 December 18, 2011 - 8:18am | I have never been a fan of the ABC quest in the beginning of the Star Spawn of Volturnus module but perhaps I've come full circle. Beginning of the module should be a council of war with Jamison and the eorna. Naturally they will try to warn the UPF & Truane's Star which will require a subspace radio- this is the point where they get access to one or finally get to fix one. or they discover the mechanons have taken the working subspace radio from the pirates. At any rate an eorna tech reveals that the sathar will show up soon and its not expected that the UPF can mobilize before that. It will be close and its expected that the sathar will land and attack thus all the races of Volturnus must gather for war. To start with the mechanons represent a significant military force but the eorna view is that they are just robots and they want the PCs to wipe the mechanon's central command's brain to bring the mechanons back into line and under eorna control. PC's will have had a prior encounter with a mechanon, this mech in not their friend but perhaps a contact they can talk to. I'm toying with a new wrinkle for the mechanons: since they are robots they have binary thinking on certain decisions. the answer is either yes or no, 1 or 0. On the issue of biological life the majority of mechanons are currently "no" (PCs contact is yes), they are aware of the impending arrival of the sathar and expect them to wipe out all the biologicals for them. PCs must gain entrance to the Mechanon Mounds and meet with high command mechanons and convince them to 1. switch from "no" to "yes" on biologicals and 2. join the fight against the sathar. Latter in history the majority switch back on the binary decision concerning biologicals which will lead to the Mechanon Menace and the Mechanon revolt. The only viable solution will be to convince the mechanons to help and to convince the eorna to recognize them as evolved sapients. Then the ABC quest can be run to see if the 3 primitive races join the fight. Resolving the mechanon vs. eorna controversy and bringing along the 3 primitive races provides a 10% chance for each success there toward the ultimate victory in the coming battle. Plus successful running of the 4 battle encounters also provides a 10% chance for winning the battle giving a 90% chance that the PCs side wins the battle of Volkos. Thats a fairly good way to abjuticate the overal battle. Not bringing the Mechanons along to the fight causes means the loss of their 10% plus you dont fight out the battle encounter they're a part of. That's a total loss of 20% for not getting them to the fight. Same for the Ul-mor and for the edestakai. The eorna are almost a free be- they come automatically. I also feel the story isn't finished if you do not have a KHs encounter. eorna techs manage to fix the pirate vessel and the PCs and a handful of mechanon fighters fly up to engage the sathar troop transports and the guarding escort carrier while the main battle fleet is moving to engage the UPF and Truane's star militia that have arrived in the outer system. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 December 18, 2011 - 8:49am | Having read all four, I like the revamp plot. The only problem with a KH encounter that the PC's are actual participants in (an not just passengers) is that it makes the modules either require more advanced characters to start or mandates the use of the optional "Spacer Skills Revisited" rules or requires you to give out a lot more XP than "traditional" to allow the PC's to get spaceship skills sooner. Even with four modules, you won't really generate enough XP to get spaceship skill for starting characters with the canon rules. At best the original trilogy gave a maximum of 51 XP (18, 18, 15 respectively). If a fourth module added another 18 XP before the KH encounter that would be a total of 69XP which is not really enough to get spaceship skills unless you really focused on the prerequisites and didn't get any (or at least many) "side" skills along the way. Even then, Astrogation and Pilot are out of reach. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
December 18, 2011 - 9:55am | @ Terl Obar: you are quite correct in your analysis. Its a space game and I think people expect action in space. So a few options come to mind. 1). Eorna have tech to brain wipe so why not hypnotized training- which is temporary. 2). Just offer up a KHs scenario for the UPF vs the sathar that the players play out even though their characters aren't participating in. This encounter could be a "saving throw" in case the roll for the overall battle goes against the PC's. 3). The PC's space mission is to affix an explosive device against the surface of the massive sathar troop transport while the warships are off engaging Space Fleet. This is essentially an AD action as the sathar will dispatch troops to prevent this so that it will become a crap fight in vacuum. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
