Zach Swain – Powered by the Apocalypse G+ Archives

I’m pretty sure our session last night bounced between the ridiculous and the obscene, so I won’t post a transcript.

I’m pretty sure our session last night bounced between the ridiculous and the obscene, so I won’t post a transcript. However, I did want to run one of our combats past the group.

The PCs discover a cargo container floating through a debris field. Visual assessment tells them a ship has been blown up; looks like the cargo container was ejected due to a lack of evidence of explosion on its exterior. They decide to grab it using a shuttle with a cargo hold but, having no tractor beam, I adjudicate the threat of destroying the container so Face Adversity+expertise of the shuttle pilot. Success with a hard choice; either the container is brought on board quickly, but the exterior ruptures and the goods seep out into space or it takes an extended period of time (like, all day) to maneuver into position. The choose the latter.

I advance a threat, the pirates that (maybe?) originally blew up the ship returning to grab their prize. One of our other players launches his shuttle; we now have two shuttles and the main (Class 2) ship vs. the single pirate (Class 2) ship. The pirates ask, for their container back, the PCs delay/sweet talk, and while they’re doing this they open the cargo container…illicit narcotics. The pirates offer a scant sum, well below what the PCs are told (by their Hutt passenger) the cargo is worth in the Hutt empire. The players ask full price, Face Adversity+Influence.

Success with (another) hard choice…sell it to them for below market value, or learn an unwelcome truth. They choose the latter, at which point the pirate ship launches 3 shuttles and powers up their ion cannon.

The PCs decide to load the shuttles into their main shp’s cargo bay and GTFO. My ruling is their ship must be a sitting duck while they dock the shuttles, taking hits from the now launched fighters and the ion cannon, or they can evade and risk not docking the shuttles in a timely manner. They choose the former.

Combat ends when they get the shuttles docked, then jump to light speed (AI, which has the voice of Harvey Fierstein, driving) with suppressing fire to ward off the fighters remaining shots, but the ship sustained critical hits to the helm, engineering and quarters, a major hit to engineering, the cockpit is completely destroyed (debility, fortunately they have an AI piloting for them), and the Life Support takes a debility (offline).

Questions:

1) As they were sitting ducks, I had them roll Shields Up for each of 5 hits (Ion Cannon, Fighter x 3, Missiles). They failed on shot 3, which should have disabled their shields, but I let them continue to roll Shields Up judging it was “all at the same time”. Is either the 5 hits/rolls or the continued Shields Up roll incorrect RAW? We weren’t sure.

2) Shots from fighters with weapons intended to breach hulls, when they hit, are Critical Injuries to one of the ships’ sections, correct?

3) Do critical hits always cause debilities?

4) What do most people do when you receive two critical hits to a single section of a ship? That should be a fatal hit, which I would rule as that section of the ship is incapable of performing any function, but have others just said “Hull breach, dead” or something along those lines?

5) Fixing this ship for next week; three criticals, a major, a system completely offline. That seems like too much for just an Acquisition role (or roles, if we roll for each bit of damage), but how would you folks do that? I don’t read anything that allows for reductions in rolls, but I feel like this is a time when I’d want to mechnically make them spend cargo/credits to get a ship repaired. Do you incorporate that into the fiction, or is there something RAW that would make it harder to get big stuff repaired that I’m missing?

Moved this to Discussion.

I’m bouncing back onto the wealth topic, and I’ve been mulling a few things around in my head that I wanted to toss…

I’m bouncing back onto the wealth topic, and I’ve been mulling a few things around in my head that I wanted to toss out to the community for advice.

First, I think the abstract wealth system works in theory, but in practice my players are repeatedly asking “How much does X cost?” or “How much can we get for Y?” Example:

Last night they docked at a Hutt controlled spaceport. The Hutts keep trade taxes low, but charge tremendous docking fees. I described it as such, but the players immediately were trying to ascertain how much is “tremendous”…and I had no good answer for them. Mechanically, I treated it as an acquisition which I think RAW is correct. I explained abstract wealth, and we did work it into the fiction (they wound up finding a “friend” that worked in the port authority that allowed them to bypass the fees rather than spending cargo on an acquisition roll, but owed this friend some favors), but it felt incorrect to me.

Later, one of the players wanted to replace his blaster. Again, acquisition roll (though I think he could have just received one sans roll as it was just a Class 1).

Towards the end, the players wanted to pick up goods to trade with the mining facility they were heading towards (DataNet assessment, the facility needs Fusion Plant materials). They rolled two acquisitions, one success one partial so I ruled they got two cargo; one Class 2 parts, one Class 2 parts that was slightly unstable. They’re going to want to sell these at the next station and, potentially, not pick up new goods…how would we handle selling goods without getting anything for it (i.e. cashing in)? I’ve considered favors, credits, etc but I’m not convinced I’m going down the right track with any of them.

Possibly because I loved Trade Wars 2002, and I picked up ‘Suns of Gold’ for SWN the other day, I’m flirting with implementing the trade system from SoG. It’s decidedly not abstract, but has anyone employed something similar to that (fixed cost trading, basically)?

Advice/Criticism welcome. As a side note, we took the advice from my thread last week to heart and had a much better time with combat and conflict this week; explaining consequences went a long way in helping me adjudicate and helped both me and the players understand what they were trying to overcome.

Question for the masses about how I should have run a combat, along with a rule question.

The players were heading out from a stardock to intercept a set of three ships, one of which was docked airlock to airlock with a mercenary that had been transporting cargo the players were on a mission to retrieve (the Hutt cargo from last week).

My players went tactical; two have their own fighters that they flew off to try and divert the non-docked ships, two others manned the main ship and maneuvered in place alongside the docked ship, and the last jumped in his repair mech (sealed) and went out the airlock to attach to the docked ship and try to interface to shut down their systems externally.

Nothing really went right, their rolls for every Face Adversity were horrible. Both shuttles ended up disabled (missile hits that I ruled as Critical damages that damaged/shutdown systems), the repair mech wound up attached to the docked ship but rolled poorly and the ship powered up, dropped the airlock and took off with him attached to it. He kept trying to interface with it, so I’d have him Face Adversity to hang on (which he’d pass) then Face Adversity to interface (which he’d fail), so I had systems go haywire then eventually brought in reinforcements.

Overall, I’d say we spent 45 minutes to an hour resolving the combat, and I eventually brought it down to three rolls to figure out what would happen to the remaining forces (pilots escape podded, docked ship had all systems disabled, shuttles will need to be picked up but the cargo was retrieved).

Anyways, we spent way too long on the combat…as things went downhill, I could have just killed off characters but I wound up giving them the opportunity to roll Patch Ups which they succeeded on to get back into the fight. Any suggestions on running this fight where everyone wants to do something different, their outcomes have direct impacts on what others are doing, and things go downhill but not horribly so? How many rolls would you have made this entire combat given the setup, or what flow would you have given it? Much like Dungeon World, I felt like I was trapping myself with 7-9 Face Adversity rolls, and I eventually ran out of hard choices/threats.

Rule Question: Shields up doesn’t indicate adding armor to the roll…if the ship/vehicle has armor, is it supposed to be added or should vehicles like shuttles be treated like PCs with Brace for Impact rolls?

Wanted to share last night’s session due to some LOLs and to just see what peoples’ reactions are.

Background: Group of guys that have played D&D, Pathfinder, Dungeon World, etc for about 4 years together. We’re now playing Uncharted Worlds in a Star Wars universe around 3963 BBY, so toward the later part of the Mandalorian War. The war is a backdrop; we’ve kicked around the Outer Rim for a few sessions until the group found an ancient star chart which pointed them to Uncharted Space. We talked about mixing in heavy amounts of Star Control 2, Star Trek, Trade Wars 2002, Yankee Trader and Faster Than Light, so I worked that up for this week.

Fade, cut..they started last night’s session on Terrarria Station, a backwater at the far reaches of a hyperspace route, bordering Uncharted Space.

Since no hyperspace routes exist past here, there’s no instant travel…as they explore, they can update their NaviComp to chart safe routes if they exist (my plan is to make them few and far between, I want travel costs to matter so they encounter things as they go between systems).

Starting out the night, I plopped some “get started” plots in front of them…Intergalactic Navigational Technologies (iNavTech) is offering good money to chart the nebulas in the nearby sectors to ensure safe routes, there are several cargo missions, a merchant is looking for someone to move some cargo no questions asked (smuggling), and a research team needs to get to an abandoned research station. The DataNet is accessible from Terraria, and other nearby outposts have posted needed items if they just want to trader for awhile.

This is the first session with some new houserules, so I explain a few things to them. I’m treating Uncharted Space as a hexcrawl, with the concept that they have faster than light (FTL) engines in addition to a hyperdrive. Our house rule is that their engines are considered “baseline” (upgrades avaiable from the Nubian Designs rep!) and can go 5 hexes (1 hex = 1 sector = 1 day of travel) before they need to refuel. Hyperspace routes aren’t mapped in Uncharted Space; that’s the reason iNavTech is out here (difficulty in mapping hyperspace routes from the Star Wars universe being handwaved in favor of fun/exploration). Once they’ve mapped safe sectors (no asteroids, nebula, etc impeding their route) hyperdrive travel will be point to point for 1 fuel measured at 1 hour per sector.

After much debate (and a little GM push for time’s sake), the group picks the nebula exploration mission. Through some RP, they find out it’s somewhat dangerous…two other groups have accepted the mission before and not returned. They demand payment up front, the iNavTech rep refuses, they settle and walk away with their mission. Their Fuel is a Class 0 commodity they can acquire, so they roll an Acquisition (they’d previously found cargo and already had a Class 2 ship) and fill up their 4 cargo holds with extra fuel and take off.

First sector of the nebula is one move away, so we deduct fuel and they enter the nebula and role an assessment to scan…a 4. Their CommLink crackles and a robotic voice begins hailing them. It’s fuzzy, most likely due to interference from the nebula they’re in, and they try to hail it again (Face adversity, helm (comms) roll+expertise) to clear up the signal…another 4. Through the CommLink they hear “Locked On firing…” and a missile can be seen coming straight for their helm. “What do you do?” Evade (face adversity, helm roll+expertise)…a 5. Missile hits, “Shields up!” roll is a 3 (seriously). Critical damage to the helm, shields are down and, we decide, a debility to the ship.

I’ve previously layed out the four ship sections for them and assigned stuff to each (houserule). Each of the helm, quarters, cargo bay and engineering have 8 slots they can assign stuff to. When they take a debility, I roll a d8 and figure out which system takes the hit. In this case, I roll a 1 (the theme of the night was horrible rolls) and the Energy Cannon on their hardpoint (slot 1 in each section) is offline from the damage.

“The robotic voice crackles through the comms again, indicating it’s coming back around for another shot. It sounds like it’s malfunctioning and isn’t responding to hails; What do you do?” Evade, gtfo of here (face adversity, helm, success), and another crew member comes over to try to patch up the cannon while they swerve around. The doctor (academic/explorer) asks about weaknesses (can’t remember the skill), and I reveal that these things have no shields to speak of, they’re scouts/probes (think Slylandro, or auto-ships from FTL). Their cargo bay hardpoint is mine laying, so they place mines and hope for a hit. They Launch Assault and it goes poorly, but our Mystic (a homebrew class that has some telekinesis abilities) asks if he can use his force/telekinetic powers to pull a mine into the path of the ship. A stretch, but I say sure…roll+mettle, a 12, the probes’ hull collapses and the immediate danger is averted. They still have a critical helm, no energy cannon but they examine the remains of the probe and, finding “something useful”, the energy cannon of the probe looks like it’ll fit if they can successfully harvest it and integrate it (they succeed). Fearing for their helm, they head back to the station to repair before continuing their mapping mission.

At this point I should explain my players. “Murder hobos” is probably a good categorization. I’ve planned campaign arcs before that were glorious and detailed, and they are wont to kick down the door, walk in and stab the first thing that gets in their way. Such is life for a bunch of guys looking to blow off steam on a Thursday. Returning to Terraria, the iNavTech rep seems surprised. “Back so soon?” he asks, whereby our Mystic force grips his nether regions, while our doctor (who has shocking, stunning gloves) grabs him in his debilitated state and renders him unconscious. His team (crew) of medics play it off as a seizure/heart attack and rush him to the stations’ medbay.

We have a player missing for the night, a cyborgish Mandlorian (think General Grievous) who recently received an AI at his last level up. He missed two weeks ago, and we decided his consciousness (“More machine now than man”) would be transfered to a garbage hauler the group acquired (think Gobots). Tonight, the good doctor decides to take our buddy (switched “off” in the ship’s cargo bay), and transfer him again as a prosthesis attached to the iNavTech rep. They roll, we laugh, I mention it’s getting a little crowded in here and figure that my moves in the future are going to involve the rep’s consciousness taking control over my player.

At this point, the station manager (a Hutt out of favor with his kind, but still crime boss-esque) brings them to his office, shows them the video footage of what they’ve done and, liking their style, demands they do him a favor. In exchange, he’ll fix the critical hit on their helm. They try to haggle (bad roll), “This is not a negotiation.” He wants them to accept a courier mission (the smuggling mission, enslaved Huttlings) and redirect it to another station where his people will pick it up. They agree, after their scouting mission is done.

They head back out to continue exploring, find a Junkyard then, while exploring the last sector of the Nebula roll poorly on an assessment. I have a random encoutner table I cribbed from FTL events, so I roll…civilian in distress. Explorers, one of the groups that accepted the iNavTech mission and never returned, are lost in the nebula and out of fuel. My players have plenty (2 cargo bays of refill, nearly full tank). I figure this is an easy decision…help the guys out, maybe get paid with the Class 1 alcohol cargo they’re carrying, safely head back and get rewards for completing the iNavTech mission.

Not these murder hobos.

For the next 45 minutes, they debate what to do (our entire session is ~3 hours). “Make them slaves?”, “Destroy them outright?” “Take their ship?” “Pretend to help them, only to destroy them?” For 45 minutes I’m just smh and laughing listening to their plans. Finally, they settle on a plan…rescue them, force them to do some courier missions for them with an earned favor. They realize they’ve just subcontracted out the work, and spend another 15 minutes figuring out how they can turn the game into Sim Uncharted Worlds by just meta managing missions. I smh again and laugh, noting that, as usual, this is not how things were supposed to go.

The session ends with them turning in the iNavTech mission (the rep being in control of his otherwise unknown alter-ego), receiving some cargo and couriering it to an outpost 5 sectors away. I mess up the bartering rolls, so they trade two quanties of Purple Milk (Class 1, medium alcohol) for two quantities of Land and Air Speeders (Class 2, vehicle parts) at a military outpost that desperately wants alcohol and has lots of old equipment to sell off. The Hutt’s mission, which they neglected to do, will most likely come back and bite them next week, but we ended there for the night.

We’re trying, and often failing, to play RAW, but we’re having a good time. I think we’re coming around to the wealth system and the quick combat is definitely a plus.

#UnchartedSpace #MoreLikeMandalorianBores

I’m trying to wrap my head around the wealth system.

I’m trying to wrap my head around the wealth system. I get that UW by default abstracts wealth to ‘lifestyle’, but is the intent that anytime a PC acquires something of significant value (ship, weapon, vehicle, etc) that you either use cargo as a boost in an Acquisition or you call in a favor/take on debt in order to acquire it? I think one of my issues here is that we have 6 players in our game; trying to give each person a share of the wealth from a job means I either need to have 6 assets awarded, figure out a way to break down rewards into chunks or have those awards go back to the PCs faction/team/corp and then dole out stuff to them from said faction/team/corp.

I can foresee my players wanting to become personally wealthy…how would this system handle that? Multiple favors being owed them by factions perhaps would be an indicator of wealth. A favor that explicitly says “Pick out any Class 3 ship and it’s yours!” maybe?

What if they’re just interested in stockpiling credits? I had considered putting a base price on each class of asset (e.g. Class 0/1/2 weapons are 10/100/1000 credits, Class 0/1/2 vehicles are 1000/10000/100000 credits, etc) as an exchange rate…berfore I even suggest it, does that break this system in some way I’m not seeing?

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