[Dragonstar] Reminiscing/Behind the scenes of "Raw Recruits"

[Napftor]

Greetings DS fans. As one of the authors of MEG's Dragonstar works, I starting waxing nostalgic after reading this recent thread: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=130897

This forum seemed like the best place to reminisce about MEG's contribution to the DS universe. Feel free to use this thread for adventure discussion (spoilers are only natural) or to ask questions about anything connected with Raw Recruits or the other DS modules from MEG. I'll answer what I can and invite other DS/MEG authors that contributed to chime in (Vigilance, I know you're out there).

I think back to the opening I got to do for the first adventure, "Aftermath." Once the uberplot of RR was hammered out by the powers that be, the core group of 4 writers (Chuck Rice, Andrew Thompson, Doug Herring, and myself) got to decide which of the 4 adventures we wanted. I recall not being too thrilled with getting the first adventure, but then warmed up to it considerably--"after all," I thought, "this is the first adventure ever that fans will be playing and I get to write it!" But I'm getting sidetracked...

The time was, oh, spring of '02 and I was mowing the grass listening to Pet Shop Boys' "Send Me an Angel." When one of the song's opening verses sang out "Open fire!" I just knew I had to use that at the beginning of my adventure somehow. Thus was born the testing of the weapons intro you have at the start of that adventure.

More juicy behind the scenes moments to come (if anyone is interested that is).

 

[trancejeremy]

D'oh! Now I'm going to have that song in my head for the next day or so.

I have to wonder what song Chuck (I think he wrote the 2nd adventure) was listening to when he came up with that Human-Halfling-Halfing love triangle.

 

[Napftor]

D'oh! Now I'm going to have that song in my head for the next day or so.

I have to wonder what song Chuck (I think he wrote the 2nd adventure) was listening to when he came up with that Human-Halfling-Halfing love triangle.

Hey, Jeremy. Loved your review of this mega-adventure. Yeah, Chuck wrote the second adventure. Andrew had the third and then he, Doug, and I had to split the final adventure when Doug found he had more than enough on his plate to attend to.

 

[HellHound]

I started running Raw Recruits with some slight modifications for my DragonStar Rokugan campaign, and I certainly enjoyed the first adventure - we turned the Apocalypse Stone into a stone that carried shadowspace taint. The only major change we had was the changes to the interpersonal roleplaying brought about by a switch to Rokugan - so there was a lot less interaction between the samurai and non-samurai on board the Evening Star. This actually drastically changes a lot of the between modules dialogue and setups.

 

[Napftor]

I started running Raw Recruits with some slight modifications for my DragonStar Rokugan campaign, and I certainly enjoyed the first adventure - we turned the Apocalypse Stone into a stone that carried shadowspace taint. The only major change we had was the changes to the interpersonal roleplaying brought about by a switch to Rokugan - so there was a lot less interaction between the samurai and non-samurai on board the Evening Star. This actually drastically changes a lot of the between modules dialogue and setups.

Hi, HH! I bet that did change a few things. Did you keep the adventure for 1st-level PCs? I recall there was some flack about starting at this level given the tech PCs could possess. But audiences should bear in mind that we only had access to the Starfarer's HB while writing it. How did your group do against the formians on the rock field?

 

[Vigilance]

Yeah I wrote the adventure no one liked

It got all sorts of cool comments like "how could a human get a halfling pregnant?!?" to which I'd say "well it wasn't *true* it was a rumor" and "he says the dock outside the ancient factory is weathered, there's no weather in space!" to which Id say "its worn down by thruster powered ships taking off and landing" to which people would reply "so you should have said worn not weathered".

These probably aren't the sorts of anecdotes Napftor had in mind

In terms of what I was listening to, Attack of the Clones mostly, can't you tell?

Chuck

 

[Neo]

Yeah I wrote the adventure no one liked

Chuck

I liked it Chuck

 

[Napftor]

I liked it Chuck

I agree, it was a fine adventure. We were young back then, so technicalities don't count.

 

[Vigilance]

Thanks Neo and Napftor

Well, it certainly helped me in a lot of ways. I remember when I did my first book for RPGObjects, Blood and Space, that I was credited as the "author of Vigilance and Raw Recruits" so it at least helped me from that perspective.

I know for me that was kind of a hectic time. When I started Raw Recruits I was finishing up Vigilance: Absolute Power and as I was finishing it I was starting on Blood and Space.

Chuck

 

[Napftor]

Thanks Neo and Napftor

Well, it certainly helped me in a lot of ways. I remember when I did my first book for RPGObjects, Blood and Space, that I was credited as the "author of Vigilance and Raw Recruits" so it at least helped me from that perspective.

I know for me that was kind of a hectic time. When I started Raw Recruits I was finishing up Vigilance: Absolute Power and as I was finishing it I was starting on Blood and Space.

Chuck

That's the sort of anecdotes I'm looking for. It's always interesting to know what was going on in the creators' lives while the product is being worked on.

Here's another little tidbit. Tha asharin, the blue-skinned race featured in "Aftermath," are a race from my home FR campaign. In that campaign, the backstory for doppelgangers is that they are magically-warped descendants of the asharin race. The PCs managed to reverse the curse upon them and now there are no more native doppelgangers in my FR. I was pretty enamored with the asharin so I decided to tweak them to fit in with DS. Seemed lilke the universe needed some new races anyway (and later, of course, FFG released Galactic Races).