Title: ...out of a clear, blue sky.
I freely admit: I was feeling a little cocky after the relative success of the previous 2 sessions. I thought I was really starting to get a handle on this whole GM thing, and that the hard part (getting the players together and moving) was over; from now on, they'd start playing the main roles and I would just be filling in details and providing boundaries.
I knew exactly what was going to happen this session, and for once I'd actually tried to do my homework on the system. We were going to land on Higgin's Moon, but the contact wasn't going to be there; instead, Kai would have to haggle with a new guy, and he wasn't going to agree to do anything unless Kai and the crew went and took out some robbers who were in the area screwing things up for everybody. If they went to the town they'd be able to pick up a sidequest that would get them some extra cash and prizes, but if they went straight out to look for the robbers they'd find them, Kai would go down to negotiate and conveniently get killed, the crew could nuke the site from orbit, take the ship, and continue on their merry way with some fun-fun-fun tidbits scattered around the ship to give them a little direction. Next session we'd be on another world, with none of my squishy, non-combat players ever needing to damage their hitpoints. Great!
Ha.
Things went wrong almost immediately. Kai had barely started haggling with the new contact before Will got carried away and levelled a gun at him, which naturally soured the deal and the new guy took off into the woods (and safety). So much for that part of the storyline, or, you know, Will 'not liking violence'. Mercifully, this meant the crew now HAD to go to the town, where they learned about the robbers in the woods. They also 100% talked to the sidequest guy in the bar, but then essentially forgot all about it. Oh well.
So, armed with info and finally on their way, they head off to find the robbers. As I'm writing this and looking back on all the sessions we've now had, I'm starting to realise that my group plays far more aggressively than you'd think their characters would allow. I mean, we have all these squishy, non-violent, non-weapon-using folks, and instead of playing like sleuths and con men and diplomats and pickpockets, they play like freaking tanks, charging towards the issue in the most direct way possible. Odd. Oh well.
Anyway, back to the session. I felt like our pilot, Wren, wasn't really getting able to role play a lot compared to the other characters, and the next section of the story called for the party to be sort of skimming over the tops of trees looking for the robber camp - perfect time to get her to do some rolling and some role playing, right? This is where I learned Note to Self #2: Don't get a character to roll on any action you don't want to open up to failure. Oh well.
And, of course, no good ship nosedive is complete unless several characters get injured in the crash. In our case, of course, the most severely injured character was also our medical expert, because, really, why would you even expect anything else ever. So, what I had imagined to be a nice, clean little session full of sleuthing, haggling, and intrigue, immediately dissolved into damage control, and the last half of the session was spent frantically tending to the wounded and assessing ship damage (luckily Higgin's Moon is known for its nice, impact absorbing mud). My pilot got to role play, all right, as the rest of the crew took turns yelling at her, and the bulk of the die rolling was done by our mangled healer, Molly. An interesting and memorable session, certainly, but definitely not quite what I'd imagined. Note to self #3:
Oh well.
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
#2 Serenity Campaign Session GM Notes
Title: Fly, my little fledglings, FLY!
A thing I've heard from a lot of the other GM's I know is that a big part of the role you play as GM is "reading your group", both as individual character niches / player styles, and, perhaps most importantly, how the whole mish-mash functions together as a team.
I noticed in the first session that my group didn't really have any brassy, instantly-take-charge types. There were a couple naturally more passive types (I don't think anyone would have bought a 10 year old character trying to be party leader), and I thought I could see where leadership would eventually come from once people settled more into their roles, but for the first few sessions, at least, it didn't really make sense for any of the characters (from a role-playing standpoint) to put themselves forward.
Now, in a more established campaign this wouldn't have been an issue, because people would already have developed the necessary bonds with each other to keep everyone in mostly the same place going in mostly the same direction. However, this party was just starting out, so I felt like a leader/catalyst was important.
My original idea was, I gotta admit, very heavily based on the 'choose your own adventure' books from back in the day. It always annoyed me when GM's herded characters around like sheep instead of letting us figure things out on our own, so I figured the best way to avoid that would be to develop a series of "proto plots", stagger them around the confined area I'd managed to wrangle my characters into, and then see what they chose.
This turned out to be a really rewarding exercise in and of itself, and I'd definitely recommend it to any GM's who are keen to start but don't really have any solid idea of what they want their campaign to consist of. Essentially what I did was come up with a series of story beginnings; one of them, actually, was in the last session where the Alliance stopped the shuttle the party was on in order to make way for one of their military ships. But none of my players seemed particularly interested in that situation, so I turfed it and focused my energy on creating story beginnings that could be 'triggered' by my players talking to specific NPC's in the hiring fair. To make sure that everyone ended up on the same quest instead of going to all different ones, I decided that once the first event was 'triggered', that is, once an individual player had decided to follow a specific lead, I would allow myself to 'turn off' the events if I felt that was appropriate. Basically, first come, first served.
Story fragment number one, I decided, would be triggered by the players going over to the garbage company, United Reclamation, booth at the hiring fair. This company was a large enough size to be looking for several different posts, I decided. Will, Molly, and Wren would all make good impressions on the company spokesperson, and because Todd was tied to Molly, and Cale had stuck himself to Wren, that would pretty well take care of everyone. Once they were all on a ship, things could happen to bring them back to the Alliance storyline I'd pseudo-introduced in the first session.
Story fragment number two would be a macguffin, specifically, a shipment that a courier company had had stolen from them on route to delivery. I decided that once a player walked up to the table, the front man would be only grudgingly interested but would be interrupted suddenly by a subbordinate saying that one of their ships was damaged and its cargo taken, and that the crew was injured and would not be able to pursue this immediately. Being unwilling to involve the authorities for his own reasons, and not having sufficient crew to man their remaining ship, the front man would then have almost no choice but to employ some mercenary-minded individuals to help retrieve the stolen cargo.
Story fragment number three, and the one that ended up being chosen, was The Mysterious Stranger. A mysterious, no nonsense woman with a ship and a quest who wanted a crew that wouldn't ask questions. She, of course, would die soon into the quest and conveniently leave the party with a ship and a bunch of mysteries they could solve for fun and profit, but, like the other 2 story beginnings mentioned above, would provide the necessary (if temporary) direction and leadership to mold the fledgling party into a cohesive team.
Each of the story beginnings above depended on a player actively going and talking to a specific person. I even staggered the event triggers around the space station so that the most 'urgent' one, #2, was in the far corner from the entrance and the players would have to pass the other event triggers to get to it. As a final backup, though, I decided there would be a 4th story fragment, one that couldn't ignored or walked by - a disaster. I figured, if it came to a point where all my players were wandering around the station being bored and disparate, one of Vera's Chop Shop ships up there for display could explode and funnel everyone into another ship for the evacuation. Once everyone was together, the ship would tragically suffer a navigational malfunction and the crew would end up landing only spitting distance away from the locale of the Alliance-centric storyline I'd originally envisaged.
As I mentioned, it was story fragment #3 that ended up being triggered first, just by virtue of what direction the party members started moving around the station. Cale and Wren went to the left and only spoke to a couple 'dummy' booths before taking off to look at ships, and Will had gone straight to the canteen. Molly and Todd, on the other hand, had gone right and, after hitting a couple dummy booths on that side had triggered the Mysterious Stranger event. Now, I hadn't really put too much planning into this event, besides 'mysterious stranger who will conveniently die and leave them with a ship', but Molly and Todd both leapt at this storyline and I obligingly 'shut off' the other event triggers and let everyone collect sort of naturally in the ship. I had to sort of ad lib a primary quest - I figured I should make it a "simple job that somehow goes sideways" type thing cus otherwise it'd be either too dangerous to sign up for or too boring to make an engaging campaign - and because I was mostly pulling names out of the air, the primary quest became an under-the-table cattle drop to Higgin's Moon, and within a matter of minutes my players were a group on one ship with one united mission. End of session 2!
For me, the big value in going the 'story fragment' route was that it helped me flesh out the universe I was creating for my players without getting a) too bogged down in details, or b) too attached to a storyline that my players had no enthusiasm for. Coming up with a series of different stories meant I had to develop different characters and different roles, and think of different methods to make my goals happen, all within the same universe. This meant that, again, my characters got to wander around and act and do things on their own without me having to narrate their decisions to them, AND I got the added benefit of having created a small database of stock characters/roles/events that fit into my universe that I could draw on later down the road.
In terms of the final effect of the group following The Mysterious Stranger, its main strength and its main weakness was the introduction of an NPC to take the leadership role. This was helpful because it herded the different characters onto a ship and assigned them roles on that ship; it gave them a united purpose as well as a group leader who everyone trusted to make decisions on everyone's behalf; and it kept everyone more or less together. However, and this is another reason this character had to die, it also gave the players an easy way out of developing problem solving or leadership skills of their own, and because it was me, the GM, talking for the NPC, it felt way too much like I was running the campaign and prescribing actions for the players to take. Essentially, it was like I was writing the story and then narrating it, and just feeding the characters lines instead of them being able to take a couple plot points and write their own story.
So, yeah. The Mysterious Stranger bit was fun while it lasted, but Kai Had To Die. It was just a question of how.
A thing I've heard from a lot of the other GM's I know is that a big part of the role you play as GM is "reading your group", both as individual character niches / player styles, and, perhaps most importantly, how the whole mish-mash functions together as a team.
I noticed in the first session that my group didn't really have any brassy, instantly-take-charge types. There were a couple naturally more passive types (I don't think anyone would have bought a 10 year old character trying to be party leader), and I thought I could see where leadership would eventually come from once people settled more into their roles, but for the first few sessions, at least, it didn't really make sense for any of the characters (from a role-playing standpoint) to put themselves forward.
Now, in a more established campaign this wouldn't have been an issue, because people would already have developed the necessary bonds with each other to keep everyone in mostly the same place going in mostly the same direction. However, this party was just starting out, so I felt like a leader/catalyst was important.
My original idea was, I gotta admit, very heavily based on the 'choose your own adventure' books from back in the day. It always annoyed me when GM's herded characters around like sheep instead of letting us figure things out on our own, so I figured the best way to avoid that would be to develop a series of "proto plots", stagger them around the confined area I'd managed to wrangle my characters into, and then see what they chose.
This turned out to be a really rewarding exercise in and of itself, and I'd definitely recommend it to any GM's who are keen to start but don't really have any solid idea of what they want their campaign to consist of. Essentially what I did was come up with a series of story beginnings; one of them, actually, was in the last session where the Alliance stopped the shuttle the party was on in order to make way for one of their military ships. But none of my players seemed particularly interested in that situation, so I turfed it and focused my energy on creating story beginnings that could be 'triggered' by my players talking to specific NPC's in the hiring fair. To make sure that everyone ended up on the same quest instead of going to all different ones, I decided that once the first event was 'triggered', that is, once an individual player had decided to follow a specific lead, I would allow myself to 'turn off' the events if I felt that was appropriate. Basically, first come, first served.
Story fragment number one, I decided, would be triggered by the players going over to the garbage company, United Reclamation, booth at the hiring fair. This company was a large enough size to be looking for several different posts, I decided. Will, Molly, and Wren would all make good impressions on the company spokesperson, and because Todd was tied to Molly, and Cale had stuck himself to Wren, that would pretty well take care of everyone. Once they were all on a ship, things could happen to bring them back to the Alliance storyline I'd pseudo-introduced in the first session.
Story fragment number two would be a macguffin, specifically, a shipment that a courier company had had stolen from them on route to delivery. I decided that once a player walked up to the table, the front man would be only grudgingly interested but would be interrupted suddenly by a subbordinate saying that one of their ships was damaged and its cargo taken, and that the crew was injured and would not be able to pursue this immediately. Being unwilling to involve the authorities for his own reasons, and not having sufficient crew to man their remaining ship, the front man would then have almost no choice but to employ some mercenary-minded individuals to help retrieve the stolen cargo.
Story fragment number three, and the one that ended up being chosen, was The Mysterious Stranger. A mysterious, no nonsense woman with a ship and a quest who wanted a crew that wouldn't ask questions. She, of course, would die soon into the quest and conveniently leave the party with a ship and a bunch of mysteries they could solve for fun and profit, but, like the other 2 story beginnings mentioned above, would provide the necessary (if temporary) direction and leadership to mold the fledgling party into a cohesive team.
Each of the story beginnings above depended on a player actively going and talking to a specific person. I even staggered the event triggers around the space station so that the most 'urgent' one, #2, was in the far corner from the entrance and the players would have to pass the other event triggers to get to it. As a final backup, though, I decided there would be a 4th story fragment, one that couldn't ignored or walked by - a disaster. I figured, if it came to a point where all my players were wandering around the station being bored and disparate, one of Vera's Chop Shop ships up there for display could explode and funnel everyone into another ship for the evacuation. Once everyone was together, the ship would tragically suffer a navigational malfunction and the crew would end up landing only spitting distance away from the locale of the Alliance-centric storyline I'd originally envisaged.
As I mentioned, it was story fragment #3 that ended up being triggered first, just by virtue of what direction the party members started moving around the station. Cale and Wren went to the left and only spoke to a couple 'dummy' booths before taking off to look at ships, and Will had gone straight to the canteen. Molly and Todd, on the other hand, had gone right and, after hitting a couple dummy booths on that side had triggered the Mysterious Stranger event. Now, I hadn't really put too much planning into this event, besides 'mysterious stranger who will conveniently die and leave them with a ship', but Molly and Todd both leapt at this storyline and I obligingly 'shut off' the other event triggers and let everyone collect sort of naturally in the ship. I had to sort of ad lib a primary quest - I figured I should make it a "simple job that somehow goes sideways" type thing cus otherwise it'd be either too dangerous to sign up for or too boring to make an engaging campaign - and because I was mostly pulling names out of the air, the primary quest became an under-the-table cattle drop to Higgin's Moon, and within a matter of minutes my players were a group on one ship with one united mission. End of session 2!
For me, the big value in going the 'story fragment' route was that it helped me flesh out the universe I was creating for my players without getting a) too bogged down in details, or b) too attached to a storyline that my players had no enthusiasm for. Coming up with a series of different stories meant I had to develop different characters and different roles, and think of different methods to make my goals happen, all within the same universe. This meant that, again, my characters got to wander around and act and do things on their own without me having to narrate their decisions to them, AND I got the added benefit of having created a small database of stock characters/roles/events that fit into my universe that I could draw on later down the road.
In terms of the final effect of the group following The Mysterious Stranger, its main strength and its main weakness was the introduction of an NPC to take the leadership role. This was helpful because it herded the different characters onto a ship and assigned them roles on that ship; it gave them a united purpose as well as a group leader who everyone trusted to make decisions on everyone's behalf; and it kept everyone more or less together. However, and this is another reason this character had to die, it also gave the players an easy way out of developing problem solving or leadership skills of their own, and because it was me, the GM, talking for the NPC, it felt way too much like I was running the campaign and prescribing actions for the players to take. Essentially, it was like I was writing the story and then narrating it, and just feeding the characters lines instead of them being able to take a couple plot points and write their own story.
So, yeah. The Mysterious Stranger bit was fun while it lasted, but Kai Had To Die. It was just a question of how.
Monday, February 9, 2015
#1 Serenity Campaign Session GM notes
Title: A promising start.
It's a player-driven campaign system, I thought. Just get the players to give you their character ideas and it'll be super easy to just weave them into a beautiful 'choose your own adventure' style campaign narrative, I thought. I'll just supply some macguffins, a couple stock bad guy archetypes, and colour in the backgrounds (so to speak) and the players will take care of the rest!
WRONG.
My awesome happy fun time ride of fantasy experienced its first bit of turbulence when my players sent me their character ideas... and not a single person mentioned being able to use a weapon. Don't get me wrong, the characters were all cool, unique ideas, complete with special talents, a hint of backstory, and chock-full of delicious gameplay-enhancing personality. But NO ONE even MENTIONED being able to use a gun, or having a history as a soldier or mercenary... Not even being able to throw a punch! These people were so far away from a Jayne or a Zoe that they came out the other side. Seriously, a petty thief, a spoiled city girl, a skinny nerd, and a freaking 10 year old, and then the one guy who kind of at least sounded like he SHOULD be able to hold his own specifically included in his description that he was non-violent. Le sigh.
So, Note to Self #1: Zelda, not World of Warcraft. I was going to need to focus on detective work and puzzle solving rather than 'random encounters' - or even being chased by mysteriously violent mysterious bad guys - to move the plot along.
I decided for the beginner session to focus more on putting all the disparate characters into a roughly believable setting and situation, one where I wouldn't need to handwave too much shared backstory among them but which would naturally funnel them all into running into each other naturally. So where would this weird bunch of miscreants all looking for a new ship end up? Well, on Beylix, of course, home of the DIY ship for cheap. Once I'd decided on that, it wasn't too much of a stretch to come up with an event that would be sure to draw our ragtag bunch together: a junker's hiring fair complete with ships for sale. Vera's Chop Shop was born.
In the end, I did handwave Molly and Todd knowing each other, and sort of "placed" Cale and Wren where I needed them to be, but all in all I'm still slightly proud of how this first session went. The players got to play their characters and make decisions, but because the 'prize' I'd invented (the chop shop job fair) was big enough, the decision to go there was still essentially theirs. They all came together from different areas, they all had a reason to interact with each other and test out their character-acting chops, and by the time the session ended we had 5 characters in the same place at the same time for roughly the same purpose - without me having to narrate to them what I needed them to do. Not bad for a first try, right?
It's a player-driven campaign system, I thought. Just get the players to give you their character ideas and it'll be super easy to just weave them into a beautiful 'choose your own adventure' style campaign narrative, I thought. I'll just supply some macguffins, a couple stock bad guy archetypes, and colour in the backgrounds (so to speak) and the players will take care of the rest!
WRONG.
My awesome happy fun time ride of fantasy experienced its first bit of turbulence when my players sent me their character ideas... and not a single person mentioned being able to use a weapon. Don't get me wrong, the characters were all cool, unique ideas, complete with special talents, a hint of backstory, and chock-full of delicious gameplay-enhancing personality. But NO ONE even MENTIONED being able to use a gun, or having a history as a soldier or mercenary... Not even being able to throw a punch! These people were so far away from a Jayne or a Zoe that they came out the other side. Seriously, a petty thief, a spoiled city girl, a skinny nerd, and a freaking 10 year old, and then the one guy who kind of at least sounded like he SHOULD be able to hold his own specifically included in his description that he was non-violent. Le sigh.
So, Note to Self #1: Zelda, not World of Warcraft. I was going to need to focus on detective work and puzzle solving rather than 'random encounters' - or even being chased by mysteriously violent mysterious bad guys - to move the plot along.
I decided for the beginner session to focus more on putting all the disparate characters into a roughly believable setting and situation, one where I wouldn't need to handwave too much shared backstory among them but which would naturally funnel them all into running into each other naturally. So where would this weird bunch of miscreants all looking for a new ship end up? Well, on Beylix, of course, home of the DIY ship for cheap. Once I'd decided on that, it wasn't too much of a stretch to come up with an event that would be sure to draw our ragtag bunch together: a junker's hiring fair complete with ships for sale. Vera's Chop Shop was born.
In the end, I did handwave Molly and Todd knowing each other, and sort of "placed" Cale and Wren where I needed them to be, but all in all I'm still slightly proud of how this first session went. The players got to play their characters and make decisions, but because the 'prize' I'd invented (the chop shop job fair) was big enough, the decision to go there was still essentially theirs. They all came together from different areas, they all had a reason to interact with each other and test out their character-acting chops, and by the time the session ended we had 5 characters in the same place at the same time for roughly the same purpose - without me having to narrate to them what I needed them to do. Not bad for a first try, right?
Saturday, February 7, 2015
#4 Serenity Campaign Session Player Notes
6 x 6 grid
Crashed in A1
Scanning for habitations
30 seconds per square
PROCESSING
C _ _ _ _ _
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Wren perception 6
C n _ _ _ _
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Wren perception 2
C n _ _ _ _
_ n _ _ _ _
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Wren perception 2
C n _ _ _ _
_ n _ _ _ _
_ _ _ 1 _ _ Row 3 grid 4 there is something odd. Burnt out building.
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Wren perception 6
C n _ _ _ _
_ n _ _ _ _
_ _ _ 1 _ _ Burnt out building.
_ _ _ 1 _ _ Non topographic bumps in terrain. 4 or 5. Long one to side.
_ _ _ _ _ _
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Wren perception 1
C n _ _ _ _
_ n _ _ _ _
_ _ _ 1 _ _ Burnt out building.
_ _ _ 1 _ _ Non topographic bumps in terrain. 4 or 5. Long one to side.
_ _ _ 1 _ _ Pretty bird!
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Wren perception 5
C n _ _ _ _
_ n _ _ _ _
_ _ _ 1 _ _ Burnt out building.
_ _ _ 1 _ _ Non topographic bumps in terrain. 4 or 5. Long one to side.
_ _ _ 1 _ _ Pretty bird!
_ _ _ _ _ 1 Old mud extraction pits. Very abandoned.
Kai checks on cow. It is fixed. Yay Earl.
Kai goes back to bridge. We found some burnt out buildings and underground settlement.
Wren, do you think you would be able to set me down somewhere near the settlement without hurting the ship or the people and valuable cargo inside it.
Kai suits up. Wren is in charge. Kai needs three hours then guns a blazing rescue.
WE'RE GOING TO LAND!
Wren rolls 5.
WE LAND!
Kai leaves the ship and heads off into the distance.
Half hour goes by. Hanging around the area. We see Kai arrive at the settlement. Met by people. Enters one of the things.
Another half hour.
Another hour.
Another hour.
Three hours gone by.
Molly rolls resistance 4, awake but not doing well. Groggy.
Todd rolls resistance 7, wakes up. Awake awake.
Todd rolls 1 vitality. Tries to sit up. Almost falls on face. Room is spinning. Curls up in sickness nest.
Molly and Todd are sick and out of it. Cale is messing with engines again.
Cale is out of it.
Over grid 4 4
C n _ _ _ _
_ n _ _ _ _
_ _ _ 1 _ _ Burnt out building.
_ _ _ 1 _ _ Non topographic bumps in terrain. 4 or 5. Long one to side.
_ _ _ 1 _ _ Pretty bird!
_ _ _ _ _ 1 Old mud extraction pits. Very abandoned.
Will rolls 6/6 perception.
Sees that it's an inhabited area. Trails. Long building to one side looks like a storage facility. Hoof marks. Smoke coming out of two of the five small buildings. Of the other three one doesn't have a chimney.
Wren over external announcement system: Attention all you people down *squeak* okay um *head in hands* I hate you all. No that's not part of it that's out of game out of character. *sniffle*
Sons of bitches speech.
I hate you all.
See movement. Guy walks out of building with chimney. Waves. Points at radio in hand.
Wren talks to guy on radio.
He says who is this.
Give us back Kai now!
Well shoot. Kai has decided she wants to stay with us. Pity she didn't tell you.
Goes back into place with chimney. Comes back out with two guys. Go to place with no chimney. Go inside. Come out holding Kai up by the arms, to the entrance. Put her back inside.
Molly rolls vitality 4/4. Molly is okay, groggy but otherwise fine.
Todd rolls vitality 2/4. Todd is using walls to stay upright but walking.
Molly rolls discipline/concentration 8/8.
Todd rolls survival/trapping 4/6. Free.
Cale comes up. Asks where Kai is.
They plan. Distraction, people in to negotiate while the others rescue Kai.
Electric Lockpick Stats:
1: Critical fail, lock breaks
2 - 8: Reroll.
Mechanical Lockpicks
Skill will be included in Covert - Open Locks
Will rolls 5/8 for electronic lockpick. Door opens.
Camp is at grid 44
C n _ _ _ _
_ n _ _ _ _
_ _ _ 1 _ _ Burnt out building.
_ _ _ 1 _ _ Non topographic bumps in terrain. 4 or 5. Long one to side.
_ _ _ 1 _ _ Pretty bird!
_ _ _ _ _ 1 Old mud extraction pits. Very abandoned.
We land at grid 6/5
C n _ _ _ _
_ n _ _ _ _
_ _ _ 1 _ _ Burnt out building.
_ _ _ 1 _ _ Non topographic bumps in terrain. 4 or 5. Long one to side.
_ _ _ 1 _ _ Pretty bird!
_ _ _ _ L 1 Old mud extraction pits. Very abandoned.
Into the armory! Will takes a rifle. Molly grabs some pistols. Molly grabs a bunch of grenades. Will takes a bunch of grenades as well.
Molly has
- 2 six shooter pistols, 18 rounds each
- 2 flash
- 2 frags
- 2 special nades
- radio
Will has
- sniper rifle, 48 rounds
- 4 frag
- 4 flash
- radio
Todd has the fedband scanner.
The teams go on their way. Team 1 Molly/Will head on foot to the camp. Team 2 Wren/Cale take the shuttle. Todd stays.
Will rolls 4/6 survival. Navigation is good.
25 minute mark team 1 reaches camp.
Will rolls 5/6
Molly rolls 6/6 perception
Bottom of blind in tree, scope in tree.
Todd hears sse 2.
Wills roll 4/6 guns. Misses, alerts camp. Guards come out, order them to drop weapons.
Team 2. Shuttle is leaving. They arrive. Wren is in charge.
Three or four guys out of chimney bunker nearby. Grab all the stuff. Shove down road towards chimney with talking guy.
Two redheaded guys, black haired thousand yard stare. The brothers. Two guards stay, two others leave. Five guards.
Molly rolls 3/8 acting to imitate Wren.
Molly/Will offer to trade cows for hostages. They accept the offer, take them to see Kai.
Molly/Will taken to room. Molly checks out the implements on table, look like torture stuff. Blades and restraints. She checks out some lumps. Lump #1 is soft decaying male body. Lump #2 bundle, nothing. Rags and bones. Lump #3 and #4, one is Kai.
Lump #4 is another male body, fresher, five days to a week. Well dressed, insignia of Higgins moon guys. Will searches him. Find an ID badge, it's our contact.
Team 2 is figuring out how to save the day. They decide to go talk to the magistrate.
Team 1, Kai is dead. We got some knives, the lamp, some oil. Plot: burn and stab.
Will rolls 5/6. Change clothes, swap stuff, set traps.
Guys come back, door opens out.
Molly rolls 5/8 on atack, puts knife into guy's throat.
Molly 5
Will rolls 12
#2 guard, not on fire, has rolled a 9 so as I grab gun he's batting out his fire.
Will rolls 4/6 on guns.
Will does 3 damage to guard.
Will gets shot. 5 damage. Health now 11.
Molly makes a break for it and stabs the guy shooting. Rolls 4/8. She hits him with utility knife, D2. Rolls 1/2, grazes him. Guy attacks her with butt of rifle. Molly rolls 3, guy misses.
Will rolls 8. Point blank shotgun shot to back of redhead's shot. WIN.
Molly is outside battling. Tries to run for it, slice guy as she runs past. Misses.
Will rolls 5/6 on hitting guy with empty rifle. Successful hit. Rolls 3 for damage.
Fire did 2 damage to guard.
Molly rolls agility + running 8 & 2. 10
She darts in, grabs the bags of weapons, and gets back outside. She heads South. Face to face wiht guard.
Red attacks with bit of metal. Hits Will, does 1 damage. Will now has 10 health.
Guard attacks Will, does 0 damage, no hit.
Will runs towards Molly. Closes door and locks it.
Wills rolls 2/6 strength. Hits guy in side of head running past to Molly.
Wills rolls 2/6 strength for range of grenade.
Molly rolls 1. Guard rolls 2. 2 damage to Molly.
We have escaped! Camp is blown up! Bad guys dead!
Molly rolls 10/10 on medical roll. Will is fine.
Everyone is fine. We take in bodies for bounty.
The ship is named: The Calamity.
We sell the cows for 200 credits. We now have 550 credits.
125 tons, fuel is 5 per ton.
3 ious in Kai's desk.
1st: Hera. Serenity Valley battle. Agricultural. Geographic coordinates. Jeremiah Benthwaithe. 800 credits. Date 2 years past.
2nd: Verbena. John Snow. 2100 credits. note 'parts'.
3rd: Cryptic. Osirus. Shaman. Line underneath.
Option 3 is chosen. To Osirus.
Going to stop in Verbena for IOU 2. Fuel up, head on to Osirus.
Notes taken by Paul Keely of www.paul-keely.com
Crashed in A1
Scanning for habitations
30 seconds per square
PROCESSING
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Wren perception 6
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Wren perception 2
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Wren perception 2
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_ _ _ 1 _ _ Row 3 grid 4 there is something odd. Burnt out building.
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Wren perception 6
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_ _ _ 1 _ _ Burnt out building.
_ _ _ 1 _ _ Non topographic bumps in terrain. 4 or 5. Long one to side.
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Wren perception 1
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_ _ _ 1 _ _ Burnt out building.
_ _ _ 1 _ _ Non topographic bumps in terrain. 4 or 5. Long one to side.
_ _ _ 1 _ _ Pretty bird!
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Wren perception 5
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_ _ _ 1 _ _ Burnt out building.
_ _ _ 1 _ _ Non topographic bumps in terrain. 4 or 5. Long one to side.
_ _ _ 1 _ _ Pretty bird!
_ _ _ _ _ 1 Old mud extraction pits. Very abandoned.
Kai checks on cow. It is fixed. Yay Earl.
Kai goes back to bridge. We found some burnt out buildings and underground settlement.
Wren, do you think you would be able to set me down somewhere near the settlement without hurting the ship or the people and valuable cargo inside it.
Kai suits up. Wren is in charge. Kai needs three hours then guns a blazing rescue.
WE'RE GOING TO LAND!
Wren rolls 5.
WE LAND!
Kai leaves the ship and heads off into the distance.
Half hour goes by. Hanging around the area. We see Kai arrive at the settlement. Met by people. Enters one of the things.
Another half hour.
Another hour.
Another hour.
Three hours gone by.
Molly rolls resistance 4, awake but not doing well. Groggy.
Todd rolls resistance 7, wakes up. Awake awake.
Todd rolls 1 vitality. Tries to sit up. Almost falls on face. Room is spinning. Curls up in sickness nest.
Molly and Todd are sick and out of it. Cale is messing with engines again.
Cale is out of it.
Over grid 4 4
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_ _ _ 1 _ _ Burnt out building.
_ _ _ 1 _ _ Non topographic bumps in terrain. 4 or 5. Long one to side.
_ _ _ 1 _ _ Pretty bird!
_ _ _ _ _ 1 Old mud extraction pits. Very abandoned.
Will rolls 6/6 perception.
Sees that it's an inhabited area. Trails. Long building to one side looks like a storage facility. Hoof marks. Smoke coming out of two of the five small buildings. Of the other three one doesn't have a chimney.
Wren over external announcement system: Attention all you people down *squeak* okay um *head in hands* I hate you all. No that's not part of it that's out of game out of character. *sniffle*
Sons of bitches speech.
I hate you all.
See movement. Guy walks out of building with chimney. Waves. Points at radio in hand.
Wren talks to guy on radio.
He says who is this.
Give us back Kai now!
Well shoot. Kai has decided she wants to stay with us. Pity she didn't tell you.
Goes back into place with chimney. Comes back out with two guys. Go to place with no chimney. Go inside. Come out holding Kai up by the arms, to the entrance. Put her back inside.
Molly rolls vitality 4/4. Molly is okay, groggy but otherwise fine.
Todd rolls vitality 2/4. Todd is using walls to stay upright but walking.
Molly rolls discipline/concentration 8/8.
Todd rolls survival/trapping 4/6. Free.
Cale comes up. Asks where Kai is.
They plan. Distraction, people in to negotiate while the others rescue Kai.
Electric Lockpick Stats:
1: Critical fail, lock breaks
2 - 8: Reroll.
Mechanical Lockpicks
Skill will be included in Covert - Open Locks
Will rolls 5/8 for electronic lockpick. Door opens.
Camp is at grid 44
C n _ _ _ _
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_ _ _ 1 _ _ Burnt out building.
_ _ _ 1 _ _ Non topographic bumps in terrain. 4 or 5. Long one to side.
_ _ _ 1 _ _ Pretty bird!
_ _ _ _ _ 1 Old mud extraction pits. Very abandoned.
We land at grid 6/5
C n _ _ _ _
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_ _ _ 1 _ _ Burnt out building.
_ _ _ 1 _ _ Non topographic bumps in terrain. 4 or 5. Long one to side.
_ _ _ 1 _ _ Pretty bird!
_ _ _ _ L 1 Old mud extraction pits. Very abandoned.
Into the armory! Will takes a rifle. Molly grabs some pistols. Molly grabs a bunch of grenades. Will takes a bunch of grenades as well.
Molly has
- 2 six shooter pistols, 18 rounds each
- 2 flash
- 2 frags
- 2 special nades
- radio
Will has
- sniper rifle, 48 rounds
- 4 frag
- 4 flash
- radio
Todd has the fedband scanner.
The teams go on their way. Team 1 Molly/Will head on foot to the camp. Team 2 Wren/Cale take the shuttle. Todd stays.
Will rolls 4/6 survival. Navigation is good.
25 minute mark team 1 reaches camp.
Will rolls 5/6
Molly rolls 6/6 perception
Bottom of blind in tree, scope in tree.
Todd hears sse 2.
Wills roll 4/6 guns. Misses, alerts camp. Guards come out, order them to drop weapons.
Team 2. Shuttle is leaving. They arrive. Wren is in charge.
Three or four guys out of chimney bunker nearby. Grab all the stuff. Shove down road towards chimney with talking guy.
Two redheaded guys, black haired thousand yard stare. The brothers. Two guards stay, two others leave. Five guards.
Molly rolls 3/8 acting to imitate Wren.
Molly/Will offer to trade cows for hostages. They accept the offer, take them to see Kai.
Molly/Will taken to room. Molly checks out the implements on table, look like torture stuff. Blades and restraints. She checks out some lumps. Lump #1 is soft decaying male body. Lump #2 bundle, nothing. Rags and bones. Lump #3 and #4, one is Kai.
Lump #4 is another male body, fresher, five days to a week. Well dressed, insignia of Higgins moon guys. Will searches him. Find an ID badge, it's our contact.
Team 2 is figuring out how to save the day. They decide to go talk to the magistrate.
Team 1, Kai is dead. We got some knives, the lamp, some oil. Plot: burn and stab.
Will rolls 5/6. Change clothes, swap stuff, set traps.
Guys come back, door opens out.
Molly rolls 5/8 on atack, puts knife into guy's throat.
Molly 5
Will rolls 12
#2 guard, not on fire, has rolled a 9 so as I grab gun he's batting out his fire.
Will rolls 4/6 on guns.
Will does 3 damage to guard.
Will gets shot. 5 damage. Health now 11.
Molly makes a break for it and stabs the guy shooting. Rolls 4/8. She hits him with utility knife, D2. Rolls 1/2, grazes him. Guy attacks her with butt of rifle. Molly rolls 3, guy misses.
Will rolls 8. Point blank shotgun shot to back of redhead's shot. WIN.
Molly is outside battling. Tries to run for it, slice guy as she runs past. Misses.
Will rolls 5/6 on hitting guy with empty rifle. Successful hit. Rolls 3 for damage.
Fire did 2 damage to guard.
Molly rolls agility + running 8 & 2. 10
She darts in, grabs the bags of weapons, and gets back outside. She heads South. Face to face wiht guard.
Red attacks with bit of metal. Hits Will, does 1 damage. Will now has 10 health.
Guard attacks Will, does 0 damage, no hit.
Will runs towards Molly. Closes door and locks it.
Wills rolls 2/6 strength. Hits guy in side of head running past to Molly.
Wills rolls 2/6 strength for range of grenade.
Molly rolls 1. Guard rolls 2. 2 damage to Molly.
We have escaped! Camp is blown up! Bad guys dead!
Molly rolls 10/10 on medical roll. Will is fine.
Everyone is fine. We take in bodies for bounty.
The ship is named: The Calamity.
We sell the cows for 200 credits. We now have 550 credits.
125 tons, fuel is 5 per ton.
3 ious in Kai's desk.
1st: Hera. Serenity Valley battle. Agricultural. Geographic coordinates. Jeremiah Benthwaithe. 800 credits. Date 2 years past.
2nd: Verbena. John Snow. 2100 credits. note 'parts'.
3rd: Cryptic. Osirus. Shaman. Line underneath.
Option 3 is chosen. To Osirus.
Going to stop in Verbena for IOU 2. Fuel up, head on to Osirus.
Notes taken by Paul Keely of www.paul-keely.com
#3 Serenity Campaign Session Player Notes
On the ship.
Approaching moon. 45 mins.
Wren rolls 6/10 piloting
Minor whatevers
Cale roll for following orders: 3/4. Follows orders.
Molly rolls 4/8 on medical knowledge for salvaging stuff from old med bay. Salvages some stuff that will work.
Todd rolls 4/4, plants are flourishing.
WE LANDED
Kai near Wren. Wren rolls for alertness. Rolls 4/8. Aware of Kai talking/hagging but not aware of much else.
Todd alertness 9/10
Hears that Kai is exchanging info/instructions with someone on the ground. Not landing on the main landing site. Going somewhere secondary or tertiary.
Kai asking for someone. Angry they aren't available.
Kai comes over intercom. Needs everyone down to storage area to offload cows. First Will and Cale go meet Kai outside bridge. Todd, go to your plant room and lock the door.
Wren needs to go down to the cargo bay. But then come back on ship. Not happy to move cows.
Cale gets a gun, Will gets a gun. Not very good with them, gets a hunting grade rifle. Kai takes a shotgun.
Heads to cargo bay. Wren is sad.
Kai opens second door and stops. Holds up hand "stop" and goes outside.
Kai comes back in. Angry. Upset.
Will, come here. Will and Kai go outside. Meet a guy.
Will rolls 6/6 on influence negotiating with contact. Kai strongarms him.
Cale and Molly pop out and interject. Kai is unhappy they came out.
The guy runs off.
Everyone gets back on the ship. Kai is at wits end.
Cale and Molly go with Kai. Wren is told to fly ship to location in 90 minutes.
Todd and Will are left on the ship.
FAST FORWARD!!!!!!!1!
The trio go to the tavern. Inhabitants: Bartender, clean looking dude at bar, couple groups of mudders (one more noisy).
Kai goes to happy mudders. Molly goes to bartender.
The mudders send them off to kill some people.
Everyone's back on the ship. Heading off somewhere else.
Wren rolls 2/10.
WE FUCKING CRASH
Todd rols 2/4
Will rolls 6/6
Molly rolls 1. Well shit.
Kai rolls okay
Molly was in the infirmary. Nasty headwound.
MOLLY DAMAGE: 6 - HEALTH 4
TODD DAMAGE: 3 - HEALTH 5
Kai asks everyone.
Todd rols D6: 6. Head wound.
Molly rolls D6: 4. Right arm wound.
Molly rolls willpower. Calm and awake.
Cale brings Todd in, they check him over. Patch him up.
Cat rolls for cows. One of the cows has a broken leg. But the rest are okay. Hurt cow is named Earl.
Cat rolls for Kai not stabbing wren. Barely survives.
Molly willpower roll. Rolls 6. In medical zone.
Will and Kai fix Molly's broken arm. Wren faints.
We're being shot at.
We go to leave. God Wren is flying again.
Everyone straps in.
Wren rolls for piloting. 8/10. Gets us out of mud. Nose heavy because of mud but we lift off. Back in orbit.
END
Notes taken by Paul Keely of www.paul-keely.com
Approaching moon. 45 mins.
Wren rolls 6/10 piloting
Minor whatevers
Cale roll for following orders: 3/4. Follows orders.
Molly rolls 4/8 on medical knowledge for salvaging stuff from old med bay. Salvages some stuff that will work.
Todd rolls 4/4, plants are flourishing.
WE LANDED
Kai near Wren. Wren rolls for alertness. Rolls 4/8. Aware of Kai talking/hagging but not aware of much else.
Todd alertness 9/10
Hears that Kai is exchanging info/instructions with someone on the ground. Not landing on the main landing site. Going somewhere secondary or tertiary.
Kai asking for someone. Angry they aren't available.
Kai comes over intercom. Needs everyone down to storage area to offload cows. First Will and Cale go meet Kai outside bridge. Todd, go to your plant room and lock the door.
Wren needs to go down to the cargo bay. But then come back on ship. Not happy to move cows.
Cale gets a gun, Will gets a gun. Not very good with them, gets a hunting grade rifle. Kai takes a shotgun.
Heads to cargo bay. Wren is sad.
Kai opens second door and stops. Holds up hand "stop" and goes outside.
Kai comes back in. Angry. Upset.
Will, come here. Will and Kai go outside. Meet a guy.
Will rolls 6/6 on influence negotiating with contact. Kai strongarms him.
Cale and Molly pop out and interject. Kai is unhappy they came out.
The guy runs off.
Everyone gets back on the ship. Kai is at wits end.
Cale and Molly go with Kai. Wren is told to fly ship to location in 90 minutes.
Todd and Will are left on the ship.
FAST FORWARD!!!!!!!1!
The trio go to the tavern. Inhabitants: Bartender, clean looking dude at bar, couple groups of mudders (one more noisy).
Kai goes to happy mudders. Molly goes to bartender.
The mudders send them off to kill some people.
Everyone's back on the ship. Heading off somewhere else.
Wren rolls 2/10.
WE FUCKING CRASH
Todd rols 2/4
Will rolls 6/6
Molly rolls 1. Well shit.
Kai rolls okay
Molly was in the infirmary. Nasty headwound.
MOLLY DAMAGE: 6 - HEALTH 4
TODD DAMAGE: 3 - HEALTH 5
Kai asks everyone.
Todd rols D6: 6. Head wound.
Molly rolls D6: 4. Right arm wound.
Molly rolls willpower. Calm and awake.
Cale brings Todd in, they check him over. Patch him up.
Cat rolls for cows. One of the cows has a broken leg. But the rest are okay. Hurt cow is named Earl.
Cat rolls for Kai not stabbing wren. Barely survives.
Molly willpower roll. Rolls 6. In medical zone.
Will and Kai fix Molly's broken arm. Wren faints.
We're being shot at.
We go to leave. God Wren is flying again.
Everyone straps in.
Wren rolls for piloting. 8/10. Gets us out of mud. Nose heavy because of mud but we lift off. Back in orbit.
END
Notes taken by Paul Keely of www.paul-keely.com
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