Firefly Characters for New Beginnings

Statted out the Firefly crew for NB... might be useful for others, and 
I also want to make sure I'm not missing obvious character elements/ 
misrepresenting anybody...

Couple of modifications:
1) Serenity's crew is not a bunch of greenhorns, so they all got some 
starting fame, notoriety, and advancement rolls...
2) Some don't have Rep as their primary attribute (Inara has People 
instead, for example). I allowed each character to decide to turn 
another attribute into their 'Rep.' (that is, if they would be Rep 4, 
they could put both 4s in other attributes and make Rep a 2 or 3).
3) I made some new professions (some will likely be the basis of the 
professions eventually featured in the space supplement).

Malcolm Reynolds
Human Male Dropout (Had trouble deciding that one) STAR
Rep: 5
Born Leader, Smooth
Fitness: 4
People: 5
Savvy: 4
Science: 3 (did well on advancement rolls, and fits his medic 
abilities gained during the war)

Fame: 20
Notoriety: 30

Professions:
Smuggler (Pep)-- Free Trader (helps with dealing with interplanetary 
trading and plans)
Soldier (Fit)-- Sergeant (helps with making tactical plans, 
assessments, keeping a team together, that sorta thing).

Zoe
Human Female Mercenary
Nerves of Steel
Rep: 5
Fit: 5
People: 4
Savvy: 3
Science: 0

Fame: 20
Notoriety: 20

Professions:
Soldier (Fit)-- Commando (helps with Stealthy activities and the 
like-- she seems to like sneaking up on her opponents)

Jayne
Human Male Ganger
Greedy
Rep: 5
Fit: 5
People: 3
Savvy: 2
Science: 0

Fame: 10
Notoriety: 20

Profession:
Ganger (Fit)--Hitman (I imagine this as giving him similar advantages 
to the Commando expertise, with perhaps a bit more intimidation 
advantages).

Wash
Human Male LWC
Exceptional Pilot
Rep: 3
Fit: 3
People: 4
Savvy: 5
Science: 2

Fame: 10
Notoriety: 10

Profession: Pilot (Savvy) Small Ships (Hull 3-7) (Note: When using for 
the Space game, you use Savvy for Fix and Fly... but you get negative 
modifiers if you AREN'T a pilot and of the right type. Still, he's a 
Fly 6 in his Firefly, altogether).

Kaylee
Human Female LWC
Exceptional Fixer
Rep: 2
Fit: 3
People: 4
Savvy: 5
Science: 3

Fame: 0
Notoriety: 5

Profession: Ship's Crew (Savvy) Engineer (Same as for pilots, you need 
these sort of professions to be able to operate almost at all on a 
ship).

Book
Human Male Dropout
Charismatic
Rep: 4
Fit: 4
People: 4
Savvy: 3
Science: 0

Fame: 0
Notoriety: 0

Profession:
Religionist (Pep) Preacher
Gunslinger (Fit) Assassin (inferred).

Simon
Human Male LWC
Logical
Rep: 3
Fit: 3
People: 4
Savvy: 3
Science: 5

Fame: 0
Notoriety: 0

Profession: Doctor (Sci) Surgeon

River
Human Female Mercenary (starts out as LWC? switches back and forth? 
She's complicated).
Charismatic
(I designed her like an alien)
Superior Senses
Terrifying
Vicious
Rep: 5
Fit: 4
People: 3
Savvy: 4
Science: 5

Fame: 0
Notoriety: 0

Child (Pep) Leaky Brainpan
Merc (Fit) Spy

Inara
Human Female LWC
Charismatic (not Stunning- note how she is also rather persuasive-- in 
all situations-- with all types of folk)
Rep: 4
Fit: 4
Pep: 5
Sav: 2
Sci: 2

Fame: 30
Notoriety: 0

Escort (Pep) Companion (advantages in knowing how to duel, play 
instruments, whatever)

And finally, the "Tenth Character"

Serenity
Fighterlike
Hull: 5 (basis of crew size, 'build points,' and cargo capacity)
Speed: 10 (how fast you accelerate)
Engine: 6 (how many times you can accelerate before running out of 
propellant or fuel)
Complexity: 4 (sensors, computers, and ECM)
Armor: 3 (how hard you can be hit and live)
Mobility: 3 (how quickly you can change facing)

I'm planning on doing some more of these for other things I've got 
models for... maybe some more Firefly characters (the bad guys?), Mass 
Effect characters, Star Wars.... its fun!

Ogre (IN SPAAAACE!)

Decided to play a quick battle the other day. No planets, no space junk, no nothing.
The base idea was a laser battle ship (with some missiles, as well, but definitely a focus on the laser) versus a small fleet of ships- a corvette, a frigate, and some fighters, with a mixture of missiles, "cannon-missiles" (the old cannons have been replaced with somewhat more effective weapons that basically are guns with seeker bullets...), and a small laser.

So, of course, the battle ship, a Gaea Prime patrol ship, was named Ogre.

Ogre is steadily flying through a well travelled wormgate, heading towards the Fifth Ring. Its powerful laser, an expensive weapon, makes it a good weapon of domination. If Gaea Prime can get through to its colonies in the Fifth Ring, it will provide a powerful defensive and offensive weapon that can be used to influence the entire Ring.

Unfortunately, there are many independent planets within the Fifth Ring. Several of them have put together their small amount of resources to form a strike team to try to prevent Ogre from making it to its destination. In a straight up fight, Ogre would be able to outrange this small fleet, but due to the highly travelled and civilian nature of much travel through this wormgate, they can avoid being shot at until they get within range.

Ogre is traveling alone for gameplay balance because the mission was meant to be secret until the ship arrived- Ogre is trying to pass off as a regular patrol ship, not an artillery weapon. Unfortunately, rebels within Gaea Prime have contacted some of their friends...

Ogre is in the lower right hand corner,  while the strike team is in the upper left hand corner. Note my clever idea of combining the Ship Stats Card with the "stand," so that all the info (even vector) is given by a quick glance.

The ships approach each other.

Ogre's sensors note that these particular "merchant ships"  are getting oddly close....

The Strike Team, knowing that at this point they are pushing their luck, decide to engage (they could've waited even longer, but would risk losing their 'first shot' advantage).

The corvette (Y-Wing) shoots off all of its missiles in one volley (using the new missile rules that don't require you to track the missiles but still allow them to be shot down), which are quickly shot down by Ogre's main laser. In response, Ogre fires all of its missiles at the corvette, hoping to beat the frigate's (the  Bird of Prey) light laser. They do, and, due to the corvette's weak armor, easily obliterate it.

The Captain notes that it was not wise to do this, as, had they taken the time to identify the enemy's weapons and calculate the number of missiles needed (far fewer than they shot), they could've had more missiles for later. But, in the spur of the moment, the reaction (hint hint) was instinctive, as the gunners tried to take out the enemy as quick as possible without finding out the best way to do so.

Meanwhile, the remaining ships of the strike team accelerate forward a bit (using the new fuel rules) and start shooting their weapons at long range, causing nothing but a scratch in Ogre's shiny metallic paint job.

Unfortunately for the Strike Team, the laser keeps firing, incinerating a Fighter (or a fighter squadron... depends on your views on scale).

It probably would've been wise for the Strike Team to wait to engage Ogre at all, as they could've gotten very close before Ogre would open fire... but then there is a higher chance that more of them would've died without ever firing a shot as they tried to keep their cover. 

The next activation again went to the Strike Team, and Ogre decided to stay back again, conserving fuel and trying to keep the enemy distant without endangering the overall goal of getting to the destination on time (getting there on time is extra important now that people will know that Ogre is coming).
Due to relatively low fuel and a need to get back home (if they survive), the strike team doesn't accelerate, and instead continues to fire on Ogre, going forward at a steady pace.

Their fire starts causing problems for Ogre, causing more external damage to various systems (some thrusters were damaged, reducing acceleration, and a small fuel leak caused some additional movement problems). On the other hand, Ogre's main laser continues to shoot down targets, killing another fighter and the frigate, reducing the Strike Team to two fighters.

This picture makes most hard SF fans cry.

The final assault begins! having gotten close to a now slightly damaged Ogre, the remaining ships intend to avoid fire and get highly accurate shots into sensitive areas.
Of course, this is a world of (cinematic) realism, so its not going to be easy.

The dogfight initiates, though Ogre totally fails its response test and doesn't get a good shot until the close range attack begins.

The dice are added up, similar to how Melee works in most THW games, and successes are counted.

The dogfight system was adjusted slightly before this game to balance it a bit (make it less powerful while still being different than regular combat). With some skillful maneuvering, avoiding the singular main weapon of Ogre, one of the fighters gets a shot off (with bonus Impact!) at the Ogre... and pushes it into Light Damage! In addition, special damage effects (2 at once, in fact) causes some of Ogre's armor to be chipped away (making future attacks more likely to damage) and causes a violent shake that kills one of the chief gunnery officers! (reducing Fight statistic).

The winners of a dogfight get to adjust position and vector, to an extent.

Things are starting to look bad for Ogre, but the Strike Team is almost out of fuel.
The next turn sees another dogfight while ogre continues to try to shoot down the remaining fighters. Luckily for Ogre, it takes out one of the fighters. However, the remaining fighter once again succeeds in the dogfight and gets another Light Damage on Ogre... bumping it up to Heavy Damage and causing more special damage effects, including the knocking out of Ogre's main thrusters! its immobilized (and can only turn very slowly).

Ah, and then the realism hits. The remaining fighter is making its final attack run, causing more and more damage by nailing the vulnerable parts of Ogre.... and the pilot notices its almost out of fuel. The pilot starts changing vector, knowing that going back towards base at a slow speed will allow the ship to still have the fuel necessary to come to a stop... but it has to leave Ogre unkilled (its a sitting duck, now, so it could've possibly done it). 

Instead of a heroic sacrifice, the fighter accepts the slight victory (at least Ogre is greatly slowed down, though most of the damage is of the field repairable sort) and gets ready for the slightly long trip home.

The crew of Ogre gets to work on fixing up those engines....

The game only took 30 minutes to play, though it wasn't a very complex battle (did use most of the more specialized rules in one go, however). 

I think this game is going well. Its got a sort of 'cinematic realism.' Its not how space combat is actually going to be, most likely, at least not for most eras, but it combines a sort of realism (vector movement, vaguely realistic weapons and ships, etc) with a cinematic feel (daring combat, fleets of ships slugging it out in space, small ships have a balance with big ships, and so on), and I think that fits THW's style.

On one hand, THW has fairly realistic rules, where characters act realistically due to reactions, and tactics are realistic due to 'real time' simulated by Reactions. On the other hand, the fights are cinematic, with Stars being the most obvious example. 

I think this game takes a similar idea- it has room for the 'realistic' tactics that most hard SF fans think will come up, but it also has room for the space heroes zoom around in ships and have fun.

In more literary terms, I think its a sort of reconstruction of 'fun' space combat. It says, yes, ships don't move like boats or airplanes, and the tactics are all different from those, and war is cold, but, with the right balance of technologies and powers, it still results in an exciting, fast paced combat game where tactics and decisions matter, there is a human element, and ships and weapons are balanced in interesting ways.

To Kill a Battleship....

So the last post resulted in some rather interesting discussion (both on this post as well as at TMP) over the differences and virtues of different damage systems.

I think I've identified the main 'types' of systems, and I've also noticed that most are actually rather similar (so yes, I do think a specific, inherent preference for one over another is somewhat silly, but its still legitimate).

1) Damage Level systems, where all ships essentially have an equal number of HP, but they are given names instead of numbers (Fine, Damaged, Destroyed, for example). Ships have different defenses by their ability to avoid changing damage levels. (Traditional THW, more or less)

2) Special Damage systems- usually combined with other systems, but sometimes IS the system, so that the way to 'kill' another ship is to knock out all of its systems (though there is usually a way to Overkill and just blow the dang thing up). (Starfire)

3) Hit Points- like damage levels, but another thing that distinguishes ships is that bigger ships have MORE damage levels than smaller ships. Number instead of names. (BFG)

4) Threshold systems, where the damage is compared to a chart, and if it gets past a certain threshold, it has certain effects (these either being Damage Levels or Special Damage). (GOPS)

Anyway, what I think I'm settling on is the following rule:

Damage:
Every hitting shot has its Impact subtracted by the Armor of the ship being hit. A D6 is added to this number.

(this next bit will likely be tweaked on the specific numbers)
Every shot that is below zero causes a "Been Shot" test. (cinematically: the ship is hit, but the weapon painlessly glances off, or causes a surface blast mark, causing the crew to return fire and evade)

Shots that are zero to 3 cause a "Shaken" test. (cinematically: the crew are thrown around the deck. Perhaps a few computers explode on the bridge. Small external bits- parts of wings, tips of rockets, etc, are blown off. It is possible that more damage is caused if the Fixers onboard don't prevent that small fire from blowing a hole in the ship...)

4-6 results in Light Damage (as well as a test that can worsen the damage to Heavy if failed). Cinematically: An explosion rocks the ship! Outer hull is totally gone in the area directly hit by enemy fire. There is a breach! Fires are inside, and there are probably a few casualties. Functionally the ship is still well within the area where it can operate, however, as most crew remain alive (possibly in space suits, however), the damage is repairable (though the results may not look as pretty as the shiny white exterior previously did), and the small breach doesn't prevent the engines from pushing the cockpit and guns to where they need to go, so... fight on!

7-8 results in Heavy Damage (with a test for going to Severe). Cinematically: The ship is starting to look pretty bad. Large chunks of the ship are gone, there are either several small breaches or a single large one, multiple fires on board, multiple dead. Without the optional Special Damage rules, the ship is still functioning, however.

9-10 is Severe Damage. (with a test for going Kaboom!) The ship is effectively dead, except that it can still shoot some types of weapons and can still repair. Cinematically, the ship is a Drifting Dead. What essentially makes it different form a Kaboom! ship is that there are a few survivors on board, and possibly (depending on if you are using optional special damage rules and whether or not those have affected your weapons) a few working, smaller, low power weapons. The survivors, no doubt floating through the exposed interior of the wrecked ship, do have a chance, however; good Fixers can get power running again, and slowly fix the ship so that it may once again fly.

11+ KABOOM! Self explanatory.

Adding Damage: example: if a ship is Light Damaged, then an additional Light Damage will send them into Heavy Damage. Here are all of them:

Light + Light = Heavy
Light + Heavy = Severe
Light + Severe = Roll again for chance of Kaboom and add Special Damage Effects, if in use.
Heavy + Heavy = Kaboom
Heavy + Severe = Kaboom

Repairing Damage: it is possible to reduce your current damage level with successful repairs (based on current damage type). Pretty self explanatory. In theory this means a ship that is pretty much dead can become a working ship again, but this takes awhile, requires some luck, and is unlikely to happen, especially if you are using special damage effects.

In addition, there will be optional special damage effects, which add a random chance for special damage from ANY attack (including shots that do not penetrate, though it will be rarer for them) as well as mandatory (though the actual effect would be random, you'd definitely get one if using these rules) special damage effects for different damage levels.
These do, in effect, make damage levels WORSE than they were before, so if you are using them, you have to use them for all ships within the game.
When repairing with special damage, you must repair all special damage (not including crew damage, which cannot be repaired, or loss of fuel, which is gone for good) down to the amount that you get mandatorily for the damage level below your current damage level before repairing a damage level.

Example: I am Heavily Damaged, with 2 special damage effects. To reduce to Light Damage (which causes 1 Special Damage Effect) I would need to first repair 1 special damage effect, and then repair the Heavy Damage down to Light Damage.

This basically makes it impossible to repair out of Severe  Damage, as you are probably going to be severely damaged by being hit more than once, meaning you'll have something like 5 or 6 special damage effects in addition to the severe damage... so you'll be able to repair bits and pieces (get a gun working again, get some more armor working again, get the computers working, whatever) but it'll take longer than a lot of games last to really get back to a fully working condition.

So wait, I here the masses  cry, it is as easy to kill a battleship as to kill a fighter, if they have the same armor?

Yep.

But as Hull is still an attribute used in ship design, that situation will be rare. Hull will be used to determine how many Weapons, Armor, Cargo, Engines, even Speed (though base speed is smaller as you get  bigger, if you devote enough of that space to powerful engines, you can get that ship to move faster), and to a certain extent, maneuverability (similar story to Speed), as well as 'maneuver thrusters' which can help your ship move around without turning.

In effect, very, very rarely will you see a big ship that has less armor than a little ship. Similar to how its hard to fit many guns on a little ship, while a big ship has lots. The advantages of less Hull is that you have higher starting values (which are modified by the design) for things like speed and maneuverability.

Little ships also have the advantage of usually needing less fuel (they can refuel at the carrier), not needing cargo (well, they could, but only a little... most ships of this size are just the cargo of a bigger ship, anyway), dogfighting abilities, being harder to hit, all of which free up space (in one way or another) to let them have the things they need- nice guns, maneuver thrusters, and a bit of armor.

I'm actually really liking the implications of this system... thoughts?