A Playtest of Sorts (Character Generation)

With the character generation system totally done I think its time to post a character or two.

These are both PCs who other playtesters are playing as in that big playtest campaign I've been talking about.

Notably, both playtesters had a pretty specific character concept (personality, skills, capabilities, etc) in mind... one even made the character in Traveller to compare! Both came out as desired but with lots of detailed history added by the system. Because the generator involves some player choice (what skills to pursue developing, sometimes moral or strategic choices, job choices, etc) its almost like playing an encounter. Doesn't take quite as long, but it is definitely more fun than just rolling some dice to see what your character looks like. Both character were started as Rank 4 Stars. Normally I'd use Rank 3 but Rank 4 provides a good basis for having pretty powerful characters (roughly equivalent to Rep 5 + some encounters experience in New Beginnings) which will fit this campaign as both characters are going to get into some pretty big stuff.

Note also that most of the "story" info is inferred from the generator's results. So I know that Dennis received an injury that gave him the "Slow" attribute after sacrificing his team while serving on a naval vessel during a war... but the player gets to decide that specifically that meant he was ejected into the upper atmosphere of a gas giant from an exploding ship and due to minor suit punctures has had lung problems ever since. Same thing with different units and nations... the generator goes by job type, not specific units. Marine Force Recon would use the same chart as US Army Green Berets, in other words, though if a player feels the need he can modify.

Valdis' sheet has a few extra details given in the timeline due to the player wanting to use the character as a guide to learning the generation system. The other figured it out himself and ran it himself, without my assistance (though using the same format).

So, without further ado:

Name: Valdis Vladimir Travers Cadfael. Common/Nick-name, Personal-Name, Family Name, Clan Name. 

Contact Points (remaining): 4 (3) Enemy Points (Remaining): 8 (5)

QRS: Mercenary/Star Army         Personality: Pragmatic Tribal/Rebellious

Attributes: Star Advantages, Smooth.

Proficiencies: Crime (Covert), Investigation (Tracking)-2, Scholar (Social Sciences), Scholar (Languages)-2, Soldier (Tactics)-2, Streetwise (Culture), Soldier (Marine), Soldier (Grunt), Survival (Jungle). 

Fame: 4  Notoriety: 1

Resources: SMG, BA Pistol, 10 Wealth Points

Rep: 5
Fit: 4
Pep: 3
Sav: 4
Sci: 2

History:
Age 1-15: Vladimir starts as a Rank 4 Star. He grew up on TancoKrav as an Cymri. This minority was persecuted when the True Word took over. Due to his people’ status as a persecuted minority, Vladimir grew up on the streets, learning to move quietly and take without giving.

Age 16: The war between the TancoKravian theocracy and the Twin Suns Empire has been going on for several years. When Vladimir’s city was liberated by Shiloh Rough Riders, Vladimir got a chance to go to school in the TSE. He took this opportunity, planning to return to TancoKrav and destroy the True Word that oppressed his people. Vladimir does well at school, focusing his study on Social Sciences and Investigation. He has trouble making close friends, as his culture and difficult early life are very foreign to most of the other students.

Age 17: Vladimir continues his academic studies, taking some natural science classes to balance his capabilities, learning a bit of several languages, and furthering his study of Investigative Reasoning.

Age 18: Vladimir continues his studies.  Vladimir befriends one of his professors in a science course, Professor Thatcher (2 contact points).

Age 19: More school. Vladimir’s initial difficulty with the social life at the school resulted in his becoming more persuasive. Vladimir’s skill, fitness, and 

Age 20: Last year of school.  Vladimir switches focus to study more military subjects to aid him in his upcoming enlistment. To do so, Vladimir transfers to the TSE Military Academy of New Medina. Vladimir learns the ropes of military service and tactics. In the huge metropolitan capital of New Medina, Vladimir becomes learned in the culture of urban centers across the galaxy.

Out of School—Owes 20 Wealth Points. 

Age 21: Vladimir enlists in the Twin Suns Empire Cymri “Grey Phantoms” Brigade  to fight against the TancoKravian True Word regime, still in power. Basic training goes well, and Vladimir spends his first months of the war in naval security, manning the airlocks and guns of ships in orbit of TancoKrav. Eagerness to get on the ground prevented Vladimir from getting promoted, but he still managed to pick up the fine points of serving as a Naval Marine. However, during his time aboard his bombardment platform he met a TSE Captain, Daniel Haddock ,who had targeted an entire village of civilians… a village of Cymri. The TSE didn’t even investigate the careless war crime, but Vladimir confronted Haddock. Neither would forget each other’s name after this confrontation (Gained enemy, 3 points).

Age 22: Vladimir is slowly transitioned to the front lines. He is shipped down to his home city, now under TSE control. Though technically TSE territory, followers of the True Word continue guerilla attacks. Vladimir sees some minor action but spends most of his time using his investigative skills to seek out IEDs and weapon caches. 

Age 23: Vladimir is moved to the “true” frontline, the tropical equatorial continent of TancoKrav, where followers of the True Words have entrenched themselves in the jungles and small towns. TSE casualties are rising, and they’re not taking any new ground. The war is taking its toll and things are starting to look like they may end in a draw. Vladimir is promoted to Sergeant (R:1) in the field when his squad’s NCO is killed by a sniper. Vladimir earns a medal of valor for his service. 

Age 24: Vladimir serves until the end of the TancoKrav war. Faced with mounting casualties and the cost of shipping armies across interstellar space, TSE chooses to call for peace on the condition that Shiloh and a few small TancoKravian starports become TSE territory. TancoKrav accepts these conditions, as they are minor losses for the inward looking theocracy. (Character’s People) are left behind by the TSE, while Shilohs are upset by their lack of independence after fighting for the TSE for over a decade.  Vladimir himself becomes jaded when he sees his people left to die by the Empire they fought for. (Goes from Idealist Normal to Idealist Tribal). In his last year of the war, Vladimir served the Empire with particular enthusiasm. He gained a highly honorable medal after his entire platoon was wiped out while serving as a shield for retreating TSE forces. Vladimir was promoted to Lieutenant (R:2) as a result, and served until the end of the war in this capacity.

Musters out. (Rank transferred to Merc job, owes no Wealth Points)

Age 25: Vladimir joins up with like-minded Cymri and forms a mercenary outfit, Vladimir, set on colonizing a new world for Cymri. Finding a world on the other side of a recently opened wormhole, the group moves in to colonize. Apparently, the wormhole (or others) had been open before, as the planet is inhabited by primitive humans. The first year on the lungle planet is harsh, focused mainly on survival and establishing simple settlements. 

Age 26: The colonization continues. With settlements now firmly established, it seems that there is now a chance for Cymri to actually have their own homeworld.

Age 27: Unfortunately, the leaders of the mercenary outfit became greedy. Vladimir knew something was wrong when the leaders started enslaving the local tribes and using them as sources of labor and entertainment. When one of the leaders orders Vladimir to shoot all the men and children of a small band of primitive jungle dwellers, Vladimir refuses. He gets a bullet in return. The primitives used the opportunity to kill the leader and rescue Vladimir, who is nursed back to health. Having lost his faith in even his own people, Vladimir decides to go back to TancoKrav and just get revenge on the Followers of the True Word for all that they have caused (Become Pragmatic Tribal).

(Quits job. Gains 1 Contact Point and the pistol on his body… A Taurus P50 Big Ass Pistol, which packs quite a punch)

Age 28: Vladimir becomes the leader (R:3) of a small cell of guerilla fighters in TancoKrav’s capital city. His band performs mostly low-level assassinations on religious, political, and military leaders (often one and the same). The constant danger of this lifestyle hones Vladimir’s abilities as a guerilla fighter, tactician, and spy. However, the band is rarely successful in their attempts… often failing to get the target. But at least they don’t get killed themselves—Vladimir runs his attacks like a military mission, not like a suicide bombing. Unfortunately, these actions do cause the New Macedonian-backed TancoKravian Intelligence Organization to start tracking Vladimir… (gained 5 enemy points)

Age 29: The Game Begins

Current Team: 

 Rank 4 Ganger

 Rank 4 Net Runner

 Rank 5 Assassin

Character #2, who led a somewhat different life, though both are generally in the same category (being ex-soldiers with some good schooling).

Name: Dennis Starburg (Dantil V’Stafir in Viatsi)

Contact Points (Remaining): 7 (3)                         Enemy Points (Remaining): 1

QRS: Mercenary/Star Army                                    Personality: Pragmatic Tribal/Code (Job)

Attributes: Star Advantages, Steely Eyes, Slow (reduced sprint speed), Runt (doesn’t like charging into melee), Smooth (+1d6 Pep)

Proficiencies: Ship’s Crew (Engineer-2, Navigation), Soldier (Grunt-2, Recon, Tactics), Crime (Intimidation), Pilot (Hull:5, Hull:1), Scientist (Physics-2), Scholar (Viatsi Culture), Perform (Violin), Freetrader (Smuggling),

Fame:            3                                                            Notoriety: 3

Resources: $25.

Rep: 4
Fit: 3
Pep: 2
Sav: 4
Sci: 4

Ages 1-17: Dennis grew up on the Viatsi Fleet, son of two human merchants. Growing up on ships provided an instinctive understanding of engines and astronomy.

Age 18: Enlists in Viatsi Naval Infantry (Ztar’m Brigade, for non-Viatsi volunteers) and goes through basic training. His talents get him placed in a special cross-training program.

Age 19: Stays in Viatsi Naval Infantry. Dennis is assigned to an exploration vessel (Laok’ra) as a security guard. He is quickly promoted to lead the small vessel’s security team (R:1). Dennis continued to hone his combat instincts during his stay on the vessel.

Age 20: Dennis attempts to join Viatsi Naval Special Operations, but doesn’t quite make the cut due to lack of covert skills. He continues on in the Infantry, and is assigned to a pirate hunting operation. Ironically, Dennis is assigned to a reconnaissance team and starts learning the skills that prevented him from joining the Commandoes.

Age 21: Dennis’ infantry career gets interesting when the anti-pirate operation expands into an all out war when it is revealed that a faction of Watowees (a reptilian species on the Fringe of human space) is supporting the pirates. Dennis serves on the Sholeev, a missile frigate. Dennis was able to help the Engine crew with his instinctive knowledge of ship engines, but received a light injury when the bridge was damaged by a laser strike. In that attack, one of the pilots was knocked out and Dennis had to bring in his basic training to help pilot the ship. For his heroism, Dennis is given a medal.

Age 22: Dennis continues to serve on board the Sholeev. During a boarding of a incapacitated enemy cruiser, it was found that the reactor was about to overload. Dennis sacrificed his team by staying on the ship so that pirates could not fix the reactor and possibly retake the ship. The ship ultimately exploded, meaning Dennis’ team failed its mission to capture the ship, but Dennis managed to survive the explosion. Due to a suit puncture and being stuck in the clouds of a gaseous planet, Dennis also contracted chronic long problems before being retrieved by search and rescue teams.

Age 23: With the war in its final stages, Dennis is assigned to a sniper team in the final assaults on pirate bases. Due to high success rate, Dennis is promoted (R:2). This eventually puts him in place as the team’s lead sniper, not spotter, as he started. In this position his relative slowness (resulting from poor lung condition) is not nearly as important.

Age 24: With the war over, Dennis decides to go to school to pursue his interest in ships and advanced theoretical physics. Specifically, Dennis is sent to one of the Viatsi’s research ships, where he learns about wormhole theory. He is also a favorite of some of the scientists, who appreciate his love for learning.

Age 25: Dennis continues on in school. He becomes distracted by a romantic relationship with a Viatsi student. Her name is Arial At’Shiran, and though they have since parted, Dennis and her left each other on good terms, separating mostly due to astrographic distance.

Age 26: Dennis continues on in school, though now he is paying with his own money and not the military’s benefits. Dennis’ scientific pursuits are somewhat interrupted by his need to learn more about Viatsi culture to truly interface with the professors at a higher level.

Age 27: Dennis continues in school, focusing his studies on practical applications of physics; ship engines and navigaton.

Age 28: Dennis continues on in school but shifts away from science for a year to focus on expanding his piloting abilities, specifically to piloting fighters.

Age 29: Dennis spends his final year of school studying as hard as he can to become a competent theoretical physicist. Though he accomplished this goal, he also managed to find the time to pick up violin from a New Meccan physicist who was working with the Viatsi on a wormhole research project.

Age 30: With all of his learning done and plenty of experience on ships and in combat, Dennis Starburg decides to sign up with one of the independent Viatsi captains and serve in a Free Company. He ends up working as smuggler on Mai’m 5, a small freighter, under Q’ran V’Shoris, a stern, quiet freelancer of a man. Dennis gains his respect and is quickly promoted (R:1).

Age 31: After a highly successful year of smuggling, Dennis and the crew blow money on a trip to Paradise Station.

Age 32: The crew hunts down a large bounty on a New Macedonian pirate. Dennis is promoted (R:2)

Age 33: Game begins; Dennis decides to captain his own ship.

Current Team

 Rank 4 Mercenary

 Rank 4 Mercenary

 Rank 3 Mercenary

I know this doesn't offer much info on the mechanics of the generator, but hopefully it acts as a good teaser. Fundamentally its a system where you choose a job, roll a die against a skill/proficiency combo to see if you get in, roll for an event, follow the directions, and get your rewards (a chance to get a skill or proficiency, money, etc). You then roll for a chance of having a personal event, which can be anything from an injury to a new attribute to contact points. Its pretty simple, the cool part is just how much there is in it... so many professions, so many events, so many choices, and all that up to the player's interpretation when designing a character.

Other update: Tweaking ship design (making crew/cargo spaces scale appropriately to ship size, and tweaking weapons to work with that) and going to run a few playtests with different possible ship design tweaks, and after that its just finishing the campaign/encounter system.

Unification War Batrep

May 2, 2511

Alliance forces, led by General Richard Wilkins, start making their push through the Serenity Valley with the ultimate objective of taking out Independent air defenses. The Independents are operating with defense in depth... as the Alliance begins its assault, looking to push by Independent positions to meet up with a deep flanking group, the Browncoats are merely causing casualties to slow the enemy down and then falling back.

Browncoats hiding in the rocks before the Alliance attack.

The reserves and command team for this Browncoat position,  hiding behind a fold in the ground.

Overview of the defensive position. Surrounded by cliffs on both sides, the Alliance is forced to come through the woods to the North or the scrub to the Northwest. Neither is much of a match for the Independent trench and rocky cover-- a strong defensive line.

Alliance Purplebellies start their approach into the valley.

A squad moves up through the woods.

They advance to the tree line while the other Alliance soldiers move in from the Northwest.

Some context: The Alliance along the tree line and the Purplebellies coming in from the Northwest.

A fire team from the Command Squad moves up through the scrub to provide a crossfire with the squad in the woods. The Browncoats spot this group and make them duck back, while the group in the forest takes some casualties... they manage to knock out two of the Browncoats in the trench. One falls back with a casualty, the other (with an Assault Rifle/Grenade Launcher) holds the line, pinning down the Purplebellies in the forest as well.

Some of the reserves move up to the trenches under the cover of the grenade launcher.

The fire team hiding in the rocks moves up to the Eastern flank of the woods and assaults the pinned Alliance troops.

They manage to take out the entire squad... a big dent in the attacker's forces. Soon the Browncoats will fall back... can't take too many casualties themselves!

The Purplebellies in the scrub try to get a fix on the hidden Browncoats in the trench... they do, this time. Though they are pushed back under cover by the soldiers in the trench, they manage to get a fix on their position, allowing the Lieutenant to throw a seeker grenade at the trench.

Half of the fire team in the woods tries to bomb the Alliance troops, but they fail to kill any. Meanwhile, an Alliance squad falls back to retake the woods from the North.

That squad is ambushed by the two remaining Browncoats, who OOF one Purplebelly. 

The Browncoats are hit by the Seeker, which takes out another 3 soldiers. The Browncoats in the forest fall back to the original defensive line.

The Alliance advances through the scrub, taking casualties but pushing back the Browncoats.

The last few Browncoats to have not escaped off the table (none were left behind in this fight!)  at their fall back position. They were able to escape with no further casualties. 

A good defense for the Browncoats... the Alliance took more casualties and were severely slowed down.

Project Myrmidon: Part 1

(The following batrep/playtest uses the Standard Vector Movement rules, a simplified form of the Flight Simulator Vector Movement rules. As can be seen, they allow larger skirmishes to be played with greater ease.)

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Two weeks ago Project Myrmidon had its first live fire trial. The opfor was played by Task Force Ada, a small Star Navy fleet tasked with patrolling and policing the Second Ring. This force was not aware of Project Myrmidon, and every precaution was taken to ensure that no crewmen could reveal anything with regards to Project Myrmidon's nature or existence after the fact.

This report gives a brief summary of the trial, as revealed through transcripts of Task Force Ada's communications and

*Task Force Ada, this is Star Navy Command, Ring 2. The secrecy of this mission is of the upmost importance. A fleet of modified Star Navy ships have been harassing colonies in the area with electronic warfare. Eliminate the fleet at all costs-- we don't know what it is, but for all we know this is the vector for the next big computer virus.*

Project Myrmidon Prototype RIEApC-2 ("Reaper" as the programming experts have started to call it).

Reaper chose to stay in a slow moving, tight formation in order for its defense platforms to be able to protect the entire fleet from enemy missiles.

*Action in the Second Ring? Never thought  we'd have to use maneuvers of this scale her-* *-Cut the chatter, Outlaw. Launching all Interceptors.* *All pilots, make sure to not veer too far off formation at this point. It is important that you stay within the Interceptor protected zone.*

*Keep accelerating, Task Force.* *Kingmaker this is Deadwood, I'm picking up a dense mass of  IR signatures.* *Can you designate, Deadwood?* *Negative, Kingmaker. Don't seem to have life support but it could just be relatively stealthy engineer.*

*Deadwood, this is Outlaw. Look at how those ships are flying!* *Yeah! Perfectly synced. Almost as if...* *Its one animal.* *Whoa, just noticed a battleship's signature in that clump.* *Forget that, Kingmaker, those fighters just launched too many missiles for our targeting computers to track* *STATIC* *Kingmaker?*

 Reaper managed to see a hole in the interceptors... blocked only by the lone Star Navy battleship. Reaper managed to hack into the battleship and turn off all the PDS, allowing a salvo of missiles, fired from attack platforms, to severely damage the battleship and destroy a frigate.

*Disable those PDS frigates, Deadly. We'll hit them with our missiles once their defenses are down.* *Aye aye!*

This was possibly Reaper's first tactical mistake, though the resourcefulness and skill of the Electronic Warfare specialists of Task Force Ada are also to blame. Losing two thirds of the PDS platforms before making contact with the Interceptors left much of Reaper's fleet useless against the high number of small targets and the heavily armored large targets. That said, Reaper had no way of knowing that Task Force Ada had so few torpedoes and such a high number of PDS, guided cannon, and laser weapons. Making Reaper more adaptable and able to predict such details will be a big step towards taking Reaper out of the prototype phase and into regular use. The programming specialists are right now looking at updating Reaper to not only think tactically but to be able to predict the sort of weapons needed on a given mission and even design systems to produce them autonomously.

*Outlaw, we're going in for our assault.*

*Watch out, Deadly, they're coming out to meet you!* *Those missile buses are going to ram us if we don't stop 'em!*

*Savage, watch out for that PD-- STATIC* *This is Deadly, we just evaded one drone but three others are closing in fast... we can't escape! They've got us! Shi--STATIC* *Alright, we're hightailing.* *Same here. Good luck Ada, Interceptors are outta here.* *This is Outlaw, watch out Interceptors. One PDS Frigate left. Engaging with all weapons.* *You got him! Thanks for the assist!*

 Those Interceptors had their comms cut soon after and were marked as potentially dangerous meteorites. All were incinerated when they reached their fall back planet.

*Whoa, Kingmaker just incinerated!* *Outlaw, this is Overseer. Do not engage that battleship, we just took control of it.* *Then why did it just explode?!?* *Must be a fail-safe against computer take over.* *Thats it! Everyone focus on hacking that carrier. Its the only ship in the position to command these two cruisers, if they're drones.* *Why else would they kamikaze?* *Aye.*

Sure enough, the cruisers hacked into the carrier, the back up after the main Reaper platform self destructed. The rest of the fleet was self destructed, while the remnants of Task Force Ada were given falsified starcharts and redirected into the nearest star. 

Overall, this was a success for Project Myrmidon. Though Task Force Ada ultimately prevailed, it was largely through unexpected resourcefulness and luck. Another view would be that Project Myrmidon lost only one intelligent life on this day, while Ada lost hundreds. With some adjustments to the Reaper program to allow Reaper to think more strategically and learn from mistakes, I think that some of the design mistakes that we humans made will no longer be issues during the next live fire trial.

Beowulf and her crew drift from New Texas towards Ceres, New Oregon.

At the same time, a pirate corvette, the Celestial Eagle, is headed towards Dallas, New Texas, coming at nearly 90˚ to Beowulf's path. Coming in the opposite direction of Beowulf is a military frigate, Overlord. 

Beowulf is on the right edge of the picture. The pirates area in the bottom left, and Overlord is in the upper right corner.

At first the ships just continue on their courses.

As the pirates' ships are marked in Overlord's database as enemies,  Overlord starts firing on the fighters from long range, but does no damage. The fighters fire their thrusters to engage Overlord.

Overlord kills one of the fighter's pilots and the other is destroyed by a shot from the laser. The fighters turn to fire on Overlord but cannot penetrate Overlord's armor.

While the fighters and Overlord are engaging each other, the Celestial Eagle hails Beowulf and demands that they come to relative stop. To reinforce the message, they fire on Beowulf but cause no significant damage.

Beowulf is unarmed, so gives in as cannon fire causes Heavy Damage, cuts off parts of Beowulf's fuel supply, and reduces Beowulf's armor. 

At the same time, the fighters make a pass by Overlord, dogfighting with the slower frigate. Despite some skilled piloting, Overlord loses some Armor as a result of the fight. Its own laser manages to heavily damage one of the fighters, reducing fuel and speed significantly. The fighters are effectively out of the fight, using their last fuel to move on a vector that will make them easy to pick up/refuel after the battle.

To escape the fighters, Overlord accelerates with its main engine towards the Celestial Eagle and Beowulf. Celestial Eagle has just begun boarding Beowulf... while at the same time, the pilot of the Celestial Eagle is killed by fire from Overlord which lightly damages the ship.

As I have details on the crew and this is a campaign I'm following more closely than a quick battle, I decide to play out the boarding action with 5150. 

The crew prepares for boarding... Dempson and Sarah hide in the engine room with their weapons drawn, while Yosi and Sam prepare to stop any attempts at taking the cockpit. Poor Doctor Sera is stuck alone far away from anyone else as Beowulf is boarded; he's in the medbay downstairs!

The pirates' captain and his two best soldiers come in through the airlock first. Closely behind them are 4 of the regular crewmen... the engineer and the pilot (who is killed as this is all going on) stayed back on the Celestial Eagle.

Two of the pirates capture Doctor Sera while the Captain and his first mate head upstairs and wait for back up before proceeding. Meanwhile, Yosi and Sam have a minor disagreement over whether to try to ambush the pirates and retake their (now damaged) ship or to wait and see how things play out. Sam easily wins the argument, as he doesn't want to lose Sera and they are heavily outgunned. He accepts that they are probably going to be captured, but hopes for a better opportunity to show up soon.

The pirates regroup on the main deck in the crew area (kitchen,  lounge area, crew cabins).

Then I roll doubles for activation and go back to the space combat. Overlord turns to continue firing (like a mobile turret) on Celestial Eagle as it flies by. Celestial Eagle is now severely damaged.

The Engineer comes over onto Beowulf to escape the fire. Meanwhile, the pirate captain and his first mate come into the bridge area. There is a standoff between the crew of the Beowulf and the crew of the Celestial Eagle in the engine room and the cockpit. 

(The following is the result of an Argument Roll).

"Stand down, cowboy, I don't think you know how to use that gun." The Pirate Captain says to Sam.
"Lets skip to business," Sam responds, "We know that you have one of our crew captive downstairs."
"Captive for now. If my pilot isn't flying this ship in ten sec--" His first mate whispers in his ear-- "Well if you're not flying this ship the way I want it in ten seconds, your crewman's dead and this situation will get a bit more interesting."
"Look," Yosi says as he lowers his weapon, "We don't need to point guns at you, the authorities are already shooting theirs'. Now I don't think the authorities like me too much either. So I see this going one of two ways. Either you stand down and we all get out of this, settle our differences later, or we fight now but we all get killed-- by that frigate or by each other."
"Why don't we just kill you and get out of here ourselves?"
"Because," says Sam, "As soon as your finger goes for that trigger, I'll press shit button," he raises a small communicator "And we hail that ship. As soon as they hear that we're boarded and under attack, they'll come straight for you.
"Besides, without a pilot, I doubt you'll be able to outrace them with this beat up freighter."
There is a tense moment of silence.
"Alright," says the pirate captain as he lowers his weapon. "Just get us out of here."

So the combined crews (minus the fighter pilots and the pilot of the Celestial Eagle) pull away from the exploding Celestial Eagle.

The Overlord finishes off the Celestial Eagle, assuming that Beowulf was merely escaping its pursuers. By the time Overlord realizes that Beowulf has pirates on board-- it picks up the two fighters peacefully-- Overlord is too far away to positively ID Beowulf, as its high velocity from escaping the fighters took a little while to beat, and Beowulf hit the antimatter drives to get away. Figuring that they weren't sure that Beowulf was criminal, the Overlord merely posts a note to look out for all ships of that class and continues on its original path.

Slice of Life

So, remember back in December when I first started working on a somewhat Traveller-like character generation system for 5150?

That was working pretty well, but since then I've been working on Fringe Space a bit more (especially the campaign elements) and recently finished my work on gaming Personalities and Relationships.

Simply, characters are defined by two elements of personality:

                 Pragmatic            Neutral              Idealistic   Y
Altruistic
Social
Normal
Tribal
Selfish
X

And their relationships are defined in a similar way:
                  Antagonistic   Neutral       Cooperative         Y
Love
Friendship
Acquaintance (not a very accurate name, but whatever)
Rivalry
Enemies
X

Note that these represent fundamentals... A character can be People: 5, Altrusitic (Pragmatic) and that can be interpreted in a million ways. Thats up to the player.

He could be a character who generally wants to help everyone even at risk of hurting himself (Altruistic) but accepts that sometimes you have to take the greater of two evils (Pragmatic), and as a result is likable and convincing as he is not overly idealistic while still always looking out for others (People 5).

He could be a lovable jerk (People 5) who's sense of humor wins people over, always wants the best for the entire world (Altruistic) but recognizes that his own life is the most important to preserve in most situations, as if he dies, then he cannot continue to help others (Pragmatic).

He could be a very good liar (People 5) who lies and manipulates to win people over (Pragmatic) to his side, which just so happens to generally be for the greater good above all else (Altruistic). He could even be a highly charismatic EVIL character, whose idea of the greater good is the idea that all people who sin must die to pave the way for a future utopia (like The Operative in Serenity).

Very different interpretations (Note that evil characters will have this fundamental difference be represented more by their affiliation and place in the game, not by their personality... as a result a character who is evil but has some good intentions might be easier to reason with than a character who is just evil for selfish or illogical reasons). But within the system of social interaction (to be presented below) they all actually behave in rather similar ways most of the time.

Same with Relationships.

Two characters love each other? They could just be very close friends or they could be spouses.
Antagonistic? They could just really enjoy fighting each other or they could assume that because the other is usually wrong they will tend to fight against them.
Note that antagonistic does not mean little bickering here and there, or even that they will get in the occasional big fight (as most couples in love tend to do-- usually for good reasons). It represents a general tendency to side against that character for whatever reason. A Love/Antagonistic relationship is not a great situation and could, for example, represent brothers who do love each other and want to protect each other but at the same time never agree on what is right.

So, how do these characters interact?

They can have Conversations and Arguments.

Arguments are somewhat like people opposed challenges in 5150 NB. They are modified, however, and come up when characters disagree about course of action (for example, if I tell one of my crew to kill a captured enemy when they are morally opposed to killing outside of combat) or when characters confront each other to cause change (If that character didn't fight that individual decision but confronted mine to try to change his personality-- probably to be less Pragmatic or more Altruistic). Arguments also vary by Heat Level-- how heated the argument is. If its a minor thing then its usually going to result in one giving in easily, while if the heat level is high the argument can become violent-- though often if you succeed in convincing a character in a high Heat argument, you'll fundamentally change them as well (hopefully this is for the better!) Heat is determined by the relationship of two characters, what the argument is over, and some other factors (arguments can also escalate to higher heat levels).

Conversations are a bit different. Instead of taking one character's Pep and pitting it against another's, the Pep scores are combined, modified (based upon how much the characters have in common WRT personality type), and then rolled for successes... with different amounts of successes causing different things.

Most of the time Conversation results in minor changes to relationship type (usually for the better) or nothing, but they can turn into Arguments as well. In some circumstances they can also give you information instead of relationship changes... play nice and people will do you favors. These can usually also be gained by arguing, but its a different process (the difference between wearing down someone withholding information from you by fighting them and just gaining their trust until they tell you).

In theory you could also have a situation where one is trying to make friends with another but the other doesn't want to contribute their pep score to the Conversation... I'm not sure why this would happen, however.

Lying works the same way as arguing but what is being "argued" over is really more like trying to convince another of something being true-- failure means they detect the lie (and may be angry about it), success means they believe you and may trust you more in the future.

On to an example.

After the last mission, in which Samuel Fresco was injured and then saved by Sarah Resnik, Yosi Parr (co-owner of the ship, Beowulf, along with Sam) took control of the crew and led a woman and her brother to their deaths at the hand of a vengeful old mercenary.

Samuel Fresco (Normal Pragmatic) was okay with the woman's death-- he's a mercenary soldier, and she was the target, and the vengeful old merc, Ha-Dam, seemed to have a good reason. But her brother was not guilty of anything, and was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time. Allowing Ha-Dam to kill him just to increase his revenge on the woman seemed immoral to Sam.

Yosi (Selfish Pragmatic), on the other hand, didn't mind at all. Given that Sam was reluctant to take such a violent mission in the first place (he envisioned his crew as private security contractors who helped keep colonies safe from pirates and similar, not as a ruthless assassin's club), and Yosi was the one who convinced the crew to take it, Sam was not happy with Yosi.

As the crew was brand new, Sam and Yosi were Neutral Acquaintances.

But  before Sam confronted Yosi, he wanted to thank Sarah (Tribal Pragmatic, a -1 in Conversations due to personality differences) for helping him get out of the combat alive.
Though Sam and Sarah are on the same ship, they do not know each other well (again, crew is a group of strangers who came together as coworkers and nothing more) so are also Neutral Acquaintances (+1).

So Sam goes to Sarah's room on Beowulf. (Sam and Sarah have a Conversation).
Sam is a pretty friendly fellow (Pep 4). Sarah is a bit on the shy side, but what she lacks in conversational skills she makes up for with a pretty smile (Pep 3 + Attractive).
"Hey Sarah."
"Sam."
"I heard about what happened in that gunfight. You saved my life. I wanted to thank you." (Circumstance: +1 die, as they have a reason to be friendly)
Now, what actually happened (The first time I rolled the dice) was that they had a very good conversation and became instant friends (specifically, Cooperative Friends).
They had similar views, they had some good laughs, found each other appealing, and so on. Details are up to the player.
Here were some other ways it could have turned out:
They could have just become Cooperative Acquaintances, realizing their common goals meant they generally agree with each other... though not having any particular personal attachment as a result of this conversation.
They could have become Neutral Friends, where they have some amount of personal attachment but don't find themselves to have that much in common when it comes to decision making and the like.
They could have just had a bit of chit chat.
Other results are possible but because they had a fairly high combined dice pile it is very unlikely for things to go bad.

It should be noted that conversations like these-- which result in changes to relationship type-- are actually not that frequent. They represent time spent together on the ship and such.

The type of conversation where the results are more like "Find out about so and so" or "get so and so mission" are much more common.

Arguments are somewhat similar, as many arguments "in the field" never actually get started... they CAN start, but its a random chance and usually not a high one. Confrontations with the goal of, essentially, preventing such arguments from happening at all (by changing personality types) are a bit more common but like Conversations take some time.

Anyway, after befriending Sarah, Sam goes off to confront Yosi.
Both characters are Pep 4, but in arguments you can make use of more than just Pep. Yosi brings in his 3 Notoriety... but Sam counters with 5 Fame. The Heat is 3-- this is a life or death argument between Acquaintances over whether or not Yosi should be Tribal instead of Selfish (and possibly, whether Sam should be Tribal instead of Normal if Yosi counter attacks).
What actually happens is a bit dramatic. They get in a fist fight. Yosi won't back down-- this is his ship as well, and they're going to do the missions the way that pays best, not the way that helps Sam's conscience.
Sam similarly won't back down-- if Yosi is going to be a mad dog, he needs to be put down.
Yosi swings at Sam, and they get into a bit of a brawl.
As a result of the fight, the two characters are now Antagonistic Rivals. They don't like each other so much and are more likely to argue in the future. The fight is also left unresolved-- unlike a more decisive victory, a fist fight means Sam can try to convince Yosi again and vice versa on the same subject (without further cause), but now with a higher Heat (as a result of being rivals).

Things aren't looking great for the unity of the crew of Beowulf!

Some other stuff could have happened:
If the dice had fallen differently, I got a result where Yosi became Tribal, convinced by Sam, and another time where not only did Yosi become Tribal but the butting of heads actually resulted in Sam and Yosi becoming Cooperative Friends!

Might do another encounter with Beowulf tomorrow... this time, their unarmed ship encounters Pirates, but luckily there is a police ship in the area.

Trading in Space: First Test

Decided to post a quick little test of the current economics system for Fringe Space.

Note that Fringe Space is for playing a few ships in a Campaign.... you're not the grand admiral of Earth's fleet. The economics system reflects this... often times a planet is no good to trade with because the big merchants and government aid, which is obviously beneficial to them in some way, make it so that the market isn't good for a small trader.

So worlds are defined (economically) by three factors:

Type: A vague description of the world's place in the economy.
Barren: These worlds don't produce anything valuable enough to trade in space (at least not in bulk).
Farm: These worlds produce an excess supply of food and similar necessities, while being relatively weak in other areas.
Mining: Produce useful materials and even low level manufacturing, but are net importers of food and more complicated machinery.
Generator: Similar to Mining worlds, but the specific material that they produce in abundance is an important source of energy.... a good place to refuel your ship! (note that this is often "artificial" energy... its not that there happens to be rocket fuel sitting around, its that this planet has a lot of infrastructure built for, say, mass producing antimatter).
Developed: Like Earth. Combines the food of a Farm planet with the resources/manufacturing ability of a Mining planet, while also having the infrastructure to produce complex machinery (like space ship parts). Also an important source of Luxury goods, as these planets tend to have a longer history and larger culture. Doesn't generally import, with the exception of luxury goods.
Trade: Kinda like the opposite of a Developed planet. While a Developed planet is essentially independent, a Trade planet is useful more for astrographic reasons than its natural resources or infrastructure. For whatever reason, this world is a common stopping place for merchants and so has very fluctuating market... it rarely wants (as there is a constant stream of goods from larger corporate trade) but also frequently doesn't offer great prices for a buyer (as a lot of stuff is imported).  On occasion great profits can be had buying OR selling from these worlds, though, and these worlds are also a center for intrigue and adventure. Fuel tends to be an important import.


Equally important to World Type is Population and Law Level, which both range from 1-6. Population has to do with raw population as well as density, and essentially shows purchasing power as well. Law Level basically increases buy price and decreases sell price because you need to get around tariffs or bribe officials to sell goods. This can be negated by smuggling, but this can be risky.

The Goods are:
Material (Usually from Mining Worlds)
Machinery (Developed Worlds)
Food (Farms)
Fuel (for your ship OR to be traded, though this is rarely profitable)
Luxury (which come from all worlds).
There are also special trade items but those are specific to adventures. (for example, a rare alien artifact, or supplying weapons to a rebellion).

The buy and sell price for these is modified by planet type, population, law level, and sometimes even distance from port of origin (luxury items are more valuable from farther away... what self respecting 3rd world dictator gives his guests French wine when he can get the Martian crop of 2128? For this reason Luxury goods are marked in the cargo hold not as "luxury" but as "Mars-Luxury")

All goods are available on all planets, but in some cases there is no way to get a profit. Keep in mind that all listed profits in the following exercises do not include travel expenses, like fuel. Under the current system it looks like you need to be careful with planning your trade routes, especially if you are mobile. There are some cases where you can literally fly around one world and act as a cargo airplane of sorts, but these tend to be the sort of worlds you don't want to stay on too long... or you can only buy and sell a little bit in any given week as the population is low.

When selling OR buying you are always limited by the world's population... you can never sell more units than the world has population in one week (technically a quarter month, the campaign turn), and you can never buy more than twice the population.

First I set up my little system:

Sol
-
Earth (Grav 3, Developed, Population 6, Law 5) - Luna (Generator, Grav 0, Population 2, Law 2) - Orbital Stations (Grav 0, Barren, Population 5, Law 3)
-
Mars (Grav 1, Trade, Population 3, Law 3) - Mars Orbital Stations (Grav 0, Farm, Population 1, Law 3)
-
Asteroid Belt (Grav 0, Mining, Population 2, Law 3)

Some of this was randomly generated, but a lot of it wasn't. Doesn't matter too much which you do.

Here's how prices are determined (In "Items" from New Beginnings):
All prices are modified in the following way
1) roll a d6
2) if you're on a trade world, then on a roll of 1-2 subtract 2 or 4 (1 and 2 respectively) from the buy price and increase the sell price by the same amount. If you roll a 5-6 do the opposite.
3) If you're not on a trade world, then a roll of 1 will decrease buy price by 1 and increase sell price by 1, and 6 will do the opposite.

Note that it never costs money to sell something and you never make money by buying something. All negatives become 0 instead (so cheap its basically free). If, for whatever reason, you can sit around on one planet and buy and sell the same good and make money (for example, on a mining world with a population of 1 and a law of 1, then material costs 1 but sells for 3) then you can do this, however, you must wait a turn to sell after buying... you'll need to pay all expenses for this time. This represents you moving goods around on the planet itself and making a small profit. You'll still need to pay for the fuel of flying around the world, as well. (this is usually only possible with high population planets, so resource disparities makes sense. Also, low Law... so you're also in increased danger on the planet of being pirated).
P= Population
L= Law
D= Distance (1= same orbit, 2= one orbit away, 3= two orbits away, and so on...)

In the formulas you'll note that sometimes a variable is marked in the following way:
(P:x). This means that the number there is the difference between the given world's P value and a P value of x. For example, if (P:3) is seen in a formula, then if the world's P=5, then the number used is 2. If P=1, then the number used would be 2 as well.

Always round up fractions.

Buy---------------- Food------Material------Machinery------Fuel-------Luxury
Barren                 7+L         7+L               7+L                3+L          -P+6
Farm                  (P:3)+L  4+(P:4)+L   5+(P:4)+L        3+L           -P+6
Generator            4+L+.5P 4+L+.5P     3+L+.5P             L             -P+6
Mining                4+L+.5P   (P:3)+L   4+(P:4)+L         3+L           -P+6
Trade                 .5P+L+3    .5P+L+2      (P:3)+L+1        4+L           -P+5
Developed        .5P+L+2     .5P+L+1    (P:4)+L-2          3+L           -P+4
Sell-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Barren                8+P-L      8+P-L         8+P-L               6-L          3*D-L+.5P

Farm                   .5P-L       8+P-L          10+P-L           6-L           3*D-L+.5P

Generator           8+P-L      8+P-L          10+P-L           0               3*D-L+.5P

Mining               8+P-L      .5P-L            10+P-L           6-L           3*D-L+.5P

Trade                P-L+1      P-L+1           (P:3)-L+5        8-L           3*D-L+P

Developed        (P-L)        (P-L)             (P-L)               6-L           3*D-L+P

Alright, enough of the scary looking formulas (they're actually quite simple, of course).

Here's my analysis:

The best places to buy (not taking into account gravity and position, though because I based the planet type in part on gravity thats in many ways accounted for already):

Food from Mars Orbit (honorable mention to Moon)

Material from the Belt (honorable mention to Moon)

Machinery from Mars (honorable mention to Moon, Earth)

Fuel from the Moon

Luxuries from Earth (though because luxuries depend so much on where you're going for their value, and the fact that they're all relatively cheap on the home world but expensive over at the next orbit, they're all pretty good).

The best places to sell (not counting luxuries because I'm too lazy to do an analysis from each planet to planet.... generally its best to sell at Mars or Earth and be selling from as far away as possible. Earth--Belt and vice versa is one of the most lucrative trades in the setting, but its costly in fuel and time).

Food in Earth Orbit (honorable mention to Moon, Belt.... note that the moon has multiple cases where you can do intralunar trade and make a nice profit.... its just that the moon is low population AND law, so its a bit dangerous and you can't trade much at any one time, and you generally don't make as much).

Material in Earth Orbit (honorable mention to Mars Orbit, the Moon)

Machinery in Earth Orbit or the Moon (honorable mention to Mars Orbit and the Belt)

Fuel on Mars (everywhere else you are at a net loss, at least when you account for the fact that you need to get where you are going, too). 

So there you have it.

I think it sets up some interesting situations, and once you get going its not overly complicated.

Of course the problem is that if someone is generating more than just one system (note that I'm ignoring unsettled planets which normally you don't, though for trade purposes you do, and that I'm also doing just half a star system.... the outer planets are very active in most settings with all the little moons) it can take awhile to work out the trade routes... but then again, one can generally tell a good trade just by world type. Its just that the hard core merchants who really want to get into it can also take into account gravity, travel time, etc, and figure out the best route....

So its a good enough system that a mercenary can do a little trading on the side with ease, but also that more detail oriented players can really make good use of, IMO.

Once More With Characters

A few days ago I painted some "character" models... I think altogether these are my best paint jobs in 15mm yet. A combination of new brushes, new paints, and increasing skill has resulted in these fine models:

Took some photos with flash and some without, as the Black Widow gets 'whited out' with flash while the commandoes can be seen in better detail... but they also look good 'desaturated' so...

The Flash even made one of the Black Widow's black arms look white on one side (the side being flashed), so don't look too closely =D

Obviously the Black Widow (Rebel Minis) on the far left is based on Miranda from Mass Effect. I actually really liked this model painted up-- I was a bit worried that they were too skinny and stick-like, but with some good washes and careful brush work she fits right in with all the less heroically proportioned models in my collection. I do wish the face was a bit better cast, but the hair pretty much makes it that you can only see the nose and mouth anyway, so no big.

The other guys are pretty generic special forces. I was going for DPM with the camo, and I think I got the gist of it... the goggles look nice outlined, brown helmets I was a little unsure of at first but now I like it, and I think the dark green shirt/jacket under the body armor and kit contrasts just enough with the camo to make the models look good without ruining the camo.

A friend pointed out that I was probably unconsciously influenced by the SAS characters in Call of Duty:

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100924234407/callofduty/images/5/58/1_SAS_soldier.png

Who seem to wear a rather similar outfit (if much more desaturated due to the nature of "real is brown" philosophy in video game design).

Some Paintin'

Painted some stuff recently... just thought I'd offer a sampler to show where I'm going with things.

First, some near future US troops (RAFM Traveller midtechers)

I thought that the mix of the old and the new/futuristic made them look appropriately near future (We're talking mid 21st century, though they could probably pass as modern US troops with a little squinting and I'm planning on using them as fairly generic non-hostile environment troops up until about 2170). I think thats the "Firefly Principle"-- by mixing old fashioned with futuristic you end up with a realistic future without it feeling too much like today. I think I was definitely inspired a bit by Ghost Recon for the look of these guys.... I tried to get a multi-cam-ish look for these guys (there are 6 colors in that camo pattern...) and I think it looks okay, it certainly doesn't look like the UCP or Woodland, or like my tiger stripe Navy Seals (I should really post some pics of those at some point). Doesn't really matter if its not perfect, of course, because camo patterns get adjusted all the time, I'm certain they'd change a bit in the next 50 years. These boys have already seen combat as regular infantry to be rescued by a joint Canadian-US commando team in a near future WW3 scenario (they were pinned down by Neo-Soviet revolutionaries in a US-allied Russia).

The one other thing I find a bit strange about these fellows is their weapons. I've pretty much arbitrarily decided that the gas-masked fellow is the SAW (his weapon looks kinda like a Sten but I could imagine that the magazine is actually a box magazine with caseless ammo, which I assume all the weapons use due to their relatively small magazines), the guy to the left of the squad leader is a grenadier, and the others have assault rifles of some futuristic design.

Also, I applied my second layer to Serenity (fixing up the engines, mostly.... I still feel like the color of the actual ship is a bit too bluish and not quite greenish enough, or is it brownish.... its a hard color to get), painted up two other similarly sized ships. I imagined the bluish one to either be a patrol ship for the Alliance or a similarly powerful organization while the red and white one feels more like a pirate to me. I tried to paint certain elements of both ships to look somewhat like a heat radiator... I kinda like the blue ship with the bright panels, but I'm not sure its worth painting all my ships in this way.... there are ways to cover them or make them less visible in theory, so even for my hard SF setting its not really needed.

With ships this size I'm thinking that I should cut all the ranges in 5150 Fringe Space in half.... ships moved a bit too quickly across the map, anyway.