Hi Tom,

I used your desert encounter on Fridays game. It went great!

 

After the poison well and the dead Loper encounter. I said they could see a shiny object sticking up in the distance. (reflective hull)

 

I made a few changes to the encounter. I hope you don't mind. I put the star devil insignia on the ship. I had the pirates from the jet-copter set up an ambush at the crash site. When the characters approached I had four pirates attack.

After two pirates where down I had the other two run over a hill and take off in the jet-copter.

 

The (players) burned through two clips trying to open the hatch. The environmentalist analyzed the blood stains. They found the computer. They were very intent on the info hand out.

 

They characters split up and one got bit by the burrower snake on deck one.

 

I put a malfunctioned auto-doc with a dessicated Yaz corps in it, on the engineering deck. The characters used the power from the laser power torch to hot wire the auto-doc.

They questioned the auto-doc. It tells them that the Astrogator was placed inside after receiving multiple knife wounds. He went into shock so the auto-doc placed him in a freeze field. Shortly after the power was cut. (presumably when the ship was salvaged.)

 

This threw the players into wild speculation. Why would they stab and then put an officer in the auto-doc? Why would they leave an auto-doc? etc.

 

The players then did something I wasn't expecting. They got a critically injured pirate from the ambush and put him in the auto-doc. For later questioning. I said the auto-doc had no medical supplies left. I really didn't want them to have use of it. The medic player asked if he could use his salvaged medical supplies to refill it.

I though this was resourceful thinking, so I allowed it.

 

After a day the pirate was healed enough to get a dose of Telal. They questioned him about the computer files. He said they have been partnered up with the orchid group. The group is growing some sort of "super orchid", but he doesn't know anything else. He told them where the pirate outpost is located. He told them how the ship ended up there. He also told them that they used slaves for mining minerals. They also got info on how to contact the outpost by chronocom. after that they 'unplugged him.'

 

This caused a moral debate among the players. In they end they decided they needed the medical supplies more than a slave driving murderous pirate.

 

The Dralasite computer player imitated the dead pirates voice. (his reasoning was that a Dral can change shape of its vocal organs to imitate voices.)

Another bit of creative thinking that I allowed.

He claimed to have survived and needed to be picked up...

 

So, the plot took a bit of a twist. I was impressed with the players on this one. They really tried to take advantage of every angle. The kept me on my toes, which I like. I'm not sure how to handle the pirates now. I'm trying to decide on whether the pirates would buy the impersonated voice or not... any ideas?