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

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Traveller Skill Matrix

Below is a skill matrix for the current characters in the Traveller campaign - in the same format as I had set up in the past for Stars Without Number.

There are a lot more skills in Traveller, though, creating quite a list.  That has it's positives and negatives.  But since, typically, the player does not have to agonize over which skills to pick - they come out pretty randomly in character creation - it's not too bad.



Player Tim Adel Merwyn Kaye The Boy
Name Elias Neva John Guenhwyvar Cade
Strength 6 3 4
F
7
Dexterity 6
B
A
6
A
Endurance 6 6 4
C
6
Intelligence 9
E
8 7 9
Education
B
8 6 6 6
Social
D
D
6 6 5
Admin 0 - - 1 -
Advocate 0 - 0 - -
Animals - - - - -
Animals (Farming)  - - - - -
Animals (Riding) - - - - -
Animals (Training)  - - - - -
Animals (Veterinary)  - - - - -
Art 0 - - - -
Art (Acting)  - 1 - - -
Art (Dance)  - 1 - - -
Art (Holography)  - - - - -
Art (Instrument)  - 4 - - -
Art (Sculpting)  - - - - -
Art (Writing)  - - - - -
Astrogation  1 - - - -
Athletics - 0 0 0 -
Athletics (Co-ordination)  - - - - 2
Athletics (Endurance)  - - - - -
Athletics (Flying)  - - - - -
Athletics (Strength)  - - - - -
Battle Dress  - - - 1 -
Broker  - - - - 3
Carouse  3 3 0 - -
Comms  0 0 - 1 -
Computers  - - 0 - 0
Deception 3 1 0 - 0
Diplomat 0 - - - -
Drive - - - 0 -
Drive (Mole)  - - - - -
Drive (Tracked)  - - 1 - -
Drive (Wheeled) - - - - -
Engineer - - - - -
Engineer (Electronics)  - - - - -
Engineer (J-Drive)  - - 1 - -
Engineer (Life Support)  - - - - -
Engineer (M-Drive)  - - - - -
Engineer (Power)  - - - - -
Explosives  - - - - -
Flyer 0 - - - -
Flyer (Grav)  - - - - -
Flyer (Rotor)  - - - - -
Flyer (Wing)  - - - - -
Gambler - - - 0 1
Gun Combat - - - - -
Gun Combat (EnergyPistol)  - - - - -
Gun Combat (Energy Rifle)  - - - 1 -
Gun Combat (Shotgun)  - - - - -
Gun Combat (Slug Pistol)  - - 4 - 1
Gun Combat (Slug Rifle)  - - - 2 -
Gunner - - 0 - -
Gunner (Capital Weapons) - - - - -
Gunner (Ortillery) - - - - -
Gunner (Screens) - - - - -
Gunner (Turrets) - - - - 1
Heavy Weapons - - - 0 -
Heavy Weapons (Field Artillery)  - - - - -
Heavy Weapons (Launchers)  - - - - -
Heavy Weapons (Man Portable Artillery)  - - - - -
Investigate  0 0 1 1 0
Jack of All Trades 1 - - - -
Language 0 - - 0 0
Language (Anglic)  - - - - -
Language (Aslan) - - - - -
Language (Oynprith)  - - - - -
Language (Vilani)  - - - - -
Language (Zdetl)  - - - - -
Leadership - - - 1 -
Life Sciences - - - - -
Life Sciences (Biology) - - - - -
Life Sciences (Cybernetics) - - - - -
Life Sciences (Genetics) - - - - -
Life Sciences (Psionicology) - - - - -
Mechanic  - - 1 - -
Medic  - - - - -
Melee 0 - 0 - 0
Melee (Blade)  - - - - -
Melee (Bludgeon)  - - - - -
Melee (Natural Weapons)  - - - 2 -
Melee (Unarmed Combat)  - - - 1 -
Navigation  - - - - -
Persuade  3 1 1 - 0
Physical Sciences - - - - -
Physical Sciences(Chemistry) - - - - -
Physical Sciences(Electronics) - - - - -
Physical Sciences (Physics)  - - - - -
Pilot - - - - -
Pilot (Capital Ships)  - - - - -
Pilot (Small Craft)  - - - - -
Pilot (Spacecraft)  1 - - - 1
Recon  - - 1 1 2
Remote Operations  - - - - 0
Seafarer - - - - -
Seafarer (Motorboats)  - - - - -
Seafarer (Ocean Ships)  - - - - -
Seafarer (Sail)  - - - - -
Seafarer (Submarine)  - - - - -
Sensors  - - - 1 -
Social Sciences 0 - - - -
Social Sciences (Archeology)  - - - - -
Social Sciences (Economics)  - - - - -
Social Sciences (History)  - - - - -
Social Sciences (Linguistics)  - - - - -
Social Sciences (Philosophy)  - - - - -
Social Sciences (Psychology)  - - - - -
Social Sciences(Sophontology)  - - - - -
Space Sciences - - - - -
Space Sciences (Planetology) - - - - -
Space Sciences (Robotics)  - - - - -
Space Sciences (Xenology)  - - - - -
Stealth  - - 1 - 1
Steward  - 2 1 - -
Streetwise  1 0 1 - 3
Survival  - - - - -
Tactics - - - - -
Tactics (Military Tactics)  - - - - -
Tactics (Naval Tactics)  - - - - -
Trade - - - 0 -
Trade (Biologicals)  - - - - -
Trade (Civil Engineering)  - - - - -
Trade (Hydroponics)  - - - - -
Trade (Polymers)  - - - - -
Trade (Space Construction)  - - - - -
Vacc Suit  - - - 0 -
Zero-G - - - - 0

- Ark

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Death of a Campaign


Redshirts died this week.

The Stars Without Numbers campaign had a pretty good run.  I had designed it as an FLGS episodic drop-in pick-up game with a cast of freeze dried, replaceable PCs scouting the unknown horrors of my mind.  It morphed into something quite different.

The first oddity was PEOPLE KEPT ON COMING.  I finally had to cap the game at nine players.  That's enough people in a room yelling at me.

Second, instead of a pick-up game, our schedule became very specifically timed, rotating around the players INSTEAD of me.

Third - we were kicked out of the FLGS by the Chess Club.

Instead, we played every week at Merwyn's house.  He has a large table.  That table wasn't quite big enough so another table had to be attached.  Something like a kiddie table at Thanksgiving.

So what the hell happened - you ask.

Well, I read Kevin Crawford's Stars Without Number supplement Scavenger Fleets.  It's a great, free supplement detailing the bands of nomadic star-farers who dig through the trash of the previous civilization.

I got to thinking - what if one of these Scavenger Fleets got too big for its britches?  What if they stopped just scavenging dead planets, and began to *harvest* living ones.

Thus, the RECTIFIERS were born.  The Rectifier Fleet was comprised of 70+ ships, their tech level passed any in the area, and their habit of implanting all of their 'recruits' with wi-fi brain pain technology made their sufficiently Borg like to scare anyone who met them.

I figured I had a pretty good bag of villains to harass the freeze-dried scouts.

The Redshirts were passing through a system they used 'space highway' when they stumbled on the fleet.  Sensors indicated that the sleepy little planet they knew as Tunguska was being invaded, and the gas giants in the area were under lock-down.

I figured . . . well - you know what happens.  A DM goes through every thing they could think that would happen and plans accordingly.  Players always figure a way around all of that, though.

I made it clear that these dudes were billy-bad-asses and not to be messed with.  The mission was clear - find a way to refuel, jump the hell away, and warn the boys back home.  Since the CO position was being filled by Crazy-Ass Tim who was playing Professor Ramaputi - a guy who dislikes violence and wants to SCIENCE everything - I figured we were in for some interesting stealth operations.

Yeah, right.

They see a Rectifier Frigate nearby, but are cloaking really well, so it doesn't see them.  Rather than GTFO, they teleport a mirror outside of the ship and start bouncing LIDAR communications off of it, taunting the Frigate.

It went downhill from there.

It their little stealth shuttle they . . . they attacked the frigate.  They had pulled off ship assaults before.  Two - if I remember correctly.  But those assaults had always been against ships with much crappier tech.

Most of the PCs got to the hull of the Rectifier Frigate, while Ramaputi and two psychics did a halfway planned, halfway accidental maneuver where they simultaneously rammed the shuttle into the Frigate at full speed and smashed the hull with Telekenetic Ram.  At the same time, Merwyn's character faked out the ship's AI and nabbed controlled of the jump drive and maneuvering systems.

They blew a hole into the Frigate.  Nice going, yes.  But the other ships in the area were closing fast.  The crew of the Frigate was still alive and not in a great mood, however.

Meryn decided that, since he was in control of the jump drives - that they should jump the Frigate to another star system and deal with the crew later.  However, after a few minutes of paper-shuffling - it became horrible apparent that not a single member of the party had the Navigation skill to jump the ship.

At that point, Merwyn decided to accelerate to ramming speed and slam the Frigate into the nearest Cruiser.

Yeah.

The party found life pods to evacuate.  However, they were easily picked up by the Rectifiers.

Hmm.

Rather than role-play their lives as mind-slaves of the Rectifier Fleet, we decided to leave it there and let the Redshirts campaign sail off into the horizon, smoke billowing from the water-borne funeral pyre.

I would guess that the following events would happen:

  1. Capture.
  2. Torture.
  3. Integration.
  4. And then the Rectifier Fleet - with full knowledge of the Aquila Union now, would commence an invasion and the player characters would be a party to the destruction of their own civilization.

Good times, good times.

The Boy, however, is currently writing a story in which the characters escape the Rectifiers and everybody wins.  I am eagerly waiting to read that story, since it sounds a heck of a lot more upbeat then what I charted out above.

So, I salute the nine players of the Redshirts campaign for valiantly putting up with all of the horrific things that I threw at their poor, ill-equipped characters - and for the most part surviving.    But the campaign was named Redshirts - so it was really just a matter of time. :)

- Ark

Friday, January 18, 2013

Player Portraits: Adelaide

Adelaide has been playing with the group for a while now - Labyrinth Lord, Stars Without Number, and now Traveller.  She's typically the most level headed of the group - not poking any great big red buttons that say "DON'T POKE ME" and ducking behind something large and heavy when the rest of the party does something stupid.  Her sanity seems to be wearing off, however.  In Traveller, she's playing an interstellar pop-star who has a habit of pissing off Planetary Contessas for fun.  Obviously, Adelaide has been hanging around the wrong people. :)

I've been working diligently to learn some new drawing techniques over the last few month.  I've been unhappy with my progress, but this one of Adelaide didn't come out too bad.


- Ark

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