Star Truck: The Television Series (Planning/OOC)

I'm really bad at ops, and this may only be the third or fourth I've ever made, so please bare with how lackluster the execution may be.


I've recently talked myself into wanting to run an old game idea I've had sitting around, set in the "far future", Humanity continues to fight an as of now fifty-three year old war, between two all encompassing super powers. The United Systems of the Allies, dedicated to the free market, democracy, and the Alliance way, and their bitter enemies the Universal Stellar Socialist Republic.

When man began to explore space, the two forces of the Earth put aside their differences, and agreed that the war could not continue to be fought... at least, not on Earth. After that day much research was devoted to exploring space better, going further, and far more importantly, waging war against one another there. These advancements gradually led to the eventual colonization of the Sol System, and in a scant fifteen years, the invention of the warp drive. Granted a power Man had never truly thought he could obtain, he exploited it. Colonization picked up, and the area around Sol became filled by ships, some private, some government owned, all seeking fortune, opportunity, and the upper-hand against their bitter enemies. The war-ban was extended to cover the entire Sol system, as the outer colonies became the new hotbed of war and violence.

Five years later, the expansionist empires, still deadlocked and unable to overcome the other, made first contact with intelligent life. Aliens were proven, of course, some of the first colonies were on fertile worlds ripe with new life, but non-human intelligence?

High over Shurglor-6, the Alliance and the Republic's ships were waging war over yet another prime colonizable world, conditions were perfect for the introduction of Earth life, the sea still containing all the complex biomass. Neither side would surrender, and each having lost over ten ships from their fleet only grew in determination, when their vessels detected a ship several orders of magnitude larger than their biggest ship exit hyperspace nearby. Massive, and armed to the teeth, both forces of Humanity were forced to surrender to the mighty Federation of Independent Systems.

The Federation held much territory nearby, and had simply chanced upon the first contact encounter. Using their advanced technology to instantly decode human speech, they learned what they could from both sides, and made a simple decision. On that day, the process of Earth's uplifting was started. New, advanced, more powerful technologies replaced what their users already considered beyond all reason, and humanity joined what was considered the galactic standard. Officially, both the USotA and USSR are "potential" federation inductees, though legislation prevents either from joining while the home-world remains divided. Unwilling to compromise their claims on Earth, they remain independent nations, each with their independence guaranteed by the FIS. This has the unfortunate side effect of preventing a military solution to their disagreements, and the once hot war, has become cold.

Across space, the FIS is locked in its own cold war with an age old enemy, the Theocratic Empire of Lazraktyh, zealous and xenophobic aliens whose culture is largely unknown, only that they rarely leave their systems, and when they do, they shoot on sight. They largely avoid space already colonized, however, but their technology outmatches even the FIS in a stand up fight, and direct confrontation must be avoided.

Finally, there exists the "Honorable Collective of Planets", a clean, upstanding merchant empire, though what their "private citizens" do on foreign soil and in foreign space is instantly disavowed. Much crime, smuggling, and contraband filters in from this region.

Of course, this game begins in the lands at the borders of these great powers, where territories meet, small nations rise and fall, and the life of a freighter crew is fraught with peril, danger, fortune, and prestige. Where you, the crew of the Freighter FileNotFound, have struck out to make your name...

Character Sheet: There really isn't one, not right now. I might make something for the flavor aspect of your character, but as we're going to be using a TTRPG's rule system, we'll just work together to make your character, and I'll keep a copy of your record, and post links to them in a repository.

Rules:
1. No Godmodding, we all know what this means.
2.Don't cheat, it'll be hard to cheat anyway, but just don't do it. :p
3. This isn't a terribly defined setting for a reason, feel free to make up anything you want, species, planets, other great powers. Just know that once you introduce it, it's mine to abuse back at you.
4. I don't really know what other rules to give you, so. This rule doesn't exist.
5. This is rule number 4.
6. Really, just follow basic rp etiquette, and remember that more than usual, what I say goes. I'm a very fair GM, but if we have a rules issue, please accept my interpretation. Feel free to make your case, but don't be disheartened if I disagree.

Also, if anyone needs the book (You all do. :p) Just inform me, and I'll pass it to you, either over the RPP group Steam Chat, or in a PM.

OP Seems good enough to me. Better than what I could do.

I'm still debating between technician and Bounty Hunter. Friend said my character should be a mutant rat person.

Sorry to discourage you, but I will be the only rat person.

No need to be a mutant when you can just be an alien. :p

If I have to spend all of my budget on prosthetics I swear, you'll end up fighting lawn flamingos with lights taped to them.

Well, Lights are closer to lightsabers than blasters are (I mean, we used them as lightsabers as a kid, so clearly it's better than a blaster, which can't be used for that), so I think we'd have to run from that

Oh that reminds me, totally spaced on that.

Each faction uses different weapons technology for immediate audience recognition. The three most common you'll run into are USA mini-rockets. (So conventional looking weapons, explosion effect happens where they hit), Lasers for the technologically advanced USSR, and the FIS sport lightning guns. This only applies to anything with blaster in the name, obviously, or ship grade blaster equivalents. Feel free to make up your own sci fi effect for any weapon you want, or use one of those.

Oh this looks like too much fun. xD I wanna be an Honorable Citizen of the Honorable Collective.

Since when has there ever been only enough room on a ship for one rat? Also, blergh licensing restrictions, blergh low-traffic Steam group whose link should maybe be pinned in a topic or near the userlist somwhere.

I call ship's priest and shield technician. Maybe with a bloodskal blade sword that projects energy slashes. Do game mechanics include tanking options?

If everyone had a Skype, I would muuuch prefer to set one of those up. The internet here buckles and cracks when I try to run a steamchat. I'm going to be moving in about a month, but until then it's obnoxious.

There are in fact tanking options, your sword would require some figuring out though. (Wield a one handed sword, and a one handed pistol, mechanically, wield "two handed lasershooting sword"? That's how I'd solve it.)

If I don't come up with a cheesy alien idea that I like, I'll probably use my old war droid sheet that I never got to use.

Also, someone should be a Totally An Alien, I Swear, whose only visible difference from humanity is a bad wig. No body paint or anything, just... a wig.

Do want to note, as per a conversation I've been having with Snowy: It'd be good if we get unique PC races. Not as in different or not seen before, but different from one another. It's harder to justify double ratmen on the crew when I could have featured an other, also cool alien... :p Also, if at least one person was the mandatory human the audience gets to root for, that'd be cheap/greaaaat...

Also, when describing your character, do try to explain how cheap your costume is/put together. We can't afford to do anything fancy until at least after the pilot episode.

In lighter news, come up with a catch phrase. Every character needs a catch phrase. :p

You also need someone with spray-paint silver hair and neon plastic robes.

Testing...    

They look like a good size to me, anyone have any trouble reading those?

I mean, I realize the meanings aren't immediately apparent, but you can pick out how many there are of each type of symbol okay, right? That's what's important. We're setting up the die roller to spit symbols out proper, instead of needing to roll regular dice, then use the number conversion guide.

Useful. That should make things easier to do.
IIRC, the result is two advantages but it's unclear whether we succeeded or failed.

NVM, other dice needed a second to load.

Those are just the emoticons anyway. They weren't legitimate dicerolls.

And the end total is 1 threat, no successes. Not a good roll, by any means.

So, uh, if anyone needs/wants help, I'm free and might like to set up a skype chat/potentially a skype call to group handle some chargen really rapidly.

Anyone who doesn't actually want to at all, can just give me the go ahead and some details, to do the stat aspect of their character for them, if this kinda thing is beyond them. I'd rather have you do it, and help, so you understand the system, but I'm willing to do it in the name of expediency.

I think I'll be fine on my own for the most part. Even if the way races are handled is different from D&D, I'm sure there's a level of transferability for knowing how to put a guy together.

Well. Okay, I'm here if you need me. I'd like to get this thing set up and roughly started as soon as I can.

Any particular ways the knowledge skills translate to this setting?

Core Worlds is in relation to any big place, like any of the listed factions, save the theocracy. Outer Rim is in relation to the fringes of space, either the outer borders of these empires, or the mish-mash of "border space" the game will start and probably spend a lot of time in. The rest should operate normally.

I've, ah, been working on my stats this afternoon. To the extent that I have three different builds I'm undecided between, at the moment.

Leaning towards Melee, though Heavy is probably more soundly built. Am trying to get Skype set up now.

Heavy:

Melee:

Buffer:

I'm nearly done statting my gadgeteer with a flamethrower.

I can't find unmatched protection, yeah. So I can't okay that. The other option is sound. Though, you can actually save 5 XP by taking the 5xp barrage rather than the 10 one, it also links into the other things you want to take.

Cool and Discipline can serve similar purposes, yes. Though you can't cool fear, and discipline does not help your initiative. They also sort of have to be flavored different, not that that's a problem. And certain abilities might dictate one or the other.

And multicareering, interesting. I wasn't going to suggest that to anyone, just to keep things simple at first. You seem to have a grasp though, so I'll let you do it if you want it.

Anyone else planning to take a tool kit as part of their personal gear?

Ah, but I already took the other Barrage. If we already have a frontliner, though, I might just go buffer; it seems more interesting than bodyguard. Humans seem to synergize with multicareering, provided that 'specialization' skills are not 'career' skills.

I assume tool kits don't benefit Medicine, and therefore are not of direct interest to me. Unless I go for a purely ceremonial sword, I suppose I need interesting fluff for a gun. Are there throwing weapons besides bolas?