Paul Farquhar
Legend
Gameplay that just breaks down to a series of dice rolls isn’t really desirable. You might as well reduce it to “the engines break down, roll to fix the engines”, or simply leave it out. It’s only good gameplay when meaningful choices are involved (or the consequence of choices). For example, when the party take on passengers, they might talk to them, or investigate them a bit. So there may or may not be an attempted highjacking later on. The first episode of Firefly is based around who you choose to take as passengers, and the consequences thereof.
Travel does not need to be a long string of random encounters. It’s fine for most journeys to be a red line on the map. That makes it more significant when an emergency does happen. There are a number of ways to indicate the passing of time during a journey, such as getting up to fetch snacks, leaving the players to chat amongst themselves, or timing hyperspace to coincide with the end of the session.
Travel does not need to be a long string of random encounters. It’s fine for most journeys to be a red line on the map. That makes it more significant when an emergency does happen. There are a number of ways to indicate the passing of time during a journey, such as getting up to fetch snacks, leaving the players to chat amongst themselves, or timing hyperspace to coincide with the end of the session.
