[-] Scallops@ttrpg.network 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

I have to say I like the old one more. It gives a little more highlight for personal history and the pseudo Cyrillic font is also on point.

[-] Scallops@ttrpg.network 4 points 1 week ago

That's correct, it's a related/linked but separate comment chain. The goal of cross posting often is just linking to the original post.

Some clients don't clearly mark crossposts as such. Some of the growing pains of the treadiverse.

Like the other commenter pointed out, piefed is addressing a lot of those issues, so the future looks good.

12

cross-posted from: https://ttrpg.network/post/22318947

This is a follow-up to my previous post about setting up for a GM-less Traveller game. We have now had a Session 0 that covered tone-setting and character creation, and last night we played our first session (spoiler: it went great!). I am reporting back to share with you.


Session 0

I am a believer in the concept of a Session 0 so, even though I have been playing games for decades with these guys, I still asked to have one. The main focus was on campaign theme. Since Pirates of Drinax is a sandbox setting, I wanted to make sure we drill down to what we collectively wanted and agreed for the experience to be.

I am also a Sly Flourish fanboy, and I like his idea of the Campaign One-Pager. I created one for the Session 0, to identify the key ideas and serve as a guide document. The important bits are cut and pasted below in blockquotes, just in case someone wants to reproduce this thing we're doing.

CAMPAIGN PITCH

The King of Drinax offers a small band of trusted, resourceful bastards the chance to make their fortune. He gives them a ship and a letter of marque. They are to go adventuring in the Trojan Reach, a lawless region of space wedged between the Third Imperium and the Aslan Hierate. The travellers are charged to prey on shipping lanes and build support in the worlds once held by the Star Kingdom of Drinax, playing the great powers against each other. If they succeed, they will become royalty in the renewed kingdom. If they fail, the stars will be their grave.

TRUTHS

  • The Star Kingdom of Drinax was once a mighty empire that ruled the Trojan Reach, but it collapsed two centuries ago after a devastating war with the Aslan.
  • The Floating Palace of Drinax is now all that remains of the kingdom — an ancient, decaying orbital city ruled by King Oleb and his ambitious court.
  • The Harrier-class Commerce Raider, an advanced stealth warship from Drinax’s golden age, is entrusted to the travellers as a tool to reclaim lost influence.
  • The Trojan Reach is a volatile region filled with independent worlds, Aslan clans, Imperium border outposts, and pirate havens that are ripe for manipulation or conquest.
  • King Oleb’s Charter gives privateers legal authority to raid enemies of Drinax, but it’s a thin veil of legitimacy in a sector where law is often what you make of it.
  • The rise or fall of Drinax depends on how the travellers navigate a tangled web of alliances, rivalries, and ancient grudges — peace, war, or empire are all possible.

PATRON

King Oleb – The fiery, aging ruler of Drinax. A former warrior turned king, determined to restore his fallen kingdom by any means necessary.

MAJOR FACTIONS

  • Third Imperium
  • Aslan Heirate
  • General Development Company

Everything up to this point is more or less straight from the Pirates of Drinax setting, intended to set the stage for the game. After discussing this piece, we focused on what theme we want. As I said above, Pirates of Drinax is a sandbox setting, where pretty much anything is possible. However, I thought it would be beneficial to identify the general theme and feel beforehand, so we have bumpers for where to steer the game as it plays out. For example, I don't find blood-thirsty murderhobo'ing to be fun (as you might do in a pirate game). The three of us discussed our desired themes and came up with the following:

THEMES

  • Empire-building
  • Privateering
  • Robin Hood-esque
  • Machiavellian-benevolence

CREW BOND

We all want better lives for the worlds and peoples of the Trojan Reach. Ex. stability, noblesse oblige “obligation of the nobles”, fairness and redistribution of wealth

With these themes and the crew bond agreed upon, we then set to making characters. Since there isn't a GM, we just shared the duties. If one of us had a question about a thing, the other two served as the GM for that question. We each made our characters simultaneously and stepped through terms together. So, we each did term 1, then went on to term 2, etc.

With that in mind, we did agree to some house rules at the outset:

TRAVELLER CREATION GUIDELINES

  • When you fail on a survival roll, you may take 1 mulligan where you instead succeed
  • Can optionally make multiple characters and choose the one you vibe with the most

If you are a Traveller purist, the mulligan on the survival roll might make your blood pressure rise. We figured that this game is for us and having that mulligan did help the other guys (I didn't use mine). We also decided on the multiple characters, to help ease the pressure that you'd come up with a 'good' character right away. However, all of us used the first character we made.

Session 1 - Getting started

With characters made, we scheduled our first game which happened last night. We had a ton of fun! As a reminder, we are using Mythic Game Master Emulator 2e as our referee, so I will be referencing mechanics from that system (I can explain further in the comments if asked). There was some initial clumsiness with navigating how the Mythic rules and Traveller character sheet worked, but it didn't take long to get going. The session took about 3 and a half hours, with about the first hour being spent finishing our characters.

Here are some quick bullets of the session:

  • Scene 1: Taking stock of the Harrier and making repairs. We decided to start after our crew met with the King and received their charge. Most of this scene was deciding what to do about all the damage to the ship and spending ship shares to repair some of it.
  • Scene 2: Hunting down Sindalian tech leads. In this scene we started leaning into the Mythic mechanics to ask if our characters knew of any places where we might find salvage that could be used to continue repairing the ship. We had heard rumors or wrecks on the Drinax surface. We decide to fly to the surface to make contact with one of the tribes that lives down there.
  • Scene 3: It's a trap! The Mythic mechanic that throws curveballs did so, and we walked right into a military trap, placed by the locals. Considering we were coming here to ask these people for their help, we luckily talk them down and are able to negotiate.
  • Scene 4: Turning enemies into allies. It turns out the tribespeople of Drinax are fed up with their station in life and being forgotten. The tribal leaders have formed a coalition to rebel against the King of Drinax and we just happened to be the first people to come down from the palace. We tell the coalition of our plan (recall the themes above) and convince them to help as allies to the cause.
  • Scene 5: Living with the tribes montage. Mythic threw us another curveball which we interpreted as the tribes wanting us to live with them for a while, prior to them joining any alliance. We figure this is because they want us to understand their perspective and what they are going through in their lives. We ask Mythic a bunch of questions to learn more about the tribes and flesh out their peoples.
  • Next time: Searching for lost tech. The montage scene seemed like a great place to end, so we set up for the beginning of our next session. The tribal leaders revealed that they knew where a Sindalian wreck was, and one of their people could guide us there. They make it clear that this will be a test of our trustworthiness.

Keep in mind, this was all generated using the Mythic rules. There is no GM and no adventure. We would ask Mythic questions (as you would to a GM), and Mythic would give yes/no type answers. Sometimes we would need more and use Mythic to generate meaning. Meaning comes in the form of randomly generated word pairs, which we interpret as a group. In this way, the story evolved as we played through it.

Takeaways

  • Using Mythic as a GM was clunky at first but generated an interesting and surprising story
  • The main downside to Mythic was having to reference a lot of tables for meaning and yes/no answers
  • But, I think we also enjoyed the structure and crunch of the Mythic system
  • Having 3 minds interpreting meaning was very helpful and likely contributed to the fun factor, as opposed to playing truly solo
  • Overall, we all agreed that the game was way more fun than we would have guessed and exceeded expectations
28
Sci-fi RPGs! (ttrpg.network)
submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by Scallops@ttrpg.network to c/sciencefiction@lemmy.world

Hi everyone! !scifi@ttrpg.network is a community dedicated to sci-fi TTRPG. Come take a look, we're very friendly!

If you're wondering what sort systems for sci-fi exist out there, there's a non exhaustive list in the pinned post.

Thank you Tenthrow for allowing this!

8

Several Sci-Fi RPGs included in the bundle.

9

Wild Bee Publishing just released a new adventure for their Cepheus setting, Kosmic. It's called Knife Party and it's discounted 37.5% now, 60+ pages going for $5.

[-] Scallops@ttrpg.network 3 points 3 weeks ago

Not really, no, just full fledged settings with rules. Trying to keep a concise list. You're welcome to start a post for those, though. It would definitely fit the community.

[-] Scallops@ttrpg.network 4 points 3 months ago

We are legion.

[-] Scallops@ttrpg.network 3 points 3 months ago

It's lifted straight up from the source material. As far as seventies series go, S: 1999 took itself quite seriously, in a good way. It's still sort of zany and the science isn't there in the plot, but the models and the casting more than make up for it.

7
submitted 4 months ago by Scallops@ttrpg.network to c/scifi@ttrpg.network

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/59305590

Orbital Trouble: d12 Space Outpost Hooks - Roleplaying Tips

[-] Scallops@ttrpg.network 4 points 4 months ago

Thank you and welcome!

30

Hi folks! If you’re into tabletop RPGs and sci-fi, there’s a place for you here!

!scifi@ttrpg.network
/c/scifi@ttrpg.network

9
submitted 5 months ago by Scallops@ttrpg.network to c/scifi@ttrpg.network

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/55540901

6
submitted 5 months ago by Scallops@ttrpg.network to c/scifi@ttrpg.network

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/55842471

These are some high quality, fan-made rules for Cepheus Engine (and so based on the Mongoose Traveller SRD) covering various Star Trek shows up until 2017 (TOS, TAS, TNG, DS9, ENT).

17
submitted 6 months ago by Scallops@ttrpg.network to c/scifi@ttrpg.network

User Monomyth posed an interesting question on the Traveller discord that I wanted to replicate here:

hi team, just a quick discussion based question with no right answer; if youre running a game, and the players decide to veer off course into something completely out of left field (such as going to a planet you do not have prepped), is it appropriate to come up with some "delaying issue" so you can have it ready for next session?

Transposing to other settings: what do you do when the players go off-script?

I can summarize some answers we’ve got on that server, but I don’t want to prime your answers from the start.

[-] Scallops@ttrpg.network 3 points 6 months ago

I think a good sci-fi campaign can always benefit from a Heist. Like a train heist or something.

The flip side, which is also fun, the convoy escort role. The crew is part of a convoy and must defend it from marauders.

And the Seven Samurai is a classic stationary version of the above that has been adapted time and again for sci-fi.

16
submitted 6 months ago by Scallops@ttrpg.network to c/scifi@ttrpg.network

What are your favorites to play on? Anything valid, be it a published RPG setting, an adaptation you did of other media (book, game, movie), a mashup you or someone else create, etc.

[-] Scallops@ttrpg.network 3 points 6 months ago

Sounds like you’d like Hostile by Zozer Games. They have a solo version too where you control a crew.

[-] Scallops@ttrpg.network 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

That's right. Arguably the most famous?

Come to think of it, I don't think there ever was a Fate official Star Wars setting. I didn't find it, anyway.

[-] Scallops@ttrpg.network 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

BattleTech! That's the one. Didn't know they made an RPG out of it.

Firefly is an out of print Cortex Plus game by Margaret Weis Productions. It's in the list as well as Serenity (the Cortex Classic game by MWP, isn't IP licensing fun?).

[-] Scallops@ttrpg.network 4 points 6 months ago

Rifts is a classic, but also a very strange animal. And for some reason I thought Robotech was a minis game (must be confusing with something else).

Star Wars is already listed. I know those are technically different games, but I'm trying to keep the list as concise as possible (grouping the multiple versions of the same setting under one entry). I don't know much about the history of star wars RPG though. How would you summarize it? (WEG d6, d20, Fate)?

[-] Scallops@ttrpg.network 3 points 6 months ago

Done and thank you!

23
submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by Scallops@ttrpg.network to c/scifi@ttrpg.network

This is meant to be a non-exhaustive list, in stream-of-consciousness order.

Dedicated systems

  • Traveller (in its many incarnations throughout the past nearly 50 years and derivatives such as Cepheus, Hostile)
  • 2300 AD (now a setting for Traveller)
  • Cyberpunk (2013, 2020, V3.0, Red)
  • Paranoia
  • Eclipse Phase
  • Lancer
  • Star Wars roleplaying (different games by different publishers: WEG d6, d20, FFG NDS)
  • Warhammer 40K
  • 3:16: Carnage Amongst the Stars
  • Shadowrun
  • Apocalypse World
  • Coyote & Crow
  • SLA Industries
  • BattleTech: A time of war

FATE based systems

  • Bulldogs!
  • Mindjammer
  • Nova Praxis
  • Diaspora
  • Atomic Robo

OSR/d20 based systems

  • Stars/Cities/Ashes Without Number
  • Starfinder
  • Mothership
  • CY_BORG

Year Zero

  • Mutant: Year Zero
  • Alien: The RPG
  • Blade Runner: The RPG
  • Coriolis – The Third Horizon

GURPS

A host of modules and supplements named after the subgenre, GURPS-style. GURPS Transhuman Space, Cyberpunk, etc.

Other systems

  • Star Trek Adventures (Modiphius 2d20)
  • Dune: Adventures in the Imperium (Modiphius 2d20)
  • Rifts (Palladium)
  • Robotech (Palladium)
  • Scum and Villainy (FitD/PbtA)
  • The Expanse RPG (Modern AGE)
  • BattleTech: Mechwarrior: Destiny (Cue)
  • Neon City Overdrive (d6)
  • Black Star (d6)
  • Salvage Union (Quest RPG)

Solo friendly

  • Stoneburner
  • Ironsworn: Starforged (PbtA)
  • Hostile (Cepheus/Traveller)

Out of print/No longer developed

  • Firefly RPG (Cortex Plus)
  • Serenity RPG (Cortex Classic)
  • Battlestar Galactica RPG (Cortex Classic)
  • Gamma World (D&D)
  • Space Opera
  • Other Suns
  • Albedo
  • Space Master
  • HARP SF
  • Blue Planet
  • Ringworld
  • Living Steel
  • High Colonies
  • Jovian Chronicles
  • Heavy Gear
  • Justifiers
  • Star Frontiers
  • Universe
  • CORPS
  • Mutant Chronicle
  • Judge Dredd RPG

Have a suggestion to improve this? Your favorite game missing? Leave a comment.

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Scallops

joined 6 months ago
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