 August 3, 2021 - 2:55pm | Kicking around a PbP campaign based on a D&D 1e PbP I'm playing in. The GM set up a limited setting: map, NPCs, sand box like adventure hooks and allowed a sizable number of Players in. Multiple expeditions going on at the same time because PCs were able to pursue the plot threads they wanted. How to do that with Star Frontiers? limited setting would be one star system. But you'd want a lot of detail for players to wander around and pursue plot threads they are interested in. White Light has a module detailing aspects of the setting in this system and there were some major articles detailing Clarion station in the FE. as well as a minor article detailing Planaron Mining station post WoWL adventure. So there is some extensive detailing of Clarion station - just make that the ground zero of the action. Use the message boards at Brotherhood of Spacers as much like the message board in the 1e game I'm playing. Or, create a new message baord for Clarion station because the Brotherhood of spacers is for jsut spacers and no guarrentee that every player will have spacer skill. Dump KH's prerequisites. use "Spacer Skills Revisited" SFman #10 or no prerequisites at all. Game is called the Wayward because "This aint your father's Warriors of White Light" adventure. In fact Royal Marines, Star Law and Space Fleet could end up being the opposition. Just need to work out 3-5 story lines to throw out and recruit a suitable number of players. I'd even entertain sharing referee duties. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 3, 2021 - 2:59pm | Source material is WoWL module naturally Two articles detailing Clarion STation
https://frontierexplorer.org/data/FrontierExplorer023.pdfI might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 3, 2021 - 3:00pm | Planaron or Paydirt Mining sTation: I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 3, 2021 - 3:08pm | My problem with running multiple story threads is that a classic big ship commerce campaign actually works best if you hand wave large blocks of time. And i really have some mining ship materail I'd love to run I have a treasure hunt I think a smuggling commerce campaign could be run. But the last Star Frontiers PbP I was in didn't get off the ground and the game got archived. So maybe only one story thread and kill true sand box? Not sure what the best decision is there. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 August 6, 2021 - 7:57am |
I like what you're talking about. If you're sticking to a single world/system, it seems pretty similar to what others have done in the fantasy genre. One of my favorite resources on that is here: https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/38669/roleplaying-games/open-table-manifesto-part-3-organizing-your-open-tablePersonally I think it would be more interesting to have the whole Frontier as the sandbox. There are some thoughts at the link above about how to handle what happens if one group is mid-adventure somewhere when a second group starts up - basically to “lock down” the characters and locations in the first group to players in the second. This reportedly leads quickly to each player having a pool of characters to keep from being locked out of sesssions for long stretches of time in the real-world. It seems like a multi-system setting
could work best as a Firefly-like setup: there is a tramp freighter
knocking about but in every port it picks up a random mix of new
passengers (PCs). You could go with the sort of unsatisfying setup
of having the captain of the vessel be an NPC, or maybe just see to
it that each of the players has at least one captain PC with an
associated vessel. (For a while I thought about doing something
similar to this with the Battlestar Galactica remake, where each
player's captain PC would be captaining one of the vessels in the
refugee fleet - the refinery ship, the passenger liner, what have you
- and the other PCs in each player's pool would be crew/passengers on
the other ships.)
Another option would be to run a so-called “big-ship” campaign where each player's pool of PCs have different on-board responsibilities - bridge crew, fighter pilots, security, etc. - so that everyone present for a session has a way to play no matter the nature of the mission that time. (I guess another advantage of multiple PCs per player would be that it would lend itself to rotating the GMing around.) Here's another link with some thoughts about that kind of sci-fi muti-system sandbox/troupe play: http://wanderinggamist.blogspot.com/2021/04/traveller-open-tables-and-boot-hill.html Anyway, I would be game to work on this with you if there is interest. |
August 8, 2021 - 6:45am | aemonaylward, interesting comments. I had to look up Dunbar numbers, I beleive I've heard the concept before. Not sure I see how to use the concept practically but that is neither hear nor there. RE whole Frontier vs One system - whole frontier is greater opportunity for characters to be isolated in obscure corners and make it impossible to get them together without a lot of hand wavium. Limiting it to one system has the effect of controlling the setting for the game master while still allowing some sandboxing and PCs are not spread out so much that they cannot get togehter for something. I'm thiniking a page from Traveller could be taken where players have some financial assest from their background? My druthers would be to start characters with two 1st level skills and one 2nd level skill. whatever your 2nd level skill is correspond to a table you roll on- a 2nd level star ship pilot skill would roll on a table that would have results like Left Trans Travel with a 15K ship purchase credit- ie Trans Travel will knock 15k off of a 20yr old transTravel ship they're replacing with a new ship. Not actually hard cash but an assest. Hard cash assest could be possible as well. Inheritance of an asset.- shuttle without engines? etc. a commerce campaign is possible in just one system if its a mining campaign. a ag ship would be possible too but I dont think as interesting. Freighter commerce campaigns take things in the whole frontier direction. those links you provided had a lot of ideas but i also think they are geared toward Virtual Table top games and I think PbP is perhaps easier for me to manage. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 8, 2021 - 6:49am | RE : Naming the game The Dregs of Dramune - would also make a great name of a game Edit: Riftraft of Rupert's Hole Hellions of Hentz, Hargut,Histran or Hakosoar Aggitators of Araks or Athor Poltroons of Prengular or Pale; Also Punks Mooks of Morgaine's World Terror's of Timeon Muscle of Minotaur Scaliwags of Scree Fron The Loco of Laco I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
