Star Wars- Take One

 To be clear, these game sessions are deconstructions of a Star Wars-like science fiction story.

So the Border Wars were where the Dominion and Independent Space set their borders. These conflicts of course has only led to an uneasy peace.

The Malta Sector is one of fourteen sectors where the Dominion feels that it stopped short. Lord Agrieve has decided to address that situation. He has moved a Doom Moon complete with a squadron of cruisers into the Atlam solar system, Not only imposing his view of Dominion will into the sector, he's taken Baroness Lea, whom everybody calls "Princess Lay-Ah" as a prisoner.

TraAl 64: Sandtrap
Capitol of the Atlam solar system. Most populated world of the Malta sector. It is in the closest star system to the Dominion. Noted for its black market trade of goods from the Independent Worlds into the Dominion. It’s ruling family, the Leas, mispronounced as “the Lay-Ahs” instead of “lee” is an off-shoot of the Bulka monarchy of Ariolla Markt.
Populations: Humans 38%, Crig 5%, Tusker 5%
At the Equator: Blazing desert
At the Poles: Frosty sand
Capital: Organic City
Space Ports: All sorts of them.
Places of Interest: Lea Manors, Trade Alliance Towers, the Primrose Embassy
Notes: The Organic Clan are a cast-way clan of the Bulka monarchists. Unauthorized landings are viewed with varying amount of indifference.
Robin: Baroness Organic Lea “Princess Lay-Ah”


Will our protagonists Captain Treb, Professor Sparkfuse, and Jumkor Wot come to save her? If they aren't inclined, I am more than willing to railroad things.

Ben: Professor Grizzle Sparkfuse (Synthesizer) Wild Child psychic ability
    Big Idea: “Fabricating a Laser-Sword”- the prototype gets +2 to Fix-It Saves
Brett: Treb Sard Chir “Captain Treb” (Scrapper)
Curtis: Jumkor Wot (Spacer) Wild Child psychic ability

Sphere of Doom 2024: Encapsulated

 So this last Spring I re-envisioned my 2021 take on a Flash Gorden serial, Flash Gordon and the Sphere of Doom.

The first take was awesome. Things were groovy. Everyone was playing at least two characters and folks were introducing themselves to the comic strips.  This was not because of anything wrong with that campaign, but I had started to design a Dyson Sphere for roleplaying in.  So even after those takes I kept making notes.

Just a Little Off Course

So in session one, pretty sure there was only the two players  Iron Curtis and Peryton, Robin, playing the Characters Blix Bradigan and Professor Priscilla Vokraz. Aboard the Signus, the two were running an Oort Corps support mission for various space stations. One of the stations was the Ymir where Vokraz's husband Professor Elvis Vokraz was looking for the ninth planet.

Priscilla received a transmission that the Ymir was picking up promising gravitational findings and was going to change vectors of its orbit to investigate. Two weeks later, though, the research facility had not reported in. Ignoring orders to wait until further information could be collected, Lt. Bradigan, the vessel's captain, fired up the engines and headed towards the last known location of Elvis Vokraz and his crew...

Think We've Got Something
We try to keep our gaming groups flexible, which means my story line could take little diversions. The next time we met, Just Ben showed up and Robin would be showing up later. Bernard wanted to play a space princess and didn't mind randomizing her background. So while I kept Blix busy here and there with problems with navigation, the gravity just wasn't making sense, we had Princess Nova Veridian from Alpha Centauri B fleeing from the retribution of her father, the Emperor of Toliman after another almost baseless accusation of her trying to steal the throne again. She was a green-skinned Neptunian, a sub-species of human. Her ship was essentially a flying-saucer. When Vokraz finally showed up, I had both ships realized that they were in the gravity well of a massive sphere structure about four times the size of Jupiter. Neither of their vessels were designed for being close to masses much larger than smaller moons, so there were problems on both their ends.
Veridian's saucer would be shot by a mysterious yellow beam that would disintegrate it. This let me describe her species innate ability to survive for a few minutes in the vacuum of space, using its Quirk Space Face. Meanwhile the Signus moved in to save her, Blix did some highly skilled flying and Vokraz figured out a way to get the literal castaway aboard their ship with out killing her.

The Signus though was still in trouble and would have to find a spot to land.

Not Into the Underworld

Well Blix Bradigan was able to land the Signus without getting him and the others killed. The ship did need to get its power source "synced" and an external source of power would be helpful to recharge the reserve batteries as well. The first robot NPC for the space vessel, Boomstick, was created to handle this task. They were on the outer shell of the Dyson sphere and within walking distance of an unused structure that that the group decided to investigate. It was an out-of-the-way maintenance station. Considering that its nearest neighbor was roughly the distance from the Earth to the Moon, they pretty much had the place to themselves.
I had set a trap to get the PCs captured and taken towards the inner workings of massive world, but they avoided it. Blix and Veridian did manage to get themselves into trouble, while Professor Vokraz got power lines from the base to their ship. The two went out for a walk looking for access into any sort electronic communications network-- somehow we had determined that the base was isolated from any sort of communications outside of radio waves. Well about half a mile from the ship and now habitable base, they did find the super-science-y equivalent of a telephone pole and using power reserves from their own survival gear, started to hack the system so to speak.
Here they were able to get images of the Ymir in a low stable orbit around the sphere, but under attack or at least being disassembled by little specks being disgorged from a vacuum cleaner-looking vessel about a quarter of its size. Upon zooming in, the attackers appeared to be ape-men with metal parts and jet packs. Then the screen went fuzzy. This was because their space suits' power sources and reserves only had so much umpf to them. The two Characters were suddenly freezing.
Veridian got into true form and convinced Blix that they had to join their suits "to conserve energy and maintain warmth." Bernard did not make a vampy-chick character to not be noticed after all. Curtis Quipped, "My PC might be gay but she has big boobs." So instead of trying to walk back to where there was power the two Spacers huddled until Vokraz showed up on a OTR three-wheeler that she found in the base and saved them.

JerryTel showed up for a bit to play the Ming Character, Zargon Law, and we got into the politics of the Quad. The Quad being the most habitable, and therefore suppressed, realms of the Dyson Sphere.

Stuck In the Mud
So while the Signus, had garnered enough power for a take off from the area, the minions of the despot of the Quad and nominal dictator of the Ognim, the Sphere of Doom, had a take on them. The Mining Clans, cyborgs wrapped in clay, used their gravity cannons caused the Terrans a rather short flight.
Meanwhile, Kal Luin, Brett, showed up to start getting his hands dirty in some video table-top gaming. He then proceeded to produce an exact replicate of Blix Bradigan, named Brick Bradigan. He was the Security Officer of the Ymir, so I did some flashbacks.
    Poor Brick did the best he could to defend the Ymir against the ape-men with shining metal parts that were Zargon Law's Far Raiders, while the Mining Clans worked their gravity cannons dragging the ship downward. The space station would just shudder to a halt in the mud and gravel that made up most of the shell of the Sphere of Doom, where the Signus would land not to far from it.
    With a scouting party, Blix and Prescilla, would find Brick. Blix and Brick the fraternal twins would come together.
    "The last I heard you were on Mars."
    "I was." Replied Brick, "But things change."
    From there on their sibling rivalry would be a thing.



No Where Near
    As much as I hate railroading the PCs, getting to deep secrets was taking a bit longer than I wanted. So this episode was about fights and then forcing Priscilla into chasing her husband aboard a clay-cruiser. That slow moving subterranean craft, now with the Professor Vokraz aboard, would start making its way through the clay and sludge towards the interior realms of Sphere of Doom.  Blix and Brick stopped their bickering to get serious about following that Mining Clan vessel.

GenCon 2024: Ken's Not Dead Yet

 Speaking with JerryTel over at the GenCon Auction last night (Friday, August 2nd) he asked if Peryton or I had heard anything about Ken St Andre. There was a rumor going around that he had passed on. Well we had not heard anything and scrolled our media feeds and found nothing. I did say, "Well leave it to him to die on the Friday at GENCON." Still the three of us regaled a couple nicer and funny stories as one does when hearing such things. From what I can tell, this bit of gossip is exaggerated.

We moved on into reality, we are at GENCON the best four days in gaming. Since Wednesday night, Jerry has been sending me pictures of brews at favorite bars. Robin arrived late Wednesday so we only showed up on Thursday. I've completed my four events, only three went off. All were Crawlspace variations and little tales into the supernatural. With only me running events for three years now, "Peryton Gamers" is getting assigned spare rooms at the Marriott one day and the Hyatt the next day. Shuffling from one gig to another instead of having my primo spots at the JW Marriott.

On Thursday AM into noon"13 Ghosthunters" designed for, well, thirteen players had two participants. Laura and Seth were great. Really did the minor celebrity thing well for the first act. For the second and concluding act, they completed the ghost story and helped solve the mystery to find a missing kid sister. I hope

"The Seance" taking place a little after lunch, was full plus. Twelve player slots, eleven full seats around the two tables-- dammit missed one. Long time players, Ryan and Kaitlyn, along with a whole slough of new folks showed up. Of course I did not have enough PC sheets so we went without the sheets and turned the card mechanics into a paperless parlor game-- rather fitting for the work, I think. Things got wild, people were having fun. I had to move around the table and folks started doing that Crawlspace thing where they started moving around as well and scripting their own tales while I was busy. Ah perfection. I kept it short and campy. Kaitlyn really rocked in her role as a grieving widow. After the game local RPGers and I exchanged numbers for in town get-togethers. I look forward to seeing how this pans out.

The third event didn't have any players show, so Robin hit the 6:30pm traffic jam and headed to the flat. Pizza and sci-fi TV were had in bathrobes. Later, after my nightly nap, I woke up and finished my notes for "The Sleep Study 4: the Light Sleeper" Friday's concluding event. 

Friday's event started at the Hyatt at 1pm. Of course Robin made sure we would not be any earlier than 12:45. I forgot how efficient the Hyatt is, pizza, Starbucks, a dine-in spot, a bar complete with open gaming areas and conference rooms all within two meters of each other. It's a small game fest in and of itself while GENCON happens around it. The before game panics all happened in the same building, in a small contained area when compared to the mile or so of where everything else goes on.

Light Sleeper had the pros of Crawlspace as players. Robin/Peryton co-creator, Natalie modified the game for her Supernatural TV show LARPS, and Michael whose played in at least one session at GenCon for over a decade. Their characters had me trying to keep up with them as I tried to craft my tale. Really I had to be on my toes. I felt comfortable enough with this group to not only go scary but creepy (as in blue). The appropriate level of disdain was shown by all, but that did not stop a high quality horror-thriller from unfolding. Wait I take that back Robin did show me an "X" card, but no one listened. It was a good and scary session, the "R-rated" tales that we usually get around midnight.

And then freedom...

Screw It 1: copy and pasted game sceanrio and its session

 Six Weeks Wobble: 17. May. 24

Artwork by Randy Market. Copyright the artist and Peryton Publishing, 2012

“Space Nazis on the Moon versus Radio Apes from the Tau Verse”
So Viago and Daisy Adair are called back to Prime Earth (Mu Gamma-2) because though the time stream hook was disabled months ago, there is something, or someone, that keeps sending signals trying to tap into it. That means someone is trying to reactivate it. When they, the PCs, show up they find that the signal is not coming from Earth but instead from the other side of the moon. And it’s nazis, from the moon, that are doing so.

The PCs will be ambushed by the “Mondtrupplen” (moon-troopers) and most likely captured. Unless they do something to hide the Albatross, it will be seized by the space nazis when they are captured. What is happening is that an outpost of the Uber-Worlds in the Omega Verse, that is actually from the future is trying to reestablish the connection.

30 Mondsritter, Q 70-120

6 Unteranfuhrer, Q 100-120
One per five moon-troopers. 1-6 on bravery scale.

Oberst Pierre Blik, Mondplatzbefehshaber, Q 150. 4^th Level Digger
Colonel Blik is the commander of the moonbase. He is from the future and his main mission is to make contact with the Uber-Worlds in this time period’s Omega Verse, which he has not been able to do. He has made contact with the Hitler Brain.

The nazis attempts to contact the future have not just been noticed by the Clock Trees. An outpost of Radio-Apes from Procyon has noticed and has sent a probe team to investigate. Of course shooting first and figuring stuff out later is the Overmind’s preferred way for “investigating” things-- they can always put things back together from rubble if need be.

8 Monitor Monkeys, Q 90-120
Some are veterans, while a couple are replacements. Varies in levels of experience and autonomous thought.

Z4A4 “Zira” Appliance Ape +, Q 260
Medical/Repairs office of the raiding party.

Quick-267 Appliance Ape, Q 200
Science officer of the raiding party.

Quack-78, Appliance Ape, Q 100
Second-in-Command.

1X4 "Connor," Robo-Rilla, Q 300
Commander of the raiding party.

Opening: Viago and Daisy get captured by Nazis. The villains of course reveal exactly what they are doing. And then they reveal that they have fond the body of Adolph Hitler. When they awaken him, Der Fuhrer seems a little off. He looks out at the fascists from the Omega Verse with a bit of chagrin and upon seeing our Professor he recognizes him. It’s Edmund Hitlervitz not Adolph Hitler.

Edmund (Hitler-Clone) Q 550, Ace
See Wobble, original text, for more details. In this case, this Wobbler is one of the Master Class. He is able to Wobble without devices given the “Days” rule. He’s been traveling between the dimensions for some thirty some-odd years now, he’s got quite a bit of lore.
MENTAL 200
Explain Mad Science (MENTAL plus 3D)- He’s been around it to not only to recognize it quickly, he gets where it’s going a lot quicker than others.
CHARM 200
Makes the Wrong Friends Fast- While he’d like his CHARM rating to be about 10, it is multiplied by 2D when encountering new and unwritten about groups.

Act One: A Barrel of Monkeys
The Radio-Apes attack. Some ships of the Overmind

Banana Boat
Piloted by a Chief, a pilot, and a navigator. It can carry up to six ape-sized beings comfortably.
MASS 40
MAN 75
DEF 50
SPD 40
OFF 100
Crew 3 minimum.
Notes: Most common fighter used by Radio-Apes

Monkey Barrel
Gunboats of the Overmind.
MASS 140
MAN 75
DEF 50
SPD 80
OFF 100
Crew 3 minimum.
Notes: Piloted by a Chief, a pilot, and a navigator. It can carry up to ninety ape-sized beings comfortably. Capable of transporting two Banana Boat-sized ships.

Act Two: Moon Pies and Monkey Wrenches in the Works

Cool bits in the tool-kit:
1.) Flashbacks to Alejandro
Shadow shows of what he’s learned during his dalliances.
Discussion of Time-Slipping

2.) More about PRIME Earth (MU-Gamma 2)
The Mazel-Tough
Prime Earth’s Israeli secret space station with a super laser. Not so much interested in killing nazis as much as blowing up Arab stuff. Mentioning something “Palestinian” will get co-Captains Sid and Lewis’s attention.
MASS 140
MAN 75
DEF 50
SPD 80
OFF 100
Crew 3 minimum.
Notes: Piloted by a Chief, a pilot, and a navigator. It can carry up to two hundred human-sized beings comfortably. Capable of transporting four fighter-sized spacecraft.

Aleph-16
Space fighter vessel of Prime Earth.
MASS 20
MAN 75
DEF 50
SPD 90
OFF 100
Crew 1
Notes: Most common fighter used by the Israeli Secret Space Force. Can carry up to four people uncomfortably.

Act Three: What Actually Happened

So a long term, but infrequent player showed up, needing a new Character and intro. Came up with a backstory for him. Played it out in parts. New Player Character Brick-Clone awoke aboard the Monkey Barrel coming to raid the nazi moonbase. In the medical bay, resembling a butcher shop mixed with an auto shop, of the vessel there were four other clones of him but not yet complete. He was able to break free from the “medical” Application-Apes’ “care.”
The Albatross wobbled into the Mu Gamma-2 universe and discovered the signal that they were tracking was coming from the far side of the moon, not the Earth. They also detected an UFO headed along towards the signal as well. This was the Radio-Ape ship, which they followed undetected due to the skill of the pilot, Dasiy Adair. They then and caught the new Player-Character, and four other our clones of their original when they were ejected from the gunboat. Professor Rudolpho Viago took a look at the new technology aboard his Wobble-Ship mostly ignoring the castaways. Daisy stepped in leaving the ship on autopilot.
So the Radio-Apes assaulted the Space Nazi moonbase. Our Characters stayed in orbit but hacked into what was going on through the complex's surveillance cameras. I was going to make a mini-game making one Player take the side of the nazis and the other the Radio-Apes, but no one was interested. Because of the numerical advantage, and due to my rolling, the nazis were able to not only defeat the raiding party, but they captured the monkey barrel minus its cloning equipment-- the Players were too busy talking about the movie Barbarella to notice.
I railroaded Edmund Hitlervitch saving himself to inject the NPC into the wobbling party for the next session.

Rulings and New Rule(s) Developments during Play:
First Wobbles
Accidental
Rule 117- When two or Wobblers encounter each other, they must make a SR not to go on a wobble. See random tables for where they go. GMs should tailor such tables to their scenario’s needs.
Survival
While striving to stay alive helps a Wobbler find out that they can wobble. Unless the PC has a strategy in mind, LUCK will be their ID Stat.
Experimental
This is the conscious effort of the PC knowing that they can wobble. They decide their ID Stat and do things that utilize Saves to eventually have a wobble.

Clone’s Luck
Clone Characters are going to have identity issues as well as the disadvantage of being low level to No level at the games they enter into. If their first Saving Roll is within one or two points of a success, give them a break. They still receive no XP for that roll though.

Appliance Ape +
 A model of Appliance Ape that has advanced processing capacity, but unable to assume command positions.

That’s a Wrap:

Plot Points:
1.) Avoid death (100 XP)
2.) Save Edmund from nazi-enslavement (100 XP)
3.) Retrieve the Albatross (90 XP)
4.) Blow up the moonbase and its time-travel communicator to keep it out of the Overmind’s grasp. (75 XP)

Everytime At the Table: Spacers 180° Sideline

New notes.

 So of course scheduling with a group that likes late nights and multiple GMs is proving to be a bit difficult. Peryton and Iron Curtis were still able to show up last night for a "just us" session. I was flattered both of them have expressed to me how much they like Spacers games. Since this game is on the side of the larger group, including Ben, William, and Simon recently, new characters were developed. I've also been in the mood for some Sphere Romance versus nuts and bolts so I pulled out notes from 2020 and dusted off the Flash Gordon Versus the Sphere of Doom. I decided that I had plenty of details unique enough to do some fidgeting and come up with something fresh. 

The long and short of this is that things were ready to go with very little prep. I placed the date one hundred and forty years from now. So far we've got Robin playing Priscilla Vokraz, a Synthesizer who's "Big Idea" (a new game mechanic, I came up with for the Class last night) is to synthesize human and mechanical "activity" (life). Curtis is playing Lieutenant Blix Bradigan, the Scrapper, in command of the OCR Signus. The Signus is a Barracuda class ship acting as a PT Boat/Supply ship for space stations out in the Oort Cloud. OCR stands for "Oort Corps Resource" by the way.

With all of the above established, we got playing. The OCR Sigmus was, like way, way, out in the Oort Cloud supporting Ymir Station which was even farther out. Dr. Vokraz's husband Elvis Vokraz was the Chief-Director (Egg-head for captain) looking for a ninth planet in our solar system. After a "I'll tell you later" phone call between the husband and wife, the space station disappeared. Finding this out Blix said "let's go." Karen Complex from the far away Pluto-Charon system, advised waiting for further study but their message was burned up in the engine flare as the rocket sped away. Head on into trouble.

When getting to the Ymir's last known position, the PCs found a lot of nothing (alotta nadda). Luckily our Oort Corps "Out-Rangers" had the background data from the earlier scene's phone call. What they got was a triangle. The bottom of the triangle was white, most of the middle was red, the top was green turning to blue. It didn't take a Science Officer to figure out that this was a thermal image. Captain Blix went on to theorize that they were looking at an emission trail. Vokraz was the one to pull back enough to realize that they were dealing with a dark structure at least fourteen times the size of Jupiter. Its darkness indicated that was enclosed. A sphere, a mini-Dyson Sphere so to speak.

Alarms went off as the Signus entered the gravity well of The new Sphere of Doom.