Start making out-of-game posts here.
So, the most recent version of the setting is HERE. All the changes and new material we've discussed are in green, along with other changes and material I've made on my own.
If you're so inclined, I'd really appreciate it if you'd give the green sections a look-over, and let me know if you see anything that's imbalanced, thanks! And if you think everything's ok, please let me know that, too.
This is the current official setting rules. For now. ;) So at least download it for reference.
Theringer said : "I could argue that the game economy can be whatever GM wants it to be and a job that would catch 4000 credits now is worth 5000 so we can pay the tax, which is just markup to justify the skim off the top and we wouldn't be the wiser so why do it, but I won't."
Every space ship setting typically deals with the expense of running the ship, so while I could just make the job $4000, I'm sure some future user of the system would say "But what about fuel? Maintenance?" etc. So I have to explicitly make the job pay $5000 and take that 20% to account for the running costs, so now you get $4000. It's so the players and GM know that those costs are being accounted for. Make sense?
Changes look fine to me. Thanks for putting this together!
Theringer said : "I could argue that the game economy can be whatever GM wants it to be and a job that would catch 4000 credits now is worth 5000 so we can pay the tax, which is just markup to justify the skim off the top and we wouldn't be the wiser so why do it, but I won't."
Every space ship setting typically deals with the expense of running the ship, so while I could just make the job $4000, I'm sure some future user of the system would say "But what about fuel? Maintenance?" etc. So I have to explicitly make the job pay $5000 and take that 20% to account for the running costs, so now you get $4000. It's so the players and GM know that those costs are being accounted for. Make sense?
Like I said, I won't argue. This implies that we have the choice to not pay certain fees, invoices, etc, or to try to weasel our way out of them. Not that we would do such a thing but it's nice to have options.
Looks good to me.
Should there be different range categories of missions? Ariel to Whitefall is a hell of a longer trip than Ariel to Persephone.
For people that haven't watched the show in a bit, the Verse as known to the Alliance is a star cluster making up a few different solar systems all orbiting each other.
Discovered by scientists in 2020, 34Tauri(2020) is a star cluster, of the likes of the triple star system Alpha Centauri. It consists of five main sequence stars, around which orbit seven protostars, seven gas giants, three separate asteroid belts, seventy-five planets, and one hundred forty-nine moons.[1] Four of the main sequence stars orbit a central star.
The biggest in the center is White Sun, and the inner system is the core of the Alliance. The Border region around the White Sun System is Georgia and Red Sun, and then furthest out are the Rim stars, Kalidasa and Blue Sun.
I'd probably break it down as:
5% Stationary missions (only expense is getting to or from the job)
10% Local missions (all on one planet or between a planet and its moon)
20% System missions (between one planet and another in the same system)
30% Intersystemic missions (from a planet orbiting one star to a planet orbiting another).
20% might represent a typical System range job, while a long range job might take 30%, while a short range job only takes 10%. Of course, that brings up the can of worms that not all jobs are equal. Hauling something expensive like Nutrient Bars or livestock from core systems out to a rim planet might be worth it, but the margins for hauling potatoes would not likely be as good.
I like details, and getting lost in the weeds a bit sometimes, so I might even prefer a set of details setting cost for given routes. Potatoes might be fine going local distances, but the cost of going long range might be high enough that we need a better cargo to make it worth it.
Let me know if you'd all rather keep it simple, but I kind of like the idea of perhaps choosing certain missions because the margins are better.
Route Travel time (days)
Core ↔ Core
Core ↔ Border (either way)
Core ↔ Rim (either way)
Border ↔ Border
Border ↔ Rim (either way)
Rim ↔ Rim3d4–2
3d6
3d6+2
3d8–2
3d8
3d10–2
It could even be a set cost/day representing food, fuel and maintenance, though exiting a planet's gravity would likely be the biggest fuel use, so a cost per landing/exit would also make sense. I like the idea of the random travel times, as because of orbits, different planets might be closer or further any than other times, or require detours around gas giants, etc.
I like the setting. It reminds me of an idea I had a few years ago; a central core world orbits a black hole. Yes, I stole this part of the idea from Miller's World on Interstellar. A bad movie, imo, but fantastic science, although the Nolan brothers mutilated parts of it. Miller's world would have been tidally locked; part of its atmosphere would have actually been inside Gargantua's event horizon!
Anyway, I thought, what if a planet like Miller's World was inhabited by an extremely wealthy civilization, structured such that the closer you live to Zenith - the pole facing the black hole - the higher your social stature, and also the slower time moves for you relative to everywhere else. Beyond this planet exists a system of periphery worlds that are all little factories that feed Zenith. The lives of periphery inhabitants equate to a few weeks of life for a citizen of Zenith.
The story is about a brother and sister from a periphery world who get separated by one's ambition and eventually one ends up on Zenith and they are separated increasingly not only by distance but by perception of time.
Anyway. The pdf looks good. Military Vest gives me something else to invest Debt-cash in. Regarding Vacc suits, can we tart the game with 2 of these for the ship? Seems like a standard item. Also, I assume we all have ident cards and don't need to acquire them.
I have questions re: Space travel but I'll put them into a new post.
My read of the rules for Space Travel is that each raise on either the Astrogation or Piloting rolls reduces travel time by 1 day. Perry is d8 and d10, respectively, so he can expect 1 raise about a third of the time, an insubstantial benefit.
The biggest influence on travel time is dicebot. Core to Core range is 1-10 days, while Rim to Rim is 1-28 days! I think we need to be able to be more deterministic when looking for jobs. Unless the Travel Time is rolled when the job is created so we know it in advance, but I wouldn't want to put the profitability of the job on a random chance. In that respect I disagree with part of Able's comments above.
Also, why shouldn't we be able to choose to fail the Astrogation roll, or to skip it altogether? If we're trying to escape certain death, I'll take my chances, right?
Funny, I actually enjoyed Interstellar. It has it's problems, but I still liked it.
As far as space travel goes, I'm going to keep myself out of that conversation. I've been on the Atomic Rockets website too much and we already build automated cargo spacecraft. I know myself and I'll be trying to twist the setting into something that isn't Firefly because Firefly as a hard SF setting makes no sense.
Perry, I think you mistook my intent. We should be able to look at the time a job would require ahead of time, since it deals with known, predictable orbits.
"We need to go from Ariel to Angel? Oh, that should take about:
days at this time of year. Perry may be able to knock that down to 10 or 11 if he can find us a good gravity sling. Since travel costs us about x per day, expenses on this job should be ~11x, meaning we'd make Total-11x in profit if we took it."
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Perry, I think you mistook my intent. We should be able to look at the time a job would require ahead of time, since it deals with known, predictable orbits.
"We need to go from Ariel to Angel? Oh, that should take about:
[dice=Core ↔ Border (either way)]3d6
days at this time of year. Perry may be able to knock that down to 10 or 11 if he can find us a good gravity sling. Since travel costs us about x per day, expenses on this job should be ~11x, meaning we'd make Total-11x in profit if we took it."
Completely agree. As long as we know the travel time in advance of deciding whether to take the job, I have no concerns.
And I'm not advocating for a more substantial benefit from a raise on space travel rolls. Established routes are what they are, although it might make for drama and profit to "take a chance" that a "shortcut" exists. Like, "If we can thread the needle between that planet and that star, we can cut this trip in half, but we have to commit to it and take our chances that we fall into a gravity well and get flung into deep space, doubling trip time instead."
This would make space travel more interesting, and create rp such as, "And there's a bonus in it for you if you can get there in half the time." Or, "I know this job can't be done by just anyone, that's why it pays so well. You willing to take the risk?" Or, "This batch of antivirus expires in six days, and it's a 10 day trip to planet X. If you don't get there in time everybody dies. Can you do it?"
Suuuuure. (warming up Astrogation die roll...)
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I changed my edges, adding Captain but also Luck and Great Luck. I may change Astrogation and Shooting yet depending on if any changes come about as a result of this latest space travel discussion. Otherwise I'm ready to go.
Also, this map looks like a good one, no?
I think that's the official map. My amateur-astronomer tells me that isn't exactly a stable configuration, but as I said, I'm trying (and apparently failing) to stay out of discussing the setting.
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That map does look good, yes.
That does bring up one caveat with the travel time. If both origin and destination are within the same system, that should be a short trip, yeah?
Like, a trip from, just to pick an example, Angel to Heaven would keep us in the Black Tortoise system, but could hardly be called a Rim-to-Rim trip, yeah?
I think that's the official map. My amateur-astronomer tells me that isn't exactly a stable configuration, but as I said, I'm trying (and apparently failing) to stay out of discussing the setting.
I think it is not as outlandish as you might think. I think it was modeled on the Alpha Centari system, which is apparently two smaller stars orbiting a bigger central star. And if a large planet like Jupiter can orbit the sun while maintaining its own gaggle of satellite moons, then why could not a small sun manage the same? It brings up questions about the goldilocks zone (enough heat/light but not too much), in that if White-Sun is big enough to have other suns orbiting it, how does it not fry the planets of the central system? But that could probably be hand waved with the original Terraforming that took place: The atmospheres of the inner planets were created with the intent of reflecting enough excess heat to allow an earth-like surface temperature.
That map does look good, yes.
That does bring up one caveat with the travel time. If both origin and destination are within the same system, that should be a short trip, yeah?
Like, a trip from, just to pick an example, Angel to Heaven would keep us in the Black Tortoise system, but could hardly be called a Rim-to-Rim trip, yeah?
Agreed.
Don't really have time to really get into it, but part of the problem is that even small stars are so mind-bogglingly massive compared to Jupiter that they would be far more disruptive to planetary orbits. Also, multiple star systems tend to have complex orbits, like two stars in a close binary that is orbiting a third, more massive star, or like Alpha Centauri where you have two G type stars in a fairly close binary with an M type star in a distant orbit.
It's also not helpful that there's no distances put on the map. It's possible that the stars are spread out enough to keep the system from turning into gravity slingshot central, but there's no way to know for sure.
Joss Whedon probably would have laughed at the idea that someone would come along and try to make a roleplaying game out of his show and apply rules to his universe. At the end of the day space travel is merely a driver for the game economy and not as important as the story or the characters. I wouldn't mind more nuance but we'll probably hand waive it most of the time.
I'm not going to argue that. It's one of the reasons I was trying, and failing, to keep my thoughts to myself.
Don't really have time to really get into it, but part of the problem is that even small stars are so mind-bogglingly massive compared to Jupiter that they would be far more disruptive to planetary orbits. Also, multiple star systems tend to have complex orbits, like two stars in a close binary that is orbiting a third, more massive star, or like Alpha Centauri where you have two G type stars in a fairly close binary with an M type star in a distant orbit.
It's also not helpful that there's no distances put on the map. It's possible that the stars are spread out enough to keep the system from turning into gravity slingshot central, but there's no way to know for sure.
That's essentially the point I was trying to (clumsily) make. The central star would have to be massive to have smaller stars orbiting it, which stretches the plausibility of having habitable planets in the inner core (depending on the kind of star and its output).
Of course, the lack of scale is another issue that could be used to explain it in some fashion, where the distances involved mean the outer stars only orbit in a technical sense (with a barycenter outside the entire core system), and might take tens of thousands of years to complete a full circuit. In day to day terms, the systems might basically always be in the same relative positions.
At the end of the day, it is fiction, but doesn't automatically breach my suspension of disbelief.
In setting, I suppose we'd just say that, yes, it is unlikely to occur or be stable, but that's why the unique area was chosen by Earth-that-was.
Joss Whedon probably would have laughed at the idea that someone would come along and try to make a roleplaying game out of his show and apply rules to his universe. At the end of the day space travel is merely a driver for the game economy and not as important as the story or the characters. I wouldn't mind more nuance but we'll probably hand waive it most of the time.
You mean Star Trek doesn't use accurate star charts, and instead uses the Speed of Plot? Say it ain't so!
You mean Star Trek doesn't use accurate star charts, and instead uses the Speed of Plot? Say it ain't so!Joss Whedon probably would have laughed at the idea that someone would come along and try to make a roleplaying game out of his show and apply rules to his universe. At the end of the day space travel is merely a driver for the game economy and not as important as the story or the characters. I wouldn't mind more nuance but we'll probably hand waive it most of the time.
I was thinking of a Star Trek fan convention when I wrote that. Then I thought of Chris Farley interviewing Paul McCartney. Yeah, Joss Whedon probably did imagine nerds like us would try to apply rules to his universe.
Also, Gameplay is up.
Yes it is! Seems like we're missing a few players yet from the Recruitment thread.
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@Perry: Hope you don't mind, but I stole Taro and Mr. Wallace for the reason why Mark's signing up for your crew. After all, if you are on his good side, he has to have a bad side, right?
I used Debt as my background as well. I think i will rethink, as there should be at least some variety in our backgrounds.
No debt here, just thought it'd be a neat tie in to have his previous employer/captain be one of the unlucky souls that Taro from Perry's background had to have Mr. Wallace pay a visit. Honestly, Mark doesn't know who they are other than the names and that they are bad news. More of an easter egg than anything.
Absolutely! Taro Afar is one of those characters who is limitlessly charming in person but off-screen all manner of horrible things are attributed to him. He is modeled after General Cherrystone from Gregory Maguire's Wicked series. Suffice to say you do not want to meet Mister Wallace when he's working.
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I know physics and astronomy very well, and when I first heard of how the 'verse was organized, my mind completely rebelled at it. There's no way 5 suns can be in that close an orbit without flinging planets (and themselves) away in less than 1000 years. I even toyed with the idea of making the 'verse a couple of dozen light-years across (a very small "open cluster" of stars), and having actual FTL drives, but I figured that players who were die-hard fans would object.
BTW, I use THIS MAP of the 'verse, which has a scale in the upper right corner. According to this, the 'verse is about 8 times the diameter of our solar system, if you include Pluto. But stars have to be at least a couple of light years apart to not influence each other gravitationally. But that would mean in the 'verse as it is, that the orbits of the outer suns would be many hundreds of years, which doesn't fit well with the next paragraph.
Regarding travel times, I think the dice rolls in the setting are ok. There are 2 suns that are in the same orbit in the Border, and 2 in the Rim, so if the die roll is small, the suns happen to be near each other. If the die roll is big, the suns happen to be opposite each other at the time.
I can tell some of you are die-hard fans, so I hope you'll forgive me if I don't name the planets you're going to, just what region they're in, and the amount of Alliance presence on them.
At the suggestion of someone else, I slightly revamped from shell shocked combat medic, to a fighter type, with first aid abilities.
(mokshai)
I will always include Pluto. We'll never know, but if it has a liquid water core then it likely has life. Pluto may be the third-most important object in the Solar System for what it means to our understanding of the universe.
I actually like the definition of a planet that was proposed recently.
And yeah, Pluto isn't just a planet, but a double planet.
For the ship name, we have 2 votes for Stargazer and 2 votes for Vagabond or [Something] Vagabond. Who wants to break the tie?
Stargazer seems the most appropriate.
Hey guys, might be radio silent for a day or two.
Mark - when you come back, I'd like to hear what the most recent definition of a planet is...
So, many questions and issues were raised at the beginning of Discussion, so I'm going to answer them here...
ALL - I said this in Recruitment, but the travel time really doesn't matter for profits, because you're being paid *by the week*.
Able - I appreciate your suggestions about travel time and jobs, but I'm trying to keep it really simple. As I said in an above post, if the die roll is small, the suns happen to be near each other. If the die roll is big, the suns happen to be opposite each other at the time. I know that's backwards from what you're suggesting, but it's a LOT simpler. And there may be other factors that affect time, such as navigating thru the asteroid belts, or avoiding places known for Alliance or pirate activity.
Your suggestion of a "set cost/day representing food, fuel, maintenance" is covered by the 20% off-the-top-of-the-profits rule. A cost per landing/takeoff is covered by fuel in general.
Perry said : "Regarding Vacc suits, can we start the game with 2 of these for the ship?"
In the last page of the setting document, it says there are 10 (used) suits.
I'll have to think about the ramifications of skipping the Astrogation roll...
Regarding making trips quicker than usual, you can choose a "full burn", which divides the travel time by 3, but 75% of your profits for that trip must go toward fuel.
I have problems with Great/Luck in PbP, since there are no game "sessions". Any suggestions on how to handle that?
All good. I personally like complex settings, but simple is simple to manage.
Perry said : "Regarding Vacc suits, can we start the game with 2 of these for the ship?"
In the last page of the setting document, it says there are 10 (used) suits.I'll have to think about the ramifications of skipping the Astrogation roll...
Regarding making trips quicker than usual, you can choose a "full burn", which divides the travel time by 3, but 75% of your profits for that trip must go toward fuel.
I have problems with Great/Luck in PbP, since there are no game "sessions". Any suggestions on how to handle that?
Thanks for bringing the vacc suits to my attention. Sorry for missing that on the first read. Full Burn sounds like a good rule, and the Astrogation rule doesn't have to change, or we could always look at it again later.
Re: Bennies in general, how will you be handing those out? Can they only be earned through rp? How about for now I start the game with 3 extra bennies and as we go we figure out a natural point that feels like a new "session"?
Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Americans.
And to everyone else, hope you have a great Thursday.
American Thanksgiving isn't even a long weekend? Suckers.
Actually, it tends to be for a lot of folks. It is for me anyway, and has been my entire professional career.
I get Thursday and Friday off. Took Wednesday off as well.
Found out recently that we get December 22 to January 3 off at my job.
Basically have two weeks off for Christmas and New Year's, then I've got a bunch of PTO stocked up.
It's actually kinda nice working remotely for a university.
Weekends. . . . Days off . . . .what are those ????
Just kidding. I work a 4 on 4 off schedule.
Days off, they expect you to do all your appointments on days off
Shopping, same.
Work days - don't matter if it is a stat or not. your working it if your schedule falls on that day. But will be paid extra for the stat day.
My sister's about to experience that. She's graduating from nursing school this month, then has the Inclex in January. Pretty excited to get started. She pretty much nailed her dream job when she got hired by one of the local hospital's nurseries.
Perry - BTW, Great Luck gives you two Bennies "instead of" the 1 from Luck, so you'd get 5 Bennies, not 6.
ALL - how about : we consider the start of every new page of Gameplay a new "session", so you reset your Benny count to your normal default? I played in a game that did that, and it was ok. Possibly a little over-powered, but "each page" is easier to track than "every other page" or "every third page".
I think that's probably the best way to handle that without getting into breaking things down by scene and asking how many scenes are in a session.
Not familiar enough with the system to be 100% sure, so I am not going to quibble one way or the other.