A Traveller's Life

E.C. Tubb's Dumarest of Terra novels are one of the primary inspirations for the game Traveller, though the game doesn't bother the central conceit of the novel. Tubb's protagonist Earl Dumarest other travellers are essentially space hobos: they book dangerous low passage in cryogenic berths from world to world. This contrasts with the wealthy in high passage, who take quick time drug to slow their perception and make time pass quicker to shorten the ennui of the voyage.

Though the Traveller mixes in other influences and gives PCs their own ship and faster FTL, Tubb's original set-up would make a good game all on its own. What's more, it strikes me Dumarest would be pretty easy to turn into a "hard" science fiction game. It would be trivial to dispense with artifical gravity (and antigravity), but I think you could even dispense with FTL.

Alastair Reynolds's novels in the so-called "Revelation Space universe" show how this could be done. Reynolds has no FTL, but does have interstellar travel via "lighthuggers" making voyages at close to light-speed with relativistic time dilation at play. Passengers on lighthuggers are put in cyrogenic freeze because of the length of the voyages. Just like in the Dumarest novels, cyrogenesis isn't without risks. Some passengers die and many have temporary amnesia.

In a modern, hard science fiction approach, low passage wouldn't just be cheap, it would be the only way for the middle class and poor to travel between worlds. Middle passage (the crew) might be more like the Ultras in Reynolds's books: transhuman space-mariners, living their lives on board ship and looking down on system-bound folk. High passage is still for the wealthy, but I don't think quicktime drugs alone would be enough the years (or even decade) long voyages. The wealthy (like the ship's crew) would no doubt have extended lifespans: perhaps into centuries, and possibly even into immortality, barring misadventure. Superlong lifespans,quicktime drugs, and brief periods in cryo-sleep would make it possible, though the the ships would have to have a lot of entertainment available, and be pretty large.

Obviously, you could do a lot a travel back and forth between worlds in this sort of set up, but if like Dumarest you mostly kept moving from one adventure to another that wouldn't really be necessary. Travellers would always be on the move to the next world, far away and years into the future.

Calibrating for the Strange Stars

Before I mentioned that I was checking out Starblazers Adventures (a FATE game based on the old British comic) for running my Strange Stars setting. While I haven't finished my read through, I definitely have found a lot of things to like about it. The test for me with a new game system always comes down to: Can I get it to do what I want with a minimum of fuss?

Starblazers Adventures is geared on traditional space opera (at least of a 70s variety). While that's the mode of a lot of science fiction rpgs (Traveller, Star Frontiers, Star Wars, Star Trek), it does cover the more modern elements that are part of the Strange Stars: the internet, mind-computer interface, nanotechnology, etc. The FATE system is flexible (in fact it's been turned into a generic system), but with SA alone, it isn't always easy to see what would be the best way to model some of those elements.

Thankfully, there is a supplement that does a lot of that. The Mindjammer supplement came out in 2009, and it presents a more "transhuman" and/or modern science fiction setting--which has a lot of those elements I was looking for. Most characters would be constantly linked to the "internet" (in Strange Stars, the noosphere; in Mindjammer the Mindscape), so some traditional knowledge type skills would very easy. Mindjammer has "Mindscape" becoming an Aspect characters can "tag" to their advantage. An elegant implementation.

Mindjammer also has uplifted animals, artificial beings, and AI characters. Those would have probably been fairly easy to figure out how to do with SA alone, but I always like having examples.

Another help in regard to different species or types of beings was Bulldogs! It's a separate FATE-based sci-fi game from SA, but same basic stuff. It's probably got the best alien write-ups of the three and gives a number of them. Unlike Mindjammer, whose pdf is no longer available (awaiting a 2nd edition--a standalone game--which has yet to appear), Bulldogs! is still "in print."

So those are the things I've been looking at so far. Next week I'll probably try adapting a Strange Stars culture or two.

Space Fiends: Star Stalker!

I did a post about using AD&D Fiend Folio monsters in a science fiction context. This post is another follow-up.

No. Appearing:1-2
AC: 3
Hit Dice: 6
Saving Throw: 12+
Attack Bonus: +5
Damage: 1d8/1d8
Movement: 30'/40' fly
Morale: 12

Stellar phantoms are strange lifeforms of pure plasma. Some technological artifacts of long-dead civilizations allow the summoning and command of these creatures that otherwise live in the solar winds and have little interaction with biological life.

Their form is mutable, but phantoms often take the form of reddish humanoids shrouded super-heated gas. They tend to travel through space as balls of pure plasma and are able to mimic the forms of other humanoids (though obviously, they would never be mistaken for them). 

Phantoms attack with their "claws", but they can also grapple a target and pull them close for 10 points of heat damage. As creatures of plasma, they are immune to heat, fire, or plasma weaponry. Cold attacks add 2 points of damage per die. If a stellar phantom is reduced to 10% of it's hit points, it will explode for 4d6 points of damage.

Images from the Strange Stars

An image download of a few sophont individuals from the far future:

Garn Singh Hardraker, 500 year-old captain of the starship Brave Ulysses. He claims to have lost his leg to the toxic tendrils of a hydrogen-breather monster captured in the atmosphere of a brown dwarf. What appears to be an old fashion peg-leg is actually programmable matter.

Faizura Dayr, mercenary guard for a bot-breaking crew on Gogmagog. The mirrorshade eyepatch is an optic interface for her smartgun.

His Excellency Volodymir Ivo, Envoy Plenipotentiary representing the Uldra People's Council of Kommissars on Borea. He hopes to acquire a loan at good terms from a neshekk bank to continue to fund his people's war against the Cold Minds.

Mako Orm, a former Zao pirate. He escaped capture by the privateer vessel Thermidorian by use of a bootleg genderswap nanoswarm and enjoyed a brief career as a tour guide on the Strip.

Warlord Wednesday: Sunset

Here's another installment of my examination of  the adventures DC Comics' Travis Morgan--The Warlord.  The earlier installments can be found here...

"Sunset"

Warlord (vol. 4) #12 (May 2010) Story & Art by Mike Grell

Synopsis: Morgan and his friends ride hard to get back to Shamballah. Morgan now realizes that (as Tinder suggested) Deimos tricked him and drew him away.

They arrive to find Shamballah burning and devastated. One of the energy cannons blasts Morgan and Shakira from the back of their horse. Tinder calls to them from a place the weapons can't reach. The group quickly gets under cover.

Tinder tells them how Deimos activated the weapons hidden in city. They can't get to the bigger cannons to destroy them, because their protected by smaller weapons. Morgan asks how many men Tinder lost. "All of them," is his reply. He angrily asks where Morgan was when they needed him?

Deimos and Kate have taken the palace and have Alysha as captive. Morgan asks about Tara. Tinder says she was alive last he saw her and with Jennifer. Morgan runs off to a tower to find his mate and Tinder turns to Shakira:

In the palace, Deimos watches Morgan in a large scrying crystal. Kate wants Deimos just to kill him, but the Demon Priest says there's an intimacy between enemies that must be savored.

Frustrated by her inability to entice Deimos with wealth, sex, or even power--anything but revenge--Kate tries to convince (or perhaps seduce) the chained Alysha into making common cause with her. Alysha declines both offers--and manages to steal Kate's keys.

Morgan and Tinder find Jennifer trying to heal Tara's injuries. She has a surprise for Morgan:

Morgan kneels next to Tara. He makes promises:

"Yes, you will," Tara replies. "You're going to leave me right now." There's a battle to fight.

Morgan agrees: One more.

Deimos watches this all and vows Morgan will be on his knees before it's done.

Machiste points out it's madness to try to get through those weapons. One man can, Morgan says; He believes Deimos will let him through, because the wizard wants to meet him face to face.

One man--and his cat.

Tinder is waiting for him downstairs with sword drawn. He believes Morgan's personal vendetta will end up getting Alysha killed. Morgan tells him to get out of the way--then slugs him when he doesn't.

The two fight. As they do, the spying Deimos reminisces on how he convinced Morgan he had killed his son by making him fight his son's clone. A fight that is being relived at this moment between the real father and son.

As Deimos watches, Kate creeps up behind him with a dagger, and Alysha frees herself, unnoticed. Watching the scene, she's figured out the truth. Morgan gives Tinder further pointers on swordfighting as he bests the angry youth. He pulls the talisman from around Tinder's neck. The small sack falls to the floor and its contents are reveal: something from another world. A wrist watch.

Deimos, aware of Kate's treachery, turns her into a rat. Morgan has his sword raised above a fallen Tinder, but he sees the watch and hesitates. Alysha arrives and she can't yell out all the words before Morgan realizes himself: Tinder is Joshua. His son.

Tinder strikes:

Shakira cradles Morgan's head. Tinder is confused. He knows Morgan should have easily parried. Alysha hands him the watch, saying she has something to tell him. Father and son clasp hands for the last time:

And then:

Deimos laments that Morgan isn't here to see him break a queen. Tara pulls a dagger and puts its point to her chest. She'd die first. Deimos is fine with seeing Morgan's wife and child follow him into death.

But then there's a ghost in the doorway: A familiar silhouette in an eagle-winged helm.

It's Tinder in Morgan's armor. He so surprises Deimos, he's able to push the wizard into Jennifer's magic mirror--which Shakira then knocks over and shatters.

Tinder kneels at Tara's side. He shows her the watch and calls her mother.

Later, our heroes gather around the funeral pyre where Morgan is laid to rest. Tara, tears in her eyes, eulogizes him. Morgan's wife and children light the pyre.

Elsewhere, a black rat that was once Kate approaches the Mask of Life. Then, Shakira (in cat form) pounces.

Things to Notice:

• Travis Morgan: 1926-2009
• Shakira's comments suggest foreknowledge of the outcome. Maybe she's just a good guesser?

Where It's Going:
Travis Morgan is dead, but the Warlord lives on. At least for 3 more issues.

Space Truckin'

A lot of cargo is shipped around the Strange Stars. While multi-purpose freighter/transport ships care smaller and specialized cargo, specialized container craft handle the bulk of interplanetary trade, making the routine system and hyperspace runs. These craft are called haulers.

Haulers are stripped down vessels designed to carry standardized shipping containers. They're basically a bridge, a slender body for the attachment of containers and engines. Haulers have minimal crews; often just one pilot and a low sentient support ai. Shorter runs may be completely automated.

Typical hauler design

Perhaps due to the extended periods of isolation, hauler pilots are an eccentric lot, even compared to other spacers. Most haulers have simple sim equipment, and many pilots engage in a thriving trade in low res bootleg sims. Haulers use special data protocols to stay in contact with each other over their official communication channels. Underground hauler chatter is a good source of information about special custom checks or gossip on other hyperspace travelers, if one has a good translation program for their argot.

Testing FATE

While working on Strange Stars stuff, I keep looking for the "Goldilocks system"--the perfect rpg to run it. There are a number of system with a number of good points, but I still haven't made a decision. This week, I've been looking at Starblazer Adventurers, promoted by positive reviews from John Till over at FATE SF and conversation with Michael from the Metal Earth.

I'm still reading it, but there are several things I like from the outset. It seems like it's a fairly easy system to create alien species in but also reasonably detailed. It has a power Supermind that seems perfect for the ibglibdishpan.

The spaceship creation system also seems pretty cool. It's less geared toward the technical design of something like GURPS Vehicles, but more about making up ships with character like the Millennium Falcon. In fact, ships are made up much in the same way as characters.

Anyway, more to read. I'll probably say more as I get more into it.