Topic: Angry Red Planet - Totally And Completely Dead (Read 48104 times)

Aqizzar · « **on:** December 26, 2008, 08:43:58 am »

Because we don't enough active forum games yet, I'm starting one. Nothing complicated, but a thematic change-up anyway.

Pitch
It's the year 20XX, and the third manned mission to Mars is underway. The crew of dozens with plenty of equipment was supposed to establish a semi-permanent outpost. Then everything went pear-shaped on the final approach orbit. Catastrophic hull failure and all that. Everyone who didn't instantly decompress stowed themselves in life boats, environment suits, cargo pods, and anything else that could make an unplanned, unguided reentry. The lucky few astronauts who made it have emerged, on the most inhospitable land in which men have ever been lost.

You are one of those astronauts. Your foes are the elements, scarcity, and psychosis; and when the latter becomes too much, your fellow castaways as well. Find the others, strike out on your own, survive indefinitely, return to Earth – your goal is your own, but it'll almost certainly involve staying alive. So, can you survive the Angry Red Planet?

Game And Mechanics
Think of this as an RTD-like, because it'll work about the same way. (I'll be using a slightly more complicated GURPS-like system, but y'all don't need to worry about it.) In general, each action will be a single activity, whatever you can think to do really. Because of the situation, turns will vary in length, sometimes hours, sometimes days, sometimes moments. Every turn, you'll be allowed a certain amount of time to act in. Success is of course random, modified by anything I think it should be.

Note that players will probably get split into groups, and turn length is mostly dependent on immediate concerns. Which means players in peril (like suffocation) can slow down players who would otherwise be cruising. I'll be emphasizing the 'Master' side of Game Master to keep things moving, but be ready for the occasional drag.

Players who go inactive will be dealt with specially. See Stress and Insanity in the next post.

Turns will be as often as I can make them, probably two or three a week, depending on my workload and the number of players. Prodding is neither encouraged nor discouraged.

Players
~~Come one, come all. I'm not limiting the roster right now, though I will if I have to. People are free to join after start – you'll be added already in progress where and when possible.~~ NASA is now imposing a hiring freeze. If you're still interested, PM me, and we'll discuss possibilities on working you in.

Character wise, I'm not enforcing any rules of sensibility or theme. I'm also in charge, so be an idiot at your own peril. Making a character-

1)You need a name; that's all I actually require, and forum handle is fine. Other astronaut stuff like personality traits, nationality, gender, would all be cool too. I'll try to incorporate personal things in character interaction, and if need be I'll infer what I can from your own posting style.

2)Every character gets two(2) proficiencies – skills and ability and so forth. They can be anything that a astronaut on a mission to Mars might have – geology, vehicle operation, electric repair, botany, psychology, surgical training, nuclear physics, whatever you can think of. Remember, just two, but more might be learned in play.

3)Describe how you survived the shipwrecking. It can be as simple as one sentence, and it doesn't have to be rigidly plausible, but detail will help me out. I will not describe the ship – you'll just have to reason your way to a method.

There will be NPCs as well, in form of other crew members. They have all the same powers, needs, and vulnerabilities as PCs, with the added bonus that I control their actions on top of everyone's success rolls. I'll mostly make them to fill critical gaps in the available skillset, but they will not be a Deus Ex Machina. If another player wants to join later, they can choose to take over an NPC instead of horning in a new person – bring it up with me.

The Groups
When the game begins, characters will be scattered as randomly as I allow across part of Mars, along with bits and pieces of vital wreckage. There is no pressure to gather together beyond the obvious problems. As you can imagine, cooperation and division of resources will be necessary to survival. I encourage you to hash out plans and responsibilities among yourselves.

Endgame
There is no specific goal, but given the circumstances, there's only a few end states the Martian Expedition can reach. Maybe you'll jury rig a way into orbit and off of Mars to escape. Or set yourselves up to survive indefinitely and await rescue (hopefully). Or everyone might just die. At any rate, I promise as GM to ride this to the end as best I can. With such obvious endings in mind, this will be a finite game, but I'll do my best to keep it interesting.

Aqizzar · « **Reply #1 on:** December 26, 2008, 08:44:20 am »

Life on Mars
As terrestrial environments go, you couldn't get much more hostile than Mars. The atmosphere is an ever present danger.

The air itself is uselessly thin and primarily carbon dioxide. This far from the Sun, the surface is only slightly warmer than open space. However, the air is present enough to have weather effects – being so thin, it heats and cools rapidly. Powerful wind storms and cyclones, though rare, can appear without warning.

Mars lacks a molten iron core, and by extension a magnetic field. The upper atmosphere is constantly bombarded by cosmic rays and solar wind, baking the surface with particle radiation. Some spaceship-grade aluminum, or a lot of rock, is sufficient to protect from too many rads, but radiation will be a constant threat. Modern medicine can help, and plenty was brought, but there's only so much to go around.

The one comfort of Mars is the lighter gravity – only 2/5 that of Earth. This makes heavy work and daily life easier, yet is still enough gravity to avoid the problems associated with microgravity like anemia and bone loss. However, muscles will still atrophy, so try to exercise when you can.

Resources
In the universe's grand tradition of black humor, the things most necessary to survival are often the hardest to get. You will need these things-

1)Air – Self-explanatory. Without it you've got a couple minutes at most to find more or make it count. Any lack of air will be a critical situation, and there is no allowance for margin. If you have the materials and know-how, air supply is not too hard to stretch, but permanent replenishment is a job for plants or serious machinery.

2)Water – The average human needs a liter of water a day, more with strenuous work, a little less if you veg out. You can only live for a few days without water at all, and can only stretch it for so long. Despite appearances, water is difficult to hold onto. Aeration and humidity make 100% reclamation effectively impossible, so even with the best recycling water is always finite. NASA has long believed that large quantities of water lay under Mars' CO2 icecaps. Part of this mission was to test that theory.

3)Food – Months of already subsisting on space-food hardens the constitution to scarcity, but hunger is hunger. Depending on how active you are, a human can go weeks without actually eating anything. However, even a day without food is stressful and critically impairing. As the body continues to consume itself, though you might live for a while, you'll have serious health problems. Space-food keeps forever and there's plenty of it (greenhouses were only planned to prove the point), but you never know what you'll actually have on hand.

4)Space – It's easy to forget that you need a place to keep yourself as well as your stuff. As astronauts have proven, a human could probably spend a lifetime in a closet. However, constant isolation, or the inverse and a lack of personal space, is a serious stress inducer, and excaberates all other problems. Lack of mobility is also unhealthy and impairing. And if you try staying in a pressure suit for days on end, you're certain to wind up with Athlete's Body, if not Trench Body.

Resources are described in terms of man/days, and where applicable reclamation rate. Man/days are medically recommended amounts – except for air, these can be stretched for a while as described, with attendant health and stress problems. When turns are moments or minutes in length, only air is important. Turns will only become days when everyone has enough resources to last that long.

On the subject of recycling, it's worth mentioning that you'll eventually be knee deep in jars of wee and bags of poo. As anyone with an inkling of space travel knows, you'll have to bite the bullet and do something with all of it. I'll try not to dwell on the details, but recycling 'waste' is as important as anything, will have to be dealt with.

Stress and Insanity
You're stranded in a toolshed millions of miles from help or home, either as alone with your thoughts as its physically possible to be, or stuck shoulder to shoulder with the same few cocksuckers you've been staring at for six months. Every bite of food, drop of water, and breath of air is recycled and deathly finite. The walls are made from the wreckage of the doomed ship that brought you here, and the wind rattles them louder every day.

Characters here are not the flippantly mechanical, zero sum opportunists of Adventure Mode. Mental stress is a very real and powerful problem, and could cripple the whole mission in moments if left ignored.

Just about anything will build stress – strenuous work, anxious waiting, lack of food and water, and any unexpected occurrences. Interpersonal relationships are especially wearing, as dealing with the same on-edge castaways day in and out is a daunting prospect, while isolation can drive men mad. Paradoxically, reducing stress is a crapshoot. A long day's work may be grating, or may inspire a sense of accomplishment. Taking the day off may take a load off too, or you might just fidget as you contemplate every moment resting being a moment not guaranteeing survival. Because of the myriad factors and variable human nature, stress will be the most dice dependent part of the game, and likely the most problematic.

As a character's stress level builds, bad things will happen. First, actions will be harder to succeed at, and personal relationships will suffer. Later, perception and critical thinking will be impaired, and I'll start giving erroneous information. Eventually, behavior becomes erratic, and I'll override actions with bouts of minor insanity.

It bears mention here that the characters of players who go inactive will succumb to Space Madness. They will continue on some normal actions, but become increasingly useless and possibly dangerous. If nothing else, they're sucking up air and not helping, and it will be up to the players to decide if offing the poor bastard is in the best interest of the sane survivors. This group consideration of course applies to active characters as well. While there is no external cure for Space Madness, if the inactive player returns, their character will revert to sanity, with all attendant consequences of their blanked out moments.

Hell and Other People
I've alluded that talking to other people will be important, and I shouldn't have to explain how or why. Suffice to say you're all in this together, but also have your own ideas. Communicate and form relationships and groups as you like, and I will take such activity into account for results. If no such action is taken and a character is with a group, I'll try to improv such activity and relationship webs. If your character does things you don't want to do, chalk it up to Space Madness and take matters into your own hands. This is not mandatory RPing, but you are part of a larger activity here.

Between stress-induced actions and freehanded personalities, it might sound like I'm going to railroad players. This is basically true. But nothing is stopping you from acting all this out yourself. If a player wants to throw a tantrum or make their own friends and enemies, you have my encouragement, and I will honor and account for such actions. Remember, I'm the GM, and I will look favorably on players who do my work for me.

Aqizzar · « **Reply #2 on:** December 26, 2008, 08:44:37 am »

Spoiler: Map of Mars (click to show/hide)

Date: 0 Day, Touchdown
Elapsed Time: 04 Hours / 00 Minutes

The Crew Roster

Spoiler: Squeegy (Squeegy) (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Long John Silver (Pandar) (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Sean Mirrsen (Sean Mirrsen) (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Vladimir Sephanovich (Frelock) (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Kallev White (sonerohi) (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Faris Saqr (IWM) (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Simon Simmons (deadly) (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Serg Belov (Serg) (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Pitor Zymbalski (PTTG) (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Rosetta Carnegie (Nilocy) (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Captain Strife (Strife26) (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Harry Samper (Duke 2.0) (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: “Trippy” Sergio (Sir_Geo) (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Roy Boucher (Grek) (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Qwerty (Qwerty) (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Louise Asker (Kashyyk) (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Andrzej Mosciski (Gantolandon) (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Dyane Ariello (Navian) (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Tetsuo Uchio (NPC) (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Augusta Maciel (NPC) (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Goeffrey Mutumbu (NPC) (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Vernon Wells (NPC) (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Shideh Saberi (NPC) (click to show/hide)

The Honored Dead

Dietrich Sacharov (Asheron) – Suffocation/Space Madness

Locations

Spoiler: Lifeboat (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Da Fridge (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Exploratory Lab (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Hydroponic Lab (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Crashed Command Bridge (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Biology Lab (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Crashed Engineering Section (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Crashed Construction Pod (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Crashed Vehicle Bay 1 (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Crashed Vehicle Bay 2 (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Observation Module (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Crashed Medical Pod (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Crashed Reactor Module (click to show/hide)

Technology

Spoiler: The Suits (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: The Auger (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Earthmover (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Large Rover (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Small Rover (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Exploration Drone (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: The Megabot (click to show/hide)

qwertyuiopas · « **Reply #3 on:** December 26, 2008, 10:50:52 am »

Sounds promising.
Any specifics on construction, advanced chemestry and mechanics?
Starting resources?
Average group size?

Squeegy · « **Reply #4 on:** December 26, 2008, 11:00:49 am »

(Nick)name: Squeegy
Nationality: USA
Gender: Male
Proficiencies: Agriculture, mechanics
Survival: Hid in ~~nuclear bunker~~emergency pod, accidentally hit launch button and crash landed.

Aqizzar · « **Reply #5 on:** December 26, 2008, 06:01:55 pm »

Quote from: qwertyuiopas on December 26, 2008, 10:50:52 am

Any specifics on construction, advanced chemestry and mechanics?
Starting resources?
Average group size?

Nope, nope, and nope. As a rule of thumb: However many active people there are, the original crew was about twice as large, and the ship was big enough for everyone. It's the sort of near-future prototype spaceship geeks wank to in Popular Science, with all the simultaneous budget cuts and overruns, blind management, and bureaucratic grandstanding associated with cooperative international space missions. Other than that, I'm making it up on the fly so I can tailor details to maintain interest.

Speaking of interest, two responses after an eight hour sleep is a little surprising. Gotta be the two giant walls of text. S'all cool.

Pandarsenic · « **Reply #6 on:** December 26, 2008, 06:12:41 pm »

(Nick)name: Long John Silver
Nationality: British
Gender: Male
Proficiencies: Electronics, Chemistry
Survival: Long John Silver hid himself in the fridge, which protected him from the EVERYTHING.

Sean Mirrsen · « **Reply #7 on:** December 26, 2008, 06:55:29 pm »

I'm not sure I can do this... I'm not sure I'm sociable enough.

Well alright, it seems to have potential for being interesting, at the very least I'll participate.

Name: Sean Mirrsen.
Nationality: Russkiy.

Proficiencies: Heavy Engineering, Electronics.
Survival: Was doing maintenance in the starboard research section when it fell off. Managed to trigger the parachutes of the dozen surface research drones they had packed in to soften the fall. (I wonder if that's plausible enough? Sure beats a lead-lined fridge..)

Frelock · « **Reply #8 on:** December 26, 2008, 07:03:30 pm »

I'll hop on!

Name: Vladimir Sephanovich (Vlad for short)
Nationality: Lithuanian
Gender: Male
Proficiencies: Geology, Botany
Survival: Vlad was the leader of the Botanic team, and as such was working in the hydroponics lab when the explosive decompression alarm sounded. The lab sealed itself off, and when it was clear that there was no saving the rest of the ship, Vlad jettisoned the capsule. Though the capsule was meant to enter the atmosphere with help from other sections, it did well enough on its own, with no major leaks or breaks in the hull. However, the insides were quite shaken up, and everything was strewn about. There's a back-up generator for the capsule, but there's no telling how long it will last. Finally, the capsule also has few surface-suits (cleared for the surface of Mars, but not deep space) available, but no vehicle transportation, and no word on how far away the nearest other survivors are.

(If that's too much, I can cut back)

Aqizzar · « **Reply #9 on:** December 26, 2008, 07:24:21 pm »

I'm not endorsing players to make up what they have on hand, but I'll go with it. Less work for me.

Also, riding reentry in a fridge is perfectly acceptable. Long John Silver is now stuck on the surface of Mars in refrigerator. I hope for your sake that someone else lands nearby.

Asheron · « **Reply #10 on:** December 26, 2008, 07:27:17 pm »

Woohoo!

Name: Dietrich Sacharov
Nationality: French ( I assume this automatically means I have a white flag in my pocket )
Gender: Male
Proficiencies: Mathematics, programming
Survival: Dietrich was in his quarters when the ship began to fall apart. He quickly jumped in to the SEU ( Security and Evacuation Unit ) he had requested to be put in to his quarters ( Dietrich is a bit paranoid ). As his quarters disintegrated, his SEU plummeted down to the surface of Mars. Notice that next to a space suit ( which Dietrich himself had putted in there ), there is absolutely nothing in the SEU, which is basically a large unbreakable space-to-planet-plummeting-proof metal cube with a door.

sonerohi · « **Reply #11 on:** December 26, 2008, 07:30:30 pm »

Name: Kallev White
Nationality: USA
Male
Is trained in Engineering and Navigations.
He and the other pilots were trying to punch in coordinates and vectors that would allow them to crash through the atmosphere safely enough if the engines were to fail. A minor explosion occured on the hatchway connecting the pilot's cabin to the rest of the ship. The doors automatically shut and bolted, and one of the other pilots smashed the eject button. All he has left is a pile of broken up rubble ,what he assumes to be the corpses of the other pilots, and what appears to be a refrigerator sticking up through the wreckage.

IndonesiaWarMinister · « **Reply #12 on:** December 26, 2008, 07:51:47 pm »

Name: Faris Saqr
Nationality: Indonesia
Gender: Male
Proficiencies: Robotics/Mechanics, Botany
Survival: Faris was repairing a machine when the alarm set off. He hide in the emergency pod, and Squeegy crash-landed the pod

(huh, I'm with Squeegy now?)

deadlycairn · « **Reply #13 on:** December 26, 2008, 08:01:54 pm »

Name: Simon Simmons
Nationality: New Zealander
Gender: Male
Proficiencies: Veterinarian and Surgical Training
Bio: Only just managing to make it into the mission, Simon was designated the task of looking after and caring for the experimental animals. Already wearing a spacesuit as an overzealous method of protecting himself from the more venemous animals, he was thrown into the insect terrarrium (crushing some very important specimens) when an explosion went off nearby, and had just enough time to shut the open lid and brace himself before he plummeted onto Mars, thanking the heavens he'd requested only the largest, strongest (and most expensive) terrarriums for the specimens.

Tell me if I'm being too crazy, although I am trying to be the most useless astronaut around

Serg · « **Reply #14 on:** December 26, 2008, 08:15:23 pm »

(No character limit RTD? Sounds like fun.)

Name: Serg Belov
Gender: Female (If I was a male, that spaceship would've been one giant sausage-fest.)
Nationality: Russian (With a stereotypical accent too.)
Proficiencies: Botany and Electrical Repair.

Situation: Underneath the hull of the ship, Serg Belov was repairing a minor electrical malfunction that, at the time, was only a minor inconvenience for her plants, something with the air circulation failing to reprocess the oxygen. She just had to actually make sure it was pumping and connected first. That is, 'till something aboard the ship caused a loud rumbling, and when she got back topside a large fire was sweeping across her specimens and even some of the vital oxygen producing plants were aflame. Quickly, she grabbed some of the pressurized ones and a few tools, hit the fire alarm, (which didn't react,) and hopped into a safety pod. The subsequent explosion forced her to make the decision to disembark, which plummeted her towards the planet.

(I'm bad at these things, I don't want to make it seem like "OHGOD GRAB EVERYTHING" and I don't want to be on the planet like "OHGOD NOTHING.")

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Author Topic: Angry Red Planet - Totally And Completely Dead (Read 48104 times)

Aqizzar

Angry Red Planet - Totally And Completely Dead

Aqizzar

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Aqizzar

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qwertyuiopas

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Squeegy

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Aqizzar

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Pandarsenic

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Sean Mirrsen

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Frelock

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Aqizzar

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Asheron

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sonerohi

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IndonesiaWarMinister

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deadlycairn

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Serg

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