Post by arch2ngel on Nov 23, 2009 0:50:39 GMT -5
Hopefully I'm posting this in the right place (it's been literally YEARS since I visited these boards last, and I'm a bit fuzzy on what goes where nowadays), so if it's not in the right place, PLEASE let me know where (and how!) to move it! Thanks.
Anyway, I mainly plan to post this here as notes for a campaign set in a space cosmology I'm creating for the campaign (ie. It won't have Shi'ar, Skrulls Kree, etc.) ¡V but if anyone has any suggestions, comments, or critiques, they will be MOST appreciated!
Setting
The campaign, especially at the start, will have a very "Stargate Universe" feel to it, though without the Stargates (which I'll be using the Marvel version of - ie. Gates starships travel through to go FTL - most starships will be limited to Flight 10 otherwise). The last thing the characters will remember before the start of the campaign will be their lives as ordinary humans on our Earth (ie. no super heroes). We'll be opening with the characters waking up with the abilities their players created for them, in the laboratory of a starship that's heavily damaged and whose systems are failing. They're going to need to learn to operate the controls, work on fixing the ship, and figure out their new abilities (all of which I'll be using the demonstrate how the game works, since most of my players have never played MURPG before.) After they've got the hang of things, I'll start introducing the alien civilizations whose sector of space the players find themselves in...
House Rules
Energy Recovery: I saw that the prevalent theory on this flaw in the game is to make Energy Pool a purchasable stat, and to add Energy Recovery as a seventh stat. I debated this, but decided against it. Instead, I plan to discard the Energy Recovery aspect of the Regeneration abilities, and have the basic recovery equal the Healing Factor, Instant modifier from the Avengers book. I will also be removing the "tired" status from the "impaired" situational modifier. Instead, when a character is "tired," his Energy Recovery will be reduced to 3 stones of energy for every 2 health stones the character currently has. If the character is "exhausted," he'll be reduced to the standard 1 stone of energy for every 1 health stone the character currently has. (As the character will be starting without proper sleeping accommodations, they will quickly hit tired status until they can remedy the situation, and any characters who go without even that restless sleep - maybe because they have to stay up to keep the ship from falling apart (ala Dr. Rush) - will move into exhausted status.)
Lines of Experience: I still plan to give players between 1 and 5 Lines of Experience per mission, but I want to give them a chance to decide who gets some of those. 1 to 3 Lines of Experience will be awarded to characters simply for completing the mission (1 for an easy mission, 2 for a difficult mission, and 3 for those very rare almost impossible missions). In addition, I will also award 1 or 2 Lines (total) to players that I feel did a magnificent job of RPing or who's contributions were exceptional, but underappreciated. Lastly, players will be allowed to vote for who they feel was the MVP of the mission. First (and maybe second) place in this vote will be awarded Lines of Experience (the exact amount will depend on a number of factors).
Technology: I'm going to allow players to use points in applicable actions to lower the difficulty of technology, the same as if it were multiple people performing the task. So a character with a Medicine 1 could use the sickbay in a ship, if they had the proper level of the Technology action. A character with Medicine 2 would be able to reduce the needed Technology by 1. A character with Medicine 4 would be able to reduce the needed Technology by 2. A character with Medicine 8 would be able to reduce the needed Technology by 4. (Since I doubt a character will have an applicable action at 16, the most a character will be able to reduce the Technology requirement will be by 3 points. For example, a character with a Medicine of 8 trying to operate the sickbay on a ship with a Technology of 9 would only need to have a Technology 6 to be able to operate it.)
Character Creation
First of all, I'm restricting the players from taking magical abilities (it doesn't fit the setting at start, and more importantly, I don't like the way MURPG handles magic, and I plan to overhaul it before introducing it into the campaign, if I do.)
Wealth and General Knowledge will only apply to back on Earth, so it will be recommended that players steer clear of these to start, though later on (through Lines of Experience), Wealth and General Knowledge WILL have an application to their situation, so I'll recommend that they put SOME Lines of Experience into these, if the players want their characters to have access to them.
I'm going to highly recommend that players think about the aspects of the ship when creating their characters (in addition to whatever super heroic abilities they want their characters to have). For example, I'm going to recommend that EVERYONE has Technology, and pretty high, since the ship they're starting on is going to require a Technology 9 (though a player who has a Technology 9 can assist a player with Vehicle Operations by not a high enough Technology to help them Pilot the ship, though this will result in complications and situational modifiers.) I'm also going to recommend that most characters start with at least a few points of Inventing (for engineering/fixing the ship) and Vehicle Operations (to pilot the starship - as big a ship as this is, it will take multiple characters to operate! - as well as shuttle craft, though one player can do this). Having at least one character with Medicine (or Healing) would be recommended, but not necessary. Social Skills will likewise be highly recommended to all players, but is not required.
Communicating with aliens (or working the controls to alien devices, such as the starship they start on), will also be difficult, since none of the aliens will know English (or any other Earth language). Characters with Telepathy can take a +1CL option to allow them to translate the thoughts of aliens they are in telepathic contact with. Likewise, characters with Bio-computing or Psycho-Centric Power Template can take a +1CL option to allow translation of the alien computer language (which doesn't even use binary!) Players without these abilities can take Normal Translation (for living aliens), Computer Translation (for devices), or Universal Translation (for everything). Characters who don't start with any of this will have to rely on the other characters to translate for them, though they can spend Lines of Experience into Social Skills for a specialty in a particular alien race's language and culture to be able to speak with (and use devices of) that alien species.
If a player wishes to be able to keep up with most starships, he'll need to purchase Flight at 10 (though he'll need a spacesuit or the self-contained life form modifier if he wants to operate in the vacuum of space.) Characters with Teleportation 8 will be allowed to take the "interstellar distances" option, but will be required to also take the "can only teleport to where you've already been" option with it - and won't be able to teleport back to Earth (at least, to start with).
Also, I won't tell them why, but I will say that a character with Immortality will find the modifier worth the cost of 3 white stones.
Anyway, that's enough for one post. I'll post the ship next (minus a few surprises, just in case my players find their way to this thread), followed by some of the alien races I plan to use in the campaign...
Anyway, I mainly plan to post this here as notes for a campaign set in a space cosmology I'm creating for the campaign (ie. It won't have Shi'ar, Skrulls Kree, etc.) ¡V but if anyone has any suggestions, comments, or critiques, they will be MOST appreciated!
Setting
The campaign, especially at the start, will have a very "Stargate Universe" feel to it, though without the Stargates (which I'll be using the Marvel version of - ie. Gates starships travel through to go FTL - most starships will be limited to Flight 10 otherwise). The last thing the characters will remember before the start of the campaign will be their lives as ordinary humans on our Earth (ie. no super heroes). We'll be opening with the characters waking up with the abilities their players created for them, in the laboratory of a starship that's heavily damaged and whose systems are failing. They're going to need to learn to operate the controls, work on fixing the ship, and figure out their new abilities (all of which I'll be using the demonstrate how the game works, since most of my players have never played MURPG before.) After they've got the hang of things, I'll start introducing the alien civilizations whose sector of space the players find themselves in...
House Rules
Energy Recovery: I saw that the prevalent theory on this flaw in the game is to make Energy Pool a purchasable stat, and to add Energy Recovery as a seventh stat. I debated this, but decided against it. Instead, I plan to discard the Energy Recovery aspect of the Regeneration abilities, and have the basic recovery equal the Healing Factor, Instant modifier from the Avengers book. I will also be removing the "tired" status from the "impaired" situational modifier. Instead, when a character is "tired," his Energy Recovery will be reduced to 3 stones of energy for every 2 health stones the character currently has. If the character is "exhausted," he'll be reduced to the standard 1 stone of energy for every 1 health stone the character currently has. (As the character will be starting without proper sleeping accommodations, they will quickly hit tired status until they can remedy the situation, and any characters who go without even that restless sleep - maybe because they have to stay up to keep the ship from falling apart (ala Dr. Rush) - will move into exhausted status.)
Lines of Experience: I still plan to give players between 1 and 5 Lines of Experience per mission, but I want to give them a chance to decide who gets some of those. 1 to 3 Lines of Experience will be awarded to characters simply for completing the mission (1 for an easy mission, 2 for a difficult mission, and 3 for those very rare almost impossible missions). In addition, I will also award 1 or 2 Lines (total) to players that I feel did a magnificent job of RPing or who's contributions were exceptional, but underappreciated. Lastly, players will be allowed to vote for who they feel was the MVP of the mission. First (and maybe second) place in this vote will be awarded Lines of Experience (the exact amount will depend on a number of factors).
Technology: I'm going to allow players to use points in applicable actions to lower the difficulty of technology, the same as if it were multiple people performing the task. So a character with a Medicine 1 could use the sickbay in a ship, if they had the proper level of the Technology action. A character with Medicine 2 would be able to reduce the needed Technology by 1. A character with Medicine 4 would be able to reduce the needed Technology by 2. A character with Medicine 8 would be able to reduce the needed Technology by 4. (Since I doubt a character will have an applicable action at 16, the most a character will be able to reduce the Technology requirement will be by 3 points. For example, a character with a Medicine of 8 trying to operate the sickbay on a ship with a Technology of 9 would only need to have a Technology 6 to be able to operate it.)
Character Creation
First of all, I'm restricting the players from taking magical abilities (it doesn't fit the setting at start, and more importantly, I don't like the way MURPG handles magic, and I plan to overhaul it before introducing it into the campaign, if I do.)
Wealth and General Knowledge will only apply to back on Earth, so it will be recommended that players steer clear of these to start, though later on (through Lines of Experience), Wealth and General Knowledge WILL have an application to their situation, so I'll recommend that they put SOME Lines of Experience into these, if the players want their characters to have access to them.
I'm going to highly recommend that players think about the aspects of the ship when creating their characters (in addition to whatever super heroic abilities they want their characters to have). For example, I'm going to recommend that EVERYONE has Technology, and pretty high, since the ship they're starting on is going to require a Technology 9 (though a player who has a Technology 9 can assist a player with Vehicle Operations by not a high enough Technology to help them Pilot the ship, though this will result in complications and situational modifiers.) I'm also going to recommend that most characters start with at least a few points of Inventing (for engineering/fixing the ship) and Vehicle Operations (to pilot the starship - as big a ship as this is, it will take multiple characters to operate! - as well as shuttle craft, though one player can do this). Having at least one character with Medicine (or Healing) would be recommended, but not necessary. Social Skills will likewise be highly recommended to all players, but is not required.
Communicating with aliens (or working the controls to alien devices, such as the starship they start on), will also be difficult, since none of the aliens will know English (or any other Earth language). Characters with Telepathy can take a +1CL option to allow them to translate the thoughts of aliens they are in telepathic contact with. Likewise, characters with Bio-computing or Psycho-Centric Power Template can take a +1CL option to allow translation of the alien computer language (which doesn't even use binary!) Players without these abilities can take Normal Translation (for living aliens), Computer Translation (for devices), or Universal Translation (for everything). Characters who don't start with any of this will have to rely on the other characters to translate for them, though they can spend Lines of Experience into Social Skills for a specialty in a particular alien race's language and culture to be able to speak with (and use devices of) that alien species.
If a player wishes to be able to keep up with most starships, he'll need to purchase Flight at 10 (though he'll need a spacesuit or the self-contained life form modifier if he wants to operate in the vacuum of space.) Characters with Teleportation 8 will be allowed to take the "interstellar distances" option, but will be required to also take the "can only teleport to where you've already been" option with it - and won't be able to teleport back to Earth (at least, to start with).
Also, I won't tell them why, but I will say that a character with Immortality will find the modifier worth the cost of 3 white stones.
Anyway, that's enough for one post. I'll post the ship next (minus a few surprises, just in case my players find their way to this thread), followed by some of the alien races I plan to use in the campaign...