The Eighth Weird Thing: The World of Blight

 The Eighth Weird Thing: The World of Blight

Written and used in White Star but adaptable to any suitably out-there scifi system! Presented here so they can compliment the prior entry on the Chilopteroids of Gleison.

49 Blight

Blight was noted for its singularly unimpressive post-apocalyptic primeworld, the original name of which was long ago lost in favor of the scout’s nickname of Blight. On Blight rests the remains of an unknown civilization bombed back to stone age in what appears to be a genocidal war; debris in orbit and on the three moons of the planet clearly indicate they had progressed into space and were colonizing their system when the extinct level warfare took place. Now, the survivors of Bight are a handful of desperate wastelanders competing for precious resources with a large mass of mutated flora and fauna, a byproduct of biogenetic engineering for warfare and mutations from bioweaponry.

Events at Blight:

1. There is a strange orbital station/ship that looks like a vast, mirrored lens or saucer around Blight. It is defended by automated snub fighters, but may be friendly with the right approach. The vessel is run by a chilopteroid called Chiron, a race of ancient  near-immortal vampire bat-men. Chiron has arrived here from his home planet of Gleison, ostensibly to study the plight of the people of Blight; he represents himself as a benevolent god to them, and sends them on missions to gather ancient relics which he claims he is studying to determine what happened to the planet. In truth, he is implanting the natives with a red organic crystal, which he uses to sap psychic energy from the natives, feeding himself and his chliopteroid clan, and allowing them to continue with their indefinite life span. He is also secretly trying to find the Stellar Librarian (see below) which he believes contains the secret to true immortality.

2. A star cruiser from the Segurandi Dominion called The Infallible and piloted by the star witch Kalabretta (Mystic level 3; S 11 D 17 C 10 I 12 W 14 CH 18; HP 9, HD 2; AC 13, Attack 1, Star Sword +1 attack, 1D6+4 damage; ST 12; Meditations: charm person, detect life, speed burst (gift); Mystic is in Between Star & Void, page 8). She has a dozen soldiers (WS page 80) in her service. She is investigating two issues: what the chilopteroids are up to (they are an enemy of the Segurandi Dominion and the witch queen in particular), and the recovery of a lost artifact: a Stellar Librarian. The Stellar Librarian is a holographic recording device that she believes is located in the ruins of one of the largest cities still standing on Blight, a haunted location which is overgrown with deadly flora and fauna. The Stellar Librarian may have been hidden here during the invasion of the Void Lords to save it from destruction, since the Void Lords tended to ignore already devastated systems. Kalabretta might be willing to hire the PCs to aid in its recovery, offering them 300 credits and the promise of an assist in the future if they need her help.

Bestiary of Blight:

Blight Natives are seven foot tall humanoids with insectoid features, four arms, and deep red and blue hues of “skin.” AC 13, HD 2, Move 12, Attacks 2, swords 1D6 or crossbows (1D6+1), ST 17, HDE 2/30; Special: most natives have odd random mutations, and all natives have all-around vision; surprise only 1 in 6 chance)

Gromics are 20-25 foot tall gorilla-like beings with wide, membranous wings. They actually have a limited form of telepathy which they use to gain lift and they then glide on the intense winds of Blight. AC 14, HD 6, Move 12 (15 fliying), Attacks 2, Fists 2D6+1 each or throw rocks (1D6), ST 13, HDE 6/400

Chilopteroids of Gleison are six to eight feet tall, and resemble humanoid bats. AC 13, HD 3, Move 15 or 18 fly; attack 1 (claw 1D4) or laser pistol (1D6+2), ST 16, HDE 3/60; chilopteroids can become invisible at will as per the meditation; a chilopteroid with its blood crystal receptor will regenerate 1 hit point per turn, and leaving a body around will let it come back to life eventually; only destroying the body will stop the regeneration.)

Spider-Hunters prowl the ruins of Blight, looking something like a furry mammal combined with an arachnid, the Spidere-Hunters were unleashed on Blight to hunt down Chilopteroid enemies and escaped slaves. They are larger than mastiffs and have a vile poison. AC 14, HD 4, Move 12 (climb 12), attacks 2, claw/pincers 1D6+2 each, plus poison (Save or suffer paralysis and take 1D6 damage/turn for 1D12 turns as guts liquefy); ST 15, HDE 4/120

The Stellar Librarian is a cosmic inter-dimensional sentient probe from another universe. It can be attacked but is made of matter from another dimension and can only be temporarily disrupted, reforming 1D12 hours later after HP reach zero. It can impart knowledge to those who desire it, releasing a small black globe which when absorbed requires a save; if the target fails, then the subject is cocooned and gains the abilities but begins to slowly transform into strange matter from another dimension (more on what this means soon!). Effects that can be granted include: gain a new skill (if using skill abilities), wild talent psionics (if using Psionics supplement), a meditation or even something more exotic at GM’s discretion. AC 18, HD 12, HP 42, Move 20 (levitation), attacks: none; the Stellar Librarian is pacifistic, but it can engage in a probe for 200 feet; targets must make a save, and on failure the Stellar Librarian knows all data on the subject; Chilopteroid nervous systems tied to blood stones are disrupted by this for 1D6 turns, and may affect unshielded cybernetics in the same way; ST 7; HDE 2,000

Zunathics are also other-dimensional energy beings, and are also made of a strange matter which fluctuates in an indeterminate matter/energy state. They can take any form (the one with the Stellar Librarian appears as a unicorn made of cosmic stardust….yes, that is right). Zunathics can absorb 50 points of energy damage before further damage disrupts their form; physical damage has no effect (but see below); if one is reduced to 0 HP it is disrupted and reforms 1D12 hours later. AC 19, HD 8, HP 28, Move 12 (18 running), Attacks 1, Particle Beam Horn 4D6 damage and make a save or take 2D6 damage for 1D4 additional rounds; ST 11; HDE 8/800

Devil in the Details - When that one design choice overturns an otherwise fine system

Today is a post about griping about things, completely new to the internet, I assure you. You have been warned!

So I wonder how many have had this experience like me. Take a game, a game you might have a keen interest in. You read through it, design some characters, work out some scenario ideas.....you're learning the system. So far you see all the cool stuff and you become increasingly impressed. The creator of the game has a vision, and its one which aligns well with yours, meshes nicely. Indeed, it either supports your own ideas well, or provides ideas you had never considered but can definitely get behind.

Then....that thing happens. It's the thing that for some people they say, "Yeah I like this, but I wish the game did this thing differently," and then they start tweaking and house ruling. In some cases, anyway. I don't generally mean that, though.....first off being I don't like assuming I know enough about the rules to want to change them until I've actually run the game. Second issue being a rule might pose issues, but the idea in my head is that subtler, more disheartening moment when you discover that there's a design element in the game, something maybe a bit vague or undefined that you feel should be fleshed out, or an omission (or inclusion) that just feels out of place to you. 

Maybe the game suggests you should have a wild and wooly bestiary included and the game only has stats for four monsters or something. Maybe you expected the game, which deals with a serious look at ethics or morality in a genre setting to include some rules that support that and they're just...absent. Or maybe you expected the game about high tech capers to have more than a page or so on high tech things. That sort of "oh no" moment.....things you could only fix by, essentially, writing an entire new chapter or sourcebook for the game, or rewriting the game to remove a weird tonal inconsistency. Or drafting up new art to reflect the dark and serious nature of the grim setting, reflected through the eyes of an artist focused on cute anime styles. Stuff like that.

I've had that happen to me on occasion. I'll concede, a lot of what crops up here are SF related, which might say a great deal about my expectations for SF games. A few notable examples I can think of at the moment include....

M-Space Falls Flat on Weapons and Gear

I really dig M-Space and it's design intent, but I believe the author is on record as not being very "gadget focused," and it shows, unfortunately. When you get to the equipment section the barebones weapons and gear lists are the barest essentials for a good SF setting from my experience, and are oddly reliant on some Star Wars terminology with the serial numbers rubbed off a bit (seek out evidence of where else in SF the actual term "restraining bolt" is used, for example, outside of Star Wars). When you see the similarities in the gear it can't be unseen, and the minimalist list means the GM has some work cut out for him if he wants to have a range of gear across differing tech levels. M-Space also lacks tech levels, and oddly, while it does provide ship costs in design, its prefab ships do not tell you how much they cost. My players will want to know!

White Star Can Be Taken Seriously But Doesn't Want To 

I griped about this before at one point, and it was really when the Galaxy Edition came out that I realized that the White Star universe was defaulting to a setting with transformers, cosmic space squirrels, not-wookies, not-ewoks, off-brand jedi and off-brand sith and so on and so forth that the simplicity of the original core rules (which had nominal Star Wars-esque content that I could hand waive) suddenly overwhelmed my ability to use the expanded product with any sense of seriousness. Were I to write a game like White Star, I'd try really hard to corral the homage-style content to supplements and leave the core rules something with a broader scope in application.

Starfinder Uses Handwavium for Gear and Starship Economies

Also griped about, but ultimately a bugaboo that makes it hard to properly run campaigns for this otherwise fine D20 system, is its use of level scores for gear and a starship design system that completely divorces ship design and advancement from wealth. The core conceit of Starfinder is that mechanically both gear and ships are tied to PC level and over time you can get better gear (and boost your ship) as part of the leveling process rather than as part of the "in game story process" in which the players negotiate for the cash to buy things. In theory this shouldn't pose too much of a problem except that it does....and it does so because the way gear is done lampshades the entire process. Gear at level 20, as an example, isn't theoretically that different from gear at level 1. It's just....better. Much, much better. Trying to explain how build points for starships tie in to the galactic economy or why the corporations sell gear at increasingly staggered levels of complexity raises all sorts of uncomfortable questions about how the Starfinder universe is supposed to work, and as a result it does some very weird things to one's sense of verisimilitude. The problem of course is we as gamers know the real answer: mechanical balance demanded by the game system. But when the game mechanics cause weird and illogical interpretations of the implied game universe, it makes acceptance of that universe very difficult. More difficult, ironically, than believing in fantasy space elves with magic and laser guns.

Pulp Cthulhu Is Pulp at the Expense of Cthulhu

Yes, you can adopt the Pulp Cthulhu rules and have a rousing adventure in which you through derring do and sheer grit manage to blow away an elder thing while dynamiting his pet shoggoth.....but are you actually playing Call of Cthulhu then, or are you just using assets for a physics defying action game that is paying a slight nod to the source material it perverts? Maybe it depends on the interpretation, but I personally think that talents and all the associated drivel of the pulp rules can go hang out in someone else's games. On the plus side, it's all quietly constrained to the Pulp Cthulhu books and therefore easy to ignore.

Those Dark Places Likes to Talk About The Idea of What's In Those Dark Places But not..you know...What's Actually In Those Dark Places

Those Dark Places is essentially a game about the first twenty minutes of the movie Alien, and it stops right when they are about to find the eggs in the ship. It's an indie game (and as such a lot of the times you have to either be on board with the creator's vision or get off the bus), in which the smallest section of the book is the one which advises GMs on how to populate their games with vile xenomorphs and evil androids. Indeed, it really doesn't seem to want to do this at all, and stops short of....anything. So, yeah. It's really just an indie RPG for rolling up space workers and then thinking about how it would be cool if something interesting happened while they were working. To contrast: the excellent Mothership gives you one rulebook to roll up spacers, then showers you with several incredibly dense space adventure tomes that are increasingly insane and deadly space crawls. 

Okay then! Felt like a rant for fun. I think some of this is cropping up as I am taking time during my work-related exodus from gaming to realign my gaming focus and look for other oft neglected games on my shelves to see which ones might demand more attention and interest. Maybe next post I'll mention some of the games which surprised me with their efficacy in design and focus. 

Back to Starfinder!

After a few week's absence I am ready (finally) to run more Starfinder. I made a few executive decisions:

1. I chopped up the Fly Free or Die adventure path to extract some interesting bits, then went back to my original campaign premise to resume what I want to do, incorporating the worlds and ideas I've been developing over the last four or five Starfinder campaigns I've run in the last few years.

2. I took a real "this is Pathfinder but in Spaceeee" focus, with the idea that I should design the campaign the same way I would a Pathfinder adventure, rather than the more open way SF games tend to command (ala Traveller). I've got "stuff" I can use as needed should players defy expectations, but the goal is to provide a sweet motivation for the players to want to pursue the interesting content I spent the most time on. Then, in true form, that content is designed for the most flexibility in terms of how they approach it. 

3. The Big One: I made a serious, conscious effort to avoid a problem I decided was what was causing issues for both my Starfinder game previously, and in fact may have been what nixed my White Star attempt last year: I'm taking it seriously (playing it straight, in other words). There's a temptation to lean in to weird elements of space-fantasy settings and notice when some things that are happening appear to be tropes, or derivative, or cliche, or just plain silly. 

White Star has this problem at times because a majority of its content is derived from popular scifi settings....it's the Qinlon/Canneck/Yabnab/Rawrr problem; the game lampshades in its own naming convention that these are really klingons, daleks, ewoks and wookies. As a result, using such content inherently feels derivative if you don't figure out a way to change it up a bit. When I ran my original couple of White Star campaigns I avoided this issue by making qinlons more like in-control versions of Firefly's reavers or the wastelands goons of Mad Max, making the cannecks more like horrifying Von Neuman machines that destroy worlds than anything resembling the silliness of daleks, and in those campaigns it was the original edition of White Star so I could ignore yabnabs and rawrrs (something the Galaxy edition makes harder to do....yes you can, but your players can't unsee what they saw, y'know?)*

Starfinder has this to a certain degree as well. It's got some strange setting assumptions that can be easy to lampshade if you aren't careful, since the rules themselves don't really prepare the GM for the hows and why's of the implied Pact Worlds setting. These include:

The Gear Economy - why a level 1-20 scale of increasingly expensive but useful gear exists as a thing in the context of the setting;

The Starship Economy - why starships are not part of the economy and are part of the leveling scheme (though some rules in Fly Free or Die help muddy that water a bit);

The Fantasy Elements - explaining a mix of fantasy and scifi tech is not the issue, it's clarifying why there are elves, dwarves, orcs, drow and other fantasy species spread out throughout the galaxy; removing these species is possible but creates gaping holes in the toolkit infrastructure of the game. The game itself treats the presence of such species in space in strange and unusual ways. For an example look no further than ghouls to see how a horrific cannibal undead monstrosity gets turned in to a semi-docile workforce that just wants to get past its ancient reputation while working dangerous jobs living beings can't. Sometimes this works well, but other times it just feels a little....cartoony? Goblins, skittermander and other elements pose problems when a GM wants to run a game that feels like a universe that could exist outside of a cosmic multimedia blender. 

My solution is to lean hard in to the same thematic elements that make Pathfinder games fun, but now with more space stuff. So rather than delve into the mundane elements of how a space trucker economy works and how space thieves guilds function (the subject of Fly Free or Die AP) I'm going to stick more closely to the idea that this is what a Robert E. Howard tale would look like if it were written in a science fiction universe filled with both fantasy and magic (okay yes we have Almuric to look too, sure**). The assumption I am taking is that there is infrastructure to this spacefaring society in the Starfinder universe, but its just barely enought o sustain some sort of trade network and industry, and the vast majority of worlds are teeming with strangeness, hidden mysteries and horrors, and that the underlying risk in this universe is precisely the same as it tends to be in a straight fantasy setting....just with lots of additional tech. 

This means that a nontrivial percentage of worlds in this version of the Starfinder universe are just techno-feudal societies where the noble elite remain in charge, but the resources are hoarded or squandered and rarely do you see something resembling a normal futuristic society that might fit in Traveller. I'm going to assume that movies like Forbidden Planet, Zardoz, Planet of the Apes, Star Wars, Star Crash, Krull, Starbeast are more informative of the thematics of this universe than more realistic science fiction. I can even assume that the very D&D/Pathfinderish ages-old conflict between Law and Chaos informs this universe at its core, explaining much of how the perpetual churn of social, technological and magical conflict continues unabated. 

Anyway......that is a long way of saying I don't want "docile orc mechanics, ghouls who just want to be useful, gnomes being gnomes and skittermanders and goblins being themselves" to dominate the overall feel of this campaign. I'd like the campaign to feel weird, old school, and intelligent...an homage but not derivative, and genuine instead of a parody or farce. If a goblin is going to get up to something, I'd like to think it's because there's a genuine culture of goblins in the woodwork, laboring under a reduced social status while living off the wreckage of high tech and high magic societies above, and not just because we need a quick encounter with some slapstick. Likewise, ghouls aren't just misunderstood humanoids suffering under centuries of strife, but a deformed caricature of man wrought in necrotic energy, undead beings who struggle on a good day not to consume the flesh of the living and shun the light, and a handful strive to be seen as some semblance of what they were in life, while far more find solace and freedom in the cold darkness of space.

We shall see! 

*I know that there is a lot of fun to be had by leaning in to this stuff (playing for the derivative content as a focus), but you can't really mix that sort of thing with a serious campaign (ime).

**That, however, is planetary romance which is actually a different kind of genre. 

Regulation Space for White Star

 Here's an excerpt on my precis for the setting I will use for White Star. It's got all the things I love in a SF setting: dangerous superluminal travel, a galaxy poised on the edge of war, cosmic old ones and lots of opportunities for free lancers to make their fortune.

Regulation Space Campaign Setting for White Star

Premise: it’s 2550, and humankind has spent the last four centuries expanding outward into the solar system and now into neighboring star systems thanks to the power of the hyperdrive. With the hyperdrive comes the discovery of other burgeoning civilizations and humanity’s introduction to a thriving alien cluster of civilizations. As the Hyperspace lanes expand, so does humanity’s connection to the diverse worlds of other species. Humankind arrived on the scene conveniently right around the time a warlike culture called the Volmath were attempting to conquer the diaspora of civilizations, and thanks to humankind’s timely intervention the Volmath were driven back into the void.

The Star Knights and Void Knights: this is an ancient order dedicated to a force known as the Blood Star. The Blood Star is a semi-mythical location shrouded in secrecy from which the Star Knights gain their unique powers to bend physics to their will. The Volmath use their shock troops called the Void Knights to similar effect, and it is suspected they have access to a system with a sun similar to the Blood Star, called the Void Star by their ranks. The exact nature of these stars and what they do to change humans and aliens alike into powerful psi-wielding agents of peace of war is a mystery to most.

Thematically the star knights and void knights might be closely comparable to the guardians of Destiny (the video game), poised between the light and darkness. Their powers clearly stem directly from the enigmatic stars they serve, and much of the mystery of their orders lies within exactly what the Blood Star and the Void Star are. 

Hyperspace: this dimension may tie to the mystery of the Void and Blood Stars. It’s a transitional fifth dimension through which ships can travel at extreme superluminal speeds without experiencing relativistic effects. The technology is ridiculously simple once understood, but does require antimatter as a fuel source to bend space enough that it “breaks” and allows the ship to enter. For the duration it is in hyperspace a ship must maintain a magnetic shield envelope around itself; if the shield falls before the ship leaves hyperspace it can be destroyed, spread out over multiple light years. Hyperspace is also dangerous; there are fifth dimensional beings which exist and for which no one wants to draw the attention of, as all encounters with these fifth dimensional entities have proven disastrous or fatal.

One known fifth dimensional threat from Hyperspace is called the Deluge. It is a cosmic mind-altering “essence” which some speculate is a living neural network of energy; its name derives from how it appears to “pour” like a flood from hyperspace rifts into the physical world in waves of varicolored superfluids. Its first appearance on the colony of Riven led to the entire world being quarantined as it mutated and drove the colonists mad.

Known Space: this is a vast swathe of unclaimed territory, ostensibly of neutral civilizations, star empires and other groups which exist independent of the Volmath Consortium and Regulation Space. While Regulation Space is estimated to be around 110 worlds in size and the Volmath Consortium consists of at least six united groups and over 900 worlds, the region of Known Space is pretty much “everything else” and charted territories so far have mapped out 32,000 worlds! No single power dominates in Known Space, though there are threats (such as the assimilants and Cannicks) lurking in its darker corners.

Regulation Space: this is the name for the Terran colonial expanse, the vast network of roughly fifty colonies plus Earth as well as another 60 alien civilizations which have petitioned and joined Regulation Space to benefit from the protection of the Terrans. Regulation Space is policed by the Regulation Authority while the military defense is handled by the Terran Frontier Defense Navy.

Alien species living under the auspices and protection of Regulation Space include the Alureans, falcon men (Sholdarak), Kath (rawrarrs), Procyons, crocs, space ducks (Un’hadani), thronks (calling themselves Vaadeer, but humans jokingly call them Martians), uttins, wolflings (Bengada),  

Volmath Consortium: Despite its perception as an evil empire, the Volmath is actually a Consortium of several species with like interests. These include the volmath themselves, who are close human analogs and appear to have either a common ancestry to terrans or close parallel evolution. They have within their ranks the client states of the Qinlon Hegemony, the Cabal of the Ickes, the Vaskagar empire of Felinoids, the Mecistops DIaspora and the Sketh (wellsians).

Galactic Threats: There are other species out there which are inimical to or seek to undermine, conquer or destroy both Regulation Space and the Volmath Consortium. These include the greys, the assimilants, the cannicks, frostines and mindoids. Some, such as the frostines and mindoids seek to protect their own territory while preying quietly on their neighbors. The assimilants however are an invasion force in the making, a vast swathe of galactic space being under assault near the galactic core by their kind, and the cannicks are an ancient machine race which wiped out their creators eons ago and are beginning to appear in the region once more, as their kind is found on the swathe of dead worlds left in the wake of an ancient galactic war. Finally there are the Sindrat, a race of humanoid spider-like insectoids that also appear to have access to the powers of the Void Knight and are focused on infiltration and sabotage. They seem to operate from flotillas of ships residing in the void between stars, where they are almost impossible to find.

Classes in Regulation Space:

The following are considered Core Classes: aristocrat, mercenary, pilot, robot, star knight, alien brute, bounty hunter, combat medic, cypher, deep space explorer, gunslinger, two-fisted technician, uttin, rockstar, alien mystic, star pilot, alien star knight, and mecha jock. Other classes may be acceptable but less common.

Affiliations: Each PC should pick from one of the following affiliations at the start of play:

Regulation Authority: you are a former or inactive member of the Terran police-keeping force which maintains rule of law in Regulation Space.

Syndicate: you are a member of the intergalactic criminal consortium of guilds called the Syndicate, an organization which was present in Known Space long before the Terrans arrived on the scene.

Merchants Guild: the Merchants Guild seeks to insure fair laws and trade across Known Space.

Free Lancers Guild: the free lancers are a collection of independent mercs, traders and couriers who seek to maintain their independence from authority and megacorporations, having loosely united into a guild in Known Space to protect such interests and provide resources and aid to one another.

Terran Defense League: comprising the combined power of the navy, marines and ground forces, the TDL is where many spacers served time learning useful skills before mustering out to make their own path. The TDL maintains stations in most Regulation Space ports and provides an excellent network for assistance to veterans.

The Star Knights: you are a member of or worked for the Order of the Star Knights, an independent peace-keeping force which was founded by the Old Coalition in Known Space before Terrans arrived on-scene. Many Terrans have since joined the order, which maintains its headquarters in the Orion III System.

Volmath Infiltrators: the Espionage branch of the Volmath Consortium is effective and runs deep into Known Space, gathering intel and reporting back to their masters.

Void Knights: The Order of the Void Knights is secretive and militaristic, but those who joined or served in its ranks are determined to rise to power. More than a few Void Knights are former Star Knights who were seduced by the even more potent teachings of the Void Star. A few were even Star Knights who sought to infiltrate and discover the secret location of the Void Star, and yet they too succumbed to the power of the Void.

Opportunity Sector

A major hub of activity is located in Opportunity Sector, a large area of space where Regulation Space and Known Space collide. It is also one of the regions with the shortest distance to the Volmath Consortium, which is a paltry 80 light years away on the other side of a stretch of Known Space. A century ago the Terran-Volmath War was fought to a near standstill in this region, and when the Accords were carried out it was on the local garden world of Sperlian, following the destruction of the Volmath super weapon dubbed the Sun Crusher. The ruins of the Sun Crusher are still in orbit around the now diminutive brown dwarf star of Cholos M44 (570 LY from Earth). The Coleopterans of M44 were almost entirely wiped out, though colonies exist in the region (including on Sperlian).

As a result, Opportunity Sector is a cold war zone between the two powers, and local independents profit from it as much as possible. Coleopteran dissidents still plot revenge against the Volmath, and war profiteers continue to ply their trade, seeking salavage for resale from the great war era. Amidst this tension the Regulation Authority seeks to make some headway even as rumors that the Assimilant Empire are approaching is bandied about in shady bars by distressed Deep Space Salvagers claiming to have seen assmilant scout ships patrolling. Lastly, rumors that the origins of the Sun Crusher can be found on one of the forgotten Old Worlds where the Cannicks destroyed their creators abound, and that the lucky salvager who finds the source of the machine’s design plans will be the richest (and most wanted) man in the galaxy is a laudable goal for those with no honor.

Opportunity Sector is also the location of the failed human colony of Riven, where the enigmatic being called the Deluge destroyed and mutated the colony. The Regulation Authority along with the Star Knights have cordoned off the world while trying to determine the Deluge’s intent, fully aware that if it escapes the planet it can spread its transformative disease to the rest of Known Space.   

Picking an SFG RPG Part 2: Generic Systems vs. Implied Setting Systems (plus how Tone and Flavor Matter!)

 My talking about the SF RPG of choice for my short campaign refresh and the subsequent reader comments got me to thinking about a design element that affects system choice: generic systems vs. systems which contain an implied setting. Secondary to this is the notion that a given system will also contain some tone and flavor; flavor might reflect the implied setting, but it doesn't need to. 

For example: White Star has a setting that it has provided some support for, but the book itself is fairly setting neutral; it's got lots of content that might at times even seem contradictory (you have mecha jocks, space squirrels, star knights and embittered old preachers on the space frontier all in the same game system, for example). White Star's implied setting is schizophrenic; it's really a kitchen-sink universe if run exactly as presented, but the intent is to instead give you tools to make your preferred brand of cinematic-inspired scifi.  

Contrast this with Stars Without Number, which on the surface seems to be a toolkit game. However, the foundation of SWN is written around a specific universe which has a defining moment called The Scream within it. All of the implied setting content (and SWN Is loaded to the gills with it) has this core conceit baked into the premise. If you run SWN with a different concept in mind it either limits the content of the book to your own vision or requires you to modify or ignore large chunks of the story content. By contrast, with SWN if you don't want Star Knights in your universe you just tell players they are off the table; the rest of the system won't break if you exclude them, and indeed some story bits might even feel more consistent as a result....that's because White Star isn't building you a toolkit for an implied universe like SWN is; it's providing you a toolkit for a flavor of gaming (cinematic scifi). 

Contrast this with actual generic systems such as Cypher System, Savage Worlds, GURPS and even FATE. These systems might come with some inherent tone/flavor due to the underlying game systems, but each tries to support a wide range of settings without any implied content. GURPS can run both cinematic scifi and (if you were so inclined) the SWN universe in which The Scream happened. Savage Worlds is aimed at it's motto of Fast! Furious! Fun! but it more than amply tries to cover every SF genre it can within its own toolkit within the 3F parameters. Cypher System's underlying flavor is one of deceptively simple mechanics that are player facing with resource management baked in, but the Stars are Fire sourcebook spends half the tome giving you a vast array of ideas for any conceivable SF idea you can think of; it's selling system with a certain tone and flavor and the only implied setting are those which most benefit from the contrivances of Cypher's mechanical design.

The downside, as any gamer with full time work and family knows, is that generic systems often take a lot of time to prep. The seductive point of a game system with an implied setting like SWN or Traveller is that it does some of the work for you; if for example I simply didn't have a campaign vision in mind (and this is where I always trip myself up as I like designing my own settings rather than using existing content), then SWN would actually work really well for me, as I love its world/adventure chart design process. Likewise, Traveller is insanely processual in charting out its own implied setting through the rules, and you can run any universe you want with it so long as it involves dudes who muster out and start life as middle aged adventurers travelling using something like Jump Drive in a bizarrely flat hexagonal galaxy.

All of these systems are great, of course, and I've run all of them except for FATE (which I almost ran, but ultimately decided it's core mechanical conceits are just not my cup of tea). So when I am looking for what I need at the moment I am thinking of what my goal is....and it sort of follows this thought:

1. I want a system which can give me a 5-10 session arc that feels fulfilling but doesn't feel like we have to be obligated to keep playing (so, progression within 5-10 sessions is meaningful); any of the systems we're talking about could theoretically do this well, but I'll rule out GURPS because the setup will take too long for 5-10 sessions and Traveller because its progression is flighty at best.

2. It needs to fit my vision of a "realistic" space opera idea I have in mind with specific conceits for how stuff like hyperdrives and human expansion into the galaxy happened (and lots of aliens); this means it needs to be a good toolkit game with lots of premade stuff that fits the setting; that eliminates GURPS and Traveller (would have to build it all), SWN (implied setting would have to be redacted), and leaves Savage Worlds, Cypher System and White Star (all three have enough content, bt of course SW requires some conversion work).

3. It needs to be easy to run without a lot of rules adjudication, because part of the "palette cleanser" is I want a break from a system with a rigorous three-action mechanic and a 600 page rulebook. Yes, PF2 is remarkably easier to run than PF1 but it's still not "Swords & WIzardry" easy, you know what I mean? This conceit is the most important part! 

With those three criteria in mind I could readily narrow the list down to White Star, Savage Worlds and Cypher System. As I identified in yesterday's post Cypher System would be ideal but the Roll20 randomizer for dice seems to actively hate my players so in the interest of sanity I decided not to go with it. Savage Worlds requires some (admittedly minor) conversion to work properly right now so I want least amount of effort....so White Star it is.

There is one element undiscussed: The explicit setting systems. Eclipse Phase, Star Wars RPGs, Star Trek Adventures....these are all games you play specifically for the detailed setting. They are in their own ballpark, as you will never likely want to use them for something that isn't a total riff on the actual universe the system supports. 

Thoughts on the Best All-Purpose Science Fiction RPG for the Moment

 Lately I've been thinking about how I'd like to run another SF campaign soon. As my year+ long Pathfinder 2E campaign winds down, I can sense that I need a palette cleanser in the mix before tackling the next mega campaign in PF2E, and science fiction generally does the trick. The problem, of course, is that what I most need right now is a game system which will support the particular vision I have in mind.

There are five choices in my repertoire: Traveller, Cypher System, GURPS, Savage Worlds and White Star. For various reasons I have narrowed the list down a bit: Traveller is too formal and comes with a heap of stylistic baggage; GURPS would be cool but GURPS Space is too complex for what I need; Savage Worlds would be fine but I am waiting for the Sci Fi Companion to get revised to the SWADE edition; Cypher System with The Stars Are Fire expansion is looking like the best choice overall, but there's a problem: Roll20 seems to hate my players, and when you have three sessions of Cypher System in a row in which failure rates even on level 1-2 tasks are approaching 90% it becomes enormous dispiriting for the players (and as GM I got tired of the constant grouching about the failure rates and simply ended the game). I love Cypher System, but there seem to be two issues at hand: it requires a bit of system mastery to play the odds and reduce the levels of difficulty, and it also requires accepting the dice where they fall when the time comes. 

In fact....the brutal honesty of the Roll20 dice randomize might be so offensive to some players for reasons that I can only speculate on in my head, but I do think ultimately that when the game requires resource management to improve your odds of success, that puts more demand on the player to actually understand the mechanics and work to play them in their favor. Spend those points when you need them, and often!

So what about White Star? With White Star I might just have a good balance. The biggest problem I can identify is that the Galaxy Edition is almost Too Much Kitchen Sink....if you don't want uttin*, yabnabs, novomachina and brimlings in your campaign, for example, then you as GM better go into the book with a big hatchet. But other than that, it's a great system with a tight and easy old school aesthetic. I have run two prior campaigns with it now (using the original rules with some supplements) and I feel like this might indeed be the perfect palette cleanser. A Short 5-10 session White Star campaign would be a lot of fun.

There's a new setting sourcebook out for White Star on Drivethrurpg.com now called Heart of Varrul, which I just might check out. White Star, like all OSR games, continues to have its groundswell of support and remains in many regards timeless. I think I'll need to see how much support it has on Roll20 now....

*I'm actually cool with uttin, the grittier and dirtier version of ysoki; but to hell with yabnabs! And Brimlings are a halfling too far for me. 

Five Genres That Game X Can Handle (But You Might Not Have Thought It Could)

There's a tradition among some gamers to find a game they like, then change it utterly and irrevocably. "This is the fantasy game I want...let me just modify the rules until my houserule index is longer than the rulebook." Or, "This is an amazing world and setting for fantasy, but I think these rules would be much more interesting if I modded it out for my dystopian future SF idea I have."

This list is not about that; it's about pointing out some games that actually provide a sound structure (without modification) for running some alternative genres that you wouldn't necessarily expect to see in the game's advertising. No rules changes necessary! No elaborate system hacks required. This list eschews game systems that traditionally brag about their multi-genre emulation. Here goes:

White Star is Actually a Really Good Mecha Anime Game

White Star Galaxy Edition isn't just a decent OSR space opera game. I turns out there are plenty of rules for giant mecha, their pilots, talking and transforming robots, plucky sidekicks, and any other number of genre tropes that you will find fit comfortably in your own emulation of Gundam, Armored Trooper Votoms or Robotech. White Star has you covered!

Traveller is a Perfect System for Lovecraftian Horror

Although you could cheat a bit by simply grabbing Cthonian Stars, which is an actual emulator for science fiction horror tainted by the mythos, the truth is that Traveller has all of the necessary bells and whistles to pull this off. Indeed, the fact that Traveller traditionally encourages an extra or customized statistic by race allows you to effortlessly add a Sanity score to your UPP without ay need to modify the mechanic. The rules for creating alien denizens are just another fancy way of creating terrifying flora and fauna in your mythos-tainted Travellerverse.

Call of Cthulhu is An Ideal Play-It-Straight Historical Emulator

Not only does Call of Cthulhu have nearly endless supplements focusing on different locales and time periods, it's designed to be a realistic game from the ground up, and there's a general agreement among most CoC Keepers that the best way to run the game is to "play it straight" for as long as possible before introducing the horror and ramping up the sanity meter. Indeed, if you want to simply eschew any real need for anything other than the horror of the human condition, in any time period you like, Call of Cthulhu has got you covered.

13th Age Is a Secret Super Hero RPG

The core conceit of 13th Age is "larger than life fantasy heroes who are at the center of the story," and it works exceedingly well. You could, with no actual mechanical changes, reskin the base classes and create a perfect emulator for super hero gaming. Seriously! Take a look and think about it. Weapons are less important in objective terms, but rather in effect terms. Abilities in the system are named but not defined beyond their mechanical relevance. The GM's side of the table is ridiculously easy. This might sort of break the rule up top about not changing the mechanics or setting, but if that's a concern, simply play the game straight from level 1 as a game about demigods (and simply remind the players to incorporate something about their demigod status in their One Unique Thing.) It handles this conceit remarkably well.

Zweihander is A Grim Historical Dark Ages Emulator

It is! And it's not even really a hidden trait if you read through the GM's advice in the book. Zweihander appears to be built not only to emulate the grim world of Warhammer fantasy (or a suitable clone), but to emulate the dark ages of Europe in it's most inglorious form. Even the core setting appears to be aimed at a sort of "alternate medieval Europe" which is even closer to the mark than the faux Europe of classic Warhammer. Using this as the core while riffing from a couple Medieval manuals and atlases seems almost trivial. How much (or how little) you want to involve supernatural elements is entirely up to your own taste.

That last one feels like a bit of a cheat, so here's a bonus suggestion:

Dungeons & Dragons 5E can do Post-Apocalypse Just Fine

Go read up on the advanced weapon tech options in the DMG, then look at each character class and modify their spell choices to reflect only spells of a psychic or potentially psychic nature. Only allow magic items and options which could reflect future tech interpreted through the superstitious view of primitive distant survivors, and either pick monsters of appropriately mutated nature, or reskin to your heart's desire....it's actually easier than it sounds. Or just play it straight and run a Swords of Shannara style future apocalypse in which magic is the source (or product) of the end times.

Extra Bonus: White Star is Star Wars In All But Name 

It's fairly obvious that White Star will work to serve as a Star Wars RPG emulator in a pinch; I'm considering the possibility of using it for exactly that purpose while I draw on the Star Wars RPGs for source material.

White Star Galaxy Edition - Here at Last

About two weeks ago (or less) I finally got my Lulu-issued copy of White Star Galaxy Edition in the mail. It's a thick monster of a book for a game with such humble origins, clocking in at a 9X5 format over 332 pages. The new format is cleaner and easier to read for old grognard eyes; I don't know about you, but my copies of the original rulebook, while nice looking, had a faded "grayscale" quality to the printing which made it a bit hard to read at times. This new version does not have that problem, at all.

As you may know, this edition of the game combines the original rules with the Companion, and adds some extra content in as well. It's notable features include:

--a lifepath/background generator (it creates your "serial")
--25 classes (of which only 5 are core, and the rest are optional!) plus a skill system
--metric ass-tons (yes, ass-tons) of equipment, weapons, armor, vehicles, starships, mecha, mystical traditions, aliens and monsters to build your crazy White Star universe with
--cybernetic and "etchings"
--world generation, two sample star sectors, and lots of fluffy stuff

So yeah, a lot.

After finishing our test drive on SWN, my group spent a bit of time agreeing that we might prefer to spend more time with White Star. Indeed, we left off our last White Star campaign (season one) with a cliffhanger and the promise of a season two to come! Perhaps it is at last time to visit the sequel to the Dark Stars Netherspace Campaign.....

Stars Without Number Actual Play Session (Drawing comparisons and contrast to Traveller, White Star and Savage Worlds)

For the Wednesday night game we had some absent players (it being Valentine's Day and all, and some players have actual lives, or romances, or whatever!) and so it was that the hardcore, the jaded, the misanthropic, and also my family decided to enjoy the holiday with a one-shot.

The purpose of this one-shot was to exercise a chance to try out Stars Without Number. Before going in to this game you can see my general feelings on it in in prior articles, but I'll sum it up like this:

--Wonderfully quick character generation

--numeric old school simplicity

--A very Traveller-esque skill mechanic

--brilliant "tag" structure for world/adventure generation

--seems to have enough equipment/vehicles/ships/augments to support robust campaigning

After playing, I now feel this way about SWN:

--We all agreed, char gen is quick and efficient

--the numeric old school simplicity was at time "too simple." This will sound weird, but I found myself not enjoying the core conceit of SWN as much as I do it's close cousin, White Star, nor the game to which it pays direct homage, Traveller

--The Traveller-esque skill mechanic felt more shallow and less fulfilling than Traveller's own skill mechanic. Indeed, it made me wonder why it even bothered, given how slender the SWN system is, when Traveller's core conceit is exactly the same yet manages to provide a more robust and interesting experience....the only "lite skill" system I really enjoy/tolerate is Savage Worlds, I guess

--the tag structure is still a great mechanic for inspiration, but SWN does not support the interesting "technical" elements of design that Traveller does. Traveller in turn lacks the "stuff to do" element that SWN's tag system offers. SWN is a clear "win" on this.

--SWN has enough interesting equipment, vehicles and ships. It's not a problem. 

But! Throughout the course of play as well as over the last few days designing material to run, I realized that SWN is most definitely a "one world" system by default. Arguably Traveller is the same way, as is White Star, but both of those games give you a "starting point" which makes few real assumptions about the universe....well, maybe White Star's Galaxy edition is different (it assumes not just star knights but talking squirrel star knights, for example) but Traveller's only real conceit is that you use Jump Drive, and that gets you from point A to point B a certain way, and that the setting is humanocentric. Traveller in the past has expanded on this to let you customize how and why technology works to handle other universes of play, but it's only real conceit is a universe of humans, mostly. 

SWN has a lot of Traveller's conceits, but it also bakes in some default assumption about FTL drives, the "scream" as a defining point of the setting, and other features that are fairly baked in to the setting's presentation, tags, core assumptions, and much of its infrastructure. This is not a problem if you want a ready to go setting, not at all. But it does pose issues when you don't want to use that setting, and during play we thought about this issue on several occasions.

In the end, the problem wasn't that SWN wasn't fun, or even that it wasn't a setting I wanted to use (I could easily see accepting its default assumptions for any extended campaign easily). It was the fact that it felt like it was a homebrew homage to Traveller, and one which only left me feeling like Traveller has been here, done this, and done it maybe with a bit more depth and support than SWN does. Traveller does not have a Tag System for enhancing world generation, though, and SWN definitely beats the other games hands down.

But for designing my own setting, with no fuss? I'm afraid that Savage Worlds remains firmly on that throne. 

Anyway, other comments on SWN in actual play:

Combat was pretty smooth, but the veteran players in the group found at level 1 that charging in with a melee weapon against armed combatants was a preferred strategy. This felt...off....to me. 

Melee weapons do shock damage against targets under a certain Armor Class on a miss. I did not like this rule at all, it felt like something out of D&D 4E, especially since it was pretty much a guarantee to make melee weapons much deadlier than expected, at least at low level, and was defying my understanding of what was happening that, in essence, under a certain AC you could never avoid damage in melee. Yes, games like 13th Age do this....but the very core of those games support different basic expectations. SWN is very OSR, and if I were playing White Box and suddenly started dealing auto-damage on a miss I would feel like maybe the shark had just been jumped, y'know?

I did not like how melee weapons are given a very short, non-descriptive list of "primitive/advanced" and light, medium and heavy with damage but vague suggestions as to what that meant. I wanted more depth here, and the game provides that depth in so many other areas that it seemed weird to simply avoid putting any effort into detailed futuristic (and primitive) melee weapons.

The skills felt like their name tags were trying to be too hard to be short and simple despite so many of them feeling like call-backs to Traveller skills. I feel that the game, for what it is, does itself a disservice by having so few skills even as it has just enough specific skills. Lacking multiple "shipboard" skills for example meant that the only person with a "useful on the spaceship" skill was the guy with pilot. Why no gunnery, engineering, sensors or other interesting SF skills? Claiming the "Work" and "Know" skills could cover such elements if desired is both an inadequate fix (for a system which rewards very few skill points to start) and maybe a bit lazy (as any halfway decent skill system, I now realize, deserves more than 1-2 pages to detail).

Now, on the major plus side, like most OSR systems gameplay is fast and I was miraculously able to plow through the entire one-shot in the alloted time, including lots of role-play, encounters, and some combat. This would not likely have happened in Starfinder without some serious effort to speed things along, I admit. However, the pacing would have been the same for Traveller, Savage Worlds and White Star, easily. 

Okay, so my final take: Stars Without Number is perfectly serviceable, and I think it would be fun to play again, but I don't think it's going to scratch all of the itches for me that Traveller, Savage Worlds SF and White Star manage. I can use White Star for gonzo Space Opera Crazy. I can use Traveller for my "starship owner procedurals." I can use Savage Worlds SF for literally any sci fi world I want, just so long as its a universe that likes fast, furious fun. SWN's strength may well be in hardcore scifi sandbox play in the default setting. Unfortunately, I don't have interest in the setting and I don't have time in my schedule to explore the sandbox elements of the game, at least not without losing patience with the rules, that constantly reminded me that I like the way Traveller does it all just a little bit better. 

I'm not done with the Sine Nomine system, though. I am still keen to try out Other Dust, and see if maybe it might not scratch that particular post-apocalyptic itch. The only two games to come close in the last couple of years are a two-part Wasteland GURPS game I ran (which would be better if GURPS had more Wasteland support than a couple anemic supplements), and Precis Intermedia's Earth A.D. 2 which was an interesting (if convoluted) but fairly detailed post-apoc experience that I enjoyed but was still frustrated with after running it. I could see Other Dust being a good choice for the genre....we shall have to see.

So, final verdict:

SWN is not a good replacement for Traveller; it is not simpler, mechanically; just different, in a "homebrew" sort of way. If you like Traveller, this feels like a cruder homage. If you think Traveller is too complex, SWN is as complex as Traveller, just in a different way. If you think Traveller is too simple...then you will also think such of SWN. What I'm trying to say is, it's not a good replacement for Traveller if you don't have any problems with Traveller in the first place, and if you do, SWN doesn't "fix" anything, really. As a contrast with Traveller I give it a B to Traveller's more well conceived mechanical cohesion.

SWN is superior with its tag system, and everyone should check that part out. This part is A+.

SWN lacks the toolkit elements of Savage World SF Companion, or even the free-for-all madness of White Star, so you have to revise and back out a lot of baked-in core assumptions in the game if you want to design your own universe. Indeed, I sort of felt like the core conceits of SWN were more pervasive in its underlying assumptions than normal (by contrast, Traveller's only two core conceits are human dominance and jump drives, and that's it). Oddly, the bonus content of SWN is interesting but expands in weird ways, with transhumanism ideas followed by sorcery and magic options. For this it's a C, but gets a B+ for touching on transhumanism and AI in ways an OSR game usually wouldn't.

If you don't play games all that much, but love tinkering with them and writing up rules stuff (as I often do on this blog) SWN has a lot to offer, though, as most OSR systems do...Good A here.

SWN does provide a solid core package if you are not familiar with Traveller but like the concept of a rules-lite hexbox themed scifi game, and need a system that provides you that core underlying setting to riff from. If you fit this category this game is a good solid A, with the Tag System still A+.

Afterthought: the SWN playtest vs. the Starfinder Playtest

These two games really are different beasts. That said, it was interesting because after finishing Starfinder I was frustrated with elements of the experience, and my efforts to impose my will on the game's implied setting (which is strongly implied, moreso than SWN's setting is), but I still enjoyed it...the experience was very solid. With SWN I found the rules to be rather comfortable (within limits; e.g. my telekinetic in the party was rank 1 but she wanted to throw a guard around...and by the book that was a no-no for some reason but I thought that was stupid so invoked handwavium and made it happen...repeatedly). But from a purely mechanical perspective I really did feel like playing Starfinder was like experiencing a carefully designed machine that was riddled with a ton of testing and input, with subtle but wide-ranging designs that would impact the play experience over time. SWN felt like (what I think it is) the brainchild of one person who is very good at OSR design and made his homebrew baby lovechild of OD&D and Classic Traveller something others could enjoy...but it's not a team design, and it's not built with inherent synergies in mind. SWN is a naked tree waiting for ornaments. Starfinder is the Times Square Xmas Tree, ready to blind you with carefully decorated radiance. 

White Star Galaxy Edition Now In Print!

More specifically, over in print at Lulu.com. Head here to use Tenkar's affiliate link (help out the Tavern!) and also get a 20% off code and free shipping good for today only (SHIPSAVE20).

If you liked White Star and wonder if the Galaxy edition is worth it, I'll just assert that I really like the layout of this new edition, which is a better design and includes new info beyond just the core rules and companion, so I'm actually really happy with this Definitive Edition. As soon as I have this book in my grubby little paws I'm going to spring a new White Star campaign on my group*.....so they have been warned!



*If I'm not running a SWN campaign, that is....

Savage Space: The Hakatic Union (Savage Worlds and White Star)

The Hakatic Union is founded by a species of intelligent coleoptera, collectively known as the hakatics, a name given to them by a species called the ethrixia, which was very nearly rendered extinct in a brutal galactic conflict with the bugs. In their own language, which is a mix of clicks, whistles and pheromone-like protein chains emitted in a fine particulate mist, the actual name of this species is unpronounceable by most humanoids with conventional speech.

The Hakatics developed primitive space travel early on but did not advance beyond simple vacuum tubes and nuclear power for centuries, as their collective hive seemed to be incapable of anticipating the value of anything more than computational power for basic calculations. This is likely due to the fact that females of the species seemed to have impeccable minds for mathematical calculation....they were, in a manner of speaking....superior to any computers they could devise.

The hive of the hakatics is constructed around a rigid, biologically enforced caste system which places the females in administrative, support and intellect roles, while the male hakatics are reserved exclusively for what outsiders call the "warrior caste," though the actual role seems to encompass leadership, exploration and defense as well as the fundamentals of combat. To most outsiders this is hard to identify, due to the inherently xenophobic nature of the Hakatics, who seem at best able to tolerate the other "caste-clans" of their society as they engage in regular warfare with other hive collectives of their own kind. The appearance of outsiders was beyond their comprehension....abominations beyond their ability to assimilate into their cultural range.

Despite being a hive collective, the hakatics are not a "hive mind." They are comprised of individuals, and can function --within limits-- away from their collective. The problem is that the hakatics are biologically locked into behavioral patterns that give them limited ability to function outside of their birth-station. There is some evidence that hakatics can transmogrify, under the rigth conditions, developing the capacity to fill another role in their hive collective when a need arises, but the phenomenon has only been inferred, not directly observed.

A recent encounter with the Hakatic Union on a intersellar "light ship" owned by a Eidolon of Cenotaph named Susuros led to a revelation that there may be a hive collective which has been influenced...possibly even uplifted....by a rogue ASI* from the center of the galaxy. This rogue ASI seems to have provided the hakatics with advanced technology, including enormously more effective fifth dimensional space slipdrive engines, as well as nanophage tech used as highly destructive weaponry. Despite these specific advancements there is no evidence the hakatics have developed advanced electronic capabilities, or at least nothing close to modern standards in computing. The threat of hakatics being manipulated by an unpredictable rogue ASI remains a troubling issue for Aegis and the Commonwealth, however.

Savage Worlds Stats:

Hakatic Warrior Caste (male)

Attributes: Agility D8, Smarts D4, Spirit D4, Strength D10, Vigor D10

Skills: Climbing D8, Fighting D8, Shooting D8, Tracking D6

Pace 6, Parry 6, Toughness 7 (15)

Racial Traits: Brawny, Claws (STR+D8), natural carapace (armor +4)

Hindrances: Vow (major) to collective; xenophobia (major); nonverbal communication 

Armor: hakatic battle gear (+4); vacuum-ready

Weapons: Typically armed with flak guns (3D6+2) or flechette guns (2D4+1)

Hakatic  Worker Caste (females)

Attributes: Agility D10, Smarts D8, Spirit D4, Strength D4, Vigor D6

Skills: Climbing D8, Knowledge (any one) D8, Repair D8, Stealth D6

Pace 6, Parry 7, Toughness 5 (7)

Racial Traits: Brawny, Claws (STR+D4), natural carapace (armor +2)

Hindrances: Vow (major) to collective; Vow (major) pacifism; nonverbal communication 

Armor: vacuum suits (harness/inflating) (no armor value)

Weapons: female caste workers only fight in last-ditch self-defense. They are also prone to following the orders --even from aliens-- if the method of order delivery is emitted as if a warrior caste member delivered the directive.

*Artificial Super Intelligence; the godlike machine intelligences that manifest, usually with a singularity that annihilates or existentially transforms/assimilates its creators when it appears.

White Star Stats:

Hakatic Warrior Caste (male)
Armor Class: 4 (15)
Hit Dice: 4
Total Hit Bonus: +4

Attacks: 1D6+2 claws; flak gun 2D6; flechette pistol 1D6-1

Saving Throw: 15

Special: hive collective mentality, xenophobic, nonverbal communication

Movement: 15

Armor: vacuum-ready (and pressurized and armored) suits designed for arthropods

HDE/XP: 4/120

Hakatic  Worker Caste (females)

Armor Class: 5 (14)
Hit Dice: 2
Total Hit Bonus: +2

Attacks: 1D6 claws

Saving Throw: 17

Special: hive collective mentality, pacifists, nonverbal communication

Movement: 16

Armor: vacuum suits (harness/inflating) (no armor value)

HDE/XP: 2/30

Notes: female caste workers only fight in last-ditch self-defense. They are also prone to following the orders --even from aliens-- if the method of order delivery is emitted as if a warrior caste member delivered the directive.

Ships of the Hakatic Union that have been seized intact reveal that the hakatics actually have no central "hive leader" in the manner humans might imagine, either. It appears to be a biologically enforced community, and the males will choose from 1-6 females as mates, and entire incubator systems run through their ships where eggs are harvested. It appears that only a handful of any egg clutch comes to fruition....possibly due to poor shielding from cosmic radiation on the ships....but the dozen or so eggs that do insure a healthy species' turnaround.

Death Bat's Top Five RPG Tomes of 2016

I spent a lot of time this year focused on a few key games, but collecting the hell out of everything published for them: Savage Worlds, White Star, Mythras, 13th Age, D&D 5E and Call of Cthulhu 7th edition dominated my actual gaming for this year. To that end, I'd like to look at the top book for each....

5. Best Rules Expansion: The White Star Companion
   This was the first official expansion for White Star, and provided lots of additional content, some of it much desired (and at times filled by the 3PP for the game), such as vehicle rules and a skill mechanic. White Star remains my favorite OSR iteration to date, and we ran two great campaigns this year.
Runner Up: The Starrunner Kit by DIY Productions is a great resource for White Star players and GMs alike, and also available in POD format.

4. Best Rulebook: The Mythras Core Rules
   When The Design Mechanism lost the Runequest 6 license they proceeded with a revision to the system and an official rename: Mythras. The Mythras System is essentially the game we've all come to know and love, but with some minor tweaks and a certain liberating feel to it, thanks to a much cleaner and more utilitarian layout and the fact that, free of any expectations that it must be a Runequest/Glorantha game down the road, it can instead focus on more amazing sourcebooks like Mythic Rome.
Runner Up: Through the Breach, which is divided between two core rulebooks (The Fatemaster's Almanac and The Fated Almanac) is a fascinating alt-reality fantasy historical setting based on the Malifaux miniatures game. It's got a card game mechanic and beautiful design aesthetics.

3. Best Sourcebook: Mythic Rome
   Mythic Rome for Mythras is a revision of the original BRP Rome but with a design emphasis on accessibility and easy of play. It's a fantastic sourcebook, probably my favorite this year. It fits well with the Mythras system (or a copy of TDM's edition of Runequest 6) and anyone who appreciated BRP Rome will find this worth picking up.
Runner Up: Rippers Resurrected by Pinnacle Press for Savage Worlds is a crazy delve in to the world of the Rippers, victorian monster hunters who sometimes practice ripping pieces off of their monster prey, grafting it on to themselves. It started long ago as a miniatures game that was expanded into a sourcebook for Savage Worlds, and is now a multi-volume series of tomes expanding on the original setting and storyline.

2. Best Bestiary: Volo's Guide to Monsters
   Volo's Guide to Monsters is WotC's first foray into a non-campaign scenario driven sourcebook for Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition, and it's a genuine pleasure to read as well as a lavishly illustrated and emminently useful expansion for the game, something much needed to date. This was a good year for monster books, actually, and Volo's Guide to Monsters was just the cream of the crop in a sea of awesome.
Runners Up: The Tome of Beasts for D&D 5E from Kobold Press was a fantastic expansion released earlier this year (and pretty much on time!) as a Kickstarter. Fantasy Age's own Bestiary also came out, and provided a much needed shot to the arm for that system, but they still need to get a Player's Companion out to really bring the system up to speed.

1. Top Game Release of 2016: Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition
   It was a very, very long wait for those who backed the Kickstarter, and it nearly tanked Chaosium. The company changed hands and the game was at last printed and released earlier this year however, and the wait was well worth it. I've run a full campaign with the CoC 7E rules now and I find the changes to be intuitive and natural; it is, in fact, a bit hard to imagine a BRP that won't follow the CoC 7E changes (but oddly it probably won't). The Keeper's Guide is all you really need to run the game, but the Investigator's Guide has too much useful data to pass up. The new Petersen's Guide is gorgeous, and all of the new scenario books released so far (Nameless Fears, Pulp Cthulhu and Doors into Darkness) are all great additions to the copious volumes of CoC scenarios already out there. All of thes tomes are in full color and most of them are deluxe hard covers as well. On top of it all the revised system is still easy enough to convert older edition content to on the fly. CoC is back, and it was worth the wait.

Bonus Award!

0. Best Legacy Game: 13th Age 
   13th Age took the cake this year. With some great new sourcebooks such as Crown Commands and High Magic and Low Cunning, as well as the 13h Age Monthly subscription, there's lots of content for a game that remains my favorite immediate competition to running D&D 5E. 13th Age just has so much flavor, and is so easy to GM....it's starting to usurp D&D 5E as my primary go to fantasy engine. There are a lot of games I like and read, but only a few I really play consistently....and 13th Age has become one of those few.

New Stuff: Mythic Rome, Tools of the World Shapers and Ultramodern5

While I've been gallivanting about on work-related stuff several things have popped up worth mentioning.

First off, and most exciting, is the new Mythic Rome book for Mythras stealthily rolled out. It's available in pre-order on The Design Mechanism's site, with PDF available for immediate download. The PDF on first read-through strikes me as a consolidated, cleaned-up version of BRP Rome, which is absolutely a good thing. This looks like a very comprehensive, focused sourcebook for gaming in Ancient Rome and sets a great precedent for Mythras, one which was already given a high benchmark by the high-quality Mythic Britain sourcebook last year.

Next up is Tools of the World Shapers, a White Star sourcebook from DYS Games, which have also produced other great sourcebooks for WS, including Between Star & Void, the indispensable tome on star knights. After an initial read-through I can say it's a meaty addition to any campaign where the GM wants more tools and features to mod out your campaign with. Notable sections include a copious number of cybernetics, equipment design rules, and "gifts" which provide a way of introducing weird powers in a non star knight framework.

Third, but hardly least, is Ultramodern5, a 5th edition toolkit for D&D which lets you overlay rules, classes and other mechanics to allow for futuristic, modern and other contemporary game settings. It is very much a toolkit, so in theory you could run straight modern or near future SF with no issues, or mix and match to create weird science fantasy or other campaigns as desired. The book looks very useful and I will provide a proper review soon.

Six Reasons your Sci Fi Setting Might Require Cold Sleep During FTL Travel

We've seen and read it countless times: our protagonists, be they Ellen Ripley or Richard Riddick, need to go in to some sort of deep sleep, either by means of stasis, cryosleep or "other" until they arrive at their remote destination light years away. Sometimes it's a rather formal process and lots of wires, diodes and catheters are involved. Other times it involves being frozen in some substance or even locked in to some sort of "between time" state. Or maybe it just involves a wrist-attached device pumping you full of stasis-inducing fluids. Who knows!

The question though is....why?

Sure, space is ridiculously big, and it is often the case that SF writers realize this enough to decide that concepts like cryosleep make sense when your implied universe requires a journey lasting months or decades. Maybe the ship needs to keep its resources to a minimum, and hauling ten months' of supplies for a live crew is precious weight that the ship can do without, so locking everyone into a dreamless sleep where they don't wake up, die, or even age is a good idea from the point of view of the bean counters. But.....maybe there's some other, possibly more unusual, even sinister explanation....

Here's six I can think of:

1. Hyperspace Warps the Brain

When you tavel at FTL speeds the human mind can't take it. The technology for FTL travel might put you into another higher dimensional space, or maybe it cuts corners through a neighboring universe. Either way, the implication is that humans can't handle the trip awake, and maybe not even physicially. Something bad would happen to them if even one of the human woke up in the middle of hyperspace....

2. FTL Travel would Cripple or Crush You out of Stasis

Advancing faster and faster to travel into FTL space could take time. Maybe the actual "journey" from point A to point B takes mere minutes, but it's the first light year out and the last light year in where the steady acceleration and sudden deceleration are most taxing. Once you're in hyperspace it's nearly instant....but the before and after would leave a person not in stasis a smear on the wall.

3. The Hyperspace Parasites Will Get You

Long ago space travelers figured out that the dominion of Hyperspace, wherever it is, is rife with mysterious alien parasites that latch on to wakened human minds and ride back in to "normal space" to start zombie apocalypses, wars, or just become serial killers. To solve this issue, everyone has to be locked in stasis for the duration of the journey.

4. Event Horizon and Doom were Right

It turns out there is a parallel dimensional space that makes FTL travel fast...but bad news! It's the dimension which has lent our collective memories to the concept of hell, and hideous entities exist over there which seek to infiltrate our minds (sort of like the parasites, but demons) and ride back to normal space to start the End Times. Your friendly Megacorporation realizes this is not in their profit margin, so they figured out that a dreamless passenger in stasis does not attract the attention of the demons in hell. Usually. Don't worry, they've got specialist cleaners for the "special exceptions."

5. Actual FTL travel Leads to Quantum Displacement

Actual FTL travel in this case is a bit like quantum teleportation....where you "destroy" the entity in one region and remake it in an exact duplicate somewhere else. Hyperspace is just the "journey" through which the quantum process takes effect. No one like experiencing utter destruction and reconstitution, so stasis is the only solution. That, and even moving around slightly during this process can lead to you're particulate matter being stretched out over a few light years' distance so everything, passengers included, has to be locked down for the ride.

6. FTL Travel really does Take a Long Time

Turns out your universe's FTL travel still takes enormously long times. Moving at twice the speed of light might let you imagine ways that relativity is ignored or bypassed, but 2Xc. is still a 2+ year journey to our nearest neighbor star, Alpha Centauri. In a case like this, it may just be that the resources for such a journey are at a premium, and stasis is far preferable to an aging crew arriving years later.

Alternative Concept: The Bioformation Process

It's been suggested that realistic space travel, especially at STL speeds, would need to be conducted over decades or centuries. Even in a matter of years, it might make sense for a future transhumanist society to send out AI-controlled ships with the digital recordings of human explorers ready to upload into freshly grown bodies on the other end, tailored specifically for the environment they will soon be facing. And when those explorers are done? They can retire those bodies (or leave them to their fate), and move on to the next destination, with uploads in the next new bodies....

Space zombies for White Star

Shockingly, for a game which covers a vast swathe of sci fi tropes in its covers, the closest White Star gets to space zombies is their version of the reavers (space savages) or possibly the assimilants (totally not-Borg). Here's a customizable Space Zombie to liven up your White Star explorations...

Space Zombies
Armor Class 8 [11] (normal), 7 [12] (large), or 6 [13] (fast)
Hit Dice 2 (normal), 4 (large) or 3 (fast)
Total Hit Bonus +3 (normal), +4 (large), or +3 (fast)
Attacks slam and bite 1D6 (normal and fast), 2D6 (large)
Saving Throw 17 (normal), 16 (large) or 15 (fast)
Special hard to kill, possible contamination, other (see zombie specials below)
Movement 10 (normal), 12 (large) or 15 (fast)
HDE/XP 2/30 (normal), 4/120 (large), or 3/60 (fast)

Space zombies typically appear to be the dead or seemingly dead remains of spacers and other travelers to the stars who have somehow hideously reanimated and returned to some sort of unlife, with an insatiable lust for humanoid and living flesh, often (but not always) with an intense craving for brains. Zombies as presented here appear in three types:

Normal zombies are slow, shambling beasts who are either too degraded or too "out of it" to move very quickly. They are a threat in numbers but can usually be outrun by all but the stubby yabnabs.

Large zombies are mutated hulks, either of large infected aliens or normal humanoids who have been mutated by their zombification.

Fast zombies are usually zombies either early in their conversion stage (so tissue degeneration has not set in) or they are mutated naturally this way, perhaps even enhanced by the zombification process to make them dangerously fast, hungry predators.

Space zombies arise in various forms on various worlds (and sometimes in the depths of space) due to an array of unusual conditions. If you're looking for a reason they exist, roll a D12 and consult this table for some examples:

1 - exposure to a mutated virus on a hostile alien world or comet's tail
2 - Alien nanoweapon found by accident which reanimates the dead
3 - Exposure to dark energy in the depths of space had an unintended side effect
4 - Extremely strange radioactive substance, from either an experiment gone awry or an alien artifact
5 - Black ops for the Commonwealth/Federation/Empire's Special Intelligence Program leads to manufacture of zombie-like victims
6 - ASI (artificial super intelligence) creates a genetic bug which destroys humanoid's intelligence but leaves the feral part intact
7 - A bizarre side effect of hyperspace travel causes the effect but the reason and nature of the zombie plague is unknown
8 - Brain worms infect sentient humanoids and turn them into zombies
9 -  Hostile aliens use a powerful virus or chemical agent to turn enemy population on itself
10 - Other dimensional beings from a hell-like parallel universe invade the galaxy, using psionic magic to turn humanoids into their unwilling zombie army
11 - An ancient alien artifact warps the minds and flesh of those who hear its psychic all, turning all in to zombies (or worse!)
12 - An engineered virus manufactured by a bioweapons corporation is accidentally unleashed

Space zombies have two specific traits:

Hard to Kill: when a space zombie is reduced to zero (or fewer) hit points it makes a saving throw. If it succeeds, the zombie recovers at the start of the next round with 1 hit point. If a character targets the zombie's head (-4 chance to hit) then if the shot reduces the zombie to zero hit points it does not make this save.

Additionally, most zombies are not damaged by normal toxins, poisons, the vacuum or space or radiation...they're effectively undead or necrotic, even if it's through mutation or transmogrification in some manner. Special exceptions would be "living zombies" which are in fact still living and require the ability to breath, and are susceptible to attacks which harm normal humanoids even if they themselves cannot feel pain normally. Examples are noted below as either "necrotic," "undead" or "living" zombies, with undead in this case meaning they are really, absolutely dead and animated by forces beyond science.

Contamination: space zombies are often exposed to horrifying chemicals, viruses, nanotech or other reanimating agents which can be infectious. If your space zombies have a contagious risk, then any target which takes direct damage from a space zombie attack must make a saving throw or risk being contaminated in turn. Typically contamination leads to conversion in to a zombie in 1D4 hours unless there is a cure for the plague. Kindly GMs may allow the victim a saving throw each hour (with a +2 bonus if proper medical attention is received) to fight it off. Once the victim converts....he's a zombie.

Special Space Zombie Abilities: Each of the twelve examples of zombie origins above has one special ability that is optional. Increase the zombies HDE by 1 if you use these. The list as follows corresponds to the origin list above:

1 - Hostile mutating alien virus zombies (necrotic; exposure through bite, wound, see contamination above); these zombies begin mutating over time, and have a 25% chance of a hideous tentacle attack (1D6+1 damage, can grab and pull a target in and does +1 damage for each additional zombie attacking the same target).

2 - Nanovirus (necrotic; body "explodes" when zombie dies, all within 10 feet must make the save to avoid infection); zombie has metallic skin (+1 AC) and often merges with metal weapons, even star swords, to graft on its limbs as weapons!

3 - Dark Energy Powers (necrotic; zombie does not infect until death; dark energy entity attempts to possess the target that killed the zombie); this type of zombie can use confusion once/day and can fire a ranged attack (dark energy burst) dealing 2D6 damage once per combat turn.

4 - Radioactive Zombie! (necrotic; zombie does not infect, but any exposed to the same radiation or killed by a radioactive zombie must make a save on hitting zero hit points or become a radioactive zombie in 1D4 turns); anyone within 15 feet of this zombie must make a save each round or take 1D6 radiation burn damage.

5 - Black Ops Zombie (necrotic; might infect, using normal rules); these are usually always fast zombies, and have rudimentary intelligence. They are usually armored with medium (+4) or heavy (+6) armor and usually carry mono-axes (1D6+2) and laser rifles (2D6). They are cunning but not "smart" so they can open or chop down a door but maybe not electronically hack into a sealed door.

6 - Wild Living Zombies (living zombie; do not infect, but the ASI that created them might do so through any attempt at a neural interface in computers it controls); these are usually fast zombies and just ravenously mad and hungry. Their aggressiveness gives them a +1 initiative due to ferocity.

7 - Hyperspace Zombie (necrotic; might infect at GM's discretion); these zombies can phase through walls as if they weren't there, and worse yet can make an attack roll to grab a target and then try to drag them in to the phased space, leaving them there. If the target fails a save after being so attacked, they take an additional 2D6 damage from being fused to part of a wall or other fixture, and may have to be cut out and hospitalized for a lengthy period.

8 - Brain Worms (necrotic or living; infectious if more brain worms burrow in to you; could be through saliva, or any physical contact with someone; some population  may be carriers but not actual zombies!); brain worms drive their hosts mad and control them even after death. The brain worms seem to be inimical to humankind and are keenly intelligence, using their undead hosts to spread more of their kind to the stars. 25% of brain worms have access to meditations, including charm person (3/day), confusion (2/day) and detect life (at will).

9 - Chemical Zombie (necrotic; only risk of infection is to an area saturated with the chemical agent, but some large zombies may "explode" on death releasing the agent for 15 feet around them!); these zombies were made through alien chemical weapon attacks and are usually incredibly dangerous, as the chemical was designed to turn the world's population on itself, making the aliens' enemies their own worst threat. Such zombies ooze toxi chemical blood; any melee attack that spills their blood requires a saving throw by the attacker to avoid getting 1D6 damage from chemical burns, and a 10% chance of exposure to the zombie chemicals.

10 - Zombies from the Devil's Nebula (undead; they don't infect, but their masters might); these zombies are horrifically dangerous and burst in to flame, causing an extra 1D6 fire damage on an attack. When a zombie is brought to zero hit points, if they make their save to come back they do so by levitating in the air in a nimbus of fire and return with 1D6 hit points instead of just 1!

11 - Warped Call Zombies (necrotic; these zombies don't infect, but the psychic broadcast of their ancient artifact might); these zombies come in all three flavors, each reflecting a stage of mutation. They actually strike with razor blade-like arms for 1D6+1 damage instead of normal attacks (2D6+2 for large zombies), and they seek to dismember; on a natural 20 attack, the target must make a saving throw or, if the attack reduces them to zero hit points, they lose a limb! The zombie will take the next round to retrieve the limb and meld it with it's own flesh, adding +1 to hit on future attacks.

12 - Biohazardous Zombie (necrotic; these zombies definitely infect with a bite, and infected become zombies in 1D6 combat turns); the madmen at Bumbershoot Corporation are at it again! The engineered virus of the bioweapons corporation is devastatingly fast, and that makes it quick to spread through large, dense populations. They also mutate! Each time a zombie kills someone, roll a D20 and if you roll equal to or under the zombie's current hit die it gains +1 hit die, +1 to damage (when at +3 already the next +1 makes it an extra D6), and modify the saving throw accordingly. The zombie may grow larger, take on extra limbs, or become deformed, growing extra eyes or other parts. When a zombie reached 10 hit dice it becomes a tyrant zombie and gains a horrific ranged slam attack where it projects its own limbs up to 30 feet, like battering rams or blades, to crush or eviscerate targets.

Source!