Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

Any D&D/D20

Shadowrun

World of Darkness

Palladium

Other (feel free to post about it)

[Trekkin]

Space campaign? Isn’t that what Spelljammer is?

Spelljammer is quite literally D&D in (brazenly aphysical) space, though. It does not feel much like a space opera, and is built for 2e, I believe.

[Mesa]

Again, I don't want to run D&D, SJ or otherwise (nevermind the fact that it's a very strange mix of science fantasy, rarther than proper sci-fi or space opera).
I'm aware that the system maybe doesn't matter as much as the setting, but I feel like I'd have to homebrew and modify D&D a lot more than is necessary if I wanted to run a space campaign in it (Spacejammer or not), and I believe it's important to use a system that the group is at least moderately comfortable with.
The rules might be 'just' the skeleton, but it's probably a good idea if the skeleton fits the body it's put inside of and can actually support it, to continue that analogy. :p

_{(And yes, Spelljammer hasn't really been a thing since 2e (only had brief mentions in 3.x and 4e), though there's rumors of it coming back in 5e, if WotC would be so kind as to release a sourcebook that doesn't concern itself with a tiny-ass region of Forgotten Realms in the form of the Sword Coast, or Barovia on the Demiplane of Dread...)}

[Mephisto]

I love that idea. It sounds almost like another "west marches" Star Trek game I read about, albeit with a few differences.

The one I read, paraphrased:

You're on the USS Fubar, on a mission to explore the unknown. Every week, your ship encounters a new planet that needs to be explored. Maybe it's got unexplained phlebotinum waves, maybe there's a distress signal, maybe ~handwavy technobabble~.

Players decide if they want to explore. Those who say yes by the cutoff point go on the mission. They get full credit and whatever rewards would be appropriate. No one says yes? It's handled "offscreen", the bare minimum of info is phoned home to Starfleet Command, and no one gets anything.

Next week, new location with new problems.

[Mesa]

The planned framework/structure for this is meant to be along the lines of this:

In the aftermath of the war with the extragalactic invaders, a good chunk of the Milky Way is in disrepair and chaos. Pirates run rampant, there's wrecked ships and stations everywhere, contact with entire worlds and colonies has been lost. You were sent to this war-ridden region of the galaxy to cleanse it of pirates and leftover invaders alike, rebuild it, and bolster its defenses, to make sure it does not suffer the same fate again.


Each week, a number of distress signals will be broad from across the region to your home station. Some will have pretty clear goals/requirements, others will be more vague and require more investigation. Difficulty might vary, and not every mission might be equally easy to handle - but more difficult emergencies will yield greater rewards.


You can choose to respond to them and send a number of people on the mission, or let some other group handle the situation instead. You may or may not also end up encountering said groups on your missions, choosing to either ally with them or compete, gaining new friends and enemies this way.

Group size for any given mission might be anywhere between 2 and 6 (as a rough guideline, at least). I'd like to do this purely via text, so having a mic is not a requirement. I can handle running it at (almost) any time of the day/week, though I live in Europe (CEST/UTC+2), and am happy to take co-GM (or multiple) on board if there's enough interest and the group becomes large enough.

[scriver]

Yay Europe is good for Europeans like me

[Trekkin]

Open Legend would be good for something like this, although I should probably also mention something vaguely Powered by the Apocalypse if you want something very rules-light and flexible and free. Or FATE, I suppose, if you'd rather avoid the PbtA cultists (and I wouldn't blame you.)

[Enemy post]

Playing Pathfinder, I recently killed one of my own party members for the first time.

We were fighting a cult, and had decided to try pushing further into the dungeon despite the spellcasters being drained. We enter a room and get into a fight with six orcs. They aren't all that hard to beat, despite hitting pretty hard. A tougher rogue joins the fight, but just manages to hurt the monk/sorcerer/fighter multiclass badly before getting taken down. However, everything went wrong once the real boss fight showed up. It's this barbarian with a powerful swordlike weapon and a bunch of explosives. Our barbarian tries to fight her head on and gets stomped into the ground despite the bard reviving him once. Her grenades knock me down, but I'm playing as a gunslinger with this trait to keep me conscious. The multiclass character also tries to fight her, but she outright kills him. The bard tries his last trick and just misses the sleight of hand check to trade out the barbarian's weapon for an oboe. At this point, a TPK looks inevitable. I'm at -7, our barbarian's bleeding out, the monk is dead, and the bard is about to be in a melee fight with the cultist barbarian, who's at about %50 HP. I'm trying to think of some way out of this, but I can only find one option.

I shot our barbarian dead, proclaiming my loyalty to the cult. Next session, the bard and I will have infiltrated the cult and ally with some prisoners to try and regain the upper hand.

[pikachu17]

Why could the bard not try diplomancy?

[Enemy post]

We hadn't thought of that, or maybe he just thought it wouldn't work in the context of the fight.

[pikachu17]

Just say "Hey, dude, if you leave the cult and join us, we will give you lots of money, which we don't currently have".
Of course, I know little about the situation, and nothing about the bard, so maybe that would not work in the context of the fight, but shouldn't you have an idea of why it would not work in the context of the fight?

[smjjames]

Or perhaps rested so that the casters can 'recharge'? Then again, if the barbarian, who I assume is supposed to be the parties tank, got stomped hard, it's not clear that having fully 'charged' casters would have made a difference.

[Enemy post]

Honestly, you're probably right. That would have been the better call, at least better than trying to secretly cause the barbarian to wield an oboe.

And if it didn't work, I could still always shoot my friend.

We had voted on if we should stop and rest, only the bard voted for resting. That probably would have made the difference, since at full strength the bard is good at shutting down people with poor will saves.

[smjjames]

The real boss showing up unannounced could have been a factor since it sounds like you guys didn't expect the boss to show up yet and you did say that the six orcs you ran into wouldn't have been a problem with drained casters.

This is all in hindsight of course.

[Yoink]

Haha, that was an entertaining read. Sounds like a fun session to begin a fun campaign! Your character really needs to learn to hold his liquor... and his hallucinogens... and his secrets.
ICly, that is. OOCly all those poor rolls relating to substances sound like they were perfect for the character archetype.

[NullForceOmega]

And for my next amazing prestidigitation, I shall place these Jedi... in a jaeger!

SO, I have this horrible idea for a campaign, Imma do Pacific Rim meets Star Wars.  It's gonna be awesome.  Really.  I promise this time.