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

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Dungeonspiration: Stars Without Number

I used to have a reoccurring dream.  Well, it was more of a reoccuring theme.  I would be in a comic book shop, or a book store, or a flea market in an ancient submarine, or in the Transylvanian basement of a fetid castle - and I'd be looking through boxes.  These were big long white boxes filled with every role playing game imaginable.  I would dig through them, looking for that one science fiction role playing game that had everything I wanted - good combat mechanics, good skill systems, good starship rules, and good universe generation systems.

I'd inevitably find some rpg system that had an awesome cover and everytihng I wanted inside - and I'd rush to the zombie check out girl or the auto-purchase-bot with a big smile on my face.  Then I'd wake up and start cussing - realizing that it was just a dream.

I've had that dream a LOT.  It's representative of my search for a perfect rpg in my younger years - especially a perfect science fiction game.  I've played quite a few - Star Frontiers, various forms of Traveller (black book, mega, 2300,) Space Master, GURPS Space, Star Wars - and read even more.

Okay, I'm not going to say that Stars Without Number is perfect, but damn, it's good.  It seems to fulfil the promise that Traveller made back so many years ago, but never quite delivered.

Traveller had a fun - if nerve racking - character generation system where your character could die before gameplay started.  It was great for generating back-story - but the actual mechanics were - MEH.  Stars Without Number takes good old fashioned D&D mechanics, simplifies them, and tweaks them with a light skill system.

There are just threee classes, Warrior, Psychic, and Expert - but the Expert - like LotFP's Expert class, is highly customizable with skills, allowing you to create anything from a doctor or spaceship mechanic, to a bounty hunter.

The game tosses out the good old hit charts and follows a simple formula.  Twenty always hits, one always misses, and you determine that with a d20 + your Combat Skill + Att Mod + Att Bonus + defender's AC.  Poof.  Beautiful.  I really wish the d20 developer dudes would have thought of this, rather than having to flip AC on it's head.

And you know when your first level psychic has d4 HP and a sniper rifle does 2d8 - only good things can happen. :)

Where Stars Without Number really shines though, for me, is in it's universe creation.  Just like in Traveller, you sit down and randomly roll up a sector full of stars.  In my youth, I loved this, and as other sci-fi RPGs were produced, they had similar creation rules, but they got more specific on the physical characteristics of various solar systems.

I loved the complexity and exactness of some of those systems.  Charting out how many AUs distant each planet was from it's star, calculating the specific density of a planet, determining albedo, etc - all these were great fun - for me - an amateur astrophysicist.

It never really translated into fun during a game.  Even if the players knew what the term 'albedo' meant, they wouldn't have cared to know that planet X925g-U had a rating of 57%.

Stars Without Number tosses most of the physical nuts and bolts and replaces them with - um - for lack of better words - a SCI-FI-TROPE-A-TRON-3000.

The default setting of the game is that humanity expanded rapidly into the galaxy, achieving amazing technology, then something happened to crash civilization and crash it HARD for a while.  Now humanity is rebuilding and worlds are reconnecting with one another.  You know, that old chestnut.

Rolling up a world, you might get something like this:

Atmosphere: Breathable mix
Temperature: Warm (could result in a desert or swampy type place)
Biosphere: Immiscible (i.e., you can't eat the natives)
Population: Hundreds of Thousands of Inhabitants
Tech Level: 4 - Baseline
Worlds Tags: Police State, Hostile Biosphere
Culture Base: Russian

Looking at the results, and the pointers in the book, a hundred idea pop in my head.  The first to come into mind is a place like Harry Harrison's Deathworld - a planet full of jungle animals and plants ready to eat anyone in a second.  But it could just as easily be a world reminiscent of earth in Stephen King's The Mist or frankly, Frank Herbert's Dune.

The creation process wonderfully tosses a bunch of tropes together and lets that pot full of 'kitchen sink' soup cook in your mind for a while until something awesome pops out.  Who gives a flip about the gravity of a world - unless that gravity is different enough to mean something and be a good plot device.

Star Without Numbers also allows for the same type of randomized trope construction of cultures, aliens, npcs, religions, political parties, and corporations. Each of these systems is geared towards creating conflict and issues that will provide ample adventure opportunities for the pcs, wherever they go and whatever they do.  It's a wonderful sandbox creation system, and very fun to work with.

I mean, I would have never thought to make up a low-tech world where the entire society had to hunt down alien whale-like creatures to survive, in some sort of Moby-Dick-gone-viral planet, but with a roll of some dice, my mind began churning along and I was there.

Sine Nomine published the original version as a free pdf, and I bought a physical copy of it.  Enjoying that, I grabbed Skyward Steel, which is a sourcebook for space navies.  I liked that so much, I went and got the updated version of Star Without Numbers from Mongoose - and it was worth it - rules for AI's and mech, and an entire world culture generation system.

I'm really impressed with what Kevin Crawford has been doing with this game.  I haven't been this inspired to run a science fiction game in quite a while.

So if you haven't yet, go grab Star Without Numbers.  It's free, and even if you don't intend to play it, it's chock full of good adventuring ideas that should impress even jaded players.

- 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, April 5, 2012

Dungeonspiration: My RPG is Full of Stars

I've been running Stars Without Number for over half a year now, and so far, it's the best science fiction rpg that I've played.  What am I comparing it to?  Primarily the sci fi games I played in olden times; Star Frontiers, Spacemaster, GURPS: Space, Gama WorldShadowrun, FASA's Star Trek, and Traveller in its myriad of forms.  I could also throw in Star Wars Saga Edition, as I have ample experience with that game as well.

Why is it my favorite?  Well, mainly for what Stars Without Number is not.  It's not an attempt to lay down physics in game form.  It's not an attempt to weave an entire, pre-built universe.  It's not an attempt to create a rule for every conceivable situation.

Stars Without Number is, frankly, a stripped down old style D&D with a science fiction facade nailed up around it.  The game easily provides me the ability to project my view of science fiction to the players - assisted with simple game mechanics that I already enjoy.  There is nothing in the way of telling the story I want to tell.  Traveller was close, but I was really never fond of the rules.

My view of science fiction comes primarily from the stories I read as a child.  Of course, Star Trek was an influence as well, but I was already on the road to being well read in the science fiction realm before Star Wars came to smother the genre.  When I think of science fiction, my mind always drifts to stories such as these:

  • Issac Asimov - Foundation
  • Ray Bradbury - The Martian Chronicles
  • Arthur C. Clarke - 2001, Childhood's End, Rendezvous With Rama
  • Ursula K. Le Guin - The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed
  • Harry Harrison - Stainless Steel Rat, Deathworld
  • Robert Heinlein - Stranger In a Strange Land, Starship Troopers, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
  • Frank Herbert - Dune
  • Larry Niven - Ringworld, Known Space stories,
  • Larry Niven and  Jerry Pournelle - The Mote in God's Eye, Lucifer's Hammer 
  • Fred Saberhagen - Berserker

That's the core of my science fiction, give or take some books that I've forgotten, and that's the feel I go for when running the game.  I make an effort to steer away from Star Wars and Star Trek.  They are too . . . pop-cultury for me.  It's that same attitude I get when I scream - 'Someone scrape the gosh-darn Tolkein out of D&D.  I can't take it any more!'

Interestingly, in my gaming group, I'm the greybeard.  They haven't had the same diet of science fiction that I've had.  They understand the concepts, but largely from a different source.  They understand FTL travel from Firefly.  They understand cybernetics form Deus Ex.  They understand the concept of a ringworld from Halo.  They understand uplift form Mass Effect.

It really hit me when I was helping a new player make a character.

Me: So we've got three classes.  Warriors.  That's a soldier dude, from swords to guns.  Expert.   That's someone who's good at something besides killing.  Doctors, Pilots, whatnot.  And then their is Psychics.  They have psychic powers.

New Player: (Confused look.)

Me: (Trying hard not to make a Star Wars reference.)  They do stuff with their minds.  Ummmm . .

New Player: (Still confused.)

Me: Like a Biotic in Mass Effect.

New Player: Oh!  That's kinda what I thought you meant.  Gotcha.

With great effort, I did not facepalm.  The new guard and old guard just have different words for thing sometimes.

And that brings the conversation around to Mass Effect series of games.  Rather than just being a game about killing alien invaders, it's a tour of a future chock-full of science fiction tropes from all of my favorite books.  It really carries the torch to a new audience.  Time and time again I find myself explaining concepts to the players couched in Mass Effect terms.  It's kind of a Rosetta Stone.

The ending of the Mass Effect trilogy was a let down for me.  I won't get into it much, but the issue wasn't what happened at the end, rather, how the story was told.  It was, frankly, just bad story telling, in my book.  But I highly recommend the other 99% of the franchise - especially to those old grognards who want to interact with the younguns in an old style science fiction game.

I'll leave you with some Mass Effect 3 concept art by Matt Rhodes.  Again, it's concept art, so it's not exactly what went into the game, but there are spoilers.  It's great stuff for getting in the mood for a Stars Without Numbers game.

Normandy Silent Running by Matt Rhodes

Rogue Sheppard by Matt Rhodes

Taking Back Normandy by Matt Rhodes
Red Hallway by Matt Rhodes

Illusive Office by Matt Rhodes

Presidium Hospital by Matt Rhodes

Crashed On Eden by Matt Rhodes

Enjoy, and go get all spacey.

- Ark

Friday, October 5, 2012

Redshirt Roll Call! (and Ranks and Ratings)

I do love a good character creation system.  Recently, we played the HERO system, which takes years to fashion a character with, but they are quite awesome characters.  Then we played Twilight 2000.  Okay, yeah, so it is reminiscent of filling out a 1040-EZ tax form.  But geez - that is no excuse for the players to start sobbing and rush to their calculators.  I swear, kids these days.  How do they do their taxes now?  Magic 8 ball?  I feel old.  But the character that come out of Twilight 2000 are very gritty and realistic.  Apocalypse realistic, that is and I quite like them.

But we are back to Stars Without Number now, and everything is right with the world.  Roll up a D&D character, select a background skill package and a training skill package - and WHAM - you are done.  No multiplication or division even.

Here are the members of the Aquila Scout Service so far:
  • Lieutenant Holt McManus - Lt. McManus shot up the ranks quickly to become a detective in the Aquila Naval Police Corp before being transferred to the Aquila Scout Service.  Played by Merwin.
  • Lieutenant Mark Five - Lt. Five was a hot shot fighter pilot when he was approached about joining the Scouts.  Played by Felipe.
  • Petty Officer 1st Class James Loranzo - PO 1st Class Loranzo is a hard core soldier, having seen action in several backwater ground assaults before he was selected for the Scout Service.  Played by The Boy.
  • Petty Officer 3rd Class Owlicious - PO 3rd Class Owlicious was hand selected for this mission because of her focus in xenoarchaelogy.  Played by Adelaide.
  • Spacer Apprentice Kal Kek - Apprentice Kal Kek is not your ordinary jar head marine, as he has ambitions of being an officer one day.  Played by Seamus.
  • Spacer Apprentice XC-OM - Apprentice XC-OM is a 600 year old artificial intelligence, manufactured before the Scream and interested in exploration.  Played by Kaye.
(Note: these descriptions are mine, based on their class, skills, and ranks.  They never really had much time to delve into their past or motives during the intro session.  Oh, and of course, all players names are Internet pseudonyms that I made up to - and no - no one gets to pick their own pseudonym.  So deal with it, players.)

So, those of you who have played Stars Without Number may be asking yourself where I came up with the ranks.  Well, that's random.  Take the 'Summary of Naval Ranks, Rating and Pay Grades' on page 9 of Skyward Steel: Naval Campaigns for Stars Without Number, and do this:

If you are a Psychic, you are automatically an officer.  If you have at least a 14 in Intelligence or Charisma, you can choose to either be enlisted or officer.  Otherwise, you are enlisted.

If enlisted, roll 2d4-2.  If you have an Intelligence or Charisma adjustment, apply it to the roll:

               Enlisted Chart
Roll Code Rate
1- E-1 Spacer Recruit
2
E-2 Spacer Apprentice
3
E-3 Spacer
4
E-4 Petty Officer Third Class
5
E-5 Petty Officer Second Class
6+ E-6 Petty Officer Third Class

Officers just roll a d6, regardless of Intelligence of Charisma:

               Officer Chart
Roll Code Rank
1-2 O-1 Midshipman
3-4 O-2 Ensign
5-6 O-3 Lieutenant

I had thought this set up would have given a nice spread of ranks and a clear leader.  Of course, we ended up with two Lieutenants.  So, in hindsight, the Officer Chart should go something like this:

              Officer Chart
RollCodeRank
1-3O-1Midshipman
4-5O-2Ensign
6O-3Lieutenant

Regarding class and rating/rank, if you do the math on the attributes, Warriors will almost always end up being enlisted.  Expert will always get the choice of being enlisted or officer (but with bonuses, they'll almost always be a higher rating than the warriors if they choose enlisted, on average.)  And those Psychics will always be officers.  Why?  Because people are scared of Psychics.  Best to put them in charge. 

I had thought about making AIs automatic officers as well, but society doesn't trust them much.  Psychics are feared, yes, but AIs are less feared and more . . . held in contempt.  I mean, the Psychic dude over there can read your mind. Be on your best behavior.  But taking orders from a toaster?  Not gonna happen unless that toaster proves itself.

Now that I think of it, I should probably increase the requirements for becoming an officer.  Ah.  One of their packages must have the Leadership skill in it.  Makes sense.  Otherwise, officers without leadership skills tend to get fragged.

Oh, and one more little rule that we used - if you make a character without an combat ability whatsoever, your rank immediately becomes E-1 Spacer Recruit.  'Nuff said?

I guess that is it for this post.  I was going to do the play report, but looks like I'll do that next post. I blab too much.  :)

- Ark

Sunday, November 4, 2012

SWN Factions: The Begining

The key thing about Factions in Stars Without Number is they need to be pissed at one another.  It doesn't really matter if they are a gang in control of a inner city block, or a star spanning empire - they just need the desire to do harm to ANOTHER faction.  The harm could be physical, logistical, or financial.  Someone is threatening their turf, and that somebody must be taken DOWN.

I'm going to go through the steps to create and run a Stars Without Number Faction Game here on the blog, using my Redshirts campaign as a basis.  Now, the factions and the PCs in Redshirts are typically very far from one another.  The main factions are active in the home sector.  The PCs are off in other sectors, exploring and such.  But the two are closely linked, because the PCs are searching for assets that their home faction can use to survive and destroy it's enemies.

First off, it's handy to have a place where these factions can fight.  Chapter Seven: World Creation, has a really nifty sector generation system.  Yeah, it's like Traveller, except where Traveller's sub-sector generation mainly deals with the physical placement and attributes of star systems, Star's Without Number focuses on the adventure potential of said star systems.  Actually, you could probably use the creation systems of both, in concert, and have some pretty nifty results.

But whatever . . .

So, after the dust settles, I stare at the sector map and try to understand the relationship of the worlds I just created, physically and ideologically.  Empires and Federations morph into my head, and a rough history develops.  it's the kind of creation that's hard to quantify, as it just happens in my head.  Call it a Gedankenexperiment.  But if I see the potential for a group to dislike another group, I try to turn up the amp to ELEVEN and make them loath one another.

I'm not going to get into the specifics of each world.  Actually, there are a lot of nifty secrets about the systems that come up in sector creation that the players definitely do not need to know (yet,) and besides, the Faction Game is rather abstract, and we don't  need to know too many specifics other than where worlds exist in relation to one another.

I decided that the Ptolemy Sector had four major factions, two being superpowers, two being minor players. I felt that would be enough to get the ball rolling.  Those factions are the Aquila Union, Skorpios Empire, the Alliance of Independent Systems, and Almagest Rebellion.


Aquila Union - During the Silence, the inhabitants of Aquila fashioned a government using the long gone United States of America as a template.  This was successful, and as they rebuilt and explored the sector, they offered the denizens of other planets egress into their union.  Due to the sheer power and reach of Aquila, it was hard for other systems to say no.  The influence of Aquila continued to expand until the Skorpios Empire entered the stage.


Skorpios Empire - Russian speaking researchers on the fugus infested planet of Skorpios Prime began horrific experiments after the Terran Mandate fell, eventually creating a race of vat-bred neo-humans infused with alien fungal DNA.  Assured by their Scientist-Emperor that theirs was a better way, the Skorpios Legions spread into the Ptolemy Sector to proselytize at the trigger end of a gun barrel.  Needless to say, everyone loves the Skorpions.


Alliance of Independent Systems - Tired of the endless war between Aquila and Skorpios, the systems on the fringe rallied together to break from the warring superpowers and create a haven of peace and economic freedom.  In reality, the Alliance devolved quickly into an area controlled by greedy warlords intent on squeezing wealth from the weak.  The green flag with yellow circle replaced the skull and crossbones within the Ptolemy Sector.
Almagest Rebellion - The quiet planet of Almagest was recovering nicely from the Scream, rebuilding its government, infrastructure, and social institutions.  Then the Skorpios Empire invaded, labeling all inhabitants as slaves and test subject for the greater good of science.  No one on Almagest felt really good about the turn of events, and they have been fighting underground ever since.  The rebellion is tenacious, if not well armed or funded.  They consider the Skorpions insects to squash, and anyone who reminds them that scorpions are arthropods, not insects, gets punched in the nose.

The war between Aquila and Skorpios went on for a hundred years, sometimes hot, sometime cold, but stable, for the most part.  Both sides were equally matched, and brought every world in the sector into the fray.  Neutrality was not an option.  But then the system of Talus lead a unilateral revolt against the two superpowers, forming the Alliance of Independent Systems.  Talus had been allies with Aquila, and it's loss was devastating.

Realizing that they didn't have much time on their hands.  Aquila spearheaded an invasion of a system rumored to have stores of advanced technology, discovered an ancient spike drive capable of a 4 hex jump, and launched the Void Expeditionary Force to secure more technology in a previously unreachable sector of space.

So, that is sector situation for the Redshirt Faction Game.  I'll be getting into the nitty-gritty in later posts.

- Ark

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Dungeonspiration: Group Gestalt

Player dynamics in role playing games have always fascinated me.  Often, a group is made of individualistic players whose goals and modis operandi don't sync up at all.  But sometimes, a gaggle of gamers morphs into a group with a capital 'G.'  I love those times.

Not like this at all.  Really.
At the beginning of our Stars Without Number campaign, the PCs were a group of loners who just happened to be travelling in the same general direction and had a tendency of taking the same two bit, mostly illegal jobs from various criminal syndicates and interstellar corporations.  Then they became involved with a bizarre alien race called the Methans and took a job from them at a backwater mining space station around a extremely radioactive star in the Hard Light system.

The Hard Light system is the subject of Kevin Crawford's Stars Without Number module Hard Light.  The setting has a great claustrophobic feel to it, with cramped space stations and asteroid exploration.  It really reminds me of what would happen if you crammed Keep on the Borderlands into the Sean Connery movie Outland.

For some reason, the group seemed to change at Hard Light.  The characters were sent there to investigate and deal with a mysterious production issue plaguing the station.  Perhaps it was the focus of the mission, the claustrophobic setting, the fact that the group was basically stranded in the system for four months, or perhaps that EVERYONE but the group members themselves were suspects - but the group began to gain cohesion.  They started acting as a unit, investigating the mystery secretly while they pretended to be ordinary workers.  I was really amazed by how they cooperated and quickly put the pieces of the mystery together while actually taking an interest in the setting and the NPCs.

Another strange, and completely unexpected moment of cohesion happened soon after.  The party was working on infiltrating a small pirate base.  They had met a completely inconsequential pilot for the pirates and had convinced him (with force) to smuggle them into the base.  I decided that the pilot should be a blond Rastafarian with dreadlocks named Kingston who said 'Mon' a lot.  They immediately took a dislike to poor old Kingston.

At the base, they met another blond Rastafarian pirate named Pierre.  This further enraged the group.  I still don't quite understand why.

They started calling the pirates 'Franco Aryan Jamaican Nazi Pirates.'

It was deemed that the Franco Aryan Jamaican Nazi Pirates should not be allowed to live and breath in the same universe in which the PCs existed.  Pirate genocide began seconds after that decision.

"Dere be no reason to be shooting at me with your raggedy laser gun, Mon!"

Eventually, the group got their hands on a pirate ship named the Fat Tuesday and re-purposed it to hunt down and kill pirates.  One of the characters declared himself the captain.  The other players didn't argue with this coup d'état, since the new captain offered to pay the NPC's salaries out of his own pocket.  The group suddenly had a leader - Captain Reginald Goodnight.  Now, I've never seen a leader arise in a group without a lot of trouble - but this one grew organically, and oddly enough, helped to solidify the group even more.

The party still has disagreements about their goals, and exactly how to obtain them.  They can be horribly scattered during combat.  But this group - the crew of the Fat Tuesday, really clicks.  It's a group with a capital 'G,' and it's quite fun to watch the hive mind churn.

Case in point - during the last game the group encountered a starship captain named Biff Thadderson.  I modelled Captain Biff's mannerisms and speech off of Captain Zapp Brannigan from Futurama.  I felt this would be a death knell for Captain Biff, especially since I gave the party the opportunity to kill Biff off without lifting a finger.  I mean, the dude is annoying and I designed him specifically to be annoying.

Um . . . not like this, either.  Really.

But the players fell in LOVE with Captain Biff.  Simultaneously.  Like - WHAM!  I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if they go and marry him as a group or something.  And now I am stuck having to talk in an excited radio announcer's voice half the time.

It's an evil plot against me, I tell you.

But that's what happens when a group forges together in that peculiar was that seems to only happen around a table with dice clinking and the swilling of mass quantities of Diet Coke.  It's really inspiring.

- Ark

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Telekenesis in Stars Without Number

It seems that when my players imagine psychics in Stars Without Number, they get visions of Jedis dancing in their heads.  What do I get?  I get Bester.  You know, Bester from Bablyon 5.  Yeah.  Chekov.  But not nice Chekov. BESTER - psy-cop and asshole extraordinaire.

Bester hearkens back to a sci fi tradition where psionics were more subtle and had to do with mental activity and perception and all that.  Actually, the original Star Wars trilogy was a lot like that too.  Old Ben didn't go around melting people's heads off, and the pinnacle of power, Yoda, could lift an X-wing - barely - but he certainly wasn't powerful enough to wield an X-Wing like a sword and carve his initials into an AT-AT.

The second Stars Wars trilogy RUINED all that, and apparently has tainted some of my players.  They moan and groan about how wimpy the psychics are and how all of their powers have been nerfed.  I don't really have a problem with it.  Given my druthers, I'd nerf them down a bit more.  But I'm playing them as written.  The problem is that some of the powers, as written, can be lawyered to death.  The key part I'm referring to is the Telekinesis Discipline Track.

So here are my thoughts and rulings on the first four levels of the Telekinesis Discipline:

Remote Manipulation (1) - You have a ghost hand that extends to your unaided line of sight.  It had pick things up and hit people with them.  STR 10, -2 attack.  

Telekinetic Press (2) - Your can pump more strength (STR 18) into your ghost hand, but at the cost of speed and control.  Mobile is the limiting word in the description.  Anything that can move can get out of the way easily, and anything that can be moved will just scoot instead of being damaged.  However, if something is fixed to the floor or a bulkhead, you can exert that 18 STR and cause actual damage.

Complex Manipulation (3) - You can use two ghost hands at the same time, and if you use them to smack somone, you get no negative to attack, and have an 18 STR.

Telekinetic Ram (4) - This is the stickler that confuses people.  You can smack things real hard with force of will alone, but the object struck must be immobile.  Okay, so it sounds like it should be fixed and incapable of movement.  But then, later in the paragraph, it describes the power being able to damage vehicles.  Huh?  Well, there are two definitions of immobile - one incapable of being moved, and one not moving.  The second definition seems to fit here.  The words mobile and immobile are not always exact opposites.  So, if something is currently not moving, you can smack it.  If it is moving that round, no - no smack for you.  Back of the line.  Why?  Getting your telekinetic ram on is REAL hard.  Okay, yeah, it prevents your dear character from wiping out the tank platoon bearing down on you with a mere thought - but sorry - suck it up.

Enough lawyering.  That's my take.  But if Kevin Crawford were to wander by and pitch in his two cents, I'd carefully listen. :)

So, to heck with Qui-Gon Jinn.  Bester is awesome.  He doesn't do 40 meter backwards somersaults while killing 50 armored troops with a laser sword - no.  But Bester shows up and ruins your day with his smile.  Now THAT is power.

- Ark

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

SWN Faction Turns: January 3200

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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


- Ark

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Galactic Proportions

Stars Without Number suffers from the same aliment that Traveller suffers from - two dimensional space.  It's a very understandable affliction.  It's hard to represent a three dimensional stellar map on a flat piece of paper, and even if you do, ho-boy, you have to take out the slide rule to figure distances between the stars.

In order not to upset the hard-core amateur astrophysicist lurking just under my skin, I have to look at the star maps in Stars Without Number as, um, hyperspace maps - maps that are only relevant to the extra-dimensional space that starships hurtle though. This space bears no relevance to real 3d space - just enough pseudo-logic so that the sleeping astrophysicist will not awaken and rain on my parade.

But . . . let's assume that the maps bear 'some' relation to real space.  Kevin Crawford says very little about the 'shape' of human-space, or its dimensions.  The most explicit snippet is this:

"By 2600, the frontier of human space extended almost ten years of spike drive travel away from Terra. Even after taking Jump Gates as far as possible, a fast pretech courier ship required a year to reach the farthest colonial worlds."

That date is just before the end of the Golden Age and the beginning of the Scream, so those dimensions should pretty much be the height of human colonization in the galaxy.  Ship technology was also at it's height, so spacecraft could jump one hex per day.  Ten years equals roughly 3650 hexes.  The author very carefully never states the size of hexes on the star maps, so if we interject Traveller sizing - which if memory serves correctly is one parsec, we get:

3650 hexes X 3.26 light years = 11,899 ly

So, human space has roughly a 12Kly radius.  A little image stealing and circle drawing gets us this galactic map:



That's a fair chunk of the galaxy colonized, but it still leaves ample room for who knows what.  Now, I can start thinking about SWN's 'Known Space' visually - inside my noggin.  Not that I really need to, but it's more comfortable that way for me.

So, that ends my thought experiment for today. :)

- Ark

Friday, December 9, 2011

Ellen-14

Ellen-14 is a non-player character in our Stars Without Number campaign.  The picture doesn't do her justice - but it is similar enough to her appearance to get the point across.

The lady is ten feet high, twenty feet wide, and thirty feet long.  She is somewhat rock shaped, and her tough skin is a gray and black color - the kind you find on certain bloated ticks found in the foothills of Arkansas.  She has a human head emerging from the gray skin a bit over five feet up from the floor, and underneath it hang two human arms.  Having no feet, she moves around like a horta.

Ellen-14 is a human-alien hybrid.  Actually, Ellen-14 isn't just one entity - the name is a signifier for an entire brood of approximately 100 individuals - the 14th generation since initial hybridization.  All of the individual Ellen-14s are pretty much the same, and they keep in contact with one another to avoid drifting apart mentally.

The aliens who designed Ellen-14 (and the many other hybrid variants,) are known as the Metha.  The Metha look pretty much like Ellen-14, but without the human head and the human arms.  They have been sentient for half a million years, and have spent most of that time doing bioengineering work - redesigning themselves - and their biosphere - countless times.  Currently, their bodies house 15 to17 brains - some genetic copies of other alien species that they met in the past.

The Metha fit into the Stars Without Number alien classification of 'Other' - alien beings that are too different from human beings to communicate with or understand.  After a series of brutal wars after first contact, the Metha created the human-metha hybrids as an attempt to understand humanity and communicate with them.  The Metha are completely oblivious to the fact that the mere sight of Ellen-14 and her various sisters and brother causes most humans to run in abject fear.

Ellen-14 does, however, bridge the gap between humans and methans.  She has 18 brains inside of her - one of them human, and they all chat with one other through bizarre chemical interactions, radio waves, and pulsing light.  She is well aware of how she looks, as well.  "Oh my," she will often say, "You think I look hideous.  I do.  I cannot argue.  But I couldn't find a thing to wear today that didn't make me look bloated!"

Ellen-14 is also a smart-ass.

The player characters have - strangely - taken a shine to Ellen-14 and her brood sisters. I'm not sure why.  She is their 'Mr. Johnson," in Shadow-run speak.  They are still very nervous about the pure methans, though.  It might have something to do with the aliens engaging in thermonuclear war as a sport.  But who knows.

- Ark

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Hit Point Survey

Warriors Experience Table, SWN, pg 21
Okay, so this isn't one of those 'click the button' surveys, but more of a 'response requested' kind of thing, involving standard D&D style hit point rolling.

Now, in all my years, I've been under the impression that when you level, you take your Hit Die and roll - then add your new hit points (and perhaps CON mod) to your existing hit point pool.  Everyone I've ever dealt with has been in agreement - it seems to be intuitive.

Stars Without Number has classes, levels, and hit points similar to D&D, but apparently, that's not the way you do it.  From page 23 in Stars Without Number, under the heading Hit Points:
"Don’t worry too much if you roll a low number. As your character gains experience they will gain more hit points and the chance to reroll poor dice. Some GMs may choose to omit the initial roll entirely and simply start new characters with the maximum possible hit points."
Unless I'm misreading, this seems to imply for SWN that, you reroll your hit point every level.  It's an interesting concept, if it is indeed the concept here.  Has anyone heard of such a thing?

- Ark

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Redshirts: UFO Invasion!

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

- Ark

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Stars Without Number Web Ring

Remember web rings?  There would be some cgi (common gateway interface) code that you'd put at the bottom of your web page (that probably had a tilde ~ in the name) and it would link together a lot of similarly topic-ed pages.  And you'd go to them and clicked NEXT NEXT NEXT and you'd get a bunch of dead or not updated pages wanting to be about the topic in question but never quite were?

This isn't that.

What I've decided to do is to make a page on the blog here with links to people who are interested in Stars Without Number and blog about it on occasion.  No other requirements, other than that.

Are you interested in being included?

So, what I need you to do is to comment down below with the name of the blog, the link to it, your name (alias, whatever) and maybe a little blurb about it in relation to SWN.  Then I'll put it on the page - which will be accessible via a tab thing up at the top - I think that is how those page things work anyway.

Here is an example:

GamersJunk.com - Gamers' Junk - Billy Bob Phaser - I liek da SWN and make da blgo abou tit.

Okay, maybe try to spell words correctly, but it doesn't need to be Shakespeare. :)

So start typing.

- Ark

PS - If you find this post years after it's publication date and still want to be listed, just reply here - most likely I'll still be around and I'll add you - just reply below.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Redshirts: Failure


Manna 'Doc' Davies - played by Skipper
The first time I saw an RPG run with more than ten players was only a couple of years ago.  Matt Finch, of Swords & Wizardry, was running 14 of us through Mythrus Tower at NTPRG Con.  Matt's DM methodology included standing on top of a chair and yelling, as well as using a giant, schoolroom sized white board for combat diagramming - all to wonderful effect.

There were nine players in the Stars Without Number game last session.  I'm still trying to get use to such a large party.  I think I need a nice, stable chair to stand on – but things have been working out anyway.  Merwyn, the in-game CO, acts as caller – which helps a lot.  And Adelaide has this habit of raising her hand and staring at me with an undying glare until I acknowledge her.

This session saw Kaye with his new psychic combat character – Nick Scryer the grenade teleportist.  A new lady gamer, Skipper, showed up to play as well.   She sketched her warrior, Manna ‘Doc’ Davies, up above.

The title of this blog includes 'Failure,' and so did the game session.  The party was supposed to deposit a flight team onto an ancient starship and leave, but the complications became too great - the main complication being an enemy fleet attempting to secure the ancient ship for themselves.

Lessons learned:
  1. Infiltrating a star system in a snail-slow shuttle is folly, no matter how well cloaked it is.
  2. Grenade teleportation is effective and sneaky.
  3. Resource poor star faring nations would most likely mount Reaper Battery on any of their Patrol Boats.
  4. Calling a Reaper Battery an Ion Cannon saves a lot of time in-game, because everyone has seen Empire.
  5. Kaye has not seen Empire.
  6. Using the terms 'Scotty,' 'Chekov,' and 'Uhura' to describe enemy crew members is a quick and efficient way to get descriptive data to the characters during a loud and hectic combat sequence.
  7. Kaye has not seen Trek.
  8. Kaye will be voted off the island.
  9. Throwing in an electrified bridge floor is a fun way to knock out half the party.
  10. Having a violent fire-fight on a ship's bridge will destroy the controls on said bridge.
  11. All players will violently argue that if a ship's bridge is destroyed, one can easily reroute the piloting controls to engineering because that is how all starships are designed and that everyone knows that, even if they have never watched Star Wars or Star Trek.

Our dear Adelaide has documented the fun below in glorious purple:

Stars Without Number (Bullet Points :D)
  • The team awakes from cryosleep again, lots of vomiting is going on. Again
  • They are joined by a new psychic named Nick Scryer
  • The group swears they see metallic scorpions on the floor with tiny people chasing them but eventually that goes away and they are asked to go to the mess hall.
  • As they are eating lt. Commander Gonzales tells everyone “good job” for the last mission but that Newt, the child that they rescued, is not going under for cryosleep and that she is “creepy.” However, she is also able to operate the ship which is helpful.
  • He also assigns them, excuse me, Lt. Taylor volunteers the group to go back to the hellspawn-Biotonics ship because the commander is interested in the tech on it.
  • They are to drop off two specialists named Brick and Brack
  • There are self-replicating scorpions being taken off the ship the group is about to get on. Yay.
  • Lt. Nathienal Taylor attempts to hack the scorpions and destroys them.
  • Newt tells the ship she’s actually a brain in a jar and the group bolts for the ship quickly and it takes 4 days to reach the main planet.
  • Lt. Taylor finds a frigate floating around in barren space, which seems to be 600 years old, that they choose to ignore.
  • They continue to encounter ships randomly. I think the DM is attempting to bait us onto one of these ships. It’s not working very well.
  • Slices of the ark are missing and seem to have made home on this new Russian planet.
  • Suddenly every scanning system on the planet turns towards their ship and “see’s” them, but they manage to seem nonthreatening.
  • The lieutenants decide it would be best to attempt to fly into the ark and are detected, ship battle starts.
  • They get hit by ion cannons twice and are about to be boarded by the enemy.
  • The enemy ship attaches a “rope” and what seems to be a walking tube to the side of their ship and everyone prepares for battle.
  • Loranzo and Kal Kek fires at the enemy Russians but only Kek hits, it does little damage however.
  • Scryer attempts to teleport one of the men outside of his suit but it fails.
  • Marina “Doc” Davies eviscerated one of the armor suits in the doorway.
  • Everyone else fails at killing things.
  • Owlicious continues to hide in the back because she has learned from previous missions she is NOT a good tank. Survival of the smartest, bitches.
  • Lt. Mark Five gets knocked flat.
  • Three people come in behind the power-armored suits but they are only in normal suits.
  • Scryer shuts down all the power suits and the three guys behind them are dead.
  • There is chatter coming over the groups helmets, they decide to look down the tube to the other ship. They see there is another man down the tube and Professor Ramapudi shoots and kills him.
  • Everyone rushes like Han Solo down the tube to the new ship with the power armored people in the front.
  • Loranzo fires some spikes down the hall and turns it into a bloody mist.
  • “Doc” Davies throws a grenade down the hall at the enemies. Two of them go SPLAT and one guy looks stunned but still has his gun.
  • Kal Kek fires at one of the remaining men after he witnesses “Doc” Davies throw a grenade.
  • Scryer teleports a grenade to the last guys and blows them to pieces.
  • Owlicious is pretty sure she’s found a toilet.
  • Everyone else attempts to kill everyone not friendly on the ship that they come into contact with and one lone man flees for his life.
  • Owlicious makes it past as a door closes but Doctor Daktan and Mark Five get locked out before teleporting in.
  • Loranzo climbs up a ladder and sticks his head in to look around and “Doc” Davies gets impatient and moves him forcibly out of her way to get through.
  • Lt. Taylor and Professor Ramapudi attempt to hack the ship, but it doesn't go so well.
  • Kal Kek pushes “Doc” Davies out of the way much like she did to Loranzo but she quickly recovers and opens fire at the men shooting at Loranzo. She splats another against the wall.
  • Kal Kek fires at the other guy shooting and blows his head clean off.
  • Scryer finally managed to get through the ladder shoot and fires with his spike thrower at the captain and misses, destroying lots of valuable equipment.
  • Professor Ramapudi heads to the engineering room and the rest of the group hears shooting.
  • Lt. Taylor bolts for the engineering room quickly and Owlicious makes it just in time to blow Scotties brains out leaving Doctor Daktan alone in the hallway. He then begins skulking around the ship before heading for the med bay.
  • Kal Kek, Scryer, and “Doc” Davies get shocked unconscious but Loranzo stays standing. The captain and the other guy also get knocked out but Uhura is completely untouched. He opens fire at her with a spike thrower that rips her into a thousand tiny pieces.  Angry Loranzo is angry.
  • Professor Ramapudi attempts to halt the detonation but messes up and the time goes quickly down to just ten seconds. Luckily Lt. Taylor manages to turn the computer off before it counts down much more. 
  • Everybody in the bridge wakes up and “Doc” Davies can smell her hair burning. She see’s Doctor Daktan slit someone’s throat.  She then ties up the unconscious captain and prepares to react if he wakes up. You know, hovers over him ready to bash his brains in with the butt of her gun and all that.
  • Professor Ramapudi loots Scotty's body and finds commands that allows him to give Mark Five control to fly the ship.
  • They decide it is best to just bail as fast as possible out of the area using this new ship.
  • Mark Five attempts to jump the ship back to the three sisters and he nails it with the help of Professor Ramapudi and “Doc” Davies. His “jumping virginity” is now gone.

…to be continued <3


:)

- Ark