Dollar Store Dungeons: Other Doctors

Two planes for $1.00

These two aircraft came in a $1.00 pack from the local dollar store. One is obviously a SR-71 Blackbird (but not black), while the other is a modern stealth aircraft (we're not too sure whether it's supposed to be a stealth fighter or a stealth bomber). Both aircraft have emblems on the wings which resembles the shirt emblems you see on crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise, which has me thinking about a specific way to use these.

Other Doctors, or-

Who is Gary Seven?

First of all, Trey Causey clued me into this. Others have blogged about this, as well. It's the question at the center of the 1968 Star Trek episode Assignment: Earth. 

Who is Gary Seven? Is it true that he's a Timelord?* After all, he uses one of these:

And he has some kind of console (with an interstellar transporter, no less) inside of his TARDIS "office":

And who or what is Gary Seven's cat?

We're told she's actually a shapeshifting alien:

And as if that's not enough, Gary Seven has another companion - I mean, "secretary."

Timelord or not, the Federation is going to keep an eye on any alien who is running around on 20th Century Earth tampering with space-based nuclear weapons. However, due to World War Three, the Federation's own records about what technologies were deployed exactly when are probably a little bit fizzy, at best. An SR-71? Not anachronistic. But a stealth fighter/bomber? Only the Federation, with its hazy historical records, would deploy one on Earth in 1968.

Chances are, both these planes are actually small time travel/warp-capable vessels disguised as  U.S. military aircraft of the late 20th/early 21st Century. The Federation deployed two of them to keep an eye on backtime threats from Gary Seven, other Timelords, aliens, etc. What happened to these planes and their crews? Who were their crews, anyway? Did the Federation also deploy ground-based agents? Were there Federation safe houses in major U.S. cities? There are some stories here worth exploring...


*There have been some nasty online discussions - particularly in forums - about whether Gene Roddenberry cribbed this episode of Star Trek while watching an episode of Doctor Who in London. That's not our concern in this post. We're mining the similarities for gameable ideas; that's all. 

Freighted With Peril!

Three Levels of Train

Today my gaming group tried out "Freighted with Peril" the demo adventure that Dawning Star's Fate Core Kickstarter backers received last week. The scenario deals with a train heist and will be familiar in some respects to fans of Firefly and Iain M. Banks' novel Against A Dark Background. The pregens are a mix of military PCs, with a scientist, a native Velin mystic, and a Rail Marshall  thrown in for good measure.

The image above represents different sections of the maglev train that's the set piece for the scenario. The train came to a complete halt early in the scenario, because the Rail Marshall pulled an emergency stop switch. The middle row of zones is the main level of the train, with the Engine on the left, three passenger cars as the middle zone, and three freight cars as the right hand zone. The two zones below the middle row represent two zones under the passenger cars and the freight cars. The upper row represents the roof areas above the passenger and freight car zones.

I won't go into the scenario in detail. Why ruin it for others? But here are a few GMing tips for whoever runs this next:

• Do as much as you can with the terrain! Play up the implications and complications of battle on a crowded train in which passengers are running all over the place and getting in the way of our heroes. 
• Take time in advance to look over the pregens and really get to know the PCs' Aspects. This is critical for the GM to be able to offer the players Compels. When you use pregens created by someone outside your game table, it can be more difficult to remember the PCs Aspects and play to them effectively as a GM.
• Think like the villains. Think beyond the scenario as written. What other things could the villains do to weigh the scales in their favor? How they might interact with the scene - both within and beyond the immediate setting of the train - to ensure that they win? 

Time for a couple more pictures. In our game, the Engineer was poisoned with a powerful hallucinogen. Thus the Aspect "Tripping Balls" written on the zone card. The Rail Marshall subdued the Engineer and then zip tied him up.

The scientist opted to "get mobile" with the MacGuffin and readily subdued it. The "upper" zone card in this photo is actually the underside of the freight cars.

The scientist managed to keep the MacGuffin away from the other PCs, which certainly contributed to the PCs ability to achieve a decisive victory. The scientist did everything right but had the misfortune to roll just slightly too low on a critical skill roll to really unlock the mystery of the MacGuffin. 

Maybe next time.

Starports Are A Blast!

Spaceport goes bang!

Last night's Alywn Campaign session ended with a bang! PCs Larissa, Francis, and Derek had gone back to the John M. Ford Minneapolis-St. Paul Interstellar Starport to see if they could access a starship. Exploration and salvage (i.e., looting) was their goal.

They explored the tarmac a bit and found numerous steep hillocks or drumlins. Some had holes dug into them; others did not. Two had metallic structures protruding from the mound. The PCs decided to explore one that had both protruding metal structures and holes. Larissa found a hatch around the base of that drumlin. After some heaving and hammering on the manual latch, the hatch open and slid downward and out of sight. 

The PCs entered a dimly lit room. It had a first aid kit with supplies in pristine condition, crashcarts and stretchers mounted on the bulkheads, as well as an inner airlock with keypad/viewscreen and a table console with many buttons. Francis and Dereck began pushing buttons. Many buttons. Eventually, more lights came on, there was humming and vibration from deeper in the ship, a ship AI turned on and began conversing with the PCs, and the inner bulkhead opened.

The PCs found themselves in a room with another console, a larger first aid kit (really a small surgical suite), five odd control nodules, and five large metallic containers. The AI came-on in this room too. It cycled through several languages until it hit upon the PCs dialect, which is an odd patois of English with many borrowed words and phrases from Spanish, Somali, Ojibway, Lakota and Interlac.

The PCs asked what was in the containers, and the AI told them that the containers held individuals subjected to Diplomatic Quarantine. Larissa found a depression on the control console in this room which seemed to fit her Circuit-Jewel Ring; this apparently authorized her to command the AI to release one of the quarantine subjects. A great deal of organic fluid with sizable biomass lumps sloshed everywhere. A medical robot appeared and began to release a strange looking creature from the harnesses within the containers. The creature looked like this:

It had a translation orb in its abdomen, and began communicating with the PCs.

More or less simultaneously, the lumpy elements in the floor slime began moving, and attacked all three PCs, grabbing limbs and latching on with their headtails:

None made it to the neck, but Derek's character succumbed to the nasty paralytic these creatures release to subdue their prey. Long and short of it was that Larissa and Francis prevailed in combat. Dereck managed to garrote one of the creatures and dislodge another that had attached to his leg. He got the hell out of Dodge, and headed back as quickly as he could travel to Fort Snelling.

Derek is planning on getting into a less risky end of the relic market.

Meanwhile, Larissa and Francis stayed in the ship and revived a second quarantine subject. This one turned out to be a normal human - a Ranger in fact. He was not fully thawed out before rescue and evacuation of the ship became imperative - about this time the ship activated its self-destruct mechanism - so a somewhat traumatized and amnesiac Ranger was carried out of the ship.

Larissa, Francis and the Ranger got clear of the spaceport just in time to see the column of fire created by the ship's explosion. The full scope of the damage will have to be assessed in a later expedition, but they saw the spaceport terminal undergo a pancake collapse. It is an open question whether Virgil survived.

Oh, and Francis did a catch and release with one of the little monsters. It's probably out there somewhere. And the big nasty alien got away using some kind of stealth magic.

Player feedback and GM reflections on the session:

• I wasn't handing out Fate Points when PCs were doing cool things during the battle
• I need to be more conscious of that as a critical part of GMing action scenes
• Derek's player is retiring that character in favor of a more combat-oriented one
• I never explained Declarations properly to Derek's player. To make matters worse, his character took a moderate consequence very early in the battle. I should have thought about offering him some ideas for Declaration that could have avoided or mitigated that initial damage.
• I'm trying to balance combat vs. non-combat in these adventures. Larissa's player definitely wants more combat. So I've been trying to supply more of that. But this session, I wasn't paying sufficient attention to the needs, abilities, and interests of each character/player. As a GM I am somewhat combat avoidant, and at least in the early days (the 1970s) was a monte hauler. These days, I strive for more balance (i.e., more risk to balance potential rewards) but I need to pay attention to the balance between challenge and possible PC responses - and offer some ideas and options.
• Derek's player read the new draft of FAE and caught an important rules change between drafts: PCs can now start with 3 Stunts and 3 Refresh. I liked the earlier draft better (1 free Stunt, after which additional Stunts cost Refresh) as the set point was grittier. We'll be going with the new draft, however, so PCs will be adding Stunts as seems appropriate.
• We also identified a need for an Ancient Tech/Lore kind of Stunt, representing knowledge and skill with things from before the Great Burn. I'll be working on some examples of how such stunts might work within the next couple of posts.

SHADO 2 Mobile

SHADO 2 Mobile Dinky toy
Photo c. 2012 by John Everett Till

Moonbase Central's post today on the SHADO Mobile 2 Dinky toy inspired me to do another Starblazer Adventures post. (Mine is green wheels and black treads, guys!) And that's the Starblazer Adventures storyteller's screen you see in the background of my photos!

The SHADO 2 Mobile was an armored ATV used by the Supreme Headquarters Alien Defense Organization (SHADO). There were different models of the vehicle used by SHADO to intercept UFOs that had breached Earth's Moon-based and airborne defenses. This version of the vehicle could be quickly deployed in an area near a UFO landing/close encounter site to scout for the alien vehicle and destroy it.

This SHADO 2 is armed with a missile launcher that is hidden under a rotating roof hatch. Below you can see the SHADO 2 Mobile's missile and launch rack deployed.

SHADO 2 Mobile: Missile Deployed!
Photo c. 2012 by John Everett Till

The vehicle has a machine gun over the driver's compartment. I am also making the assumption that the vehicle is amphibious - it can operate submerged for short periods of time, and cross streams and small bodies of water - as long as the treads have traction on a submerged surface such as a creek bottom.

OGL MECHANICS

Armored Missile ATV

Scale: Medium (2) Assault Platform
Speed: Fair (+2)
Structural Stress: 5
Systems Stress: 5
Fate Points/Refresh: 7

ASPECTS: 3

• Not every movie studio has these!
• Missile launcher ready!
• Earth's last line of defense

SKILLS: 

• 1 Good (+3): Armor  
• 2 Fair (+2): Manoeuvre, Projectile Weapons (Missiles)*
• 3 Average (+1): Projectile Weapons (Machine Guns), Troop Carrier Facilities**, Ship Systems

STUNTS:

• Guided Missiles - Projectile Weapon skill (p.328)
• Anti-Fighter Barrage - Projectile Weapon skill (p.328)
• Amphibious - Manoeuvre skill (NEW STUNT) - Vehicle may perform on land or in water.

*Vehicle has Out-of-Ammo temporary aspect after firing two missiles

**A crew of two in the driver and passenger seat, and up to 10 soldiers in back.