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

Sunday, May 10, 2015

GURPS Space: Triton Core

On Saturday, we had the inaugural game of Triton Core, a science fiction campaign run with the GURPS ruleset and set in a Stars Without Number type universe with the serial numbers filed off.  We've been playing two D&D games a week in the Forgotten Realms for almost a year and I felt it was time to scratch the space itch again.  Currently Triton Core is an unscheduled pick-up game, but may evolve to have more scheduling structure.

The initial game went really well, with the players investigating the disappearance of a flighty cartographer deep within an icy moon on the edge of nowhere.  Since the game will have less regularity than others we've played, I've decided to post game logs and other data to this blog for easy access.  And I think I'll use this page in particular for a table of contents for game related posts.  So look for those below at a later date.

Enjoy or ignore at your discretion. :)

Posts



- Ark

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

Monday, October 22, 2012

Redshirts: Make Thee an Ark of Gopher Wood

Awesome blog post ->> here <<-.  Go read.  I'll wait for you back here.  Okay, thanks.

We last left out intrepid adventurers outside of the hulking wreckage of the four mile long Biotonics Ark 3, nervously flying their tiny unarmed reconnaissance shuttle toward a gaping hole it its side. This was really only about thirty minutes into the second gaming session, but I have a tendency to blah blah blah a lot in these session reports, so I didn't get very far last time.

Speaking of blah blah blah, I was asked about where I get my ideas for the Stars Without Number games.  Well, over four decades of reading and watching science fiction kind of saturates your DNA with ideas, so specific instances can be hard to identify some times. But the recent sessions have been inspired by Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama, about a giant, alien ship that inexplicably zips through our solar system, The Ark In Space, a Doctor Who serial from the 70's that I watched over and over and over again as a child, and Alfonso Azpiri's Heavy Metal story The Ark, staring his busty space-babe Lorna - which has always reminded me of an naked version of Metamorphosis Alpha.  Oh yes, and of course, Jim Ward's horrific science fiction game Metamorphosis Alpha.  

In other words, I rarely have good ideas of my own - I just try to steal them.

I'm sure I had a point here somewhere.  Oh yes - the play report.

The shuttle set down in the blackened, twisted orifice of the ark.  The command staff of Lieutenants Taylor, Five, and Ramapudi, the psychic middie Daktan, petty Owlicious, and leathernecks Loranzo, Kek, and Slate suited up and entered the airless void, guns out and magnetic boots activated.  Creeping around in the dark, they found a hallway guarded by a laser security system.  Disabling it led them to an elevator.

Images from The Ark, by Alfonso Azpiri
Once inside the elevator, air pressure became normal and the lights flickered on dimly.  Along the wall were buttons for 100 floors, most dark and deactivated.  Only three lit up.  One read DESERT.  Another MARSH.  Still another RAIN FOREST.

Lt. Five, the scouts' resident pilot and astronautics expert, figured that the best place to find A3-500 Transducers was near the center of the ship.  The RAIN FOREST level was the closest active level to the core, so away they went.

The doors wooshed open and they were confronted with an array of comfortable chairs on a nice little patio overlooking an enormous alien rain forest with 100 meter tall trees and a dense canopy.  The glowing blue ceiling high overhead emitted a constant drizzle of rain through high-tech sprinklers.

Science Officer Ramapudi and CO/Hacker Lt. Taylor found a nearby data kiosk and broke into it in an attempt to access a computer.  Interfacing was almost impossible, due to the outrageous technology that the ark had been built with, but they did discover that the ecological systems on the spacecraft were being run by a powerful, if unresponsive, artificial intelligence named GAIA.  They also found a map - indicating an engineering egress on the other side of the forest - a good four hours' hike.

As they traveled through the wet, muddy jungle, they discovered stumpy bushes bearing banana-like fruit.  A scan revealed that the fruit had a heavy infusion of arsenic, but they decided to take some anyway.  At that point, they were attacked by eight-armed arboreal hairy monkey things that threw big, heavy balls of poo as weapons.  One hit Petty Officer Owlicioius so hard in the head it knocked her unconscious.  The leathernecks unloaded their weapons into the canopy, scaring off the beasts.  They revived the petty officer and continued on.

The whole quicksand with slurping monster at the bottom event didn't make them very happy, but they all escaped alive coated in mud - thanks to their space suits which they had refused to remove.

Then they met the giant intelligent mosquitoes.  Lt. Ramapudi and Petty Officer Owlicious, the scouts' xenoarchaeologist, began to try to communicate with the SKEETERS, carefully - oh so carefully, convincing them that they meant no harm and were indeed not food, but other intelligent creatures.

One of the skeeters had seen creatures similar to them, so they began to communicate and learn.

Then Spaceman Slate happened.  The leatherneck - perhaps bored - jumped up and and decided to communicate with the aliens as well.

Complete fumble.  Kaye seems to do that only at the worst times.

The skittish skeeters were so freaked out that Spaceman Slate had said he'd like to eat their queen that they snatched him up and flew away with him, saying that they needed to teach him a lesson be dropping him into THE MAW and letting it digest him.

Yeah, so much for a happy ending.  Lt Taylor tried to paralyze them by hacking Slate's suit and emitting a triggering sound, which sort of worked and deafened Slate. Then the leathernecks blasted the remaining skeeters, who dropped Slate, sending him hurtling to the ground.

Luckily, Midshipman Daktan, a psychic, teleported Slate to safety.  When the party head 7,000 angry skeeters in the distance, they decided to abandon the RAIN FOREST level.

After camping out in the elevator for a long while and nursing their wounds, the freeze dried scouts decided to try traversing the MARSH level to get to the engineering egress.  There they found endless ponds full of mysterious, glowing bodies, something like the Dead Marshes in the Lord of the Rings.  Inside each pond was a giant crab with 50 foot long claws with giant bio-swords on the ends.  But by that time, they had learned to communicate - in a fashion - with GAIA, who dropped the temperature in the Marsh, slowing the crabs, and letting them trek to the engineering egress in peace.

The engineering section was old and dark and deserted, save for piles and piles of 600 year old human corpses.  Eventually they found a section that was powered up - using a lot of power, mind you - and giving off a whole mess of biological reading.  We left our intrepid crew that night, in an airlock, nervously looking at three entrances to various, threatening engineering areas.

So, it was fun and nobody died.  I know, I know, I'm slipping.  Next time - I promise - there will be some death. :)

- 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

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Dungeonspiration: Contact Sheets

This will be my last Dungeonspiration column for the foreseeable future.   I'll get into why after this week's installment . . .

I've been running a Stars Without Number campaign, which has been going fine with it's automagically generated sector sandbox.  But I got a hankering to try out a published adventure, so I went out and grabbed Kevin Crawford's Hard Light.  It's basically The Keep on the Borderlands for a science fiction campaign - a sort of mini-sandbox inside a great big sandbox.  The thing reads great, and has been playing great as well.

One avenue the referee and players can explore in Hard Light is in solving a mystery.  There are about ten important players in the mystery.  In planning the game, I became worried that the players would not be able to keep up with all the people involved.  How could they remember all of the people if I was having a hard time keeping track myself? Then I thought of a trick I used to use in my old Top Secret days - contact sheets.


I whipped up this contact sheet of contacts (from page 6 of Hard Light, for those following along at home) in less than an hour using deviantArt.com's search function and the freebie graphics program Paint.Net (which I use when I don't want to spend the time waiting for Photoshop to load.)  As the PCs meet the denizens of Hard Light, I pull out the sheet and point.  Not only do the players seem to enjoy looking at the pictures - they seem to be remembering them better than they would just with a auditory description.

There was an unforeseen problem.  The character in the lower right-hand cell - see him?  When I snagged the pic, I noticed that it was labelled 'Old Man Logan.'  Having read X-Men back in the 80s, I knew who Logan was, and just assumed that someone had drawn him old, and that the players would never think to associate him with Wolverine.

As soon as I brought out the sheet, two of the players pointed and said 'Hey, it's Old Man Logan!.'  I had no clue that there had been some sort of very popular 'What If?' kind of series based on good old Wolverine in the future.  The players seemed to immediately like the guy before I said a word about him.

So, if you are snagging art for a game, give some thought about the impact a particular image will create.  Players already bring a lot of baggage with them into a game, so try to use it to your advantage. :)

Now . . . as to why Dungeonspiration column is going into hiatus, or perhaps retirement:

1) Focus - The intent of the column was to inspire DMs (and as an afterthought, players) about gaming.  I have a hard time writing about just that.  I'm all over the place - as this particular column illustrates nicely.  It really has nothing to do with the concept of 'Dungeonspiration.'

2) Need - Do the readers in the OSR blogosphere really need to be inspired?  From what I read on other blogs - no.  People are chock full of awesome ideas all over the place.  I think that what people seem to need above all else is time.  If I could somehow bottle time and distribute in via the Internet, that would satisfy a lot more people's need.

3) Self-Discipline - Another reason for the Dungeonspiration column was to provide me with a weekly reminder to write blog post - at lest one a week.  While I think it has helped, I also think that I would have done it anyway - crazy holiday weeks not withstanding.

4) Other Projects - I've got some other projects in queue for 2012.  Those projects have to do with gaming and providing additional blog content - so it's not like loosing Dungeonspiration would be reducing content on the blog itself, I just need to juggle my time wisely.  I still have a lot to juggle and decide what I want to tackle - so some meditation time is in order.

So thougts are my thoughts on the Dungeonspiration column and it's future.  But perhaps I have missed something.  If the column is doing something else for you that I haven't thought of, please let me know.  There may be a reason to keep it around longer that I'm not aware of.  Maybe it warrants a monthly column or something.  I don't know.  If you have any input, feel free to leave it below. :)

Have a Happy New Year - and don't go driving drunk or nothing.  Boozing away and passing out on someone's sofa is far better etiquette than wrapping your car around a telephone pole.

- Ark

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Campaign Timelines

For years now, I've had every intention of taking good notes when I run a campaign.  Typically what I'm left with is piles of papers with rows of descending hit point totals, hastily scribbled npc names, and chicken scratching that I'm not exactly sure what are.  Campaign journaling rarely works out for me.  But I do gather up my notes on occasion and try to stitch them together to see what has happened.  Luckily, I have a pretty good memory for imaginary happenings, so usually everything adds up.

At the simplest level, I like to create timelines - like the one below.  This is for my Stars Without Number campaign.  Such a list is handy because I create it in excel and can do odd date math on the fly - which is especially nice since now spreadsheets can handle dates into the far future.  With an autosum, I can see that the campaign has lasted 311 days - Earth days, that is.  

Little titles and notes keep everything straight in my head, and I can remember if an NPC was planning on hunting down and killing the party - and how long that npc has been formulating the plan and stalking them - waiting for the time to be ripe.  You know, typical stuff to make the players paranoid. ;)

So that's why I like to do.  How are YOU at note taking?

Place/Event Duration Start Date Events of Note
Travel/Stay
Halal System 1 1-Jan-2300 Ship assaulted by Captian Kaylah Tabari.
Interstellar Travel 6 7-Jan-2300 On the Edmund Fitzgerald (Methan owned.)
Interplanetary Travel 2 9-Jan-2300 ''
Jaisalmar System 2 11-Jan-2300 Hijacked ore shipment on ice world.
Interplanetary Travel 2 13-Jan-2300 On the Edmund Fitzgerald.
Interstellar Travel 5 18-Jan-2300 ''
Interplanetary Travel 2 20-Jan-2300 ''
Hephaestus System 87 17-Apr-2300 Meet Methans, destoyed casino, Sgt. & Adam KIA.
Interplanetary Travel 2 19-Apr-2300 On the Konjiki Yasha (Methan bio ship.)
Interstellar Travel 6 25-Apr-2300 ''
Interplanetary Travel 2 27-Apr-2300 ''
Metha System 1 28-Apr-2300 Accepted by Methans.  
Interstellar Travel 5 3-May-2300 On the Fort Knox (Methan accountant transport.)
Interplanetary Travel 2 5-May-2300 ''
Perdurabo - Hard Light 2 7-May-2300 Begin clandestine criminal investigation.
Travel to Comet 2 9-May-2300 On the Leadbelly with Captain Ranse Hardlee
Stay in Comet 4 13-May-2300 Exploring tomb of the Ushans (asparagusheads)
Travel to Hard Light 3 16-May-2300 On the Leadbelly with Captain Ranse Hardlee
Perdurabo - Hard Light 15 31-May-2300 Foil evil plot on Hard Light
Travel to Colony 2 2-Jun-2300 On the shuttle Bon Grunj with pilot Kingston
Stay in Colony 62 3-Aug-2300 Fight pirates and capture pirate ship
Travel to Hard Light 2 5-Aug-2300 Aboard the Fat Tuesday.
Perdurabo - Hard Light 2 7-Aug-2300 Fuel up and say goodbyes.
Interplanetary Travel 2 9-Aug-2300 Aboard the Fat Tuesday.
Interstellar Travel 6 15-Aug-2300 ''
Interplanetary Travel 2 17-Aug-2300 ''
Euphrates System 1 18-Aug-2300 Refuel at mining asteroid.
Interplanetary Travel 2 20-Aug-2300 Aboard the Fat Tuesday.
Interstellar Travel 6 26-Aug-2300 ''
Interplanetary Travel 2 28-Aug-2300 ''
Tigris - Blue Saturn 49 16-Oct-2300 Destroy 2 pirate ships, meet the Kingpin.
Interplanetary Travel 2 18-Oct-2300 Aboard the Fat Tuesday.
Interstellar Travel 6 24-Oct-2300 ''
Interplanetary Travel 2 26-Oct-2300 ''
Nile System 1 27-Oct-2300 Return Thad, meet Captain Zarkon of White Chapel.
Interplanetary Travel 2 29-Oct-2300 Aboard the Fat Tuesday.
Interstellar Travel 6 4-Nov-2300 Aboard the Fat Tuesday.
Interplanetary Travel 2 6-Nov-2300 Aboard the Fat Tuesday.
Amazon System 1 7-Nov-2300 Arrive at Kyroth Colony. PLANT ATTACK!

- 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

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

SciFiSwag


Two things came in the mail today - a MegaTraveller Referee's Manual and Tomorrow's War.  Yay!

I grabbed the MegaTraveller Ref Guide, not because I want to play it, but for its starship building rules.  I remember using those rules to design ships was the funnest thing about the game itself.  I'm playing Stars Without Number nowadays, and while the abstracted ship building rules are great and simple - they lack some meat.  The players have been wondering about their starship, layouts and stuff, so I think this old book will help me.  It may also give me some ideas for creating a more in-depth ship building system for SWN itself.

Tomorrow's War was kind of a fluke.  I stumbled upon in while on Amazon.  I was very fascinated by the description of it.  It's more of a hard sci-fi wargame, as opposed to the 40K stuff.  It's relatively new, got great reviews, made by Osprey/Ambush Alley, and was only like 23 bucks.  I . . . I impulse bought.  Yeah.  But man, it's in my grubby little hands now and I'm pumped about playing it sometime.  PYOO PYOO!

So I got some reading to do.  Like I have time.  LOL.

- 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

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, December 10, 2013

My Little Star Catalog

Is the French Arm giving the American Arm the finger?
I remember really digging the original Traveller's subsector maps until I got to the Solomani supplement.  It became all too obvious that Traveller's space was two dimensional and just horribly, horrible wrong.  Of course, players never cared, but it bugged the heck out of me.

Star Frontiers wasn't any better, so I remapped THAT universe into 3D - just because.

Then Traveller: 2300 came out, containing a glorious map of the REAL local space.  Besides the map, it came with a distilled version of Gliese Near Star Catalog - version 2 - in a nifty little booklet.  I sat and mapped stars for days with that booklet, a pencil, and graph paper.  I loved it, and that booklet stayed with me much longer than the game ever did.

In the 90s, I found digitized versions of the Gliese Catalog and others - including the Yale Bright Star Catalog.  There was a very nifty BBS in North Texas back then run by amateur astronomers - and it was glorious.  There was a simple spreadsheet program in the Microsoft Works package, and I set about trying to map the galaxy.

Hipparchos parallax - accurate to ONLY 1600 light years.
Running the numbers, I realized Douglas Adams was right.  Space is fucking huge.  Light travels at a snail's pace.  And, for all their nifty telescopes and sciency shit, astronomers are just guessing at the distances of the stars.  BIG guesses.  Most of the stars that we can see are very, very local - in galactic terms.

A much more comprehensive survey came out - the Hipparcos Catalog.  It was so big my computer couldn't grok it.  I sighed and stepped away from star mapping for a while.

By the time I had regained my interest and could afford a faster computer, I ran into Winchell Chung's web page.  Beside's defining the look and feel of Steve Jackson's OGRE back in the mid 1970s, Winchell Chung is also a star mapping freak of the highest caliber. He's got so much about star mapping on his site - it boggles the mind.  Because of his work in this field, he remains one of my favorite people in the universe - even though I've never communicated with him.  Talk about stalky. :)

So much of the work was already done for me on the site that, well, I got lazy.  Any time I'd want to know information - distances - whatnot - I'd just hit the site.  But this year - after delving back into GURPS, I got hungry for star mapping again - BIG star mapping.  It dawned on me that I have been doing database work as a career for almost 20 years now, slicing and dicing huge wads of data in the blink of an eye.  The stellar data, by comparison to bank transactions, is relatively small.  So I pulled in the data and it was glorious fun.

I present to you, without further ado, the Arkhein Derived Catalog (Simplified.)  Please note, this data is not accurate enough for astrogation purposes.  Black holes are not charted.  Your mileage may vary.

ArkheinDerivedCatalogSimplified.csv contains 18,729 star systems within a 135 parsec cube centered on Sol.  It is derived from The HYG Database (a dataset derived from Hipparcos, Yale, and Gliese,) the HabCat Dataset (from Jill Tarter and Margaret Turnbull - a list of systems that might contain a habitable planet) and data from the NASA Exoplanet Archive as of September 22, 2013.

This simplified version I'm putting out for public comsumption is rather slim - with the following columns:

ADCID Arkhein Catalog Derived ID # for my own tracking.
HIP The Hipparcos Catalog Number.
CommonName Of all the names of the system, my own, personal favorite.
Distance In parsecs from Sol.
AbsMag A sciencey brightness thingy.
Spectrum The Hertzsprung-Russell classification.
ColorIndex A sceincey color thingy.
Xg Cartesian coordinates based on a Galactic orientation.
Yg Cartesian coordinates based on a Galactic orientation.
Zg Cartesian coordinates based on a Galactic orientation.
HAB SETI watch candidae per Tarter/Turnbull.
pl_hostname System name per NASA Exoplanet Archive.
pl_pnum Number of verified exoplanets, per NASA.

Part of the reasoning behind the cubic shape of the data is to organize the stars into cubes.  Though not in the simplified dataset, I have everything in this 135 parsec wide cube sliced up, identified, and named.  I may publicize this later, as I tried to make it as neutral as possible, naming each unit after the brightest star in the area.

The hierarchy is as follows:

Width (parsecs) Cubic Parsecs Comprised of . . .
Subsector 5 125
Sector 15 3375 27 Subsectors
Region 45 91125 27 Sectors

Thus, the 135 parsec area is made up of 27 Regions, 729 Sectors, and 19,683 Subsectors.  A huge amount of space, yes, but easily slice and diced with a database.

The naming convention of the areas results in Sol being located in . . .

Subsector: Sirius
Sector: Vega
Region: Aldebaran

. . . which seems pretty neat to me.

I've got some ad hoc calculations to randomly (but logically) determine human habitable systems from all of this data.  I get about 520 planets with complex life on them out of the entire area.  A lot more planets with single cell life, but those are far less interesting. :)

So there it is - my life's work.  Yay.  It will all go toward a GURPS: Space campaign one day.  Please let me know if you have any questions or are interested in seeing any of the additional data.

- Ark