The Earth has been destroyed!
But I get ahead of myself.
George Bush's calling for a space station on the moon was realized. Then a station on Mars was begun. The Lunar colony quick grew to desire freedom, and with a massive amount of resources and the backing of a number of megacorps, effectively bought its independence from the US government. There were complications of course, and eventually Luna had to threaten to drop asteroids on China if they didn't back off, but it all ended pretty well, and set the stage for Mars to become independent as well.
But that never happened. Because shortly after the commotion, the Jinn arrived. Their name for themselves is not really the Jinn, but that's the first syllable and the rest quickly becomes a series of high whines and clicks. So humanity calls them the Jinn...
... or Master! If a Jinn is within hearing distance.
The jinn are a telekinetic slug like race based on silicon in the manner humanity is based on carbon.
Like the conquistadors of Spain in Latin America, the Jinn came to earth and took over. Their technology was so advanced that it was not even a close fight, although humanity did manage to destroy two of the vast mother ships.
After conquering the race, the Jinn found humans to be excellent slaves. Easily trained, and adaptable, humanities opposable thumbs and appendages made construction and manipulation of the Jinn's technology (which was stolen) easy enough.
What the Jinn didn't realize was that although the species was adaptable and clever, it was not meant for servitude. Humanity quickly (well over the course of 3-4 generations) learned how and why the Jinn technology worked, and using it against their masters rose up and threw off the yoke of slavery.
During the revolt, the earth was shattered like a great stone. Now it remains a belt of asteroids gasses and huge froze icebergs.
The Jinn were forced to retreat, and humanity built defenses around their galaxy. The revolutionaries formed a single government with a representative senate and an Executive Leader who would take command in times of emergency, but who was elected every 4 years. They also drafted an interplanetary constitution which provided for local governance as well as a federal rule from the Interplanetary Senate.
Humanity spread out and began terraforming the planets of the Sol System. Then spread beyond, now having advanced their technology by millennia in a matter of years.
The Jinn have not returned, though it has been centuries. Nor has any other alien race been encountered. YET.
With over a dozen galaxies colonized, the central government has it's hands full in Sol. This has left the rest of the Collective Unity of Planets (CUP) as something of a "wild west" region of space. Many of the planets tech levels have fallen back to premier levels due to lack of energy sources and competent people to repair them. Frankly much of the terraforming has allowed once inhospitable planets to hold atmosphere and habitable land. The others are colonized using interconnected biodomes.
The reach of the Law is sporadic, and many criminals and undesirables have fled from persecution in the opulent Central Systems to these outworlds. This is where you come in.
You are all sought by the Law for one reason or another. You have made your way to the outworlds and have found that your skills and abilities allow you to make a decent if not exactly comfortable living in places where it's more important that things get done than it is they get done legally.
You have found that you are a complimentary group and enjoy each others company. As long as everyone pulls their own weight, you have decided to travel together.
You are currently in hyperjump traveling from one system to another about to hook up with another job, when the system sirens Go off and your ship automatically drops out of warp. All around the ship the computers voice module is chanting, "Ship systems on-line. Warp deceleration in progress. Please assume your assigned stations. Thank you for your attention."
"What's going on?"
"Something's up ahead."
"Ship systems on line..."
"We were in warp, why didn't the CP compensate and move us around it?"
"I don't know..."
"... deceleration in progress. Please..."
"Well find out damn it!"
"... assume your assigned..."
"And somebody turn that damn thing off."
"Silent alarm mode engaged. Thank you."
Since you guys are outlaws, your heading from Romulous to Remus, a pair of Worlds in the Epsilon System. (The guy who found the system loved Star Trek, what can I say.) Warping from one plant to another is common, but you have never heard of it being interrupted before.
The Epsilon system is one of the furthers away from the Sol system, and therefore virtually untouched by law enforcement. It's a dangerous place to make a living, but the income tax is low and regulations are not routinely enforced outside of a planet's atmosphere. Romulous and Remus are the only inhabited planets so far in this system and are in the middle of a group of 6 which surround a sun similar to Earth's.
You are carrying 16 boxes of sealed cargo. You didn't ask and the shipper didn't tell.
In the Sol system tech is very high, but in the pioneer systems that humanity has expanded into it is dichotic. There are space ships and fission generators for the single family home. Warp drive let's you hop about systems, and magnetic power/usage is huge. But most people on the frontier don't know enough about manufacturing these tech level items, so it all has to be shipped from the Sol system. (And the megacorps of the Sol system prevent the establishment of manufacturing operations elsewhere through political, capitalist, and less friendly means.)
So you have many worlds at a variety of technological sophistication based on what they can afford to ship/maintain, and what they can produce locally.
Also, there are NOT dozens of worlds that have human habitable atmospheres. Some have paid to blast icebergs into gas and create an atmosphere, but most use biodomes.
No, they tend to be impractical. The ones in firefly are about typical. They work and are cool, but each outerworld probably has 1 or 2 held by local elites, and mainly show pieces. (Like keeping a hand made Katana at home.) They will get about 10 shots on a full battery, but to recharge the battery locally usually means shutting off all the power to their house for an hour or two. (Or leaving it plugged in to the wall for a week.)
If you have the ship operating in warp you can get a full refill easily (Kind of like using the alternator to recharge your car battery.) but that usually consumes some signifigant fuel.)
You can certainly have one if you take the skill. But it will also draw attention to you.
Here are needler weapons, which basically fire teflon coated steel needles via a magnetic rail gun type thing. Very useful on a ship as they tend not to punch through the hull and explosively decompress everything. However they are less effective on armor and have a more limited range. (They were specifically desinged for in ship combat.)
In the Sol system tech is very high, but in the pioneer systems that humanity has expanded into it is dichotic. There are space ships and fission generators for the single family home. Warp drive let's you hop about systems, and magnetic power/usage is huge. But most people on the frontier don't know enough about manufacturing these tech level items, so it all has to be shipped from the Sol system. (And the megacorps of the Sol system prevent the establishment of manufacturing operations elsewhere through political, capitalist, and less friendly means.)
So you have many worlds at a variety of technological sophistication based on what they can afford to ship/maintain, and what they can produce locally.
Also, there are NOT dozens of worlds that have human habitable atmospheres. Some have paid to blast icebergs into gas and create an atmosphere, but most use biodomes.
I will let you search for stuff on planets you land on or ships you board. If you have to buy it, we will negotiate a price.
Now you can certainly go looking for the less savory parts of town or "special" vendors who can supply your needs, but I am warning you that bad people tend to be BAD PEOPLE. You may get more than you are looking for. I am not saying don't do this, I am saying that this will be in many ways like real life. If you deal with shady people you may get shady things.
Finally, building things takes time. Dangerous things especially. If you are building something, AND you already have all the parts you should expect to need 10 successes to have it in a basic form. I will change that number based on what the specifics are for what you are telling me you are building. You role the normal dice, and accumulate successes until you get 10 or give up. Each time you role the dice that counts as 1 full day of work on the item. (That means eating, sleeping attending to other bodily functions, etc. and working on the item.) If you leave the workplace or get interrupted, I reduce the number of dice you get to roll by 1 for each hour or portion thereof that you are interrupted. So, if you are working on building a bomb and Micah's character walks in to see "how it's going" you just lost a die.
ALSO: If you botch (i.e. roll more 1's than successes) on even a single attempt, something BAD happens. If you are not working with weird of dangerous material, usually this will mean that you screwed up, ruined all the work you have put in so far, and also ruined the materials you were using. If you are working with dangerous materials someone might die.
Final notes: You may spend will power points to get automatic successes during item creation, 1 per roll of the dice. You may also "take 3" and not roll, but get 1 success for every three dice in your pool.
We will be using the exalted version of the storyteller system designed by white wolf. It's somewhat simplistic, and has dice pools, both of which may be a turn off to some of you. This means not a lot of crunch to the system. Sorry, but I'd rather spend time giving you guys more flavor and "COOL STUFF" (tm) to play with than deal with how many bullets from your shotgun actually hit the target and where.
Here is the system in brief:
Combat is a little different, but not much. Here is how it works:
Advanced combat stuff: (These can be used out of combat as well, but tend to be more important in combat.)
Moral of the above: Don't get hit!
Each character has a general description and a name.
Each of the above begins with 1 point. (2 being the human average.) You then pick a Primary grouping, a secondary grouping and a tertiary grouping for your character. (I.E. Physical, Social or mental.) Next you get 8 points to distribute between the three attributes in your primary grouping. You may add them any way you wish with no attribute being above 5. Then you get 6 points to distribute between the attributes in your secondary grouping. Finally you have 4 points to distribute between your tertiary grouping.
Example: Josh is creating his character, Flash Hotpants. Josh wants Flash to be the smiling sales guy/diplomat who can get out of any situation with his mouth and stunning good looks. Josh sets Flash's Primary grouping as Social. His secondary Grouping as Mental and His Tertiary grouping as Physical.
In the primary grouping Josh adds 4 points to flash's Appearance, and 2 points each to Flash's Charisma and Manipulation. So Flash is "All Flash and no substance!" He looks good, people will naturally like his charm and affectation, and he is pretty good at getting people to do what he wants.
In the secondary grouping, Josh adds 3 points to his wits score, 2 points to his perception score, and 1 point to his intelligence. Thus Flash is quick thinking on his feet, and has a pretty good eye for seeing what's happening around him, and he is average for intelligence. Probably spent more time in college at parties than studying.
In the third grouping, Josh assigns all four points to Flash's Dexterity. This means he is very quick and graceful, but he won't be helping anybody move furniture, and god save him if he comes down with a cold. (Which he probably does quite frequently.)
We are going to run the game with 30 skills. They are pretty broad categories, but undoubtedly there may be something you want to do that might not be covered. Ask me. Each ability falls under a category.
You will have 35 points to spread amongst the skills listed below. No skill may have more than 3 points to begin with. If a skill has three dots, pick a specialization for that skill.
Vehicles:
Combat:
Interaction:
Knowledges:
Activities:
Example: Flash is of course flashy, so we begin by putting 3 points in Presence, persuasion, Socialize, and bureaucracy. (12 spent) He knows how to work the system. We want him to be able to speak French so we put 1 point in linguistics. (13 spent) We also want to give him some staying power via force of will, even though he is not very fit. So we put 2 points in endurance. (15 spent) We want him to be able to drive and fly a ship so Piloting and Driving each get 1 point. (17 spent) He won't be firing the gun or fixing anything so those we leave blank, but he's glanced at a map or two, and knows which way is east if the sun is up, so we put 1 point into navigation. (18 spent)
His mouth won't always save him, so he has learned to get out of the way. 3 points into dodge. (21 spent) He has taken a self defense course, so we put 1 point into Martial arts. (22 spent) He has also fired a laser here and there so 1 point in that (23 spent) but he prefers slug throwers and has a handgun permit and training. 3 points into firearms (26 spent) He has had to hide from a jealous husband or three, so 3 points into stealth. (29 spent) He tries to keep his eyes open and aware of what's going on. so 3 points in awareness. (32 spent) He plays a few sports, but purely for fun. 1 point in athletics (33 spent.) And finally, he loves to find out all the weird facts he can. He reads the Interplanetary Inquirer and believes it all. 2 points in Weird stuff (35 spent.)
The things you bring to your character before they started adventuring.
These are your assets, tangible/intangible that your character can rely on in the game. You may not have access to them all the time. You may also gain assets during play, such as picking up a gun from someone you just killed. However, assets gained in play I will feel free to destroy at will, assets from your background I will not touch in a negative fashion.
You have 7 points to distribute here, no single resource may be greater than 5.
Allies: People you know and who will go out of their way to help you. They will hide you from the police, lend you money, etc. You can trust them. Though they may ask for a favor in return once in a while. You may have one person for each dot. You do not have to determine who they are at the start of the game.
Contacts: You know people, and many may or may not know you at your discretion. These represent general ability to find friends of friends or other people who will at least give you an appointment. They may help, they may not, but you have places you can go to that will initially be positively inclined towards you. You do not need to identify these. The more dot's you have the more likely you are to find a contact when you are looking for one, and the more powerful the contact will be.
Resources: Cash, Credit, Real estate, bearer bonds, MONEY!!! You've got it. 1 point, you can pay for your room and board, most months. 2 points lets you live like a middle class resident, 3 points is opulent, 4 points you could be on lifestyles of the rich and famous, 5 points you have enough money to avoid being on lifestyles. You may not always have the full extent of your assets available to you.
Weapons: You have weapons, slug throwers, lasers, knives, needlers, sonic disruptors, you name it. You have one gun and plenty of ammo for it per point. You must declare what type of weapon it is when you dedicate the point.
Status: You may not know people or have lots of money, but you are important. Maybe a gov't official, a made man, a retired industrialist, a respected scholar, a noble laureate, etc. You must decide why you have status and what field it is in.
Intuition: You know when "Bad things" (tm) are going to happen. Think of it as spidey sense that may or may not work.
Latent Psionics: You have a psionic potential that has not yet manifested itself. It may never do so, or it may. I may never use Psionics in my game, so taking this may be a waste of points. Even if I do, you may never develop the ability or have a significant psionic experience that triggers your ability. It's a gamble. If you do take it, the number of points determines how likely your personal ability is to erupt IF a trigger event happens, and how powerful your potential is.
Backing: You are supported by some organization. The gov't, the mob, the academic community, a fraternity, alien illuminati. This is not status, even a lowly beat cop has significant backing. If you have both backing and status you may be an influential person in the organization. Each point increases the amount a single organization will support you. You may have points in more than one organization.
Example: Flash is a man of means, so we give him 4 points in resources, he has a lifelong friend who has bailed him out a time or two, so 1 point in allies. He has a permit for a concealed weapon, and being a fan of the old James Bond movies, he keeps a walther ppk in a shoulder holster. 1 point in weapons. He doesn't know it, but he has latent telepathy, which might account for some of his social skill. 1 point latent psi.
There are four virtues, they determine something about the personality of your character. Each virtue starts with 1 point in it. You have 5 points to distribute among the virtues as you wish. No virtue may begin above 3.
You may be asked to roll against a virtue occasionally to be able to perform a specific action. You may also invoke each virtue 1 time per session in a dramatic moment and Add the points of that virtue to a specific role as dice. You must explain how the virtue comes into play.
Example: Flash sees an old woman being mugged. He jumps on the thug. Normally he would have 6 dice for hand to hand weaponless combat, (5 for dex + 1 for martial arts) but he invokes his compassion virtue, (which is 3) because he is helping the old woman. So for the first roll only, he rolls 9 dice.
Compassion: How much do you care about others. Human or non, how much does your heart bleed for the world.
Conviction: How much are you willing to sacrifice for your goals. How dedicated are you to your beliefs. Conviction shows how much you stand by your... well convictions. ;-)
Valor: How brave are you?
Temperance: How good are you at controlling yourself and projecting what you want others to see.
Example: Flash is a bleeding heart so add 2 points to his compassion score for a total of 3. He then spreads his other points to be pretty normal among the other virtues. 2 each.
Willpower is that special place inside that lets you push yourself and get stuff done. This characteristic has 2 values: A willpower rating which is the base score for use resisting other peoples manipulation and mind control, and a pool of willpower points, which you spend and recover. The willpower pool can never exceed the willpower trait, but it can be less.
The willpower Trait is equal to your two highest virtue scores combined.
Spending willpower points: You may spend 1 willpower point on any single action. You may not spend a willpower point when you are performing multiple actions in a round. You may not spend more than 1 willpower point on any action. Spending a willpower point gives you a single success. This is in addition to any successes you achieve with your dice. You may choose to spend the willpower point AFTER you roll the dice for the action. You may not apply a willpower point to a soak roll as this is not an action.
Humans each start with 7 health levels. Each health level incurs a penalty to the character's dice pool for ALL subsequent actions taken until the health level is healed/restored. Wound penalties are NOT cumulative.
When creating a character, the player has 15 freebie points to spend adding to the above created character. Freebie points add at the following costs:
Here is the way resources is going to work for our SF game. (Note: This is not the way resources works necessarily for exalted or any other storyteller game.)
For each point your character has in resources, he/she will receive a monthly income of $1000 credits.
Once we begin playing the game we will drop the resources aspect, other than monthly income and begin playing with hard currency. (I.E. you have x number of credits and stuff will have prices in credits.) Please note that the fuel consumption for a warp jump costs 10,000 creds whether you go 50 feet of 50 lightyears. (Thus, Mark's characters annoyance at being stopped in the middle of a jump. That has probably just doubled the cost of this trip for you guys.)
Now buying stuff at character generation. (This is how the system works normally in storyteller.)
Your number of points is a relative measure of your wealth. You may buy as many of any item costing less points than you have in resources, within reason and with storyteller approval. (For example, if you tell me you are buying 10 ares predators, I will be telling you NO.) You may buy ONE item of cost equal in points to your resources, but then your resources drops by 1 point "permanently". (Or at least until you earn enough to bring it back up.)
You may NOT buy anything with a higher point cost than your resources points.
I hope that makes sense.
Additional clips for your weapons cost 1 resource point. Please do not take more than 3 per gun to start the game, or I will get harda$$. You may have up to two of each type of gun. NOTE: ONLY MARK's character, as captain of the ship has a license to legally keep ANY weapons on board, and he only has the legal right to keep 2 needler rifles and 2 needler pistols IN THE GUN LOCKER. Webbing weapons and sonic weapons do not require a license, but are frowned upon by authorities.
You may not care, since you are outlaws anyways, but YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
