Rocketship Empires - Brain Storming

Introductory Note:

On 15 November, 1920 the behemoth flagship  Fayoo'tak'tal of the Martian Hegemony descended slowly and in an impossible silence out of the clouds to hover a few feet above the gray waves of Lake Geneva, Switzerland.

The golden skinned Paxt Pactaxi, brother of the Emperor of Mars stepped onto the surface of the water, his cloven feet kept dry through the presence of a barely visible walk of force shielding.  With a deep throat click and a buzz of satisfaction Paxt Pactaxi gestured his delegation forward and walked the few hundred yards to the grounds of the newly formed League of Nations.  That was the day that "the infinite complacency of men, came to abrupt end," as Orson Wells dryly observed some years later.  "That November morning marked the ending of the familiar world where men gave little regard to the stars or even the planets within our own solar system as a source of danger, the thought of a power dwelling beyond the firmament regarded as fanciful or an absurdity."

The Martians walked into the first full meeting of the League of Nations and every head turned.  The small delegation of impossibly thin and tall other world diplomats moved gracefully to the front and spoke clearly and deliberately in Mandarin that they hoped to join the League as the first peaceful ally of the gathered governments of the planet Earth.

Rocketship Empires 2036

One possible variation is the Rocketship Empires universe far enough into the future that the setting becomes just slightly more believably science fiction in orientation.  In this era the Martians have all but died out completely and utterly.  The strength of that once great and ancient alien race was fast fading when they reached down to planet Earth and helped mankind into the stars.  Now the varied human governments in somewhat evolved forms must face their destiny as the inheritors of Martian territory, worlds and technologies on their own.  The great danger at the edge of what was once Hegemony space and is now Terran space must be confronted by men but so must at least a dozen alien civilizations.

This version of the setting could still come with a heavy amount of 1930's and 1940's pulp themes, music and styles but also mixed in with later era influences.  What would the British Star Empire look like if it continued to expand?  Maybe the Federal Territories and the old United States is completely swallowed up by corporations.  Possibly the humans are so busy exploring and expanding, fighting and surviving in space that WWII in space never happens or at least it is delayed until a much later time allowing for things to evolve into a different state altogether.

Just pondering and thinking out loud while I continue to work on scratch paper here on rules and such.  Its possible I might decide to not present a Rocketship Empires 2036 version of the setting.  I will have to really think about it and how it would work and look.

Pilot's Chair Abstract

I have been thinking about how starship combat and operations is handled in the new RSE game.  Here are my initial thoughts.

Each starship has a sort of character sheet for each of its crew stations.  This is an example of an abstract sheet for a two person crew starship.  This particular sheet is for the pilot.

A character's stats and skill ranks determine how many dice the character has available in a general dice pool for use with this sheet.  In addition to the player's dice from their pool the ship has a few of its own dice set onto the sheet.  We will talk about the static ship dice first from this example.

Three dice are placed on the red squares at the lower left corner of the pilot's controls.  Each of these dice represent one attack pool dice to be rolled depending upon how much ammo the pilot squeezes off from the wing guns over which he has direct control.  The actual attack roll is made by rolling an agility die plus skill ranks in gunnery plus one ammo die.  Ammo is stored in blocks of three.  The player marks off how much ammo is used either one, two or three (an entire block).

Targets have a base difficulty to hit based on ship type + modifier.  A portion of the player character's starship combat dice pool can be assigned from turn to turn into the spaces next to each of three bogies or targets.  These dice are not rolled but their assignment from the available pool reduces the difficulty to hit each target up to a maximum of three.  They may also be reserved for defense, in which case they are rolled along with armor or counter measures in an attempt to reduce the number of successes scored against the player's starship by that designated target.

This begs the question of what happens if a single small starship goes up against more than three bogies.  I am thinking that exceptionally skilled pilots may be able to place a handful of dice from their pool into a defensive posture only for additional foes but they would need to be fairly high in level.  The answer to this question in the main is, don't get into dogfights with four or more bogies.  The fourth, fifth and so on enemy able to tangle with you in a dogfight is only going to face the defense of your armor and counter measures (while they last).  Terran pilots are dangerous but there -is- such a thing as biting off more than you can chew, even for them.

Two static dice are placed, one each, on top of the two counter measures squares.  Counter measures are one shot defenses against incoming rockets and missiles.  Imagine that the pilot can hit either one or both buttons to deploy counter measures directly.  The second cockpit sheet in this set is for the ship's navigator who controls additional groups of counter measures as well as the ship's own missiles and some other important (indeed vital) systems.

A static die is placed under maneuver cost.  All maneuver's have a cost from one to six.  The cost is a measure in a reduction of points from the ship's current velocity value.  There are a number of cards that represent maneuvers.  Perhaps six to ten can be used by any pilot.  Early in a Flying Ace or Starship Pilot career a pilot chooses to either develop maneuvers from the "boom and zoom" school, the "turning dogfight" school or the "pirate" school.  Each of these three schools has its strengths and weaknesses.  At each level the player character can choose any one new maneuver from those available in their school and add this to the cards available for them to play each combat turn.  The die placed in the maneuver cost box is adjusted from combat turn to combat turn to reflect the reduction in velocity that the maneuver being played costs.

Everywhere else has to do with dice pulled from the character's available starship combat dice pool.

Velocity - Dice are placed into this circle to maintain velocity as it is spent.  A ship has a maximum potential add to velocity each combat turn. Rolling the dice placed into this circle at the end of the combat turn determines what portion of combat velocity can be recovered from the maximum potential after velocity has been reduced by playing a maneuver.  Part of space and atmo combat has to do with trading velocity for maneuver.  Ultimately the best maneuvers will bleed the most velocity to the point where they can no longer be played.  Speed is life in a dogfight.  As your velocity bleeds you will begin to lose access to your best cards and become more at risk.

Control - Dice are place into this circle for making control rolls during combat.  Control rolls are required to respond to maneuver cards played by enemy combatants or to achieve the best result from the maneuver card you just played.

ATMO - There are three light blue squares labeled Atmo beneath the large white spot in the center where the current maneuver card being used by the pilot is displayed.  When a starship enters the atmosphere one die from the total pool must be placed into the first light blue "standard" atmo square.  This represents the additional stress on the pilot of dogfighting in atmosphere.  Should the conditions be exceptionally stormy a second die from the pool must be sacrificed and put into the "turbulent" square.  Should the starship be fighting in an exceptionally dangerous condition or exotic atmosphere a third die from the pool must be placed into the "exotic" conditions for atmo.

Fuel tracks fuel use.  Certain high power combat moves eat up a full block of fuel or even two.  Taking damage in combat can cause a sudden loss in fuel.  It is possible to run out of fuel in combat.  This is always a bad thing.  Worse if you are in atmo.

Flight Surfaces - Four orange boxes represent damaged flight surfaces.  As a starship takes general damage to the structure of the starship each of these orange boxes requires that a pilot's combat pool die be placed on that box in order to keep the bird under control.  Failure to do so or inability to do so causes an immediate and repeated control rolls to avoid spectacular and violent death via crashing or breaking up.  The more damaged your bird becomes the more you have to concentrate your energy to keep her together even though she is shaking to pieces.  This takes away from what you have available to say...keep your velocity up for better maneuvers or to pay attention to the bogies to hit more often or avoid taking more hits.

Systems and Internals - Five blue boxes that would be numbered.  Each would represent a specific important system for the ship (like life support).  In a small ship like this one the responsibility for handling damage control via internal automated / robotic fire control and repair is divided between the pilot and the navigator.  Again a die is pulled from the pool as an important system is put offline by a well placed internal / critical hit.  This represents the pilot madly punching buttons and hitting switches to put out fires and keep from losing a vital system for good.

Armor - Armor is ablative for most starships.  Each box on the gray shield represents one use of armor against an incoming hit.  In this case the armor is defined as hardened 2 so two dice are rolled to attempt to eliminate the number of successes rolled by your foe in their attack against you.  Remember the number of successes you roll is multiplied by the value of your weapon.  A weapon system with a value of 3 and four rolled successes would inflict 12 points of damage against the enemy.  Four rolled successes may also indicate an automatic flight control surface or internal system hit.  Rolling two successes with armor as part of your defense would drop the successes of the enemy rolled against you by two.  No automatic flight surfaces or internals and only 6 points of damage rather than 12.  Even so one of your 18 total units of armor is now gone forever or at least until you can land and put some hours into repairing your ship.

Anyway.  This is all very, very fast and loose at this point.  Just forming ideas to take to the table with a few friends for battling things out and seeing what works, what doesn't work, what needs to be changed.

-Ed

Examples from Draft Rules

Rocketship Empires 1936

Rules for Pulp Action and Space Adventures

in a World War II Era Space Opera

by Edward M Kann

Character Creation

Step One: Character Race. Under these rules all player characters are humans. Future expansions on these rules or supplements by other authors writing for the Rocketship Empires setting may include rules for the play of alien races but that is not covered in these basic rules. In the original Rocketship Empires campaign as Directed by the author all of the player characters were human.

Step Two: Look over your character sheet. Place a value of one in each of the following stats. Body and Soul and the eight sub-stats of Strength, Agility, Toughness, Grace, Intelligence, Will, Perception and Guile.

Step Three: Body or Soul. Determine whether your character is stronger in the body or physical elements or in the soul or internal elements.

Step Four: Whichever stat you choose as your primary focus place plus one point in it (either Body or Soul) and plus one point in each of the four sub-stats associated with that primary stat. In the case of Body the four sub-stats are Strength, Agility, Toughness and Grace. In the case of Soul the four sub-stats are Intelligence, Will, Perception and Guile.

Example: Hurricane Joe Walker places one point in all of the stats on his character sheet.

Body 1

Strength 1, Agility 1, Toughness 1, Grace 1

Soul 1

Intelligence 1, Will 1, Perception 1, Guile 1

Next Hurricane Joe Walker's player decides that his good old Hurricane is going to focus on physical stats. He adds a +1 to Body and all four of its associated sub-stats. Now his character looks like this.

Body 2

Strength 2, Agility 2, Toughness 2, Grace 2

Soul 1

Intelligence 1, Will 1, Perception 1, Guile 1

Step Five: Choose a character class. Read over the class descriptions and choose the type of character class you want to play. Follow the instructions for the character class you have chosen and complete the remainder of your character sheet.

Step Six: Pick out some starting items from the equipment lists.

Step Seven: Write down a paragraph of notes about your character, who they are, where they are from and a general idea of where they want to be, what they hope to attain.

Character Class Descriptions

Soldier

You are either a veteran of past conflicts or you are a soldier in the present. Perhaps you are a mercenary for hire or a combat veteran who has hired himself out as a security contractor for a private corporation. Perhaps you are a soldier in the service of a Terran government.

Primary Stat: Strength

Life Points: Starting = 5 x Body Score with +2 Life Points at each level of advancement past the first.

Character Creation

1. Add +1 Point to Strength. At level four you gain an additional +1 to Strength. At level eight you gain an additional +1 you can add to any stat except for Strength. If you add this final bonus to Body or Soul, only that stat improves by one.
2. Look over the skills list on the character sheet. Add +1 skill rank to either brawl or boxing, swimming, motor mechanic, climbing, melee, grenades, small arms – automatic weapons and thrown weapons.
3. Add +2 points to any of the eight sub-stats (Strength, Agility, Toughness, Grace, Intelligence, Will, Perception and Guile you have two points you can spend you can only add one point to any stat so the final result should be that you have two different sub-stats increase in value by one point.)
4. You have sixteen free skill points to spend during character creation. These points can be added to any skill BUT no more than +2 points can be spent on the same skill during character creation. The highest skill rank value this will give you is a starting skill rank of 3 in a Strength based skill. The highest rank your non-strength based skills can be during character creation is a rank of two. At each level of advancement the soldier gains 4 new skill ranks which they can add to any skill. You may only apply one new skill rank to a single skill. Four skills at each level of the player's choice will improve by one skill rank at each level of advancement.
5. You begin with 4 Aggression dice and 2 Logic dice in your Psyche Pool. At each level of advancement you gain one additional dice to your Psyche Pool and you can decide whether it is a logic or an aggression die but your total aggression dice must always exceed your total logic dice by at least one.

Level Shticks

At each level of advancement the Soldier gains a shtick or special power for that level. Only a member of the soldier class gains these shticks.

Level 1: True Child of Cane. Any weapon you wield including your fists and feet inflict +1 base point of damage over the listed damage for that weapon type. A 1 point blade in your hands inflicts a base damage of 2, for example. Where three successes to hit with the blade would inflict three life points of damage in the hands of someone else, in your hands it inflicts six life points. You can never apply this to non-lethal damage. If you strike with a weapon for non-lethal damage you strike for the standard base damage of the weapon in hand.

Level 2: Atlantean Born. You gain an additional bonus of +3 points to your total life pool above and beyond your usual life point bonus for advancing to this level.

Level 3: Combat Leader. Once per game session you may share one aggression die out of your pool onto the roll of any character in your party within line of sight and with whom you have communication. You may only apply this bonus to fellow humans.

Level 4: Fast Healer. You heal two life points for each Terran day of rest (24 hours) rather than the usual rate of one. You enjoy a +1 life point bonus to the effect of any healing sprays, high-tech or xeno healing technologies you apply to yourself. This +1 life point bonus for healing also applies to any empathic healing performed on you by a psionic character.

Level 5: Commando Training. During any unarmed combat or melee attack against your character roll 1d6. On a score of a six you may eliminate one combat success rolled by your enemy against you. If your enemies combat successes are reduced to zero by your commando training then they miss you completely.

Level 6: Professional Killer. You may add either logic or aggression dice (no more than two for any roll) to any combat skill roll involving small arms or hand held weapons.

Level 7: Hard to Kill. Once per game session if you are reduced to zero life points or lower and so long as you are not reduced to more than negative ten life points you awaken with one life point remaining after 1d6 combat rounds.

Level 8: Advanced Commando Training. During any unarmed combat or melee attack against your character roll 1d6. On a roll of a 5 or 6 you may eliminate one combat success rolled by your enemy against you. If you reduce your enemies successes to zero they miss you completely.

Level 9: Combat Commander. During combat you may take one die from your aggression pool each combat round and add it to the combat dice roll of any member of your team within line of sight and with which you have communication.

Level 10: Ultimate Weapon. You may add up to three aggression dice to any unarmed, melee or small arms combat skill roll that you make instead of the normal limit of two.

Experience and Character Advancement

Characters gain experience by surviving a game session. Each game session has a value of one. To advance from first level to second level a character must earn a GS value of 3 or survive three game sessions. To advance from second to third level a character must earn a GS value of 4 or survive an additional four game sessions. See the chart below for details. In any case a character level of ten is the maximum to which any hero in Rocketship Empires can attain.

Level One GS Points 0 Total Game Sessions Survived = 0

Level Two GS Points 3 Total Game Sessions Survived = 3

Level Three GS Points 4 Total Game Sessions Survived = 7

Level Four GS Points 5 Total Game Sessions Survived = 12

Level Five GS Points 5 Total Game Sessions Survived = 17

Level Six GS Points 6 Total Game Sessions Survived = 23

Level Seven GS Points 6 Total Game Sessions Survived = 29

Level Eight GS Points 7 Total Game Sessions Survived = 36

Level Nine GS Points 7 Total Game Sessions Survived = 43

Level Ten GS Points 8 Total Game Sessions Survived = 51

Pulp Storytelling and Leveling Up

Each level of advancement presents an opportunity to launch a new storyline or adventure series. Try to think of each level and the games between levels as an opportunity for a pulp serial or a comic book mini series. Try to plan ahead. Think about what villain you will introduce at the next level, how will you bring him into the story and launch the next series of adventures? What environments will your adventures take place in? How will keep the action moving and keep the story interesting?

The first adventure should be resolved (more or less) in three game sessions. The next storyline might be a little bit more involved and take four game sessions to resolve. By the time the player group has advanced to level six their characters are quite experienced and an unfolding plot might be fairly involved requiring up to seven game sessions to resolve from beginning to end. The final level of advancement from level nine to level ten is an opportunity to pull together all of the loose ends and in one eight session mega story give the characters the chance to defeat all of the major villains and bring a significant resolution to any lingering plots they have hanging over their heads. By the end of the level ten game session the characters may well be ready to retire, at least until some new major threat rears its ugly head but their ability to become any tougher as characters (outside of loot, artifacts, equipment and wealth) has come to an end.

The Martians

The Martian Hegemony was an economic and scientific power during the collapse of the Atlantean Star Empire approximately six hundred thousand years ago.  Brutal, hated by nearly every intelligent race in the galaxy the few thousand Atlanteans that remained after the shackles of their enslavement were cast off were deposited into the hands of the Martian Hegemony for imprisonment or disposal.

Ever the curious scientist species the Martians chose to deposit the surviving Atlanteans onto the primitive and barely habitable third planet in their own solar system.  A planet so utterly dangerous and populated by deadly flora and fauna that the chances of the Atlanteans surviving it were expected to be rather low.  Of course to the surprise of the Martian observers the ever aggressive and war like Atlanteans (humans) immediately set about subjugating the planet's more physically strong indigenous population (the neanderthal) and quickly became the most dangerous predator on that hellish planet as well.

The Atlanteans stubbornly preserved a sense of their greatness and racial identity as a star faring species right up to the establishment of the great city of Atlantis approximately nine thousand years before the writings of Plato.  By that time the Atlantean civilization had finally rebuilt itself sufficiently to begin the process of building ships capable of carrying them back into the stars.  The Martians who had been quietly watching this process all along were, of course, having none of this and ultimately performed a massive orbital strike against the city, utterly destroying all life on the island and causing it to sink forever beneath the waves.

During all of this time the Martian Hegemony had experienced a golden age of expansion.  The Atlantean Star Empire had left behind thousands of habitable planets and much of their former territory was in ruins, populated by former slave races so shocked by their sudden freedom as to be easy prey for whoever filled the void.  For thousands upon thousands of years much of space surrounding the solar system containing Mars and Earth remained the undisputed territory of the Hegemony.

By the time of the destruction of Atlantis and the final loss of the racial identity of humanity as a star faring civilization the Martians were already an old race, millions of years further down the path of their own history than the race of men.  At this time the Martians had already lost the ability to reproduce themselves by natural means and relied instead upon the genetics of their scientific priesthood to birth new generations of themselves, perfect clones born to carry on the identity of their parent.

Zev is a Red Martian.  This places him in the military caste.  He is a commander of the fifth rank within the Fahz'aduk Sept.  Zev does not consider himself to be Zev, son of Zev.  He is merely Zev.  Zev carries in his mind fragments of the memories and identities of a thousand Zev's which have lived before him.  Zev has a hated rival, another Red Martian within the Fahz'aduk Sept who is called Mar'don.  Zev and Mar'don have worked together in previous incarnations.  They have in a very few cases become cautious friends and allies but mostly they have struggled against one another and murdered one another.  The last incarnation of Zev was cut down by the current Mar'don in a sudden and violent duel on the streets of Zamaz'na'kapulta, an important Martian city on the Red Planet itself.

This is a glimpse into the strange workings of alien life within Martian society.  Within the last two thousand years the clone beds of the priests of science have been in decline.  Whole lines of clones have been completely lost.  Millions of genetic lines have finally unraveled themselves to the point of nothingness and the streets of a hundred thousand Martian cities scattered throughout the star systems of the Martian Hegemony have grown more and more silent, more and more empty.

The Martian decision to reach out to the race of men, to the ancestors of the hated Atlantean Empire, the most vicious, blood thirsty and cruel bunch of bastards the galaxy has ever seen is born out of a need to shore up their own rapidly faltering population.  That and the Martians are afraid of something.  Something far out on the borders of the Hegemony beyond where any human expansion has yet managed to travel.

The simple truth is that the Martians need us.  If they are to survive at all, they need us.

RSE Skills

Body Skills
These are the four skill groups associated to with the Body attribute.  During character creation a player decides whether their character will focus on Body or Soul.  Each sub-attribute has eight associated skills which the stat governs.  Character classes are built with a focus towards one particular stat.  So there will be two classes which are strength focused, two which are agility focused, two which are toughness focused, two character classes which are grace focused and so forth.  While a player can develop their character's skills outside of their class focus the class will tend to do those things best.

Every stat has its associated unarmed combat skills and a weapon skill.  This allows what typically might represent weaker character types (scientists...merchants) to have their own particular weapon and unarmed combat style of choice.  In RSE I want to steer away from min-max to some degree.  A Grace stat based Aristocrat with Savate / Fencing and Small Arms - Lasers is just as dangerous in a character to character encounter as an Agility based Flying Ace with Kung-Fu or T'ang-su and Small Arms - Pistols.

Strength
  Brawl / Boxing*
  Swimming
  Motor Mechanic
  Climbing
  Melee
  Grenades
  Small Arms - Auto Weapons
  Thrown Weapons

Agility
  Kung Fu / T'ang-su*
  Acrobatics
  Small Arms - Pistols
  Archery
  Atmo-Piloting
  Gunnery: Auto Weapons
  Crime: Agility Styles
  Stealth

Toughness
  Explore
  Breakfall
  Resist Toxin
  Resist Disease
  Intimidation
  Wrestling / Karate*
  Small Arms - Shotguns and High Power
  Space Suit

Grace
  Conversation
  Dance / High Society
  Entertainment
  Seduction / Distraction
  Acting
  Diplomacy
  Small Arms - Lasers
  Savate / Fencing*

Soul Skills
The four soul sub-stats are Intelligence, Will, Perception and Guile.

Intelligence
  Crime: Intelligence Styles
  Ship: Astrogation
  Xeno Translation: Visual
  Medical
  Science / Knowledge
  Invention
  Ship: Shields and Counter Measures
  Tai Ch'i Ch'uan / Bojutsu

Will
  Animal Handling
  Riding
  Intimidation
  Psi Development
  Kenjutsu / Aikijutsu
  Leadership
  Ship: General Repair
  Resist: Pharmecology

Perception
  Investigation / Search
  Xeno Translation: Audio
  Ship: Communications and Codes
  Ship:  Void Pilot
  Small Arms: Rifles
  Gunnery: Missiles and Rockets
  Drive
  Kyujutsu / Kuki-shin Ryu

Guile
  Ship: Sensor Operations
  Deception
  Demolitions
  Forgery
  Gambling
  Ninjutsu / Dirty Fighting
  Small Arms: Hold Out Weapons
  Ship: Cloak and Concealment

Character Classes and Associated Stats

Strength:  Soldier and Gangster
Agility:  Smuggler and Flying Ace
Tough:  Bodyguard and Bounty Hunter
Grace:  Secret Agent and Aristocrat
Intelligence: Doctor and Mad Scientist, also Astrogator
Will:  Psi Witch and Psi Warlock
Perception: Void Pilot and Big Game Hunter
Guile: Saboteur and Gambler

Starship Life and Combat

I always felt that a good science fiction game should have a very well developed bit of rules surrounding life aboard a starship and a really detailed but playable combat system.

This is far and away the biggest challenge for Rocketship Empires 1936.  Getting anywhere near where I want things to be with the starship rules is going to be difficult.

Goals

The thing needs to be easy to play.  Dice mechanics need to be consistent with the rest of the game.  As much as possible one or two rolls resolves things and keeps the game moving.  Activities aboard ship should be developed in a range from routine to fast and furious.

Some of the maintaining of a starship needs to be included in the mechanics.  Part of keeping your rattle trap Chinese built freighter in the air is the fun and challenge of having to keep her from falling apart.  Keeping your eyes open for key parts of the ship which are compatible with other ship models you might encounter for salvage, purchase or (let's face it) piracy.  Of course this means that the challenge of writing up these details falls into the lap of someone...me.  I have some ideas for this but as I said its going to involve a fair amount of work.

I want the sense that you are on board your starship.  For ships with crew positions I want to have the sense that multiple crew members do something vital for the operation of the starship.  Starship crew members need to be able to work together as a team to accomplish their goals.  The main goals being...get from point A to point B in one piece.  Survive combat threats.  Repair stuff that gets blown off, blown up or just blows up on its own.

The starship is as important of a character in Rocketship Empires as any of the player characters and this is how it should be.

Broad Concepts

Space travel in Rocketship Empires has always been divided into three parts.  Each of these three types of movement require its own drive system.

Jump Travel

Starships enter jump space to travel between stars.  They do this by diving into the gravity well of a star and activating the ship's gravity drive at the right moment.  The gravity drive shoots the ship out of normal space and into jump space where the laws are somewhat different.  Jump space is where a ship travels from one star system to another by diving down what amounts to a worm hole connecting one massive gravity object to another.

System Travel

Starships use a system drive to travel within a star system.  The drive crosses the distance of an AU in a measurement of terran days.  System drives travel in a straight line or nearly so given the influence of the gravity wells of of plants they may pass along the way.  There is no ability to maneuver while the system drive is active.  Weapon systems are impractical to use against a ship using system movement.  The ship is traveling far to rapidly and space is simply to massive for the weapons systems written into the game to be effective in any worthwhile manner.

Manuever Drives

When a starship drops out of system travel it activates its manuever drive to move about.  Manuever drives allow a starship to dock with a space station, enter orbit, enter atmosphere, manuever in atmosphere or in space and land on a planet surface.  All starship combat takes place using manuever drives.  When a ship drops out of system travel it takes time for the system drive to recycle and be ready for another use.  This recharge of the system drive can take hours.  System drives are not safe to use within a certain distance of a planetary body.  Once you get close to your destination the fail safes on your system drive are not going to let you operate it.  Activating a system drive near a planet or in atmosphere simple insures the spectacular destruction of the ship in question and little more.

Ship Character Sheets

I have an idea where a ship design comes with a picture of the ship, a map of the interior of the ship and a collection of tabloid sized control stations for the essential crew.  For a starfighter this may be a fairly simple affair with a picture of the ship, simple diagram, notes on the controls and ship resources and functions / weapons and one or two tabloid sized (11 x 17) control panels.  One for the pilot.  One for the navigator.

I'm thinking it would be cool for the control panels to look like some kind of aircraft instrument panel or science station from the period.  Different vital controls have spots where the player assigns dice from their dice pool.

Game Within a Game - To do this right while the mechanics will be the same for both parts of the game I am thinking that starship operations and combat need to exist as its own game within the game of RSE.

To arrive at the dice pool available to a pilot or navigator or other crew member I am thinking it is some function of the character's various stats (intelligence, perception, agility) plus skill ranks in various ship related skills.

The player assigns their dice to various components on the control panel and how these dice are assigned determines what the player has available to roll to accomplish various things.  Move.  Make a special move.  Attack with weapons.  Maintain combat awareness - spot incoming rockets and missiles so that the ship can attempt evasive moves to avoid them, etc...

I really like this idea but again - we are talking about a lot of work.  That is where opening the entire thing up for others to go crazy with is valuable.  I can create the rules.  Create a half dozen example starships of various flavors up to and including the Freighter the Other Woman and then let others go wild making their own starship packets.

Other Ship Control Panels

I like the idea the notion that you have slightly different control panel configurations depending on the command chair of the ship you are sitting in.  The players might grab a different ship, drop into the seats...look down at the control panels and go...erm...ok...that is thrust, that is control...that is altitude..but what do those things do?  Imagine a player moving from the controls of a ship where everything is in English and sitting down at the controls of a Soviet starship or a Reich starship or a Japanese starship.  Some things will be immediately clear but reading them will not be as easy...some things will be a total mystery until some experimentation occurs but after all...shouldn't that be the way it is?

PSI

One of the themes I touch on throughout Rocketship Empires is the presence of Psi or Psionics within the setting.  The Order of the Golden Dawn occupies offices immediately across the street from Scotland Yard.  The Golden Dawn identifies and trains psi gifted individuals to act as the intelligence agency of The League of Nations.

There are two broad character classes of psi talents in RSE.  The Psi Witch and the Psi Warlock.  These titles are independent of the gender of the agent.

A Psi Witch manifests a broad talent in the regions of the mind.  Their psi talents have to do with telepathy, mind control, illusion and empathic healing.

A Psi Warlock manifests a broad talent in energy manipulation.  Their psi talents have to do with telekinesis, pyrokinesis and psiportation.

Skill pool rolls are used to achieve psi talent success.  Psi talents are governed by the Will stat.

Characters begin with a single psi talent fully developed and one psi talent partially developed.  As a character advances in level their partially developed talent becomes fully developed and they may then choose another talent from their available list as their partially developed talent.

Talents have a simple tree of building success based on the results of the psi talent skill roll.

I will offer up a very off the cuff and unfinished pryokinesis build as an example.

Pyrokinesis

Zero Success = Zero Manifestation
1 Success = Sparks and Candle.  The Psi surrounds themselves with a cascade of showering sparks as though they are standing inside of an iron foundry.  This has effect X.  Alternately the Psi can begin to spark and then focus their energy into a single globe of floating ball fire that emits the light of a candle.  This has effect Y.
2. Successes = Ball Flame.  The Psi surrounds themselves with a cascade of sparks that gather together into a brightly burning ball of rolling flame in their hands about the size of a softball.  This has effect X.
3. Successes = Flare.  As ball of flame but the Psi may grasp the ball with both hands and fire forth a geyser of flesh melting white hot flame up to a range of X.  This has effect Y.
4.  Successes = Flame Burst.  Explodes in a radius of flame as an area of effect attack.  The psi producing this flame manifestation is immune to this power as is all of their gear.

The idea here in the context of the game is that the Psi stands there and focuses their psi energy...and rolls...and the result is what their poor psionic brains can push out at that moment in time.  No final result is reliable or predictable.  The Psi has the option to reign in their result.  A Psi that just wants to create a ball of light can let go of the remaining power available to them in that moment and choose to not produce a full flame burst.  The additional success ranks can be put into extended durations for the light manifestation perhaps.

The party might be in a dire position where the flame thrower effect of a flare might be really helpful but all the psi manages to produce is a ball flame. Still helpful but not quite what the party was cheering for.

Like all skills the psi can spend aggression and logic dice to give their roll a one time boost.  Psi Warlocks run strictly off of aggression dice for their bonuses and a Psi Witch functions strictly off of logic dice.

RSE Game Mechanics

Picking up where I left off.

Skill Rolls

There are eight groups of skills.  Each skill is governed by one of eight stats.

When you make a skill roll you roll one die for the stat that governs the skill being checked plus one additional die of a different color for each rank or level you possess in the skill.

Example:  Hank shoots the evil Khibor Zhang with his .38 pistol.  Pistols are governed by the Agility stat.  Hank has a score of three in Agility.  Hank has a rank of two in the pistols skill.  Hank picks a red die to represent his stats and white to represent his skill ranks.  See example A in the illustration above.

Because Hank has an Agility score of three he must roll a 4,5 or 6 to score a success with that die.  Hank is shooting at a human target and so his base chance to hit a human is a 5 or 6 with his pistol skill dice.  If Hank was shooting at Khibor Zhang's associate, the Martian Viz'nakor his base chance of success with his pistol skill would improve to a 4,5 or 6.

The Stat Die

Characters with a high stat are going to tend to succeed with at least one rank of success during skill rolls associated with that stat.  Characters who tend to be mediocre are going to tend to have a mediocre chance of success while characters with a low stat are going to tend to fail.  The stat die has a chance of success completely independent of the difficulty of the task at hand.  It represents the player's persona they are roleplaying as a character or actor in a pulp film.  In the context of the pulp film which is Rocketship Empires 1936, Hank is intended to be an actor with a somewhat larger than life Agility.  Because of the mechanic he will tend to have at least some minor level of success (not always but often) when shooting at things with his pistol or doing other agility related skills.  Even if the task at hand is very difficult requiring a skill roll of a six to succeed, Hank will still experience an agility die success at least fifty percent of the time...in the context of the pulp adventure Hank will still clip the center of the bullseye of that target set waaaayyyy out at nearly impossible range..about half of the time.  Because this is pulp action adventure.  Because this is Rocketship Empires 1936.

The Stat die is a means to weight the success or failure of skill rolls to fit the dramatic persona of the character as it has been designed by the player.  Remember there is no random rolling for character stats or class in RSE.  As the player you get decide what sort of actor / actress sounds the most fun for you to play and go with that choice.  The stat die helps to drive the results of the action in the game so that the pulp action adventure hero you have created, more often than not, functions the way you'd expect them to function in the context of the game.

Skill Difficulty

Skill difficulty has a sliding scale decided by the referee.  The exception to this is attempting to attack someone or something.  Alien races, humans, various types of vehicles have a set / static base target value based on that type not on the individual.  This mechanic allows me to push the game mechanic so that humans tend to be on the difficult to hit and damage end of the scale during combat.  Martians and other intelligent aliens are just a little easier to hit than humans in RSE and therefore are also a little easier to damage.  I am thinking that in the starship combat section that different models of starfighter will have different base difficulties to hit, a 109 starfighter is more difficult to hit in a dogfight than a Hurricane, that sort of thing although from this base difficulty the pilot flying the thing will make their bird harder to hit, etc...

Initiative or Who Goes First

Rocketship Empires combat should be a little tense.  One way to achieve this is to abandon the order and safety zone of having an initiative roll.  The exception to all this is surprise.  A group that ambushes or surprises another will be able to go first.  When both sides are aware of one another...say in a spacer bar...there is no initiative.  Everything is happening at exactly the same time.  Everyone declares their move and target and we just go around the table rolling results of actions.  If two people hit one another, and kill one another simultaneously then so be it...

At least that is how things start.  Anyone can decide to "Edge" one of their skill dice.  Each skill dice that is edged pushes the character higher in the order of who gets to do what first.  In this model a character who is very skilled who edges all of their skill dice versus a character who is not as skilled is always going to go first, but that isn't the end of the story.

When you edge a skill you substitute a different color die (say a yellow die) for each skill rank that you edge.  The difficulty of that one die changes.  Instead of having a 5 or 6 as a success while trying to shoot a human when you edge you skill rank in pistol your chance of success drops to only a six.  Why?  Because edging a skill represents the fact that your character...seeing the other guy drawing his luger across the bar..is going to try and tug his .38 out of his coat pocket as fast as he possibly can and in his hurry to get the first shot off may just miss his target.  The guy with the luger might well see you put on the speed and decide...by thunder I'm going to beat him and soon you are both trying to edge enough skill dice to insure that you get off the first shot.

See example B in the illustration at the top of this blog post.

Character Psyche

One of the things I want to explore in RSE is the concept of human aggression.  The balancing act between cold logic and raw emotion.  I'm thinking that a character has a Psyche Pool.  This pool is divided into a dice pool of aggression dice and a dice pool of logic dice.  Aggression and logic dice can only be used once per game night.  The pool refreshes at the start of the next game session.  No more than two aggression or logic dice can be added to any skill pool roll.  Logic dice can only be added to a certain list of appropriate skills.  Aggression dice can only be added to a certain list of appropriate (largely combat related) skills.

Any time you take a die out of the Aggression or Logic pool you have to likewise remove a die out of the other pool and set it aside.  A character with 6 aggression dice and 4 logic dice you decides to expend one of his logic dice to help reason out a problem likewise has their available aggression dice reduced by one.

This represents the character having to make a choice between giving into their aggressive human instincts or trying to temper them and act more like one of the civilized races of the galaxy.  Over the course of the game the character burns through their available pool.  They become emotionally exhausted.

Likewise there is a table I am considering where the amount of aggression or logic spent by the character over the course of a game night is tracked.  At the end of game night the player of the character makes a roll.  Failure introduces some sort of additional character complication or twist which gets added to their character for the next game session.  A character who is constantly pushing themselves into the dark regions of violence and aggression will suffer the ill effects of that choice.  A character who constantly pushes themselves to the limits of human logic and reason may accumulate some effects as well.

Example V (should be C) on the illustration above shows a character with a skill rank of one adding two bonus dice to their pool by spending two (purple) aggression dice.  Each aggression die has the same chance of success as a normal skill die for the task at hand.

Well there you have it for now.  I will try to plunk down some additional ideas soon.

-Ed

Systems Etc...

Just a quick note.

I've given a great deal of thought to the notion of publishing an RSE book in a couple of different established game systems.

I have no problem freely admitting that there are plenty of great game systems already out there.  I am a big fan of several.  I don't claim to be some kind of wiz bang game designer either.

The issue is freedom to publish material when and how I want to publish it and when you bring in a 3rd party for any reason there are always complications that arise.

My goal in birthing an RSE book with its own system is that I can then decide to offer the PDF as a free download and not worry about giving someone else a cut and charging money for it.  I can do things like off print on demand for cost or maybe a buck a copy into my own pocket.  I don't have worry so much about rising to someone else's high bar for production value or listen to a lot of hassle and criticism over this or that spin I have on the setting.

I can open the thing wide up for anyone that wants to write for it without seeking the blessing of a third party that Joe's book or Jim's book or Sally's book meets with executive good graces.

For now I just want to start small.  Get a simple rules set out there.  Get a more clear setting book out there as part of the rules.  I'm thinking a simple, 100 to 150 page book that includes rules, setting and a short adventure.  Everything you'd need to jump off and run your own games and write your own stuff.

So this is the direction.

More rules ideas to come soon.

Character Generation Part II - Skills

Ok.  So we've talked a little about generating some basic stats for a character.  The next step is skills.  I have been thinking that skills might be best grouped in categories that link with a character class.

Mad Science Skills
     Human Technology
     Hybrid Technology
     Alien Technology*
     Jury Rigging
     Repair
Psi Skills (Psi Witch)
     Mind Reading / Telepathy
     Future Prediction / Precognition
     Retrocognition
     Empathic Restoration
Psi Skills (Psi Warlock)
     Telekinesis
     Pyrokinesis
     Psionic Shield
     ****
     *****
Combat
     Brawling
     Fencing
     Kung Fu
     Melee (Axes, Spears)
     Exotic (Whips, etc..)
Ranged Combat
     Thrown Weapons
     Archery
     Pistols
     Rifles
     Machineguns
Starship
     Piloting
     Navigation
     Sensors
     Gunnery - Rockets and Missiles
     Gunnery - Hybrid Machineguns
     Gunnery - Cannon

Other groups might include a detective group, a social group, a scholar group.

I'm thinking that skills start with a value of zero.  Each skill is governed by a related stat.  Archery would be governed by the Agility stat.  Even if a character has zero archery skill they would be able to at the very least get their one color die for their governing stat.

A class would grant a +1 to one broad group of skills or perhaps most of a group.  Lets say that a class granted a +1 to the Combat group.  Maybe the player gets three points that they can spend, one point each on three different skills in that group.  So maybe a 1 point in Thrown Weapons, a 1 point in Pistols and a one point in Rifles.

Then I'm thinking there is a pool of free points that the player can spend on any category of skills they desire with a few exceptions.  Psi skills would be restricted to playing a character of that particular class only.

Maybe there would be a Jack of All Trades sort of class that only gains a pool of points they can spend on anything except Psi skills.

What would keep everyone from playing JoT's to the exclusion of everything else except psionics?

I'm thinking that each class would have a special shtick it gained in the larger game play.  A Fighter class of character might gain a bonus 1d6 to throw into any pool of dice they roll having to do with making an attack in combat.  The JoT would have more flexability over the Fighter guy but he'd never hit as hard as the straight Fighter in combat.

The Dice Pool Idea

So we have this color die representing the stat related to a skill.  Yes.  I'm thinking the dice mechanics for this one die is different from the rest of the pool thus the reason for the difference in colors.  I'm thinking the chance of success for your stat die is based on how many points you have in that stat.  See below:

1 point in the Stat = Success on a 6
2 points in a Stat = Success on a 5 or 6
3 points in a Stat = Success on a 4,5 or 6
4 points in a Stat = Success on a 3, 4, 5 or 6.

This is where that higher stat becomes really powerful in the game mechanic.  An agility of three insures that the character generates at least one success when rolling an attack fifty percent of the time when using say a bow or pistol.

The success of the stat die in the pool is completely independent of the difficulty of the particular task.  It is what brings in the campy, pulpy feel to the game.  Having a high strength or agility means you are going to be hitting a fair amount even when you only have a small amount of skill.

The Rest of the Pool

The rest of the dice in the pool are subject to the ups and downs of the situation.  I'm thinking in combat that most attacks face a base difficulty of needing to roll a 5 or 6 on each 1d6 being rolled.  A character with an Agility of 3 and a Pistol skill of 2 would roll 1 (red) die needing to roll a 4,5 or 6 and 2 (white) dice needing to roll a 5 or 6 at the base to gain a success.

Hitting = Damage

Weapons are rated with a damage multiplier for figuring damage.  A single handed sword may have a damage multiplier of 2.  A revolver might also have a damage multiplier of 2.  If you roll a single success with your pool you would inflict 2 damage against the target.  If you rolled three successes you would inflict six damage versus the target.  1 success x 2 damage for the pistol = 2.  3 successes x 2 damage for the pistol = 6 damage.

Life

A character's Body score determines their starting life points.  A character with a Body score of 1 begins with 5 life points.  A character with a Body score of 2 begins with 10 life points.  Characters gain additional life points as they advance in level but these are a set quantity based upon their character class.  A Mad Scientist may only gain 2 additional Life Points at each level of advancement while a Mercenary might gain 3 additional Life Points per level.  Likely the Psi talents, the Witch and the Warlock will suck it up the worst when it comes to additional life points per level, possibly only gaining a single additional life point at each level of advancement.

These are just concepts and ideas I am trying to get out of my brain and into notes here.  More to come but probably not until later in the week.

-Ed
   

Small Beginnings

I have thought a long time about making an old school RPG version of my own rules for Rocketship Empires 1936.  This is, of course, an undertaking that is much easier said than done.  Every journey begins with a single step so here I am, after much time away from the Rocketship Empires universe taking a first step into creating stand alone rules for the game.

First.  There are some core things to consider when making the rules.  I will list these here as a reminder while I lay down a framework.  I will be working on this project in real time, here on this blog and incorporating ideas out of my previous games using rules by other people and notes I set down about what I'd hope to see.  Some of this may change a good deal before everything is finished but here will be a sort of record revealing the thinking involved.

The List

Humans are the most violent creatures in the galaxy.  Period.  No other alien race can touch them.  This influences to a great extent what humans can accomplish in combat during game play.

Rocketship Empires is human centered.  If RSE has a monster manual all of the other alien races are in that book and not in the player's book.

Left to their own devices human groups will always turn on one another.  See item one on the list.

RSE is pulp science fiction and weirdness.  It is meant to be a fun romp.  Where logic, science and reason are involved it is meant to help establish a slightly more believable setting for the imaginations of the referee and players.  Beyond creating a fun pulp setting with some 1930's flavor nobody should take any of the discussions about starships, space travel, starship combat, psionics, future science, aliens or anything else to very seriously.  This especially includes the author.

Character Generation

Body and Soul

First determine if your character is going to be more adept at external, physical things or at internal, mental or will based actions.  If your character is going to be more adept at physical things you place +1 point in the Body category.  If your character is going to be more adept at intellectual or psionic pursuits you place +1 point in the Soul category.

Body = Strength, Agility, Toughness and Beauty.

Soul = Intelligence, Will, Perception and Guile.

Each major category has four sub-categories.  All characters begin with a value of 1 in both Body and Soul and every sub-category so when you assign a +1 to the Body category both your Body score and all four of its sub-categories gain a +1 value.  So now your character stats look like this...

Body 2

     Strength 2, Agility 2, Toughness 2 and Beauty 2

Soul 1

     Intelligence 1, Will 1, Perception 1 and Guile 1.

Finally you have three points you can spend on any of the eight sub-categories as you see fit but no sub-category may exceed a score of 3 during character creation.  Let's say that you choose to spend 1 point on Agility, 1 point on Perception and 1 point on Guile.  Your final starting character stats would look like this.

Body 2

    Strength 2, Agility 3, Toughness 2, Beauty 2

Soul 1

    Intelligence 1, Will 1, Perception 2 and Guile 2

RSE (Rocketship Empires) will use a d6 mechanic to resolve actions, skills and combat.  In basic terms actions will be assigned a difficult score related to a simple 1d6 roll.  See below:

6   Risky Business   (Very Difficult)

5   Dicey                 (Difficult)

4   Hard Boiled       (Tough)

3  Eggs and Coffee  (Smooth - Not That Hard)

2  Easy as Pie

1  No Roll Necessary

General Actions

General actions are determined directly by the character's stats or two major and eight sub-categories; body, strength, agility and so on.  The number of dice you get to roll is the score you have in the appropriate category.  Let's say that Sam needs to bust open the door into the room of his best girl when he hears her cry out for help.  Busting open a door is going to require some Strength.  The referee determines that the door is made of sturdy wood but has no special reinforcements or complications to make it especially hard to bust through.  The referee says, "That's one hard boiled door, Sam."  Sam needs to roll 4's or better on his dice to get a success to knock down the door.  Sam is our example character and begins with a Strength of 2 and so he gets to roll two d6.  Sam rolls a 3 and a 5 giving him the success that he needs to bust through the door.  Sam only gets one success and that is what is required to perform his stated goal for that action.  If he'd succeeded with an additional success, say he rolled a 4 and a 5 Sam would only expend half of his action to bust through the door and would have half of an action left in that turn.

More on actions and rolls a little later but just so I remember here is a little note.

Actions have carry through.  If Sam had two successes to knock open the door he'd have half of an action left.  Inside the room wrestling with his best girl is a criminal goon.  Sam doesn't want to accidentally shoot his best girl so he quickly abandons the idea of pulling out his heater.  Instead Sam decides to paste the goon in the bean with his fist.  Sam is skilled in Brawling.  Brawling is governed by Strength.  When Sam has a full action to brawl he gets one color dice (red) and two white dice for the two points he has in the brawl skill but Sam only has a half action.  He only gets to use half of the dice available to him in his pool rounded UP so in this case he gets his red dice for his Strength and one white dice for his brawl skill.  Lady luck will have to smile a little in Sam's direction for him to both burst through the door of his best girl's room and land a good sock on the kisser of the goon inside...but this is still possible.

This is a little insight into the game play I am looking to create and just a start.  More later.  Going to take a little break for now.  

As a side note I am thinking creation of the full rules for RSE is going to take about a year from today but there is no time like the present and most of my thoughts and game development will be recorded / shared in this blog.  

Everyone is welcome to provide feedback and comments as things progress.

-Ed