In that same vein I wrote a short story based RPG that facilitates all the ways things could go wrong on a starship. Think of it like Star Trek, but without the moral lesson to be learned or ethical dilemma to be wrestled with. All you need to play is some paper, writing utensils, a D20 and a D6 dice.
-Cris
Starship
Starship
is a short story based game about space travel, disasters, incompetence, and
treachery.
Each
player takes the role of a member of a starship crew on a voyage where things
go horribly wrong. Each of the crew has
a goal they must work toward on the mission:
1.
The
Captain- To see that the mission succeeds at all costs
2.
The
First Mate- To make sure that the crew is performing their roles
3.
The
Engineer- To make sure the ship stays in one piece
4.
The
Doctor- To make sure no one dies
5.
The
Scientist- To make scientific observations, no matter the risk.
6.
The
Security Officer- To maintain order on the ship
Making
the Ship
Get
a piece of paper and draw out your spaceship and give it a name. Make sure to outline various key points that
you think are important like a medical bay, the bridge, engine room, etc. Do not go overboard and break out the graph
paper, ruler, and engineering books, this is meant to be a rough outline and an
aid for the players. If you forget to
add something someone wants later just add it in.
Choosing
the mission
Next,
all together decide on the mission for the ship. Is it vague such as to go boldly where no man
has gone before or is it more specific like we have to deliver this serum to
the colony on Vergon-23 to prevent the spread of the trilosiv flu?
The
Secret
Next
each character will roll for a secret that they also must roll play out in
addition to their main role on the ship, these might be contradictory and thus
awesome. Each player is to keep their
secret hidden from the rest of the players.
Each player rolls 1d20 dice in secret and consults the table.
1
|
Character
is heavily addicted to a substance that is either not on the ship or is
extremely hard to get on the ship.
|
2
|
The
Character is a fake. They have no training
in their role and have achieved it through con artistry and fakery, ae the
doctor has no idea how to heal anyone or the engineer does not know how the
ship works.
|
3
|
The
character has smuggled something extremely dangerous aboard the ship.
|
4
|
The
character has an unhealthy romantic obsession with another character.
|
5
|
The
character is not actually human but an android. The character will do anything to keep this
a secret.
|
6
|
The
character is secretly an assassin sent to kill someone on the crew, this may
or may not be another character.
|
7
|
The
character is grossly incompetent for their role on the ship.
|
8
|
The
character has a malevolent amoral alien parasite on his person controlling
their actions.
|
9
|
The
character thinks that they should be in charge or if the character is the
captain they do not want to be in charge.
|
10
|
The
character has or will cannibalize part of the ship for a personal project
that is unethical and dangerous.
|
11
|
The
character does not believe in the mission of the ship and will only do the
bare minimum to complete it.
|
12
|
The
character is obsessed with there being a traitor on board the ship. Paranoia abounds.
|
13
|
The
character is secretly an alien life form masquerading as a human being but is
losing their ability to hide for some reason.
|
14
|
The
character has an unhealthy addiction to something or some action the rest of
the crew would find abhorrent and criminal.
|
15
|
The
character knows the “true” mission of the ship. The true mission should be deadly,
unethical, immoral, at complete odds with the ships mission, or any
combination. The character should be
tasked with completing this mission
|
16
|
The
character has stored a deadly alien organism on the ship. This of course will get loose.
|
17
|
The
character is a psychopath and will murder at least one person during trip.
|
18
|
The
character has a horrible contagious disease and they know it.
|
19
|
The
character is experiencing “cabin fever” and is slowly going insane
|
20
|
The
character is a traitor and will do whatever it takes to make sure the mission
is not a success.
|
Opening
Monologue
Next
each character will go around the table and introduce their character on the
ship in a montage fashion as in an opening some sort of science fiction
television drama. A couple of examples:
The door to the
science lab opens and out comes Dr. Jack Strongman, the ships head medical
officer and all around hunk of man meat.
The good doctor is flanked left and right by beautiful medical
professionals who were by all means not chosen by him for their looks.
A
blast of laser fire and stepping over the smoldering body of a dead alien is
Captain Ted Stannely, not a hair on his head is out of place, not a wrinkle in
his uniform, and his teeth almost glow they are so white!
Scenes
Now
the characters will begin acting out various scenes within the ship on their
way to fulfill the main ship’s mission.
Before each scene the players will place markers (pieces of paper,
mini’s, tokens, etc) on the map of the ship to denote where their characters
are located before each scene begins.
Each scene has a main actor who will be causing the problem for the
scene. In this scene the player will role-play
whatever disaster their secret is causing for the ship. Other players may play other made up
characters on the spot such as Ensin Ricky or Janet the Intern as the scene
demands. If during the scene a character
is close enough to interact with the main character then they may do so and
move their character on the ship’s map to that location. Keep this to a reasonable degree and use your
best judgment as to when a character would enter a scene. For example it would take some time for Jake
the engineer to make his way up to the bridge where the captain is removing
coolant chips to install in his sexbot, so while the scene is happening the
engineer would enter the scene near the end.
If at all possible try to limit a scene to only 4 main player characters
at a time so the table does not devolve into utter chaos, or disregard this
rule if utter chaos is the objective.
After
each scene any main character that did not act in the scene gives a brief
description of what they do during that time such as, “when the lights go out I
go to the med bay and steal the ships supply of Ultra-morphine” or “When the
ships decompresses I take this time to dispose of the body!”
Choose
a person to go first and then the scenes travel around clockwise.
The
number of scenes depends on the number of players and are as follows:
3
Players- The Beginning, The Journey, and The Final Act
4
Players- The Beginning, The Edge of the System, The Journey, and The Final Act
5
Players- The Beginning, The Edge of the System, The Journey, The Arrival, and
The Final Act
6
Players- The Beginning, The Edge of the System, The Journey, Deep Space, The
Arrival, The Final Act
There
are only two rules to follow in a scene:
1. No main character can die till the final
scene (You may kill as many other characters on the ship as you wish. Cargo bay full of orphans from Rylon-7 for
example)
2. The ship cannot be destroyed until the final scene.
But
what if I use my destructotronic blaster on another character or what if I
cause the engine core to go critical?
This can be an excellent chance for character to role play out dramatic
situations such as the character did not get killed by the destructronic
blaster but only horribly injured or now the crew has to race against time to
stop the ship from blowing up. If forced
into a corner and things look really bad the characters can always call upon
the technobabble to save the day. Your
character got shot with a destructronic blaster in the chest, well it had no
effect because you character was wearing his antiplasmatic vest that protects
from energy weapons or if the core is going critical then activate the
emergency time displacement injunction module that will switch the core with
the one from another dimension. Technobabble
is a narrative ability to make up something technological to solve a problem,
ala magic. Oh, and one final rule:
3. Technobabble cannot save a character or the
ship in the final scene
Scene
1- The Beginning
The
scene involves the characters just leaving the space station, atmosphere, or
wherever they start from. What happens
in this scene is:
The
Character’s secret problem causes a problem with ________ on the ship.
Roll
a D6 and consult the chart to find out what kind of problem.
1
|
The
sensors
|
2
|
The
food
|
3
|
The
defense systems
|
4
|
The
central A.I.
|
5
|
The
ships navigation systems
|
6
|
The
garbage disposal system
|
The
Edge of the System
This
scene involves the ship passing through the edge of the solar system or
something equivalent. What happens in
this scene is:
The
character’s secret causes a problem with ___________ on the ship.
Roll
a D6 and consult the chart to find out what kind of problem.
1
|
The
alien diplomat
|
2
|
The
cook
|
3
|
The
young hansom male intern
|
4
|
The
young beautiful female intern
|
5
|
The
bartender
|
6
|
The
counselor
|
The
Journey
This
scene involves the major portion of the characters journey. What happens in this scene is:
The
character’s secret causes a(n)/the ____________.
Roll
a D6 and consult the chart to find out what kind of problem.
1
|
major
interstellar incident with another race, possibly causing a major
conflict/war
|
2
|
First
contact with an alien race, this will go poorly.
|
3
|
Destruction
of a ship of peaceful aliens
|
4
|
Death
of half the crew
|
5
|
ships
holographic doctor to become activated, without his moral/ethical subroutines
|
6
|
Ship
to become boarded by a hostile alien race.
|
Deep
Space
This
is where the ship is out way beyond the known and can encounter strange
dangerous phenomenon. What happens in
this scene is:
The
character’s secret causes a/the _____________.
Roll
a D6 and consult the chart to find out what kind of problem.
1
|
rift
in space time to open up
|
2
|
The
libido’s of the crew to go into overdrive
|
3
|
Powerful
being to take an interest in the character (to make their life extremely
difficult)
|
4
|
Mutiny
|
5
|
Ship
to run out of fuel near a black hole
|
6
|
Ship
to go back in time
|
The
Arrival
This
is where the ship arrives at the mission objective and things quickly begin to
spiral out of control. The crew should
investigate something perhaps teleport someone down to a planet/starship. What happens in this scene is:
The
characters secret causes __________.
Roll
a D6 and consult the chart to find out what kind of problem.
1
|
The
crew to run for their lives
|
2
|
The
crew to abandon the/a ship
|
3
|
The
crew to turn on one another
|
4
|
Interstellar
destruction
|
5
|
A
fate worse than death for a portion of the crew
|
6
|
The
self destruct sequence
|
The
Final Scene
In
this scene everything is going from bad to worse. The character who is the focal point of this
scene has no particular bad thing to occur on account of their secret, but
instead they should combine their secret with the all the previous bad
occurrences that have happened: bring back former scorned characters, maybe
mechanical problems on the ship were not solved as well as you thought, or
maybe now is the time to act out your traitorous, dangerous, and poorly thought
out plan. Just make sure that whatever
you do has potential bad outcomes for as many people as possible.
The
Wrap-up
After
all is said and done be sure to let every character have a short wrap up of
what happened to them after the mission: death, court marshal, or
otherwise. If a character did die in the
final scene give a wrap up of their legacy of their actions, maybe a fund for
needy orphans is set up by the incompetent captains family to cover up his
colossal blunder that caused an interstellar war.
Did you write this or find it? It's quite fantastic!
ReplyDeleteWrote it.
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