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

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Desmond Connors

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


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

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

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

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

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

- Ark

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

The Metallic Mouse That Doesn't Rust

I just devoured The Stainless Steel Rat.  I forgot how much I enjoyed my first reading of it, circa 1982, or how much the Stainless Steel Rat series influenced my playing of both Star Frontiers and Top Secret.

The books follow the adventures of  'Slippery Jim' DeGriz, one of the biggest thieves and con-men around.  It's over 32 thousand years in the future, and most of humanity has grown up and solved problems like war, plague, famine, and crime.  This has left the universe a very boring place, and for hyper-intelligent people like DeGriz, such boredom is simply unacceptable - so he stirs the pot and sows as much chaos around as possible.

He's not a 'bad' guy.  Slippery Jim doesn't like hurting people - and killing people outside of self-defense is definitely not on his list of things to do.  But as long as he's sure the insurance will cover it, he'll steal anything - and the more complicated, the better.  His sheer outrageousness and intelligence puts him at the top of the most wanted lists, and makes him the target of the galaxy's super police, the Special Corps. who eventually employ him to catch other ne'er-do-wells, stop war-mongering planets from mongering, and fix time itself.

The Stainless Steel Rat books became a template of how I constructed just about every Top Secret and Star Frontiers campaign I even ran.  'Slippery Jim' is essentially a PC - straight out of a game - a smart ass there to amuse himself and put on a spectacle for others.  The stories are essentially sandboxes with some loose 'mission' that ties everything together, but the Rat is free to wander entire planets to complete his objective - usually in whatever timeframe he feels like.  One minute he's pretending to be a janitor herding robots with a whip, the next he's a billionaire on a golden space yacht.

The players fell into the pace quite easily.  A grumpy 'administrator' gives the team an assignment.  They get dumped off undercover far away somewhere and start snooping around.  They discover the 'bad thing' is being done by some rich guy. They need funds, so they knock over a bank.  They then go pretend to be millionaires (well, at that moment they 'are' millionaires)  A chase ensues.  The bad guy gets away.  They chase him to another planet.  Then they discover that the rich guy controls the mafia on that planet, so they have to join and work their way up the ranks until they have access to the guy.  Etc.  Great fun, and lots of role playing,combat, scheming, lying, and stealing to be had.

The formula worked for both Top Secret and Star Frontiers.  On the surface it may seem very James Bond-ish, but there is a certain air about The Stainless Steel Rat.  It's . . . well . .. it's chaos.  Much like the Honey Badger, 'Slippery Jim' DiGriz don't give a shit.  He does what he does for fun - not for duty, honor, or what is best for society.  That's really what makes it.  There is nothing to 'convice' the PCs to do.  They are given a job, and they figure out the most fun way to accomplish it - preferentially with lots of explosions and loose cash.

And, strangely, the books allow for a great way that relative npcs can be useful and fun.  See the novels for details. :)

I'm already chewing through the second book in the series - The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge - grinning away.  I've also got Retief of the CDT next to me as well - speaking of great books to turn into adventures.  It's giving me a big itch to run some Ratty Sci-Fi games, big time.  And over on the table is Stars Without Number.  Geez.  Gamer ADD, take me away!

- Ark 

Friday, December 28, 2012

Christmas Swag - RPGs I'll Never Play

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

- Ark

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Dungeonspiration: Epic Death


Sergeant Loronzo by The Boy -

When I was but a wee role player, I really didn't like the whole character death thing.  It was something to be seriously avoided - going so far as to sit behind a DM screen and never risk a PC by never having one.

But when you come down to it, some of the most memorable moments in role playing are the deaths.  Case in point - The Boy.  While initially horrified by the concept, he is getting quite good at them.

In my Stars Without Number campaign, the characters were contracted by some shady underworld types to shut down a casino.  Not forever, mind you - just for a bit.  Actually, the party never asked - or even seemed to wonder - as to WHY someone would shut down a casino for a bit.  It just enough that they got to cause some chaos - and get paid for it.

The session turned out to be one of those long-ass planning ones.  You know those types.  The players get so interested in the planning aspect that it seems like they never get to the execution.  But several hours later, they had their plan and went ahead.

The plan was to blow up an intra-building sewer main in the casino's hotel and have millions of gallons of raw sewage flood the casino proper.  Actually, the plan was not a bad one at all.  The big problem was that the party's hacker was AWOL (an actual date with his girlfriend!) and so they had to hire a retainer.

The hacker henchman screwed the pooch on his computer and security rolls.  Badly.  Worse than bad. The hacker was particularly nice about the whole thing, calling the party up and letting them know he had miserably failed and had not only NOT prevented the security systems from detecting their activities, but had actually helped the casino security zero in on their nefarious activities.

Ron and Crazy-ass Tim were in the getaway car.  The second they heard the alarm go off, they were out of there.  Completely.  Utterly.  Gone.  Not even a post card.

The Boy, playing Sergeant Loronzo, and Kaye (yeah - the guy who plays Torvalds in the 2e game) were on the third floor, attaching explosives to the sewer pipes when the first security guard arrived, gun in hand.

Sergeant Loronzo picked up a huge plumber's wrench, swung it the guy, and grabbed his Order of the d30 Brand d30, choosing to use it at that moment.  The massive wrench did so much damage it cut the guard in half, showering everything in the room with blood.  They finished setting the charges and high-tailed it out of the plumbing room, racing to get to their long-gone getaway car.

They ran down the hotel hallway to the elevators, but they were too late.  Three security guards stepped out of the elevator firing.  Kaye was hit and died like a punk at zero hit points even.  Sergeant Loronzo wasn't having any of that, so he pulled out his stash of Lazarus Patches. The patches help dead character's come back to life.  Well, very recently dead characters.  And it takes a medic to really apply them well.  Sergeant Loronzo was not a medic.

But damned if he didn't try.  He slapped patch after patch onto his dead buddy, trying to shock him back into life, all the while dodging a hail of bullets.  The other players began a count down to when the timer would kick off the sewage explosives.  Eventually Sergeant Loronzo ran out of patches and the guards - none too happy with all the missing going on - ran up and began to pummel him.

Sergeant Loronzo ran out of patches.  He was very upset that his buddy has died for good.  He mowed down the security guards and proceeded to leave - but more security guards were coming out of the elevators.

The count down to sewage explosion was getting woefully close - like about one round.  Then the boy had an idea. He busted down the door of a hotel room, dove onto the bed, snatched a pillow, shot the glass out of the window with his laser, and leapt out of the building.

The explosives detonated.

Sergeant Loronzo had some hope that the pillow would soften the impact into the ground, but when the true gravity of the situation hit him, The Boy turned, fired his bright blue laser pistol in the air, yelled 'Sayonara,' and made his peace with the universe.

We all thought it was a very epic death - a very inspiring end - and one which should be remembered in the annals of RPGdom forever.

So if you know your character is going to die - think for a second.  What can you do to make the Valkyries sing loudly of that death in their meady halls until Ragnarok comes?  Do something cool - and inspiring.  The skalds will appreciate it.

- Ark

Sunday, June 10, 2012

NTRPG Con 2012 - Day Three


Even more tired - if that is possible. :)

So, The Boy and I arrived back at the con in the morning to play in the finals of Circus Maximus.  Tim Kask refereed the game.  Regretfully, the rest of The Boy's team did not show up, so he was a solo player.  Everyone on the White Team showed up though.  However, it didn't help.  None of my team made it across the finish line.  it was brutal out there, I tell you - BRUTAL.  Great fun, all the same.

Afterwards, The Boy found a Battletech table.  That was lucky, as I'm sure he would have complained about going to do what I wanted to - which was to go sit in a room and listen to people talk. :)

The Artist Panel was great.  It consisted of Erol otus, Jennell Jaquays, Jeff Dee, Diesel LaForce, and Jason Braun.  During the panel, they drew monsters and answered our questions.  I really enjoyed listen to ALL of them complain about things in art that I have a hard time doing - it makes me feel better as an artist. :)

I was soooo happy that Stars Without Number won the Three Castles Award.  I'm a big fan of the role playing game, and I congratulate Kevin Crawford on his victory.

In the evening, we got to play Empire of the Petal Throne with Victor Raymond.  Jeff Dee also played, as well as John Eric  Holmes's son Chris.  I had read about Tekumel, and had wanted to play the game for decades.  I finally got my chance!

We decided to play a group of characters devoted to 'Change' - kind of like Chaotic in D&D.  We had one alien in the group.  I chose a female priestess named Merla, who was a devotee of Dlamelish.  She was sort of a religious courtesan, I think.  Odd for a courtesan to be dungeon delving, but I played her up as a spoiled rich girl who would throw away the lives of her slaves to ensure her own comfort.  She burned through two of her three slaves that way.

i had a blast playing in Tekumel, and Victor Raymond was great.  I know we frustrated him with out antics something fierce.  More the once he physically banged his head against the wall after we did or said something.  But somehow, we all survived.  Well, we did that buy sacrificing slaves to monsters and running.  Pretty effective, if you ask me.

After Tekumel, it was more Battletech for The Boy - whom I had to physically drag away from the table so we could get home.

One more day in the con left . . .


- Ark

Sunday, May 10, 2015

GURPS Space: Triton Core

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

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

Enjoy or ignore at your discretion. :)

Posts



- Ark

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Traveller Skill Matrix

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

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



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

- Ark

Monday, October 22, 2012

Redshirts: Make Thee an Ark of Gopher Wood

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

- Ark

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Redshirts: Fred Saberhagen Attacks!


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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

- Ark

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Dungeonspiration: Contact Sheets

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

- Ark

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Campaign Timelines

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

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

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

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

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

- Ark

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Redshirts: Banyan Trees of Mars

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

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

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

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

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


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

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


Next session is tomorrow. :)

- Ark