DM Salsa Presents: The Black Velvet Blues (Inactive)

Game Master AdamWarnock

A band of misfits trying to make a dishonest living smuggling...

assuming they can avoid killing each other first.



Hello and welcome! I'm DM Salsa, and this is a recruitment for a game that I've been wanting to run, and suddenly got the itch to just dive and do so. Anyway, let's get to the important bits.

System: Fate Core. The SRD can be found here: http://fate-srd.com/
PDF can be downloaded from the publisher's site: http://www.evilhat.com/home/fate-core/

Setting/Genre: Space Opera/Science Fiction, It takes place in space naturally. It's also going to be taking place in an alternate universe so I don't have to worry about being 100% accurate with where and what type the stars around the Solar System's neighborhood are.

Scope: Problems will be local to the system, or even station, they occur in. There isn't some large overarching plot or some galaxy spanning doom. That doesn't mean that some troubles won't follow you, though.

Tone: Semi-humorous. There will be some legitimate drama and angst to be had, but on the whole, I want to try for a more light-hearted game. Expect some slap-stick in there, too.

Now, this is fairly vague because one of the major points of Fate is the game is cooperative. I may be the final arbiter of what happens, but you have a stake in this as well, and you can help shape the world beyond your character.and your actions in game. That is why I'm speaking in terms of tone, genre, and possibilities instead of terms of plot and setting. The people I pick will be helping with that. Before I get into submitting a character, I would like to cover some of the things that I, as a GM, want to set in stone.

The kind of setting I want to use is a mix between Firefly and the Roaring Twenties. The characters are the crew of a free trader/smuggler in the back end of a corrupt federal state. Governors and crime bosses are often in bed together, sometimes literally. Bureaucrats carve out their own little fiefdoms and squeeze for all they're worth. Imposing tariffs and other fees and duties that have left the state fractured into many little pieces.

This is where the smugglers come in. They smuggle cargo and people into and out of the different systems and sectors of the federation. Free traders are often used since many of the shipping houses would rather not risk the fines and liquidation that come with being caught and accused fo smuggling. Some of these smugglers turn pirate when the runs aren't there. The federation has a teeming underbelly, and your characters will be in the middle of it, dealing with mobsters, politicians, bureaucrats, and pirates. How things turn out is up to you. You could turn pirate, try to be an honest trader, or even take the reins as a crime boss yourself.

Ships obey the laws of physics and orbital mechanics. No swooping starfighters or battles broadside to broadside at distances that would have been close in the age of sail. But this is more of a storytelling thing than anything that will have a mechanical impact on the game. Instead of boring you with all of the various physics, I'll just point you to the [urlhttp://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/index.php]Atomic Rockets website.[/url] Like I said though, this is more of a story thing than a mechanics thing.

Now, there are some breaks to that, like weak artificial gravity, faster than light travel and communication, and the fact that ships will be able to take an enormous beating compared to what would really happen, but that's all for the sake of narrative.

Also, I'd like to add in artificial intelligences, the ability to quickly grow human bodies, and implants, but that can be up for discussion after I've made my selection.

What I need in your submission
-Your character's core concept. This is what your character is all about. It can be simple, such as Ace Shuttle Pilot or a little more complex, like A humble farm-kid looking to be a hero, but it should be no more than a sentence with one or two clauses.

-Your character's big flaw. The thing that always gets them into trouble.

-Your character's background. It doesn't have to be complex, and you can come up with the names of places and people, even whole organizations. It should, however, end right before you join our merry crew. We'll cover how you joined while fleshing out the world. It should also give me a feel for your character's personality. You can also include how they look, but that could be something that gets collaborative as well.

Scarab Sages

Color me interested.
Character concept: best bootstrap/ jerry rig/ spit and duct tape mechanic out there.
Big flaw: Extremely invested in the ship. Values the vessel above human lives.
Background: "Sirus" grew up on ships, and not the legal kind. The coming apart at the seams kind. The smuggler kind. The pirate kind. He excels in doing something with nothing, and in his field of mechanics, hitting the engine with a heavy wrench is seen as a legitimate repair method. As for this crew, he came with the ship. Literally. The previous owner couldn't convince him to leave by any means short of killing him, so Sirus stayed and negotiated for his services with the new owner from his hammock in the engine room.
He is a small man. Almost dwarfishly so. He sports a scraggly beard and omnipresent grease stains. One look will tell you he's tough as nails, even if he hasn't had "all that book learnin'".


I'm not going to be applying for this PbP, but I wish you lots of luck with the game!


@Choon: Nice. Love the bit about coming with the ship.

@SunstonePhoenix: Thanks! I think they're going to need it. :) Sorry to see that you aren't applying, though. Good luck in whatever games you're in.

Dark Archive

Well, this sounds like a good shot. Taking Choon's example on length, but I'll be happy to expand on anything you need.

Character concept: Ruthless soldier with a soft and honest interior.

Big flaw: Bossy, take-charge behavior; leads to difficulty respecting anyone.

Short background: Sergeant Garnet Trace led a successful career through the armed forces of three distinct sectors, and was proud of it too, before she glimpsed the corruption running under her nose all the while. After failed attempts to expose criminal involvement in her superiors and increasing insubordination as she began to question her assignments' real motives, she was ordered arrested for treason.

That's when she went rogue. Forced to lay low and slightly paranoid, she covertly went to "low places" in search of a way to flee the sector.

She's a moderately tall, army-built woman with short black hair and a permanent, softly petulant scowl.


Dr Dax Newgen

HC: Crazy Outlawed Scientist

Trouble: Entropic Aura

I was once involved in a certain black level anti-matter operation by the government. Highly classified stuff. Anyways, there was a certain someone (not me) who spilled something (not my drink) into the control panel for said experiment. Long story short, the government blamed me for this as the sole survivor of the incident and I had to go on the run. But I will evade them with my scientific genius that I am worth more than that sizable bounty on my head. With my newest experiment I will prove them all wrong! Hahahahahahahaha.

*stares at guy passed out in corner of the bar*

Were you even listening to my monologue? Yeesh the nerve of some people.


I'm interested, but have little experience with sci-fi themes. To be perfectly honest, I'm here for the Firefly. :P If I can think of a concept I'd enjoy playing, I'll throw something together.


Dot! Will read up on the mechanics and see if any ideas come to me ;)


Tavid Lostrosse Dewa Rappertone
Character concept Polyglot navigator
Big flaw Cybernetic implants (Nano-tech?) randomly change his face’s appearance while he sleeps.
Short Background Tavid L.D. Rappertone was an accountant for a factory. He embezzled a large sum of money and during his attempt to flee from justice, he had cybernetics implanted into his face to adjust his appearance, allowing him to evade facial recognition software, but he was still tracked down by his DNA. Convicted, he served his time, studying numerous languages. During his imprisonment his cybernetic implants began to malfunction, randomly changing his facial features with increasing frequency. After retaining his freedom, he worked a variety of jobs. He began smuggling hoping to earn enough cash to get his implants fixed.

I’m willing to change some of the background and rework the flaw if needed. I've never played FATE but I like the concept of this campaign.


These are some cool concepts. If many more apply, I'm going to have some really tough decisions to make.


When is recruitment ending?


i don't have a set date, but I figured I'd let it run for about a week at least, so the earliest I'd close things would be Thursday or Friday.

Scarab Sages

So, right now, we have a mechanic, a scientist, a soldier, and a navigator. Not a bad start.


Okay, I'm going to make a decision to close this on Friday at 23:59 CST. After that I'll see how many applicants we have and decide if I need to make any decisions on who's in or out.

I'll extend the deadline if there is a sudden surge of interest, but I guess people aren't into Fate, or Sci-fi games, or maybe it's just both.

Or maybe it's just me, I dunno.


Choon wrote:
So, right now, we have a mechanic, a scientist, a soldier, and a navigator. Not a bad start.

Yep. and I have to say they all seem like interesting characters.


Well if you're still taking people I'd be interested.

Alonzo Merryweather

Character Concept: Space Brat - born in space, raised in space, and has been pretty much everywhere at least once.

Big Flaw: He's always a little drunk, and if he runs out of alcohol he starts turning to harder substances. Being sober means he has to remember what happened to his family. (As a teenager there was an accident on his ship that killed everyone except for himself, and he was adrift and alone for several days before being rescued.)

Background: Having been born on a spacecraft to a family of merchants he's pretty familiar with most systems on a spacecraft and in a pinch can do most jobs there. Just don't ask for them to be done well, pretty, or by the book. He tends to take short cuts to get things done. He's been to so many different ports of call that he has contacts at most of them, and he's pretty familiar with a good number of ships and their crews as well. Especially the ones who are up to no good. He's a friendly fellow and is generally pretty likable.


PM sent. Still interested, just struggling.

Dark Archive

Hi there!

Whoa. I just spent an hour on the projectrho website. I now know the different between a FEZ and a WEZ. Aaaand then I spent another hour looking over the core Fate rules. Tally ho!

It looks like we don't yet have a pilot. Would you allow me the honor of filing that void?

Concept: Anton Peray Merovach, pilot and techman. (Perhaps the +4 to Drive, with +3 Craft and +3 shoot?)

Background:
Anton -liked- being a transport driver. Sure, the government tariffs were steep and the ganglord's fees were high, and sometimes he got roughed up carrying a haul of industrial nano-stars from Portsmith to Skylar, but it always allowed him a little something at the end of the day.
Until that day.
He never found out what went wrong. One moment he was planeside, standing in front of a large man who wanted a bribe, but before he could get out a single cred he was on the ground, getting kicked by half-a-dozen large men. It only lasted a minute, but he could only muster a small whimper as someone else drove his rig off.
Of course the company couldn't help him. Collateral damage, they called it, and canceled his contract for his troubles.
Later, drinking the last of his savings in the dirtiest bar in the system, a man opened his eyes. Told him playing by the rules was a suckers game, only won by dying. He said that a man what knew his was around a helm could carve out a living on his own terms.
Anton shipped out that day and never looked back.

Flaw: Anton's thirst to prove that he can make it outside of the established system forces can get him into situations he's not always sure he can get out of. As yet his fast flying and knack for angling deflector shields has kept him in one piece, but he knows his luck can't hold out forever.

(And a WEZ is a Weapon Engagement Zone, while a FEZ is a Fighter Engagement Zone. =)


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber

I'll work on something for this as it seems interesting. Won't likely get much done until thursday morning though.

Silver Crusade

I'm interested, give me a day or two to learn the basics and I'll get back to you.


I'm keeping this open until Friday, so you've got time, and I may extend the deadline to Saturday.

I need to update the games I am currently running, but as soon as I do that, I'm going to try and put together a list of who's submitted an application and who's posted that they're interested. Thank you to everyone, though. I'm really excited about this and hope to get started with the fun stuff soon.


Dotting! I have some ideas I want to flesh out.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber

Concept: Cold Natured Woman on a Journey of Discovery

Flaw: Due to her young age Fraejia is naive about the reality of what lies out there.

Background:
Fraejia was born a very long time ago in comparison to most people, long enough that the exact number of years doesn't matter. She grew up an only child and showed great promise early on in control of her own abilities and interactions with others. She studied a great many topics growing up and learned each one quite well, everything from quantum mechanics to sociology and psychology of alien peoples. As is the custom among her people she was to leave on her first solo journey into the greater portion of reality and chose a fracturing society for her first foray beyond her home.

She was brought to the human colony on Alpha Centauri 2 and "dropped off" to begin her explorations and studies. She realized that her preparations were not as good as she thought very quickly when her credits were stolen shortly after arrival, a problem that she didn't realize until she tried to pay for her first meal. She found herself in a rather serious conundrum, particularly when she was accosted by a pair of police officers as she tried to leave. Unfortunately that didn't go very well as she reacted poorly to being manhandled and startled and froze one of the officers hands to his gun. Of course the other tried to shoot her and the bullet bounced from a briefly lived barrier of ice and hit him in the knee.

She quickly fled as now people were screaming and freaking out, some even trying to kill her. She managed to lose them in a docking bay when she got inside a convenient "box" and sealed the lid with a bit of ice from the inside. Exhausted from all of this, and rather scared of coming out she found herself drifting to sleep only to wake up aboard a ship going somewhere uninvited. She revealed herself and threw herself at the mercy of the crew agreeing to work with them to earn her passage. She's still there months later working with them and traveling the stars.

The background's a bit more detailed than probably preferred but it's not so set in stone that it can't be tweaked.


Dotting! I have a couple of ideas I'm contemplating. I've not played FATE on the boards before-- should be interesting!

Dark Archive

Shiny!

Character for Atlas2112

I realize we still have some phases to go through, but this should do as the framework upon which to slather mortar and aspects.

(I fully accept that I may need to change some things if large, glaring, and obvious shortcomings are pointed out. ;-)

Silver Crusade

I've got three concepts I'm developing, figure I'll be fine with any of them and it'll allow for me to fit in regardless of the party make up: the sardonic doctor, the accidental pilot, and the fixer (in the criminal sense, not the mechanical sense).


List of Current Applicants:
Choon - Sirus, best dang jerry rigger in space
Tedraine - Garnet Trace, cold, hard mercenary with a soft center
Delgar the Great - Dr. Dax Newgen, outlaw mad scientist
El Ronza - (Interested)
Lady Ladile - (Interested)
tomtesserae - Tavid Lostrosse Dewa Rappertone, navigator of a thousand faces
Melkain - Alonzo Merryweather, space brat
Atlas2112 - Anton Peray Merovach, pilot and techman
Drogeney - Fraejia, Cold Natured Woman on a Journey of Discovery
Isonaroc - (Interested)
Feth - (Interested)
Haladir - (Interested)

If I missed anyone, speak up and let me know. Also, I'm closing this for any new applicants tonight. If you have posted that you're interested, don't worry, you still have until Friday to get your concepts in.


List of Current Applicants:
Choon - Sirus, best dang jerry rigger in space
Tedraine - Garnet Trace, cold, hard mercenary with a soft center
Delgar the Great - Dr. Dax Newgen, outlaw mad scientist
El Ronza - Valerie Hills, snake oil saleswoman turned smuggler
Lady Ladile - (Interested)
tomtesserae - Tavid Lostrosse Dewa Rappertone, navigator of a thousand faces
Melkain - Alonzo Merryweather, space brat
Atlas2112 - Anton Peray Merovach, pilot and techman
Drogeney - Fraejia, Cold Natured Woman on a Journey of Discovery
Isonaroc - (Interested)
Feth - (Interested)
Haladir - (Interested)

Updated list. Just a reminder, there are less than 48 hours left if you want to apply. After that, I'll be making decisions.


Concept: Valerie Hills, snake oil saleswoman turned smuggler.

Background: Valerie Hills was born into the life of conning - her father travelled the cities of the border planets peddling curatives that were little more than tonic water and various herbs, but which looked just convincing enough to keep people convinced until he could move on. This was the lifestyle Valerie was raised in, helping her mother mix the oily tonics and pastilles, and eventually - after her father was forced to leave the two behind due to 'unforeseen circumstances' - inheriting the 'family business'. These days, Valerie's turned her attention to the more lucrative trade of smuggling, using her natural wit and charm to talk people into a sense of security for business, then using those same skills to unload her illicit goods.

Flaw: Tangled Webs: Valerie tends to talk in a rapid-fire staccato, and while she's very good at spinning lies, she isn't always good at keeping track of them. As such, she's likely to get caught in a web of her own deceit, and if not able to disengage a conversation soon enough, she's liable to royally put her foot in it.


Still here, still kinda working out a concept, but I think I'm finally hitting on something that might work...hopefully more info to come later tonight :)


Concept: Noreen Ellis, medic (?), jill-of-all-trades

Background: Up until relatively recently, Noreen was a citizen of Earth and worked as both a farmer and veterinarian on the family farm as well as doing occasional odd jobs in the area. Though it was a good life, boredom eventually began to set in and as Noreen approached her 30s, she made the decision to leave home and seek work elsewhere. Initially, she thought that joining the Earth's military would be a good way to see more of the galaxy as well as earn a paycheck and perhaps pick up some new skills. She was partly correct. Thanks to military and government bureaucracy, she found herself shuffled from assignment to assignment and doing everything from cooking to tech repair. It wasn't until an incident while on shore leave that Noreen found herself indebted to a crew of smugglers and now works aboard their ship as their official medic…although she never did get that training she’d been hoping for. But it's not as if trained medics and doctors are just lining up to get into the smuggling business so the crew can't afford to be especially choosy about who patches them up.

Flaw/Trouble: AWOL: She certainly hadn't planned to go AWOL from the military but it's funny how life works out, isn't it? On the other hand, it certainly makes settling into the life of a smuggler easier. After all, go big or go home.


List of Current Applicants:
Choon - Sirus, best dang jerry rigger in space
Tedraine - Garnet Trace, cold, hard mercenary with a soft center
Delgar the Great - Dr. Dax Newgen, outlaw mad scientist
El Ronza - Valerie Hills, snake oil saleswoman turned smuggler
Lady Ladile - Noreen Ellis, Jill-of-all-trades and medic
tomtesserae - Tavid Lostrosse Dewa Rappertone, navigator of a thousand faces
Melkain - Alonzo Merryweather, space brat
Atlas2112 - Anton Peray Merovach, pilot and techman
Drogeney - Fraejia, Cold Natured Woman on a Journey of Discovery
Isonaroc - (Interested)
Feth - (Interested)
Haladir - (Interested)

Twenty-seven and a half hours left to get your submissions in.


Aurora Borealis: Cult survivor turned Explorer

Background: Aurora was born on a small space station out in the proverbial middle of nowhere. The station was home to the Movement of the Hidden Skies. The group’s prophet proclaimed that humanity was in a secret war with hidden invaders from another galaxy and that the only way to survive was to keep to themselves. The children were raised in special isolated environments and trained for the role they were supposed to hold once the secret war was over and humanity had to rebuild itself from the ashes. Aurora is highly intelligent and was chosen to be a scholar, a living encyclopedia.

Taking a genius and forcing them to pour over the collected knowledge of humanity is not a great way to keep your lies hidden. Once Aurora realized it was a sham she started working to bring it down. Being kept isolated didn’t give her a lot of ways to prove what she knew. The computers in her room were her real connection to the rest of the station, so she taught herself how to hack into them.

Aurora collected evidence of the leadership’s duplicity; tithes being spent on secret luxuries, news from the outside being changed or doctored and on and on. The ‘invaders’ that attacked on a regular basis turned out to be a mercenary group hired to make the whole scam more convincing. When that last one was made public it sparked a riot. Angry survivors dumped the old leadership out an airlock and declared the Movement dead.

That was three years ago. The group’s been slowly rebuilding themselves ever since. They’re still quite isolated which is what drove Aurora out into the wide world. She wants to acquire more knowledge for the group; what’s going on with the rest of humanity, what new discoveries have been made etc. Aurora doesn’t follow a set path but wherever she goes, whatever she does, she always reports it back to her home station.

Flaws: Aurora’s had very little experience out in the real world. It makes her naive about many things. Her logic is also very unusual. At best it means people see her as weird/odd/crazy. At worst she’s getting in trouble because “You can’t really own something, the particles that make it up are as old as the universe, it’s been a million things already and it’ll be another million after we’re dead, we’re all ephemeral” is not the kind of argument that gets you out of jail. But she’ll be absolutely mystified when it doesn’t work.


List of Current Applicants:
Choon - Sirus, best dang jerry rigger in space
Tedraine - Garnet Trace, cold, hard mercenary with a soft center
Delgar the Great - Dr. Dax Newgen, outlaw mad scientist
El Ronza - Valerie Hills, snake oil saleswoman turned smuggler
Lady Ladile - Noreen Ellis, Jill-of-all-trades and medic
tomtesserae - Tavid Lostrosse Dewa Rappertone, navigator of a thousand faces
Melkain - Alonzo Merryweather, space brat
Atlas2112 - Anton Peray Merovach, pilot and techman
Drogeney - Fraejia, Cold Natured Woman on a Journey of Discovery
Isonaroc - (Interested)
Feth - Aurora Borealis, Cult survivor turned Explorer
Haladir - (Interested)

I have to admit, I laughed when I read Aurora's flaw. :)


I laughed, too. What a stellar character! (And hi, Feth! :D)


And we have 22 hours to go, just about.

Silver Crusade

Work got insane, ended up not getting off until well after midnight. I have a write up, just need to post it. I'll do that when I get home.


Yikes. Hope you can sleep after that kind of a shift. I'm looking forward to seeing what you have come up with.

Dark Archive

Looking forward to the selections!!


Looking forward to the selections as well; there's some great players and ideas here so I think the game will be a blast no matter who gets picked! :)

(P.S. Out of curiosity, how many players will be selected?)


6 or 7 I'm currently telling myself that I don't need to try a new system with eight, but I think I'm losing that battle.


Four hours left before this is over.

Dark Archive

2 people marked this as a favorite.

One quick thing: This is a actually a really strong showing for a non-Path system. It's not uncommon for an alternative system to fail to get 6 full submissions.

Okay, two things:

Mal, Wash, Zoe, 'Nara, Jayne, Book, Tam, Tam, Frye. Some would say good things happen at 9. ;-p

Okay, three things:

"Confound it, Feth, are we going over this again? It's -Time-. Time makes everything tangible to all beings at a particular intersection. Look, can two objects occupy the same space at the same time? No they can't, or else we wouldn't have to worry about flying through a star or bouncing too close to a super-nova. Hence, we have temporal-compliant laws saying that one particular creature gets exclusive rights to an object at this particular intersection along the time-space continuum. By the 'Verse you got some strange notions, girl. Where'd you learn to think like that?"


Less than three hours left.

And That's pretty dang funny, Atlas.

Tangent on FTL stuffs:

The way I was planning on having FTL work was that you'd jump into and out of hyperspace at Lagrangian points. This has the effect of making it easy to defend the points near places of interest, but since a system may have hundreds of these points, it's nearly impossible to defend them all. (There are five for each major body in the system.) Of course, there's also the option of dropping out way in the Oort Cloud or interstellar space, but that's generally not a good option unless you're looking to lie low for a bit, or something goes wrong because you neglected to do basic maintenance. That said, you really don't have to worry about stars and supernovas since you're in a wormhole that's unaffected by the universe you're bypassing.

Sorry, I geeked out a bit.


And this is closed. I'll be posting my decision later tonight.

List of Applicants:
Choon - Sirus, best dang jerry rigger in space
Tedraine - Garnet Trace, cold, hard mercenary with a soft center
Delgar the Great - Dr. Dax Newgen, outlaw mad scientist
El Ronza - Valerie Hills, snake oil saleswoman turned smuggler
Lady Ladile - Noreen Ellis, Jill-of-all-trades and medic
tomtesserae - Tavid Lostrosse Dewa Rappertone, navigator of a thousand faces
Melkain - Alonzo Merryweather, space brat
Atlas2112 - Anton Peray Merovach, pilot and techman
Drogeney - Fraejia, Cold Natured Woman on a Journey of Discovery
Feth - Aurora Borealis, Cult survivor turned Explorer


Okay, that didn't take as long as I thought it would. Thank you to everyone that applied. I hope things go well for you guys that didn't make it. To those that did...

Congratulations!
Choon - Sirus, best dang jerry rigger in space
Delgar the Great - Dr. Dax Newgen, outlaw mad scientist
El Ronza - Valerie Hills, snake oil saleswoman turned smuggler
Lady Ladile - Noreen Ellis, Jill-of-all-trades and medic
tomtesserae - Tavid Lostrosse Dewa Rappertone, navigator of a thousand faces
Atlas2112 - Anton Peray Merovach, pilot and techman
Feth - Aurora Borealis, Cult survivor turned Explorer

If your name's on the list, pop on over to the gameplay thread and post a dot. Then go to the discussion thread so we can get this party started.

Gameplay Thread
Discussion Thread

Honestly, if I thought I could get away with it, I'd run two games, but that has never really worked out for me, and I really want this to succeed. I hope you guys find something to scratch that sci-fi itch, and thanks for applying here.


Thanks Salsa!

Silver Crusade

Was literally unable to get home until now, I hate my job sometimes. Boo... :-(

Quote:
Yikes. Hope you can sleep after that kind of a shift. I'm looking forward to seeing what you have come up with.

Yeah, I'm sorta used to it. It tends to hit the fan a lot in my job...like today I spent five hours at the hospital arguing with administration with nothing to show for it.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber

Grats to ya'll, have a good time.

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