[PBP Gameday VII] GM Red's The Scoured Stars Invasion Special (Inactive)

Game Master GM Red

Dot!

Let's do this!

Digital Dot.

Hey guys! Just checking in. Are we all ready for lift-off on Monday?

If so, can you please fill out your SFS details on Slide #2?

Done!

Ready and reporting for duty!

Hey guys, kuey here! Great to have the team back. Unfortunately, Poppilo is already level 3. I could bring back Davrin who’s level two but we’ve already got an operative. Or I could bring Speck, my L1 technomancer.

It looks like we've actually got two operatives already! I didn't notice that before. I'd be glad to bring Chikasa (Technomancer 2) or Gamuzali (Solarian 1) instead.

The ysoki always tinkering and rarely caring who he knocks into stumbles through the door toting around NIL. "Sowegoing...toblow...ISHUp...orwhat?"

Ehdd is here. It may take a bit to remember wtf he does... Other than make Faraeon eat his dust.

(This is kuey.)

Alright, since I'm playing Davrin in another incarnation (a campaign mode game), I've decided to bring Speck Zezener, my cynical cybernetic-crazed ysoki who secretly has a heart of gold. Level 1 technomancer. Unfortunately, he's in a Commencement game but should be ending in a couple of days. Is the GM ok with that?

Yup, fine with me!

Cool! Well since Ehdd is here, Faraeon definitely won't want to miss the opportunity to put him in his place. :D

Double the Operatives, double the fun!

Slotted Boons

Ally: Basic Hireling Access (Set 3: Culture, Medicine, Survival)
Faction: Second Seekers Champion
Social: Faction’s Friend
Slotless: Marked Field Agent; Star Sugar Heartlove!!!

Just a quick heads up. Starting Friday 17-Aug until Tuesday 21-Aug my internet connection is going to be spotty. I expect to get in a morning and an evening post, but likely only that.

Slotted Boons

Ally: None
Faction: Exo-Guardian's Champion (2 Fame)
Personal: None
Promotional: None
Social: Faction's Friend
Starship: Automated Defenses
Slotless: Tattoo of the Starfinder, Marked Field Agent, Star Sugar Heartlove!

.... And we're back. Thanks for your patience everyone. I think that may have been the longest I've gone without PbP in years.

If you find it easier/faster, feel free to roll multiple Engineering checks, and indicate multiple places where you'd like to move the ship with numbers added to the map.

Here, but on mobile until tomorrow. Feel free to bot in order to retake momentum from the black out.

Oh ya, my boons. Did the description say anything about a specific Faction?

Ally:
Faction: Exoguardians
Personal:
Promotional:
Social: Faction's Friend
Starship:
Slotless: Elixir of Renewal

Second Seekers (Luwazi Elsebo)!

Ok. Ehdd will spend 2 fame then to pick that boon up then and slot it!

Swirsz is busy today but has told me he should have time to post this evening.

Guys, in the interest of keeping this moving (since it's time-restricted), I'd love to implement the 24 hour rule. If you don't have some simple botting instructions with rolls in your profile, could you please add them?

When botting Ehdd, be sure to use a voice from a TV show from the 60-90s.

Ratatatat will use his combat knife doing his best subdue these guys. grenade was just to soften them up ;)

The speed at which this special has been moving is crazy. Wish we had a little more time versus having to jump around.

Anyway! Can you guys roll for boons? 19 or 20 wins, roll a d2 if so and see what you get.

GM Red boon: 1d20 ⇒ 4

Yeah, the pace has been nuts! Too bad all the delays and outages caused so much compression. Oh well, it's still a pretty cool special. Seems like a lot of really big events are going down!

Boon roll: 1d20 ⇒ 8

No luck this time!

Boon?: 1d20 ⇒ 19 Yay!
1d2 ⇒ 2

Boon: 1d20 ⇒ 31d2 ⇒ 2

Boon: 1d20 ⇒ 4

Reading through that announcement it seems we can either choose to pilot a ship and fight or fight as a group in melee.

I'd think that we'd be better suited for ship combat with our skills. I know Ehdd would chose this option!

Agreed

In case I lost track, did we decide on our ship roles? If no one is doing it, Speck will take Science Officer, as computers (+9) is his best skill. He can do engineer (+8) though if we don't have that as I feel that is more critical.

Eevee will opt for pilot.

Captain Ehdd!

Think we only have 5, and Fareon and Ratatat are likely to be gunners (blowing away things is always good), that leaves Speck to play both engineer and science officer. If so, then the first round, Speck will play science officer to scan the enemy. Later if we get damaged, he'll switch over to engineering.

I'll gun and let Eevee pilot.

BOON: 1d20 ⇒ 5
Jackpot?: 1d2 ⇒ 2

Yup, I can definitely take a gun. If needed, I can serve as a backup Engineer.

Aid Token: During this encounter, tables can use an Aid Token to fire the damaged transport’s weapons (the gunnery check bonus is equal to 4 + 1-1/2 × the ship’s tier) during the gunnery phase. On a success, the target enemy vessel takes 2d8 damage per tier of the PCs’ starship.

Can we get that Piloting roll, Eevee?

Gunnery can probably roll as well after the Drake moves, and you can go ahead and use the Aid Token as well.

A second look at the map and text in the scenario, and my map shows I messed up positioning. There's supposed to be a transport on the map, in addition to your ship. Argh! The transport is what's being attacked, not the mega carrier. I guess that was the reason for Eevee's question.

Well, I'm going to drop it in now and go from there. Apologies for my mistake.

Is the aid token one shot or one combat?

aka: Do I get to blast again?

Don't worry about it. I messed up the tier of the PCs ship at my table. Life is busy, mistakes happen!

Who's up? I believe the Pilot?

... Seriously?

I try to maintain a level head, but man, that was lame as hell.

I know the whole thing can seem quite frustrating and this special's timeline got borked around due to the outages. Though it would have still felt the same. The successes per area were lowered with the timeline so it took far less successes. That is why the areas closed so quickly.

Normally you would have required 10 successes instead of the six.

That and folks did a really good job splitting off evenly to areas. this end phase had a really good chance of ending early due to that, which it did by a day.

Overall it is a mission success. Unfortunately we can't extend these out by 3-4 weeks which would be nice. this is definitely a scenario that could easily be played 2-3 times to be able to see everything.

The way these are designed for Play-by-post is that we break it down to every six minutes is = to 1 day of Play-by-Post as we need to keep that sense of urgency.

Hope this explains it a bit better and in more detail.

Thanks Tyranius. I think the outages lead to a lot of frustration for all of us. For me personally, I'm frustrated because I felt it moved fast enough that I could not appreciate the story or journey, and if I felt that way, the players may have too.

Having to jump from one mission to another because of successes was also pretty jarring, but I suppose that's the nature of specials.

I spoke to Hmm about this and I think it's a matter of this particular special having more content than any one table could ever hope to complete. Sorry if I came off too strong in my review.

No you are fine. That is what it is for. :). This particular special had way more than any one table could hope to complete in a single play through.

That is why we made the decision as well to stick out your missions instead of hopping or it would have been far worse.

Specials are always a bit more chaotic. Toss on in and out outages and you have chaos. Everyone did a fantastic job and had a hand in accomplishing this missions and special. This was definitely a difficult scenario with so many space combats and even a vehicle chase!

Thanks for all the hard work on both your ends. Whirlwind is an accurate description.

Guys, I’ll have your chronicle sheets ready by this evening.

Starting writing them up.. And then realized I need Day Jobs. Can you guys roll 'em for me, and finish filling out any other details (some are missing Factions) on this grid? Thanks.

Also, will anyone have 2 XP or fewer after earning this chronicle sheet? (+1 XP) There's a boon on the sheet requiring this condition.