Hello,
I am an Apocalypse World veteran. (I’ve ran campaigns for Apocalypse World, Urban Shadows, Monsterhearts, and Dungeon World.) I’m running an Uncharted Worlds campaign coming up in October and I had an idea but I am not sure about the best way of going about it. Maybe you can suggest some ideas?
My players and I agreed to have a Lost in Space/Battlestar Galactica style game. The players are in an unexplored part of the galaxy, low on resources and working to get back home. As a plot device, I thought I would have their warp drive out of fuel and dependent upon some mineral or whatever (e.g., dilithium crystals) that the players will need to stop, go planetside and retrieve regularly. I can do this purely as a narrative device (i.e., the players run out of fuel whenever it is narratively convenient to me) but is there a better way? I don’t want to railroad my players every session but at the same time I don’t want them to just Wild Jump and be home in a single roll. Part of the fun should be resource management. I imagine the struggle to get home taking up the entire campaign (6 sessions total). Ideally, I allow them the ability to strategically manage their resources without making it too easy or too difficult to get home.
One thought was to make “being lost” an ongoing passive Threat with an Agenda to consume fuel, food and water, eventually inflicting damage from starvation, dehydration and life support system failures, if not handled.
Another potential issue with a campaign like this is that Markets and Factions will likely not be much of a factor. I can warn players about this during character creation but maybe there is a better way to handle that, also. I definitely don’t want them stopping at the intergalactic gas station for fuel, filling up and – bam – they are home.
I could also use suggestions for what to call the fuel source. Not “dilithium crystals” but something like that.
Look forward to your responses.
John
Posting for the dot, will reply this evening!
Sounds like a perfect case for a custom move. Maybe even a beginning of session move – modeled after the Hardholder/Hocus moves? Perhaps resources are a simple clock that ticks downward based on this roll?
Factions could be introduced as you go. Oh look they stumbled across the Clypton Empire….. Or internal Factions on the ship if it’s a big generation ship.
So, remember: to do something, you have to do it. You know that right? You’re an AW veteran. So, if the PCs are really, totally, super lost — how can they Wild Jump back home? Like, you have to re-orient, right? You have to get your bearings? Whether they’ve got jump coordinates or whatever, aren’t those only as good as knowing where you are in the first place to adjust for “stellar drift” or some malarkey? What I’m saying is: if players understand this game isn’t about getting home in one-roll — and especially since the fiction supports this reading — you’re probably in the clear.
On the fuel front, you could do this a few ways. On one hand, you could just apply a fictional limit: you can get in one good jump before you need to refuel. Skim a gas giant or whatever to get some, or find some people out here and trade away your bare necessities for this very important fuel. On another hand, you could have someone Face Adversity to plot a jump, and depending on the result mark off ticks on a fuel clock (if someone has Navigation and chooses to make use of a shortcut somehow, then mark off half as many ticks, right?). You could also modify, say, the Cramped Quarters move a little! You could add a little text, so that when things go wrong your players have to blame it on one of their resources running low — and when things are good, you reveal some kind of nice surplus that has made sailing go smooth.
Honestly, if you want strategic resource management, I would make custom moves for the Big Threats. One for orientation, one for food & water, one for morale, one for ship integrity, and I’d make them all start-of-session style moves like the Hardholder’s wealth or the Hocus’ followers.
You can totally still use Markets and Factions: unexplored space doesn’t mean no one is out here. Its like Voyager and DS9 — this part of space is a foreign country, and who knows what the rules are. In this case, the debts players assign are likely not fiscal debts, but debts arising from crossing these factions and incurring their wrath. I mean: if you don’t want Factions, cool! That’s awesome! But, you can totally use them, there’s no reason you can’t… you can get a whole lot of gameplay excitement out of needing an important resource, and someone out here already has a claim to it and they have a problem with you.
Following the BSG vibe, factions can also be the crews of different ships and the resources they provide. That refinery ship might have a bigger role in fleet politics now. Agro wants to have a say in how long they can remain in system and replenish. The refugees are just a mob, but if someone can rally them, well, they’re everywhere.
Todd Zircher is so darn right
Great responses so far. Thank you very much.
Capitalizing on the Custom Move idea I threw this together at lunch. It’s a first draft so feel free to be critical.
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Custom Move: Lost in Space
In order to make this roll, you must have use one Data Point about your current location. After three successful Lost in Space rolls, you arrive “Home.”
o 10+: On Course… Success! You are out of fuel. You cannot roll Lost in Space again until you find more fuel.
o 7-9: Business as Usual… Success! You are out of fuel. You cannot roll Lost in Space again until you find more fuel. Also, choose one:
– Out of Food. Crew gains the trait: hungry. If the Crew was already hungry, they gain the trait: starving. If they were already starving, they each suffer an Injury starting at Minor but worsening in severity with each additional Out of Food result. If they find food, traits and wounds caused by this result are negated.
– Out of Water. Crew gains the trait: thirsty. If the Crew was already thirsty, they each suffer an Injury starting at Minor but worsening in severity with each additional Out of Water result. If they find water, traits and wounds caused by this result are negated.
o 6-: Off Course… Fail. You are out of fuel. You cannot roll Lost in Space again until you find more fuel. Also, choose one of the following:
– Both of the Business as Usual results above, or
– You went in the wrong direction and now need +1 additional Lost in Space rolls to get Home.
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So, the idea is that they need a Data Point about their current location and fuel to make a Lost in Space roll. It is a large group (5 players) so I don’t think this is too demanding. After three successes, they are Home. Both the Data Point and the fuel should give them ample reasons to go adventuring but the slowly diminishing food and water can also be a motivator and create a little added tension.
Interesting. I would flesh it out just a hair more so they know they can’t just like “Assess the area with sensors”. Maybe like “a Data Point about a local star, planet, or other entity in space”
I would suggest each new episode’s jump point would start of with a description of the in media res situation and a question to the PCs asking what resource, situation, or faction prompted the action underway.
I tried to formalize this custom move with a little flavor text, formatting and more detail.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/6cwjy6pCq90IMewZtyEeVNwh7XkPIdmE-NnNSbqNWNO34ZgAfwFhlm0B6CeQzvhyrLVRCVICTQ3U85iB_SH0ZeVu3odBrzLNIBM=s0
Alrighty, so. For this particular setup, Judd Goswick ‘s idea is fantastic: having each session start with the hunt for what the characters need this week. If you want, you could even make a very rough outline of the episodes (1: Fuel, 2: Repairs, 3: Food, 4: Medical Supplies, 5: Star Charts). Set the stage, ask them specifics (“What major component broke down this time?”)
As for removing “Wild Jump Home”: narrative is, as always, your friend. There are any number of reasons why a Wild Jump of that distance wouldn’t work, as long as you establish it ahead of time.
– Wild Jumps can’t go through the Galactic Core, too much gravity, gotta travel around the rim.
– Wild Jumps of that distance require more energy than the ship could possibly produce.
– The region of space known as the Void is a Wild Jump wall, rumor has it there are safe islands within the void that smugglers and criminals use.
As for factions/markets, a completely foreign deep space is a good place to introduce alien Empires. Empires function exactly like Factions, mechanically.
And finally, even if the characters encounter alien bazaars and Markets… maybe the tech on this side of the galaxy uses a completely different power source, incompatible with the character’s ship. Which means either they have to slowly retrofit their ship with alien tech ($$$), work to find resources themselves on uninhabited worlds, or work their way to buying an alien starship ($$$!!!).
So, Sean, do you advise against using the Custom Move? I’ve grown fond of the Custom Move but I have not played your game before. If the game designer says it’s a bad idea, I am inclined to take your word for it.
Not at all! The Move itself could use a little cleaning up (I can take a look in detail this evening if you want) but the premise is quite solid.
Just be aware that by making it a Move, you’re giving up narrative control in favor of randomness. It could take the characters three sessions to make those three Jumps. It could never happen in 10 sessions or more.
As long as you acknowledge what your intentions are, and whether the design fulfills those intentions, I say go for it.
Yeah, it would mean giving up some narrative control. Of course, I can always make my fictional fuel source, Argonite, easier or harder to find through the narrative so its not completely out of my hands.
If you have time to look over the Move and give your thoughts, I’d appreciate it.
Just for fun, I’d add to the list of needed resources Companionship. Perhaps some away team brings on board a plant that blossoms with pheromones or it is a psychic critter like a cat (that insures it has enough prey by over breeding the local fauna.) Hijinx ensue as crossed lovers and frenemies lose some of their control.
Sadly, I’m still stuck at work (hurray for 12 hour work days), but here’s a quick clean-up. I’ll try to unpack some of the changes below.
—–
LOST IN SPACE
When you fuel a Jump with a full tank of Argonite and a Data Point about a local celestial landmark (planet, star, etc), Roll.
– On a 10+, You reach a new sector of space. If this was your third such success, you have reached your home star system. If not, each character makes a Cramped Quarters check.
– On a 7-9, As above, but the whole crew is also suffering from a Major Debility due to lack of supplies (Hunger, sickness, irradiation, stress).
– On a 6-, You are nowhere near where you should be. Everyone suffers a Major Debility from lack of supplies. However, you’ve mapped more of the galaxy: gain +1 to all future Lost In Space rolls.
—–
For the opening trigger, I like to set the conditionals as part of the “When” statement. A bit of Magic the Gathering and programming leaking in there.
For the 10+, I folded the “ultimate success” into the success, and added the Cramped Quarters to give an appropriate transition into that Enterprise move, just to spice up interpersonal relationships.
For the 7-9, I love using “as above, and” or “as above, but” for these success-but-not-fully. Instead of laying out specific punishments, I feel that it’s much more evil fun to let the GM come up with new and inventive afflictions on the fly, to keep a bit of narrative control. Debilities should be used for lack of health, while injuries used for actual physical damage.
For the 6-, as I mentioned, randomness could theoretically wreck the characters. A 6- shouldn’t feel like a waste of time, especially in this case where they expended their previous efforts (fuel + research) in order to do… nothing. So rather than set them back (which is not fun) they suffer defeat in exchange for a greater chance at success next time. This will give them hope and encourage them to keep going, even if they fail a couple of times in a row.
I like it. Thank you, sir!
My pleasure. Was a fun exercise. I might swipe/re-engineer it for a future product if that’s ok with you.
For extra fun, remember that on a 7-9, the characters still make Cramped Quarters. With their new Major Debility coming into play! How will they interact when they’re also all Starving.
Yeah, that is cool! I am totally fine with you using this move or some revision of it in a future product.