Alright, since the MoCs came in so fast, I'll go ahead and request a Sidetracked and On Your Own from each of you. In your sidetracked, you will 'retell' the story of the person to your left from your perspective. This story may be quite different, as we discussed in the last thread.
Also, might as well start working on stunts and skills (most of you have already).
Some bookkeeping comments:
Kennanator, don't feel behind here, everyone else has a week or two head start - you're doing fine. I'd like you to get a chance to build in some planets too, that may help with your moment of crisis. I like the new aspect you dropped a bit ago, works very well.
Sam, my read is that Meadow was rather populous and you might have been there for completely legit reasons that didn't have anything to do with browncoats. But if a famous living computer guy is in town when your terraforming gear goes tits up, you might snag him, one way or another. Maybe it was after the war, maybe your timeline was a bit off in your telling of the story, maybe the browncoats paid terry for you, and he was like, sure, I'm done with him. You tell me.
And terry, please take the aspect "afternoon delight" in your sidetracked.
Having skill redundancy could be very important in cases where one member is out of action or required elsewhere. That said, your ship, as designed by the person spending the stunt for it, has no guns on it.
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A couple aspect ideas:
ReplyDeleteno one has contacts, or enemies or goals in their contacts so far. might think on that.
remember you can only use one personal aspect per action, so loading up in the same area isn't really going to buy you much. look at the lower end of your skill-list as you build it. Are there things there you wish you had a better level in? What aspect could help that?
Took a break from character and planet creating. I made a new weapon instead.
ReplyDeletehttp://skyshipgame.wikispot.org/Sigma_DMR-14
Let me know what you guys think. This is me designing a gun for Caesar. The Sigma Sniper Heavy Impeller would have been a good choice if only Caesar had been a sniper, so I decided to make a designated marksman rifle for him that was between the Dyson-AR40 and the Sigma Sniper. While I think the whole sighting system I though up for it is cool, I'm not sure how much the aspect it adds "I see you!" adds to my character. The ability to fight in low-light and no-light would be cool, but other than that it seems like it would overlap with my character's aspect "I bet I can hit that." Furthermore I feel like it could be more negative than positive, as enemies might be the ones crying out "I see you!" rather than Caesar. Given that I have 6 health boxes and I've taken the stunt to improve my consequences, this might not be that bad. Just my thoughts.
The above post might be confusing. To clarify, when I designed the DMR-14, I gave the weapon the Transfer Aspect stunt, which adds "I see you!" to the other aspect associated to the DMR-14, "Out of ammo."
ReplyDeleteTerry: If you don't want the "I see you!" aspect to be taggable by enemies, you can make it less general and call it "thermal vision" or "night vision." This has the downside of being less versatile, but virtually untaggable by enemies (unless they were blinding it with fire or spotlights or something).
ReplyDeleteAlso, I changed the name to the Sigma Specialist DMR-14 because I had a naming theme going with the Sigma guns. I also filled in the technical stuff, making it basically a carbine version of the Sigma Sniper--handier, but less powerful.
Important note about the wiki for everyone:
The only way to change the title of an entry is from the main page for that category, and if you do, IT WILL DELETE THE WHOLE ENTRY. In order to change the "Sigma DMR-14" to "Sigma Specialist DMR-14," I had to copy the entry in Edit mode, go back and change the title, then paste the entry back into the "new" wiki entry. Had I just changed the title from the Guns page, the original entry would have been wiped out.
About the ship: No one's commented or expressed any opinions about our ship yet. Since Carlton's paying the stunt for it, I have a lot of say in selecting it, but if anyone has suggestions on features or aspects they would like, speak up.
ReplyDeleteI actually designed the Dart without stats back when we were still picking a game system, and I deliberately made it an unarmed freighter because shipboard weapons can have a major effect on the sort of illegal things a crew like ours might be doing. It was easy and natural to make it EW capable, so we have defenses without being "armed," and EW seems appropriate for a crew with a cat burglar for a captain.
BR is designing the layout a more detailed and slightly revamped version of the Dart I made up and posted on the wiki, so we're going to go with that as a base, but if someone is just DYING to have a laser turret or something, we can probably come up with a way to work one in.
As far as crew positions go, players get a -1 to their rolls for filling more than one position in the same space combat turn. Carlton has an effective Pilot (space) skill of 3 (or 4 with a Fate Point) thanks to that stunt I took, but if he's ALSO navigator, with that skill at 1, he's going to suck. Tadgh has good Nav skill, but if he is ALSO acting as engineer because were took damage, both rolls will suffer. He's good enough at both that I'm not worried about that, and Becky gives us some serious EW clout, so our crew is actually pretty great as-is for space combat of the type an unarmed freighter is going to be in.
If Kenna wants to make his doctor a level 3 navigator for some reason (maybe he flew himself around in a private shuttle before signing onto the crew--the ship has a shuttle, it could be Doc's.), it would improve our rolls a little, and if we added some kind of physical weapons to the ship, Caesar would be the clear choice to man them, but if neither of you want to spend skills on these things, we can get by as we're configured.
Hmmm...I just realized I don't need to spend a skill on Piloting (space) if I'm using Agility in its stead unless for some bizarre reason I needed to use Agility and Pilot (space) in the same turn. That means I can take that point in EVA I wanted.
ReplyDeleteMy apologies to Sam. I really struggled with how to include Dr. Ti 64 in Becky's storyline. (I really don't like taking over another player's character as there is no way to know their character as well as you know your own.)
ReplyDeleteSome Thoughts. The attack on Meadow takes place just before the Battle of Serenity Valley which ends the Unification War. It seemed to make sense that the attack on Bernadette would have occurred prior to Meadow's destruction. I also agree with BR, that if Dr. Ti 64 was on Meadow at the time, he would have been used ($$) extensively after the planet wide wave about the destruction of Meadow's terraforming equipment. Also, while from Becky's perspective, you led the squad, I agree that it is much more likely that he simply told the others about the noises and others determined that the noises were actually an SOS and pulled the pod inside.
I think our ship, whatever the design, should be passenger capable (moreso than cargo capable), assuming Carlton would prefer sticking to cat-burglar type crime, rather than cattle-smuggling type.
ReplyDeleteBTW, LR: nothing to apologize for. You posted a draft, I posted come comments, table-talk followed. :-)
sam: I think a cargo ship will have enough room for a few passengers in the crew quarters, if needed. We're not going to want a lot of witnesses on board, after all. Anyway, Carlton's the type who would be at least as interested in stealing or smuggling large, hard-to-hide things because of the challenge. He'd steal an Alliance tank just to prove he could. Anyway, the best story I have for HOW he got the ship would require it to be a cargo ship.
ReplyDeleteKenna: I like the idea of Doc having his own shuttle before signing on with the ship. The ship will have a shuttle regardless (I paid the bp for it), but it adds a little flavor, and your character could use it as his quarters for more room and to be a little more separate from the crew, which would go with his carmudgeonliness. You'd have to spend skills on Nav, Pilot, and Aircraft, but it would not be a bad idea to have someone else with those skills on board regardless. Relying on Carlton to do all the flying could get awkward.
LR: I second sam's last comment. That's how this is supposed to work. I kind of cheated on my MoC a bit, but a cat burglar can get away with that...
I really like the new gun. I guess because bphage has a naming scheme that is in mind, we should go with that. Plus it’s his birthday.
ReplyDeleteThis has been addressed twice by the time I finished this comment, but I’ll keep talking about it anyway, as if I had something new to offer the discussion.
In terms of ‘taking over’ others:
I’ll reiterate my Rashomon statement. You provide the scene as your character saw it. I like the scene LR described; Becky is deserting everything she knows, into a group of rebels who (albeit not personally, but their comrades) murdered her brothers and have little to no reason to believe she’s anything but an enemy. Plus, they have their own payback on their own minds. It’s a good scene. With Ti being there, its better, I think. His presence on Meadow is quite reasonable, given the timeline (2511 is right near the end, as you say). Why he’s there, what he’s up to and how he views and affects the events surrounding your ‘capture’ is an issue of perspective; initially that perspective is yours, and shortly I imagine it’ll be his.
FATE’s character creation process is effectively shorthand for building a character through play. I don’t think Blendin as he was initially pitched is the same as Blendin at the end of the game; nor frankly any of my NPCs or characters in any game I’ve played more than a session. Something unexpected happens in game, and the character must react to that. Often, another player put you in a pickle (or, to use the Blendin example, often he made the pickle for the others).
Aside:
Because it’ll probably come up later, remember that compels are bargains. You have to agree to the terms, but there’s a lot of wiggle room. If I say, “Terry, I think Caesar is going to try to ram the shuttle into the Reaver’s cockpit to save the ship, b/c there’s no victory without sacrifice.” He doesn’t have to agree. But if he does agree, I don’t dictate how his character acts, merely the direction in which he’s headed. He gets to add all his knowledge of Caesar to the situation however makes the most sense; maybe Terry decides that he is going to try to bail out in the last seconds before impact, hoping the ship can come pick him up before he runs out of air in his emergency vacsuit.
Ship:
So as it stands the ship floorplans are finished for the cargo deck. I’ve not uploaded them yet, but soon as I finish the set and the exterior modeling, it’ll go up. Plan is to have a catwalk deck, and a main deck as well. I intend to add some spare rooms. I have a cargo hold – but that could be converted to passenger space if you want to turn the thing into a liner. Also, as far as adding guns go, since bphage designed the ship as a converted military vessel, I assumed a chin ball turret above the main cargo doors in my redesign. Right now, there’s no guns in it, but I imagine if you wanted to upgrade it later such a thing could happen. I will mention though that serious firepower on a private vessel doesn’t strike me as particularly legal. A small arms turret probably is not a big deal, ya know something to scatter the roaches, but if you want something legitimately ship-to-ship, I think the Alliance might take notice.
If people want to go a different way with the ship, now that I’ve built a bunch of the pieces building new ship deckplans shouldn’t take that long. I’m doing this work on a trackpad on a train, which is the major holdup, so if people have strong opinions about ship changes let me know.
Oh, and if Doc wants pilot the shuttle, you won’t need any Nav skill for shuttle flight – that’s really interplanetary distances. Aircraft and Pilot make sense.
Sorry guys, RL dropped a bomb on me last night and killed my A/C. Follow that with a fried graphics card I couldn't post. Sigh... Oklahoma Heat...
ReplyDeleteOkay Bphage, I already got there a couple days ago about the Doc having a small ship he'd use to hop around the rim. I just kept it a secret :P I'll try to get a detailed post up this evening and work out the crisis.
The gist is this: Carlton gets himself patched up or stumbles across Doc working on a backwater planet. This isn't itself the moment of crisis, but instead Doc (who obviously barely fits, and is older and crotchety now) relates a story of how he got there, and why he is still on the rim.
Also, during the Independence war, Doc was caring for the wounded of both factions. He wound up staring down either a ranking Alliance or Browncoat leader over the deal... Sounds like that would be when I meet Ceaser.
Holy crap this system is so organic!
Do we really need guns for the ship? Just give Caesar a pressure suit and a space bazooka. Problem solved.
ReplyDeleteNo, I don't think we need ship-mounted guns, and the Alliance agrees. But my concept for the ship had a disarmed laser turret, so we COULD mount guns. Since Caesar would be our most likely gunner in that event, if you want to give him some Gunnery skill for possible future use, go ahead. Maybe like in the Serenity movie we'll need one for something special sometime.
ReplyDeleteBR: I knew the doc wouldn't need Nav for a shuttle, but he would to fly it on short interplanetary hops, which is what I had in mind, and so, apparently, did Kenna. Besides, as I mentioned before, Carlton's Nav skill sucks and Tadgh might be busy with Engineering, so having the doc as a navigator could be handy.
Ooh...as I was posting that last thing it occurred to me: a shuttle is the sort of thing Carlton might steal for fun. Just saying, Kenna...
ReplyDeleteParty: I'd be happy to try to fit gunnery if no one else was thinking about it.
ReplyDeleteBP: I took a stunt that changes my consequence progression. I think yours should be 1/2/4.
Everyone: I edited the Crew page of the wiki. I don't know if you wanted them in a specific order, BR, but I reorganized them according to the seating chart and included player names with character names (I was getting confused). I also included a seating diagram (someone please double check). Dunno if it'll be important later on, but it's there on the wiki now.
ReplyDeleteNeat, good call.
ReplyDeletefyi, Becky has a Gunnery Skill of 2.
ReplyDeleteBecky's gonna be busy on the EW board most of the time, so having even a level 1 gunner would be helpful, and it'd give Caesar something to do in ship combat if we have guns for some reason.
ReplyDeleteTerry: Yeah, I was just reorganizing the sheet using yours as a template. I'll fix that ne of these days. Haven't finalized my stunts yet.
Ive got the cargo deck and the catwalk deck finished. but I would like to add some aspects to each of your cabins. try and come up with a couple that describe your rooms.
ReplyDeleteas it is, I will probably upload deck plans by themselves and then work on the exterior separately. do we have a name for the ship?
Hey. Hey! HEY!! What are you doing with my Ship!
ReplyDeleteI'd say Carlton's cabin is going to be the closest to the bridge. As for aspects, here's some quickies:
ReplyDeletePersonal Viewscreen
Everything in its Place
"A gentleman of leisure never keeps his weapon next to his socks."
Could we go ahead and add a link to our proposed ship on the "Crew" page?
ReplyDeleteI would also like to propose we treat the ship more like a character a la the "Serenity RPG", rather than as an item a la "Diaspora". Mainly because no player should have to spend a character creation resource to acquire something that is necessary for us to play; so this would free up a stunt slot for Carlton (maybe Bact will still want to spend the stunt on something related to owning the ship, but that provides him a mechanical benefit somehow). Others can make other pro & con arguments for this change.
Also, from my reading there wouldn't be any problem with Tadhg being both Navigator and Engineer with respect to Ship Combat. Navigation only occurs before (or at the beginning of) the first round.
ReplyDeleteLR: Eh, I don't mind spending the stunt on the ship. The main reason is that per Diaspora rules, "Have a Thing" stunts mean that the item can't be taken away completely except through something drastic like it getting destroyed in combat, and if it is, I get my stunt back. It's sort of an insurance policy on the ship. I'd probably spend that stunt on Have a Thing for the ship for that reason even if I didn't have to.
ReplyDeleteSam: I gathered that there are circumstances where having a navigator is useful later in combat, such as for chases and such. Regardless, it never hurts to have backup and it's nice for everyone to have something to do.
Ship name: I'm taking suggestions for the ship name. My current best idea is an in-character hasty pick, since Carlton stole the ship from criminals and then pseudo-legitimately registered it: theJeanie O.
ReplyDeleteThis is implying a relation to one of the NPCs I made for Renao. However, the ship would already have had a name in military service and possibly a different one in civilian service, so Carlton could have kept or reverted the name when registering it. If anyone has a good name, speak up.
Name Suggestion: Dapper Swain
ReplyDeleteSorry, Terry, but that name just makes me think of a well-dressed Michael Swaim.
ReplyDeleteMoment of Crisis and On your Own are up on the Wiki. I also threw in some Aspects. I definitely need some help working them into perfection.
ReplyDeleteAre we doing skills and stunts yet?
Just lost 10 minutes of productivity to Micahael Swain. Asian advertising for the win.
ReplyDeleteSidetracked up on the wiki. It's short, but then, Kenna already told most of the story.
ReplyDeleteKenna: Yeah, feel free to do your stunts and skills any time. You can change them as we go.
Also, only 10 minutes? Well, I didn't link to his sketch troupe or the genius Cracked After Hours. Whoops.
Trying to design a weapon, but I'm having trouble figuring out the range system why are there negative values for min and max ranges in the weapon creation chart. Sorry for the poor grammar. On my phone and I can't edit.
ReplyDeleteEach weapon has a group of build points. For a TL 3 gun, this is 9 (6+TL).
ReplyDeleteoutside of its range window, a slug thrower is at -2 to hit. The standard range for a slug thrower is 2-4. If you want to extend (or shorten) that range, it has a cost. So if I wanted to have it be longer range, say a 2-6, that would cost 2 build points.
If I want to narrow the range, I can get points back to spend elsewhere. for instance, say I want a pistol only for close up work. I might want to shorten the minimum range to 0 (costs 4 points) but have it only go out to range 2 before it gets unreliable (gives me back 2 points). So the total spent on this range 0-2 pistol is 4-2=2.
Kenna, Really dig that first MoC aspect. The second one is good too, but how about one of these?
ReplyDelete"And I thought I'd seen everything"
"Looking for friends in all the wrong places"
"Asleep at the wheel"
I kinda like "You can never be too careful" as an aspect from the OHO too.
Anyone else have some ideas?
Edited the Guns page. I added some tables so that people could quickly reference gun statistics. If people like the format I can go ahead and finish off the page. The only problem is that I can't figure out how to get the border formatting to work. If someone could maybe give it a try, that would be helpful.
ReplyDeleteI also added some stuff to the gear page. Wasn't sure if we wanted to keep melee weapons separate from the guns page or not. I also made one armor design, but it seems kind of ridiculous. A defense rating of 6 seems kind of high, so I might start throwing in other stuff to power it down.
BR, I really did the second one you came up with, "Looking for friends in all the wrong places." That seems to jive quite nicely with him. With his less than legal background and some of the shady business transactions he'd have had to do to acquire medicine for the clinic, looking for friends on the wrong side of the law would almost be a specialty of Doc.
ReplyDeleteAlso, does his background justify a low pilot and decent navigation skill? How would I incorporate Doc's knack for finding alternatives to "modern" medicine?
I think being a 'bad' pilot but a good navigator is sensible enough.
ReplyDeleteAs for finding alternatives, medical will cover some things, sure. I could see bureaucracy working some too; particularly if your working to get supplies through slow but mostly legal channels. If you want to get things through trade, brokerage might work. If you want to find plants in the field, you could try survival. If there's some other idea, maybe a professional skill would work...
Depends on how you envision it working.
Closing Thread.
ReplyDelete