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

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

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Stars Without Number: Dramatis Personæ


I just got home and am still basking in the glow of a particularly successful Stars Without Number game.  I've promised some accounts of our gaming sessions on the blog, so I'll start off by introducing the players (even though some of this information is outdated by the sweeping events of tonight's game.):

Reginald Goodnight, 
Captain of the Fat Tuesday
Merwyn plays Captain Goodnight, who started off life as a two-bit computer hacker.  Merwyn's natural sense of initiative tends to have him rushing in where angels fear to tread, and his inborn charisma tends to cause the rest of the party follow him.  When they seized a pirate ship and repurposed it for their own ends, Merwyn was willing to pay the npc crew out of his own pocket, making him defacto captain of the ship.

Jermayne Starace, 
Astrogator Extraordinaire
Ron plays the ship's pilot, Jermayne.  Mr. Starace was a pilot aboard a boring commercial starliner when he ran into the party, who was busy fighting off a bounty hunter/pirate at the time.  Jermayne quit his job and threw in with the ruff and tumble party, never to look back.  He tends to be very lucky, making wild maneuvers in space combat and drilling holes through meta-space that no sane astrogator would ever try.  While Jermayne doesn't have a great deal of statistical charisma, he is also lucky in love as well, finding a warm bed and a soft partner in just about every port.

Darth Nerf, 
Ship's Psychic
Crazy-Ass Tim plays the disgruntled psychic aboard the Fat Tuesday.  Darth Nerf's parents hated him, thus giving him his awful name.  Darth entered a life of crime at an early age, using his skills of persuasion and his psychic abilities to steal, swindle, and coerce.  Having angered law enforcement officials in his home sector, he left and met up with the party en route to greener pastures.  An incident with the strange aliens known as Methans left him with an arm that could turn into a bow and shoot bone fragments at enemies, but with enough chromosomal damage to cut his lifespan in half.

Kevalt Loranzo, 
Head of Security
The Boy plays Sgt. Loranzo.  Kevalt's father once ran with the party, but was killed in action during a casino heist.  Kevalt found the group and joined it, providing all the heavy fire power needed.  He's a no nonsense warrior, focusing on little else in life.  Over their adventures, Loranzo has assembled a trio of npc marines, all female, that the crew have taken to calling Kevalt's Angels.  They are vicious when fighting space pirates, and very loyal to their Sergeant.

AR-50, 
Alien Robot
Kay runs the ship's robot.  AR-50 is a stealth robot created by the Methans, who can take on various humanoid shapes and pass various biometric tests given enough DNA samples of a subject.  AR-50 is obsessed with upgrading himself, grafting various implements into his system, and pushing his components to the limit.  This has caused quite a few problems for him, and the entire party, as his expansions tend to make him vulnerable to being hacked and taken over by enemies.

Minnie Man, 
Ship's Doctor
Kayette plays Dr. Man, who was encountered by the party on planet Amazon.  Minnie was a maltech researcher on the jungle planet, investigating the Amazon Floral Hive Mind before it went berserk and eradicated all humans there, except her.  Dr. Man now works on the Fat Tuesday, helping to patch up the party when it gets injured, and experimenting with dangerous, forbidden maltech on her off hours.  She also enjoy running over people in a grav tank far more than she probably should.

So, there you have it - the six party members that tend to show up the most.  There have been others that make cameo appearances every so often, but I won't mention them here.

- Ark

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Dungeonspiration: NTRPGCON 2012

From 2011: A jovial Jim Ward planning to kill EVERYONE IN THE UNIVERSE. 
Next week, The Boy and I will be on Hajj to the North Texas Role Playing Game Convention.  Our long, arduous trek will involve us driving across the city.  Yes, indeed, it will be fraught with dangers - especially if the cherry Slurpee machine at the 7-11 on the way is busted.

Last year's Con was very inspiring.  I think the highlight for me was when Jim Ward offed my son's character in a game of Metamorphosis Alpha.  Eaten by a giant plant in one gulp.  I mean, can life get much better than that?

This year, a big bag of guests will be attending - Sandy Petersen, Tim Kask, Jennell Jaquays, Erol Otus, James M. Ward, Frank Mentzer, Jason Braun, Steve Marsh, Steve Winter, Dennis Sustare, Jeff Dee, Peter Kerestan, Zeb Cook, and Diesel Laforce.  Things might get a little awkward around Zeb Cook.  I mean, I did curse his name loudly for two decades because of second edition.  But now, I PLAY second edition, and am thoroughly enjoying it.  So I should probably just dine on a big plate of crow in front of him.

The Three Castles RPG Design Award is going to be judged by Dennis Sustare, Robert Kuntz, Sandy Petersen, Steve Marsh, and Zeb Cook this year.  Up for the award are Anomalous Subsurface EnvironmentRealms of Crawling ChaosStars Without Number, and the Tome of Adventure Design.  I think we all know I am rooting for Stars Without Number, so I'll shut up about it.

So, over the four days of the Con, I have some things scheduled:

  • Thursday: Urutsk with Kyrinn!  Yay!  Last year, The Boy faced Urutsk's strangeness head on - causing bouts of hysterical laughter.  I'm looking forward to another visit.
  • Friday: OD&D with Tim Kask!  I'm dead.  I'm sure he kills people who make bad puns.
  • Saturday Morning: Aliens?  Like in the Movie? With Alan Grohe?  I there!
  • Saturday Evening: Petal Throne with Victor Raymond.  Yes, time to introduce The Boy to the sweet smell of MUSTY CINNAMON.
  • Sunday: Quicksilver with Jeff Dee.  Did I mention Jeff Dee?  I've got, like, piles of his Kickstarter artwork on my desk.

That leaves lots of unscheduled time to shop, hob-nob, and crash other games.  The Boy and I are pumped, and I'm sure we will be very exhausted, and very inspired, at the end of it all.

If you are planning on attending, I hope to see you there!

- Ark

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Redshirts: A Stars Without Number Campaign



This doesn't really have anything to do with Star Trek, or the John Scalzi novel.  It's more of the working title for a campign idea that I had that just . . . kinda . . . stuck.

I wanted to run a Stars Without Number campaign at the local FLGS - open to anyone who dropped by - at random dates and times. To me, the stardard trope of Traveller-esque 'intergalactic tramp steamer' doesn't seem like it would really work.  Each character is pretty vital to the operation of the ship, and having people disappear and reappear - while doable - doesn't tend to make sense.

So, the idea is to have the PCs be freeze-dried scouts.

Let me explain.  No . . . there is too much.  Let me sum up.

For 100 years, the two major powers of the Ptolemy Sector have been waging war.  The Skorpios Empire, a bunch of Russian-speaking vat grown genetic purists, are pretty sure they have discovered the best way for people live, and enjoy enforcing that way at gun-point.  The members of the Aquila Union are not too fond of their neighbors, and have been keeping them at bay for three generations with their powerful navy.  But due to recent events, including secession by several powerful systems, Aquila faces eventual defeat.

In an ancient bunker deep within the crust of an abandoned planet, The Aquilans found a possible solution to their demise - a spacecraft surpassing any existing technology.  Current spike drives allow for passage between systems 3 hyperspace hexes away (see sector map.)  While all of the systems in the Ptolemy Sector are reachable - the density of systems drops off in neighboring sectors, making travel outside impossible.  Until now.

The Aquilan Navy immediately refits the ship for active use, renaming it the AUS Reprieve.  Its mission is to explore the systems of The Void and find whatever can be used to help defeat the Skorpios Empire, be it technology, allies, or something beyond imagining.  The assumption is that since The Void was unreachable with standard technologies, then the Scavanger Fleets would not have stripped the systems bare during the Silence.

The PCs are members of the Void Expeditionary Force.  They are not crew members of the Reprieve itself, but scouts that are put into cold storage until needed.  The Reprieve is too valuable to be put into danger, so the ship will stay on the edge of a target system, thaw out the scouts, and send them by shuttle to perform reconnaissance and do as they see fit for the benefit of the Union.

Each game session would present a new system and a new set of adventures for the PCs to pursue.  Players could come and go from time to time, with those not attending just spending time in the freezer.  They would be given a wide berth in how they handle situations, as the captain and all of the command staff are back on the Reprieve doing long range scans and filling out paperwork on whatever goofy messes that scouts created during the last adventure.

So - those are my thoughts so far.  I think it will be fun - handled right.  I certainly don't want an atmosphere of railroading, and I think making sure that the PCs actions, and the results thereof, impinge upon the decisions of the command staff for the next adventure, will do so.

Of course, they could just kill the captain and become pirates in the fastest ship in the quadrant.  Hmm.

Any suggestions or thought are welcome. :)

- Ark

Friday, November 2, 2012

Galactic End Game


The players in my first Star Frontiers campaign had big dreams.  They wanted to eradicate the evil Sathar from the universe, and poured their time and effort into they endeavor.  Trade brought them money; money built them a mega-corp; and with the mega-corp, they built armadas of warships of find and obliterate the Sathar homeworld.

Of course, there were no rules of game framework for any of that, but as a GM, I evolved a game about being a star cop into a giant game of stellar Axis and Allies.  Or, in today's terminology, we created an end game.

One of the things I like about Stars Without Numbers is that it has the end game built in it right from the start.  In creating sectors full of stars, a GM can set up interplanetary chess matches.  Each entity is a faction, with stats and assets similar to a PC, and these groups battle for dominance.  It's secret and behind the scenes as far as the players are concerned, but produces events that the PCs can become involved in.

When the PCs gain enough power and influence, they can from their own faction, step onto the galactic stage, and vie for power.

In previous Stars Without Number campaigns, I've kinda half-assed the faction game - paid lip services to it but just decided what was happening in interplanetary politics as if I was writing a novel.  While that is a completely valid way to play, the faction system offers an interesting and simple game to play that can produce results outside of my comfort zone of creativity.

I really like that idea, and am implementing it for the Redshirts campaign.  I don't know if the players will ever reach that level of power, but it's a game I can play with myself and generate new ideas with.

I'm also thinking of documenting the behind the curtains action on the blog here, if anyone is interested.

- Ark

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Death of a Campaign


Redshirts died this week.

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

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

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

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

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

So what the hell happened - you ask.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah, right.

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

It went downhill from there.

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah.

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

Hmm.

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

I would guess that the following events would happen:

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

Good times, good times.

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

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

- Ark

Thursday, September 27, 2012

The Reprieve

Lasgunpacker and Crazy-Ass Tim have been very helpful with ideas for the upcoming Redshirts Stars Without Number campaign.  I love Lasgunpacker's idea for a crazy captain AI controlling a teleportation machine.

However, as described, it doesn't quite fit into  the SWN technology background - which I'd like to stick with.  Actually, the fact that it doesn't fit makes for a wonderful creative exercise into making it fit.  That's something I've always enjoyed immensely - mental masterba . . . I mean mental gymnastics.

So, if you'll remember from the last post, our intrepid crew of freeze dried scouts were meat-sicles aboard the experimental starship, the Reprieve.  While the Aquilan scientists were experts at stitching together a working starship from ancient parts, their aesthetic sense left something to be desired.  The Reprieve looks remarkably like Rick Moranis' spaghetti strainer hat in Ghostbusters.  Well, not exactly.  It looks like Rick Moranis' spaghetti strainer hat in Ghostbusters, covered with a hairnet.  The inside resembles the cramped, steamy corridors of a German U-boat during World War II.

For those who are familiar with ship statistics in Starts Without Number, here is the Reprieve:

Aquila Union Starship Reprieve (Experimental Deep Space Scout Ship)   Power: 15/3 free     Mass: 15/0 free
Cost: 6,290,000     Hit Points: 40     Crew: 10/40     Speed: 2     Armor: 10     AC: 7
Weaponry None
Defenses None
Fittings Spike Drive-4, Advanced Nav Computer, Armory, Cold Sleep Pods, Emissions Dampers, Fuel Scoops, Precognitive Nav Chamber, Shuttle Bay x2, Ship's Locker

Blue Ghost Reconnaissance Shuttle     Power: 3/0 free     Mass: 5/2 free
Cost: 237,000     Hit Points: 15     Crew: 1/20     Speed: 3     Armor: 0     AC: 9
Weaponry None
Defenses None
Fittings Spike Drive-1, Atmospheric Configuration, Emissions Dampers, Survey Sensor Array, Ship's Locker, 4 tons of cargo space

You may note that neither the Reprieve, nor its two shuttles, have weapons or defenses.  The crew certainly did.  The scientists pointed out that the great big hairnet helps the ship avoid detection, so they should be okay.  The crew really didn't buy that.

The crew also noticed that the Reprieve had a honking big spike drive - faster than any engine that the Aquila Union could produce.  The scientists noticed that too, but had no idea how it worked.  That is where Commodore Halberta Clarke came in.

Commodore Halberta Clarke

Five hundred and thirty five years ago, Commodore Halberta Clarke (who looks remarkably like Nancy Parsons from Porky's, aka Ms. Ballbricker,) was an officer in the Terran Mandate in charge of the operational integrity of the regional psitech Jump Gate network.  A top notch psychic herself, she also assisted in the day to day operation of slinging spacecraft across the universe. (see Anne McCaffrey's The Rowan for a trip down the rabbit hole on that subject.)

Then 'The Scream' happened, killing all psychics, or driving them insane, thus making inoperable the Jump Gates and ending the Golden Age of Man.  Commodore Clarke didn't die - but she did go insane.  An insane master psychic with teleportation, precognition, and telepathy abilities doesn't make a very good neighbor, so the Terran Mandate military took her down and let the research scientists experiment on her to see if they could restore her sanity.

Since no one alive really understood how the psychics did their psychic things, the scientists did the best that they could as civilization collapsed around them.  They took a snapshot of Commodore Clarke's mind, then pasted that image over the pre-existing neural synapse net of a Voltaic 9000 AI brain-cube.  After they had a working simulacrum of Commodore Clarke, they extracted her physical brain, put it into a jar, and hooked it up to the Voltaic 9000.

On paper, the old 'hook an AI up to a psychic brain in a jar to use it as an input/output device' looked like a good idea to reboot mankind's crumbling empire.  It wasn't.  After 2 years of war, leveling much of the planet, the a team of brave soldiers finally shut off the AI, froze the brain in stasis, and the remaining research scientists were put to work in the rice paddies of what had been once the sector capital.

Five hundred and thirty five years later, desperate research scientists from the Aquila Union find a Spike Drive-4 capable engine they don't understand, a dead AI, and a brain in a shoe box - and have an idea.

Adventure!

The crew of the Reprieve live in fear of their commanding officer.  The hologram of Commodore Halberta Clarke stalks the corridors.  She doesn't know she's dead.  She doesn't know her brain in in a jar.  The crew must act as if they are members of the long gone Terran Mandate Fleet - not the Aquilan Navy.

Halberta sleeps most of the time, running the ship's spike drive in REM state.  The captain, the real captain,  can breathe easy then.  But when the Commodore gets up, she is grumpy.  She can read minds.  She can see the future.  And she can teleport a person into the heart of a star.  She is clinically insane.  But no one else knows how to make the ship go but her.

The research scientists who set this nightmare situation up are still sleeping comfortable in their beds back home.  After all, the Fleet Admiral okayed everything.  He's safe in his bed back home too.

The Redshirts, however, are not so lucky.

 Commodore Halberta Clarke adjusting something on the Lido Deck.

Happy gaming.

- Ark



Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Spears Without Number . . . No . . . Wait . . .


I've been looking over the shoulder of a friend who already has downloaded his alpha copy of Spears of the Dawn, and I must say, I'm very excited.  Kevin Crawford certainly seems to know how to do a Kickstarter right.  And what's more, he's releasing all of the artwork into the public domain.  I'm tickled pink.

It bugs me that mega-corporations go around squeezing drawings of anthropomorphic mice until they've wrung out all the money that they can, long after their creators of the images are dead, instead of letting that intellectual property go back to the culture that helped spawn it and become folklore instead of a cash cow for people who are already rich.  Call me a communist if you want, but companies are not people and information wants to be free, baby.

Oops, sorry, I appear to be on a soapbox.  Let me climb down . . .

So Kevin Crawford's Spears of the Dawn - yeah - awesome.

A couple of friends and I were sitting around the table last week playing Thunderstone (awesome card game, btw,) and the discussion moved towards Spears of the Dawn.  I'm very interested in it - and so is Merwyn.  I see it as a great opportunity to role play in types of cultures that are rarely explored in RPGs.

Crazy-Ass Tim worried that playing an African culture based RPG would lead to stereotypes - unpleasant ones - popping out all over the place.  Kaye - our resident African-American - had similar fears.  We are all in The South, after all, and our stream-of-consciousness role playing style amplifies ugliness sometimes.

Perhaps I have more faith in humanity.  Perhaps I have studied more, as a person who once wanted to be a history professor, about the rich history and culture of the peoples of Africa, and see a wealth of gaming and role playing opportunities.  Perhaps I am huffing paint.  But I think it would be very fun, and could be done in a non-offensive manner.

The stereotype issue - well yeah, RPGs have stereotypes, though the term archetype is used more often.  D&D uses European stereotypes, but it's so ingrained that most of us don't even notice.  Take the ideas of elves, dwarves, orcs, and goblins and move them back in time through D&D and Tolkien into mythology, and I'm sure they represented particular groups and cultures that the people telling the original stories didn't like, or didn't understand.  James Raggi tends to talk about that a lot, if you've ever noticed. :)

What I'm seeing from the alpha of Spears of the Dawn is a concerted effort to avoid negative stereotypes, and to educate gamers on broad facets of medieval African-ish culture, so that players understand their place in the game setting, and so that GMs know how to run the thing.  He's condensed what that players need to know about their chosen culture (of which there are five to choose from,) into a single page.  Okay, yeah, that is simplifying to the extreme - but it's a heck of a lot more information than you get from Basic D&D about Elf culture.  The GM gets a lot more data.

So, while I haven't delved deeply into it, the culture and setting look great.  Almost all of the game mechanics are the same ones from Stars Without Number.  There are some twists to the Death and Dying rules that I actually prefer, and I have been kind of soft-house ruling something similar myself in the Redshirts campaign - in that a stabilized but unconscious character is very boring to play - so why not have them be awake, just not able to do much.  I like his mechanic for that a lot.

The spell system appears to be a whole 'nother beast than the Psychic powers in SWN.  I haven't really read any of it, so I don't know.  Skimming it, I did see some casting times listed that were very long indeed, so looks like we have ritual based magic here as well as regular combat stuff.  I like that kind of spell diversity.

A while back I did a mini-review of a book called Essential African Mythology: Stories That Changed the World in this blog post.  I think the book would be an excellent companion piece to Spears of the Dawn for GMs and players alike.

So, I'm really pleased with what I've seen from Spears of the Dawn, and I'm sure it will illicit more discussion around the gaming table soon.

- Ark

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Stars Without Number: A Whirlwind Tour of the Last Few Months


I've been horrible at updating readers on the progress of the intrepid crew of the Fat Tuesday.  I'll present a quick summation and bring you close to present time.  Hold your questions till the end of the lecture.

While exploring systems behind the 'Methan Veil', the PCs found a lost planet with medieval level technology named Normandie.  An apparently non-damaged, but not operating, Jump Gate was in orbit, which interested them quite a bit, but they decided to go scout the planet itself at first.

They quickly found a large land-war with six legged reptile horses and knights and shit going on, picked sides, and used their armed spacecraft, a grav tank, and a floating motorcycle to turn the tide and win the war. Well, actually, the Boy popped the enemy king with a sniper rifle from like two miles away and ended the war before it began, but the PCs had to have some fun now, didn't they?  It would have been a complete slaughter fest, but the enemy had teleport ninjas that crashed their spacecraft upside down in a forest full of pine, which promptly caught on fire from the heat of the engines.

Eventually they patched their ship back up and left, but not without the King granting the players each 50 acres of land, peasants to farm the land, and giving Captain Goodnight two squires, a handmaiden, and his youngest daughter's hand in marriage.  Surprisingly, Captain Goodnight got hitched to Princess Evangelyne, who only spoke archaic French, but was a wiz at heraldry, the abacus, and 13th century encryption techniques.

They also fought an 1/8th of a mile wide crazy AI, rescued ancient German engineers from a decaying Battleship, and caused the nuclear annihilation of a medieval city, but that is neither here nor there.

So, the PCs hopped back to Metha and traded their information on the Jump Gate, as well as a map to every jump gate in the known galaxy, and even an entire library of engineering documents on how to recreate much of the lost technological wonders of humanity, to the crazy alien Methans.  I'm still wondering about that, and the campaign ramifications are going to be horrendous.  I mean, um, wonderful.  For me.  The evil GM.

They traded all of that for enough money to replace their aged, broken Patrol Scout class vessel for a brand new Frigate level ship.  But they didn't want to get thr new ship from the Methans.  No sir.  They look upon the Methans (rightly so,) as the Tinker Gnomes of the galaxy - only crazier.

So, they went to the nearest human planet with a high-tech ship yard - the bustling planet of White Chapel.  For six months the crew has been putzing around the planet,  attending parties, throwing parties, getting throw in jail, clearing out the occasional genetics laboratory complex 500 miles underground full of 30 feet high, eight legged wolf mutants and horses without heads whose entire bodies are plasma cannons, etc.  Captain Goodnight's Princess wife has been behaving like a princess, draining him of as much wealth as possible on dresses and university mind implant training.  AR-50, the bio-infiltration robot threw a 30,000 credit rave, which caused so much damage that it took 270,000 credits worth of lawyer fees and city fines to get him out of jail.  And so on.

So there we are, with the crew about to get their big, bad new ship, and then the next thing happened.  I'll tell you about all the problems they had later. :)

- Ark

Friday, March 30, 2012

Exposition Without Number


I just wrote a note to the players of my Stars Without Numbers campaign containing some information so I wouldn't have to blab it all out when we start playing on Saturday.  I amused myself quite a bit as I droned on, producing far more exposition that
I had planned.  I'm sure it will bore them to tears.  But I enjoyed it, dammit, so I figure the rest of the world should suffer.

So enjoy.  Or suffer.  Or both. :)

* * *

The party returned to the planet Metha aboard the Fat Tuesday at the end of the last game session.  The Methans were happy with the resolution of the Hard Light novium issue and paid well (except for Dr. Mann, who was paid well for her research on the Amazon Floral Hive Mind.)  The party is not actually on Metha (which looks a lot like Titan, if you remember,) but on one of the thousands of space stations orbiting the planet.  Elysium Station is unlike any of the other stations the party has seen, however, as it has clearly been designed with humans in mind.

In fact, humans are all over Elysium Station. There are living quarters, restaurants, shopping malls, and hydroponic parks bustling with people - families with children even.  Occasionally, Methan hybrids like Ellen-14 shuffle along the walkways in their giant, bloated tick-like bodies without so much as a second look.  It's a lively place, but clearly all of the humans are in the employ of the Blue Methan Hegemony.  There is an unusual amount of human psychics on the station, utilizing their skills out in the open - something not normally done inside of human space.  Centuries of anti-psi bigotry has convinced most psychics to keep a lower profile.

Another odd sight aboard Elysium station is the abundance of Harpathians - perhaps ten percent of the population.  The creatures resemble anthropomorphic, roly-poly, three foot tall baby seals.  Yes, the ones with the poofy white hair and the 'don't hit me with that club, you bastard' stare.  Harpathians are well-known in human space, but mainly as cartoon characters in the holo-vids designed for girls 8-10 years of age.  The most well known is JOLO, the fluffy sidekick of CAPTAIN KENDRA AND THE KOSMOTEERS.  Few humans have ever actually seen a real Harpathian, as the entire race avoids humanity like a plague.  The history of Human-Harpatian relations involves liberal amounts of slavery and being sold as pets, despite the Harpatian's loud, literate, and eloquent protests that they are actually a sentient race with thoughts, feelings, and a desire not to be a cuddle toy for 6 year olds.

The Harpatians appear to have support jobs all over the station, including spacecraft servicing, but they seem to be most prolific in security positions.  Three foot tall baby seals walking around in power armor bristling with plasma projectors is a common sight.  It's unnerving - and doesn't get any better with repeated viewings.

Ellen-14 is eager for the party to accept the currently offered job.  If you remember, this is to track down the source of the Berserker Spider manufacturing box - which  would logically (per the Methan's past experiences,) be a box that makes boxes that make Berserker Spiders.  The Methans are worried that if the Box is not located soon, it could run across an AI, hack it, and un-brake the AI - causing a heap load of trouble for whatever civilization the newly formed Berserker AI ran across.

The Fat Tuesday's Chief Engineer and back-up pilot, Sophia Lucullo, expresses concerns about the Methans.  She's never seen them before, and is clearly frightened.  She also reiterates the story from the Kingpin of Blue Saturn (whom Captain Goodnight met with in the Tigris System,) who said that the Methans had exterminated almost all of his race and were not to be trusted.  The ship's marine compliment - Alice, Bethany, and Carmen (Kevalt's Angels,) have a completely different attitude toward Ellen-14 and her kind - and have been buying as much military hardware as they can afford from the giant space-ticks.

If the party chooses not to accept the mission, Ellen-14 says that she and her brood understands, and they will gladly program the navicomp aboard the Fat Tuesday to the destination of your choice.

Um, anyway, I've gone overboard with interlude - but there you are. :)

See you on Saturday!

- Ark

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Redshirts: Choose the Form of the Destructor!

I make cranky players.

Apparently, I am not fast enough at posting, nor detailed enough in my game play session reports.

They are probably right.

So, Adelaide, our resident gamer grrrrl, has decided to write up the session for last Wednesday.  It's a lot different than the way I approach reports.  For instance, where I might spend a paragraph describing the intricate patterns on the alien wallpaper, Adelaide goes straight for the action.

Go figure . . . :)

She has done an excellent job, giving a good feeling of the psychosis, chaos, frustration, and helplessness that I try to imbue in gaming sessions.  You know, stuff that you might have to go talk to your psychologist about later in the week.

Oh, and before you ask - Spark Notes are apparently this century's answer to Cliff Notes.  I had to Google that.

So without further ado . . . say hello to Adelaide - she's in purple:

Stars Without Number (Spark Notes :D)

Everyone was in the shuttle.  The ship’s hold was full of giant crab meat and the A3-500 Transducer that they had been searching for.  All of the scouts felt good, but there seemed to be something off. Professor Ramapudi was missing from the rest of the group. 

It was also kind of odd and disconcerting, because no one remembered getting on the shuttle, or leaving the ark, for that matter.

Lt.Taylor and Spaceman Slate checked Slate’s helmet cam, only to get fuzz. The cam had been wiped completely clean. Undaunted by his inability to find shit the easy way, Lt. Taylor searched for a wifi signal, found one, and heard the haunting voice of GAIA whisper the words, “Help me help them,” again. He asked GAIA what was going on and the call for help was repeated, only this time much louder. 

While trying to figure out what was going on, Petty Officer James Loranzo, Lt.Taylor, and Doctor Daktan woke up to hear a drilling noise. 

The whole party was actually in the air lock where they had last left off, under the influence of enforced dreaming.

Petty Officer Loranzo saw Spaceman Kek lying on the ground with a drill about to dig straight into his head, while all the others were still lying around unconscious with strange blue alien balls with tentacles floating around them. One of the aliens seemed to be operating the drill aimed for Kek’s brain.

Loranzo quickly decided that it would be wiser to release Prof. Ramapudi, who was frozen in place by some psychic force, instead of stopping the drill. Luckily for Kek, the newly freed Ramapudi blasted the drill with a laser pistol, making it grind to a halt.  But the blue alien things that had been floating around turned toward the Professor and one of them attached itself to his face visor. Another blue alien went for Dr. Daktan’s face, shattering his visor in the process, and yet another raced for Lieutenant Taylor’s visor, also shattering it. Two aimed for Loranzo and managed to rip his entire helmet off. 

Lieutenant Taylor yelled an order to wake the rest of the sleeping members, which succeeded. Doctor Daktan tried to teleport one of the blue aliens away but failed. Loranzo ripped the alien off of the Professor’s visor before going after his own and Kal Kek walked over to stab at the alien on Lieutenant Taylor’s face with a mono-blade, which unfortunately ended up slicing the Lieutenant’s face.

After waking, Jack Slate fired a shotgun at a nearby alien and missed horribly, which caused Lieutenant Taylor to take shrapnel to the thigh - enraging him further. Doctor Daktan pulled the alien from his face by pure willpower, while Professor Ramapudi shot at the alien on Loranzo’s face but missed.  Luckily for Loranzo it didn’t hit him instead. 

The blue alien that had attached itself to Lieutenant Taylor’s head appeared to “melt” into it.  All the team saw were glowing blue eyes as Lieutenant Taylor turned towards Doctor Dakton in a zombie-like fashion. 

Upon waking and further inspecting the aliens, Petty Officer Owlicious decided that she knew of these creatures. They were actually animals from the main planet and had much lower levels of intelligence than what the team had already encountered.  But they were trainable and controllable by psychic means, and she let the Professor know.

Possessed Lt. Taylor knocked Doctor Daktan unconscious before anyone could react, bringing Doctor Daktan close to death but Taylor managed to break the mind control after it happened.

Yet another alien aimed for Lt. Mark Five’s visor and managed to attach itself, but did not break it. Petty Officer Loranzo began to roll around on the floor, almost like he was on fire.  Everyone was unsure as to what he was doing. Undaunted by his inability to remove the creature last time, Kal Kek attempted again to stab at Lieutenant Taylor’s face, this time artfully the slicing the alien in half without harming Lt. Taylor. 

Jack Slate shot at one of the aliens on Petty Officer Loranzo’s face with a shotgun and managed to blow one off while somehow not causing any damage to Loranzo himself. Then Professor Ramapudi laz-patched Doctor Daktan in an attempt to stabilize him - but it unfortunately did nothing. 

Another creature attached itself to Lt. Taylor’s face, only this time instead of it taking a while his eyes instantly started to glow blue once more. Petty Officer Owlicious also got an alien attached to her face and her eyes turned blue as well. She then attacked the Professor, but luckily for him, she missed. 

Petty Officer Loranzo stabbed at the other alien on him and succeeded in freeing himself finally, while Kal Kek punched at the creature on his head which did nothing.


Professor Ramapudi then attempted to cut the alien from Petty Officer Owlicious’ face and beautifully sliced it in two. Petty Officer Owlicious became free of the zombie-like embrace, but all the aliens, including Lieutenant Taylor who was still under their influence, scampered up a wall in an attempt to flee. 

Lt. Five stabilized Doctor Daktan with a laz patch, while the others attempted to quickly think of a way to halt the fleeing Taylor. Petty Officer Owlicious fires at the wall in front of him to scare the scurrying Lt., but the bullet misses its target and ricocheted around the hall. Luckily for the team Lieutenant Taylor slipped and fell on his face and the alien lost its power over him. 

Petty Officer Loranzo attempted to pull the alien off Lt. Taylor’s face and managed instead to get it stuck on his own face. Jack Slate then fired another shotgun blast - point blank - at Petty Officer Loranzo but somehow missed. Doctor Daktan finally managed to become conscious once again and shot at the alien on Petty Officer Loranzo’s face and epically removed it, killing it in the process. 

Once all the immediate danger had passed, Professor Ramapudi and Lieutenant Taylor teamed up to hack into the drill’s control panels and so they could control it as they wished. Everyone then took stock of the situation and paused to make a decision as to which door to go into first.

The Professor and Lt. Taylor argued over which door would be best, but they somehow are able to overcome their differences and hacked into the data center to attempt to figure out what was in each room. They found that the center door seemed to hold the most promise.

 Jack Slate stood in front of Lt. Taylor as he opened the center door.  (The DM goes on to describe the room – filled with a gigantic glowing ball forming an AI core and various other components   - with something about a machine that goes ping. ;D) 

Loranzo and Taylor made their way inside stealthfully to find the A3-500 Transducer before everyone else. Once inside, Taylor attempted to remove the Transducer, but set off an alarm in the process. He quickly hacked the security measures that will turn off the power to the whole ship, and instead rewired it to allow XC-OM, the shuttle’s computer, to control the reactor core. Everybody celebrated - silently - of course.

The two scouts then took the man-sized transducer out of its compartment completely.  The sphere in the center in the room powered down, and a breeze gusts through the room.  They realize that the AI core had been covered in black, hand shaped, feathery creatures that had begun to bob up and down like a colony of daddy-long-legs on a hot summer day.  Then the things disconnected from the sphere and shot into the air.

The rest of the group saw a cloud of black creatures rush out of the room and they all heard an alarm shouting, “Prepare for jump - moving to spike launch point NOW.” Lt. Taylor saw that GAIA had suddenly taken control of all the systems and that there was plotting going on astronomically. 

Lt. Taylor ordered Slate to open another door in the airlock they see nothing but darkness. Slate and Kal Kek turn on their lights and everyone heard a strange, girlish giggle.

Startled Kal Kek threw a glowbug towards the back of the room and there was a humanoid shaped creature that everyone could see. It seemed to be a small girl covered completely in a midnight black color with white star patterns running along her body and she had strangely glowing yellow eyes. Behind her was an external window where the Three Sisters’ pulsars could be seen flashing fast and asynchronously, creating a strange strobe-light effect in the room.

She suddenly blinked out of existence and then reappeared right in front of Kal Kek, reaching out to touch him with the tentacles protruding from her back.  The batteries from his suit began to drain. Kal Kek fired with his laser rifle, dead center, at the childlike creature, but it only giggled again. 

Professor Ramapudi and Petty Officer Owlicious fired their weapons as well, but both miss.

Doctor Dakton attempts to light the black tentacles on fire with his omnitool and failed.

Jack Slate fired at her with spikes, doing lots of potential damage but she simply shrugged it off much to everyone’s shock. 

Lt. Taylor rushed to the back of the room to close the windows to see if having direct access to the sister suns had any effect but nothing changed.

The girl then grabbed for Kal Kek’s face and her hands fazed through his visor, causing him to duck quickly in reaction. Then the mysterious black flying feathered hand things descended from nowhere almost instantaneously, attached to his power armor, and ripped it pieces just as quickly. 

Kal Kek, in his anger, fired again with his laser rifle, this time at her head and she actually hissed, reacting as though that hurt her. 

She then climbed into Kal Kek like some sort of body stealer.  Petty Officer Owlicious attempted to communicate with it, causing it to attack her gleefully using Kal Kek’s body. 

Everyone kind of mentally spazzed.  Petty Officer Loranzo, perhaps freaking out, was pretty sure there was chocolate somewhere.  Doctor Daktan quickly rummaged through a medpack, Lieutenant Mark five got undressed, and Lieutenant Taylor and Professor Ramapudi search the room for major science equipment. 

Accessing the equipment uncovered data fragments detailing the horrendous experiments undertaken on the ark - before and after the Scream.  The last experiment, implement over 400 years before, used the power of the combined supernovas of the Three Sisters to vacuum a ultra-dimensional creature from a higher plane of existence and imprison it inside a young psychic girl.  Then the girl proceeded to kill every crew member.  You know - that old story.

Petty Officer Owlicious’ vacc-suit was ripped from her, much like Kal Kek’s had been, and the creature using Kal Kek’s body backhanded her - knocking her several feet away. Petty Officer Owlicious noticed she was pretty much on her own for the time being and desperately started singing lullabies to distract the psychic child.

It worked.  For a brief, brief time.

Doctor Daktan, finally done with his looting, teleported Kal Kek a few feet away, which caused the child to be forced from his body and left her standing there entranced but Petty Officer Owlicious’ singing. 

Lieutenant Taylor then tried to hack into the main commands and GAIA fried his data slab completely….

….and then my computer had about 1% battery life left so I had to close it and of course we miss the best part of the night. 

Doctor Daktan, with his telepathy ability managed to separate the child – a more or less normal human girl, from the other-worldy, hyper-dimensional being that had possessed her.  The thing had 14 legs, 23 arms, 37 tentacles, 92 eyes, and it’s entire body was simply a giant mouth with so many teeth that it seized up a human’s brain if they tried to count that high.

Everyone ran around like chickens with their heads cut off, thinking of making a run for it.  The little girl was screaming incessantly, making it really hard to think.

Then Chonga, playing as the psychic doctor Daktan, attempted to jump into the monsters mouth– thus guaranteeing a touch - to teleport it elsewhere, but failed and only managed to slide “elegantly” underneath the beast. 

The beasts’ tentacles grappled just about everyone.  Before it could eat everyone, Kaye, playing as Jack Slate, once again sacrificed his character for the greater good and manages to destroy the beast. He jumped artfully into the monsters mouth, detonating the six rockets h was carrying all at the same time, killing the creature. He died in the process but everyone else lived, even the child! Yay Kaye!

The party then rushed as fast as they could to their shuttle and left the ark, which was mysteriously bound for parts unknown.  They did stop and get some crab legs on the way, though.

So, that's it from Adelaide.  Like I said, she did an excellent job.  Oh, and you can see Crazy-Ass Tim's take on the adventure over here.

And the crew has a new member - a blonde haired little girl.  And like any little girl who survives for a ridiculously long time amidst an alien infestation and lives to tell the tale - her name shall be Newt.

:)

- Ark

Friday, April 27, 2012

Echos and an Awesome New Drawing . . .

. . . that I can't show.  Because . . . you know . . . boobs. Why on Earth would I draw Super Mario Galaxy's Rosalina without any clothes on?  Um . . . better not answer that one.

Anyway, like most of the things I draw, I think this one is the most spiffy to date.  I spat it out in record time - a couple of hours. Tomorrow I'll hate it, for sure. That's a little chunk of it over on the side.  You can go over to my deviantArt gallery to see the nekkified version, if you want.  Pervert.

In other news, An Echo, Resounding showed up in my mailbox yesterday.  Yay!  While I'm not DMing a fantasy game at the moment, I'm interested in running a 'domain game' at some point.  ACKS is all popular right now, but rather than go with a whole new rpg, I decided to first look at An Echo, Resounding which is a domain 'strap on' for Labrynth Lord.

Strap on.  I'm funny.

Anyway, An Echo, Resounding: Lordship and War in Untamed Lands, is by Kevin Crawford of Stars Without Number fame.  It looks pretty damn spiffy, with domain game and mass combat rules.  It looks like you could run it with any pre-3rd edition D&D game with little or no fiddling.  I don't know how it compares to ACKS, but judging from my brief glance, I don't think I'll need any other domainish products.

- Ark

Saturday, March 1, 2014

The Reachers

The D&D Blog Hop last month was interesting.  it helped me think over my gaming career.  But it's time to move on.  Our GURPS Horror Noir game reached a pause point after the group brought down a vampire in Transylvania, and we are off to new skies.

New skies.  New atmospheres.  Distant atmospheres.

So, we'll be kicking off the GURPS sci-fi campaign Distant Atmospheres soon.  The idea is to try to take everything I like about Traveller, Star Frontiers, 2300AD, Stars Without Number, Mass Effect, Lexx, Ghost In the Shell, and Revelation Space, pop in all into a GURPS blender, and see what happens.

In the Distant Atmospheres universe, humans are three centuries into exploring and colonizing their local neighborhood of space.  While they have a high level of technology, going faster than light is beyond their abilities.  That's where the Reachers come in.

The Reachers are intelligent creatures that can bend the fabric of space time enough to break off a piece and move it around, simulating faster than light travel without actually moving themselves anywhere.  It's clear that the Reachers did not evolve this way, but were manufactured by some species long ago whom they do not remember.

Luckily for humans, the Reachers enjoy interstellar travel, can shift around their internal organs to create livable compartments, and they can grow to huge proportions.  They can't actually travel in space in their 'natural' state, but humans have learned to augment the Reachers to survive in a vacuum and exceed the speed of light, and perform various feats of heavy lifting and hauling.

To the Reachers, this is all just good fun.  They also create such a powerful magnetic field around their body that any human inside a Reacher ship is subjected to a constant MRI in which the Reacher can read their every single thought.  It's really, really hard to bluff a Reacher in a card game.  Well, unless you are wearing a tin-foil hat.

Originally I thought that the Reachers might look like space whales or something, but after a few drawing they became more squid like.  The savvy player might be reminded of Cthullu, or some other non-euclidean nightmare.  And to those accusations, this GM can only shrug and grin.

- Ark