So I finally started moving towards more improvising and conversational GM:in style, and right away found myself in a situation I’m not really sure where to go. As I and players both are not used in playing like this and I really wouldn’t like to leave everything at my players, I’d like to ask for some advice. I also realized that I’ve never really watched/read Star Trek or other space exploration stuff, which could have helped in improvising situations we’re in currently.
And my Uncharted Worlds players at Tampere, please stop reading now! >:)
Last session, the group found a wreck of a glowing semi-transparent ship of butterfly -resembling shape, among thousands of other wrecks floating around. They managed to salvage a glowing small pyramid -shaped from it before they attracted some very unwanted attention from a nearby planet… Story for another day! Anyway, they managed to make a wild jump, resulting in finding an ocean planet, and landed on a ~300ft diameter floating white glowing platform, resembling a pyramid’s base (there were numerous such floating around).
Now, I’m a bit lost what to do. I figure the planet belonging to a perished civilisation with very alien tech. The small pyramid -artifact is obviously connected to this place, I think it could give some insight to the civilisation (and who knows what else players invent with it), but I have no idea what alien things the heroes could confront, what kind of hooks/hints I should give them, what kind of artifacts the heroes could bring to the next starport, and how the heck could the group fix their ship that barely made it to the surface in once piece! Please give me some ideas 😀
[Just pulling stuff out of thin air…]
Well, it is obvious that they’ve landed at a space port for an ancient aquatic race. The pyramid links a ship to a given landing pad and is part of the reason why that the wild jump took them here. From all the empty pads, it looks like the race has been long dead or fled.
Well, there is this vast ocean that could hold all manner of sea monsters (which may or not have eaten all the other ships that would have been on those pads.) If the players can defeat the beast(s), the automated sertivors of the landing pads will appear and silently analyze the wounded ship and begin making repairs (using the same glowing material from the butterfly ship.)
If the players are significantly crafty and can figure out a way to communicate with the servitor ‘bots’, they’ll learn about the ancient race that use bio-weapons (sea monsters) in a terrible war that got out of control. It’s a dangerous world and totally unsuitable for colonization, but it does make a handy place to repair and refuel (either from a nearby gas giant or by cracking water for hydrogen. Perhaps it might turn out to be a handy short cut once they can find a jump point home.
One of the most important aspects of improvisational GMing (and improv theater, even) is “reincorporation”. That is, taking something that someone else created, and slotting it back in in the future when we may have forgotten about it. Some examples that may apply here:
– One character said that their parents were explorers during character creation, and were lost to the stars. Upon landing on the platform, a holographic image of his mother appears and says “Welcome travelers, to the planet of Varln, claimed in the name of The Godking. FOREVER MAY HE REIGN!” and then disappears.
– Everything is glowing. Pyramid, platform, ship, etc. It’s a bio-luminescent tech created by the long dead people of this planet. Not only does the tech begin to work on repairing their ship (growing veins of glowing purple and green spread along the hull and through the engine), but it also begins to spread on crew members who fail to Face Adversity when stepping on the platform. One crew member notices the glowing veins form a pattern on his forearm, matching a tattoo of the woman who used to be his mentor before she was killed in rebellion against the Godking.
– Eh, I’m out of steam now. FOREVER MAY I REIGN
Not much loot, but information about the world, the ancient race, or the pyramid might be worth something to the right people.
First thing that jumps to mind (heh, Jumps to mind): The pyramid is a Jump stabilizer that takes you to the corresponding Jump pad. It rewites the Wild Jump system with the coordinates. So the characters are in a system without stable Jump Points (that they know of) and their Wild Jump is permanently set to this planet.
Un-programming the Jump Drives will require a stardock and a team of specialists… which they obviously don’t have. They’re going to need to find one or more other pyramidal Jump stabilizers, and hope one of them leads to a system with a known Jump Point, so that they can get back home.
Fortunately, the sensors are picking up multiple, similar energy signatures from the structure below…
Think adventure, think bright colors, think engaging the players to see what their characters do. You want to put them in situations where they need to act, need to make decisions, so that everyone at the table can watch them and go “that’s awesome.” Think about their:
>Debts, and what the backstory behind them is.
>Other miscellaneous backstory that you’ve picked up on so far.
>Their archetypes, and what careers they have and what Skills they have.
>Their gear/ship, and what they’re/its good at and what they’re/its bad at.
>The types of jobs the characters take/the players are interested in.
>Any consequences or problems lingering from their escape that might come into play.
Brainstorm how those details can connect with or diverge from their situation. Find the tension points in that data and apply your pressure there. Remember that what you’re looking for is conversation topics — role-playing is just talking about fake stuff, so you just need to find interesting things to talk about. You already know what everyone is interested in, right? They made their characters for a reason, you’ve seen how they’ve reacted to stuff you’ve already done. Play to your audience. Then, just talk about those things at the table with them, like normal.
(The ship has a good survey system? Cool, so you’ve got a map of the surface and there’s something interesting over THERE that looks like something PC3 mentioned in their debt backstory. The ship isn’t rugged? Well, turns out the weather around here turns to acid rain real quick, and hiding on the ship is cool and all but its gonna start springing a leak — you’ll want to find other shelter probably; maybe the Explorer can lead you. They’re a money-strapped laser-heavy crew? Go weird science, and all their beam weapons are acting up, and its probably associated with that weird signal coming from the jungle… should probably go get your weapons back online before that Roaring gets any closer, since these are all they’ve got.)
Beyond that, I think Kevin Crawford’s method of “dungeon creation” applies really well to space-faring games. Everywhere the PCs go, there’s got to be something worth having. There has to be. The players are here for fun, give them something to pursue. That’s Goal. Make up a Goal. Now, there’s a reason no one else has achieved that Goal. Why is the Goal still laying around, waiting for the PCs? That’s the Obstacle. Make it up. Now, think about the “purpose” or a location (or if you’re thinking planet wide, think about its environment maybe or its dominant culture). Now, think about a reason that Purpose (or environment or culture) is corrupted or off-kilter or otherwise dangerous. That’s the Hazard. The Hazard complicates moving through the site of the adventure, all on its own, pursuing its own agendas completely separate from the Obstacle that keeps the party from the Goal.
You can ad lib a lot of sci-fi gaming out of that.
(The planet is a water-world that periodically dumps acid rain on everyone on the surface, melting them down in a matter of minutes if exposed [Hazard]. There’s an old starbase further inland that has the flight path data to make a controlled jump out of the system, if the party can just find it [Goal]. No one has pilfered this data or otherwise publicized it because the base was a military compound — and its AI defenses have gone on a killing spree [Obstacle].)
(The planet is a water-world that suffers from flash-freeze storms that turn the oceans to ice bergs over night and melt them again when the sun comes back out [Hazard]. There’s an old lost ship whose emergency beacon is dying even as we speak — an old lost ship that is important to a PC or just worth a lot of credits if found [Goal]. No one has made this discovery yet, though, because this world is a Faction stronghold and they seem to have set up an excavation of the vessel — they’re interested in something still aboard after all these years. [Obstacle.])
Sean Gomes’s answer is the shit
I must admit, it’s basically the Space Opera equivalent of Quantum Leap by way of Stargate: Jump to a new planet, explore alien ruins to find a new stabilizer, Jump to the next planet, hoping each time that their next Jump will be the Jump home.
Yeah, I’d play that game
Alfred Rudzki tell me more about Kevin Crawford and his rules!
Oh gosh, Aaron Griffin, there’s so much good stuff to be mined for Uncharted Worlds.
Also, do not be afraid to be obvious. Because what springs naturally to your mind will (almost) never be the same as what your players would think of.
“”The improviser has to realize that the more obvious he is, the more original he appears. …Ordinary people asked to improvise will search for some ‘original’ idea because they want to be thought clever… No two people are exactly alike, and the more obvious an improviser is, the more himself he appears.”
Wow, what a great answers, thanks everyone! I think debts are a bit hard to use at this point, as I want players to feel their characters found something isolated never encountered before. Well, except for ‘my employer has tasked me to find and delvier exactly things like this!’ – kind of use. But here’s an excellent amount of stuff I can use, now I just need to refine it a bit before next session… Although it’s a great base for straight improvisation too!
Alfred Rudzki – Anything in particular? Or resources you can highlight?
Antti Lusila – In terms of sci-fi on the off chance you haven’t watched it, Firefly is of course a great one for ideas, ditto Dark Matter and The Expanse. Chalice In Chains has run a number of very cool one-shots in that sort of environment. I’d add Enterprise to the list (not necessarily the other Star Trek series). Atomic Rockets (http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/) has some interesting concepts and a more “science’y” perspective on space-related topics. Also, Orion’s Arm (http://www.orionsarm.com/page/310)
In the game I just ran (was my first) when I was really stuck I would turn to the player rely on him. Example – one of the players hot-wired a computer and decided that he wanted to use the cameras on the surface of this moon/asteroid to see what else was in the system. I had no clue so I turned to the player across from him (i.e. not the player doing the hot wiring) and asked, “So what shows up on the screen?” The story ended up taking a fantastic turn.
Hope some (or any) of that helps 🙂
Jesse R The book “Dead Names” is the Crawford source that I’m thinking of when I use the Goal, Obstacle, Hazard format to ad lib dangerous alien adventure sites. His stuff is all built for Old School Renaissance gaming, but a lot of his methodology (like the above, and his random tables) is system neutral. He’s also got a couple of free magazines up Drivethru called The Sandbox. Between them, there’s some random tables for backwater starports, religious revolts, mysterious buildings, and temples.
I don’t want to dig too much into how helpful Crawford’s stuff is, because I don’t want to be the guy going ‘hey this other space game has awesome stuff’ over here on this space game page. I mean, yeah, we can all love different games, but it makes me feel a little tooly. If Sean doesn’t mind, I will totally point some fingers at the stuff I tap for my prep in another post or the like.
Ohhh, the SWoN guy. Yup, gotcha. And I agree. But it’s a very different game. SWoN is (at least in my mind) hobbled by the same thing most d20-type games are: that despite it being very sandbox it still somehow seems too rigid. You need an exceptional DM to keep things interesting. UW requires all of the participants to be exceptional group so that it’s not all reliant on the GM. The end result is that UW games are among the most enjoyable I’ve played. In fact, the players in the aforementioned game I ran – all of whom are veteran players of all kinds of RPGs, and one is one of the best DM’s I’ve ever had – said the UW game was among the best they’ve ever played.That had nothing do to with my GM abilities and entirely to do with the system.
Totally fine to feel that way about the system! But SWoN books are still overflowing with helpful resources that have nothing to do with the system and are very useful.
I don’t think it’s a problem to highlight other games that have great resources here if you intend on using them for Uncharted Worlds. I use white star stuff to help make my uncharted Worlds adventures.