Showing posts sorted by date for query stars without number. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query stars without number. Sort by relevance Show all posts

Friday, December 28, 2012

Christmas Swag - RPGs I'll Never Play

I normally ask for RPGs that I intend on playing at some point.  I think I've just given up and, this time around, asked for games that I want, but would never buy since I don't think I'll ever get around to playing them.

This year, I received Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space, and Mongoose's Traveller: Core Rule Book.

Over the years, I think I've probably played five percent of the RPGs I've own.  That's a wild guess, but it seems about right.  It used to be finding players was the biggest issue.  Now the issue is time.  Life is funny.

Traveller was one of those games I that I was super excited about when I discovered it in 1981 - soon after my discoverer of Dungeons and Dragons.  I ran a few adventures, but the players were far more interested in fantasy, and I think my ability to pull of sci-fi wasn't as great at the time.  My attempts later with Star Frontiers were a much bigger hit.

That didn't stop me from continuing to buy Traveller, Traveller: 2300, MegaTraveller, and Traveller: New Era products.  I'd sit around and make characters, design starships, and populate stellar subsectors.  All my copies disappeared in various moves and book cullings over the years.  Then I found Stars Without Number, which has been filling my sci-fi RPG void very well.

Except . . . SWN is extremely abstract about a lot of things, including world creation and starship building - two of my favorite parts of Traveller.  During play, the abstract system is wonderful for creating scenarios and having a great ship battle in a short amount of time.  But when I'm sitting around, thinking about potential scenario or trying to get a fix on what a shuttle actually looks like and how combat would flow inside, I reach for the detail of Traveller - which just isn't there.

Of course, I make it up as I go along and everything is okay.  But sometime I just want some structure - and Traveller was all about structure.  I picked up a battered copy of the MegaTraveller Referee's Guide to try to stitch ship building in - but it just wasn't flowing well.  This Mongoose edition of the game, while similar, appears to be a much better match.

Reading through the Traveller book has been great fun.  It's very much like Classic, with adjustments that I really like.  I've sat down and made some characters even.  It's great for that.  Actually, I think this version is the best organized I've seen to date.  It makes me even want to run the game.  The big issue for me - the kicker - is lack of advancement.  While I don't really care - DMing advancing or static characters doesn't seem to be a problem - I think the players would mind.  They are so . . . accustomed . . . to gaining levels an/or skills that static characters would probably freak them the hell out and bore them - or frustrate them - to tears.

But part of me says that they maybe NEED that.  Traveller is supposed to take away a big part of meta-gaming by focusing the players on what their character are doing NOW, as opposed to how they should shuffle points or prepare for the next level and worry about that upcoming HP roll.  It gives them a character - one they didn't exactly expect - and says PLAY THIS NOW!

I'd like to see that in action one day in a longer campaign.  How would it change the player's attitudes?  Oh well.  I don't see it happening.  But I will be stealing the ship stuff and grafting it into my SWN game - assuming that I have the LEET SKILLS to do so.

Okay, I've probably talked enough about Traveller.  Now, on to Doctor Who!

I was surprised as hell when I got Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space.  It's a box.  It's a heavy box.  Heavy.  It's crammed packed with shit.  Pretty shit.

There is a quick start guide, a player's book, referee's book, adventure book, and all sorts of extra thick card-stock character sheets, punch-out equipment cards, and little XP token things.  Oh, and there are these awesome Doctor Who dice.  Everything is nice and colorful and very pretty.

Okay, I thought, nice try, guys.  You spat out a pretty looking game designed by the BBC marketing department to increase the reach of the Doctor Who 'brand.'

Then I began to dig into the books, and was surprised there there looks to be an actual game here - a game designed by people who might know what they are doing.

In the beginning of the players book, it tells a story about Rory - one of the characters (well, WAS one,) of the TV show.  The little story involves huge and strange shaped objects going missing all over the universe, and the TARDIS crew trying to track them down.  The shapes were odd - tetrahedrons, octahedrons, dodecahedrons, icosahedrons, an the like.  Turns out a race of giants was stealing these huge objects to play a role playing game.

Okay, yeah, it was stupid.  Doctor Who is often stupid.  But it's stupid for a reason, and if you just lay back and relax and go with it, the stupid turns into cool.  And that was cool.  Like bow-ties and fezzes.  And that little story was a nod back in time to the beginning, to Dungeons & Dragons.  The game doesn't even use all those dice.  It just uses the d6.  But they chose to mention the dice anyway.  And that tells me that the designers are MY KIND OF PEOPLE.

I have a lot more to read, but the base game appears very cool.  You can make whichever character you like - a rival Timelord or a street sweeper or Goldie Hawn circa 1968.  The mechanics are basically a 2d6 point by system, like Traveller made love to Champions-lite or something.  It's simple, with various levels of success or failure.  Nothing innovative here - just comfortable.

Actually, the box, the books, the feel . . . it's all comfortable.  Opening it gave me a similar feel to that of opening the old D&D box way back in 1981 - except full color and glossy.  Interesting.  I think they did that on purpose.  AND, this thing is currently cheaper that the Traveller book on Amazon.  Go figure.

Regretfully, I doubt I'll ever find enough people interested in playing it in person.  Even The Boy is all MEH about Doctor Who these days.  He never got over the change from #10 to #11.

So I'm really happy with my Christmas presents.  Maybe I should just make some characters, pull out the Mythic Game Master Emulator, and play these in the wee hours of the night.

- Ark

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Stars Without Number Meat Funnel

It the Redshirts Stars Without Number game, I've been dropping hints and foreshadowing an ancient, hidden menace upon a blacked planet blasted by three novas and bathed in the radiation of their rapidly spinning pulsar remnants.

The players have, understandably, been somewhat reluctant to go take a visit.

I'm not sure who came up with the idea.  Perhaps it was Merwyn.  Perhaps it was me.  But whoever had the idea - it was awesome.  Simply turn the adventure into a Stars Without Number/DCCRPG Funnel Mashup.

Ca-Ching!  Done!

Welcome to the universe of zero level Stars Without Number characters.  They have no class.  They have d4 for hit points.  They only have 4 skills and three pieces of equipment.  And you can't decide on any of it!

I'll be running this next week.  I don't think that all nine of our players will show up for this, but if they did, that would be 9x4=36 ponential corpses to be ripped to shreds in a horrific feeding frenzy of character death.

So, here are the character creation steps:
  1. Create up to 4 characters.
  2. Roll 3d6 straight for: STR, INT, WIS, DEX, CON and CHA.  Note Ability mods as normal.
  3. No Class, prime attributes, attack bonus, or special class ability.
  4. Roll Hit points - 1d4 plus CON bonus.
  5. All saves are at 17.
  6. Roll 2d10 once to determine Occupation, Skills, and Equipment. See tables below.  Skills provide a ZERO level and equipment is AS-IS, no trades.  Additional ammo available from corpses of fallen comrades.  Stop whining.  You are here to die.  Quickly.
  7. Write it all down on the handy dandy sheet (provided below.)
  8. Poof!  You are done.
  9. If a character survives, she/he may be upgraded to 1st level and enter the regular campaign.

Occupation Table
Roll Occupation
2 Priest
3 Journalist
4 Mechanic
5 Corporate Suit
6 Astrophysicist
7 Field Researcher
8 Planetary Scientist
9 Xenobiologist
10 Xenoarchaeologist
11 Infantry
12 Scout
13 Security Analyst
14 Medic
15 Pilot
16 Officer
17 Gunner
18 Combat Engineer
19 Sniper
20 Space Marine

Skills Table
Occupation Skills
Astrophysicist Profession/Astrophysicist, Science, Tech/Astronautic, Vehicle/Space
Combat Engineer Combat/Projectile, Exosuit, Security, Stealth
Corporate Suit Bureaucracy, Business, Leadership, Persuade
Field Researcher Science, Tech/Maltech, Tech/Postech, Tech/Pretech
Gunner Athletics, Combat/Gunnery, Exosuit, Vehicle/Land
Infantry Combat/Projectile, Combat/Unarmed, Exosuit, Gambling
Journalist Bureaucracy, Culture/Criminal, Exosuit, Persuade
Mechanic Exosuit, Gambling, Tech/Astronautic, Tech/Postech
Medic Athletics, Exosuit, Perception, Tech/Medical
Officer Combat/Projectile, Exosuit, Leadership, Tactics
Pilot Combat/Projectile, Culture/Spacer, Vehicle/Grav, Vehicle/Space
Planetary Scientist Profession/Geology, Science, Tech/Postech, Vehicle/Land
Priest Culture/World, Perception, Persuade, Religion
Scout Culture/Traveller, Exosuit, Navigation, Survival
Security Analyst Combat/Unarmed, Perception, Security, Tech/Postech
Sniper Combat/Projectile, Exosuit, Perception, Stealth
Space Marine Combat/Energy, Combat/Primitive, Combat/Unarmed, Exosuit
Xenoarchaeologist Artist/Plastics, Culture/Alien, History, Science
Xenobiologist Bureaucracy, Profession/Xenobiology, Science, Tech/Medical

Equipment Table
Occupation Equipment
Astrophysicist Dataslab, Survey Scanner, Vacc Suit
Combat Engineer Instapanel, Spike Thrower, Vacc Suit
Corporate Suit Dataslab, Portabox, Vacc Suit
Field Researcher Toolkit/Postech, Toolkit/Pretech, Vacc Suit
Gunner Heavy Machine Gun, Metatool, Vacc Suit
Infantry Mag Rifle, Telescoping Pole, Vacc Suit
Journalist Argus Web, Dataslab, Vacc Suit
Mechanic Toolkit/Astronautic, Toolkit/Postech, Vacc Suit
Medic Lazarus Patch, Medkit, Vacc Suit
Officer Binoculars, Mag Pistol, Vacc Suit
Pilot Metatool, Void Carbine, Vacc Suit
Planetary Scientist Dataslab, Survey Scanner, Vacc Suit
Priest Survival Kit, Translator Torc, Vacc Suit
Scout Navcomp, Survival Kit, Vacc Suit
Security Analyst Dataslab, Survey Scanner, Vacc Suit
Sniper Climbing Harness, Sniper Rifle, Vacc Suit
Space Marine Assault Suit, Grenade (x2), Laser Rifle
Xenoarchaeologist Dataslab, Survey Scanner, Vacc Suit
Xenobiologist Dataslab, Bioscanner, Vacc Suit

Character Sheet

This should be fun.  And horrific.  And sad.

Please feel free to use any of this for your own games.

- Ark

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Redshirts: Jack Frost Roasting Over an Open Fire

HO HO DIE.
Last week was the Stars Without Number Christmas Special.  The Reshirts were back at the Beachhead Asteroid Base for some well deserved R&R, shopping for Christmas presents at the PX or performing maintenance and/or horrific biological experiments in the lab.  In the station's Zócalo, a robotic Santa, reindeer, and elf were amusing soldiers and scientists alike.

The scouts are getting rusty.  I swear.  Come on, a robot Santa, reindeer, and elf?  That has to mean trouble.

Kal Kek and Roswell were in the Zócalo, and Kal Kek was acting kind of grumpy.  The elf came over to cheer him up by pulling out a pistol and shooting him.  Then the Santa open his mouth wide and began spewing a green mist that turned people into glowing eyed yellow zombies.

Merry Christmas!

Robot Santas are mostly evil.  Mostly.
Things went downhill form there.  Battle-stations were called as a Skorpios attack force was bearing down on the asteroid as well.  Their secret base had been compromised, and the enemy had decided to send their presents on Christmas Eve.

Much chaos and battle ensue.  Eventually, the evil robots were blown up, but Roswell the (sort of) good robot was blown up in the process.  Kal Kek grabbed his C3-P0-like head and ran with it like a football back to the ship.

While escaping from the zombie gas, Dr. Ramapudi followed Newt, through the station's air ducts.  Newt was the eight year old psychic girl that the scouts had rescued in an earlier episode from an crazed interplannar entity that had inhabited her body for 600 years.  Well, Newt, being a bit untrusting, had stockpiled rifles and grenades in the air ducts, just in case something like this happened.

Eventually, the party made it back to the ship, where they found out that the Reprieve had been undergoing maintenance and had it's engines dismantled.  Having no other craft that could mount a defense versus the Skorpios attack fleet, they hopped in the Molten Rain mech suit assault shuttle and blasted off.

The plan was simple.  Everyone was to get in their mech suits and be shot out of the mech suit rail gun at the oncoming Skorpios Cruiser that was making an attack run on the Beachhead Base.  At the end, "Profit" was somehow to be gained, but plan for everything in-between was somewhat hazy.

The Skorpios Cruiser was actually an old, run-down ship constructive with run-down, primitive parts at the Lost colony of Ukraine, so luckily, it didn't have much defense against seven human size projectiles shot at it.  The scouts didn't have much defense against being shot at a cruiser, either.  Kal Kek ented up penetrating a armored turret with his head.

The scouts began to dig through the ship like miners, using the mechs' urban assault abilities to turn the cruiser's bulkhead's into Swiss cheese.  They plugged Roswell's C3-P0 head into a computer conduit in a maintenance tunnel to begin the cyber assault.  Roswell took over a pack of maintenance bots that launched an assault on the bridge while the party split up in an attempt to take over engineering, nullify the angry grav tank muscling it's was through the maintenance shafts, and eliminate the threat of unattended cafeterias.

Admiral Beringer looses eye in attack.
Despite the fact that the party split up, or maybe because of it, the Skorpios lost most of their control of the ship and decided to self destruct.  Roswell narrowly prevented the cruiser from blowing up, but the Skorpios crew sabotaged the craft, detonating as many munitions and hydrogen tanks as possible before they evacuated.

The guns on the asteroid base mopped up the stream of evacuees and the scouts took control of the devastated, burnt out hulk.  Regretfully, the resident psychic was killed in a munitions explosion.  Attempts to revive him by The Boy using an untested nanotech revitalization system proved to have horrific results, turning the dead body into an ever expanding ball of gray goo that was eventually isolated by Aquila scientists.

As a reward for saving the day, Admiral Beringer cancelled the scheduled court-martial of the group for horrendous crimes to humanity that they had perpetrated on previous missions.  Merry Christmas, Redshirts, Merry Christmas.

- Ark

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Top Games

Dice Bomb by ~j-burgess
Gnome Stew's and Frothsof's mention of the Top Seven meme got me thinking about my Top Seven's.  FAvorites are one thing, but ones I have actually played are another - and as a mostly DM, the playing list is of more interest.  I've stuck my toes in a lot of rpg pies since 1981, but where have I double dipped the most?  It's hard to quantify - I'll just have to guess.  I really just haven't played with very much consistency.

The Top Seven RPGs I've Played
  1. D&D 4e
  2. AD&D
  3. Champions 4e
  4. AD&D 2e
  5. Holmes D&D (or Molday Basic - they kind of blur)
  6. Gama World 1e
  7. Shadowrun (maybe tied with Risus)

That one in first place is kind of odd, but I guess it is true. I blame my participation in the RPGA for that. ;p

GMing is much easier, since I do it a lot more:

The Top Seven RPGs I've Run
  1. AD&D
  2. RoleMaster
  3. D&D 4e
  4. Stars Without Number
  5. GURPS Space
  6. Twilight: 2000
  7. Fantasy HERO

Funny how this doesn't represent what my Top Seven Favorites are. :)

- Ark




Friday, December 7, 2012

Redshirt: Dressed to Kill

Petty Officer 2nd Class Owlicious
This week's Stars Without Number adventure took the scouts their old stomping grounds, the 1950s planet of Tunguska.  They were just on a refueling mission, but they happened to notice a very high tech ship on the surface, and went off to investigate.

Crazy-Ass Tim and Adelaide's record of the adventure is at From the Ashes.  I recommend reading it, since it's good, and I won't be going over the particulars here.  Go ahead, I'll wait.

While I'm waiting, I'll point out the picture to the left.  The party was invited to a fancy dinner during the adventure.  Adelaide found a dress she wanted her character to wear online, so had the ship's clothes printer spit it out.  The original dress is over on Crazy-Ass Tim's page, so go over there if you haven't done so.  This is just my attempt at drawing a truly stunning dress.

Actually, all of the players went found clothes on their phones or laptops.  No, I don't have one of those phones.  I am happy with my decision to NOT have one of those phones.  But you know, it certainly adds an amazing dynamic to a tabletop game.

During the game, Adelaide even went and dug up pictures of what she thought the high tech spaceship looked like.  Heck.  They were perfect.  And while taking a gander, I saw a name on the web page that was sooo much better than the name I had created for the main NPC, that I changed it then and there.

Now, we've used people's phones to pull up a name we couldn't remember, or a picture of something I'm describing that someone just can't quite get.  but it does seem to be growing into a bigger part of our lives, even around my table, a place which normally has had, at it's height, a mechanical pencil for its technological apex.

The use of gaming technology on Wednesday culminated in a completely spontaneous full length  Bollywood dance routine by Crazy-Ass Tim's character Dr. Ramapudi and a blonde administrative assistant named Yvonne that he had become smitten with - including a dance track on the laptop and holographic backup dancers in the star ship.

It reminded my a heck of a lot of the Bollywood movie Marigold.  Yes, you probably don't have enough Bollywood in your life.  Marigold is a fine entry point for the uninitiated to start.

I'm still reeling from the fact that in my gritty, character chewing  horror show of a sci-fi game that a romantic music and dance production spring up out of thin air.  But really, I guess I shouldn't expect anything less. :)

I don't have to do anything to keep them amused at all.  In fact, they amuse me far more.

- Ark

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Redshirts Christmas


After last night's Redshirts game, I was wondering exactly what time it was.  In the game, I mean.  We've had nine sessions in two months, and I was estimating that it had been about a year in game.  Looking at my notes, and slapping them into excel, I saw that I was wrong.  It has only been ten months.  In fact, the crew of frozen Popsicles was due to be back at their base on Christmas Eve.

Now, I've done holidays inside of RPGs before.  My favorite has usually been Halloween in D&D.  That's no-brainer right there, especially if you use zombies.

Heh.

I don't think I've ever done Christmas in Space before, though, and definitely not in Stars Without Number.  I'm not exactly sure what I should do.  Something horrific, of course.  Cthulhu Claus.  Yeah.  I like the sound of that.  Well, maybe that wouldn't the the best Christmas present for the players, but it would be one heck of a present for me.  Ho ho ho.

I supposed, at the very least, the characters should exchange gifts.  I'll let them mull that over in their minds. Great - not only do they need to really go shopping, they have to go virtually shopping as well! ;)

So has anyone else put Christmas into their games?  Anything good come out of it?  Anything horrible?

Here is the timeline, for what it is worth:

2/2/3200 The Reprieve blasts out of Perimeter Station Nine.
2/7/3200 Arrival at Three Sisters system.
2/9/3200 Exploration of the Biotonics Ark 3 begins.
2/15/3200 Arrival at Ukraine system.
2/19/3200 Alpha Team captures a Ukrainian Patrol Boat.
2/25/3200 Escape to Three Sisters system.
2/28/3200 Beginning of the construction of Beachhead Base.
6/11/3200 Completion of Beachhead Base.
6/28/3200 Arrival at Banyan system.
7/1/3200 Alpha Team delivers gun printer to the Brambles.
7/2/3200 Lifter pyramid explored.
8/2/3200 Arrival at Tunguska system.
8/3/3200 Submerged Jump Portal discovered in ocean.
9/4/3200 Ship building activities complete.
10/3/3200 Arrival at Thomas Jefferson.
10/4/3200 Alpha Team encounters Warchou and Berserkers.
10/24/3200 The court-martial and execution of Lt. O'Brien.
11/21/3200 Arrival at Levant system.
11/24/3200 Alpha Team acquires the Molten Rain.
12/8/3200 Refueling stop at Tunguska reveals mystery ship.
12/9/3200 Alpha Team meets Charles Shuttleworth.
12/24/3200 Arrival at Beachhead Base on Christmas Eve.

Ho ho ho!

- Ark

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

The Void Quadrant

Klikbikken
For those keeping track of the Redshirts Stars Without Number campaign at home, here is a handy-dandy star map to let you know from which direction the next horrible mutant plague of xenophobic xenomorphs will come from and kill all of the PCs.

Hmm, I might have given away too much with that sentence. :)

- Ark

PS

Oh yes, a key . . .

Black - Explored Space (inasmuch as space can be explored in SWN)
Purple - 'Hunch' Space (big bags of guesses from old charts, here-say, and psychic divination)
Dark Blue - The righteous Aquila Union
Orange - The Ptolemy Wilds, controlled by the Alliance of Independent Systems
Red - The foul fungal Skorpios Empire
White - The El Dorado Archipelago, a sort of close cluster in the El Dorado Sector
Yellow - A horrible, horrible place filled with genocidal machines and dog-bear things with horns.
Light Blue - The New Mandate, a place quite unknown to the PCs, that sounds pretty well organized.

Okay, that's about it.

- Ark :)

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Redshirts: Courts-Martial Carnival, an Email Interlude

The pre-Thanksgiving week Stars Without Number session was so odd - from an outside perspective - that I felt that a higher authority should get involved.  I mean, while the scouts were initiating first contact with two genocidal species - the Berserkers and the Warchou - the CO had been killed by friendly fire, a team member had allegedly committed treason against the entire human race, and another team member had tried to murder that alleged traitor.

In a D&D game that would be nothing strange.  It would not even be that strange in a tramp steamer space opera.  But Redshirts is a military scouting expedition.  Yeah, it's specifically set so far away from the brass back home that the PCs have a lot of autonomy and leeway in how they accomplish a given mission, but the results of this particular mission were on the order of several levels below 'complete screw up' and dangerously approaching 'fire everyone and outsource to the another dimension.'

So, between games, I had the players give email testimony in various courts-martial regarding the mission, having the top brass level charges against the scouts.  They really got into it.  I swear, some of them must have had lawyers coaching them.  It was funny.

Here are some quotes from various players:
"On charge D. Spacer Kal Kek's attempted murder of Lt. Miles O'Brien. Not Guilty, the Lt. O’Brien is a traitorous scumbag, and he was about to divulge the location of the secret asteroid base and the rendezvous location for the ancient mother ship to a known race of hostile creatures."
Yeah.  Miles O'Brien was his name.  Yeah.  Anyway, more quotes:
"On charge C. Spacer Kal Kek's negligent discharge in the death of Lt. Commander Nathaniel Taylor. Guilty, but I wish it to be here recorded that I was attempting the execution of a well thought out rescue plan to retrieve Lt. Cmdr. Taylor. But despite my best intentions, my understanding of the spatial rotation of space born rotating mass was lacking, and I could not preform the calculation well under pressure. These facts lead to a miscalculation and a mis-fire. I there for ask for the leniency of the court in sentencing as it was not my intention to damage the Lt. Cmdr. Taylor, but rather to assist in his rescue."
and:
"Spacer Kal Kek's attempted murder of Lt. Miles O'Brien.  Not Guilty.  Officers have the right to put down members of the team that are endangering the mission. Kal Kek was simply the weapon used to do so. Due to incompetent training Lt. Miles O'Brien was only wounded. Requesting Kal Kek be put into Field Arms Training course to better prepare for such events.  Requesting Lt. Commander Mark Five be sent for a brush up on Officer Training, with possible officer candidate evaluation. Lt. Miles O'Brien should have been apprehended after such an encounter, yet was not. This is against regulations."
and this gem:
"Lt. Miles O'Brien's high treason against the Union.  Guilty.  Knowing full well that these aliens had already exterminated the humans in the area, O'Brien gave away the biggest secret known to team, endangering the mission and all Humans in the sector.  Requesting evaluation of loyalty, Evaluation of officer candidacy, Psychological Evaluation, Back ground check, Drug check."
In the end, all charges were dropped except one.  I mean, really, all of the friendly fire was basically a lot of natural 1s rolled one after the other, and a DM who is a prick. (Yay me!)

Lt. Miles O'Brien was convicted of high treason against sanctity of the Aquila Union, and had his rank reduced to Midshipman.  He was then released on his own recognizance into the depths of space without directional control or atmospheric succor.

One player thought that meant I was giving him a shuttle and letting him go.  Funny . . .

- Ark

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Redshirts: Fred Saberhagen Attacks!


Kzinti Warrior
This session of Stars Without Number was the one back the week before Thanksgiving.  The intrepid freeze-dried scouts were sent to a system that happened to be the main theater of operation of a war between two races.

The first 'race' was Saberhagen's Berserkers - those spaceship-robots programmed to wipe out all life in the galaxy.  I loved the Berserker series, and I even called them Beserkers in the game.  The PCs keep calling them 'reapers.'  Grrr.

The second race is the Warchou.  Actually, I had it in my mind that the word was spelled WARCHOW, but the players have emailed me about them, all spelling it WARCHOU like some strange zeitgeist was whispering to them (except Adelaide,) so I kneel to the zeitgeist and spell it WARCHOU now.  Anyway, have a giant love fest with the Kzinti, the Klingons, the Billy Goats Gruff, a megaphone, a laugh-track from a sitcom in the 1970s, and a tribe of dancing bears, and those are the Warchou.

The Warchou live for glorious, hand-to-hand battle, even if they have to jump out of their spacecraft and go take on alien robot battlecruisers toe-to-toe.  They love to laugh.  And they love to shout everything they say.  This makes few other races really want to talk with them.  The Warchou are not interested in science or technology or history or algebra or anything you'd learn in school.  They really just want to kill things and laugh about it, stealing other races' starships and weapons when given the chance.

What surprised me about this session was the unexpected TREASON.  The Warchou fully admitted to killing all of the humans on 13 planets, but despite this, and despite being on a super secret military scouting mission, Lt. O'Brien the psychic decided to tell murderous aliens everything they were up to, detail all of their high technology, and give them  the location of their secret stealth mother ship.  It was a rather jaw dropping moment.

Oh, and their CO Lt. Commander Taylor died.  Shot to death by his own crew.  Oops.

So here is the Ballad of the Redshirts, as sung by Adelaide the bard/scientist:


  • The group awakes and now there is another robot that is in the room with them. (this was Fixer)
  • Their ship was taken but Owlicious was allowed to keep Teddy. (the AI)
  • They are told there are a lot of ships fighting each other and they are supposed to find out who those people are.
  • They head off and not too long into their trip Owlicious notices another ship heading their way.
  • Lt. Commander Mark Five artfully dodges that ship and another two head their way which he also dodges.
  • The group hears some weird noises from the waves Lt. Commander Taylor hacked into and Owlicious knows it can not be made from any human.
  • One of these ships comes and attaches to the group's ship and they see it is a metal squid like thing. Owlicious fires the heat cannon at it but it does nothing.
  • The squid manages to break into the hull and Lt. Commander Taylor punches the shit out of one of the tentacles.
  • Miles O’Brian teleports a grenade at the squid that hurts it but doesn't kill it, unfortunately shrapnel from the grenade flows into the ship but luckily no one takes damage from it.
  •  Owlicious notices on her sensors 4 more squids are coming.
  • A tentacle wraps around Miles and Kal kek neatly avoids another before firing at it and missing.
  • Desmond Connors fires a pre-tech laser at a tentacle and hits. Robot RC1140 “Fixer” also fires but misses.
  • Owlicious fires the heat cannon again and this time blows a chunk of it off. It then flies off with Lt. Commander Taylor grasped in its tentacle. Lt. Commander Five fires a gun and it hits Lt. Commander Taylor in the leg.
  • Then Kal Kek fires and hits Lt. Commander Taylor in the stomach, knocking him unconscious. 
  • Connor fires at the tentacle and actually hits it, freeing the dying Lt. Commander Taylor. “Fixer” jumps out in his grav-harness to attempt to bring Lt. Commander Taylor back. He succeeds and grapples unto him. 
  • Lt. Commander Five flies the ship gently off with the two of them hanging behind.
  • When they finally get Lt. Commander Taylor back in Owlicious and Miles slap some laz patches on them until he stabilizes. 
  • Another squid attaches to the ship but derps out and can’t seem to get his tentacles in the hole. A third one misses its attachment at first but later gets it and starts fighting with the last one to get inside.
  • Another broadcast of unintelligible noise and they unsuccessfully try to communicate. Owlicious decides it would be best to slap Lt. Commander Taylor awake. He then immediately starts speaking with the creature communicating over the coms and talks it into assisting them.
  • Suddenly a man-bear-dog appears on the screen riding a jetpack and is headed towards the group screaming.
  • O’Brian decides to pull out his history book to try and figure these things out, but is unsuccessful.
  • Owlicious looks it up the new “ally” while the boys are firing at the squids and believes it is a War Chow.
  • Lt. Commander Taylor jumps out of the ship to try and mimic the War Chow in punching them but misses his jump completely.
  • The squid that the War Chow is attacking tries to smack him off but misses and smacks itself.
  • Another one gets into the ship but Kal Kek burst fires at it and almost completely killed it. “Fixer” misses with a chainsaw sword and falls out of the ship, O’Brian nearly hurts himself punching the same one.
  • Lt. Commander Five fires the main cannon and sends shrapnel all over the place when he blows the squid up.
  • Lt. Commander Taylor decided it would be an excellent idea to snap the seal off his extra oxygen tank and use it to propel himself towards another squid. He hits it hard and kills himself, spinning his body out farther away from the group.
  • Kal Kek opens fire at yet another squid and smashes its face in again. 
  • “Fixer” follows in Lt. Commander Taylors shoes and goes straight for the core of a squid and misses. O’Brian goes outside as well to punch a squid and misses as well.
  • Everybody but Lt. Commander Five and Owlicious are punching things, I’m tired of writing that.
  • Another two squids come and latch onto the ship. Omega team coms in yelling that they are under attack. Yeah, like anyone else gives a shit. Toodles Omega team.
  • Five more ships looking the same as the first war chow arrive and four other war chows come out and start punching squids knocking the squids armor off and the team quickly jumps in to help defeat the last of them.
  • Owlicious awakens Teddy and orders him to try and save Lt. Commander Taylor but he is unable to do so.
  • The war chow are preparing to leave when O’brain decides it would be a wise idea to let them know the Aquila are in possession of high tech level ships and the war chow then declare they will set out to retrieve them. 
  • Kel Kak Shoots O’brain for being a traitor but it doesn’t kill him.
  • The team heads back to the Aquila with their tails between their legs to sleep off another however-long defeat.

So, the intrepid crew didn't do too well this time around - but at least they survived.  Well, some of them did.  Sort of.

- Ark

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Desmond Connors

The Boy's write up of his Stars Without Number character:


Recruit Archive Desmond Connors
Occupation: Military assassin
Height: '5"6
Weight: 150 lbs
Age: 26
Eye color: steely grey
Hair color: Dirty Blonde
I.Q: 143
Bench: 351 lbs

Background: Desmond Connors was born 3175 in the small town of Autumn Springs. At age 5 the Skorpios attacked the countryside he lived in.

He and a few of his quicker friends escaped the fray. They left the area and hunted and gathered for several years before making their way to the big cities.

While there Connors left the group and went to a stealth class. During this harsh time in Connors' life, he made a living as a petty thief, Then quickly realized it was not a "worth-while" career. At age 18 Connors was drafted into the military, and the recruit trainers quickly learned of his skill. He was put in a special unit for stealth ops and climbed the ranks to Petty Officer First Class. Then 7 years after being drafted, he volunteered for the Reprive expedition, where a new adventure awaits him.....

The Boy can draw too.  That's Desmond up there fading away with help from a camo-suit. :)

- Ark

Saturday, November 17, 2012

SWN NPC Profile: Admiral Beringer

Kaye wanted to know some things about the commander in charge of the Void Expeditionary Force in the Redshirt Stars Without Number game.  That would be Admiral Beringer.  He looks and talks just like General Beringer in the movie Wargames.  Well, as so far as I can imitate Barry Corbin, of course.

McAllen Beringer was born in 3143 CE and raised on the wild island continent of Garuda on Aquila, where his father was a park ranger at the Ganymede National Wildlife Preserve.  He grew up learning to ride horses and the Momma-Long-Legs, a native pack animal, while acting as a tour guide through the region's varied biomes.  He was very involved in helping his father to enforce the park's anti-poaching regulations, tracking and capturing several illegal hunters during his summer months off from school.  He moved to the Aerie, the capital of Aquila Prime, during his last year of high school, and joined the Reserve Officers Training Corp.  After graduation he joined the Aquila Space Navy and went to the Naval Academy on Eagle Eye Station, in orbit above Aquila.

Beringer developed an aptitude for recognizing patterns in data and entered the Communications Corp.  He was assigned to the AUS Hummingbird, a patrol boat in the Ptolemy Wilds that monitored activity in the Atlas system.  He participated in several anti-pirate actions, until the Hummingbird was appropriated by the Naval Intelligence Division for espionage purposes.  The boat did rim dives into the Skorpios held Novikov and Smirnova systems.

This led to the Novikov Incident of 3164, in which two Skorpios patrol boats detected and fired upon the Hummingbird.  The Aquila ship was crippled, but as the Hummingbird was being boarded, the crew killed the Skorpios marines and boarded the enemy ship instead.  Lt. Beringer successfully took over the Skorpios patrol boat's computers, destroyed the Hummingbird with the boat's weapons, and helped the pilot jump the boat safely to Atlas before the other patrol craft could react.  The three survivors were given commendations and Beringer was permanently assigned to the Naval Intelligence Division.

Beringer was then assigned to the Grendel, a free merchant ship secretly owned by the Aquila Navy.  The Grendel plied the spaceways along the Skorpios Cluster, collecting data on ship movements, the construction of the battle station Joseph Stalin around Skorpios held Corvus, and the Skorpios invasion of the Apotelesmatika system.  The latter part of his tour involved running guns to the Almagest rebellion.

He was promoted to Lieutenant Commander on his second tour and took control of the Grendel, continuing to gather intelligence data deep within the Skorpios Empire.  Most of that time was spent setting up a covert base on Smirnova and creating the Smirnova-Harmonics-Almagest Railroad, helping refugees from the war to escape, and sending munitions and supplies to the front. His last official action as an undercover intelligence officer was the sabotage and destruction of the battle station Joseph Stalin around Corvus, which was the first act of the Annihilation War.  The Grendel was destroyed in the escape attempt, and Beringer spent a year on the surface of Corvus, fleeing from Skorpios patrols and radioing troop emplacement data until he could be extracted after the Aquila fleet secured the system.  During his stay, he helped to organize the Witches of Corvus, an indigenous psychic contingent, against Skorpios troops, and they used their powers to help drive the Skorpios away from the planet.

He was then promoted to Commander and put in charge of the Brimstone, a Frigate class warship that was used for long distance intelligence gathering in the Agro system.  Beringer helped lay the groundwork for the Argo Invasion three years later, and then repeated the job six years later with the invasion of Belinski in 3180.  After the front was stabilized, he was promoted to Captain and forcibly assigned a desk job by the Naval Intelligence Division.  Beringer disliked the sedentary life, but did his job as ordered.

With a peace treaty signed in 3182, he worked quietly for Naval Intelligence Division, organizing the intelligence networks.  Over the years, he noticed patterns of movement within the Skorpios Empire and the wilds that disturbed him.  He wrote many reports on what was called the 'System Independence' movement within the Wilds, but his warnings were ignored.  He predicted the formation of the Alliance of Independent States five years before it happened.  But the people of Aquila were tired of war, the Navy lost funding, and complacency set in.

The Peace Movement on Aquila grew so strong that Belinski, then Argo, and finally Corvus were handed back to the Skorpios Empire.  Commodore Beringer had predicted that failure in judgment as well.  He worked hard to create intelligence network throughout the three systems that would survive the hand-over.  Beringer decided to lay low during the Wild Systems independence movement and fallout.  A number of military leaders resigned as Aquila lost the five additional systems in the bloodless coup known as the Alliance of Independent systems. 

In 3197, the Muldoon-Shaw administration was voted into power on Aquila.  One of President General Muldoon's first acts was to promote Beringer, the man who had predicted the loss of eight systems, to Admiral and put him in charge of the newly formed Special Projects Division.  The intent of the Special Projects Division was to, at a minimum, rebalance the strategic power in the Ptomemy sector in favor of Aquila, and ultimately, to complete regime change in the Skorpios Empire.

While marooned on Corvus, Beringer had heard tales of undiscovered caches of military hardware, but could never get any of the top brass interested in the rumors.  With his new authority, he sent covert operatives to Corvus and discovered the rumored bunkers deep underground.  The only problem was that there was no way to covertly reach the bunkers and extract the goodies inside.  

Reluctantly, President General Muldoon ordered a full strike on Corvus, at the request of Beringer.  Caught by surprise, the Skorpios Empire fled to protect the new shipyards at Argos.  With Corvus secured, Beringer and his people located the bunkers and extracted the pretech weaponry.  Regretfully, there wasn't much, but there were enough remaining components to construct a jump-4 spacecraft.  Thus began the Void Expeditionary Force - which officially began when Perimeter Station Nine was destroyed and the AUS Reprieve escaped to Three Sisters.

Admiral Berenger has focused the Special Projects Division on extracting lost technology from the Void sectors.  Once Beachhead Base was established in the Three Sisters system, and additional jump-4 transportation secured, Beringer moved his operations into the Void itself.  He understands that Skorpios has military superiority, better intelligence networks, and more wealth.  Much of the government, and even the military, does not understand how dire the situation is.  Beringer has the weight of the union on his shoulders.

- Ark

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

SWN Faction Turns: January 3200

The map is drawn, the combatants are stated up, and the pieces are in place.  It's finally time to begin the Redshirts Stars Without Number faction game for the Ptolemy sector.  I am sad, though, that I did not think to include an ASTEROID WITCH.

For those who have come late, or never paid attention and suddenly want to, here are the blog entries detailing the setup (but you probably don't need to really know any of it):

Galactic End Game
SWN Factions: The Begining
SWN Faction Game: Movement and Geography
SWN Factions: The Alliance of Independent States
SWN Factions: Aquila Union
SWN Factions: Almagest Rebellion
SWN Factions: Skorpios Empire

The Redshirts campaign began on Groundhog Day, 3200 CE, and has been going on for at least ten months in game.  That's a lot of travel time while they have been frozen scout-sicles.  I'll start the faction game one month earlier, and take it in one month turns until we've caught up with the PCs.

In the faction game, the first bit is initiative.  That's page 113 in the fancy (core) Stars Without Number rule book.  There are four players, so a d4 will do.  The order of the factions will be (dice roll please,)the  Alliance of Independent States, the Almagest Rebellion, the Skorpios Empire, and last, but not least, the Aquila Union.

Alliance of Independent States - They AIS gains four FacCreds for this month, and has no maintenance charges, giving them a total of four FacCreds in the bank..  The Alliance decides to take the action of Use Asset Ability, sending their Demagogue, Surveyor, and stealthed Psychic Assassin assets from Atlas to Cicada via their Covert Transit Net.  This moves almost all of their assets out of their realm of control, but their intelligence is good and the Alliance knows that the Aquila Union will be busy with Skorpios for a while.

NEWS BLURB - Labor leader, human-rights activist, and well know seditionist Harry Freedonia arrived at the Cicada system on the January 5, 3200.  "I'm simply here to speak to the natives - the so-called Klakkers - about their unalienable rights to freedom and self expression.," he told the PXL news service.  The Aquila Governor's office on Cicada issued a statement shortly thereafter, indicating that they had detained Harry Freedonia upon his arrival, but had released him and his staff within hours after they were unable to find official links between him and the Alliance of Independent States.

Almagest Rebellion - The Rebellion scrounges up two Fac Creds in January, and has no bills to pay.  Looking at the Goals, I think I assigned one that is far too unrealistic - that of seizing the planet.  I'll reassign a goal that is more plausible, without punishing the poor rebels.  Blood the Enemy requires eight HP of damage to be done to the enemy, which is far more doable.  With that, the rebellion chooses the Attack action, sending their Zealots and Vanguard Cadres into battle vs. the Skorpios Postech Infantry on Almagest.  They must come out of stealth to do the attack.

In the Vanguard Cadre battle, d10 + rebel's cunning vs d10 + empire's cunning result in 2+4 vs. 1+7 or 6 vs. 7 in favor of the Skorpios Empire.  The Postech Infantry's d8 counterattack did 6 hp to the Vanguard Cadre, leaving it with 6 hit points.  The zealots lost as well, 8 to 16, and took 2 hit points.  As zealots, they damaged themselves with a d4 resulting in 1, leaving them with only 1 hit point.  In seeking to do eight points of damage, the rebellion's assets took nine points instead, and exposed their positions.

NEWS BLURB - Scattered reports from Almagast City over the first two weeks of January indicate a major offensive by the Skorpios Empire into the city's sewage infrastructure.  On January 12, Scientist-Theologan Yuri Azov announced via The Mouth of Truth News, "The womb-born slave malcontents of Almagast made a paltry and pathetic attack on the Chernobyl Barracks, but were massacred where they stood.  We've taken the liberty of gassing the sewers to root those maggot-eaten rats out of their fear holes.  All is calm now, and we are in control.  Praise Emperor-Scientist Andropov!"

Skorpios Empire - The most powerful faction in the sector pulls the biggest income at 6 FacCreds for January.  Like Almagest, I probably chose an unrealistic immediate goal, and will pick Expand Influence instead.  The Alliance decides to take the action of Use Asset Ability and sends the stealthed assets Surveyors and Treachery from Argo to Aquila held Corvus via it's Beachhead Landers for 2 FacCreds.

This movement sets off the Tripwire Cells that Aquila had placed on Corvus.  Rolling vs. Cunning against each asset, The tripwire ties with a 4+5 vs. 2+7 against the Surveyors, and looses to the Treachery at 4+5 vs. 6+7.  So, the Surveyors and the Treachery land stealthed on Corvus, safe and sound.

NEWS BLURB - The PXL news service had learned that due to a complete lack of suspicious activity along the Corvus/Argo border, military leaders are relaxing protocols, calling for a parade in the capital, followed by a planet-wide leave on January 21st.  "While we will still be on high alert," said General Wallace McKenzie, "I've got a feeling that the Skorps don't have much fight left in them.  After all, they've been getting their nose bloodied by the rebels on Almagest.  I think we'll be perfectly safe.


Aquila Union - The union gains 5 FacCreds this round.  While I would have normally had the union continue to build up militarily against the Skorpios Empire, I am going to go with the Tripwire Failure above and have Aquila turn its attention to the Demagogue Harry Freedonia who is making trouble on Cicada with the alien Klakkers.  Aquila will decide to buy an asset, specifically the Saboteurs asset on Cicada for 5 FacCredits.  This will probably cost them against Skorpios in the long run.

NEWS BLURB - On January 30th, the Aquila Governor's office on Cicada announced the formation of the Inland Relationship Service, a governmental organization tasked with improving relationship with the native Klakker populations.  "Its been centuries since the Terran Mandate put down the Great Klakker Rebellions," said Governor Alice Vidalia.  "The Klakkers left on Cicada mean us no harm.  They live in their little mud heaps out in the jungle and get on with their lives.  I think they are perfectly safe, and have no intention of building another Death Fleet intent on wiping humanity from Known Space.  We've assembled some highly talented teams to teach them the art of papier mache, how to perform classical theater, and each Klakker will receive a Rubik's Cube which will spray them with Happy Pheromone F-3000c when they complete the puzzle successfully.  I think these are excellent building blocks for an improved relationship with our impoverished alien hive-mind neighbors."

This has actually been pretty damn enjoyable.  It's pretty quick and simple once you get the hang of it.  The abstractness of the system lets me use my imagination in ways I wouldn't have expected, and writing up those news blurbs has been really fun.

So, that's it for the month of January.  Three days after the Klakker announcement was released, the Redshirts blasted out of a surprise Skorpios Naval Blockade on the Schwarzkopf Rim and began their adventures in The Void.

Oh, for those that have read down this far and still have some sort of clue as to what is going on - and care - here is a sector map detailing the large scale movement assets of the factions and some places of interest.


- Ark

Friday, November 9, 2012

SWN Factions: The Alliance of Independent States

I am going to start outlining the four big players in the Stars Without Number factions game, starting with the Alliance of Independent States.  As said before, this is a loose alliance of worlds that were wrested from the Aquila Union and the Skorpios Empire by regional warlords.   The AIS is situated in the Wilds, far away from the travelled space lanes in the Ptolemy Sector, so it was easy to escape retribution for the rebellion.  However, that distance also makes it difficult for the Alliance to bring much force to bear against their former friends.

The leader of the Alliance, Magistrate Popova, has decided to continue his already successful campaign of coercion, sabotage, and shit-stirring to disrupt the trade in both Aquila and Skorpios controlled space.  He has built a covert transit net, giving him easy access to most of the planets of Aquila and a piece of Skorpios.    Now he is prepared to send a wave of spies, assassins, and loud mouthed trouble makers out into the galaxy and make a base of operations where he can cause even more trouble and profit as much as possible.

The stats for Magistrate Popova's political machine are below:

Faction Alliance of Independent States
Attributes
Force
5
Cunning
6
Wealth
3
Hit Points
29
Systems/Assets
Atlas
Planetary Government
Base of Influence HP:5
Covert Transit Net/Cunning 6
Demagogue/Cunning 6
Psychic Assassins/Force 5
Surveyors/Wealth 2
Geographia
Planetary Government
Base of Influence HP:1
Novikov
Planetary Government
Base of Influence HP:1
Smirnova
Planetary Government
Base of Influence HP:1
Talus
Homeworld
Planetary Government
Base of Influence HP:29
Tags Pirates
FacCredits/Turn
4
Goal Expand Influence

- Ark

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Redshirts: UFO Invasion!

In last night's Stars Without Number game, the scouts awoke to learn that they were going to an isolated human planet named Tunguska, with a technology approximating Earth around 1940-1970.  Black and white TV, check.  Radar, check.  Sonar, check. Disneyland, check.  Computers that could calculate PI to the 12th place that filled up a garage, check.  Given the fact they would be going there in an ancient alien spacecraft that resembled a flying saucer, the session had The Day the Earth Stood Still written all over it.  But strangely, it devolved into The Creature from the Black Lagoon.

I added a pack of rival scouts called the Omega team, headed by Lt. Chad Tarkinson.  Lt. Chad was, of course, blonde, square-chinned, and arrogant.  The crew found out that Omega Team had been going behind them and cleaning up the messes that they had left on various planets, and that Omega Team was jockeying for their jobs.

The players were PISSED.  Plans of how to destroy the Omega Team immediately began to take shape.

Omega team took the Northern Hemisphere of Tunguska, and '"Alpha' Team took the south.  A flyby revealed a huge structure sticking out of the sea near the only southern continent.  Quickly they determined it was what was left of a kilometer wide Jump gate.  What was above the water resembled the top of a giant "C."  Along the ocean, boardwalk, piers, and even hotels had been built by the natives.  The coral reef that had formed made the area excellent for fishing - which made stealth a bit more difficult for our intrepid crew.

Anyway, here are our dear Adelaide's notes for the night's festivities, the the traditional purple:


Stars Without Number (Bullet Points)
The newest player, Skipper again drew
her character - Manna 'Doc' Davies

  • The group awakes from the freeze sleep once again with Lt. Commander Gonzales is standing creepily over them.
  • Ken arrives with his band of plastic Barbie dolls (she's talking about Omega Team here - see how pissed off she is? -ark) and the dick measuring begins. Owlicious will forever be looking for an excuse to fire upon them.
  • The group is given a crappy beat-up version of the UFOs from last time, pissing the group off further, and they leave.
  • The group, while scanning their tiny part of the world, find part of a ship (pretech jump gate) sticking out of the ocean and they decide to investigate.
  • The native people of the world have mined out a lot of the ship and are using it for like a Disney vacation spot. 
  • They go down deeper into the ship and they discover a giant eel the size of the UFO. It attacks the ship so they decide it would be best to fire at it with the heat cannon even though Owlicious advised against it. The heat kills the eel but also wounds the UFO and probably alerts the people up above them that something has happened.
  • Doc Davies artfully awakens Kal Kek but Miles Obrian only manages to dissect Professor Ramapudi and Doc Davies is forced to try and stabilize him. She manages to keep him alive but he is now in a vegetative state.
  • The group leaves Kal Kek and Professor Ramapudi behind and head on to the door leading into the giant ship. (jump gate)
  • They come across a giant room that has a bar and dance floor as well as a giant window where the group can see sea creatures outside it. The tank, Titus Leandros, instantly runs to go get plastered and then loses himself on the dance floor. (Break dancing, strangely enough.)
  • Lt. Taylor calls for a guide to take the group to the jump gate's barracks using the wifi he’s found and the guide takes the group to an elevator that then opens to water, wounding several of the members. The team then splits up, with the power-armored people leaving to go find any items that might still be okay.
  • Owlicious, Lt. Taylor, and Desmond leave and return to the bar/dance floor area. The other party members manage to find some guns that they then load up on. Titus takes 22 stun-guns and 3 grav-harnesses. Doc Davies picks up 19 lifeboat survival packs. 
  • They then meet back up with the rest of the group and Owlicious casually lets Lt. Taylor know that Titus had consumed Methyl alcohol instead of alcohol. Doc Davies then is ordered to heal him and succeeds only in getting the toxins out of his body.
  • Fish people suddenly come out into the bar and fire upon Titus and Lt. Taylor and they go down. Miles slaps a laz patch onto Titus and he comes back to consciousness.  Doc Davies then laz patches Lt. Taylor and he is also up.
  • Lt. Taylor hits one of the guns that knocks them all, except one, unconscious. Everyone else had missed with their guns. The last fish person then disappears into a grass door that opened underneath them.
  • Lt. Taylor then gets angry and destroys all of them and Owlicious collects samples for SCIENCE. 
  • Lt. Taylor then makes the ship play the sonic sound all over the intercoms, which makes all the life signs on the scanners slowly disappear.
  • They find jewelry and the females go crazy! Then they find a box with a little sphere in it. It opens up to show a small AI and Owlicious tells it she is a princess and claims him as her new companion. She names him Teddy.
  • The group then leaves, Owlicious taking Teddy with her, and head to the hangar; which isn’t looking too well.
  • They find pieces of great ships but no full ships themselves. Owlicious and Titus decide to test Teddy’s healing abilities and he cuts Titus open, then re-closes him and actually managed to not kill him.
  • The group decides to attach a beacon to the spike drive so that they will know if it moves.
  • They wake up Professor Ramapudi using Teddy, which surprisingly it works.
  • The group decides then to stay for an extra month to build their own ship instead of trying to look for another one and lets Omega team know.
  • They take off in their new ship but it has no cloaking which terrifies the natives and causes them to react badly. The team fires their ships gun as a warning and also to test it out, cause why the fuck not?
  • They manage to make it back to the main planet with the ship and everyone is promoted! Yay! 
Adelaide drew her character's new AI friend, Teddy the floating eyeball

So, the team made some pretty good choices - and because they were so pissed off with the Omega Team - they stayed on task and completed one of the most important parts of the entire mission into the Void; obtaining a ship - other than the Reprieve - that could make a 4 hex jump.

Meanwhile, Omega Team found a museum, which they broke into, and only recovered some pretech walkie-talkies.  Alpha Team rubbed their noses in it. :)

- Ark

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Redshirts: Banyan Trees of Mars

The inspiration for last week's Stars Without Number's game came from photos beamed back from the Mars Global Surveyor.  They caused quite an uproar a decade ago, as they appeared to show gigantic trees thriving at the Martian poles.

The images looked very much like banyan trees.  Whatever they were, the shapes looked very organic.  It caused quite a stir.  Even venerable Arthur C. Clarke thought he was looking at a new life form.  NASA disagreed.  New World Order conspiracy nutjobs came out of the woodwork, proclaiming that NASA was hiding the BIG SECRET from us all, and the Banyan Trees of Mars were final proof.

Alas, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, with it's much better imaging system, showed the Trees to actually be cracks in the polar ice.  Bummer.  

The image of gigantic black trees contrasting against an icy, white landscape on an alien world has been burning in my mind for over a decade now.  So, in my mind, I made that planet.  I populated it with strange creatures that fit into the ecology of the Trees.  Then I sent the Redshirt crew to the planet and tried to kill them with it.  Ahh - good times. :)

Our intrepid documentarian Adelaide took notes on the adventure, as it happened:


  • Six months have passed since more hell went down; some of the crew is still in the sleep pods - Nick Scryer and “Doc” Davies to be specific.
  • The rest are left on an asteroid to mine out a base before kicking the crew off so they can use it for pirating.
  • While the group was mining Lt. Commander Gonzales and the ship received a signal from an indigenous species that contacted them and asked for assistance getting off the Skorpios invaded planet. In return they will assist in destroying the Skorpios.
  • The group is to take a gun printer to the world and they will be dropped off there. They each need to drop most all of their items to do so. (the party must walk for two days with a heavy load. -ark)
  • The planet is very shiny white except for around the equator, which is black. There is very strange plant life around this planet.
  • Doctor Daktan scans the trees and thinks they are elephants, and Professor Ramapudi thinks it is actually aardvarks. Owlicious knows they are alive and that they are made of graphite and they are very efficient at surviving. She also sees no animal life just plant life.
  • Professor Ramapudi uses his drill to grab some DNA from the trees and see’s that they will work well as raw materials for the gun printer. Owlicious cuts down a bush and notices it starts to bleed a tar like substance.  
  • The group continues on and the sun finally sets, the planet cools down.
  • Lt. Five gets attacked at night by a black mass and tries to attack it with a butt of his gun. He fails and whacks himself instead. The black mass rips out his intestines while he screams in pain.
  • Everyone wakes up suddenly; Kal Kek rushes out to search for Lt. Five. He only see’s the shadow moving away and a bloody trail but nothing else. He fires his thermal pistol at the shadow and see’s he’s shot what looks like a four legged, eight foot tall “bush” and Lt. Five dangling from its “mouth.”
  • Professor Ramapudi bioscans the creature and see’s that is it an animal.
  • Owlicious fires at the creature but misses, Loranzo also misses, but luckily Doctor Daktan teleports Lt. Five safely into the snow in the group. 
  • Lt. Taylor rushes out and angrily runs up to the monster and punches it into the ground. In his boxers. Holy shit.
  • Doctor Daktan Laz patches Lt. Five successfully bringing him back from the dead. For the third time in Lt. Mark Fives existence.
  • Professor Ramapudi and Owlicious gleefully dissect the creature. Professor Ramapudi programs the bioscanner to detect these creatures (FOR SCIENCE) and Doctor Daktan notices it’s registering 35 different once surrounding them.
  • Lt. Taylor orders everyone to reenter the campsite and no one is allowed to leave, they also close off the opening. 
  • The next morning Doctor Daktan’s bioscanner detects 5 creatures following from behind.
  • The group decimates them and then Lt. Taylor sets up his compad to constantly signal Russian chatter to him so he always attempts to know where they are.
  • They find a domestic “dog” just sitting in the street and the group waits to see what it’s going to do. It leaves and they continue.
  • As it starts getting dark the group starts to see something shiny under the canopy and they find that it is a building. There are 12 foot monsters under the canopy as well.
  • These creatures look like thorny silverbacks. It has a belt and a sword on its side. Lt. Taylor has a staring fight with it and 19 others come out of the canopy.
  • Lt. Taylor opens his compad to try to communicate with it but the voice over the compad says he is not the gorilla creature and to stay calm.
  • Another gorilla comes out and says thanks for bringing the “medicine” and to come with him.
  • The group proceeds to show the gorillas the gun printer and then follow the gorillas into an underground tunnel.
  • In a room the group sees that there are lots of random human items there but also a dissected human on the wall.
  • Everyone proceeds to talk some bullshit until they ask for some medicine and they find out Lt. Mark Five is infected with a toxin that he is then given an antidote. It makes him puke a bunch but he feels better.
  • Everyone decides to test out the gun printer to make sure it works and Owlicious suddenly screams “WE USE MY BUSH” while excitedly holding up the bush she slaughtered earlier. The men whole-heartedly agree.
  • Lt. Taylor manages to talk what seems to be the main priest into letting the group into the silver temple. While the rest of the group gets carried (Especially Owlicious because she offered up her bush and deserves to be treated like a fucking princess) Lt. Taylor gracefully climbs the steps much to the gorilla’s amazement. At the bottom they see an altar and everyone offers up their branches.
  • Professor Ramapudi does a scan and can see that the alter will move and there are areas underneath it.
  • Lt. Taylor bullshits with the priest some more trying to get him to leave them there alone. It works and he stomps off but then dogleader speaks up and seems nervous about the group setting off explosives.
  • Loranzo finds a switch and tells Lt. Taylor while he stupidly attempts to force it open. They open the altar and see stairs leading down and near the stairs there is a bowl.
  • As they go down all the signals jam, at 50 meters they get to a platform that is held in place by the stairs and then there is a drop. Kal Kek drops a glow bug down there and it lights up the walls slightly. They see more drawings on the walls and see that there are three legged creatures that seem to be much larger than the gorillas that are petting them like they are just dogs.
  • At the very bottom there are four disks about forty meters across a piece and look a lot like flying saucers.
  • Lt. Taylor presses a button and the platform disconnects from the stairs and starts going down.
  • They open a ship and stand on a slab that came out of the ship and the group goes into the ship except Kal Kek and Doctor Daktan who stayed behind.
  • Lt. Five sits in a large uncomfortable seat and sees a button near him which he presses and it lights up the entire inside and the inside group can see outside the ship now and a camera narrows in on Doctor Daktan and Kal Kek with red squares around their image. Doctor Daktan wanders off down a hallway as Kal Kek enters the space ship.
  • The group inside the ship realize once they need to go find Doctor Daktan that they are stuck inside until Loranzo finds a picture button to open the ship again. 
  • Doctor Daktan encounters a giant robot hand grasping for him when he opens a random door down the hallway and screams.
  • Lt. Taylor, Kal Kek, and Loranzo left the saucer to try and save Doctor Daktan but Loranzo runs back to warn the rest of the group to leave.
  • Owlicious presses a button and the three left in the ship as well as the ship shoot upwards and stay stuck against the ceiling as Professor Ramapudi hacks into the wifi system.
  • Doctor Daktan, though he ran, gets captured by the robot.
  • Lt. Five points at the red circle that was on the robot and the image got much bigger with data charts coming up that seem to be about the robot.
  • The robot shoots a beam of light straight into Doctor Daktan ‘s head but doesn’t seem to be in pain.
  • The three in the ship see the red circle on the robot flashing as the robots light grows brighter and Doctor Daktan passes out and his eyebrows and hair light up. 
  • Lt. Five makes a gun symbol with his fingers at the robot on the ship and the ship fires a light beam at the robot hitting it. It drops jimmy and Loranzo hides in another ship. It makes a fist motion at the ship with the scientists and Lt. Five.
  • Owlicious decides it would be a good idea to make the fist action back at the robot. Lt. Taylor drops unconscious but Kal Kek stays standing. The robot bursts into flames. Doctor Daktan is dead.
  • Kal Kek picks Lt. Taylor up and brings him to the lift where they ascend. 
  • Professor Ramapudi finally hacks the space ship and is able to drive it out with no problem.

So, after escaping from the giant three legged robots, the scouts ran all the way back to the shuttle and high-tailed it off the planet.


Next session is tomorrow. :)

- Ark