 April 30, 2013 - 5:23am | Working on a rules conversion got me thinking about starting equipment. The game doesn't give much. Heck even the first ever module stated that no one starts with a gun. The theory behind that is, as I understand it, that by starting the PCs so low it allows room for them to grow and it is a method of dealing with the power creep associated with the accumulation of technology. Seems like I remember some discussion back in the day when I played B/X D&D about giving out minor magic items like a +1 dagger or a potion to starting characters and Iron Crown's MERP rules had background points that a player spent in PC creation in a number of way. One of which was the purchase of a magic item- a +10 sword (equiv to a +2 sword in D&D). My memory is really foggy on GURPS but I think the whoel points based PC creation system may have done the same thing too. So giving away "free" magic items has been popular in the past and if nothing else we can view technology as an analog to magic in a sci fi setting. So here's the issue, you start with a Robotics technician character and you cannot afford a robot to start so when do you get to use your robotics skill? You have to hope that the referee throws a robot into the adventutre at some point. I've danced around this thought before would it be so terribly game altering or unbalancing to give a starting PC a robot, a lap top, a hover cycle or some such? typically the free bees in Star Frontiers go like this: a free skien suit and free tool kit for one of you skills for everyone- no body benefits more than another. I'm not talking about tallying up the cost of stuff so that we make sure that a technician character is not benefiting more than a explorer character its simply: here's some choices regardless of their cost: a robot for a robotics tech, a lap top for a computer tech, a hovercycle, an expensive screen or something else- cost is not important so much (though I'm are not trying to promote Monty Haul here). I'm not leaning toward a heavy laser or sonic devestator here either. I was thinking a subjective list of possible free bees a referee could hand out at his discretion or it would be an objective system of back ground points (like MERP) that can be spent in various ways (like MERP) for a free skill, ability score points, money, item, and etc. In this case make it 3 Background points and if you spent all 3 together you get a big ticket item like a hover cycle or robot. thoughts? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 April 30, 2013 - 8:18am | One thing about SF was in the opening there is alot of talk about being Star Law or Mega Corp troubleshooters and then most of the modules stick your players somewhere outside the Frontier. Starting equipment should be tailored to the current campaign. Volturnus left alot of starting equipment up to what you could find while others stated this was in the ship's locker. But the whole Hydra scenario you started with Laser Pistols which ended up being useless. Start the characters with what they need not what they want. Let them build up to what they want. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
April 30, 2013 - 8:35am | Good points rat T but it still doesn't address the issue of robots for technicians to work on. Sort of defeats the purpose to take a robotics as a starting character in the hopes that one day you may own a robot. However, it would be also possible to have employer issued equipment as well and then a small robot might be included. Or you could create a "quest" for the PC in question where he inherit's his uncle's out of date/antique robot that was a week end project his uncle was slowly collecting the pieces to make this old antique go. He never finished collecting everything and now has suddenly died. the PC may sell the hulk for scrap or take up the quest to collect all the missing pieces- quest plays out a little at a time over the course of a campaign as the player must look into the local junk and scrap market on the planets he visits during the course of the regular campaign. There is also the little issue of just why did his uncle suddenly die? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 April 30, 2013 - 10:30am | My old fallback is to give everyone the standard gear, a pistol (plus three reloads) of their choosing, and item that compliment their skill area. Military PSAs provide a free rife (or melee weapon, or kaboomite), with Technical PSAs providing the proper tool kits, and the Biosocial PSA provides the proper equipment for the job (survival gear, med kit and so on). I have also made a Criminal PSA, but they don't get any special equipment - just some useful contacts. Although, if the characters are employed, then they are usually issued equipment as needed for the job at hand. |
 April 30, 2013 - 10:24pm | The game does start players pretty destitute for an advanced society. To compare with my start out of college, I was poor, but not destitute. I has possessions I had accumulated from my childhood and young adulthood. There should be some basic foundation for a character with perks and baggage. -iggy |
May 1, 2013 - 1:16am | Yeah, it would be nice if there was a system in the game that give characters special perks or handicaps, including what resources they have. I also forgot to make note that as part of the character's standard gear, they carry with them some personal effects called a "Bag." A Bag includes books, photos, trinkets and other items of sentimental value. They are all worthless to anyone else, but if the character looses them, then the character would suffer terribly from low moral (this largely effects role-playing, as they would get lazy or careless at their job outside dangerous situations). It is generally assumed that characters have more stuff with a place (a residents, a storage unit, or with family) to store them, but that place would be at their home-world or home-port, so they are not accessible on most adventures. |
 May 1, 2013 - 5:13pm | I look at it this way: I spent 25 years in room service performing every possible facet of the operation. In SF terms you could say I was "Room Service: level 6". Not once in those 25 years did any of the companies I worked for give me a bottle of Opus One let alone some of the finest panther piss from Jacques Bonet. But I sure worked with plenty of both an everything in between. So I'm not one to say "Okay you work for such and such outfit and they give you all this cool stuff to use". On the other hand, I also look at the starting age for the character. If they're young bucks I don't care how skilled they may (or may not) be, they just haven't been around long enough to have acquired lots of "cool stuff". When I was 21 (three years of room service, or Room Service: level 1) I had a hand-me-down 15 year old station wagon and was so proud of the $400 rack system I had just bought. I had a Craftsmen socket wrench set and a couple screwdrivers, hardly a "tech kit" or even much to work with assuming I had any inclination of using them to actually fix something. I bought my first handgun and sucked when using it...despite having been a decent shot with the .22 rifle I had before it. Wine wasn't even on the table, I had but only begun to discover beer. And I didn't have enough credit to get a JCPenney card let alone a car loan. Had I opted for a life as an "adventurer" at that age, I wouldn't exactly have much to bring with me on any adventures. Fast forward to today. The station wagon is long gone, replaced by a pair of pick-up trucks and an octet of motorcycles. What's left of the rack system is in my garage along with a few other loudspeakers I acquired over the years that didn't warrant indoor use on the "real" home theatre system. I have just about every tool I could ever need in the garage, and have even assembled a few "portable" tool kits for some of the bikes and trucks. I still have that first handgun and shoot it quite well now, and have added another dozen or so to the collection. I gave up beer and discovered wine, and have sampled some amazing vintages and bought/consumed/stored even more. And despite a bout of unemployment I still have an 800+ credit rating. The bottom line here is if I were to begin a life of adventure now, I'd have a much better selection of goods to use in such a lifestyle...not to mention a larger skill set as well. |
May 1, 2013 - 9:11pm | If I think of the possessions I started my working life with, nothing was much more than toys and trinkets. To start adventuring my scout stuff would have been usefull. I had aquired a Mitsubishi Galant but that was a combined purchase with my wife. I had a few electronics tools from engineering school but not enough to be a TechKit. The school had all the expensive scopes and such. I did own a blazing fast 40MHz 486 built out of hand-me-down parts. -iggy |
May 1, 2013 - 9:26pm | You are now touching on background. Generic starting equipment is just what a bunch of wondering adventurers have. If you have a detailed character background then you can get more detailed on their starting equipment. Let's say your running a modern campaign and you have a character who has a college degree. YAYY Now let's say he has a Harvard degree and one of his prize possessions is his Harvard tie which occasionally gets recognized and gives him a plus or minus on NPC reaction tables. Now that is starting equipment. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
May 2, 2013 - 4:59am | Well, yeah...background should determine starting equipment. If you start off as that lowly skilled 18 year old character he just isn't going to have much. He simply decided that "hovercycle dealership lot boy: level-1" wasn't a good career choice. Now if you start the game with a seasoned spacer (like I had for my Space Rats game), obviously they're going to start with a little more "cool stuff". Those characters didn't even have to be bona fide spacers, players could make up any background they wanted to suit their skill sets. IIRC the engineer in that game was a teacher in the field with no actual starship experience. For those characters I allotted 3d6/3 X 100K credits to buy their "starting equipment" --- with the premise being the bulk of that coin was going to be "savings" to go toward the purchase of a ship to rebuild. |
May 2, 2013 - 6:11am | If you look at the Firefly TV series you get the feeling that most of the regulare characters came to the ship with very little in personal posessions. Except the gun nuts in the crew who seem to have several each, particularly Jayne. Clearly Malcolm's wealth is tied up in the ship and keeping it running. All of the real world examples are all well and good but we are still talking about a game and I'm still looking at ways to incorporate robotics and computer tech into the game for starting players. I like the idea of the Tin Can Robot http://frontierexplorer.org/book/tin-can-robot and not just because I wrote that article. Its a cheaper less capable robotics platform and plausibly something that a starting character might even start with. How many kids go off to college today with a lap top? Why not start a SF character with a portable computer? OK so we dont give a non computer or non robotics expert a hover cycle but I think we can either introduce some robotics and computer tech to the game. Or simply introduce some tech items tat cost the same as a starting pistol - the frontier version of the smart phone? a limited miniature robot powered off of a 20 SEU power cell. or update the chronocom's capabilities to mirror those of the smart phone- this would give characters the ability to access information through wireless networks. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 May 2, 2013 - 6:15am | Jayne had already been a part of a previous crew. That's why he had a store of guns already. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
May 2, 2013 - 8:08am | In Firefly we got to see inside the crews' cabins on occassion and they had quite a few personal possessions. But they were also space travellers and had a lifestyle which meant they had very little they kept on hand. Now Jed's point is starting characters especially in the tech PSAs get a tool kit but nothing to fix it with. This sounds more like a problem for the GM to fix then to provide robots or computers for the players to have. One thing I would add for the tech guys is a small diagnostic comp device since we now have the situation where computers and robots are more software where in the 80s they were more hardware. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
May 2, 2013 - 4:36pm | I wouldn't be put off by having some starting goods like Jed mentions, but it would have to be relatively worthless for adventuring purposes. For example, the young buck with Computer lv-1 might have a lap top, but the only program would be Information Storage lv-1. Ditto for a small personal robot, it would be a pint-sized toy with regards to actual SF robots and be little more than a level 1 service robot at best, like the SF equivilent of a Roomba. The technician could have a 50 year old beater of a ground car and invoke KH aging rules @ 1% chance of breakdown per five years of age. |
May 3, 2013 - 9:20pm | Another angle to explore on this is the differences between races. We have been talking the human perspective. A vrusk breaking free from the corporate life common to all vrusk will likely not have many possesions that were not corporate perks that he has to give up. A Yazirian has the clan and his status in it effecting his start into life. A dralasite has the comunal stoa of which he may be supported by or have to give up the benifits of as he leaves. I have some ideas brewing in my subconscious and would like others input as I draw them out. -iggy |
May 3, 2013 - 9:42pm | @ iggy: are you talking about a dralasite version of the harvard tie? a dralasite's debate toga from his stand in the circle of debate perhaps. a copy of the yazirian honor code? a vrusk bonzai tree? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
May 4, 2013 - 8:21am | One thing the game Paranioa had was that the PCs were brought together from different services to perform a mission. This was to give them another reason to kill each other but could work differently in SF. Like the background in Volturnus mentions the original team had backgrounds from different services and universities and other organizations. Instead of unemployed PCs background could have them come from somewhere which gave them some expensive equipment to use on the mission (which they may need to give back). Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
May 4, 2013 - 3:50pm | @ rattraveller: I like this idea too. I had played around with an adventure idea where the PCs were all each from an assundry organization, MSO, SpAce Fleet, Star Law, University of whatever, and so on. As a group they have a goal but individually each character has an agenda they're pursuing. However, this would not be starting characters with 2 skills. The Dragon article for playing a star law agent had the characters starting with a hand full of skills at various levels. So I'd do something similar in this case for all the characters. Maybe give the pure science egg heads a boost on skills over the pure military types. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
May 4, 2013 - 5:24pm | @Jedion, yes and more. A hero story character is commonly portrayed as an underdog that is thrust into excelence by critical choices and circumstances. As such this underdog status is how most characters start in RPGs. Now to frontierize it a bit. Yazirians (the most discussed culture on sf.us) We have discussed the clan structure extensivily and have a lot of parallels to the human family structure. We have yazirians mate for life and the entire extended family living in clan halls. In SF times these are likely tall buildings or complexes of buildings for the main clan enclave with satellite groups creating places where they can congregate together and maybe even live together. This and the clan's status and wealth will effect the young yazirian's support starting off in the world as an adult being. Yazirians are likely pro private possessions and individual wealth. However, their clan structure softens their materialism a bit from what we are used to a western culture 21st century Earthlings. We can expect that young yazirians starting out have some form of support, if just emotionally, from their clan. A poor clan would likely not send their new hunters out with any gifted possessions, but they do have the clan to return to at any time. Their mentor will always be ready to field calls for advice and help. In extreme cases honor or danger he may even go out to aid his charge. I imagine that yazirian honor code is strict on what things the new hunters must struggle through on their own and when their mentors came come to their aid without causing dishonor. Starting possessions will likely include a zamra for all yazirions if only a ceremonial piece worn as a piece of jewelery. Poor clans will likely only send out their hunters with their zamra. Middle class clans (using Earth western culture as a reference) will send out their hunters with better education, or a few tools for their trade, or a connection to a job, etc. Upper class clans send out their hunters with a combination of education, tools, job, etc. but not all. The wealthy get all of the perks. For player characters I see this set of starting perks as a bell curve with the vast majority starting in the middle and very few starting as destitute or rich. This is not fully defined either as the continuum could be expanded as: destitute, poor, lower middle class, middle class, upper middle class, wealthy, and filthy rich. Better names are welcomed. All this would them become the dividing of guidelines for players and GMs . Dralasites Here we have a more alien culture to explore. Young buds go wandering after they bud from their parent. They have residual shared memories from their parent that gives them survival education for this wandering but not enough to be educated in the modern sense. They are thus forced to seek out a stoa to integrate into a modern society and get educated. They may never see their parent again. The stoa thus becomes the closest equivalent to the human family but it is also not a family. Dralasites can and do change stoas all through their life. They also do not cause the great bond of the yazirian clan where members will fight for each other's honor. Thus the support a dralasite gets from his stoa or stoas if he has joined multiple is contingent upon his standing with the stoa, the stoa resources, benefits he could provide back to the stoa, and just plane whim. Dralasite stoas will be forever debating what benefits members get. Dralasites starting their adult life are a bit of a quandary for me as I am happy with the alien culture we have created with the stoas and I want to keep them alien as we give guidelines for dralasites starting out in life. I am kind of drawn to the idea that dralasite society relies heavily on a parallel to youth hostels for the starting dral to lean upon to get going in modern frontier adult life. Dralasites are not so much a taxes society as a charity society. The long standing debates from the great Mols of ancient time are that all dralasites must be charitable to the causes that emotionally drive them in life. One of these causes is the support of adults starting out in life that need shelter. Thus some will establish hostels as a career path and manager these hostels. Other drals will give to these hostels to support them. The stoa is a more macro hostel that is both school and home to child and adolescent drals. Think of it as all drals going to boarding schools. When they have completed their education at the stoa and go out on their own the hostel system is a support structure. However some drals remain in stoas as parent/educators. Then the elderly return to stoas for homes with the expectation of teaching and debating (debating is teaching to dralasites). So how does this launch new dralasites into the world with possessions and perks? The same bell curve could be devised to measure and extract wealth and support, however this is always subject to debate in the stoa and the dralasite desire for charity. The stoa could easily take others outside to support and not their own for reasons determined in a debate. Vrusk Life begins in the corporate nursery. Education is in the corporate trade schools. The common vrusk is raised by the company and works his life for the company. He lives in company housing and consumes corporate entertainment. Some are traded to other companies when they enter school because their aptitudes better suit the needs of another company who can train them better. Some are traded after school to companies who are seeking their talent. The other races of the frontier have inspired more individualism but they are not the cause of vrusk seeking individual lives outside of the hive and corporate world. This individualism is part of what transformed the vrusk hive society to the corporate society. What lingers is the nursery debt and strong natural desires to support the collective and belong. Vrusk are among the best educated and trained of the core four races, their society order insures it. Vrusk spend the first part of their careers paying off their nursery debt. The nursery debt is the vrusk way of showing their support for their collective society. To pay one's debt is a noble thing. The common vrusk finds it logical and proper to work for the company to repay their nursery debt. The unintended side effect is that the more independent minded vrusk must wrestle with this moral conflict of leaving the company to seek their way outside where paying one's nursery debt is unsure. Typically paying the nursery debt is a mark that one is ready and qualified for advancement in the company. For the independent minded vrusk paying off the nursery debt is emancipation. Vrusk who stay with their company will have resources provided based on their merit and productivity. Vrusk that seek the independent life must make their own way. The newest development in vrusk society are colony companies. Vrusk owned companies that provide loans and job placement for vrusk operating outside of vrusk dominated societies. Here vrusk can band together and satisfy their collective needs while exploring their independent desires. The same bell curve set of guidelines could be developed to describe the vrusk companies, the status ranking of the vrusks in the company and the colony companies. The possessions of corporate vrusk would tend more to the personal, art, relaxation, decoration, jewelery, etc. The possessions of the independent vrusk would lend more to necessities, cooking, work related, and such. -iggy |
May 4, 2013 - 5:39pm | Concerning computers for starting tech characters. I am falling more and more into the camp of people that feel the chronocom needs to be updated. Think of today's smart phones. These are the predicessors of the chronocom. All of chronocoms will be the power of a PC in you pocket or on your wrist, whereever you carry your chronocom. The difference between the tech character and the non-tech character is the apps he installs on it from the global networks. I have already installed enough engineering apps on my smart phone to nearly be a tricorder. All I lack are the extra science and engineering related sensors to attach to my smart phone and there are some for sale on the internet. I can turn my smart phone into an oscilloscope or a multimeter by buying and attaching the probes through the USB port. So I think that SF tech kits are dominated by advanced sensors that can communicate to a standard chronocom for analysing and corelating the data. -iggy |
May 5, 2013 - 7:08am | @ Iggy since everything in dralasite society is influenced by debate perhaps starting money for a dralasite should be influenced by an ability score that would influence his abiltiy to debate? BTW i like the vrusk colony company idea I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 26, 2013 - 4:16pm | A social-based alternative with some races could be a Whuffie - a form of social capital. That is, the Vursk-run business could have an elaborate system of economics that represents how much value a worker has to the company. A worker with little or no impact to the company would only have the basics: small company-owned apartment, basic food and provisions, and little or no entertainment. While a worker who has a major impact on the company's success (lead a successful team, created a successful invention, damaged a rival company in some way, etc) would have more sway with the company, thus have nicer things. The Dralasites may not have a sense of material wealth, but in their communities, a good debater (or awful comedian) would never have to pay their way, or have priority when limited supplies or services are being offered. |
August 26, 2013 - 8:34pm | A social-based alternative with some races could be a Whuffie - a form of social capital. That is, the Vursk-run business could have an elaborate system of economics that represents how much value a worker has to the company. A worker with little or no impact to the company would only have the basics: small company-owned apartment, basic food and provisions, and little or no entertainment. While a worker who has a major impact on the company's success (lead a successful team, created a successful invention, damaged a rival company in some way, etc) would have more sway with the company, thus have nicer things. The Dralasites may not have a sense of material wealth, but in their communities, a good debater (or awful comedian) would never have to pay their way, or have priority when limited supplies or services are being offered. This is a great idea for the vrusk; part of their social contract from the fall of the hive system and the institution of the trade house system and latter the conglomerate institutions. That all members of the trade house contribute and garner social/economic capitol, which is spent now for increased lifestyle- make no mistake the vrusk like lifestyle with their love of beauty but this social economic capitol can be banked and spent latter after retirement as a sort of social security in the twilight of a vrusk's life it can subsist on its banked social capitol, though many vrusk that dedicate their life to their trade house dont actually retire. Instead they transition to mentoring, gardening, creating items of beauty for the sake of the corporate good. Trade houses will have galleries and or a museum if its been in operation for any length of time. Without a doubt the curators of such will be senior vrusk. There are of course vrusk (a small percentage) that do not remain in the trade house/conglomerate system but join more traditional (from a human or yazirian perspective) companies or government service (military or civil service) These vrusk have a mind to chart their own path and similarly plan for thier own future with banked credits, money paid into a social security program on planet X or a retirement plan offered for government workers etc. They are just odd ducks who dont fit the post hive mold. bringing it back to starting money- a personality ability check or LDR or INT or LOG to modify the starting money to simulate the vargarities of their social economic capitol. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
