Brock Savage
Cosmic Barbarian
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2019
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E
E-Rocker Dude, your games always sound so wild and imaginative!
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I’m using first edition ForeSight with only the essential minimum of simplifications to character generation, for the sake of having something definite that the players can rely upon. Its problems are survivable.Campaign : It Belongs In A Museum
System : ForeSight
Setting : Flat Black
Genres : low-concept SF; planetary adventure; thrillers, hard-boiled mysteries, capers
Inspiration : Mission Impossible , Burn Notice , SF works of Jack Vance
Platform : Discord voice and chat
Schedule : Saturday nights 20:00–23:30 AET
Commencement : late January 2022
Players : 3–4
Premise
The PCs comprise a small team of versatile and highly competent “effectives” who perform secret operations for an interstellar NGO on the “planet of the month”.
Human Heritage is an interstellar non-government organisation that is dedicated to recording and conserving cultural treasures, and protecting artists and their freedom of expression. Human Heritage has supporters and members on most planets. But these are seldom skilled enough to do anything difficult, resolute enough to do anything strenuous or dangerous, or bold enough to confront opposition. HH therefore employs skilled and daring “effectives” as undercover and clandestine operators. Rarely of a military character, their missions usually involve finding missing artists, rescuing captives, finding and recovering stolen art, interdicting the trade in stolen art, and preventing major acts of vandalism—by whatever means necessary. But if you get caught, the Conservator will deny any knowledge of your mission.
Flat Black is a setting for adventures in which more-or-less cosmopolitan PCs come with an objective to an exotic planet with a bizarre culture and society. The peculiarities of the planet are an obstacle while they are not understood, but PCs can figure out how to adapt to, circumvent, and even take advantage of them.
Also, wild and naughty, in a good* way!E E-Rocker Dude, your games always sound so wild and imaginative!
Okay, so that went well enough. Now I have to come up with a kick-arse kick-off.Tonight — in ten hours from posting — I will conduct the party-and-character generation session for a new Flat Black campaign that I am going to run
I have been running my weekly Conan 2d20 campaign for longer than a year now.
Other than that I’ve been running a much shorter Conan 2d20 campaign for a friend of mine who normally only plays or runs D&D and VtM. He seems to like it a lot so that’s going well.
Also one of the players from my long campaign wanted to try her hand at GMing so she is running a Conan 2d20 campaign for me and she is learning it pretty fast.
Thanks!That's a lot of loincloths.
Welcome aboard!
I love the internet. I just assumed there was a site that would create personalized Star Wars opening scrolls for things, and lo and behold I was correct. I'm going to use the shit out of it.
A quick example I ginned up for my SWN campaign.
That was fun. I noticed one typo, though.
You know what you can do with your typo? Ruthlessly pulled from my message of love and fellowship?That was fun. I noticed one typo, though.
How is Tulpa Girl the apprentice?! I feel like it should be the other way around.
Fuck off with your second guessing. You know I love you.How is Tulpa Girl the apprentice?! I feel like it should be the other way around.
Everyone's a critic George.Fuck off with your second guessing. You know I love you.
Fuck you Ernest.Everyone's a critic George.
Han shot first dickhead!Fuck you Ernest.
I've got your Greedo right here fuckwit!Han shot first dickhead!
Works for me. Either way Greedo died.I've got your Greedo right here fuckwit!
Pew pew pewWorks for me. Either way Greedo died.
Yay for getting to play!Last week, my Savage Worlds group had the second session with one of my players acting as Special Guest GM. He's got one more to do, and then I'm back in the saddle. It's been really nice to have a break from running the universe, and actually getting to play a Savage Worlds PC for once!
My player had only planned to run one session. He didn't ask me for any advice, which was fine. I was totally on board with him doing it his way & learning through trial by fire. But if he had asked, I would have said, "expect everything to take 2-to-4 times longer than you planned on." Thus his one-session adventure is taking three sessions. Which, again, I'm totally fine with, as it means a longer break for me.
How is Tulpa Girl the apprentice?! I feel like it should be the other way around.
So... Still playing in the D&D5 group. We are trying to play twice a week, but at least our average is over once a week.
The Traveller game I was planning back then is up and running, and we are playing every second week. I'm running a modified Third Imperium setting, where I'm using the map, but only uses the lore as inspiration at best. I've also tossed out Psionics, so the Zhodian Consulate are a high surveillance state through technology instead.
One player ended up with 100% ownership of a lab ship from start, but as the character is an archeologist, she got a Free Trader instead (why I was working on my own floor plans a year ago) as a mobile field laboratory. That character is also now the ships medic, but she probably hasn't been working on anything that haven't been dead for hundreds of years since her residency before becoming an MD.
Another character is the son of the Noble that funded the expedition they were on. The father died, which not only meant the expedition's funds dried up, but his half-brother is now the new ruler, and it is quite possible the half-brother and step-mother are sending assassins after him. While have served in the Navy, he spent most of that time behind a desk, shuffling documents.
The third character is played by the only player that haven't seen the Expanse, and he have pretty much ended playing Amos. A war veteran with a checkered past. He was the expeditions chief of security, and as he didn't really had anywhere else to go, he remained as someone had to keep those tenderfeet alive.
I made a 3D model around the floorplans I made, and found a plugin to Blender so I could 3D-print it. That's how I found out my "Free Trader" is 290Td (oops ). Well, I found that out after the first or the second gaming session, so a minor retcon, and it became a 290Td Trader that's designed to use almost all facilities Free Traders and Scouts can use. Considering we already had established it was of unknown origin, where the documents show it was refurbished about 80 years ago, it actually fitted my plans for it even better. Two sessions ago, when they found out the hull is not only six time thicker than necessary, but the material it seems to be built of is just a thin coating over some other material, they began checking up more stuff about their ship. That's how they found out about 70Td unaccounted for, and began to scan it, finding a lot of empty space, but also something large and massive. Last session, they began cutting holes in it, founding some very old and deteriorated fuel tanks, and something that seems to be a huge heat sink inside a layer of "aerogel".
A 3D print of the ship is flying around with, in the same scale as the Beowulf from 2nd Dynasty next to it.
View attachment 40998
Then, I've also been running an FFG Star Wars Game with two cousins, but thanks to some illness, covid restrictions, and bad timing, we haven't been able to play for a few months now (we've only been running the game face-to-face).
I've never used the FFG system before, but as one of the cousins wanted to try it out, it seemed a good opportunity to give it a test drive. The other request was that they will end up with the rebellion against the empire. The game is taking place three years before the battle of Yavin (so, concurrent with the Rebels show), and they are from a distant mining colony that's Empire friendly (They were under Separatist occupation, and after the war they suffered under pirates until the Empire drove the pirates off). So both characters signed up for the Imperial forces, but as they found out the Empire wasn't what they thought it were. So after their term of service was up, they both decided to not renew their contracts.
One of them is a former Scout trooper, and the other is a former Shuttle (second-) pilot and is a decent mechanic.
We created their home planet together, and pretty much based it on Kiruna (a mining town in Northern Sweden). As Kiruna is about to be moved (yup, their planning to move the entire town), the town in the game has been moved. So while their were teenagers, they used go take their "speeder mopeds" and go to the old ruin town, hang out with friends and drink beer. There's also an old battlefield where the town used to scavenge droid parts, but the new administration change it to something that requires a license.
While trying to come up with a name, I mangled Kiruna a bit and ended up with Peruuna. Googling it, just in case, I found out that Peruna means potato in Finnish, and one of the players in half-Finn. So when I mentioned it to them, he mentioned pretty much "yeah, that won't work for me." However, after bouncing around some other ideas, someone of us came up with the idea that Peruuna could be a potato-like root vegetable in the Star Wars universe, and pretty much the only thing that can be grown on the planet. So the planet got it's name from the root vegetable, which all of us ended up liking. After deciding that the main cattle on Peruuna is Nerfs, both decided they wanted to have grown up on farms where their families have grown Peruuna roots and being Nerf herders.
The closest major system to Peruuna was decided to be Ry'loth, and Twi'leks are the largest non-human population (about 10%).
I also nabbed the "relation system" from Noir, so they were to spend 10 points on 3 persons each. The points are spent on the persons opinion, and their resources. That's to make both friends and foes. I added a few more. So we have the mayor, that is creating grief for the farmers. The mayor is the nephew of a business woman that is believed to be a mob boss, and has the nick name "the Banker." We have a scrap dealer that both of them have sold stuff they illegally have acquired from the old battle field. A pub owner in the rough part of town, that most likely work for the Banker (the former scout trooper put into he had recently done a job for him, taking a package from outside the town to the pub, that he botched when he was ambushed by a larger well armed group). They also know a young fixer, which one of the players created with the above mentioned points, that's--while not planned that way--ended up pretty much to be a human version of Mission Veo. There's also a smuggling ring working out from the docs, the local security forces, a small Imperial presence, and a few other details we established before play.
So far, they have managed to retrieve the package that was dropped while outrunning the mercenary gang that ambushed him, under the nose of the same gang that also were out looking for it. Besides the mercs, some of the pub owner's goons were also out looking (which could mean ending up under his thumb, if they found it first). The only direct firefight so far in the game was the PCs taking cover next the the found package, as four mercs also looked in that area. They set their weapons on stun and blasted away. They dropped two instantly, and one of the mercs failed miserably, so I had him drop the weapon. As they failed to take him out in the next round, but got the a lot of advantage, the player let the poor fellow being a real butter finger and yet again dropping the gun he just had managed to pick up.
The Mercs and the pub owner's goons took some losses, as they stumbled into each other, ending out in a firefight.
The day after having delivered it to the pub owner, a kid on the street came up to him and handed him a com-link, claiming he dropped it. He was contacted by someone using a voice distorter, and was informed that unless he wanted them to assume he had tried to steal the package himself, he had to track down whom being behind the ambush.
After some detective work, they managed to find out what ship the Mercs had been using, and that they had gone to Mos Eisley (public transports, as they don't have their own ship). Splitting up, trying to find the Mercs or their ships, I make a percentage roll for if they run into them. I had the 01 mean that one of them walks right into butter-finger. While rolling for if he recognize the PC, the result is pretty much "yes, but..." Both pull their guns, and having a stand-off. The attempt to convince butter-finger is mistaken isn't entirely successful, but his buddy that comes running completely fails to recognize the PC. So he manage to convince the other guy, and they both manage to talk down butter-finger. Being invited to a beer at a cantina nearby, as a "sorry for the misunderstanding," he mention he and a friend is looking for work and the mercs agrees to introduce them to their boss. The session ended with them managed to talk their way into being employed into the merc unit on probation.
Some of those might come in handy.This is a post I wrote on another site in answer to a question about a campaign based on a lab ship.
Set up a charter business, acting as a mobile base for remote scientific expeditions on the fringes of Imperial space. You're the pilot, ship crew and the muscle. What could possibly go wrong ... ?
One could also do some combination of the above. For example, try combining Tribbles with one of the other adventure hooks. Feel free to show this to your D.M. if you want to suggest plot hooks.
This meme... sooooooo much win.