[SFS] GM Blake's Session 0 (Inactive)

Game Master Blake's Tiger

Yeah, the main reason I suggested I might be captain is that I really can't do anything else. I will be maxing Diplomacy and Intimidate, but I won't have any other ship-related skills. Further, I have a 10 Dex and +0 BAB, meaning I won't be much on guns, either.

Who is going to be a good pilot? Could Antenor spare points, or is someone else going to be maxing that?

Have we all checked in here? I have a pretty good backstory coming together in my mind. GM Blake, do you want to give us a date to have stories finished up so we have something to shoot for? Any short questionnaire or otherwise you want us to answer?

Everyone has checked in, but I think I'm missing 1 character and/or concept.

I'll be posting a few aids to make sure the team is balanced in the near future.

EDIT: Figured it out. I kept confusing Chris and Valen's concepts,

I decided Lors deserved her own alias - haven't finished equipment for her, but I'll have that wrapped up later tonight.

I'll go pilot. If you max out Diplomacy, I'll stick to Intimidate and Bluff. This works, I'm digging it!

I'll buy equipment tomorrow!

Skill Spreadsheet

Fill this out so that I and your fellow players know what skills are covered and which are not.

EDIT: More than one person can go in each cell.

Skill Spreadsheet

Fill this out so that I and your fellow players know what skills are covered and which are not.

EDIT: More than one person can go in each cell.

This is THE most excellent example of RULE #15 that I have ever seen! :-)

My character concept of a former lawman was looking duplicative skillwise and perhaps a bit difficult to fit into this group without drifting towards ideas already covered by Lors, so I think I will be bringing a gentleman thief to the table. An operative thief or spy also should fill the main party "gaps" and make an adequate gunner.

Maybe, play off a Lando vibe, where my character used to own the ship or a stake and is trying to get it back/get a controlling share. Maybe Steve's tribe stole it from my PC originally. Anyways, I kind of love the idea of most of the party each thinking that he is the true, rightful owner of the ship.

Will need a couple of days to finalize stats.

GM Blake wrote:

Skill Spreadsheet

Fill this out so that I and your fellow players know what skills are covered and which are not.

EDIT: More than one person can go in each cell.

This is THE most excellent example of RULE #15 that I have ever seen! :-)

Heh...that list was well-done. Lots of eternal role-playing truths in that list. It should be codified.

I was thinking we were looking pretty good on skill distribution, but play what you want, Valen.

Seems as though everthing is in order so far. On to ship building or do folks still have some stuff to work out?

Since character design has settled down, go ahead and start building the ship.

I posted some general guidelines and a link to the SRD on Starship Building.

I'm ready for ship building. Antenor is ready for play and equipment has been purchased.

So naming a PC is extremely hard. Naming a ship must be even harder... Do we steal it from literature or film? Do we do something original? Do we make it self-referencing? Something else? I'll throw out some ideas, but I won't take it personally if they're shot down:

1. Hunter's Bounty
2. Drang's Pursuit
3. Starstone Argos
4. Hammerhead
5. Blake's Revenge

I'd love to build one from scratch, but if that is too time consuming for us, I don't mind starting off with a pre-fab ship.

I love this sorta stuff so I can whip up something. The frames that the SFS uses and generally designed as the PC ships (Medium Transport or Explorer), or we could go with something with a little more chonk (Large Freighter) but we would likely not be as heavily armed.

I'm a fan of building our own ship. I suppose we should finalize how we acquired it. If I won it, I'm sure I would have named it something like #1 or #4. I like both of those.

But if we earned it some other way, it could have a different name.

As for the mechanics of the ship, I'd hate to go too light on armament for more HP. I'd vote for something in between.

Here is my gentleman spy/thief PC. When he owned the ship, I'm sure it was initially named something like #3 (and he probably still refers the ship as such) ; )

Possible chain of ownership:

1. Rril owned the ship and lost it gambling (a la Lando).
2. This unknown person lost it to goblin pirates (Steve either one of them or stowed away).
3. Bounty Hunter competition bought "on the cheap" the ship after the goblins were through with it (except for Steve). Steve thinks he owns the ship...I think he came with the ship to fix stuff.
4. I won the ship in the competition that made me a minor celebrity. I've given out equal ownership shares of the ship for anyone willing to partner with me, since I can't operate it at all. Steve came with the ship. Rril took the chance to get even a share of ownership back, hoping he could get the whole ship again someday. The rest of you signed on.

Anyone else want a piece of contested ownership? Thoughts?

After having a quick gander, it's basically impossible to have a Tier 1 large ship anyway. Both Large frames cost 40BP each, and the cheapest Large Powercore is 15 BP... so you'd have to not have engines, nor any sort of armaments/upgrades, to fit within the 55 BP limit.

(Almost seems intentionally prohibitive to force PCs into Medium ships, which are the size of the Falcon, Serenity, or similar "adventuring" ships.)

Personally, my go-to is the Transport. Only 3 BP more than the Explorer, gets an extra turret, a forward heavy weapon, an extra expansion bay, more HP and more CT. It is less maneuverable (Turn 2 instead of turn 1), but I think it's worth it.

So my proposal is something like this:
Transport Frame - 15BP
Pulse Gray Power Core - 10BP - +100PCU
Signal Basic Drift Engine - 6BP
M6 Thrusters - 3BP - -50PCU
Good Crew Quarters - 2BP
Basic Shields 30 - 4BP - -15PCU
Budget Short-range Sensors - 2BP
Basic Computer - 0BP
Twin-Linked Light Laser Cannon (Turret) - 5 BP - -10PCU
Heavy Laser Cannon (Front) - 8 BP - -10PCU

Total BP: 55/55, Total PCU: 85/100

I made it so we had 2 guns, since I forsee having 2 gunners. It's pretty light on AC/TL boosts, but the shields are pretty tough, and the armament is nothing to sneeze at. The turret gun could be dropped down to single-light laser to save 3 BP to put elsewhere (Better engines, for example).

Thoughts?

That looks like a pretty sweet ride. :)

Looks good to me :)

Rril would prefer it be faster, but I think it's a good build.

We could downgrade the twinlinks to a single and upgrade the thrusters to M10, if our pilot thinks he can handle that much ship ;)

I'm not sure Lors can handle that little gun :-p

Ship looks great to me!

Nicely done!

Good work. That was a much smoother ship building process than I anticipated. :)

Now, here's the situation. I'm working pretty intensely from 12/15 through 12/22, and then I'm traveling for the holidays until 12/31. The scenario starts in media res, so if I start the AP early--this Monday--we'd likely be slowing for a week and breaking after that without necessarily finishing the encounter. I.e. the scenario itself does not offer a social introduction.

Your options are:

1. Start the AP as written and break when your GM needs to break even though it might be in the middle of a high stakes encounter.
2. Start in the preceding days in the Drift before the encounter to let you guys RP with each other at your leisure.
3. Do nothing and stick to the start in January because everyone is busy during the holidays.

Let me know your thoughts.

I think starting in the Drift is the best option for everyone. Less pressure on the GM, and if we decide we're done RPing for the moment, we can simply break there rather than, as you said, in the middle of an encounter.

Definitely #2, but I'm good with any.

#2 seems like the best compromise :-)

I'm good with 2. My posting will be quite limited, if not cease entirely, between 12/20 and around 1/3.

I'm fine with #2, since we'll all likely be low-posting during that time period.

I am also fine with #2 to keep the momentum going.

The main campaign hand outs have slides for your ship details. Not sure what you decided on for a name for the ship. :)

I added the 0 BP cargo bay for you since, you know, you're hauling cargo.

I'll be opening the main campaign momentarily.

Possible chain of ownership:

1. Rril owned the ship and lost it gambling (a la Lando).
2. This unknown person lost it to goblin pirates (Steve either one of them or stowed away).
3. Bounty Hunter competition bought "on the cheap" the ship after the goblins were through with it (except for Steve). Steve thinks he owns the ship...I think he came with the ship to fix stuff.
4. I won the ship in the competition that made me a minor celebrity. I've given out equal ownership shares of the ship for anyone willing to partner with me, since I can't operate it at all. Steve came with the ship. Rril took the chance to get even a share of ownership back, hoping he could get the whole ship again someday. The rest of you signed on.

Anyone else want a piece of contested ownership? Thoughts?

Well, this concept seems to tie together all of the thoughts about the ship. Do we want to go with this idea?

If so, I would probably have named it Hunter's Bounty (though perhaps Rril has a different name he used to call it, and maybe Steve does, too!).

Any other thoughts on the ship?

Hunter's Bounty!

Sydevenik's Dream (at least that is what Rril calls it.)

Hey man I just work here!

In all seriousness, I like that there's a bunch of different names and history to go with the ship. Hunter's Bounty as the current name is great. :)

I am good with Hunter's Bounty.

Merry Christmas, all! I know things slow down during the holidays here, but I hope all are doing well and we'll see you on the other side.

Merry Christmas :)

I hope everyone had a good vacation. I'm back to work and ready to start whenever GM Blake says we can. :)

The plan is to begin tomorrow: Jan 3. :)

Wooo!!!

With the campaign proper starting, will this thread close?

I'm starting to worry we didn't indicate a year for Jan 3. ;P

Yes, I'm sending out reminders, although I am beginning to worry it is something more significant for Fireclaw.

@ Haro - It appears that you haven't yet checked in over at the campaign thread where we've begun droning.

Heh, yes, Haro is one of our missing people.

Go here. :)

Okay, thanks for sending the thread! I hadn't seen any updates to the thread and didn't see a link.

SORRY!

Hello all, I am to happily step in to replace FireclawDrake.

Colonist or Trader character.

Since he was playing a Technomancer I can do the same (unless someone else has a Technomancer, in which case I can play whatever class you wish for).

Never played a Ghoran or tree before, but could if needed, I think I'd go for another race.

Any skills or spells or whatever to aim for for party balance.

(I'll try to read all the posts asap to create w. this in mind).

Thanks for having me!