NEW & OLD Playtest Campaign: Dirty Deeds in Space

[RisTigger]

Episode 3: Pirate's Booty

Theme Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMOjAYO3ifg&list=PLZkKcJGQQeNJPXJHmFBzXgigeUlubjERZ

So, when we last left off our players had killed a person on camera and now have a 100,000 credit bounty on their head. They fled to the Muscae system for sanctuary. In the 2 months it took to get there, they've been bored as hell. Most of them updated their skills and careers in the time...also we apparently have a 3D printer and "printed" some new gear. Whatever.

The Muscae system is mysterious to most of the universe. It's home to the venetians and their newly formed Space Butterfly religion (they worship a giant butterfly that hatched from a nearby ice giant). They separated from the rest of the universe after the galactic wars and now shun everyone except traders.

The team now live on the Orion Trading Station. It's the smallest station in the system and is mainly just for trade. They've been living in the hanger bay for a month and haven't made many friends. Because of the tight security and lack of trade, smuggling isn't a fruitful trade. They've been sitting on their hands for a while.

That is, until they get a call from Verner. He explains that the police found out that the team stole documents from Slugworth's office that probably tied the dead man to the Star Families. Because of that, the police are doubling their efforts. Bora has been looking through the documents but can't decipher the legal jargon.

However, Verner didn't call them to tell them that. He has a job for them. The Muscae system is home to the Psi-Corp and they are housing a cash cow of psychic relics. Verner knows that these relics are fetching a HUGE price on the black market. He got in contact with a corrupt Psi-cop that's willing to sell them the relics. At the mention of her being a psychic, Ruby gets an MP3 player and blasts music to make sure she can't read his mind...he also covers his head in tin foil. The group jumps at the chance to finally do something, especially Elieth when he hears it's a woman. He puts on his nice hat, ready for his date...I mean meeting!

Before they can leave, they're confronted by Dock Master Aurae.

Dock Master Aurae
"Your Rent is Late!"
The tough talking master of the space dock on the Orion Station. She manages all the incoming ships that enter the Muscae system. She's tough and doesn't like people being late.

Aurae asks Elieth for his rent which he quickly hands over. Aurae also asks them why they've been in the Muscae system for so long. They try to convince her that they're traders but she's unconvinced since she never sees them loading cargo. She asks them if they're criminals because she might want to hire them in exchange for rent. Despite that, they deny her and she leaves.

Ayen meeting them in the only bar in the system (the venetians banned alcohol). It's not that hard to spot her, as she's doing her best to not be seen...in a very loud and obvious way. Bora contacts her through his psychic powers and she agrees to meet with them.

Ayen
"Corrupt Psi-Cop"
She's working for Verner to supply him with psychic relics. Her reasons are shrouded in mystery.

Elieth tries to use his "charms" on her but she responds by almost breaking his hand. After that's settled, she reveals that something happened. They go back to the ship to discuss things in private and she reveals that she lost the relic. After she stole it, she hid it for the drop. Someone stole it. Luckily she knows who. Groups of pirates have been flooding into the system. Some of them managed to find the relic. When the crew wants to tell Verner, Ayen is shocked and immediately stops them. They ask her what's wrong but all she says is that this job is important.

Luckily, Ayen knows a snitch that will get them a meeting with the pirates. After an hour, she finds him...

Space Station Billy
"There's Gold in them there Space!"
Mental Status: Insane. Financial Status: Lost it all to a mule. Marital Status: Committed to his sandwich.

Billy leads them to the pirate's base after they pay him a hefty price. A sandwich. Before the meeting, they want to make sure Elieth looks like he actually has the cash to buy the relic. As of now, he looks like he will need a loan for lunch. They get him a suit. Elieth also wants some gun polish but meets up with a very forceful borian. He wants to sell Elieth some diamond gun polish. When Elieth refuses, he keeps going down in quality such as gold gun polish, silver gun polish and diamondium gun polish (the most beautiful substance in the universe). In the end, they decide that Bora and Vera acting as his bodyguards will look intimidating enough.

The pirates are hidden in the trading port on the Orion Station. Through bribes and secrecy, there's a large section of the trading port that's hidden for black market activity. The pirates are suspicious of the group. They're composed of a bunch of dwarves with laser axes. There's a few other grunts with guns in the room. The pirates want 600 thousand for the Starfire Wrath relic. They bring out a large stone shaped like a star. Elieth tries to bluff the pirates to get their trust but fails miserably. It's at that point where Bora and Vera jump into combat. They get access to the ambush round, along with Ruby who was listening in at the door.

Vera and Bora jump at the grunts pointing guns at them. With a slash of his psi-blade, one does down and Vera shoots another. Ruby jumps into the room and slashed through a grunts stomach before decapitating him. Elieth runs behind a table and kicks it over for cover.

Regular combat starts and the dwarfs rush towards our heroes. They're kept at bay for a while with some lucky shots thanks to Vera. One gets pissed and smashed the table where Elieth is hiding. Some of the other pirates have magic and try to shoot ice beams at Ruby but he just dodges them like a boss. Ruby them activates spin to win and cuts through a dwarfs gut and head. The dwarf is bleeding heavily and is clearly almost dead.

Sa'La is in a tight spot because she's stuck outside but does manage to buff Ruby using a spell. The dwarfs are wrecked by Vera and Bora but one does slip by and strikes Elieth, knocking him out. No one seems to notice...

One wizard tries to distract Ruby while the other runs out of the room. Ruby cuts down the wizard with ease and then finished off the dwarf. The other runs out the door and is face to face with Sa'La. Sa'La, equally surprised, stabs him with a poison spell, killing him instantly. Before rushing inside, she notices that there's a blinking light on his jacket.

The battle ends with Bora thrusting his psi-blade through one dwarf who curses the party before dying. Vera shoots another dwarf, her tries to warn the party of something but Vera just shoots his head off. The battle is over.

Ruby is now focused on finding a janitors closet to clean up the blood. Sa'La makes a pocket dimension to hide the bodies, the relic, and some crates they find. Before that, they notice the blinking light is attacked to a communicator with a few messages on it such as, "why did you activate your SOS?" or "What's going on?" They decide to book it before anyone finds out. Bora tries to send a message saying everything's fine but a new message pops up saying "we know who you are."

They leave but the large streets are empty and silent when before there was the oppressive environment of the possibility that you might die. They turn a corner and see a bunch of dead pirates. They turn around and find a felan that looks more like an android. She introduces herself as Yara Spalding.

Fleet Captain Yara Spalding
"One Man's Hero, Another's Worst Nightmare"
She's a powerful felan that modified her body beyond belief. Captain of a fleet of pirates that are all under her control. She has ambitions in the Muscae system.

She seems really happy to see the party. At first, she wanted to kill them and even chased them across space. But after finding how remote the Muscae system is, she decided that they did her a favor. She thanked them by killing the pirates that were about to kill them. Before she leaves they try to attack but in a flash she has her metal claws at Bora and Elieth's throats. She bids them goodbye.

They get back to the ship to find Ayen freaking out. Someone's killed a bunch of Star Marines and Psi-Cops and she thought it was them. The station's on lock down so they can't leave for now. They're fine and just wait it out for now.

Bora goes into the pocket dimension and looks through the crates. They have a bunch of weapons and drugs. Bora wants to sell them.

Ruby wants to look for bounties on the pirates they killed. The dwarves all have bounties. Before he lots off the Matrix, he gets a mysterious message. The address is complete gibberish. It says that Ruby has a package waiting, does he accept? He does and there's a package waiting to be picked up addressed to Ruby.


That's where we left off. I think the session went well. Sa'La's player was having trouble because he hadn't updated his entire spell lists to the updated document. Other then that, I think everyone had fun and combat ran smoothly. Thanks to the new OLD monster doc, I now know how to balance an encounter and this one felt better. I just need to up the difficulty for these guys. Muahahaha!

Not much else to say really.

 

[RisTigger]

Episode 4: Fire, Run with Me

The session started out really late so this is going to be shorter than usual. When we last left off, there was an attack on the system leaving some Star Marines and Psi-Corp members dead. The team was stuck in a lock down on the system, waiting for the chance to leave and deliver the relic.

Instead of waiting, Bora decides to deliver the pirate corpses at the Star Marine base for the bounty. He conscripts Ruby and Vera to help him. Ruby is just going to pick up his package. Vera is going to look like a bounty hunter.

They leave the ship and are immediately assaulted by the acrid smell of smoke in the air. They brave their way through the thick black smoke to the elevators. However, their plans are cut short by a huge explosive device attacked to the elevator doors. There are bright red numbers counting down...

Ruby tries to disarm it using his brilliant engineering and fails...miserably (remember that Ruby is the ships engineer). With nothing left to do, the three run back towards the ship as the docking bay becomes a war zone. There's explosions everywhere and debris flying all over the place.

This is when we started the Countdown. I was generous and gave them 6 tries to reach the ship using their speed. Vera was VERY unlucky and was losing dice left and right. She was down to one dice by the third roll. I also gave them challenges to overcome, such as jumping over crates and avoiding flying debris. The three were down to almost one dice by the time pirates showed up to block their path.

Bora was having none of that and shot them with his psi attack. Vera didn't want to risk anything, and instead of fighting she dodged past the pirates. That left Bora and Ruby fighting the pirates to the death. Thanks to Bora's quick psionic attack, the two pirates left were almost dead and were quickly dispatched. Bora rushed with Vera to the ship while Ruby stayed behind to grab the pirate corpses for their bounty.

Vera just barely made it to the ship, having to make an AGI check to jump into Sa'La's pocket dimension. Bora didn't make it and had to try to find cover but failed. Ruby also tried to hide from the blast but didn't make it in time.

The bomb went off...rocking the entire station and nearly knocking the ship on its side.

On the ship, Sa'La is keeping the portal open for as long as she can. Elieth, going with his first instinct, starts up the ship and starts flying towards the bay doors. There's smoke everywhere, so Elieth has to be very careful not to crash. Some debris falls after another explosion knocking the ship around but Elieth keeps it on course. However, the doors are blocked by more debris and destroyed ships. Vera mans the gunner seat and fires...almost missing with the benefit of a luck dice. She blows a big enough space for the ship to fly out into space.

The crew waits at the doors for their two friends, hoping they made it.


Back on the station, before Ruby dies and is incinerated into nothing, he uploads his consciousness into the ships computer...for some reason.

Bora on the other hand, used the last of his strength to push the dolly full of pirate corpses into the portal. This is another END Countdown and he does manage to make it with no trouble. Before he dies of burns and various other wounds, a knife stabs him through the chest. Bora uses the last of his HP to blast the attack into a ship, destroying the enemies head.

Bora falls to the ground. Before he passes out forever, Bora suddenly hears whistling. He looks up and sees a man with a flaming helmet staring down at him.

FIRE
"Totally NOT a Pyromaniac"
A mysterious terrorist and associate of pirates. Real identity and race unknown.

"That was so cool." That's the last thing Bora hears before he dies.


Back on the ship, the crew is mourning. Vera goes to her room to drink away the memory of almost dying. Ayen asks them all what happened and Elieth explains the pirates must have attacked. She is really concerned about what happened and says, "My home."

Elieth calls Verner to discuss the deal. He informs Verner about what happened, shocking the large criminal. Verner then realizes that he heard pirate activity is down all over the galaxy. They followed the party into an under-defended system. Verner then asks if the relic is safe, pissing off Elieth. Elieth then says that some of his crew is dead and that his informant screwed up. Ayen then gets really aggressive and tries to choke Elieth. He talks to her getting her to calm down, explaining that she's now a ghost because they most likely think she's dead. She can go and do whatever she wants. "I never wanted to be a ghost."

Elieth then begins negotiating with Verner. He's holding the relic hostage until Verner calls off their debt. Verner is furious and threatens to press the self-destruct button for their ship. elieth doesn't even blink, reminding Verner that that would blow up the relic. Verner then says he will call of the debt and give them a bunch of bonus cash, if Elieth kills Ayen for screwing up. Elieth doesn't do it, but he's still pissed at her and says he will leave her somewhere the first chance he gets.

Verner wipes away the debt, and asks Elieth what's next for them. He wants to return to the Orci system now that he might have a chance to do it without being arrested. He's going to use the warp gate and try to get back on the right side of the law. The crew then finally starts to relax.

A little while later, they suddenly get a call from an unknown number. Elieth answers but doesn't put up the video screen. It's then that they hear a familiar voice. It's Don Krogeth. He says he heard about the station they were on blowing up. Elieth wonders how he knew that they were on that station and Krogeth just says he knows the right people to pay off.

Don Krogeth changes the subject by saying he has good news. They're now part of the Star Families!

CREDITS! Theme song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDDkCiUhHCc


This session was pretty heavy. We had two character deaths. However, everyone liked it...at least those that were part of the action. The pilot and mage didn't have much to do unfortunately. The Countdown rules are a lot of fun and everyone enjoyed how tense it was. Vera's player REALLY didn't want to lose his character and worked really hard to save her.

Everyone is fine with losing their characters and they went out in an epic manner. I really enjoyed this shorter session. Role playing with Elieth was a lot of fun and the countdown was just epic. We shall see if I can keep it up next time.

Next week, unfortunately there's no session.

 

[RisTigger]

Episode 5: Broken Runes

Our session started out by picking up where we left off. Don Krogeth said that Elieth and the crew were now part of the intergalactic mob group called the Star Families. Elieth, really not wanting to be a part of that, has to convince Don Krogeth that this is a bad idea. It’s difficult because Don Krogeth is nuts. The Don wants a stronger foothold in the Muscae system. Elieth agrees to help if he doesn’t have to join the Star Families, much to Don Krogeth’s dismay. He wanted them to rule the galaxy together!

With that out of the way, the crew decides to stop at the closest space station. Ayan says that’s going to be hard because you need express permission to enter any of the other stations in the Muscae system. Still, the ship needs repairs and they need a rest.

They arrive at the new station and after giving the dock master their information, they’re told to travel to the next station near Diana VII, home of the Venetians. This is very suspicious since the venetian governments only allow very important people to these stations, but Elieth knows they can’t afford to turn away landing at the dock.

They arrive at the station and are allowed to dock. The crew gets off to inspect the damage but there’s an entire squad of Battle Psychics waiting for them. They’re asked to follow them and for once the crew just follows without much trouble. The battle psychs even offer to repair the ship. They’re led through the station which is filled with only venetians. They arrive at a huge metal door that only opens wide enough to allow one person at a time.

They enter the huge room and find,

QUEEN
“Psychic Overlord of the Venetians.”
The mysterious and very tall queen that rules over the Muscae system. She is also the high priestess of the cult of the Space Butterfly.

She says that this is the first time she has seen a ghost. She also communicates exclusively through telepathy. The crew is listed among the people that died on the Orion Station and yet they’re alive. Elieth explains how they survived and that it was pirates. QUEEN is at first unconvinced but she senses that he is telling the truth and allows them to leave.

After the ship is repaired, and the bomb is removed, the crew decides that it’s about time they deliver the relic and leave Verner behind forever. Once the relic is delivered, they plan to jump onto the Warp Gate back to the Orci system and figure things out from there.

Elieth calls his old friend to help with the negotiations.

Wilfred Bardicson V
“Cunning Little Prick”
A smallfolk con artist and old friend of Elieth. He's a shady character and member of the Star Families.

Before Elieth’s friend arrives, he decides to inspect the cargo they got from the pirates. He accidentally awakens the most adorable little android ever…

Wonderboom Mozart
“Small, Computer-Wiz, ADORABLE LITTLE MONSTER!”
Master hacker, gunner, and engineer. Mozart does it all but his social skills leave a lot to be desired. His past is a complete mystery. Who is this android?

Mozart is very confused and starts calling Elieth “Master”. It’s creepily adorable. Turns out, Mozart is a really good engineer. It’s almost like they needed a new engineer or something? Go figure.

Wilfred arrives and immediately becomes a big presence on the ship. He’s very full of himself and his alliances are kind of blurry.

The crew arrives on the rocky planet for the drop. There’s a few of Verner’s thugs waiting with a briefcase full of credit sticks. Elieth, Wilfred and Ayan goes to negotiate while Sa’La holds the relic. Vera is sitting on top of the ship with a sniper rifle. They’re preparing to make the drop when things go south.

The thugs pull guns and say Verner ordered them to kill the crew. A fight obviously breaks out when Elieth is shot by a sniper. The rest of the group making the drop is shot by the three thugs. Combat starts with everyone running for cover. Elieth is already almost dead…again. Wilfred and Vera keep most of the thugs at bay but Ayan actually distracts them by using her psychic powers. She creates an illusion of Elieth and her.

One of the thugs tries to shoot the illusion, obviously missing, and is wounded by Vera because he’s caught out in the open. That particular thug is actually taken out by Ayan with a well-placed psi-blast.

The other thugs are hard to drop. Wilfred tries really hard to shoot them but because they’re hiding in cover it’s really hard to hit them. Even Vera has trouble but she does manage to hit one in the arm. It gets so bad that Wilfred gets shot and drops unconscious.

Sa’La was very useful in this combat with her healing magic and weird little rabbit familiar.

Chang'yay
“YAY!”
Bunny out of Hell.

The bunny manages to pull Wilfred out of the combat to safety. Sa’La then delivers the killing blow to another thug using a spell of sonic swords that shoots him across the planet…

Elieth, still battered and bleeding, runs for the briefcase but uses cover to keep from getting shot. The thug is near and offers to take the relic and leave them with the money. Elieth says he’s had enough of promises and that he’s taking the money himself.

Before Elieth can do that, the thug grabs the cash and runs. This starts a chase and Elieth quickly runs after him. The first leg of the chase is really bad for Elieth who loses a dice right off the bat. However, the chase ends instantly when Vera pops the guy in the head. He drops the case and Elieth picks it up and books it back to the ship. Greed got the better of the captain. He’s shot twice by the sniper, once in the chest and one in the head. He drops and is really close to dying. He’s healed and the bunny drags the still unconscious Elieth back to the ship.

Elieth has serious head trauma and it takes him a while to figure out what happened. Once he’s back to consciousness he grabs the case and runs to his room to hide it. He rolled a 6 on the permanent damage and lost 1 LOG.

The battle ends when Mozart blows up the enemy’s ship. The sniper surrenders and tosses his gun away. Wilfred and Sa’La go to secure his weapon and keep him pinned. Sa’La smacks him across the face with a crystal hammer while Wilfred takes his sniper rifle. The guy surrenders but Wilfred still shoots him in the back of the head.

Back on the ship, Wilfred gets an awful idea. He sits in the captain’s chair like he owns the ship and calls Verner. He tries to convince the guy that Elieth is dead but it doesn’t go over well because Verner sees his ship is destroyed. Verner wants to know what happened but Wilfred just plays dumb and doesn’t give up many details. The call ends when Verner says he’s going to send a ship to investigate.

Realizing he screwed up, they decide to take drastic measures.

Elieth Runestar is dead…

Nah! They re-write his ID card to say that he’s dead. Elieth is now and truly a ghost. They dress up a corpse and plant the ID on him. Before they leave, they check the money they got from the deal but find that all the credit sticks have been wiped. Verner!

CREDITS! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6nbFZtxAL4


Well once again Runestar is in a pickle. Yeah this session was really focused on him and his character development but everyone felt they contributed to the combat encounter so that helped. The first part was a lot of stuff that needed to be set up for the future. Things only got going when the combat encounter started. We had a really short chase scene...thanks Vera.

One thing that I really regret is making Ayan such a pitiful character. I feel like I shouldn't have done the whole Verner asks Elieth to kill her. That feels really squiggy to me in hindsight. In my head she was supposed to be a more competent character than this and I think she actually got to be what I imagined her to be in this session. Those are just my own thoughts though.

Other then that, not much to say about this session. I'm getting better at combat though we're still struggling with ranges while using theater of the mind. Spells don't have range increments so Sa'La's player has to always ask me if the attack is in range.

The players are getting more clever...but not clever enough. Their actions are going to have consequences from Verner and QUEEN. Can't reveal much, but their adventures in this system are far from over.

 

[Morrus]

I'm getting better at combat though we're still struggling with ranges while using theater of the mind. Spells don't have range increments so Sa'La's player has to always ask me if the attack is in range.

Good catch! Mental note made: add spell range equivalents for TotM. As an off-the-top-of-my-head quickfix, I'd go with:

Up to 30' = same zone
31' - 100' = near zone
101' - 500' = far zone
501' or more = very far zone

 

[RisTigger]

Also, forgot to mention this, we used a nodded version of defense. You get a penalty for wearing armor depending on how heavy it is. So light armor is -2, medium -4, and large -6. I think it works well though maybe light armor shouldn't give a penalty. It's a thought one of the players had.

Also also, every theme song and credits song is different. Give them all a listen.

 

[RisTigger]

Episode 6: This Ends in Fire

This session started with Elieth renaming himself to...why did he choose this name?...Maxwell Curless. We all suggested our own names though and somehow my Byzantine name got shot down. Ayen wonders what they're going to do to her and Eleith agrees to just drop her off somewhere habitable. In a bizarre thing that I forgot they could do, they dropped off that ship full of Verner's crew...yeah our mage is weird.

Their first goal is to head to the Warp Gate and get the hell out of the system. So much crap has happened to them in the Muscae system they just want to leave. NOW! Before entering the customs station, they stash everything illegal in their pocket dimension...they almost threw Wilfred and Mozart in there too but decided against it.

Before they can enter the gate they need to travel to the custom station and get everything squared away. They're told to exit the ship and are suddenly confronted with the muzzle of a couple rifles. Two battlepsychics tell them to get on the ground with their hands behind their heads. One of the checks the ship for any other crew members.

Once that's done, the soldiers point their rifles at the group and shoots. A few of the group gets hit but they had their weapons ready and launched a counter attack, blowing the two soldiers away. The battle is really short...

Once the soldiers are dead, Wilfred loots them for good stuff and finds the battlepsyches are dressed like pirates under their armor. The group suddenly hears clapping over the intercom. A mysterious voice says, "I never thought I'd see that ship again." It's FIRE.

FIRE is actually pretty crazy and taunts the group with threats that everything will burn in his holy fire. He is a god after all and those two pirates were acolytes of his church. The group are unimpressed. They just say that FIRE is nobody special and they're ready to put a bullet in his brain. FIRE on the other hand is searching for a button. His last words to the group are, "You'd better run."

A huge explosion rocks the small station and the group realizes he blew up the warp gate. Elieth, for whatever reason, is so pissed he almost forgets to run back into the ship as debris rips through the station. They're having trouble getting out but some debris makes a hole in the station and they luckily fly through the hole.

The group has had enough! They're planning to get out of this hellish system and now! They spend some time planning out where they're going and finally decide on the Cigney system. Elieth wants to go to the Sol system but whenever he's brought it up, other people just say how horrible it is there.

With a route plotted out they fly out of range of the system for new horizons. However, Mozart picks something up on the sensors. It's a ship following them. The Fire Ant, the ship owned by FIRE. He hails them on the coms and says he will not be letting them leave. If they reveal what's been going on in the system his whole plan will be undone. So he's just going to kill them.

His ship is bigger and better than theirs...so Elieth asks to be paid off. FIRE is intrigued and asks for a parley.

The two ships dock with each other which is a large corridor connecting the two ships together. Elieth and Wilfred decide to do all the talking. They open the door. FIRE and Spalding are right there in their faces. FIRE is amused at finally meeting Elieth. Elieth starts talking and asks how much FIRE is willing to pay for his silence. FIRE isn't willing to pay and pulls a gun on Elieth, commanding him to get in the ship. Elieth doesn't move, too pissed off by this guy to care about the threat. FIRE sighs and shoots Eleith in the foot, knocking him prone and slowing him.

Sa'La casts a defense spell on the group and Vera, the groups cannon, blows a hole in FIRE's head, knocking him back into the corridor. Wilfred pulls a gun and blows through Spalding's armor.

The combat was pretty short...until someone starts healing Spalding. She gets up but Wilfred just shoots her dead again. Elieth has been slowly crawling back to the ship. Wilfred then tries to take FIRE's guns since Sa'La sensed magic in them. He ends up burning his hands and awakening the dragon...literally.

FIRE roars back to life and transforms into a dragon with two flaming hands that float in the air. FIRE gets his turn and breaths fire on Wilfred. He's fine but then the flaming hands clap together and a flaming zweihander forms. FIRE slashes through Wilfred, dropping him to the ground, dying.

Elieth has made it to the ship but sees his friend on the ground. He's conflicted. He wants to run but...he doesn't want his friend to die...Elieth runs into the corridor and shoots at FIRE with a pistol. It doesn't do much damage but it does piss FIRE off. Elieth is staring into the eyes of a dragon, until one of those eyes is blown apart by Vera. She shoots the dragon two more times and he disappears into a pillar of flames.

The group RUNS! They detach from the ship and fly off. Wilfred is healed after barely surviving his END check.

Before the session ended, Elieth flops into his captains chair and enjoys a nice long rest. Vera on the other hand, feels an intense pain behind her eyes. She passes out, but wakes up in a vision. She's floating in space and sees the Crimson Star in front of the Space Butterfly.

Space Butterfly
"..."
A mystical being that hatched from the ice giant near Diana III, the venetian home world. Since then, this cosmic creature, dubbed the Space Butterfly, has traveled the universe trying to sow peace through its powerful psychic and mystical might. Multiple religions have popped up surrounding the Space Butterfly.

Suddenly, the Crimson Star explodes and Vera has the feeling that the Space Butterfly is looking at her (even though it's a formless being of energy). Inside her head, she hears the word "FIRE" repeated over and over again...

CREDITS!

End of Season 1

[video=youtube;yymS1Pb7JfM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yymS1Pb7JfM[/video]


That's the end of what I'm dubbing the first season. It was a tough battle even though I made it easier for the group. The kid gloves are officially off and I'm not going easy on the group anymore. Next season is going to be interesting.

Our characters are also going to be very different next season. I'm not going to spoil it though! So yeah, I really enjoyed the session and I think I added some story hooks into for the group. We will see what happens next season...


For some mechanical stuff, we tried out the new Defense system. Honestly, I didn't really like it. It felt like my guys had MUCH too little Defense especially with the penalties thanks to SOAK. I much prefer the flat penalties we had, Light -2, Med -4, Heavy -6. That's just me though. It seems like Shields are more important now so I might have to look at that. My players agreed that DEF is now really low. It's really not that hard to get dice up to 5d6 which can hit pretty much everyone most of the time with these rules.

Also, is Damage limited by your level like attack dice?

 

[Morrus]

Was that the DEF posted today?

It's designed so that a character in the open is an easy target.

A couple of questions which will be helpful, if you have a moment:

1) Presumably the characters weren't designed with the new DEF in mind? That might make a difference.

2) Were they using cover? My vision is that skirmishes take place between opponents in cover, occasionally dashing to other cover to get positional bonuses.

3) Were the DEF pools also up to 5d6? They should generally equal the attack pools, and have SOAK where they fail.

4) Getting hit is OK if you have SOAK. The idea is to avoid it or deflect it, rather than both things.

 

[Nidrog]

I'll awnser what I can here for you Morrus as Vera's player and all.

2) The first combat was too short for cover to play any part. We basicly one shot the guys. As for the secound battle. We where in basicly a docking tub so no real cover where to be found. So cover didn't play much of a role.

But yeah the new defence system seems really low to start out with now. If I end up with a navy battle suit as a example, I would end up with two defence at the moment and at the time of the last session I'd have -1 defence, and when things can definelty do more then 12 damage back to us. Yeah to me it doesn't feel completly balanced but I guese thats what all the playtesting is for right

 

[RisTigger]

Hey everyone! Guess what? We're not dead. Far from it actually. The delays were mostly because of life stuff. We're back, though we are only doing this every 2 weeks now instead of every week.

We just spent a few hours updating our characters to the current version. It was a...process. Many of the players had to remake everything while our mage just had to be like "does this work?" We are finally done and are ready for the session next week.

We also decided to do a bit of a time skip from where the heroes last left off. 8 whole years have passed! Our heroes are older and a lot has changed in the universe since they defeated FIRE.

Wilfred has spent his time hustling money from other people, pocketing a cool profit (luckily he shared it with others).

We also used a jury rigged XP rules until they are fixed. 1000 x (# of Careers you have - 5) for a new career.

The next session will end a huge chapter in the character's lives, and open something completely new. I hope.

 

[Morrus]

That's exactly the formula I'm using (though -4 not -5)!