I've got space ships on the brain.
Which means I've been writing a role playing game, calling it Solar Wind & Sales. In particular, a pbta hack that i can't stop talking about.
These aren't giant ships like Star Destroyers, and not tiny ships like the Falcon. Ship's a bit bigger than the Serenity, with crew and officers. What specialization do you expect in crew and officers?
I expect this to be a pirate ship -- operating outside the law, smuggling and raiding other ships.
This started before reading the Solar Clipper series, which has really pushed it along.
If this is a pbta game, what stats do you expect? What do you want on the ship? What officer positions do you expect? Do you expect the PCs to be the officers? Crew? Both?
Like I said, a little bigger than Serenity. She's listed with a mass of 280t, and 82 feet long. Similarly, the Free Trader of Traveller field is 200t and 37.5 meters. What size do you expect this to be? How many crew, and in which specializations?
What level of specificity do you think matters on these questions?
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I'm an environmental crew chief. I keep the crew from suffocating or being poisoned as well as providing some for their comfort.
ReplyDeleteJosh Mannon What size of crew do you need to have a specific environment crew chief?
ReplyDeleteMy thought is that this would be a position that any ship that is rated on days, weeks, or months in space rather than hours would have even if there are no crew under the chief. At the size vessel you're talking about there would probably be 4-6 crew and might actually share maintenance staff with other engineering sections.
ReplyDeleteok, so there's always somebody in charge of the environment. Right?
ReplyDelete4-6 of how many crew? How big does this ship sound to you?
[ And yeah, you've been in other threads on this. You're the target demographic. ]
Jump officer. Responsible for moving the ship long distances. Stressful jumps require a roll, with the usual pbta mechanics.
ReplyDeleteI recall a past brp game where my jump officer tried to micro jump our ship into the hold of another ship, rolled a 99 (second worst possible failure), we jumped into the hold, but lost our ship doing so, so we had to seize the enemy ship or die trying.
Ted Cabeen Yes!
ReplyDeleteThere's a couple ways to do the pbta mechanics. There's the roll, but there's also something like the workshop -- where you can do it, absolutely, no problem, but ...
I'm calling the role "stargazer", and they even have a small staff that works for them. Because you always need someone staring outside, to obscure the view of the abyss. Or something.
I really adore the MC's response there, too. It worked, no problem, but .... terribleness!
Sounds good.
ReplyDeleteThe MC in question was Ken Hite, so not a surprise.
I don't know Ken Hite. Should I?
ReplyDeleteKen and Robin Talk About Stuff, Paul Tevis's most popular guest of Have Games Will Travel, author of many thing among the most recent is Dracula Dossier.
ReplyDeleteHuh. He's in my circles, and the most recent post of his on the G+ that I can see is one about Dexcon, with a reasoned (always) discussion with Avie, where she's calming down some troll I've got blocked.
ReplyDeleteWe absolutely played Dracula for a while. I was really impressed with the craftsmanship, though the system is not one I care for.
Yea, Gumshoe is fixing problems I have my own solutions to already but I appreciate it for what it does for those who don't have those tools at hand. I think you could totally use the DD for games other than GS and potentially other settings as well.
ReplyDeleteAs an aside, I really like how this went:
ReplyDeleteTed: Yeah, I played it with this cool guy.
Me: Should i know who that is?
Josh: Yeah, he did stuff you like!
Me: I like stuff I like! But, I feel like it wasn't directed at me.
Josh: Yeah, me, too! But its cool stuff.
The awareness both of what stuff we like and that stuff can be great without being our tea is pretty excellent.