Stellar Tower Hotel (OOC Lounge)

[Grendel]

A place for Out of Character discussion.

 

And the first order of business is to come to a consensus as to which campaign model you want to play in.  The three options in the Detailed Description of the game are three that come to mind that I can run.  I'm open to other ideas.

Edited May 4, 2023 by Grendel (see edit history)

[Grendel]

Thank you for the vote of confidence, @JagrHunter.  First level SF characters start out pretty measly, not going to lie, it is going to be hard to say he's a "great pilot" at least for starships.  Now I did modify the spaceship skills acquisition process to jump start it, so it should come quicker than RAW.  This is why I say "no veterans" in most of my character creation threads, with two skills each at level 1 (the standard starting skills package) you're not much of a veteran.  Still want in?  Could have been captured by Sathar agents, tortured in an attempt to brainwash to their side, and was rescued by Star Law.  Now wants revenge.

[JagrHunter]

Thats cool too.  He says he is a great pilot.  I understand the "starting" levels.  I see Yaz as having an inherent knowledge of "aero-spatial" awareness.  Moving in a 3D environment as a matter of species should make some artificial flying a little easier.  He still has to learn.  So no worries

[Grendel]

If you want to start on the character be my guest.  If you want to skew one set of abilities tell me which pair you will favor and which one you will slight to balance it out.  Otherwise, all four pairs have the same chances of getting the values between 35-70.

[JagrHunter]

Probably won't get to something till tomorrow

[Grendel]

It is not clear from the description of the Frontier but the Sathar War is the incident that prompted the formation of the United Planetary Federation, Star Law and the Council of Worlds.  According to the timeline in Zebulon's guide, that was roughly 25 years before the Crash on Volturnus introductory adventure in the Alpha Dawn boxed set.  By that timeline, none of the Player Characters can be veterans of the war or even remember it.

However, Sathar incursions and terrorist activities by them and their agents definitely happened in the intervening 25 years, so having someone who survived something like that is absolutely okay.  There is also mention int he literature of the Blue Plague which devastated four worlds and was only recently eradicated (about 4 years ago.)

@Malkavian Grin, future plans for Mom and her business we can work on later.  Replacement (versus augmenting) cybernetics are fine, it's just flavor.  You also just gave me an idea for a variant on campaign model 1: instead of UPF prisoners escaping, the PCs were prisoners of the Sathar and escape.  Thoughts?

[Malkavian Grin]

Oh, my bad, I'm still very unclear of the specifics of the setting. I've read through the stuff in Alpha Dawn, but if I recall it doesn't say specifics on time. I assumed Sathar conflicts were still pretty hot. So, you're saying it's alright to have survived an incursion, but not to have taken part in it? (I'm totally fine with that)

The future plans were a way of me having "things to do" in-character, so no worries there. Good to know about wet-ware. Probably just a replacement arm; I'll be inspired by artwork LOL.

Prisoners are prisoners. I'm fine with however you wanna take it. The only campaign model I don't think works strongly, is us just being in a sandbox with no real goals beyond personal ones (I'm far too unfamiliar with the setting to really know what I should be aiming for in sandbox mode).

[Grendel]

No worries, Alpha Dawn is a bit vague on timing, though they make it sound like it was historical but recent.  25 years ago is pretty good in terms of recent memory, certainly there are veterans of the war alive, but the current generation (25 and under) have that as history but not living experience and grew up in a Frontier that is moving towards greater unity, etc.  It also helps explain some of the anomalies in the Frontier, like why Star Law and the Space Fleet tolerate Outer Reach as a pirate and criminal haven.  Too big a problem for existing resources.

[Malkavian Grin]

Gotcha! That all makes sense to me. I appreciate the clarification.

So, to have survived an attack on a world by the Sathar, my character would need to be something like a very young child of 5 or something; does that work? She'd now be something like 30ish.

Young enough to have no say in the matter, but old enough to remember it and be permanently affected by the emotional trauma. (I am personally overly careful about fire safety due to waking up in the middle of a fire when I was 7, for instance).

[Grendel]

Or she could be the survivor of a Sathar or Sathar-agent perpetrated terrorist attack more recently.  Not directly related to the war, but it is rumored/well-known that the Sathar are trying to destabilize the alliance and that they hire/bribe/brain wash agents of the four races.

[Malkavian Grin]

Okay, that works too! I actually like the idea of a secret agent. I think greed is a better pill to swallow than "oh god I can't trust anyone" so I think I'll avoid the brainwashing aspect for now.

[Grendel]

Wait, I’m not saying you are a secret agent working for the Sathar. I’m saying that the tragedy in your past that cost you an arm was perpetrated by Sathar agents, some sort of terrorist incident.

[Malkavian Grin]

No, I agree. I was saying a secret agent instead of the Sathar war itself. I was saying that I'd rather the agent responsible for wounding my character in the past was paid off (and thus values greed) rather than being brainwashed (as that creates a "thing" with my character logically unsure of whether she ought to trust someone; I'd rather NOT play that kind of constant suspicion right now, is all I meant).

We're saying the same thing, but differently LOL. I often use too many words to do so XD

Edited May 8, 2023 by Malkavian Grin
Forgot the word not, which changes the whole meaning LMAO (see edit history)

[Grendel]

Okay, cool.  You guys ( @JagrHunter also) can start rolling if you like.  First decide if you want even chance to get high scores across all four ability pairs or if you want to favor one pair a bit at the expense of another pair.

[Papa Bear]

Is this full up already?  I have bad luck finding games on this site.