 December 1, 2013 - 11:39am | Recently spotted the Casino Galactica setting book for Space Opera RPG, which is tantilizingly interesting in that I've had a back burner desire to explore a Star Play resort station in our favorite setting.: Its still available from FGU for purchase as a PDF download and it seems you can pick up one on ebay in the $5-ish range. [its on my christmas wish list but I'm likely to just buy it for myself and put a tag of from Santa on it] We did have a project dedicated to Space Opera which now seems to be closed and scheduled for deletion http://www.starfrontiers.us/node/2084 The following is a catalog with blurbs on each product: http://www.waynesbooks.com/SpaceOperaOtherSuns.html Seems like a "Like Traveller" system. With most of the supporting materials available on ebay for low money but the core rules seem to sell at collector prices. I'm also curious about Alien Base; A First Contact Adventure jut to see how someone else did first contact Any Frontiersman with first hand experience with this system? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
December 11, 2013 - 8:34am | Probe NCG8436 This module is a survey and first contact module. The Mission outline/brief is written for the referee and he will need to convey its contents to the players without mentioning the things they would not initially know. It covers standard survey proceedures but not in any great detail leaving them open for interpretation. It classifies the survey team into Interstellar survey personnel (those that do the scanning from the ship and only travel to the planetary surface in an emergency), Survey Scouts (the landing team), and Contact Diplomats (which is very optimistic to have this as a whole class of team member IMO but then the module was written for first contact) Module contains brief on the system and the major planets. Deck plans for huge exploration cruiser of 20,000 tons, 6 horizontal decks equipped with a huge fleet of vehicles for use on planet including a light plane and submersibles. It has environmental details on Flourine poisoning of characters while on the 1st planet (mildly corrosive environment with toxic levels of flourine gas and mildly hydrocloric acid in all the water) There is encyclopedia information that PCs might look up on medical condition that could be implacting them: Nitrogen Narcosis Oxygen Poisoning Respitory Acidosis The bends Gas Embolism The sapient species is well developed in biology and society but is primitive though certian technologies are well advanced like the ability to build water tight underwater buildings through well fitting blocks of stone that dont require mortar and thermo electric power plants. Its society is described in 5 different castes and each will have a slightly different reaction and agenda when encountering the PCs, who will be worshipped as god or gods, at least initially though the priest caste is the most suspicious unless one or more PCs happen to be a saurian race (primitives are saurian). Two planets have well defined biospheres with animal and plant hazards and encounter tables. There is a alien artifact in play that looks like a giant 4 sided die. it cant be scanned for internal working or composition and its is actually psionically active having been left by the Forerunners (SF tetrarchs if you will) to watch, guide and report on the primitive sapient race until they were able to join the interstellar community. It employs psionic suggestion abilities to guide this race and it has become the focal point of the world religion as the symbol of god. Adapting it to Star Frontiers 1. make piece with the fact that you are introducing yet another primitive sapient race into a very tiny galactic neighborhood if that sort of thing bothers you. This star system is 57 LY from the closest inhabited system in the Space Opera setting but the SF setting is not so spread out. 2. recognize that the space opera exploration cruiser is huge with an incredible ammount of resources at its disposal and that typical SF ships just dont come in that size or stock that much equipment. Thus the size of ship used could impact the adventure. I could be possible to run this adventure with just an HS 3 scout ship optimized for exploration (lose the heavy armament and install more of the exploration equipment) but perhaps a HS5 frigate sized ship with a lander might be better. though the compliment of vehicles will be much smaller. 3. review the data on environmental hazards like the bends, gas embolism, oxygen poisoning which are largely ignored in the Star Frontiers setting through introduction of aquatic gear that ignores little problems like nitrogen bubbles in the blood stream. These problems are clearly intended to be part of the challenge of exploring this system so a referee should consider how he might adapt them for complicating the PCs lives or how he might introduce similar environmental challeges to make up for the fact that he's ignoring these things. 4. the team of the Ship Outreach is portrayed as being form multiple agencies and disciplines. this could be done well on a smaller SF exploration vessel with characters coming from a scout service, the Medical Service Organization (MSO), University of Zebulon and so on. 5. The impact of psionics in the module is "non awakening" the artifact only guides the primitives on a suggestive level if for any reason the artifact on the planet is destroyed an identical one on the moon will bury itself and cause everyone to forget the first one as just some lump of rock and "gee I need to get my scanners recalibrated" thus allowing this artifact is not going to disrupt an campaign that does not use the mentalism rules or some other house psionic rules I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
December 11, 2013 - 7:31pm | I'm rather fascinated with the Space Opera adventure "Vault of the Ni'er Que'yon" Its a sector spanning quest for a vault belonging to the forerunner aliens. What's in triguing is the "Fabulous Treasures" sections at the end. The writer managed to come up with fantastic treasures that measure up to the billing of the adventure and yet will not unballance a game because the PCs have installed them on their ship. One is psionically active and two actually have parts that partially exist in hyperspace. none of them are really usable to the PCs per se like a super star destroyer or a death star weapon. Haven't read it fully yet but will and then put a review up on my blog. Plus the idea of an archaeological/ Indiana Jones style quest is appealing especially on a sector wide playing field. "Fasolt in Peril" module would easily adapt to SF. The first part is to stop hi-jackers/terrorist of a passenger liner unfortunately the ship is now lost and its communicator destroyed. the PC need to scout a local planet which turns out to have had a mechanon outpost. Can the locat a subspace radio and use it to effect their rescue? Come to think of it the Frontier has the Silver Death Cult cadre which hates robots and would hate mechanon even more so what if they were the terrorist hijackers? and the reason the ship is in some unknown system is that the SDC knew the mechanon base was there. The mechanons are rogue mechie that are not going along with the present mechanon leadership's initiative to join the UPF so their robotic minions will not play nice with the invading "biologicals" I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 December 26, 2013 - 11:47pm | I like it. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
 December 28, 2013 - 1:05pm | Traveller produced a similar module where you went looking for clues to across a sector until you found yourself in an ancient lab complete with a security force in hibernation. Fun part was you could pick up clues while doing other adventures until the PCs decide to go for the actual mission. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
December 28, 2013 - 1:20pm | Traveller produced a similar module where you went looking for clues to across a sector until you found yourself in an ancient lab complete with a security force in hibernation. Fun part was you could pick up clues while doing other adventures until the PCs decide to go for the actual mission. I like that it makes me want to dust off some of my tetrarch ideas. EDIT: I just read the beginning and skimmed the rest of the Space Opera campaign module "Vault of the Ni'er Queyon" and it sounds like the traveller product. The Space Opera one was published in 82 what was the name of the Traveller module? I've reviewed the module here on my blog: Link is dead What I consider a unique feature (unique to me at least) is the ploy of having a book to translate and each section takes 1d6 days of work for a linguist (whether NPC or PC). There are 11 sections which turn out to be notes by the 600 year dead archeaologist that wrote the book. They provide clues over time and the book turns out to be volume 1 of 2 and when the whole is translated the PCs will want to visit the planet described and locate the second book which is purported to deal with the advanced alien visitors to the primitive civilization being described in volume 1. The use of the book being translated means that none of the PCs HAVE to be scientists. Espeically if they make a friend of the old man with the book who is being pursued by thugs since he's a linguist. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
January 2, 2014 - 6:10am | I emailed the Space Opera rules to myself so I could open them on the smart phone and read them at doctors appointments and in the dance school waiting room. they are quite the product of their time explaing in detail what a game master is and does and what the players do and "How to Win at Space Opera" I found it interesting that Mechanical Aptitude and Electrical Aptitude were both abilty scores like Strength and intelligence. I'm into the PC races at this point: humans and transhumans and will soon get to the animalistic humanoids Porcine, feline, canine, ursine, etc. which my first assumption tells me that they are probably anthropomorphic animals- human bodies with animal heads which is not something I'm in favor of. However, I found the transhuman description really interesting in that they came up with a great explanation for having a race that looks and acts exactly like Spock in star trek without actually trespassing on the Paramount IP. Normally, would approach including Vulcans in a non star trek rpg as a little bit lame but the way Space Opera has done it is really appealing (especially since Spock and Vulcans have managed to be one of the all time favorite aliens in sci fi). I've posted some information on Space Opera transhumans in the alien workshop: http://www.starfrontiers.us/node/7970 EDIT: Pithecine evolved lower primates not quite so bad as a alien race Canine races_ quite simply dogs in space complete with a tail that tells their emotional state. Feline races- one called the Mechpurrs which are the acknowledged masters of bionic and cybernetic tech in the galaxy and another that eschews technology except in the area of weapons as decadent (almost a neo-ludite) Ursoid- bears in space Avians- basically a human body with a bird head carnivores that worship the egg Warm blooded saurians- skimmed their description but didn't seem much to differentiate them from SF saurians. Note the character gen method of Space Opera is: 1. Roll stats as a percentile 2. choose class which has a set ammount (usually 35-40) of percentile that may be split up between several stats that the class excels in then the table is consulted and the final percentil score is converted into a number of 19 or less 3. then home world gravity if rolled and this can cause some modification of some stats which range from 01 to 19 4.Then home world atmosphere is rolled for which can do the same 5. then home world environment is rolled for which similar results 6. finally you choose race but its based on stats if your stats do not meet racial minimums or exceed racial maximums then you cannot be that race this is actually different from other systems where race is chosen long before class and choice of race has no restrictions. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
