My Serenity campaign is over

[MortalPlague]

There are non-random point-buy methods in the Mongoose Traveller book for chargen.

That's true. I like the random method, though! But if I do manage to get them to try it, I'll offer the point buy, I think.

That revelation session sounds awesome, by the way. Absolutely amazing. How do you pitch something like that? Is it the players' idea, or is it yours?

 

[MerricB]

That revelation session sounds awesome, by the way. Absolutely amazing. How do you pitch something like that? Is it the players' idea, or is it yours?

It's a combination. The player had set up a couple of secrets about his character to be revealed in play, and I then chose the appropriate time to reveal them. I chose to do a flashback session and plotted out the main flashbacks that I'd use in it, then let the player improvise out the roleplaying in them with only a few bits of direction from me. I'd let the players know they'd be doing the session, but they didn't know exactly what'd be revealed in it - mind you, they added stuff to it which made it awesome.

When I plotted out the "season", I pencilled in the "episodes" and what I expected to happen in each of them - using some advice from the Doctor Who RPG. A few of them were meant to focus on one of the PCs, and that one was the Captain's.

For those interested in a quick summary of the entire campaign, here's the episode titles and synopses. I wasn't originally the GM; I was meant to be a player but took over as GM in the fourth session after basically acting as GM in the second...

Episode 1x01: "Jailbait" - The Captain, Breeze and Logan are hired by Aiden to steal an experimental "stealth" ship before it fell into the hands of the Alliance.

Episode 1x02: "Billy" - the crew of the Jailbait run into an escape pod containing a charming murderer, "Billy", of Doc's Gang. After nearly getting themselves killed, they hand him over to the authorities.

Episode 1x03: "Halfbreed" - responding to a plea for help by Ed Grant, an ex-Alliance ship captain, the crew fight off a gang of faux-Reavers. Ed Grant joins the crew, along with Miss Roux, a young lady off to see the world, and Jet, a young boy.

Episode 1x04: "Derelict" - the ship malfunctions when it picks up a distress call from an Alliance scout. Aboard the derelict, they discover it was attacked by a top-hatted figure to rescue the prisoner it was taking to a prison world. The prisoner? Billy!

Episode 1x05: "The Man for the Job" - Arriving at Ezra, Aidan sets up a complicated scheme to ship goods from one side of the planet to the other, allowing Mr Richardson - a wealthy merchant - to bypass the rogues of Niska; along the way, he tries to play both Niska and Mr Richardson against each other to various success. The Captain rescues a Browncoat, and accepts a drinking invitation.

Episode 1x06: "The Price of Honour" - The Captain accepts a drinking invitation, but is confronted by someone from his past with memories he'd like to forget and revelations that are explosive. His treachery during the war becomes apparent, as does why he became a drunkard.

Episode 1x07: "Running on Empty" - With fuel low, instead of going to either Mr Richardson or Niska for more fuel, the crew (well, Logan and the Captain) cook up a mad plan to raid a naval base for fuel. With Jet's computer hacking skills, they disguise themselves as a salvage ship and get the fuel... and a sealed order mission! Then they get discovered and blow up part of the base as they escape.

Episode 1x08: "Haven - part one" - The sealed order mission is to find a secret base lost during the war. Once that is done, the group find it's an astonishing place: a hollowed-out asteroid with its own miniature sun and one insane survivor.

Episode 1x09: "Haven - part two" - The crew fix the oxygen supply on the asteroid; Grant leaves with the survivor for a hospital (asylum), and they manage to not destroy the base as it has a close encounter. They also pick some apples.

Episode 1x10: "The Missing Inventor" - Memphis Black, the inventor of the stealth ship "Jailbait" has been captured by the Alliance, but his transport has been diverted to Ezra by Niska. The crew follow him there, to find that Mr Richardson has relieved Niska of him. The crew go to a ball (shindig) to meet Mr Richardson...

Episode 1x11: "The People You Know" - Miss Roux and Aidan bargain with Mr Richardson for Memphis Black, whilst the rest of the crew launch on a raid against Mr Richardson's estate for Memphis Black. Unfortunately, they get caught in the middle of an attack by Niska's men... and captured!

Episode 1x12: "Hell" - Aidan and Miss Roux have to free Memphis Black and their friends from Niska's skyplex, with the help of the mysteriously uncaptured Breeze. Meanwhile, Niska tortures the Captain, Logan and Jet for his pleasure. Eventually, they escape with help from Jet's cat, and sail back to the asteroid base. A couple of days later, a mysterious ship docks with the base... it opens to reveal Billy and Doc's Gang... and Breeze is revealed to be a traitor.

Episode 1x13: "Endgame"- Doc's gang are in the service of Niska, and they want both the Jailbait and the asteroid. The Captain doesn't give them that, despite negotiation, and is incapacited in a grenade explosion. Miss Roux is ready to deal - as long as she "gets" Breeze - and Logan has made his very own suit of power armour with equipped machinegun! The final stand-off sees Logan killing Breeze, Billy almost killing Logan, only to be stopped by the Captain returning. Doc, the sole survivor of his gang, surrenders... and Ed Grant arrives to tie things up (along with a crew of Alliance troops). He takes possession of the base, but lets the Captain go with the Jailbait with a warning: "Don't let me see you again!"

Cheers!

 

[wedgeski]

Merric, taking on-board your criticisms of the system...

If I was to want to run a Serenity game using a different system, would you still recommend picking up the core rule-book(s?) for info on the universe, or is it stuff that could be gleaned from one's love of the show, and various online wiki's and other fan resources?

 

[amerigoV]

That might depend on the system you are running. For example, I have seen many that use Savage Worlds for Serenity. The Serenity book might be good to see if there are any hindrances that might port nicely. I do not think there is a ton of fluff that you could not get from a Serenity wiki.

On the other hand, it is a nicely presented book. The writing style gets you in the mood. Thus, it is something to hand to a player if they are not Serenity geeks. And a buddy of mine contributed to the product, so buy it and help him out

 

[MerricB]

Hmm. Tough question. I'm really not sure. I was really running a Firefly-inspired RPG rather than Firefly itself, and I only consulted the rulebook on occasion. Most of the things I needed to know weren't covered in the show, so I was just Making It Up (tm).

For those interested in such things, here's my original plan for the campaign:


1. Jailbreak
The characters steal the Jailbait

2. Billy
The characters meet a drifter with an unsavoury past.

3. Half-breed
Introducing Grant, and a mysterious gang of “Reavers”.

4. Derelict
The group come across a derelict Federation ship emitting a signal that screws with the Jailbait’s sensors. When aboard to disable its beacon, they discover it was carrying Billy until it was attacked by an unidentified ship. Then they need to get away from a Federation rescue vessel... that surprises them because of their malfunctioning sensors.

5. The Man for the Job (Popey-themed episode)
The group arrive at their destination, only to find that Aiden (Popey) is in trouble with the local crimelords, and need them to do a job to clear their name.

6. The Price of Honor (Nash-themed episode)

7. Running on Empty (Nash-themed episode)

8. Haven – the group find an old Federation asteroid military base that has been deserted.

9. Haven pt 2 –

10. Sarah-themed episode

11. Derek-themed episode

12. The Deal (part 1): Agents of the Federation have a deal that will allow the Jailbait to continue to operate as an independent operator... if they’ll just do a job for them.

13. The Deal (part 2): The job goes sour.

Parts 11, 12 and 13 got changed when I realised how great "Doc's Gang" were as villains, and when the group went and raised havoc on a Navy Base. Parts 10-13 all started to end on cliffhangers, which was not my intention, but was the way it played. I did give Sarah (playing Miss Roux, the charismatic 2inC) a chance to roleplay a lot during eps 10-11, and Derek's character (Logan) was the apprentice of Memphis Black, so a lot of 11 was about him anyway.

As they were captured at the end of #11, "The Deal" didn't have a chance to happen. Instead, they needed to escape in #12, which set up the showdown in #13.

Jesse's character, Breeze, turning out to be a traitor was not in my original notes. After the fifth or sixth session, neither Jesse (a first-time roleplayer) or I were happy with the character. I went home from that session intending to kill him off, but changed my mind and thought "wouldn't it be great if he was working for Niska". When I next saw Jesse, I discovered that he had the same idea! We decided to reveal it as the cliffhanger to part #12, and so it was.

In actual fact, I wasn't meant to be running this game: I was meant to be playing in it! However, after three sessions, we realised that I had a few too many ideas for the campaign and Mick would be better as a player. So, Mick created a new character, "Jet", and I never got a chance to play my character - Ed Grant - a suffering war hero. If I'd had him as a PC, there's no way that he would have been revealed as working for the Alliance...

Cheers!

 

[Gort]

This sounds a lot like my old Twilight 2000 campaign. For those of you unfamiliar with it, it was the grognardiest of systems - charts for everything! Want to build a house? Consult the chart[/i]. Want to scavenge food? Consult the chart. Best of all - none of the charts made sense compared to each other, so a skill level of 5 in construction might well lead to a smaller chance of success than a skill level of 5 in scavenging!

Add to this clunky combat rules, character generation where we ended up with a 60-year-old character who owned about a metric ton of military hardware which he handed off to another character and was then more-or-less useless, and this was my experience with T2000.

That said... it was one of the better campaigns I've run! The weirdness of the rules, and the fact that they made little sense and nobody was able to powergame them due to that lack of knowledge led to some really cool moments, and very memorable characters. We all remember the time when the 60-year-old retired colonel failed his check to disarm the grenade booby trap on a door and - in a moment of quick thinking - immediately hurled the grenade out of the window, right at the feet of the medic. We remember a character who would always get randomly shot in the face. (not the head, mind, there was a roll to see if it hit your helmet or your face. Yup.) We remember the time the slave-taking marine colonel shot at our green beret character with his revolver until both he and the green beret ran out of ammo simultaneously, then they had a spontaneous climactic knife duel against the backdrop of a huge firefight.

In a way, I wish I could erase my players memories of the rules of D&D, just so I could have them making characters from scratch, instead of the 3e equivalent of them saying, "Well, I want to be a whirlwind attack fighter, so I need 13 int and this feat and that feat and blah blah blah" and the roleplay being stuck on afterwards.

I guess all I'm saying is that sometimes it rocks to use systems nobody knows, because it leads to some cool stuff.

 

[possum]

Sounds like a fun campaign. I've got a couple of Cortex system games, but I haven't really had the chance to fully test it out. I did run a very short BSG game online that moved far too slow for me to get fully into, and that was just pure roleplaying.

 

[MerricB]

I guess all I'm saying is that sometimes it rocks to use systems nobody knows, because it leads to some cool stuff.

I love running campaigns that have a lot of "make cool stuff up" in them. A lot of my tempering as a DM came because I used to run an Amber Diceless RPG campaign. Boy, did I learn to improvise. I also saw the problems DM Fiat could cause, but there were some great experiences there.

These days, I would really like to run more games where the players make cool stuff up, but underpinning it all is a system I understand and trust. This particular group had some interesting personalities in it: Derek (who was playing Logan the Engineer) really enjoys designing his own mechs, starships and what have you. He was also keeping track of fuel and wanted to know how much salvage the group was getting, etc.

One of the reasons I'd like to run some Traveller with this group is because that system handles all of that. It has ship construction rules. It has operating costs. Heck, it has trade rules which don't amount to handwaving. So, Derek and Popey would be happy, able to try and take advantage of the system and also setting up plots for the rest of us.

Meanwhile, the resolution is pretty simple and transparent. It's fairly predictable. It's been a very long time since I played any Traveller, so I don't know how well it will actually play at the table, but it looks like it will support the game and not get in the way of the roleplaying and storytelling.

So, now I'm reading the Mongoose Traveller books, and thinking of ways of continuing the campaign with a new system next year.

Cheers!

 

[Fate Lawson]

That sounds like it was a blast to play. And now that the characters have well developed backgrounds and personalities, it sounds like you might find "re-creating" them in a system like FATE to be a snap.

 

[MerricB]

That sounds like it was a blast to play. And now that the characters have well developed backgrounds and personalities, it sounds like you might find "re-creating" them in a system like FATE to be a snap.

Indeed... although after my experiences with the Serenity RPG, I'm very unlikely to use FATE. There are times when I want a handwavy system, but this is not one of them.

Cheers!