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

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.

I Don't Always Read the Rules . . .

This was uttered by Crazy Ass Tim during tonight's gaming session, and I felt it should be immortalized . . .



- Ark

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Telekenesis in Stars Without Number

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

- Ark

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Gazing Into The Navel of RPG Blogging


Well, at least *my own* navel.

A couple of years ago, I stumbled onto blogs such as GrognardiaPlaying D&D With Porn Stars, and The Tao of D&D, and thought - gee - you know, a large part of my very soul is tied up in role playing games, I love to write, and these guys are writing about RPGs - so why don't I do the same thing?

So I did.  The blog sputtered along for a while.  At that point, it felt like talking into a echo chamber.  I was all alone, talking to myself, and I really wasn't digging it.  Then, one day, I started getting blog followers.  Somehow I had gotten hooked into the OSR blog zeitgeist.  Well, I think it was primarily due to Cyclopeatron and Tim of Gothridge Manor, but for whatever reason, I was in, BABY, and people were reading and responding.


Ah, the halcyon days.

I did a lot of stuff to try to get attention back in those days.  I came up with outrageous blog titles.  I hunted down pictures to specifically get geeks like me to click while looking at other blog rolls.  I dug through other blogs' follower lists and went and followed everything even vaguely on the same topic as my blog.

And the stats.  Oh yes, the stats.  Refresh refresh refresh.  Who is reading?  Who is linking?  When are they reading?  Stalk stalk stalk.

If page hits were down, I obviously did something wrong.  Did I post on the wrong day?  At the wrong time of day?  Was the title not interesting enough?  Was I competing with too many of the 'big boys' at that time slot?  Was I not topical enough?  Was I too topical?  Was I on a boat that had already sailed?

Low post responses were also an issue.  Obviously, I was not interesting enough.  And if no one responded to a post?  ACK!  Well, that was like the worst.  I was a nobody for that day.

Over time, things changed.  Google Plus came on the scene, taking most of the blog chatter with it.  Some important blogs closed their doors.  Others wasted away into nothingness.  For a while, there were more blog posts about reduced traffic than there were posts about actual gaming.

Then I got horribly sick and stared death in the face.  I hallucinated that my cat was Smaug.  And over time, my gaming interests and posting topics have shifted away from fantasy to science fiction.  Old D&D is the center of the OSR universe, and always will be.  Lowest common denominator, if you'll remember from your old math classes.

The stats crashed.  Page hits are way down.  I think most hits come from Russian Mafia Server Farms scraping content to add to their slowly growing artificial intelligence emulators anyway.  Or whatever they are doing with the data.  Building the Singularity, I guess.

But you know what?  I don't care.

Okay, maybe a little.  But nowadays, I write the blog to write the blog.  To me, it's performance art.  It's not the end product, it's the DOING.  I write.  I write for my own pleasure.  If people are reading it - that's just peachy.  If no one sees it - if no one posts - well - someone might one day.  It's not a big deal to me anymore.

So to all you other bloggers who are writing out there, feeling like you are yelling into an echo chamber - I hear you.  And I probably read your blog.  And no, I didn't respond to that post where you said the thing about the thing.  I'm lazy and I read too many blogs.

And if you are not enjoying stringing words together for the sake of stringing words together, maybe you need a new hobby.  But if you do like to string words together - keep on doing that.  I'll probably read it.  And no, I probably won't respond.  But I do wish you the best of luck in blogging.

- Ark

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Redshirts: The Three Sisters (And Broken SCIENCE)

Wednesday's Stars Without Numbers game began with the scouts being woken up from hypersleep in the Three Sisters' system. Lieutenant Commander Gonzales informed them that they had not intended on drilling to the Three Sisters, but there had been a misjump because a forklift had been attached to the outer hull at the time.  Because of the misjump, the Reprieve had burnt out an A3-500 Transducer.  While the ship could jump without one, there was a high risk of burning out the spike drive while doing so, which would end the mission and their chances of ever getting back home.

There was another problem - the ship had been forced to leave Perimeter Station Nine before it was fully stocked.  Thus, while the Reprieve was looking for hydrogen to fill it's tanks, the scouts would take a Blue Ghost Reconnaissance Shuttle out and reconnoiter the system for an A3-500 Transducer and a food source.

Before leaving, the party discovered that 1) Commodore Halberta Clarke had found a tiny metallic scorpion in one of the ship's corridors and was freaking out about it, and 2) the deceased AI named XC-OM was less than deceased because his AI matrix had been stored in an AI phylactery and had been installed into the party's shuttle.  Neither boded well.

Lieutenant Taylor (played by Merwyn) was assigned as the CO and the party jetted off into the Three Sisters' system.  It was immediately apparent that something very wrong.  Sometime after the Scream, the three red giants comprising the system had gone supernova, leaving vast nebulae of gas strewn about the system, and at its heart spun three pulsars emitting copious amounts of gamma radiation.

The party knew there had been a habitable planet in the system from charts created 600 years before, so they continued on.  Suddenly the sensors indicated an object close by, so they approached.  It turned out to be a frozen, desicated creature, bigger than the ship.  It looked like a brontosaurus with the head of a donkey, and XC-OM identified it as a native species to the system's habitable planet, Three Sisters Prime.

(This is where I SCREWED UP THE SCIENCE.  No, not the whole animal floating in space thing.  But timewise, it's off.  Per SCIENCE, a supergiant's lifespan is about 14 million years.  That is not nearly enough time for complex life to develop on a planet.  Or heck, for a planet to even cool down from the formation stage.  And I was looking for a planet that had had 10 billion years of evolution on it, creating a rich web of diversity and intelligence.  But nooo.  After the game, I was doing some research and realized that I had confused the lifecycle of a red giant with that of a red supergiant.  Damn my faulty remembering of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram!  So you can't have pulsars with a 10 billion year old planetary evolution cycle. Well, unless you do something weird.  I guess I'll have to do something weird.)

The party continued on through the wisps of gas, finally arriving at Prime to find a cracked and scorched world with its atmosphere blown off and its oceans boiled away.  But in orbit around the blasted planet was an ancient spacecraft  with the words BIOTONICS ARK 3 emblazoned on its side.

Now, some of the players know Biotonics Amalgamated as some sort of unholy union between the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, Aperture Science, and the Umbrella Corporation.  And they are right.  But the current characters don't know anything about it, except that records indicate that Biotonics Amalgamated was a altruistic, galactic-wide organization devoted to the betterment of humanity through biotechnology and clean living.  Well, that is what the Biotonics pamphlets say, at least.

They were a bit nervous. :)

The hull of the spacecraft was scorched and melted, but from deep within, power fluctuations could be detected.  A huge hole was visible on the side of the craft - the only discernible way in.

So, imagine this - a tiny shuttle, crammed full of sweating scouts, lit by three pulsars flashing asynchronously in purple patterns that would set off epileptic patients, flying in orbit around a cracked, dead world, and approaching a battered, ancient ship, slowing, and entering a dark, gaping maw ringed with rended metal teeth on it's side, going towards signs of activity in a ship that has been abandoned for 600 years, labeled a space ark by an extinct biowarfare company.

BOO.

- Ark

Friday, October 12, 2012

Freeze-Dried Astronaut Roster

It's time for another Character Matrix for your favorite freeze-dried scouts!

I'm running the Redshirts Stars Without Numbers game on Wednesday nights at the FLGS.  This week's adventure was quite fun, but the actual play report will be in a later blog post.    This post is just about the characters.

We had eight players this time around - up from 6.  We attempted using a caller - which worked - sort of.  I think it deflected a bit of the chaos - but none of us is used to working with a caller, so it will take some time.

Four of the players, Adelaide, Seamus, Felipe, and The Boy, had the same characters.  Kaye the robot didn't make it out alive last time, so he made a warrior named Jack Slate.  I threatened to rub chalk against him.  Merwyn didn't quite understand how I was dealing with the security and computer skills, so he built a fresh character to be an expert hacker named Nathaniel Taylor.  I was somewhat worried about the new player, Chonga.  I've heard stories about the guy.  Scary stories.  But Chonga was well behaved, made a Psychic Medic, and played him really well.  So much for stories. :)  And Crazy-Ass Tim finally showed up to play.  He kept on whining and making excuses about not being able to play for a while.  Something about getting married.  Geez.

So - remember that random officer rank chart that I adjusted to make lieutenants be rare?  Well, two of the players rolled lieutenants.   UGH.  Okay, back to the drawing board.  Maybe instead of a 1 in 6 chance, it should be revved up to a 12 on a 2d6.  Or something.  Now we've got THREE lieutenants.  Double-Geez.

Next time we could have ten players, so a matrix like this won't fit on the blog in the same manner.  Not that many people care, I don't think, but showing the party composition is at least fun to me.  So here they are, your Redshirts for October 10th, 2012:

Name
James Loranzo
Mark Five
Kal Kek
Owl icious
Engel Daktan
Nathaniel Taylor
Jack Slate
Ramesh Ramapudi
Player
The Boy
Felipe
Seamus
Adelaide
Chonga
Merwyn
Kaye
Crazy Ass Tim
Rank/Rate
E-6 Petty Officer 1st Class
O-3 Lieutenant
E-2 Spacer Apprentice
E-4 Petty Officer 3rd Class
O-1 Midshipman
O-3 Lieutenant
E-2 Spacer Apprentice
O-3 Lieutenant
Class
Warrior
Expert
Warrior
Expert
Psychic
Expert
Warrior
Expert
Level
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
HP
9
2
7
3
3
5
7
6
STR
14
8
12
9
8
10
14
6
INT
12
14
12
14
15
14
10
17
DEX
14
12
14
13
13
13
14
9
WIS
10
10
11
13
11
12
12
13
CON
14
10
17
8
14
10
8
10
CHA
8
17
11
8
14
15
10
14
Background
Soldier
Midshipman
Naval Marine
Researcher
Adventurer
Adventurer
Adventurer
Researcher
Training
Commando
Aviator (Naval)
Marine Officer
Xeno Archaeologist
Rogue Psychic
Adventuring Expert
Adventuring Expert
Scientist
Artist
-
-
-
-
Athletics
0
Bureaucracy
0
0
Business
-
-
-
-
Combat/
Energy
1
0
Gunnery
0
0
Primitive
-
-
-
-
Projectile
1
0
0
0
Psitech
-
-
-
-
0
Unarmed
0
1
0
Computer
0
Culture/
Alien
-
-
-
-
Criminal
Spacer
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Traveller
-
-
-
-
1
0
World
0
1
0
0
0
Exosuit
0
0
Gambling
-
-
-
-
History
0
0
0
Instructor
-
-
-
-
Language/
English
Native
Native
Native
Native
Native
Native
Native
Native
Gaelic
Native
Native
Native
German
Native
Russian
Native
Arabic
Native
Hindi
Native
Leadership
0
0
0
Navigation
0
Perception
1
1
0
1
Persuade
0
1
Profession/
-
-
-
-
0
Religion
-
-
-
-
0
Science
1
1
Security
0
Stealth
0
1
0
Steward
-
-
-
-
Survival
0
0
Tactics
0
0
1
Tech/
Astronautic
0
Maltech
-
-
-
-
Medical
-
-
-
-
0
0
Postech
1
0
1
Pretech
-
-
-
-
1
Psitech
-
-
-
-
0
Vehicle/
Air
-
-
-
-
Grav
0
Land
Space
0
0
Water
-
-
-
-
Disciplines
Biopsionics
Teleportation

- Ark