Stargate campaign

[Khorod]

I don't have the book, but I am a Stargate nut.

There should be a compelling reason for the dinosaurs. That sort of thing is a great mystery for the first or second visit. Its also the sort of thing that is easily a double layered secret. I doubt the Go'auld were not on Earth while live dinos were running around, so this could be an interesting breeding project.

But if the dinosaurs are just there I'd scratch my head and think the GM was crazy.

I've thought a bunch about running a Stargate game, and my conclusion was that the first system lord should die quickly if a majority of the the group knew Stargate, or after at least 8 sessions if most did not.

 

[Crothian]

Dinos are there for a reason. There are actually going to be some people on this world not living in the valley, and not under the rulership of the System Lords. They live out among the creatures and I've got a cool little investigation thing planned with them if the PCs want to do it.

On thing I'm thinking of doing is after each mission ask the players to write an report (are those called after action report? for some reason that name is stuck in my head). It will be optional and I plan on rewarding a few extra action points the next session if they choose to do it. Plus it will lead to further adventures. If they discover the ruins of some long lost empire for instance they will need to write what the discovered and why they feel it needs to be investigated further. So, while I will assign missions they can influence the higher ups with their reports.

 

[Hand of Evil]

May want to check out this site on MEGAFAUNA it has some great size charts and while not dinos could be useful.

Theme the planet as a hunting lodge for the system lord, it could also be seen as a testing ground for the Jaffa.

 

[Dagger75]

The reports are called After Action Debriefing From, found here http://www.stargatesg1rpg.com/resources/stargate_debriefing.pdf


I just got the Stargate RPG and have a few months before we play. Still working on ideas, things are forming. I to am starting out at season 3. You have all the major bad guys and some Ancient stuff going on. The only thing you don't have is the X-302 and X-303.

And an off topic, still Stargate RPG question, which book describes the ring transport system?

 

[Crothian]

good question, I do find it hard to find things in the books. There should really be an on line index of everything or something like that.

 

[Eolin]

Anybody want to know what we did for ours?

Of course you do!

A friend told me he wanted to run a Stargate game with a bit of a difference -- we'd be playing an off-planet mixed team. Instead of being under Hammond, we were going to be working for a Tokra. He wanted at least one of the PCs to be a Jaffa. I volunteered. We didn't tell the other players it was a Stargate game. They didn't know it was until they saw the Gate.

They were playing normal humans, so we got to go through telling them all about the Jaffa and the Gould and everything. A whole lot of fun.

i highly recommend going with different setups. I'd find it difficult to play, say, SG-9. You'd be constantly overshadowed by SG-1, because Stargate is there story. Doing something like Atlantis would also be a good idea -- put you far away from the happenings of The Team, where you can make a difference yourself.

But then, I don't like to be overshadowed by NPCs, even really cool ones.

 

[Crothian]

Who says they have to overshadow you? They are off doing their thing, the players are off doing the players thing. One doesn';t even have to mention the successes of other Stargate teams. Or you go the other route and you mention the success of the other stargate teams, not just SG-1 but all of them. YTou show how each and every gropup is important and contributes.

I think the only way you'd have overshadow is if you involve the players heavily in the core plots from the show. Those are SG-1's. However, the ones we create will belong to SG-22. Its not like SG-1 is going to come in and bail them out.

 

[DonAdam]

Sounds cool. I'm playing the CO of SG 17 now in a cool stargate campaign. We started as SG 21, a technical team, but were moved to exploration.

I think it really helps a Stargate game to largely stay away from Egyptian culture. Most of the stuff that we've encountered is Greek, which is cool (especially since we all go to a small liberal arts college with a particular infatuation for ancient Greece and Rome).

Starting at mid-levels is good; of course, we also changed the armor rules so that armor only works on WP and made the Defense progressions correspond to the BAB progressions (so a scientist doesn't have a higher defense than a soldier).

A particular problem of the VP-armor system that they've got is that Jaffa, the most common enemies, become soldier killers. They get the -4 to attack rolls, but the staff weapon does 6d6 and is armor piercing and soldiers have bad defense scores. You're better off sending a team of scientists to kill Jaffa.

I'd also recommend using complex skill checks from Unearthed Arcana for things like computers and engineering checks. It lets the situation be more tense, and just having multiple die rolls makes those things seem as important as they are for sci-fi.

As for the dinosaurs, my only piece of advice is to end the first session with a T-Rex's head popping over the treeline

 

[Crothian]

Looking at those Jaffa weapons, those are going to have the potential to cut through anyone. I am a little worried about that. Cover will be everyone's friend.

 

[DMH]

I have a suggestion on which Goa'uld to use here- Pelops. He could have used bird DNA to reverse engineer dinosaurs (which is why Dinosaurs that Never Were would be a good supplement to use) long ago. In attempting to create a better version of the Jaffa (his own creation anyways), he gave intelligence to some of the species. Think of what T-rex based Jaffa would be like as defensive warriors (I am not sure if they would fit through a stargate). Raptors are faster than humans and would make good strike troops.

You just have to decide why they never worked out.