Revisiting Star Smuggler - Session 005b

Ok, this session is part two of Session 005. It starts on the morning of day 10. In my last post, I accidently lost track of one day by not calling it by the number. 

We left the crew docked at the space station, with the intention of leaving for Regari. The crew is most interested in doing something safe like returning to Regari and doing some cargo runs to Palatek. As a game master, this is an unsatisfying development. I decided to throw something interesting at the party. 

On the morning of day 10, there is radio chatter about incoming raiders. Additionally, in the hub of the station, a pair of Mynkurnia death squads appear. The Zephyr wants nothing to do with those exploding suicide troops again, so they detach from the Station and start making for the Spaceport on the surface. 

As they drop into the atmosphere, they get jumped by two TL-6 hoppers, one has TL-6 guns and the other has TL-4 guns. The Zephyr has been surprised and take a pair of hits. 

Wait... I made another mistake. The Antelope II has no hit stats. It's twice as big as an Antelope I but I don't want it to have 20 hits. I give it 15 hits. It also has defensive screens, which will absorb some damage. 

Ok. So the Zephyr takes a beating as it plunges into the atmosphere of the planet. That's one hour of combat. 

In the next turn of combat, they return fire while the crew rushes around to unload the hoppers and make them combat ready. They could simply take off, but the hoppers are holding a ton of equipment. 

The Zephyr has TL-5 guns, while the attackers have TL-6 and TL-4 weapons. These guns lose one die for being hoppers and a second for firing in the atmosphere. I deem that the Zephyr's guns are better because they aren't degraded as much and therefore shoot first. 

My super fancy combat map. 

The hoppers each take two points of damage. But wait! That's not all. The hopper with the TL-6 guns takes a critical, forcing a breakdown roll. It fails and the ship crashes into the ground. The second boat returns fire and hits again. 

The ship is much faster than the hopper so it breaks away and into orbit in hour 3. They fire again on the lone hopper doing two more points of damage. It breaks off and makes for the ruins. 

Hour 5 is getting worse, they see two TL-4 Antelopes with the same type of guns. The Zypher has better guns and unloads on the lead ship for 5 points of damage plus a critical. Life support breaks down. The Zephyr's defensive screens eat up the one point of damage. The hoppers deploy and fire their TL-6 guns on the lead ship. They do four more points of damage, one more hit will kill it. The Raiders are screaming for the damaged hopper to come back and it starts it's climb.

The next round sees the Antelopes pull out of range of the party's hoppers, but they get blasted again by the Zephyr's big guns. The lead ship takes another critical to the engines and goes dead in space. The remaining ship takes a critical, a hit to pilotage. The pilot is killed instantly, stopping the ship dead in space. The guns rip off an ineffective shot. 

Also in this round, the last hopper roars out of the atmosphere and right into the Zephyr's hoppers. It's hit for two points of damage and explodes. 

The Raiders crews had two pilots, two gunners, an engineer and a death squad boarding party. They are trying to affect repairs but everything will take a day. 

In round 7, the hoppers catch up and blast the Raider still capable of shooting. They do two points of damage plus 2 criticals. One critical knocks out life support and a second lucky hit strikes Pilotage, where the engineer was attempting repairs. The Zephyr unloads on the ship for one point of damage and two criticals. These kill the crew in engineering and the turret. 

The Zephyr orders the ships to surrender. They do not. So, the crew moves to the closest ship and begins boarding actions. 

With life support down and heavy hand weapons, combat is over as quick as it started. The second ship manages to damage the Zephyr with two points of explosive damage, but then the rest of the crew goes down. They manage to capture the engineer and a gunner. 

The heroes collect up some weapons and spare change from the dead. The total crew was a pilot, a gunner, a death squad per ship, plus an engineer. The hopper had a pilot and gunner plus half of a death squad each. That nets 288 secs. from both ships' crew. They also collect up an assortment of guns, 4 TL-5 heavy side arms and 4 TL-4 side arms. As per e182, they strip the ships for 1400 secs. in fittings. In this case, Imperial Police take control of the ships from the party and thank them for their help, rather than an explosion destroying both ships. 

This ends the week on an odd note. The fund from fittings from the ships go into the Ship's account and the weapons and crew money is split up amongst the crew. Since the crew has already been paid, they get nothing more than prize money. 

I just purchased some graph paper composition books, which is what I use for note taking and rough gaming information. 

These are exactly what I used to map out all of the Star Smuggler events. 

Pluses and Minuses, Pools and Podcast

In Star Smuggler, characters make to hit rolls. They have to roll over a certain number which is varible with 2 dice. Although the rules do not say it, the character receives one die for skill and one die for the quality of their weapon. The rules establish that if you have no skill with a weapon, you can't make a to hit roll. However, theoretically, if you ignored that rule you could have an unskilled character blasting away with a very, very low probability of hitting. 

For starship and boat weapons, the roll is different. You need to roll 1 or 2 to hit. A pair or more of ones indicates a critical. The player receives a 1d6 per roll based on the tech level of their weapon, up to a maximum of 6d6. 

In other parts of the game, there is a standard roll of 1d6 or 2d6, where the character can have pluses and minuses modify the roll. The roll is usually used to determine what of 6 or 12 things happen next not how good you are doing. The evaluation of "good" or "bad" happens as a result of reading a paragraph or two describing an event. Getting in a fight is supposed to be bad, but if you have large party of characters that idea is flipped on it's head because the player can dominate the battlefield. Getting a cool new item is supposed to be good, but if you don't have room for it, it's useless. 

The D&D player in me only noticed the standard roll of 1d6 or 2d6 with modifiers and could not conceptualize why giving modifiers to weapons fire does not work. I know, I've tried. It's because those rolls are from a dice pool, a concept that is totally foreign to me.  

This is a case of knowing your rule sets and having a great background in games, mechanics and theory helps a lot. I am all about D&D while I find Traveller to be entirely opaque. Traveller fascinates me because I can't figure out how the game master and players use the game mechanics to make great things happen. I've heard of people playing one Traveller campaign for decades, as I have been doing with Star Smuggler. The basic mechanics make that happen. 

In D&D, my campaigns fizzle after a few weeks or months because the characters reach a point where the truly fantastic has to happen over and over each session to make the game go. The rules lose their gritty danger as the characters improve. That's baked right into D&D while Traveller has a totally different mindset where it's not likely that your character will mechanically improve at all. They get better and smarter, but everyone is still one blaster shot away from death. It's the psychological threat level that changes, not the characters abilities. It's all in the scope of the story. 

This is probably the reason why I've been listening to Safco Cast so much. I am sure most listeners are looking to Jeff Koenig and Bob Loftin Traveller experiences, I am listening for their Gaming experience. It's this whole "new" world of Traveller that fascinates me not for the world itself, but the whole mechanical framework that makes the play happen. In the last episode I listened to, they spoke all about dice pools and it really sorted out some issues I had with Star Smuggler because of my personal experience with D&D. Bob and Jeff are truly enlightening, because of the way they present the Traveller rules while also looking other systems like Cepheus and make great comparisons in how things are done. 

Amazing. Why don't you give them a try? 

Revisiting Star Smuggler - Session 005a

The Zephyr

Week 5 in going to involve some gun running, so the crew purchases a full load of hypercharges for 2000 secs. This reduces their funds to 1175. 

Imperia is an expensive planet, everything is at least double normal prices. However, the main limiting factor is space on the ship. The best way to think about this problem is how to remove as much stuff from the cargo hold. Some items have a specific home. The 27 side arms are in the vault and take up 3 CU. The Regen tank is in medical, taking up 4 CU. The vacuum skimmer is cool, but it really has to stay in the cargo hold taking of 10 of 60 CU. The heavy side arms, robots and u-suits can be distributed in the crew quarters. The hoppers have their own spaces. Naturally, 19 fuel units can be divided among the hoppers. Additionally, the four repair units can be placed in Engineering while the 20 life support units can be placed on the hoppers for storage. 

There is now 50 CU available for items in the hold. The hoppers are too overloaded for use, not all the crew could escape on them due to the overpacking of equipment. Additionally, they should not be deployed because they crew doesn't want them damaged. 

I need 1 fuel unit and a few more repair units. I can sell 2 U-bots, the side arms and some of the life support units. The crew lands at the Industrial site and finds an empty room to search. None of the items in this area are worth screwing up a trade opportunity, so they move on. Looking at the table for the Industrial site, I need to roll a 5 (U-bots), a 7 for repair units, 8 for fuel, 10 for life support and 11 for side arms. There are a maximum of 5 rolls per day as they take 2 hours each. 

I get 5, 6, 10, 7 and 6. That's U-bots, a repairman, life support units, repair units and another repairman. Hmm. U-bots are 50 base price. The roll is a 3, or 5 times normal cost. They sell the bots for 500. It turns out life support units can't be sold here, so that roll is no good. Repair units are 5 each. The crew is going to take a chance on these and purchases 50 of them for 250. 

The next day, day 3, they roll again. They have excellent luck and sell all 50 repair units for 20 secs each or 1000 total. They also decide to sell the four in storage for an additional 80. The engineers are praying they have some good rolls, but no. They get a 3 which ends day 3. 

Day 4 doesn't go well. They purchase one fuel unit at a price of 2. Now they have a solid 20 fuel units or 10 per boat. No other good items appear. 

Day 5, the crew hits the jackpot and can buy side arms at cost of 15 each. Side arms are good cargo because a box of 10 takes up 2 CU. It's now a question of how much cash they have. They have 2503 secs. They buy 123 of them, when combined with the 27 they already have, they have a total of 150 weapons. They take up 30 CU, so they have a bit of breathing room. 

They take the rest of they day to get to the rough areas and I will roll for entry on the next morning. 

Day 6, welcome to the roughs. The Zephyr encounters nothing on the way in to the area, but attempts a contact. They meet up with some rough characters, gun runners who have a ton of arms. The crew is loaded for bear with the ship and hopper guns, so this is not a concern.  

They offer to buy the side arms for 5 each times 10. They take in 7500  less the 1845 they paid for them. The ship's account is up to 8158. 

On day 7, they try again to meet up with the arms dealers. It doesn't work out, instead they meet up with a party of royal guards. Nothing comes of it. 

The next day (EDIT - DAY 8!, I goofed), they get lost and have to boost the ship to a higher altitude to find their way out. A wasted day. 

On day 8 9, they move to orbit and dock at the space station. They may a payment and end the week with 6958. Each crewman receives 74 secs. 

I am going to cut off at the end of Day 8 9. As a player, my inclination is to return to something safe and sure like that cargo run from Regari to Palatek. As a game master, this is where I would kick the players in the butt to make fun stuff happen. 

Revisiting Star Smuggler - Session 004

The Zephyr

Week four didn't start out as planned.  The crew is on Nipna and is looking to get off world. The ships took a heavy beating on the last day of the week and the crew has decided repairs are in order. 

In this run through of the game, each character is an independent crew member and has a stake in the ship. While I have been avoiding splitting the crew, I decide that it is reasonable in this case. 

The engineers, Mel and Sarah pour over the ship and the hopper to get all the repairs done on day 1 of week 4. Emily and Patrick are there with heavy hand weapons and the ability to fly the ship away in case they get a bad roll again. 

Jason, Burnie and Alex take off to look for better guns for the ship. The Zephyr has one empty turret and the other only holds TL-1 guns. This proved to be a problem as they could barely defend the ship. The hoppers with TL-6 guns are far more effective. 

They managed to purchase 2 sets of TL-5 guns for a total 3200 secs. They also sold the old guns for 600, which leaves the ship with only 1464 in the ship's account. They crew feels they are dangerously low on funds as hypercharges cost 500 and a ship payment is 475. They have less than 3 weeks of cash in the bank and nothing has been paid on the principal. 

On day 2, they lift of and head for New Karma. 

New Karma is a rather dangerous planet. It is both rich and low tech, but there is a heavy risk of becoming wanted or being attacked at random. Additionally, this planetary system is the most obscure of all of the systems in the game. I mean that literally. There is a lot of rolling for one event that forces you to another event. You can't really see threats coming by flipping to the next entry. 

Luckily, the ship is undetected on entry to the system and proceeds to land in the Ruins. 

Over the next six days, the crew manages to accumulate some goods. In order, they are: 

A skimmer with no fuel, 

10 damaged u-suits that require an RU for repair and a roll to see if it works, 

A damaged U-bot, 

Another undamaged skimmer with no fuel,

A ship's boat with 4 hits of damage, 

An undamaged U-bot, 

A TL-1 side arm, 

A undamaged GM-bot. 

A damaged GM-bot. 

A repair unit. 

That brings us to day 7. 

The engineers burn up four RU to fix the ship's boat. I deem that two engineers working together, can repair one point of damage each. While they are doing that, the rest of the crew creates a cache for the 2 skimmers. 

One of the quirks of this is system is you have to have enough space in terms of CU to fit things in the ship. The rule sort of hint that you can put a boat inside the cargo bay, so that is what they do. 

Now the ship is using all three bays for boats and the largest bay also holds a skimmer. There are 10 CU left, unless I want to start packing things in the hoppers. I am going to do that. Two have guns, so that means 10 of a combined total of 75 CU of space is taken. I also divide the life support units and repair units among the hoppers. That is another 23 CU of 75 taken. I have 42 left. The crew loads in some heavy hand weapons, side arms (just 7) and all of the extra u-suits. 

If they don't take too long, the cached items can be recovered later. The crew decides to go for broke, and try a double jump to Talitar then a single jump to Imperia. At Talitar, there is a single scoutship waiting for us, but they quickly jump again with no incident. 

In the Imperia system, the Zypher only gets a radio check in and can proceed to the surface. The crew decides to stop at the Space Station to try and sell off some goods. They managed to sell the extra hopper for 2500 and immediately pay an interest payment. They have 3489 secs. 

At this point the crew moves the ship away to do some much needed maintenance in orbit, with no random checks. They now have the following in the cargo holds: 

2 Hoppers TL-1, 19 fuel units, 2 GM-bots at TL-5, 2 U-bots at TL-2, 1 vacuum skimmer TL-5 (e153), 3 TL-1 u-suits, 1 TL-6 u-suits, 27 side arms at TL-1, Regen Tank TL-6 (e153), Defense Screens, 20 life support units, and 4 repair units. 

The crew also collects its pay (314 secs) which drives down the ship's account to 3175. 

Tinkering with Worldographer

This one is called Miledown, a village, an abandoned tower and a fortification. 

I haven't picked a scale, but I think each hex in the image above should be about 0.2 miles or 1056 feet. That's ok, because I am going with a more artistic rendering of the map. I'll probably add more blue and green pops, but I really like this style. 

The fortification is forming in my mind, based on this image from earlier this month. 

In Worldographer, I have started throwing down the outlines. Right now, I have only laid out the items the guys in the image above can see. I should have marked their location, but I didn't think of that. If you look at the far lower left tower, they are about 6 boxes up and 6 to the right of that tower. 

This front area should be about 1/3 of the whole fortification. In HO scale, the whole thing would be 3 feet wide and four or five feet long. I hope to be done with the digital art by Christmastime. 

If you want to see some of my other maps, go check out DriveThruRPG. Each is listed as pay what you want. 

Kobold’s Folly Mini Setting Kobold’s Folly

Compass Rose Inn Mini Setting Compass Rose Inn

The Hex Pack The Hex Pack