Lorcryst's page

Lots of good ideas, a couple more :

Temporary License to own more than one Permit.

Authorization to have money on your person.

License to rent a credstick.

Permit to open a banking account.

License to use a banking account.

License to live, daily.

License to unlive, daily.

Permit to die. Not having it and dying anyway means resurection/undeath to work to pay the fee, plus expenses for resurection, plus other licenses.

Permit to eat in public spaces, hourly.

Permit to drink in public spaces, hourly.

As above but in private spaces, daily.

Fees for swearing.

Permit to excrete bodily waste.

License to use The Three Shells.

Basically, anything trivial but absolutely vital is taxed and regulated.

Fees and fines range from inconvenient (go get this stamped now) to several generations of indentured servitude.

Chiming in with some old tricks and tips ...

It reads like the characters are antisocial murderers, but I don't know the humans behind the PC sheets : you should know your friends, sometimes playing an a@!&#!* can be cathartic/therapeutic for issues in every day mundane life ...

So yes, first of all talk to them, remind everyone that this is a co-operative game with no adversaries and where "winning" is when everyone has fun. As a GM, you also want to have fun, and you're not "the enemy".

If nobody has issues to solve, talking out of game time about what everyone wants out of the game and finding compromises is the best way forward.

Space Goblins.

They are described as pests endemic to Absalom Station, and the monster rules in Alien Archives 1 allows to scale them from CR1 to CR20.

There's even a Goblin Monarch CR20 in the Core rules.

To test the system with my players, I sent them on an inspection mission in the service tunnels of the station, they found gobs stealing copper wires, and it escalated to a full sweep and an elimination campaign.

Add animals, monsters and traps, and each 4 hours session can be another step in the Goblin Genocide ...

You answered your own question.

Heavy but sensible = file cabinet = yes

Heavy but not sensible = a starship = no

It is up to you to define sensible for your players.

Well, yes, for my own home games. And I have no trouble doing that.

But this is also the first time I'm involved in a "Massively Multiplayer Offline Campaign", I'm thinking of joining a club IRL for the first time this millenium and I want to promote Organised Guild Play in my side of Belgium ...

All that made me think about other players and GMs, and the very real need for a clear and definite ruling so that everyone worldwide can have the same foundation.

It's not just me and old friends anymore ...

And what happens if/when the characters want to drag something heavy but sensible like a file cabinet to block a doorway, for example ?

My group of players get creative when they want to "build the terrain" in combat encounters, putting silly antics aside, knowing how much they could drag/lift would help me ...

I agree with you !

I don't know the Pathfinder rules, but yes, a clear maximum is really needed to avoid dragging Absalom Station out of orbit by towing it at 5 feet per 6 seconds ... reads like something stupid, but I know my group of players ...

Back in the nineties, with AD&D2 and that group, I had to give treasure by weight and volume, and make doubly sure that nothing ridiculously heavy could fit in a Bag of Holding, up to having a custom-made canvas bag of the right dimensions with me and telling them to try to fit the bookcase in it ...

I've flagged your original post for FAQ (and fumbled my fingers with the options too) ...

Eh ?

I cannot find that anywhere, just that a character cannot voluntarily have more Bulk than STR and only move 5 feet when Overburdened ...

I think the superpower "Common Sense" is needed here for both player and GM : we have ways to guesstimate how much volume and weight 1 Bulk is, access to Google and some basic math ...

If 1 Bulk = 5 to 10 pounds (Core page 167), STR 18 means Encumbered at 90 pounds and Overburdened at 180+ pounds ... it doesn't look like much, but a character can still move 5 feet per 6 seconds carrying that much, and they are not Weighlifter Champions just lifting things ...

I thought that the Athletics skill would help, but it's only climb/leap/swim ...

Maybe take inspiration from the Cargo Lifter powered armour (Core page 204) that get STR 20 and can carry 10 more Bulk than normal ?
Something like 10 more Bulk than Overburdened = cannot move, needs STR check each round to continue hoisting, more than that and muscles tear + bones break ?

Dunno how well the hardcover adventures for D&D 5e and Pathfinder 1e sold, but I'd assume the companies did take it in account they would be sold less than player books, so dunno how much that particular thing matters. Never really done business math.

I'm quite certain that publishers do that kind of math ... since 1986 (when I got hooked to RPGs) I've noticed a trend : the first few years of a new setting / range are very heavy on core rules, and if the new game "sticks" the scenarios come out later.

Starfinder is still very young for a RPG, and indeed the next releases are settings books (Near Space and Starships announced), so my guess would be "more adventures in the second half of 2020" ...

Again, all that is speculation, guessing and personnal anecdotes, we won't really know unless someone from Paizo tells us ... and they need to keep things quiet to build hype !

Clever Slam

Nobody knows if this duo of sentients are really androids, but they have an humanoid shape and their heads display luminous glyphs in various languages.

They took the known worlds by surprise with their sensory shows, mixing vibrations, wavelengths and rythms in extremely catchy numbers that everyone can enjoy like "Around The Drift" and "Congratulate".

They only appear holographically and without warning near large groups of sentients in the Pact Worlds, and each of their performances so far has seen mixed-race impromptu dancing.

WARNING : personnal opinion !

From what I've read and bought over 30 years of RPGing, scenarios / adventure paths are a real money sink for publishers compared to cash cows like core rules / setting / background books.

Players that are not GMs rarely buy an adventure, and even if they are GMs a single scenario (or six books) will last a very long time.

Back in the nineties when I was deeply hooked to Forgotten Realms AD&D2 my local shops had spares and unsold copies of adventures for years, but the setting boxes were sold out extremely fast.

I would love to see higher level content and bigger adventure paths, but I'm a "forever DM" and a bulimic reader ... and I'd still prefer in-depth books about planets, ships, etc, like the Near Space and Ship Operations recently announced.

In a typical 4 Players + 1 GM group, every one can benefit from a copy of core / advanced rules, but only the GM will buy adventures, maybe, if she/he/it does not homebrew scenarios ...

5 customers vs 1 customer is a hard but real fact.

HammerJack wrote:

If you want to make the difference between the two ends more extreme, for concept, make the small side smaller than normal weapons at that level, instead of making the big side bigger.

That's sort of like how the sword I linked to is: it's a longsword-style blade on one end and a dagger on the other, rather than a full-size greatsword.

You answered your own question right here : big end functions as a longsword-equivalent, short end is dagger-like, add damage types to flavour, level scaling as equivalent weapons.

That's a can of worms as old as RPG games ...

The key here might be that the players are not used to a "modern" setting and went back to "no witnesses" because they didn't even think about help from local law enforcement ...

I can understand the "we cannot have gangers telling on us", the best possible way would have been handcuffs and calling the cops; I've had players do that in medieval settings to orcs in the middle of the forest !

But it reads like your players went along the "no witnesses = no problem" route ... alignments are a guide, and vigilante campaigns can work, but you need to call a timeout and discuss that with them.

I'm mostly sure that if they subdued an attacker in real life, they wouldn't kill them in cold blood and call for help, there's no reason outside "heat of the moment" for their characters to do that !

Honestly, from me they get a free credstick and 1000 credits, plus lots of time and several "are you sure you bought everything ?" at character creation ...

But I'm the kind of vicious GM that delights in players forgetting the basics ... like the hygienic kit, making them lose stealth in encounters due to the horrible stink they emit ... or clothes, always fun to remind them that nakedness can lead to jail time ...

I think the bare minimum should be basic clothes, hygienic kit, a bag, their choice of armour, choice of weapon and 1 pack of ammo for said weapon. But I won't tell them what to buy, just very heavily insist on them thinking for themselves.

The best solutions are usually the simplest ones ...

In other words, make a reason why someone would want to get there.

Nobody builds a fortress guarding nothing in the middle of nowhere.

So, this world/system is located somewhere strategic, and the fortress protects something (or against something) valuable / dangerous.

Since it's Science Fantasy, stable portals, another StarStone fragment, doomsday weapons, headquarters of XYZ and ritual locations are all possible reasons, plus many more.

Cadia was "just" a world near the Eye of Terror, and was turned into a fortress to guard against things getting out, you could use the same principle.

As John Compton wrote, it should the Student racial trait : choose any two skills that get a +2.

She's into the Lootbag of Holding of the One True Murderhobo.

I found this thread both interesting and confusing.

I've played on EvE Online for years as a "builder of things", and played and GM'ed RPGs for 33 years ...

While players loving the nitty gritty details do exists, they are an extreme minority.

In EvE, with predictable costs and ressources, Spreadsheets Online is possible, and even needed to build/fuel the PvP side of things.

But in three decades of RPGs, I only found *ONE* guy willing to play "Advanced Accounting & Logistics", a fast and easy off-screen montage for gear and starships is the best way for a space opera game.

It is possible to design scenarios around securing ressources to get "bigger toys", but it's neither heroic nor dynamic. A couple of skill checks and 5 minutes of GM narration do wonders to get everyone back into the fun of adventuring.