[OOC] Star Wars: Scavengers: Taking Flight

[catsi563]

*poke head up from nap spot on top of fridge* =O_o=

[Spectrum]

*tosses some nice kitty nibbles up there* Nice catsi, good catsi.

[Spectrum]

Hi folks!

Thanks for your patience while I was dealing with some family stuff. Thankfully, its pretty much all settled now.

I've decided to go with M&M 3e just because of ease and mutual familiarity.
In order to encourage troupe play, I'd like to do chargen a little bit differently than normal but willing to listen to objections. The group will have a pool of 600 pp (or 120x #of players) with no character being higher than PL 8. That allows for people to play multiple characters if they want. It also means that there won't be using the rules for minions or sidekicks. Pulp style abilities are encouraged but please don't go too crazy with them. Traits from across the books are allowed, but please ask first so that we can stay within theme. I'm also willing to play an NPC if you want.

Vehicles: As a group, pick up a cargo vessel worth 50 ep. Feel free to put pp directly into it (not as ep) if you want something more important. Also, come up with some fun complications for it, the luck points generated will go into a general pool. Obvious weapons will cause problems if you go into public and you might get get confused for something that you're (maybe) not like a warship or a pirate.

Era: New Hope but there's a very good chance that you haven't heard anything but general details. The story will be in the background rather than the foreground.

Locations: Where is the group coming from and where is it going to? Did you just get a major haul and pulling it back to somewhere that you can sell it? Are you going to a settlement to celebrate a big battle?

Other questions:
How long have you been together? Why?
What has your luck lately been like? Any huge wins or losses?
Any running jokes among the team? Individual relationships? Frenemies?
What secrets do you have from the other characters- not necessarily the other players?
How do you feel about the Empire as a group? The Rebels? Any criminal organizations?
Why are you unwilling to just leave the situation that you're going to find yourselves in? Just don't go into the house and turtling isn't a great option.

Hopefully, this will be enough to get a good start!

I'm really looking forward to the game.

[jmucchiello]

I think we need to start with the members of the crew. Maybe we make a shared PC captain (rather than an NPC captain ).

We have a Twi'leck pilot and cyborg navigator. Any other character "fixed"?
I asked this earlier. Is the captain in charge or is he only in charge of the ship? Does he do the trade stuff or does he only decide to dump the cargo when the Imperials get too close?

A 50 ep ship sounds low but I need a better idea of what we're going for. Should the ship be gargantuan (minimum size to have "base features" like living quarters)? Any bigger sounds too big since there are star destroyers in universe and they would be awesome sized. What PL should the ship adhere to (because you know we're going to sneak some form of "laser miner that's also a weapon" onto it)?

[jmucchiello]

Start of a space craft. It needs a name! Getting to 50 ep was fast and it probably needs more flight at a minimum. Complications when we know more about our "business".

What's My Name?; PL: 8; PP: 50
Size: Gargantuan; Strength: 12; Defense: 10; Toughness: 16

Features: Communications 1, Computer, Fire Prevention System, Hangar, Hidden Compartments 4, Living Space, Variable Environment, Workshop

COMBAT

• Laser Cutter: Damage 10: +0 (DC 25) Range: 8000/16000/32000 ft.

POWERS

• Atmospheric Flight: Flight 6 Speed: 120 miles/hour, 1800 feet/round - Extras: Stacks with: Full Flight: Flight 6+6 (12 PP)
• Defense Effect - Saving Throw: Defense; Extras: Subtle (Subtle) (1 PP)
  Although heavily plated, the plating is well obscured by easily and cheaply replaced "normal" hull plates.
• Full Flight: Flight 6+6 Speed: 8000 miles/hour, 16 miles/round - Flaws: Limited: Space Only (6 PP)
• Laser Cutter: Damage 10 - Extras: Extended Range 5, Increased Range (Ranged) (25 PP)
• Movement: Movement 2 - Space Travel 2 (Other solar systems) (4 PP)
• Tractor Beam: Feature 1 - (1 PP)
  Ranged strength for maneuvering cargo or grabbing onto an asteroid.

EQUIPMENT

• Cargo Lifter (1 ep)
• Space Shuttle (1 ep)
• Space Shuttle 1 (33 ep)

TOTALS: Abilities: 3, Powers: 49, Advantages: 0, Features: 11, Skills: 0, Defenses: 21, Equipment: 0, Weapons & Armor: 0 -> 84

VEHICLE
Cargo Lifter; PL: 8; PP: 25

Size: Huge; Strength: 12; Defense: -4; Toughness: 10

Features: Autopilot 1 (+4), Communications 1

POWERS

• Flight: Flight 8 Speed: 500 miles/hour, 1 mile/round - (16 PP)

TOTALS: Abilities: 6, Powers: 16, Advantages: 0, Features: 2, Skills: 0, Defenses: 1, Equipment: 0, Weapons & Armor: 0 -> 25

Space Shuttle; PL: 8; PP: 33

Size: Large; Strength: 4; Defense: 0; Toughness: 7

Features: Autopilot 4 (+16), Communications 1, Computer

POWERS

• Flight: Flight 12 Speed: 8000 miles/hour, 16 miles/round - (24 PP)

TOTALS: Abilities: 1, Powers: 24, Advantages: 0, Features: 6, Skills: 0, Defenses: 2, Equipment: 0, Weapons & Armor: 0 -> 33

[Shock]

Do you still have room for more players?

[CaptainChaos]

Ship definitely needs more flight. What about weapons for defense?

[Spectrum]

Hey Shock, glad to hear from you

I think that I can take a sixth player, so you snuck in under the wire. That being said, I'll encourage people to separate the party a bit more often so that we can maintain the tone. Yes, I'm actually encouraging you to split the party!

As far as specific mechanics for the ship, I wouldn't worry excessively about it. Vehicles tend to operate on a different scale than PCs anyway, dealing with other ships rather than characters. Which isn't to say that there might not be certain characters that are on a vehicle scale.

In fact, I would suggest that for now, we talk about characters in terms of descriptors without nailing down mechanics quite yet.

[Flynnarrel]

The ship should have a workshop and hangar as well, it's useful to have sub-vehicles like grav carts and ground speeder/haulers. I think the ship's speed is fine for an in-atmosphere maneuvering of a large cargo hauler.

I was thinking a winged Genosian engineer. He pretends to be this gruff backwater Jury rigger who cobbles things together with duct tape and wire but secretly [not so secret from the crew], he's a member of the imperial caste and charged with the protection and possible relocation of a genosian queen's egg.

[jmucchiello]

I just need more points to add those things. How many ep does each player want to contribute? I say 2 pp (aka PL8/118 for each character) as that would be another 50 ep for the ship.

Ship definitely needs more flight. What about weapons for defense?

Well, I jacked up the defense for defense. And I wanted the flight to be high enough that it could out run Imperial ships.

I was going to buy the flight as:

Flight X: Atmospheric flight
flight Y+X: stacks with Atmospheric flight, limited: Space flight only

but I ran out of points.

[jmucchiello]

Well, we need to know who's who still.

jmucchiello, Twi'leck pilot
ZenGypsy, Cyborg navigator
Flyarrel, Genosian engineer

interest: CaptainChaos, catsi563, Shock

And then we need to know what our mission is. Making money is obviously the surface mission. Anything else the group wants together?
How did we arrive on this ship?
Are there past crew members out to get us? (Perhaps a complication for the ship itself.)

[jmucchiello]

I've made some more vehicle changes. See above. Still in the figuring stuff out phase, obviously.

[CaptainChaos]

I was originally thinking of mechanic but now perhaps ship medic and cook. Not sure about race yet. Will have to do a bit of research on that. Lots of interesting options.

[Flynnarrel]

A Kaminoan medic would be... slightly terrifying.

[ZenGypsy]

I'll work on a rough build, I'll likely be using the full 120 pp for my character. Thinking I'll be a slicer/engineer with enough combat skills to provide cover fire when the heat comes down.

Concerning starship combat, is there a plan in place to mitigate the fact the pilot typically dies everything? Like allowing the engineer to boost shields, the tech guy to scan incoming hostiles or assist with target locks, stuff like that? I only ask because more than most games, Star Wars loves it's space combat, and so do I!