Merchanters And Stationers - Take #3

So, I have been working on the Alien design section for Merchanters and Stationers, my Alliance/Union/Compact Space love letter. I'm going down a completely different path than StarCluster 3's Aliens, which are actually too generalized for this.

In M&S, there are two types of aliens, Methane breathers and Oxygen breathers. Methane breathers are bizarre, barely comprehensible beings who can only communicate with oxy breathers in a limited way. They will be necessarily limited to NPC status, and in fact should be treated more as natural forces, like weather.

Oxy breathers, OTOH, are much more knowable. All are bipedal, and are in general perfectly playable, so these can, and should, be PCs. In designing the species design process, I have settled on a non-random stackable package method. You pick a bunch of packages, and add together anything those templates give you.

For example, there are six packages each for Diet, Body type, and Social Organization. Each gives an assortment of Attribute bonuses, innate skills, and Edges.

I'm also adding something to the Edge concept. Negative Edges. Edges are conditions under which the character has a bonus - for example a nocturnal character might have the Edge of "Night". Negative Edges are the reverse, conditions under which the character has a penalty - for example that same nocturnal character would have the Negative Edge of "Day". Edges and Negative Edges of course only work if the condition could make any difference. Night or Day don't matter if you are under artificial illumination. :D

Anyway, Negative Edges, and maybe this method of Alien species construction, will be folded into StarCluster 4 for sure!

Merchanters and Stationers - Take #2

For Merchanters and Stationers, my next project, I need to do something to simulate the brutal edge-of-disaster feel of the C.J. Cherryh books it is emulating. I actually thought about a Jenga tower - yes, Dread - but that, I think, is too dependent on the players' manual skill, and not on the characters. Remember, I'm trad! :D I'm thinking of going with a stress track. Things can add stress, or take it away, but if you let it build too high, fallout is going to happen. There are different ways to implement this, of course! Die rolls, HP-like mechanics, mental problems, all sorts of things. I'm not sure how I want this to go, but stress should be a huge deal in this game!

Merchanters and Stationers - Take #1!

I've started work on Merchanters and Stationers, my love letter to the Union/Alliance/Compact novels of C. J. Cherryh. It's not a complete game - it's a method for creating a StarCluster 3 campaign that feels like those works, without actually being that universe. I finished up the world/system creation last night, so now I have to do the other changes - mostly dealing with spaceships and peoples. I also need to find some way to get the claustrophobic, skirting the edge of ruin feel of Cherryh's writing. I have some ideas for that, but I need to test them out in play. You - the GM/Players, I mean - could, of course, just take the universe directly from Cherryh's books, but I can't do that for this game. This will be fun!

The Necklace Released!

I've completed the Necklace, and it's available at OBS and from Precis Intermedia. As soon as I get a proof back from Lulu, it will be available in print.

Story Seeds for The Necklace

At the suggestion of a Beta playtester, I am making up a series of 100 story seeds for The Necklace, "for people that just cannot get their heads around how one of your games actually play" My games are generally geared for less explored aspects of play. :D

So, there are 20 suggested types of organization you can build your characters for, and Klax and I came up with five quick story seeds for each. Example:

8 Outsider Mission

1: Your tour group has crashlanded somewhere in the Zoo. Survive until you are rescued!

2: Your mission is to steal a bio-genetic formula from the Altisherpas. Good luck!

3: You're on a mission to deal with Rasi for Builder Tech, but your ship is taken by pirates!

4: Your Outsider group has just finished an interstellar resort, when you find a Carnivale tribe has filed a claim with the Altisherpas for your land as a holy site!

5: Your cruise ship has been hit by a sky whale and SURPRISE! The escape equipment is limited and/or faulty. Survive!

Some of the seeds are re-used from a different angle, for example, #2 above is complemented by this:

9 Commercial Espionage

1: You have information that Outsiders are planning on stealing a bio-genetic formula from your Altisherpan company. You must stop them!

and #5 by this:

20 Salvage/Repo Company

2: Your team is sent in to salvage an airship struck by a sky whale, but the passengers have formed dangerous bands in the long derelict vessel!

So there is more than one way to view the same incident, depending on how it is approached.

The Zoo - L4 In The Necklace

At the L4 point is a cluster of asteroids, all of them Builder-graviformed, and connected by loops to the River. Each asteroid contains from three to twelve distinct and separate self-sustaining ecologies, apparently imported by the Builders as curiosities. These asteroids are collectively called the Zoo, and this location is a mecca for tourism. Some of the ecologies are topped by films to keep in fliers, while others are open to the Necklace’s air. Over time, a few films have degenerated, allowing the fliers access to the greater Necklace, but Rasi and Altisherpa Rangers maintain the structural integrity of the films, and repair any tears that occur.

From The Necklace: Altisherpa Nomad Camp

From The Necklace, a setting element, randomly generated:

Element Label: Air Mat (55)

Element Description: Altisherpan Nomad Camp

Element Size: Extra-Large

Other Element Data:

Settlement Type Altisherpan Nomad Camp

Settlement Name none

Settlement Size 151-200

Settlement Ancillaries/ Facilities/Resources Genetics Lab, Artists’ Colony, Actors’ Colony

Other Settlement Features

Vegetables - Enhanced Greens, Strange Liquors, Exotic Fruits

Meats - Zero-G Pigs, Exotic Fowl, Zero-G Cattle

Cultural Oddities

Economics -

Interpersonal - Legal Incest

Leisure - Recreational Drug Use

Fashion - Nudity

Taboos - Hair

Obligations - Social Bathing

Slavery -

Notes These Altisherpan Nomads are experimenting with a “natural” lifestyle, as they imagine their early ancestors on Earth would have lived, if their ancestors on earth lived in zero-G on a vegetative mat floating is a tropical sea of air whirling about a neutron star. Really, it’s an excuse for a somewhat kinky vacation in the wild, with no holds barred sex, drugs, and partying. They are fringe types, artists and actors, and they have regular exhibitions and performances.

The mat is huge, with forests, meadows, pools, and fields on both sides. The camp is distributed around a semi-permanent pool which is used for communal bathing. Portashelts, Inflatashelts, and hard and soft tents surround the pond, and the community airship is moored solidly nearby.

The Altisherpas are friendly and welcoming, so long as you abide by their community rules while with them. They’ve been on the mat for six months, and are not nearly ready to return to the City, though new people are going to be intriguing. Their biological changes are just starting to change the nature of the mat, making it more welcoming for future nomads. The introduced animals are flourishing, and culls have already been made, ending up on plates throughout the camp. They would certainly be willing to barter for other supplies and items of interest.