Sunday 10 January 2016

What's in a Shuttle?

In our first session, the party succeeded in escaping the Ugor-run Airam sector in their stolen Lambda-class T-4a shuttle. Let's take a closer look at this fine piece of Imperial-Age machinery:

  • Crew/Passengers: 6-26
  • Speed: 50 MGLT
  • Hyperdrive: class 4 backup hyperdrive
  • Hull: 48/66RU
  • Shields: 100SBD (split between fore and aft shields)
  • Fuel Cells: 7/53 charged
  • Armament:
    • Steerable forward twin laser cannons(2d8) x2
    • Twin laser cannons (2d8) x2
    • Aft twin blaster cannon (2d6)

The Bureaucratic Reality is My Reality


So at the very least the shuttle could use some repairs and a new hyperdrive and some new fuel. The other issue, however, is registration.

The shuttle's registration currently is to the(now defunct) Navy of the Galactic Empire. Whenever another ship scans it, it will self-identify as such. This functionality can be turned off, but that's just as suspicious. The Ugor, a major force in Airam system, and in fact throughout the Galaxy, are looking for this shuttle. If the party wants to avoid pursuit, they need to get their shuttle a "clean" registration or swap it for another ship.

As to getting a clean registration, there are many systems that can provide this, but only those who don't fear the wrath of the Ugor. These are generally organized criminals or those who are anyway on bad terms with the Ugor.

As to swapping it for a new ship, one can sell a ship with invalid registration and an Ugor bounty on it, but not to just anyone and certainly not for top dollar.


Thursday 7 January 2016

Star Wars 2020 Session Summary 1

So we got together and played a few hours of Star Wars 2020. The party was:

  • Pigman- a Gammorian beater/scavenger/heavy machine user/turret gunner(Avraham)
  • Art- Ithorian tech Rock gardener, healing(Avi)
  • Aazilbaki- a Green Twi'lek fighter pilot/untrained force user/insterstellar navigation(Avram)
  • Meemu- Ewok super martial artist, hoverbike riding loner, wamprat hunter, hyperdrive-tech(Mati)
  • Lucky- a Gran with many natural talents, good at dodging, explosives, stock market, interstellar navigation, leadership, pharmaceuticals(Lauren)
As mentioned previously, the setup is on Nocto II. The party are scavengers who stumble onto the motherload: a working Imperial Shuttle, undiscovered these 20 years. The only problem is they'll need to get it some sort of hyperdrive, maps for the nav computer, and some fuel cells if they're going to escape Ugor space. And they need to do it all discreetly.

The party were smart enough to search the shuttle thoroughly, lucking out by finding 17 pristine suits of Stormtrooper armor on board, which helped them with the funds they needed to pull off their caper.

Back to Town


Meemu used his underworld connections to determine that Kryygh, an Ithorian Bounty Hunter stationed nearby, would be willing to sell them his backup hyperdrive for an extravagant amount. They sold him 8 of the armors in exchange for dropping the backup hyperdrive at a pre-determined location later that night. They also wanted another fuel cell and a sector map.

Map of Airam Sector


As they were leaving the bounty hunter's ship, they noticed someone with hairy legs and a long cloak outside, but he didn't seem to be spying on them. Aazilbaki followed him anyway but lost him in the crowd.

Art traded his artwork to Snorblob the Ugor Cartel representative in town for another fuel cell, but then ditched it when he realized that it probably had a tracking device on it(DM Aside: he was right!)

They then heard a rumor that Roy, a Human Scavenger, had a stash for when he would one day make it off the planet. They spoke to him and made a deal. They would let him come along for his 7 fuel cells.

A Gammorian guard pulled Meemu aside and tried interrogating him, but the wily Ewok managed to escape.

The party now knew for sure that they were being watched so they made a plan.

In the Scavenging Fields


While Pigman, Art, and Aazilbaki snuck-off to the rendezvous point, Meemu and Lucky were very conspicuous about going with Roy to his stash. They did a good job and were followed by a couple tough bounty hunters, under Ugor employ.

There was a very close fight. I really didn't think Meemu, Lucky, and Roy could win. After a good deal of crawling around, hiding, shooting and kicking:
  • Meemu's hoverbike was fried by a laser rifle
  • One bounty hunter failed a stun check the second time he was hit by an axe, taking him out of the fight
  • The other bounty hunter was tricked out of cover with an unarmed thermal detonator, then had his leg shot off with his captured buddy's laser rifle
  • But, unfortunately Meemu, after shooting a bounty hunter full in the helmet with his own blaster pistol, was hit with three rounds from an automatic blaster rifle, killing the brave little Ewok outright! (and he was their only hyperdrive tech- evil DM laugh!)
Lucky and Roy took the bounty hunters' hoverbikes and hauled the fuel cells and loot to rejoin the rest of the party's night time rendezvous. Now the party was reunited and dragging their new hyperdrive to the shuttle. At the same time, they saw they were being followed.

Flyboys and Explosions


They made it to the caves, with three hovercars close on their tail. Art attempted to install the hyperdrive and Pigman to clear the rubble from the cave-in that was blocking their escape route. The rest of the party lay in wait, setting off a couple thermal detonators and blowing up 6 Gammorian guards and much of the cave entrance.

Finally the shuttle was ready, and the party piled in and took off, with Aazilbaki in the pilot seat and Pigman blasting away with the tail gun. The party made it up the gravity well, avoided an Ugor corvette, and made the jump to Klaatu system, escaping Ugor space! (using 4 of their 11 fuel cells in the process and knocking that hull damage up to 27% on the way out of the cave.)

Wednesday 6 January 2016

Martial Arts in Space!

Since Star Wars 2020 is Cyberpunk 2020 based, this is the perfect opportunity to include Fight Club, the custom martial arts rules I came up with:

As such, any character taking points in the Martial Arts skill will need to:

  1. Assign 3x the number of points between the 11 techniques
  2. Calculate his BDM(Body Damage Modifier). See the chart below
  3. Calculate his SDM(Skill Damage Modifier). Skill level in the given technique/2


Body
Body Type Modifier
Body Damage Modifier
1
0
0
2
-1
+1
3
-1
+1
4
-2
+2
5
-2
+2
6
-3
+3
7
-3
+3
8
-4
+4
9
-4
+4
10
-5
+5
Finally, here's the printable character sheet with Fight Club additions:


Welcome to Nocto II


Thanks to donjon's wonderful planet generator, we now have a map of Nocto II, Nocto System, Airam Sector. 

It's mostly a desert planet, but thanks to the Battle of Nocto in 3ABY, the second planet in the system has seen quite a surge of activity. In that battle, the Super Star Destroyer Vengeance was destroyed, breaking up in space and eventually crashing down on the surface of Nocto II. In following years, there was a protracted dispute between Ugor and Squib salvage operations, with the Ugors eventually winning control of Nocto II.

The map shows the major sites of interest on Nocto II:
  1. Foretown- scavenger town near the Fore section of SSD Vengeance
  2. Aftown- scavenger town near the Aft section of SSD Vengeance(adventure begins near here)
  3. Nocto II Spaceport- spaceport and general hive of scum and villainy
  4. The Great Debris Belt- 3000km of debris from the battle
  5. The Twins- Polar salvage operation around crash site of two heavy cruisers



Tuesday 5 January 2016

In SPAAAAAAACE!

Well, here it is. Rules for getting around outer space in Star Wars 2020.

Fuel Cells

(Taken from this forum) Spaceports are equipped with fusion generators that recharge fuel cells. At the slowest rate of charge, this costs next to nothing, but if called upon to recharge quickly, the costs increase rapidly:

Charging Rate - Typical cost per cell

  • Trickle (1 cell/day) - 5 credits
  • Standard (1 cell/hour) - 10 credits
  • Fast (4 cells/hour) - 50 credits
  • Emergency (20 cells/hour) - 500 credits

Most stock light freighters are equipped with 50 fuel cells. Additional Fuel Cells: 500 credits each. One cell of fuel is used for:

  • Entering Hyperspace 
  • Six hours in Hyperspace 
  • One month realspace operation 
  • One hour combat maneuvers 
  • One hour atmospheric flight

Hyperspace Travel Times



Here is a tool for long-distance travel: http://www.swcombine.com/navcomp/

For short distances, I've mapped out most of Airam sector. I'll share parts of that map with the party as it becomes relevant.

Ship Stats

Updated list of ship stats are available here: Equipment List

Ship Combat

This is a work in progress. In general:

Attack:

  • Attacks are made as a CP2020 skill check i.e. gunnery, etc.
    • Pilot check can try and evade on a hit though
    • If ship you're attacking is of bigger class, hit is automatic
  • Guided missiles don't require a check
    • But gunner can try and shoot the missile
    • Pilot can try and evade it

Damage:

  • Ships have points for shields. Once those are gone, we go to hull damage
  • Ships have points for hull. Once those are gone, the ship is no longer air-tight.
  • Each hit that puts hull points at 0 or less damages some critical system(at random)
source


Star Wars 2020 Character Generator: Updated

So, I made the following changes to the character generator:


  1. When you generate a new character, it automatically creates a new sheet. This way, different users won't over-write one another's character
  2. Besides generating a completely new character you can now regenerate skills and equipment for an existing character. This allows the player to make manual tweaks to Ability Scores then regenerate the later stuff automatically.
  3. You can also just regenerate starting equipment for an existing character. This allows the player to make manual tweaks to Skills then regenerate the equipment automatically.

Try it out at this THIS LINK


Sunday 3 January 2016

A Long Time Ago, in a Galaxy Far Away



So here it is, the starting scenario for the Star Wars game I'm planning on running soon:

The date is 30ABE(After Battle of Endor). The Empire has fallen decades ago and been replaced by a weakened Republic. Now the First Order's Starkiller Base has taken out the Republic base of power in the Hosnian system before itself being destroyed(as per the most recent film).


A Salvage site on Nocto II
Our PC's find themselves on in a remote corner of the Galaxy(the Airam sector), on the planet Nocto II(in the Nocto system). Before the Empire fell, there was a good deal of fighting going on in this system, the heaviest being here on Nocto II. Now, the Ugor Cartel rules the planet, running a planet-wide salvage operation on the aftermath of the battle.
Ugor

Some scavengers came here seeking their fortune, others were left here against their will. In any case, the Ugors take full advantage of the scavengers, providing them with minimum services, and paying them a subsistence-level bounty for the valuable salvage they do find. The only exception to this rule is if scavengers find a working space craft. All such finds are forfeit to High Priest Zorkblag the Infallible, governor of this planet, by Divine Fiat! The penalty for failing to turn-over such fines, a painful death!

You few scavengers get caught in a huge sand-storm on the way back from the site. You retreat to a cave in the rocky foothill to wait out the storm. Investigating an area that has caved in, you can't believe your eyes--a skeleton in Imperial uniform under the rubble!
Lambda class Shuttle

Walking deeper into the caves you find it! An old Lambda-class Imperial shuttle, in what looks to be fairly good condition. You glance at your companions. Can they help you get it out of the caves? Do they have the skills to fly the thing? Can they be trusted? Here lies more credits than you could hope to earn in a whole lifetime of scavenging! Better yet, this is your ticket off this rock! But will this be the making of your fortune or will it be your death!? Only the fates can tell...


A few other details:

  • Examining it, you see the Hyperdrives have been removed, apparently years ago. If you want to get away from the Ugor, you'll need jump capability!
  • It only has about 2 cells worth of fuel left. That just isn't going to cut it! Can you obtain more without attracting the wrong sort of attention?
  • It has some hull damage, but not too bad(about 25%)
  • Computer's data banks have been wiped(Standard procedure for an Imperial officer making an emergency landing in unfriendly territory). The nav computer is going to need something to go on in order to calculate jumps.

A First Star Wars Adventure Hook

So Star Wars 2020 is coming along, hopefully we'll be ready for a game session on Thursday. So far I would say I'm about half-way there in terms of DM prep:


  1. Made a character generator
  2. Listed 21 systems in the sector with at least 1 point of interest in each
  3. Started mapping the 21 systems(still needs a bit more work)
  4. Listed 9 "Princes" i.e. factional rulers, the systems they control, and their relationships with one another(maybe needs a bit more detail)
  5. Made an equipment list with some stats(still needs a bit more detail)

And I still have some major tasks to do:
  1. Need to put a bit more detail into the starting scenario
  2. I Listed 11 "minor" persons the party is likely to encounter in the first session, but they need more fleshing out
  3. I Listed 10 types of ship the party is likely to encounter in the first session, but I still need to stat them up
  4. Started researching space travel rules. Still need to organize them into 1 page though
  5. I need to come up with all sorts of combat stats for potential opponents
  6. And I need a to make a table of rumors the party might hear that would lead into adventure hooks
Speaking of that last one, I already have our first rumor.

So the date is 30ABE. The Empire has fallen decades ago and been replaced by a weakened Republic. Now the First Order's Starkiller Fortress has taken out the Republic fleet before itself being destroyed(as per the most recent film). Our PC's are in Airam Sector i.e. a rather remote location on the Outer Rim.

The rumor is that, after the Rebellion victory in this sector, the Surviving Imperial troops, with all their remaining military hardware, took over a remote jungle jungle planet in Nodgra System. They mostly keep to themselves and the locals have never been able to muster the power-base to root them out. In any case, the rumor is that King Ebareebaveebeedee, of the Squib, would pay well for any interesting intelligence as to what they are up to. The last intel photographs from their settlement(see below) are decades old and rather innocuous, but who knows what they may be up to now that the First Order has shown themselves as a power to be reckoned with:







Friday 1 January 2016

Help Beta-test My OSR Star Wars Character Generator

So I have a working version of the character generator for my Star Wars-Cyberpunk 2020 hack. You can try it out by opening the google document HERE.

To generate a character, you need to look for the "Character Generator" menu and click "Generate Character".


If, for some reason, the menu doesn't appear, go to Tools->Script editor... Select the "OnOpen" function and run it. The menu should now appear.


Once you've generated the character's stats, copy them to a blank spreadsheet. Then you can fill them out in the character sheet pictured below.



So, for instance, you might end up with someone like this Mon Calamari badass:


Anyway, comments on how to improve the tool are welcome, or you can email me at billygoestomordor@gmail.com