Crafting Karrak in Fate: Magic Systems

As part of an exercise in boredom I’m converting Karrak Seaborne, my character from the Orcanraytrel campaign, into a Fate PC. This requires me to know some things about the setting in the context of how they affect game mechanics and character creation before I attempt this. Part of this is knowing how Nel Gifts work in a narrative sense so that a system can be built around them that will represent them for what they truly are rather than the bastardization that a D20 system forces them into. Along the way to developing the Gifts I realized that it makes sense to also just go ahead and do Sorcery and Psionics as well since they share some major similarities from a mechanical standpoint. So here’s my collection of thoughts on the subject.

Psionics:

Psionics are a more measured and practiced form of magic in Hekinoe. The power of psionics comes from within the body of the manifester and is built up through training and discipline. It is also an extremely stable and reliable form of magic. Psionics is a skill that people train themselves in, it takes effort, but is really in the end and exercise of the will. The stronger the will, the stronger the effect.

I’ve already come up with a system for dealing with psionics before on my blog so I’ll basically just transcribe that and give it a bit of Hekinoe flavor.

So first off, Psionics in Hekinoe are currently based off of Pathfinder’s rules. So you have a ton of things that are very codified and laid out into classes and spell lists and all that. I hate that crap. It’s too rigid and it doesn’t feel right for Clint’s setting. I can break the basics of Psionics down into two effects.

One type of effect is the physical manifestations of psionics. Physical effects are things like throwing bolts of energy, telekinesis, creating force shields, creating giant crystal swords, teleportation, and so on and so forth. This is kept general to allow the player to have complete creative control over his character’s manifestations. It allows him to get creative with what he needs and not just rely on a spell list. This will be governed by a skill I’ll call Psionics: Physical for now.

The other type of psionics that you’ll see in Pathfinder are the mental based effects. These are your mind reading, mind control, telepathy, future reading, scrying, and such. Again, I’m just going to keep it general and lump them all together just for simplicity’s sake. The skill governing it will be called Psionics: Mental.

Both of these are based off their governing skills. These skills and powers can be enhanced with the use of stunts and possibly the Dresden Files RPG style “spells” where you basically just have a numbered amount of pre-written effects ready to go that gain a free boost. (I think it is governed by your skill rating in Dresden and I’d probably do the same here.

So mechanically speaking here’s how all of this works. You can use one of the Psionic skills to perform one of the four actions that you can use a skill for in Fate; Attack, Defend, Overcome, and Create an Advantage. Psionics is a tool like any other skill, and being magic it is a tool with a lot more uses. Basically you can use it in place of another skill by describing what you’re doing with it. Need to move a boulder but your Athletics skill sucks? Use Psionics: Physical instead with an Overcome action to telekinetically move the boulder out of the way. Fighting enemies at range and you don’t have a crossbow? Use it as an Attack to fling objects at people, or slam them into objects, or just hit them directly with something Pathfinder would describe as a Force Effect. Need to get past a guard? Psionics: Mental can allow you to have a bonus to convince them you’re not a bad dude, or you could just overpower their brain and take control of them for a bit. Fighting a big group of enemies? Why not force them to feel fear and panic at the sight of you? Or you could totally make them think you’re a dragon in disguise! The possibilities are endless.

I’m also a big fan of casters having the inherent ability to supercharge their spell casting by sacrificing something. Typically this is done via exertion or sacrifice of some type. For Hekinoe Psionics in Fate; what makes sense for me is inflicting Mental Stress in order to gain a boosted number of shifts. So similar to what I designed for Makass, a Psionic Manifester can take 1-shift of Mental Stress to gain a number of Shifts to their next spell up to their casting skill score. So say the character has a Psionics: Mental skill of 6; if the character takes 1 shift of Mental Stress he gains up to +6 Shifts to his next Psionics roll, which would really be a 12-shift baseline for the roll. (That sounds impressive, but we don’t know what the spell specifically is or what his opponent may have to counter such an action so it isn’t as broken as you might think initially)

Psionics is meant to be stable so there isn’t really a failure associated with it and I’m going to keep it that way as best as possible. It will also be limited to those races that have some type of psionic affinity… however I figure the races out…

Sorcery:

Oh Sorcery, you are a harsh mistress. I’m a fan of there being consequences for magic being used. It’s one of the best aspects of Hekinoe. I love reading about the spell backfires from some of the other campaigns that changed the course of the campaign world. Unfortunately D20 systems don’t like unreliable magic, it makes it necessary to have tables and a bunch of extra dice get rolled as you’re trying to cast and it has the potential to slow down gameplay along the way. Don’t get me wrong, I love the extra tables and dice. I’ve got an addiction like that. But it can appear intimidating to people unfamiliar with that type of thing.

Fortunately Fate is far more forgiving to an unreliable system.

So my vision for Hekinoe’s unreliable Sorcery starts off simply enough. Sorcery is more of an instinctual and “natural” form of magic. It can be used instinctively by certain races because it flows in their blood. In Pathfinder you have Spontaneous Spellcasters like Sorcerers and Bards who can cast their spells without any real training. Therefore there isn’t really a need for a split casting stat. So a single Skill of Sorcery to control the power and scope of spells seems appropriate to me.

Sorcery is a physically corrupting and unstable source of power. It is available to those who wish to learn about it and those whom are born with it. Being from a more instinctual and natural source and being physically corrupting tells me that in order to enhance the spells a person wielding sorcery would take Physical Stress in the same way a Psionic Character would take Mental Stress. These physical issues would manifest themselves in the typical ways, usually bodily corruption of some type.

“But what about the failure system?” you ask. Well, in order to cast a spell without some type of backlash affecting your character you probably need to roll some type of skill check to prevent the magic from getting out of control. A Control Skill would be the most obvious route to start with. This Skill would be useless for everything but allowing you to cast spells without destroying all of the oxygen in the room. The way I envision it working is that whenever you use the Sorcery Skill to cast a spell you have to roll a second time using your Control Skill. You need to get an equal number of Shifts with your Control Skill as you did on your Sorcery Skill otherwise “something bad” happens depending upon how badly you failed.

Basically you think of it as something like a reverse of the way that Fate’s successes work. If you get a higher Control roll than your Sorcery roll, nothing bad happens. If you Tie the roll I’m going to go with nothing bad happens but the spell may be lessened in effectiveness (for now). If you miss by only one or two shifts something bad happens, but it isn’t big, maybe the spell goes off but fails in a spectacular, but undamaging way. If you miss it by 3 or more shifts, then your spell fails and/or backfires in some way that’s nasty to everyone around you and is a perversion of what you were trying to accomplish.

How would these backlashes be determined? I don’t know, I’m going with GM caveat and whim right now. Maybe the tables could still be used, but that seems like a cop-out to me. My White Wolf background says that each backlash should be unique and cater to the nature of the spell and the person casting it similar to the way that Mage the Ascension dealt with Paradox.

I think I’d allow for Control Skill Checks to be enhanced in the same way that Sorcery Skill Checks are with similar effects.

I may want to enhance the core of Sorcery more using the Dresden Files RPG as a baseline to give it an advantage over the other two forms of magic to make up for it having a failure rate. Maybe I can add focus items and magic item slots to it. I’m also thinking of giving some type of extra boost, maybe when you boost it by sacrificing a stress level you gain an automatic +2 shifts and then add in your score, so that it is always just a little bit overpowered, but is also always a bit unstable as you pump more power into it.

Gifts:

Gifts are the ones I’m most concerned about since Karrak is kind of infused with these now.  From the descriptions I’ve received about them, Gifts are essentially potential. They are will and desire given form and pour directly from the life energies of the Nel. The form they take is directly related to the Nel that is using the Gifts. Each has its own flavor and it will always take shape in a way that the Nel is connected to. (E.G. Andorian is all about Cold and Lightning and Storms and such therefore his Gifts manifest like that because it satisfies him at a level we can’t fathom.) There’s a lot more to it than that but I’m not comfortable going into the details without permission.

Gifts are a part of the being of those with them. They are truly instinctual and don’t fail the way Sorcery does. Gifts will have to use a single Skill in order to represent their use and there is no counter stat because they don’t fail like the other types of magic. There are catches though.

Gifts are tied directly to the Nel, first you must have sponsorship of one or be one yourself. It must be an essential part of your nature, so it seems like your High Concept would have to reflect this. Secondly, they are tied to the very essence of the one using the Gifts. They must take the form of things directly related to who the caster is. For example, Andorian is an Utenel Lastborn. His mind, according to descriptions his mind is a storm. It is a wild, swirling vortex of lightning, cold, wind, and such. Therefore his Gifts take the forms of lightning, cold, wind, and other such things. Potentially he has the ability to use any elements or styles of magic that he wishes, but that takes real effort and goes against his nature (which would probably be represented by forcing the use of a Fate Point to even make the attempt).

Gifts manifest themselves to those that can sense them as a general “feeling” of some type. Whenever they are used near another Nel, or those infused with the Gifts of one and they can sense each other. Each one has a unique description that shows the true essence of whom they are. The gifts within Karrak began themed around Andorian’s flavor of gifts. The cold and windy mountain peaks of Andorian were there, but something different was brought by Karrak. The mountains turned to gold and there were hints of other things coming as Karrak gained more power. Keroen remade his Gifts with a blank set that changed the flavor of his Gifts to Karrak’s own nature.

(This is just the description of what his Gifts currently feel like. They evolve as he gains more strength and absorbs more power:

There is a ship upon the sea. The smell of the open ocean, a hint of powder recently spent, and a light, brine filled mist. The ship is filled with life. A crew of indeterminate races, all of them looking brutal, animalistic, and savage; drunkenly sing and sway as they cheer their recent victory. Monkeys chatter and screech from the rigging, providing much entertainment to the crew. The ship plows through detritus floating on the surface. The remains of the enemies the ship has crushed, all the valuables stripped from them and now filling the hold. A lone figure wearing a Captain’s tricorn hat stands at the bow staring ahead, determined. Before the ship lay the Waterfall at the Edge of the World. There is no fear, only passion and determination as the winds suddenly pick up and carry the ship forward to its destiny.)

Looking at Karrak’s nature determines that his Gifts will be Pirate-like and based around what would be a sailor’s desires or essential being would be. Each of those lines in the description is based off of an essential piece of who he is. Each piece can be tapped to give him something to use against his foes.

Anyways, back to the mechanics. Gifts will end up working exactly like the other two categories. They just have more restrictions on how the effects take place. They must follow your character’s themes. If the GM determines that the effect you desire isn’t consistent with your character’s nature it will require a Fate point to attempt it.  The caster can shape any thematically appropriate effect though by using said gifts. Stunts may enhance the specifics of the casting as well.

Because of the nature of Nel and their ties to their Gifts I think allowing them to use both Physical and Mental Stress tracks for boosting their casting ability seems appropriate to me.

Casting Restrictions and Stunts:

Now this could just be the game balance guy in me talking, but each of these sets of rules really seems to be very open to interpretation and potential abuse, especially Sorcery and Gifts. Maybe they need some type of restriction built into them, or maybe they don’t. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it. For the time being I think I’m just going to keep it simple and freeform. Restrictions of some type could come later as required.

As for ways to enhance the casting of each of these types of magic I look towards Stunts to be the best way to do it. Generally speaking, a Stunt is used to enhance something that already exists, let you use a skill in a different way, or a whole variety of crazy things. I’m thinking we start with simple things, like Fire Magic Specialty: +2 to Sorcery Checks when casting fire based magic.  Stabilized Sorcery: +2 to Control checks. Mind Control Expert: +2 to Psionic: Mental checks. Simple things like that are easy as hell. It’s when these turn into Stunt Trees that we’re going to have to put in the effort.

Maybe a character like Karl, the gunslinging mage who can cast spells through his gun, could have something like “Spellslinger: May use Sorcery instead of shoot skill for an Attack action when using his specially crafted revolvers. Normal Control rolls still apply, but with a +2 bonus.” Maybe one called “The guns give me a focus: +2 to control checks for spells/attacks cast through his gun”. A good one to start with as the basis for the Stunt tree might be “Gunslinginging Sorcerer: Karl may spend a Fate point once per scene to allow him to cast spells through a gun, giving him +2 to all sorcery checks with spells cast through said weapon for the remainder of the scene.”

So Karl’s Stunt tree would look like this: 1. Gunslinging Sorcerer => 2. Spellslinger => 3. The guns give me focus.

The first one on the tree, Gunslinging Sorcerer, basically an invoking of his High Concept combined with his magic and weapon. Mechanically it’s just a scene length bonus to his spellcasting abilities, but flavored to be through any gun. In my mind I am picturing that he’s investing whatever gun he has with some Sorcery, granting him temporary extra power due to the gun becoming an easier channel for him. Plus this can only work if he’s got a gun of some type in his hand.

The second one, Spellslinger, acknowledges that Karl is a craftsman and likes to cast spells through his gun. This lets him use any gun that he or someone like him has crafted specifically for casting spells through as a spell focus. This gives him the ability to work his attack magic through his gun, making it more stable in the process. Mechanically this is just giving him a specific item that boost his control skill for Attack actions using Sorcery, but thematically it adds flavor.

The third one is a thematically appropriate stacking effect on top of the previous two abilities. It implies that he is able to focus and maintain his magic because of the guns though.

Let’s say that he goes into combat and does what he’s supposed to do, which is shoot things with magic pistols. He spends a Fate point on his first turn to charge his father’s revolver with Sorcery and then shoots someone with it. He gets to take the shot using his Sorcery skill (let’s just call it a baseline of +5 for now, as opposed to his Shoot skill which is only a +2 or a +3), which is boosted by +2 now because of the first Stunt. He rolls his Fudge Dice and gets a +1, for a total of an 8 shift attack. Because he used his Sorcery skill he has to roll a Control check (we’ll say his control is a +4 baseline), so he starts off with his +4, adds in +2 for Spellslinger, and then an additional +2 for The guns give me focus for a baseline total of +8 prior to rolling the dice for the Control check. He has to not roll a -1 or below which gives him a 62% probability of success. Not bad at all.

And this isn’t even scratching the surface of the possibilities.

Space Opera: Aliens

I’ve been trying to come up with a general set of concepts to use to populate my Space Opera setting with alien races, because what’s a sci-fi setting without aliens, right?

 

The problem is that I’ve pretty much got nothing bouncing around in my head to start off from. Anything that I make is going to either end up being clichéd, too weird, or not make any sense whatsoever. Maybe I shouldn’t care and just go with it, but I can’t make myself do it. Whenever I try I just end up with a blank screen in front of me as I attempt to write.

 

Fortunately a little bit of Google based luck while searching for images to use as inspiration lead me to a website called SciFiIdeas.com (link: http://www.scifiideas.com/). In its writing resources section it has a random alien species generator. It has helped me get a massive list of ideas to springboard off of. The Generator provides a Name, a Home-World, and a basic Description using what appears to be a fill in the blanks format. Pretty much in the same way that any dice based randomly generated tables would work which was going to be my next option. Heroes Unlimited’s Alien section is really useful for that type of thing and I may still use it to flesh out what I get stuck on.

 

Most Sci-Fi settings have various Tropes associated with their alien species. Each race fills a niche or acts as a metaphor for an aspect of humanity or a segment of human history. Star Trek is really blatant about this type of thing. Entire cultures with tens of thousands of years of civilization seem to have a single unified culture with humanity being the only one with any variety in said culture. I’ve never been a big fan of that, but I do have to do it a little bit for the sake of gaming, at least a little bit. Setting the races up in categories can help establish their general “role” in the galaxy at large.

 

Generally you’re going to see 4 primary types of races in a sci-fi setting with multitudes of species. You have the Warriors, the Techs, the Religious/Mystical, and the Bizarre. Depending upon the setting and the species you can see some overlap in these categories.

 

Warrior species tend to be your Krogans, Klingons, Mandalorians, and other war-loving races. They may or may not have a special code of honor and they respect might and tests of strength over diplomacy/politics.

 

Tech species are those who rely heavily upon technology (who aren’t humans) and are well known to be very skilled with it, very close to it, or manufacture amazing things. Quarians, the Tau, the Borg and the Protoss fall into this category. Tech species can also include species that have used other species tech to improve themselves, like the Hutts and the Krogan.

 

Religious/Mystical species tend to stand in for earth religions somehow to make a point about how silly we can be or how powerful faith is depending upon the point the author is trying to make, or they could just be and excuse for a holier than thou group with mysterious powers. In this category you’ll see the Protoss, Bajorans, the Yuuzhan Vong, and the Asari.

 

The Bizarre are those being which are utterly alien to humans. Everything I’ve previously mentioned is generally (and very improbably) humanoid. This category is where the really weird stuff goes. Races like the Tyranids/Xenomorphs/Zerg, the Buggers/Formicans, Species 8472, the Reapers, the Daleks, and other species that are extremely difficult to relate with or speak to. Their bodies don’t tend to end up looking humanoid and their thoughts are completely and totally alien to most other races.

 

With this type of guidline combined with some of these randomly generated species I think I may be able to build a few alien races now. Let’s try one out. I’m going to transcribe the original description I got directly and then work from there with my thought process included afterwards.

 

Name: Hutiglurn

Home-World: Holiday

Description: A race of bovids with green skin and large tusks. They live in self-sufficient communities and prefer their food to be ground into paste. They are staunch Atheists and find all forms of religion and superstition offensive. Their home-world is connected to orbiting space stations by huge space elevators.

 

Okay, wow. That’s a pretty solid randomly generated start to a species I’d say. So, where to start here? Apparently a Bovid is a ruminant, cloven footed animal. Cows, Antelope, Buffalo and other unbranched horn herbivores belong to it. So they have horns, tusks, green skin, and likely eat plant matter. Being ruminants it makes sense for them to prefer their food be ground up, it means that they are less likely to need to chew their food more. Horns would evolve as a defensive/mating mechanism so they’ll have some warrior tendencies. Tusks are also useful for those things as well as rooting around for edible tubers and fungi.

 

Staunch Athiesm, self-sufficient communities, and space elevator accessible stations scream a technologically adept and intelligent society that values logic, reason, and personal/communal responsibility. They are likely to not have a very strong care for art or expression unless it has practical applications.

 

Primary Type: Tech

Secondary Type: Warrior

Power Rangers The Campaign; Season 2

I’ve been thinking a bit more about that Power Rangers setting and playing with a few concepts since the last time I posted about it. I looked into a couple of systems, a few mechanics, and some narrative structures that I could use for it. Here’s the fruit of that labor.

First off I’d want to use the West End Games D6 Adventure system. It’s a versatile and easy to learn system with the mechanical crunchiness that such a setting would require. I’ll have to design each piece of equipment myself and that’ll take some balancing work, but in the end it won’t be that hard because even if things turn out to be overpowered or even underpowered it can easily be dealt with in a Power Rangers style fashion. Which is of course to say that it ends up never used again, only used against specific enemies, or the enemies get some type of immunity or strength boost from that point on.

I really like the Charge Point economy concept I came up with and will definitely be using that for this idea, I just have to come up with the specific costs and a table for the players/GM to follow. The actual Morphing and power-up structure is going to be a little bit tricky to initially build but should be easy to follow in game. Rangers usually follow a pretty standard pattern for the escalation of their fights in an episode/series: Pure Human, In-between form (think of the Ninja forms they got in MMPR), Morphed, Power Weapons, other special power-ups or vehicles, Zords, summon allies, Megazord/s, and finally the Ultrazord. This pattern makes it easy to setup the escalating costs and what power-ups will be available with certain amounts of charge once I figure out how much that charge may cost.

Character creation should be relatively easy. You make a teenager with attitude, or 20-something with attitude, whatever. You get the standard pool of resources for character creation and make a person. Each character should have a unique set of skills and everyone’s characters should know each other in some way. When they morph into their Ranger forms the characters will get various automatic boosts to their abilities depending upon their ranger color. Some will be generic boosts and some will be specific to their role on the team. Remember, each Ranger is specifically selected for their role based upon compatibility with the color they wear. Oh, and there must be 5 players. That’s a requirement

Now as for how the Narrative will play out, this one is easy. Treat every single session as a single episode of the series, including Theme Music and an introduction of the cast at the start every play session. If the plot of the episode isn’t resolved before the end of game session the GM is required to end the session on a cliffhanger and give a recap at the start of the next session before playing the theme music. The game is based off of a TV show for kids so the sessions will kept lighthearted and cartoony in some ways. Evil is evil, the only gray area villains will be the ones who can change sides or who are under the influence of a spell/plot device. There will always be something that has some type of moral lesson about teamwork that the rangers must overcome.

This shit writes itself!

Villains and monsters are going to be a little bit difficult to visualize without me being an artist, but I can probably find a way to photoshop some things together or find good visuals on the internet.

Now, what would the plot be based around? Each generation of Rangers has a command center and a theme they follow. I’m thinking of reaching back into the Power Rangers lore vaults and pull out some of the unused ideas for the TV show, specifically the Hexagon concept.

The Hexagon was an idea that was being built up to while Power Rangers was still under the control of Saban. It was a new type of command center that was publicly funded and well-defended. The idea was that Tommy Oliver (the former Green, White, and Red-Zeo Ranger) helped to found an organized resistance to the evil in the universe that kept finding its way to Earth. The Hexagon would be the command center for multiple Ranger teams and would be modeled after the Pentagon. Except, y’know, full of giant supertech/magic research departments. It was really going to be a way that they could just use multiple series at the same time, sell more toys, and not worry too much about a constantly consistent plot with a single season of stock footage. It was never used because they decided to go a completely different direction with the series because they were under the assumption they were ending the series.

For me, the Hexagon represents a great alternate timeline option that allows me a stepping off point for the “series” I’d be running. It can be its own thing without running into dealing with canon issues and all that crap. Plus, Tommy Oliver as the equivalent of a Chief of Operations for a military branch.

Of course I could also go with the ultra-realistic interpretation of everything including what access to that tech means for humanity, the death and destruction of such battles taking their toll on the world economy, and all the fun stuff that goes along with that stuff. I’d rather keep it a light-hearted and campy romp with people abusing the shit out of the word “Morph” in more exotic and unlikely ways though. We have enough darkness in all the other settings I pay attention to that this one should be allowed to be enjoyed for what it is.

Space Opera: Planets of Random 2; The Randoming

Okay more randomly generated planets for the Star Cluster.

Planet 5:

Planet 5 is part of a 9 planet system; Has 2 moons; Atmosphere is harmful to humans over a long term; moderate amount of oceans (earth-like); 0.9 Earth gravity; 20 Hour day; 390 Day year; Primarily an Ocean and Jungle environment (Primitive Earth-like); Abandoned Colony; Criminal Government; Intolerant regulations w/ restricted Tech/Weapons; Mid-High tech level; Imports Natural Resources and Finished Goods. Exports 2 Major types of manufactured goods. Population of 50,000,000. Considered a Trade backwater and has a Minor spaceport.

The planet itself resembles a primordial earth with a similarly composed atmosphere. The hypersaturation of O2 in the atmosphere causes many medical complications in humans exposed to the atmosphere over a long period of time. The planet was once a sort of biological preserve and natural world observation project in addition to being a pretty solid trade port. The site was abandoned a long time ago by the company/group that originally owned it after their funding ran out. Criminals moved in to fill the power void left by the government’s departure. The criminal enterprises set about using the land available to them to put up assembly factories that keep the current population employed. Most of what they produce are chemicals and weapons components for use in items that are known to be illegal. The population is pretty tolerant of the Criminal rulers because they viciously protect the planet and bring in plenty of money. They rule in a relatively fair fashion too, it just isn’t exactly a representative government with the population’s best interests at heart (think more of a Mafia type family).

Planet 6

7 Planet System; Has a Ring or many small moons; Earth-like atmosphere, Moderate hydrosphere; 1.1 Earth Gravity, 22 hour day; 390 day year; Primarily Volcanic and mountainous terrain (Very Primordial Earth-like); Abandoned settlement; Criminal Government; Informal Regulations, Tech/Weapons restrictions; Mid-High tech; Imports Luxury Goods/Natural Resources; Exports processed materials and Services; population ~6,000,000; Minor Spaceport; Major Trade Route.

Planet 6 was part of a young mining corporation’s attempts to expand into the Cluster. This planet was to be used as a processing and storage facility for various ores in preparation for shipping. Unfortunately the company was plagued by poor management and bad luck. It had to abandon Planet 6 many years ago and, as is wont to happen in the area, the criminal elements moved in to take what they could. Most of the processing facilities warehouses and mines still exist on this planet and are still worked by various individual crime lords and their gangs. The planet is well known to be a great place to buy pretty much anything you could ever want. The lack of a real government lets people do what they want, when they want, and where they want. Unfortunately this also means that there’s slave trades and lots of smuggling operations that base themselves out of this area. There is a single marketplace in the inhabited area of this planet that is used as basically a 100% free-trade area. The crimelord who runs it is notoriously brutal to anyone who violates his simple rules, but is otherwise fair and keeps his cut of things very low.

The planet itself is in a Primodial Earth-like state. It is very similar in size, shape, and rotation to the Earth as well as having a very similar hydrosphere. It is still extremely volcanically active and most of the planet just has very primitive lifeforms across it. Really only one area about the size of an American State is inhabited.

Planet 7

11 Planets, 1 Asteroid Belt; 2 moons; Hazardous atmosphere, enviro-suits required; Arid Hydrosphere; Earth-like gravity; 23 hour day; 120 day year; Desert/Glacier terrain (Little-to-no atmosphere, frozen gas glaciers, corrosive soil); Important military outpost; Military Government; Intollerent regulations, Tech/Weapon restrictions; High tech level; Imports Services and Entertainment; Exports natural resources and services; Population 30,000; Major Spaceport; Trade Hub

Planet 7 is a frozen desert planet covered in various frozen gasses and rare rocky elements. The planet itself is of very little interest to most people, but the location of this solar system in the cluster is very important. Multiple orbital and asteroid based space stations exist here and it is a very popular marketplace and it is also the only connection to half of the cluster. Everyone must travel through this system at some point. Unfortunately Planet 7 is the single most habitable planet in the system so it has never become a truly influential system in the Cluster’s politics. A relatively small mercenary company calls this planet home. They are a very skilled and specialized guard force for merchants and are the primary force defending and patrolling this entire system. They finance themselves with exports of the rare materials on the planet and with general mercenary work. They are officially the “ruling power” of the system and enforce their regulations with extreme prejudice directly in line with the letter of the law. They always have the absolute top of the line ships, weapons, tech and training. There are rumors about some type of unknown bypass to this system that smugglers and pirates have been using to get around the heavily regulated and patrolled system.

Space Opera:The First 3 Planets of Random!

So I’ve been semi-randomly generating some worlds for this Space Opera star cluster. Nothing has a name yet and they’re only being referred to as “Planet #” with the # sign being replaced by the order it was created in. So the super-tourist planet I’ve mentioned is Planet 1, the next one will be Planet 2, followed by #3, and so on. I will profile Planet 1 at a later time, meanwhile here are the first 3 planets made through semi-randomness. (Semi-random means I may have altered or added something based on it making thematic sense or based off of inspiration striking me after seeing the dice fall) These are all the primary planets in their respective solar systems, there may be more inhabited in each system and there may be other deep space habitats (like colonized moons/asteroids or space stations) that I haven’t decided on creating yet.

Remember, these are the primary planets of 3 separate solar systems within the star cluster, not 3 planets in a single system.

Planet 2:
10 Planet solar system with 2 asteroid belts; The planet has 1 moon; The atmosphere is harmful to human life over a short period of time (This planet has a high concentration of CO2 and O2); The hydrosphere is super saturated making it almost entirely an ocean planet; 0.5 Earth Gravity; Most common terrain features are Jungles and Ocean; 36 hour day; 360 day year; established as a dependent colony and ruled by some type of monarchy-like system; Strict/Intolerant Regulations with specific weapon/tech restrictions; Imports some type of services and R&D; Exports a banking service and natural resources; Approximate population of 60,000; has a “minor” spaceport and is considered a trade backwater.

Planet 2 is almost entirely covered by liquid water with next to no landmasses poking up from its massive oceans. The world is absolutely covered by a kelp-like plant that is capable of growing out of the water and farming Mangrove-like jungles in the shallower waters. The atmosphere is harmful to humans in a matter of minutes due to the high concentrations of Oxygen and CO2 in the atmosphere. The planet is essentially setup as tax haven, with Banking and currency exchange being its primary industries outside of the planet’s vast ocean-based resources. It is ruled by the head of the Bank in a corporate monarchy. It has a decently well-equipped spaceport and is out of the way enough to make attacking it extremely difficult (especially considering how close the Bank’s mercenary support is to the travel routes.

Planet 3:
15 planet solar system with 2 dense asteroid belts; 3 moons orbit the planet; Earth-like atmosphere with an extremely arid hydrosphere; Gravity is 5x Earth; 26 hour day; 225 day year; Common terrain includes Glaciers, Forests, and Volcanoes; Established as an independent colony by a major business conglomerate; Moderate regulations with a strong alien prejudice; Imports Services and processed raw materials. Exports education and finished goods. Has a population in the 600-700 range; Basic spaceport on planet; considered a trade hub.

Planet 3’s arid environment is kind of a misnomer. It has a lot of water, but it is all frozen except directly around its very active volcanoes. Around these volcanoes individually developing forest eco-systems exist in steamy, tropical rain forests. There is a large trading station in orbit where the Conglomerate maintains a major trade outpost for selling the goods they produce on the surface. The manufacturing processes they are using work extremely well in such a high-g environment and enhance the quality of the products they make. The fact that they can use geothermal power and don’t have to worry too much about environmental impacts to the planet also helps a lot. Access to the planet is restricted to the factory workers and other conglomerate personnel as required for maintenance, inspections and such. The factory’s non-manufacturing spaces are maintained at about a 1.2 Earth Gravity environment with artificial gravity generators/compensators.

The spaceport services available to non-company affiliated ships are some of the most basic, just enough that they don’t fear reprisal by travelers. Company affiliated ships have access to a cutting edge facility with all the latest tech and reasonable pricing. Anyone caught using it who isn’t part of the company faces harsh punishments and fines.

Planet 4:
14 planet system, 1 asteroid belt; Planet has 12 small moons; Earth-like atmosphere, dry hydrosphere with some standing water; Earth-like gravity; 23 hour day, 135 day year; Artificial and mountainous terrain dominates the world; established as an important military installation, ruled by a bureaucracy; Intolerant regulations that punish “unbelievers”; Imports Luxury goods and entertainment; Exports2 types of services; estimated 4 Billion population; Major spaceport; Trade Hub

Planet 4 is a heavily populated world. It has quite a large number of cities dotting its surface. It was once a major military installation for the Terrans during the second to last major war with the Confederation. It was sold off to a Security/Mercenary corporation founded by veterans of that war who now maintain the government and infrastructure of the system. Most of the population are or are decedents of Refugees from major conflicts around the galaxy. The Mercs seem to take a very serious stance on protecting these refugees. This company is the most hired company in the known galaxy and most everyone in it appears to be volunteers from the refugee population. The world has very little natural resources and making a living on the surface can be hard without access to modern tech which easily makes its way into the system because of its close proximity to Planet 1.

I like where this stuff is going.

Space Opera 33 and 1/3

So this Sci-Fi thing won’t leave my head. So I found a ton of D6 Star Wars Resources free on the web that I can peruse at my leisure now. That’ll make the possibilities for personal gear, weapons/armor, and starships much easier to get a baseline to use. (Unrelated tangent: I find it really interesting how humans are typically the ones depicted as the individual classes in these WEG books while different species are typically represented as their species and not as a class. Humans are depicted in the entries like “Smuggler”, “Bountry Hunter”, and “Diplomat”. Meanwhile aliens are depicted as “Wookie” or “Mon Calamari”. Just an odd way to do things in my eyes. /Tangent)

I started thinking about the way this star cluster could be setup and how things would run more. First off we should have an idea of how many Stars are in the cluster and how many are inhabitable. [Rolls a D20 + 10] So 27 stars in this cluster, we’ll make half of them habitable which puts us at 13 or 14 systems with habitable planets. Let’s go with 13 because that number is far cooler than 14. The other 14 stars may or may not have planets or useful resources and they may even quite possibly have some people living in stations or other such things, but they will be few in number and living/trade will be hard for them. We’ll keep those areas uncharted and mysterious for the time being because no one in the habitable worlds are really going to give much of a damn about them.
Okay, so 13 solar systems in the cluster with habitable worlds. One of these systems will have a world that is a stop for Star liners and will be the primary trading hub/consumer of goods/tourist destination in this particular star cluster. Every other star cluster is going to primarily be exporting their goods and services to this system to be able to fetch the best price they can from their labor. I think I’ll use the Guild Council/Mercantile Republic style government I came up with for the Geinrich setting to run this main planet. The planet should be earth-like for the most part, nothing to make it difficult to adapt to over long periods of time for people who are visiting. What might make this a desirable tourist spot? Well, let’s see… how about vast, untouched swaths of natural Earth-like biomes, a very strong (for the area) and poorly regulated economy, and a unique set of rings surrounding the planet that make the night sky amazingly beautiful.

Every other system I’ll generate randomly using the planet generation charts included in the D6 Ships book and write them up separately.

How does this cluster deal with the two neighboring interstellar governments? What is their relationship to them both? Does either side give a rat’s ass about these systems? Does the cluster actively fight against annexation, incorporation, or any other versions of adding the planets into their government structures? What does each side call the area? Is it under any type of political contention?

These are all questions that need to be answered at some point. Maybe after fleshing out these new planets it will become super obvious how some of these will be answered. Here’s to hoping…

Space Opera

So after discovering the absolutely wonderful webcomic Darths and Droids (I highly recommend it, check it out here) I have been kindly reminded about my love of sci-fi epics. It has put me in the mood to at least look into writing down some campaign ideas for some type of space epic that will go into the file of “Things that will never see the light of day again.”

Thanks to my new found love of Old School gaming groups on Facebook I’ve found that West End Games, the creators of the wonderful d6 Star Wars system, have released the core rulebooks for their generic Fantasy, Adventure, and Sci-Fi d6 rules to the public for free download from the various PDF distribution sites out there. They've even made them Open Game License products so anyone can use them as a baseline system for their own settings which is a very awesome thing to do.

So with those downloads fresh on my various storage devices and a glorious spark of sci-fi epic based creativity I've kind of gotten into a mood of wanting to play or run a sci-fi epic. I know it won’t happen because apparently anytime I try to run something it falls through and I've got some other things that are ready to go and are just waiting for players first (Geinrich, Dresden, multiple World of Darkness, an Exalted campaign, a couple Pathfinder/3.5 campaigns, and a partially built Star Wars D20 which I would like to convert to d6 now). I think it shouldn’t be a problem to use the D6 Space rules for this so that’s what we’ll use.

So picking a setting for sci-fi is a difficult thing to do. Most people end up wanting to play in a well established setting with certain tropes or various things they know well. That’s all well and good, but when given the ability to create sci-fi from scratch with a system I think this is as perfect a time as any to pull out one of my brain. Way back in those dark days of middle school (shudder) I started to develop and flesh out my own sci-fi universe. It had originally been a rip off of various established universes (primarily Star Wars and Wing Commander) but it was mine and I liked to come up with neat ideas for various characters and societies in it.

In my navy days I came back to it again to revisit and re-work it because underway you have a lot of extra time on your hands and watches are long. I wrote out a bunch of ideas and concepts that eventually grew into the current version of this universe. Now that I’ve been out of the Navy for years and some of that information I wrote is lost, forgotten, or stupid and I want to refine it again for my new sensibilities. So hey, look, an excuse!

Back to what I was trying to say, I’ll use my own setting for a Sci-Fi campaign. It’s your standard Sci-Fi fare in general. Kind of like what you’d find in various video game universes, animated shows, comics and such. You have a Human organization spread across a large number of planets, a bunch of alien races with varying types of governments and alliances, a semi-stable level of technology, shields, plasma cannons, FTL travel, and cinematic action.

I love realistic sci-fi combat, but in an RPG no one wants to deal with the realities of space based combat, they want to be Han Solo, Christopher Blair, or Captain Kirk. They don’t want to be John “Black Jack” Geary trying to calculate the relativistic distortion of two giant fleets coming towards each other at 0.1 Lightspeed over the course of dozens of hours setting up the perfect last minute maneuver that will give them the best advantage for that brief fraction of a fraction of a second that the opposing ships will be passing each other at insane speeds. That just isn’t very RPG-ish, so I have fighter wings and such in my setting because it’s cool.

So really, just think that the setting is a rip-off of Star Wars with elements of Wing Commander, Mass Effect, and Titan A.E. and you’ll probably be close enough.

So, what could I do for a campaign? That’s always the first question. For that I turn to my favorite settings and series and look for inspiration. There are two ways to approach a new and unknown setting, Railroad tracks or Sandbox. Railroad tracks you start off with everyone in a pre-defined role with a mission already briefed and ready to go. You don’t give them an option and force them into a story and drag them around to some set pieces. They can learn new things that way. The sandbox just plops them down and you say have at it! Sandbox can be very difficult most of the time but is far more rewarding in the end. I’ll probably need to do something that’s a combination of both though.

With those in mind, what’s a good starting point? Military? Freelancer? Traders? Privateer? Pirate? Stuck on a planet because of an accident? Do they have their own ship? Human only party?

Hmmm…

Primarily I’d say that starting out as some type of Freelance Trader is a good jumping off point. Firefly is a wonderful example of the possibilities that this type of starting point provides. So at least one of the players will be the owner of a ship, at least one other person is a member of the crew and everyone else can either be a passenger or a crew member. They’re doing their best to make a living for themselves as they make their way from planet to planet at their own pace. Ah, yes. That makes the beginning easier. The opening adventure module could be a simple transport job or something. Very easy for something to go wrong, money being owed, success or failure, etc. I like it.

Alright that basic premise is done. What’s next? Scope is a good one. Maybe make a cluster of star systems near the border of the Terran Interstellar Alliance and the Confederated Systems. Some type of semi-unclaimed set of territory. Call it “The Borderlands” or some other stupidly simple name that humans would name something like that. This particular star cluster has something like 10-15 systems in it usually with 1-3 inhabited planets and handfuls for stations or hollowed out asteroids in each system. The systems may have some type of general pirate/raider problem and aren’t patrolled very well by either major power. Each system probably has its own system of government and laws, plus their own militia/law enforcement. This is probably more than enough for the first module and possibly the campaign.

What types of major dangers and conflicts exist in this cluster that they’d have to deal with? Obviously the pirates as mentioned before will be one. There is likely to be some type of criminal enterprise that operates on multiple planets and in multiple systems. Maybe some of the planets in a system don’t like each other very much and are planning a feud or a violent trade dispute. Some of the planets are going to have their own sets of problems too. Yup, Liking where this is going.

The area isn't super resource rich and not of much interest to either government and isn’t important strategically so it isn't likely to be contested soon. This means that any major problems (like the pirates) will have to be handled by the cluster. Which also means that they'll probably be handled by the individual governments independent of the others.

That's a pretty good start maybe I'll continue fleshing this out some more just as an exercise in world building.

Of course I could just do Star Wars instead and scrap all of this… do some New Jedi Order, Knights of the Old Republic, or Rebellion Era and call it a day. Yeah, that does sound tempting, but whatever.