Category: Uncharted Worlds

As I start to read through the rules and wrap my head around some of the game’s concepts, I thought it would be…

As I start to read through the rules and wrap my head around some of the game’s concepts, I thought it would be…

As I start to read through the rules and wrap my head around some of the game’s concepts, I thought it would be useful to brainstorm some basic threats. This has helped me think through how threats would act and respond (if intelligent) in different situations.

This also is the beginning of a grab bag of threats I can draw upon for reference during play.

I figured I would share the few I have created so far. Hopefully this will spark some interest in others doing the same.

Feel free to leave feedback about content or formatting. 

#ThreatList 

Legend

  – X >> Y: Order of agendas. This is the order of behavior that the threat will typically follow depending on the narrative. Failing to deal with the current agenda of a threat could result in it escalating based on the next behavior.

  – Intelligent threat states: These are used as guidelines for ways to modify an intelligent threat’s agendas based on its current behavioral state.

    – Default: Default behavior of the threat when they are not being attacked, suspicious, or on alert.

    – Alert: Behavior of threat when they are suspicious or on alert.

    – Threatened: Behavior of a threat when are threatened. Typically reserved for combat.

[Security System]

  – Agenda: Track and expose target

[Shock Troop]

  – Agenda:

    – Default: Follow orders >> Complete mission objective

    – Alert: Investigate >> Raise the alarm!

    – Threatened: Surpress and flank enemy >> Incapacitate enemy

  – Gear

    – Assault Carbine (class 2 +rifle +2-handed +close/far +rapid fire +stabilized)

    – Combat blade (class 0 +melee +severing)

    – Ceramaplate armor (class 2 uniform +2-armor[armored] +comms)

    

[Detention Center Guard]

  – Agenda:

    – Default: Detain prisoners, Follow routine

    – Alert: Call for backup-up >> Investigate >> Raise the alarm!

    – Threatened: Fallback to defensive positions >> Wait for reinforcements or opportunity >> Incapacitate enemy

  – Gear

    – Shock baton (class 1 +melee +shock +stun)

    – Shock Pistol (class 2 +pistol +1-handed +adjacent/close +stun +shock)

    – Body armor(class 1 uniform +1-armor[meshweave])

[Hacker/Slicer]

  – Agenda:

    – Default: Access system undetected >> complete objective (retreive data, falsify data, corrupt data, hide data, inject virus, inject spyware)

    – Alert: Prevent trace (obfuscate: falsify data/misdirect) >> complete objective

    – Threatened: Prevent trace (brute force: crash system)

[Undercover Agent (Disruptor/Agitator)]

  – Agenda:

    – Default: Gain trust >> Sow discord

    – Alert: Misdirect attention

    – Threatened: Escape

[Bounty Hunter]

  – Agenda:

    – Default: Track target >> Incapacitate target >> Return target to client

    – Alert: 

    – Threatened:

Starting a game of UW next week.

Starting a game of UW next week.

Starting a game of UW next week. We’ve played some DW, a lot of Pathfinder, 5e, etc. It’s going to be a Star Wars themed universe, but one of our players wants to play a cleric/mystic type; think the Shepherd from Firefly. I started putting together a career path for it, but was wondering if someone else had something simliar, better or playtested? Not sure if I’m just missing potential options that already exist in game or good 3rd party resources. I’m open to any options anyone has, I’ll throw them all in front of the player and let him decide.

Here’s what I had started putting together. If it sounds a lot like a Jedi, I was trying to merge Jedi/Mystic/Cleric into one career.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xr_DBRPb27D7P60Rwv0pI9I7YDVG5dXDNGSPZ7DZXwU/edit?usp=sharing

I’ll be GMing for the first time (for any rpg) tomorrow.

I’ll be GMing for the first time (for any rpg) tomorrow.

I’ll be GMing for the first time (for any rpg) tomorrow.  I’ve made it explicitly a two-shot, and I have two different groups (next group will be next weekend, and I’ll be able to apply lessons learned from this one).  I’d appreciate any feedback or advice on my plans to turn the sandbox nature of UW into more of a one-two punch, with some shortcuts in character creation and structure, while hopefully retaining player-prompted content. Also feel free to take inspiration from the ideas here!

So, I just picked up Uncharted Worlds. I really, really wanted to like this game, but it’s left me a little flat.

So, I just picked up Uncharted Worlds. I really, really wanted to like this game, but it’s left me a little flat.

So, I just picked up Uncharted Worlds. I really, really wanted to like this game, but it’s left me a little flat.

There are a few key points to most Apocalypse World games that I love:

1) The play books have custom moves that ensure each character has a unique role in the game, and really highlight that role.

2) The moves are written to force the players into making hard decisions.

3) The game usually (though not always) includes some sort of mechanic to model the relationships between characters.

4) The best AW hacks have included extensive guidance about how the game is supposed to be run (especially for the GM).

UW feels lacking in all of these. The moves, as written, feel a bit flat. The skills are often shared among the different careers and origins. And there’s no inter-party relationship mechanic (that I can find). And very little guidance to help GMs best use the mechanics.

Also, I am not a huge fan of the combat system (as I understand it). It sounds like there should be one roll, then you narrate back and forth based on the roll.

Personally, I prefer a system where there are small chunks of back and forth narration, punctuated by rolls. And, while one-roll combat resolution has a place (for example, for combats that are not narratively important), I don’t want it to be the default.

The rules do hint that multi-roll combat resolution is possible–but it doesn’t show how that would be done. I haven’t been able to figure out a good approach on my own.

Am I missing or misunderstanding something? Or should I just chalk this up as “not for me” and move on?

Third session of play.

Third session of play.

Third session of play.

Here the account of the two section.

Jor and Haroon, my two players, find a military Imperial base on a Planet.

Here defended by some robots, there are datas about some kind of military experiment.

While fighting one Jor contracts a nanovirus that can potentially cure him, but slowly killing him.

Defeated the robots, the characters found that a shio has sailed to a principality outside the empire bordes(Despotate of Myta), inhabited by reptilians

They reach the despotate and start investigating.

They found that the ship is vanished.

Using diplomacy and some laser Haroon gains access to the all-powerful minister of the fleet.

Ssavk, a sort of mafioso collecting money from black market and piracy.

They contracts with him a deal: he gave them the information they want, if they kill the persons of the ship.

So he tell them that the ship is hiding, along with others, in the ancient mines of Xenio on the fourth moon of Myta.

In the next section the players shall goes there.

So I’m going to be running UW for my Saturday group.

So I’m going to be running UW for my Saturday group.

So I’m going to be running UW for my Saturday group. We’re switching from FATE and we played about 8 sessions before we decided to take a break.

Question: Should I write some custom moves for my players since we are coming from a background of established characters?

My thoughts: I feel like this may be a good way to capture what their old characters had established as gimmicks and specialties.

#UnchartedTravel

#UnchartedTravel

#UnchartedTravel

Some people roll through here asking about how to best handle alien environments in their game; how do we make up the worlds that our PCs set foot on — where they get up to no-good? There’s plenty of ways of making these planets, and I think one excellent way would be to crowdsource these worlds! I mean, hell, why not, right? Who’s to say that a planet you make up wouldn’t fit perfectly into my game? So, I’m throwing out the hashtag #UnchartedTravel  as a place where we can showcase the things we’ve made up that anyone’s heroes could run across on their travels: worlds, locations, individuals… Think of it as a tour guide for the galaxy!

So, for the inaugural entry I’m going to draw people’s attention to Vast & Starlit on Drivethrurpg. It’s a lovely little microgame by Epidiah Ravachol that uses no dice, and is just all about having an exciting conversation about space brigands. It’s pay-what-you-want right now, so you can scope it out for nothing if you’re wary of this. But man there is some solid stuff in there! Such as, for example, its guidelines to making aliens and far-off planets.

You pick a baseline, and the rest of the players tweak, exaggerate, or reverse specific aspects of that baseline. Do this three to five times, and then reincorporate the aspects while discarding the baseline. By way of example, I’ll take it for a spin.

I’ll be using my hometown, Pittsburgh. I’ll be using these five aspects:

1. The area has a unique dialect sometimes called the ugliest accent in America.

2. The City is known for its three rivers and its “golden triangle” collection of bridges.

3. Former steel city, now a booming city for medicine.

4. Pittsburgh has pretty okay public transit… its free anywhere within the city, as long as you don’t cross the river.

So let’s mess with those and learn about the planet Yinza VII!

1. Ugly dialect? Exaggerate! The people of Yinza VII have this weird extra sound-producing organ in their chest cavities that kind of sounds like dubstep through a garbage disposal. They can understand you just fine, but you’re going to need an interpreter if you’re going to make any kind of deal with a Yinzese merchant.

2. Rivers and bridges? Tweak! Yinza VII is known for its Golden Pyramids, strange alien objects left behind by the Yinzese gods (so they claim). It’s hard to argue with them though (language notwithstanding), because water has bubbled up from the soil beneath the pyramids for eons, flowing into three life-giving rivers surrounding the capitol.

3. Steel, then Medicine? Exaggerate! Yinza VII is practically overflowing with medicine — its those pyramids and that water again! Pretty much everything edible or drinkable on this world will treat what ails you, keeping you healthy and young. However, the metals in the soil are of really poor quality, and the people don’t get out into space on their own. They’re stingy about exporting any of their crops, just to give themselves a bargaining chip with the rest of the galactic community.

4. Free Transit? Reverse! Yinza VII is highly strict about the movement of its citizens, for two reasons. One: ensure no one disturbs the Golden Pyramids (except of course for the wealthy and powerful, but ain’t that always the truth?). Two: ensure that the delicate ecological balance that lends rejuvenating qualities to their food and drink is not disturbed. The end result is something resembling a “benign” police state. You’re free to go wherever and do whatever (within the bounds of the law), as long as you can demonstrate you’re not traveling too far afield without your papers or without proper clearance from the powers that be.

So, hey, there’s a planet for you to use in upcoming games of Uncharted Worlds! Yinza VII! World of Golden Pyramids, inexplicable rejuvenating rivers and foods, a populace whose language is impenetrable to offworlders, and a transit bureau with all the enforcement power you’d expect from military police. Does one of your PCs need a medical miracle right now? Can they get the permits to land, or do they run the blockade? Can they get someone to understand what they need? What if a member of the crew is “relocated” by the transit bureau for byzantine reasons, or something from the ship goes missing across the nearest border?

Hope folks enjoyed this example of making a planet the Vast & Starlit way. Seriously, its a fun way to think up weird space opera stuff, should you need it.

(apropos of nothing, I picture the Yinzese as looking like smaller, bipedal versions of that giant pig that shared water with Finn in Force Awakens)

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/124325/Vast–Starlit