost you less than a meal at most fast food places anymore, and if you split it up between players, you’re looking at only $2-3 per person. As I look at my shelf full of dense, hardcover, Dungeons & Dragons books, while I hold them dear and love the ideas and adventures they hold, if I’m being realistic with myself, there is a very high likelihood that I will never read or peruse some of the pages contained in them. Perhaps it is because I have a kid now and my nerd time is far more precious and rare, but the small, relatively bite-sized quests like Operation Orias, that are cheap, quick, and still exciting, are rather alluring. Operation Orias reminded me that you don’t need to have a sprawling homebrew campaign or massive marathon sessions to have a great time with the hobby. All you need is some dice, some friends, and maybe an hour or two to make some memories that will last you a lifetime.