Monday, 20 June 2016

Random Encounters IN SPAAAAAAAACE!

So, with the party jumping through Hyperspace like a Womp Rat caught in a bullseye, I needed a quick way to answer the question "who is hanging around the system you just arrived at", in addition to the fixed setting elements. Here are the three random tables I used.

The first table, answers the question of "who" these ships belong to. Note, that they are designed around the typical inhabitants of Airam Sector. If and when the party moves on to another sector, then they will probably require some adjustment.


RollWho
1--2None
3Roll twice
4Bounty Hunters
5--6Merchants
7Smugglers
8Gank Killers
9Criminals
10--11Ugor Scavengers
12--13Squib Scavengers
14Ex Imperials
15Jedi
16First Order
17Nharwaak(Zygerrian type)
18Habeen(Human type)
19Eriadu
20Yoberra

Next, the question of scale. It this a single small ship or a flotilla of cruisers?

RollHow many
1-51 small
6-10few small
11-141 med
15-17few med
19-181 large
20few large

Finally, where are they headed?

RollHeading
1-2Planet
3-4Hyperspace
5-6Waiting
7Hiding
8Will hyperspace in soon
Once I've rolled these basic questions, I take a second to flesh out the encounter more. I ask myself things like:
  1.  What are these ships doing here?
  2. Where are they from originally?
  3. What do they want?
  4. How will they react to the PC's ship appearing?

Thursday, 16 June 2016

Star Wars 2020: Session 3

We got together a third session of my Star Wars/Cyberpunk 2020 mashup on short notice, due to half of our gaming group being in town. The other half joined via skype, leaving us with a full 6 player characters- not bad for our group. Let's go over the lineup:

  • Pigman- a Gammorian beater/scavenger/heavy machine user/starship pilot(Avraham)
  • Art- Ithorian tech Rock gardener, healing(Avi)
  • Lucky- a Gran with many natural talents, good at dodging, explosives, stock market, interstellar navigation, leadership, pharmaceuticals(Lauren)
  • The Wookie- a wookie turret gunner, butt kicker(Joshua)
  • Deeberjay- Nephew of Ilay who party agrees to transport at end of session(Art)
  • Candy- a pretty Mon Calamari princess who swings a mean plasteel sword(BC)
  • Roy- NPC scavenger from Nocto II(NPC)
  • Snortbert- Gammorian who swore fealty to The Wookie(NPC)

You may recall that in session 2 the party accepted two missions to the Squib Home System of Squab. One was to deliver a shipment of refined metals, the other to deliver Deeberjar, the nephew of Ilay. This session they accomplished that mission, and made some credits to boot, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Candy, the Calamari Princess

Aiquin 4

As the party came out of the gravity well of Aiquin 4 and prepared to enter hyperspace, an Ugor Corvette came out of it's hiding place behind one of the system's moons. It made straight for them but they made the jump to hyperspace.

Eliraad System

The party reached Eliraad System where they found a deep space platform with a small Eriadu just leaving. They hailed the Eriadu, but the Human pilot didn't like having his time wasted by a "bunch of stupid aliens". He cut-off communication and made the jump to hyperspace.

The party was debating following him when the Ugor Corvette came out of hyperspace. The platform scrambled it's two fighters and the party decided it was time to move on to the Blair Cluster.

Airam Sector

Blair Cluster

The Blair Cluster is a huge asteroid belt. The party passed through it thanks to their skilled pilot. They spent some time searching it for signs of life, but to no success. They weren't sure if the Eriadu ship was hiding or had jumped elsewhere.

Swellen System

A deep space repair yard and 3 large Calamari Cruisers coming for repairs.

Deeberjay tried to use his Princely rank to gain cheap repairs. They didn't trust him as an Ilay Squib. Ilay sided with the Empire half a century back, while the rest of the Squib joined the rebellion. There's still some bad blood.

The cruisers aluded to a mission related to the First Order trouble in Hosnian System. Candy spoke to them and they offered to let the party land their shuttle in the flag ship's docking bay where the party would be given a mission. The party decided to decline and continued on to Undil.

Undil System

A large Squib world with another Calamari Cruiser in orbit and 3 Ugor Cruisers hanging out on the far edge of the star system. The party decided to move on to Bes.

Bes System

An Ice Planet with a major squib salvage operation, aftermath of Imperial battles half a century back. Lucky used her handy navigation skills and detected 3 corvette-sized ships hiding in an asteroid field. The party debated joining the salvage mission, attacking the corvettes. They finally decided to make the long jump to Squab.

Squab System

The party made it to squab and saw some heavy Squib Cruiser traffic. Squab contains the Squib homeworld of Skor II. The party made 10000 credits and dropped Deeberjay at his destination. He used his connections to find them cheap docking facilities and invited them to visit him in his office. He has a plan to make an Ilay alliance with the Ugor, but then double-cross them, hopefully helping ease some of the bad blood with the rest of the Squib. The party debated selling their military shuttle for a civilian freighter. They finally decided to stick with the shuttle and hopefully capture a larger ship by boarding it.

There wasn't any fighting this session, but there was some great space exploration, strategy, and general wheeling and dealing. The party completed two missions and made some respectable cash. They also managed to agree on a longer term goal for bettering their fortunes. They have proven particularly adept at avoiding ship maintenance fees.

The game really reminded me of playing Wing Commander Privateer back in my youth, exploring known space looking for missions, running from the big baddies and just making the hyper-jump in time!