The TL;DR outline recap can be found here if one doesn’t want to listen to almost 4 hours.
As stated in the outline recap, I knew this was going to be more of an epilogue than a full-on session. To be honest, I actually thought this entire session was a disjointed mess, since there really wasn’t anything left to accomplish in the adventure beyond “get off-planet,” “get back to Porozlo” and “get paid.” Since that’s not exactly very involved, I wanted to pad it out a little bit more and give the players some additional stuff to work with.
The fact that both of the players whose characters are tied to these vargr – CommJunkee who plays Sae and Mel who played Ella before she retired the character and began her gaming hiatus – were absent also sort of made this somewhat anti-climactic since this was their Enemy, after all. Still, at least Sae was involved in taking down the actual members of the Enemy … and two of them have survived. Since he hasn’t bought off the Enemy yet, they could (and likely will) come back at some point, though this time, I expect they will be the ones to snipe from a distance (though for fairness sake, it’ll happen when the PC(s) are wearing armor and can take a shot, even if it grievously injures them.
Notably, the PCs also looted the weapons from the dead which gives them some potentially deadly firepower. Unless they sell the gear, though, which is also possible.
I thoroughly botched some of the NPC interactions throughout this session. CDR Krin and Haank should have been more interesting, and thus far, I’ve given no real reason why the PCs would actually like Lord Mika. Ditto that with Corbin Spiirs who I did a bad job of introducing as well. More on him later. Next week is going to open with a 4-Jump trip to Mora (so ~28 days) with Lord Mika and Spiirs, which should hopefully give me a better opportunity to make them interesting. The big question there is how do you make the NPC interesting?
Spiirs is the planned Ally (slash Alternate PC) for Haank who is going to end up taking over the role of captain with Ella being retired. Haank’s player’s reasoning for this is because Haank would make a terrible captain – he referenced James Holden from book 1/season 1 of the Expanse. Eddy’s player has (sort of) jokingly commented about Eddy wanting to be the captain which, with Eddy’s current build, would be a terrible idea because he’s too short-sighted and wants to make the big score right now. I’m going to reach out to the player and see if that desire is a legit one in which case, that’s how Spiirs will connect with him: he’s looking at turning Eddy into a proper leader and potential captain with an eye toward making him move past the short-sightedness. Obviously, I’ll have to clear that with Gigermann, but it’s a good idea, I think.
Also during the game, we started discussing turning J-Aris into a more modular entity so he won’t end up stuck on the ship when the PCs are on really high law level worlds. Using Transhuman Space: Cyber-Shells, I spun up the following for the “news drone” version that is basically the computer core of ArJim pulled from the combat chassis and plugged into an aerial camera platform. Or, more likely, him remote-driving this thing from back on the ship.
“News-Jim”, 218-point robot
ST 6 {-40}; DX 11 {12}; IQ 13 {60}; HT 12 {20}
Damage 1d-4/1d-3; BL 7.2lb; HP 6 {0}; Will 13 {0}; Per 13 {0}; FP 0 {0}; Basic Speed 5.75 {0}; Basic Move 6 {5}; SM -3
Templates and Meta-Traits
- Cyber-Shell
- Machine
Advantages
- Absolute Direction (Requires Signal) {4}
- Damage Resistance 3 (Can’t Wear Armor) {9}
- Digital Mind {5}
- Doesn’t Breathe {20}
- Flight {40}
- Infravision {10}
- Parabolic Hearing 2 {8}
- Photographic Memory {10}
- Reduced Consumption (Recharge once a day) 2 {4}
- Sealed {15}
- Telecommunication (Cable Jack) (Video) {7}
- Telecommunication (Laser Communication) {15}
- Telecommunication (Radio) (Video) {14}
- Telescopic Vision 5 {25}
Perks
- Accessory (Computer) {1}
Disadvantages
- Clueless {-10}
- Curious (9 or less) {-7}
- Maintenance (Electronics Repair and Mechanic skills) (2 people) (Monthly) {-4}
- No Legs (Aerial) {0}
- No Manipulators {-50}
- No Sense of Smell/Taste {-5}
- Restricted Diet (Power cells) (Common) {-20}
- Sense of Duty (Crew) (Small Group) {-5}
- Social Stigma (Valuable Property) {-10}
Quirks
- Cannot Float {-1}
Skills – these are based off the PCs skills, but now use his revised attributes based on this chasis.
- Aerobatics-10 (DX-1) {2}
- Beam Weapons/TL11 (Pistol)-12 (DX+1) {2}
- Brawling-11 (DX+0) {1}
- Combat Piloting (Contragravity)-14 {3}.
- Computer Hacking/TL11-13 (IQ+0) {8}
- Computer Operation/TL11-16 (IQ+3) {8}
- Computer Programming/TL11-13 (IQ+0) {4}
- Electronics Operation/TL11 (Communications)-13 (IQ+0) {2}
- Electronics Operation/TL11 (Sensors)-13 (IQ+0) {2}
- Electronics Repair/TL11 (Communications)-12 (IQ-1) {1}
- Electronics Repair/TL11 (Computers)-12 (IQ-1) {1}
- Electronics Repair/TL11 (Sensors)-12 (IQ-1) {1}
- Engineer/TL11 (Drone)-14 (IQ+1) {8}
- Engineer/TL11 (Robotics)-12 (IQ-1) {2}
- First Aid/TL11 (Human)-13 (IQ+0) {1}
- Forward Observer/TL11-14 (IQ+1) {4}
- Free Fall-10 (DX-1) {1}
- Gunner/TL11 (Beams)-12 (DX+1) {2}
- Gunner/TL11 (Missiles)-12 (DX+1) {2}
- Guns/TL11 (Grenade Launcher)-11 (DX+0) {1}
- Guns/TL11 (Rifle)-11 (DX+0) {1}
- Machinist/TL11-13 (IQ+0) {2}
- Mathematics/TL11 (Applied)-11 (IQ-2) {1}
- Mechanic/TL11 (Robotics)-14 (IQ+1) {4}
- Navigation/TL11 (Air)-16 (IQ+3) {2}
- Navigation/TL11 (Land)-16 (IQ+3) {2}
- Piloting/TL11 (Contragravity)-12 (DX+1) {4}
- Scrounging-14 (Per+1) {2}
- Vacc Suit/TL11-10 (DX-1) {1}
- Wrestling-10 (DX-1) {1}.