Playtesting the Ship Rules

I finally got the chance to playtest my spaceship combat rules with some friends. I’d say it went… pretty well.

The good news:

Even for our first time playing, the flow of combat felt fast and snappy. We went through eight rounds in just over an hour, including frequent breaks for using the bathroom, getting food, and checking on something for work.

In that time, my players traded missile volleys with the enemy, scrambled to contain their ship’s rising temperature, did first aid on injured crew members, and attempted (in vain) to patch their damaged radiators. There were too many fires to put out, forcing them to make difficult choices about what to prioritize.

Oh, and they decided their ship had a crew of swashbuckling space Cajuns.

Heat was a constant danger. The players’ ship overheated once, and the enemy ship twice. I think, because it was our first time, none of us really got the strategy with heat. In practice, we all found it really easy to let it get out of control. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, necessarily, but it’s worth keeping in mind for next time.

But still, on a basic level, the game worked. Fantastic!

Now for the bad news:

During the battle, each ship took one hit from the enemy’s weapons. That one hit, along with overheating, caused so much damage to their crew stats that by the end of the fight, any given roll had at best a 30% chance of success.

Floundering in desperation, my players decided the best thing to do was ram the other ship (I don’t think ramming is or should be a thing in this system, but I decided, what the hell?).

On one hand, this was certainly entertaining. It reinforced the dangerous, vicious nature of war in space, and it felt right as a consequence for letting heat get out of control. On the other hand, I think I want ships to last a little longer before getting to that point. I’ll just have to play with the numbers.

Although I’m considering decoupling crew casualties from check rolls. I’m not sure how I’d go about that, if I decide to do it.

There was another moment when the players took system damage to their radiators, halving their heat cap, causing them to overheat, causing them to take crew casualties. That’s two d8 for system damage, one d6 for overheating, and three d6 for the crew casualties. That’s… quite the chain reaction of dice rolls.

The Dump Coolant action doesn’t feel decisive enough to me. I like the idea of relief now in exchange for it being easier to overheat later, but I’m starting to think you need to lose a lot of heat for that trade-off to be worth it. And maybe I can come up with another way to reduce heat, too.

I’m not sure if the range bands are meaningful enough. This one is going to take more testing, but if I find that players aren’t really thinking about how far they are from the enemy ship, then I’ll have to make some adjustments.

Really, I just need to play more, see what feedback different people have, see how the game feels. But I feel good about where I’m at so far.

The next step after that is to start thinking about the other half of flying a spaceship: earning money, getting into debt, making repairs, and managing a large crew of people who might not all like the way the captain is running things. But that’s going to take some time.

[EDIT: I wrote about money and the crew in part 2.]

March 19, 2023 Mission Control Model Rules Rockhoppers Sci-Fi Space

Musings on Space Combat

Continuing from The Mission Control Model and The Restitution Project and the External Service, let’s talk about spaceships and how to run them. Warning: long post ahead.

Some resources to make everything below easier to use in play:

• Ship manifest (your ship’s character sheet)
  
• Rules cheat sheet (the rules on one page!)

Part 2 here!

Crew Stats

Spaceships have just three Stats, representing the health and competence of the crews of three departments. Roll 3d6 for them, in order. These are your Crew Stats’ maximum values — the crew at their peak performance.

• COMAST (short for communication and astrogation) oversees all interior and exterior communications, including all functions that keep the ship pointing in the right direction, sending the right signals, and seeing the right things. COMAST is the ship’s eyes, ears, and mouth.
• Engineering is responsible for all maintenance and repair needs, as well as the operation of the reactor, the maintenance of the ship’s internal atmosphere, and the management of temperature inside the ship.
• Payload keeps track of everything the ship has, uses, and needs — including weapons, if it has any. Payload maintains the ship’s cargo stores, operates its guns, and addresses any injuries the crew sustains.

To make a check, roll 1d20 under the appropriate Crew Stat. If you need to round, always round up.

Other Ship Attributes

• Hit Points: None. A successful hit will damage your Systems, lower your Crew Stats, or add Heat.
• Heat: The ship’s internal temperature. The radiators offload Heat into space, but they can only do so much.
• Heat Cap: The safe threshold for how much Heat the ship can sustain. If it exceeds the Heat Cap, the ship overheats. Base of 3d6.
• Stress: How many times the reactor has overheated. The more the ship overheats, the more dangerous it is if the ship overheats again. Starts at 0.
• Armor: Protects the ship from System damage. Base of 0 for civilian ships, 3 for warships.
• Hardpoints: Mounts for weapons, defenses, and drones. Base of 1 for civilian ships, 3 for warships.
• Cargo Holds: Bulk storage for trade goods. Each hold can store one type of good. Radioactive, hazardous, or otherwise fragile goods require specialized holds to be installed. Small items are assumed to be storable unless they require specialized storage. Base of 1 for most ships, 3 for cargo ships.
• Size: The number of modules the ship can hold. Equal to 1d4 plus the ship’s starting number of Hardpoints and Cargo Holds.

Systems

Unless specified otherwise, every ship has the following eight Systems.

#	System	Use	If damaged or destroyed
1	Sensors	Detects objects in space	“Scan” is unavailable. The ship can detect other ships if they’re burning their engines, but nothing more.
2	Life Support	Keeps the ship livable for humans	“First Aid” is unavailable. Subtract 1d6 from each Crew Stat (roll separately). The crew must wear vac-suits inside the ship to survive until life support is restored.
3	Weapons Bay	Mounts weapons, drones, and defenses	“Fire” is unavailable. None of the ship’s Hardpoints can be used until the weapons bay is patched or repaired.
4	Cargo Bay	Stores cargo	Choose half of the ship’s Cargo Holds. The contents of those Holds are lost, even if the cargo bay is patched or repaired.
5	Radiators	Dispels heat	The ship’s Heat Cap is cut in half until radiators are patched or repaired. If Heat exceeds the new Heat Cap, the ship immediately overheats.
6	Thrusters	Allows the ship to maneuver	All attack rolls against the ship automatically hit. The ship can no longer rotate, change direction, or maneuver.
7	Engine	Propels the ship forward and provides gravity via acceleration	“Change Course” is unavailable. The ship loses gravity and can no longer move at more than a snail’s pace.
8	Reactor	Powers the ship	The ship loses power; choose one other System to keep online with emergency backup power. Every other System is deactivated until the reactor is patched or repaired.

For each point of System damage the ship receives, roll 1d8 and see which System is hit by the attack. Duplicates are re-rolled.

The first time a System is hit by an attack, it is damaged and rendered nonfunctional. Damaged Systems can be patched, but this only works once — if a System is hit again, it is destroyed and must be repaired at port.

Actions

When things get tense between spaceships, actions start resolving simultaneously. Time is split into Rounds. Each Round, the Referee describes what’s happening and what the other ships are doing. The players then decide what their ship does in response.

A ship can perform two actions each Round.

Action	Description
Patch System	Make an Engineering check to patch a damaged system.
Dump Radiator Coolant	Reduce your Heat by 2d6, and reduce your Heat Cap by half that result until the radiators are repaired at port.
Scan	Choose passive or active sensors and make a COMAST check to detect, identify, or target lock.
Change Course	Move from one range band to an adjacent one. If two ships are Changing Course in the same direction, the pursuer makes a COMAST check.
Fire	Make a Payload check to activate a Hardpoint — make a weapon attack, use a defense, or deploy a drone. Each Hardpoint can only be activated once per turn.
First Aid	Make a Payload check to restore 1d6 to a Crew Stat (up to its maximum).

Range Bands

Encounters and battles in outer space take place at distances of tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of kilometers. At these ranges, the speed of light imposes limits on the ability to keep real-time track of faraway objects. There are four range bands:

• The Outer Envelope — within about ten light-seconds — is the far bound of where an encounter occurs. At this range, it is perfectly possible for a ship to disengage at will. Only missiles can be fired at this range. Target lock is impossible at this range, and ships lose target lock if they retreat out to the Outer Envelope.
• The Inner Envelope — within about one light-second — is where most battles actually take place. This is where target locking becomes possible, and where all weapons come into play (although lasers only deal half Heat in the Inner Envelope).
• Close Range is even shorter — within about a tenth of a light-second. Battles in Close Range are typically brief and brutal, with staggering casualties on both sides.
• Point-Blank Range is close enough to where one ship could hit another with its point-defense systems.

Sensors and Detection

There are two types of sensors. Passive sensors include telescopes and heat sensors, and only detect emissions from the target. Active sensors include radar and lidar, emitting electromagnetic radiation and detecting the radiation reflected off the target. Active sensors are more powerful, but more conspicuous.

There are three levels of detection, ranging from weakest to strongest. Each level of detection builds on the last one. To target lock a ship, it is necessary first to have identified it.

• Detection is the knowledge that something out there is hotter than background space. You know roughly what direction it’s in, how far away it is, and what sort of object it is — a ship, space station, asteroid, missile, etc. So long as you have functional sensors, you automatically and always detect any object that could possibly be of importance.
• Identification is the precise and certain localization of an object in space. If it’s a ship, you know what type it is, and you become aware of any actions it’s taking. To identify a target, you can either make a COMAST check using passive sensors, or use active sensors to identify the target without making a check. If you use active sensors to identify a target, the target also identifies you.
• Target lock is the calculation of where to train your guns so you can hit the object. This requires that you be close enough so that light lag becomes irrelevant. To target lock, you have to make a COMAST check. This uses active sensors and causes the target to identify your ship. You cannot roll to target lock in the Outer Envelope, and any ship that retreats to the Outer Envelope loses its target lock.

Attacks, Weapons, and Heat

To make an attack, choose a Hardpoint with a weapon and make a Payload check. If you haven’t locked onto your target using sensors, that check has Disadvantage.

Ships’ weapons are categorized into three types.

• Ballistics propel solid metal slugs at incredibly high speeds, tearing through an enemy ship’s hull. Ballistics can be fired at any range except the Outer Envelope.
• Lasers deal Heat rather than System damage. While devastating up close, lasers suffer from diffraction at a distance — they can be fired at any range except the Outer Envelope, but deal half Heat against targets in the Inner Envelope.
• Missiles are slow warheads outfitted with a computer package that allows them to track their target. Unlike ballistics and lasers, missile weapons consume missile ammunition when fired. Missiles can be fired at any range, but do not hit until the end of the next Round. Missile attacks do not require a Payload check or a target lock; they are presumed to hit automatically unless interdicted or destroyed en route.

System damage refers to the number of Systems hit by an attack. Armor absorbs System damage — if an attack inflicts System damage of 3, and the target has an Armor of 2, then the target’s Armor is reduced to 0 and only 1 System is hit.

Heat, meanwhile, causes no problems so long as it remains at or below the Heat Cap. Once Heat exceeds the Cap, however, the ship overheats. Roll 1d6 on the overheating table below, and add your current level of Stress. Then, gain 1 Stress, clear your Heat, and add back the excess Heat you gained above your Heat Cap.

#	Result
1-2	HEATSTROKE. Internal temperature exceeds safe limits. Subtract 1d6 from each Crew Stat (roll separately).
3-4	THERMAL SHUTDOWN. Rising temperature harms electrical equipment. Subtract 1d6 from each Crew Stat (roll separately). All checks you make until the end of the next Round have Disadvantage.
5-6	UNSTABLE REACTOR. Magnets supporting the fusion reactor become unstable. Subtract 1d6 from each Crew Stat (roll separately). Then take System damage to the reactor.
7+	MASS CASUALTIES. Internal temperature becomes critical. Subtract 2d6 from each Crew Stat (roll separately).

At the end of a battle, reduce each Crew Stat maximum by half the damage taken to the Stat.

Drones and Defenses

Drones are small, stripped-down, AI-piloted spacecraft. They have a limited number of actions available. Drones have no Crew Stats — they make all checks by rolling 1d20 and attempting to roll below 11. If a drone takes System damage, it is destroyed. A drone is also destroyed if it takes more than 5 Heat in a Round.

Drones share their levels of detection with each other and their parent ship. If a drone target locks an enemy ship, its parent ship and all sibling drones can benefit from it even in the Outer Envelope.

Sample Weapons

Primary Mass Driver
Ballistic weapon. 1 System damage. 2 damage to a Crew Stat of the target’s choosing. Take 2 Heat when firing this weapon.

Heavy Kinetic Batteries
Ballistic weapon. 2 System damage. 4 damage to a Crew Stat of the target’s choosing. Take 1d6 Heat when firing this weapon.

Basic Laser
Laser weapon. 1d6 Heat. Take 2 Heat when firing this weapon.

Multi-Laser Array
Laser weapon. 2d6 Heat, or 4 Heat on miss. Take 4 Heat when firing this weapon.

Spinal Mount Laser
Laser weapon. 3d6 Heat. Take 4 Heat when firing this weapon. Takes up 2 Hardpoints.

Ship-to-Ship Missiles
Missile weapon. 2 System damage. 2 damage to a Crew Stat of the target’s choosing. Consumes 1 missile ammunition. Take 2 Heat when firing this weapon.

Anti-Capital Missiles
Missile weapon. 1d4 System damage. 4 damage to a Crew Stat of the target’s choosing. Consumes 1 missile ammunition. Take 1d6 Heat when firing this weapon.

Point-Defense Turrets
As defense: Can stop 1 missile when fired. Take 4 Heat when using this defense.
As weapon: Ballistic weapon. 1d4 System damage. Take 4 Heat when firing this weapon. Point-Blank Range only.

Point-Defense Laser Grid
As defense: Can stop up to 2 missiles (roll for each missile). Take 4 Heat when using this defense.
As weapon: Laser weapon. 3d6 Heat. Take 4 Heat when firing this weapon. Point-Blank Range only.

Surveillance Drone
Can take the following actions:
Change Course. Move from one range band to an adjacent one. It makes a check if it’s pursuing a spacecraft moving away from it.
Scan. Choose passive or active sensors and make a check to detect, identify, or target lock.
Ram. Hit a target and destroy the drone. Can stop 1 missile from hitting the parent ship.

Combat Drone - Ballistic
Armor of 2. Can take the following actions:
Change Course. Move from one range band to an adjacent one. It makes a check if it’s pursuing a spacecraft moving away from it.
Fire. Ballistic weapon. 1 System damage. 2 damage to a Crew Stat of the target’s choosing.
Ram. Hit a target and destroy the drone. Can stop 1 missile from hitting the parent ship.

Combat Drone - Laser
Armor of 2. Can take the following actions:
Change Course. Move from one range band to an adjacent one. It makes a check if it’s pursuing a spacecraft moving away from it.
Fire. Laser weapon. 1d6 Heat.
Ram. Hit a target and destroy the drone. Can stop 1 missile from hitting the parent ship.

Defensive Drone Swarm
Can take the following actions:
Fire. Defense. Can stop 2 missiles from hitting the parent ship (roll for each missile).
Ram. Hit a target and destroy the drone. Can stop 1 missile from hitting the parent ship.

Modules

Some ships come equipped with extra modules — expansions to the ship that give it extra functionality. A ship can hold a number of modules equal to its Size. Its Hardpoints and Cargo Holds count toward this total. Some sample modules include:

1. Extra Hardpoint: Adds 1 Hardpoint to the ship.
2. Extra Cargo Hold: Adds 1 Cargo Hold to the ship.
3. Reinforced Radiators: If the radiators are damaged, reduce Heat Cap by a quarter, rather than by half.
4. Passenger Quarters: Cramped, minimal, but serviceable rooms and common areas, which can carry up to 100 passengers on long trips across the Solar System.
5. Luxury Cabins: Spacious quarters which can carry up to 25 passengers in first-class comfort.
6. Lander: A small auxiliary spacecraft capable of landing on the surfaces of moons and planets. Up to 10 people may be safely carried.
7. Armory: Storage for enough military weaponry and armor to equip 25 people.
8. Mining Equipment: Drills, harpoons, drones, inflatable domes, storage pods, and other gear for harvesting valuable materials from asteroids.
9. Fuel Scoop: This ship can skim the atmosphere of a gas giant to harvest atmospheric gasses for refining or sale. Choose a Cargo Hold to be optimized for carrying condensed gasses.
10. Smuggler’s Hold: A hidden compartment the size of one Cargo Hold, where goods or people can be stored discreetly.
11. Medical Bay: This ship is outfitted with expanded facilities for treating injured patients. When taking the First Aid action, you may restore 2d6 to one Crew Stat, or 1d6 to two.
12. Electronic Warfare Package: Gain an action, Breach Network. Make a COMAST check to choose or negate one of the target ship’s actions that Round. This check always has Disadvantage.

Some ships are designed for only local travel, such as between the moons of Jupiter or Saturn, or around the Asteroid Belt. In that case, they might be equipped with a chemical fuel engine. For these ships, add the following module:

Chemical Fuel Engine: Instead of having a nuclear fusion reactor, this ship burns liquid propellant to accelerate. This ship has Fuel, which starts at 3 (its maximum is also 3). Local journeys cost 1 Fuel. Longer trips, such as between planets, cost 3 Fuel. Additionally, replace the Reactor System with Fuel Tanks. If the fuel tanks are damaged or destroyed, the ship’s current and maximum Fuel decrease by 1. This module does not count against the ship’s Size.

Flaws

Salvaged, derelict, or otherwise ramshackle spaceships might come with a flaw — some kind of mechanical weakness in the ship. Example flaws include:

1. Faulty System: Roll 1d8 on the System chart. That System cannot be patched — if it’s damaged, it’s destroyed and must be repaired at port.
2. Fire Risk: Whenever the ship takes Heat, roll 1d10. On a 10, an electrical fire breaks out, causing 1d6 damage to a Crew Stat of your choosing. In combat, the ship must spend one of its actions next Round to put out the fire.
3. Outdated Reactor: The ship’s Stress starts at 2 and cannot be decreased below 2.
4. Unusually Small: Reduce the ship’s starting number of either Hardpoints or Cargo Holds by 1. The ship’s Size is equal to the number of Hardpoints and Cargo Holds, plus 1.
5. Weak Hull: The ship’s Armor cannot be increased above 2.
6. Bad Sensors: Identification using active sensors requires a COMAST check. All other Scan checks have Disadvantage.

The Transponder

A transponder is a radio beacon fixed to every spaceship, providing the vessel’s unique identification whenever prompted. By law, civilian spaceships are required to have their transponder switched on at all times. Military spacecraft often have their transponders switched off or tuned to only respond to requests containing a secret activation code.

Transponders are difficult but not impossible to tamper with. A transponder might be manipulated to broadcast fake identification.

How to Roll Up a Ship

• Roll 3d6 for each Crew Stat (if it has crew).
• Roll 3d6 for Heat Cap. Set Stress to 0.
• Set Armor to 3 if it’s a warship, 0 otherwise.
• Set Cargo Holds to 3 if it’s a cargo ship, 1 otherwise.
• Set Hardpoints to 3 if it’s a warship, 0 otherwise.
• Roll 1d4 + the number of Cargo Holds and Hardpoints for Size.
• Pick out some weapons, or don’t, if the ship is unarmed. If you picked a missile weapon, set missile ammunition to 3.
• Roll 1d12 or pick a Module if it’s a fancy, expensive, or specialized ship.
• Roll 1d6 or pick a Flaw if it’s a derelict, salvaged, or outdated ship.

Sample Ships

The Lyra

This small mining vessel was practically cobbled together in someone’s garage. Its chemical fuel engine is powerful enough for local flights in the Asteroid Belt, but not much more. The ship is equipped with a mass driver to ward off pirates and claim jumpers.

COMAST: 10

Engineering: 13

Payload: 9

Heat Cap: 7

Armor: 0

Fuel: 3

Cargo Holds: 1

Hardpoints: 1

• Primary Mass Driver

Size: 4
Modules:

• Mining Equipment
• Chemical Fuel Engine

Flaws:

• Faulty System (thrusters)

The Boomslang

A decommissioned hospital ship, stolen by a group of pirates and outfitted with a slate of offensive weapons to threaten cargo freighters and mining vessels.

COMAST: 8
Engineering: 13
Payload: 7
Heat Cap: 13
Armor: 0

Missiles: 3
Cargo Holds: 1
Hardpoints: 2

• Basic Laser
• Ship-to-Ship Missiles

Size: 4
Modules:

• Extra Hardpoint
• Lander

Flaws:

• Fire Risk

The Taurus

An interplanetary cargo ship of the Ceravolo Gas & Freight company. Designed for long hauls across the Outer Solar System, the ship has plenty of space for carrying atmospheric gasses, and its short-range point-defense guns scare off pirates looking to plunder such a high-value target.

COMAST: 8
Engineering: 12
Payload: 11
Heat Cap: 9
Armor: 0
Cargo Holds: 4 (3 are specialized for compressed atmospheric gasses)
Hardpoints: 1

• Point-Defense Turrets

Size: 7
Modules:

• Extra Cargo Hold

ENS Friedrich Barbarossa

Staufer-class fast-attack frigate of the External Navy. Long-range missiles force the enemy to generate heat in the outer envelope, while its kinetic batteries wreak havoc in the short and medium ranges.

COMAST: 14
Engineering: 10
Payload: 12
Heat Cap: 10
Armor: 3
Missiles: 3
Cargo Holds: 1
Hardpoints: 3

• Heavy Kinetic Batteries
• Ship-to-Ship Missiles
• Point-Defense Laser Grid

Size: 5
Modules:

• Electronic Warfare Package

ENS Sikasso

Wagadou-class laser-mounted gunship of the External Navy. The ship itself is built around a massive laser cannon, a devastating weapon at small distances.

COMAST: 9
Engineering: 11
Payload: 12
Heat Cap: 15
Armor: 3
Cargo Holds: 1
Hardpoints: 4

• Spinal Mount Laser
• Primary Mass Driver
• Point-Defense Laser Grid

Size: 7
Modules:

• Extra Hardpoint
• Reinforced Radiators

ENS Oneida

Haudenosaunee-class drone mothership of the External Navy. Unarmored by itself, the ship instead carries a suite of combat and reconnaissance drones.

COMAST: 9
Engineering: 16
Payload: 9
Heat Cap: 13
Armor: 3
Cargo Holds: 1
Hardpoints: 4
Surveillance Drone

• Combat Drone - Ballistic
• Combat Drone - Laser
• Defensive Drone Swarm

Size: 6
Modules:

• Extra Hardpoint

Design Notes

• This is my sixth attempt at writing spaceship rules, and the first draft I feel is play-ready.
• I haven’t playtested these rules at all. I don’t know if any of this works. I’m going to try to get some friends together to play soon. I might write a follow-up post reporting back on how that goes.
• I don’t have “ship roles” — the players all act as a single unit when they’re in control of their ship. This does a few things that I like. For one, nobody’s sitting around because there are, say, six player characters and only five roles to fulfill on the ship. Nobody’s left out because they didn’t take a Piloting or Gunnery skill during character creation. And tonally, the focus is on the crew’s collective cohesion and competence, not the heroism of any one person.
• I left out a “Command” Crew Stat because I think in most situations, the PCs are the Command staff. I might add it in later, and I have some ideas for how I’d do it, but nothing firm yet. Let’s get the basics down first.
• I did two actions per Round for a few reasons. For one, it feels right that multiple organs of the ship are acting simultaneously. One department is doing one thing, another department is doing another thing, the whole ship is one big complex organism. It also avoids a situation where the only thing a ship ever does is fire its gun. So now you can shoot at the other ship and use sensors, or patch a system, or do first aid.
• I emphasized rolling up a ship because I think it’s more dramatic if the player characters acquire or stumble upon a ship during play. They don’t get to choose all the details — they have to work with what they’ve got.

Further Reading

• Space Weapons Intro
• Space War Intro
• Detection in Space Warfare
• The Big List of Propulsion Failures II
• Non-Standard Starship Scuffles
• Spaceship as Character
• Into The Void: Starships for Into The Odd
• Space Campaign Orbital Encounters
• Getting Rid of Dogfights
• No-Initiative Action for Mothership

February 1, 2023 Mission Control Model Rules Rockhoppers Sci-Fi Space

#Dungeon23

Sean McCoy of Mothership fame recently tweeted (and then blogged) about a fun project he’s doing in 2023. Every day, he’ll write just one room of a dungeon into a journal. Every week is an area. Every month is a floor. By year’s end he’ll have a sprawling megadungeon all written in a journal.

#Dungeon23 got some traction on RPG twitter, and I thought, what the hell, it’s just one room a day. I can do that!

So I’m doing it. Here’s a prompt to get myself started.

Up the windy slopes and sheer cliffs of the Singing Mountain, a shrine was built into the rock. The shrine grew quickly, attracting pilgrims who come to make offerings to the spirit of the mountain, and receive blessings of health and good fortune. The shrine grew into a temple, with a full-time staff of custodians to lead pilgrims up the mountain, maintain the temple complex, and manage access to the spirit.

When the Singing Mountain erupted, the temple was buried in ash. The custodians were entombed with their temple, and the old pilgrimage route fell into disrepair. Travelers were warned that the mountain was dangerous, even cursed. Pilgrims stopped making the journey, and the passage of time buried the temple in memory.

But things buried have a tendency to endure beyond memory, coming back with an unexpected, restless force.

The entrance to the temple, long forgotten, has reopened. A steady trickle of adventurers, mendicants, and challenge-seekers has arrived at the old pilgrimage route. The spirit of the mountain has been roused from its slumber, and is beginning to move toward the light.

There are secrets buried beneath the mountain, hidden even to the custodians of the old temple. Soon, those secrets will be unearthed.

December 12, 2022 D&D Dungeon23 Fantasy

The Villages Infinite

The villages of the countryside are too small and too numerous to count on a map. They are infinite, stretching out in all directions, so long as crops can grow and livestock can feed. They are not important enough to name. Without them, nobody eats. They are home to almost everyone.

For a three-mile hex with arable soil, there is always at least one village.

For a hex with marginal soil or unfavorable terrain, there is a 3-in-6 chance of a village. In the deep wilderness, that chance is 1-in-6.

For a hex along a river or road, on particularly good soil, or near a town, there is a 3-in-6 chance of two villages.

Roll 2d100 for the village’s adult population. They are almost all subsistence farmers, fishers, or herders. Many of them might be tenants or unfree laborers working on a landlord’s estate.

Roll 1d8 for the appearance of the village to passers-by.

1. Wretchedly poor and desolate. Only a few villagers are strong enough to work in the fields.
2. Burnt and broken. A conflict recently took place, and the villagers are recovering from the damage.
3. A husk of its former self. Villagers live amongst the ruins of an older, larger settlement.
4. Quiet and spooky. The villagers glare at each other and at outsiders with suspicion.
5. Struggling, but not destitute. There are too few hands for all the work that needs to be done.
6. Prosperous and growing. The villagers are hard at work bringing new land under cultivation.
7. Generous and welcoming. The villagers cheerfully welcome visitors to their community.
8. An oasis of pastoral beauty. The fields are humming with activity, and folk look happy and well-fed.

This village has a distinctive feature which immediately sets it apart from its neighbors. Roll 1d12 to determine what that feature is.

1. A lodging house sits at the center of the village, offering food, drink and rest to travelers.
2. A small river cuts through the village, dotted with fish traps and canoes.
3. The local landlord’s estate is impressive in its size and prominence. The building oversees vast tracts of land worked by the village population.
4. A stone stele towers over the village, carved with the decrees of a long-dead king.
5. The village shrine is unusually large and meticulously maintained by a few custodians. People come here from miles around to say prayers and make offerings to the local spirit.
6. Just outside the village lies the ruined columbarium of an extinct aristocratic family. The site has fallen into disrepair after decades or centuries of neglect.
7. The village is surrounded by a wooden stockade — an adequate defense against brigands, but poor protection against a committed force of arms.
8. A layer of gardens surrounds the village, where people grow fruits and vegetables.
9. A large number of bees, birds, cats, bugs, or other small animals are kept by the local population.
10. The villagers live and work amidst the skeleton of a long-dead giant. They’ve painted the exposed bones, wrapped them in cloth, and hung lanterns off them.
11. A small monastic society sits just outside the village. There, the monks tend to their gardens, educate children of noble families, make dedications to their saints, and live out a strict code of ethical conduct.
12. This community is a seasonal home for semi-nomadic herders, who live here for part of the year and graze their herds of sheep and goats in the nearby grasslands.

The village is ruled by one or perhaps two large landowning families, each with a sizable farmstead. They have draft animals, storage facilities, political standing, and market contacts in the nearest town. They probably employ a few millers, bakers, butchers, brewers and distillers, plus some (free or unfree) domestic servants, and a handful of armed retainers.

Roll 1d6 for the general character of each landlord in the village.

1. Cruel and spiteful
2. Generous yet patronizing
3. Industrious yet greedy
4. Lazy and self-absorbed
5. Bitter and hot-tempered
6. Gruff and unrefined

There may be one or two craft specialists in the entire village. They are employed by a nearby landowning family. Roll 1d20 to determine who they are.

1. Armorer
2. Blacksmith
3. Bowyer
4. Candlemaker
5. Cooper
6. Chef
7. Embroiderer
8. Furrier
9. Glazier
10. Jeweler
11. Painter
12. Poet
13. Physician
14. Ropemaker
15. Saddlemaker
16. Sculptor
17. Shoemaker
18. Tailor
19. Tanner
20. Witch

The village is currently dealing with a problem. It could be trivial or severe, but it is mundane, beneath the notice of most adventurers. Roll 1d12 to discover what ails the village.

1. Someone’s run off with all the pigs! The local lord has arranged a search party to retrieve the stolen animals and apprehend the pig thief.
2. A troll has migrated into the area around the village, devouring livestock at night. Attempts to scare it off have thus far failed.
3. A dispute over land boundaries has erupted into a full-blown feud between two peasant families. The lord stepped in to adjudicate, but the animosity lingers, threatening to devolve into open violence.
4. An outbreak has left half the village bedridden and miserable. A witch or priest might heal them, but there are none to be found in the village.
5. The local landlord is double-taxing the peasants, taking over the farms of anyone who can’t or won’t pay. The villagers are furious, but none dare to challenge the landlord’s power — yet.
6. A villager is inert in their home, eyes rolled back, speaking in tongues — possessed! The spirit responsible refuses to let them go until it is placated with gifts of wine, silver, and slaughtered animals.
7. The nearby river is flooding, threatening to wash away part of the village unless the water is contained.
8. Some herders’ sheep got loose and trampled a farming family’s crops. The peasants demand restitution for their losses, but the local landlord is unresponsive. Exacerbated, they’ve turned their anger toward the herders, threatening their lives if they return to the village.
9. Bandits on the road are harassing travelers to and from the nearby town. They’re stashing their ill-gotten goods in a safe house somewhere in the wilderness, a place the local lord’s retainers haven’t found yet.
10. A child has gone missing after straying too far into the wilderness. The village organized a search party to find the kid, but to no avail.
11. A fire burned down a few homes in the village, leaving several peasant families homeless. They need wood to rebuild, but good timber is hard to find.
12. The lord’s teenage child accidentally killed a local villager after a heated night of drinking. The peasants demand punishment, but the teenager is legally protected as a scion of an aristocratic family.

There’s almost no real commerce in the village, but itinerant merchants do circuit the countryside, buying whatever looks likely to turn a profit and selling at each town and market along their way. Their wares are limited beyond agricultural produce and maybe meat, but they might carry some odds and ends.

At any given time, there is a 2-in-6 chance that an itinerant merchant is in the village, driving 1d4-1 donkeys or other pack animals.

Roll 1d10 twice to determine what other goods the merchant is carrying.

1. Alcohol
2. Clothing
3. Glassware
4. Furs or leathers
5. Jewelry
6. Pottery
7. Rugs
8. Rope
9. Spices
10. Weapons

November 21, 2022 D&D Fantasy

The Restitution Project and the External Service

The year is 2321. Humanity has been an interplanetary species for the better part of 200 years. There are cities in the clouds of Venus, along the canyon walls of Mars, amid the rings of Saturn, and in the inky black of the Kuiper Belt. Nearly a hundred million people live somewhere beyond Earth’s immediate orbit, from Mercury to Pluto and beyond. Spaceflight, once a marvel of cutting-edge science, is now routine.

But Earth itself is a dying world. Three centuries of uncontrolled greenhouse gas emissions have let loose the fastest mass extinction event in the planet’s history, killing off thousands of species and rendering vast swaths of the planet’s surface uninhabitable to humans. Once-vibrant oceans are sterile. Once-fertile farmland has withered. Whole nations have been devoured by the steady advance of sand and sea. Catastrophic shocks to the world’s food supply led to mass death on a scale not seen since the arrival of Europeans to the Americas in the 16th century.

The survivors’ vow to rebuild has taken life in the Restitution Project.

Simultaneously a world government, an economic system, an infrastructure project, and a cultural north star, the Restitution Project purports to be the revolutionary remaking of human society. It brings together every nation, every religion, and every culture toward the goal of rebuilding Earth’s devastated biosphere and preserving it for future generations. Emerging out of the planetary turmoil of the 22nd century, the Restitution Project supersedes the nation-state as the dominant system of human political and social organization. Wielding power as a worldwide government, the Restitution Project has set off to outer space to make possible the dream of a reconstructed Earth.

The process of reversing catastrophic climate change — in effect, terraforming planet Earth — is an immense undertaking. It requires rare minerals and gasses sourced from the furthest reaches of the Solar System. It requires the construction of hundreds of habitats, thousands of ships, and all the secondary infrastructure to support a large population living and working in space.

Today, more people live in orbit around Earth than on the planet itself. Billions live in a gargantuan orbital ring wrapping around Earth’s equator in low orbit, connected via cable train to nearly every major city. Earth’s orbital space is a dense constellation of stations, ships, drones, telescopes, factories, solar power collectors, laser brooms, and more. Nearly 16 billion people — over 99% of the human population — live on or around Earth. Whether they live on the planet’s surface or in its orbit, they are Earthers, united in their work toward repairing a planet ravished by debilitating climate change.

But those who live further afield experience the Restitution Project very differently to their Earthbound cousins.

The Spacers, as they’ve become known, are the descendants of Earthers who set out beyond the comfort of their home planet to work for Restitution. Those settlers spoke hundreds of different languages and practiced dozens of different faith traditions. They learned to live side-by-side with each other, adapting to the challenge of inhabiting the most hostile possible environment to human life. As a result, the Spacers are defined both by their remarkable diversity and their unifying experience of life deep in interplanetary space.

Millions of people now live, work, and die in space, never once setting foot on planet Earth. That separation has alienated the Spacers from the Restitution Project and the planet they labor to keep alive. For them, Restitution isn’t the promise of a revolutionary reconstruction of the human species’ shared home. It’s an exploitative weight extracting their wealth and funneling it back to the metropole. Spacers experience the Restitution Project as an empire — life-saving resources flow in toward Earth, while Restitutionary authority radiates out.

The interplanetary arm of the Restitution Project, the apparatus of empire in outer space, is the External Service. Conceived in 2250 to standardize and rationalize the colonial administration, the External Service has become an outlet for the careerist ambitions of politically-connected Earthers, ideologically conformist and unsympathetic to the needs and wants of the people they’re responsible for. Even educated, skilled Spacers are shut out of the ranks of the bureaucracy.

Restitutionary propaganda appeals to the shared humanity of Earthers and Spacers, imploring them to come together as one for the survival of the home planet. But in practice, the External Service sees Spacers as a sinister other needing to be controlled, managed, and policed. A culture of paranoid xenophobia has taken root in the External Service, whose agents see existential threats to the Restitution Project everywhere they look.

Working-class Spacers suffer from widespread poverty and terrible conditions on the job. Low pay, long hours, and abuse by the bosses are rampant, as is an appalling level of neglect from the authorities. Spacers struggle with a number of health maladies ranging from weak hearts to skeletal deformities to appallingly high rates of maternal mortality. Many Spacers organize into unions to press for improvements to their living and working conditions, but labor organizing is met with violent repression from the Restitutionary authorities.

Middle-class Spacers are no more reconciled with the External Service. As the respectable leaders of Spacer society, many feel they are best equipped to identify and solve the problems that plague their brethren. Their demands for democracy and good government are met with silence from the insular, conformist External Service. Denied a voice in the regime, they’re left to complain amongst themselves. Some advocate for an accountable, responsible Restitutionary administration, while others urge for full independence and a reorientation of the interplanetary economy toward Spacer — not Earther — needs.

The External Service sacrifices the needs and wants of Spacers on the altar of planetary reconstruction, ironically putting the entire Restitution Project in danger. While limited in number, the Spacers are well-positioned at the heart of the Restitutionary industrial machine. Their dissent could very well doom the cause of Restitution. In reproducing the crimes of the colonial past in the name of order, the External Service alienates its victims from Restitution altogether, and risks revolution.

September 13, 2022 Rockhoppers Sci-Fi Space Worldbuilding

Adventures in Open Table Roleplaying

HER MAJESTY, CHILD OF THE IMMORTAL SUN, has little interest in this distant land. She sees its people as mere barbarians, only valuable so long as they respect the empire’s authority and supply it with furs, amber, ivory, and metals. The empire maintains a single outpost here, in the town of Vallo’s Bridge.

You are criminals convicted of high treason. You were given a choice — accept Her Majesty’s justice at the end of a noose, or be exiled across the sea to do her bidding.

See, Her Greatness has given a small fortune of silver to the Scrylings, a debt she needs reclaimed. One problem: the Scrylings were decimated by the dragon Bandradaim. It is up to you, then, to recoup the Empress’ investment — to delve into forgotten tombs, monster lairs, and haunted forests to find as much treasure as humanly possible.

And of course, you plan on making a fortune of your own in the process.

That’s how I began, about three weeks ago, my very first “open table” RPG campaign. As far as I’m aware, Justin Alexander of The Alexandrian coined the term, but the concept is old. The gist is that instead of running a grand narrative campaign with the same group of players, I run a more episodic adventure with a large pool of potential players, only some of whom show up for any given session. Players can drop in and drop out as they please, with no expectation that they have to show up week-after-week. Instead of running D&D 5th Edition, I’m running Knave, a game with a much lower barrier to entry (and also much easier to run on my end).

This way, I’m not wrangling schedules to try and find a time that fits for 4-6 busy adults. I don’t have to worry about disrupting narrative continuity by introducing new characters, and I can easily introduce new people to the hobby. Over the course of three weekends, I’ve already had two players at my table who’ve never played a roleplaying game before. I’m gaming more often now than I have since high school, and I’m having a ton of fun in the process.

The key to making this work is Vallo’s Bridge. All the exiles — all the player characters — live in that town, and they venture out from there to explore abandoned mines, wizard’s towers, ruined villages, ancient temples, and other places. At the end of each session, everybody returns to town to rest, recover, sell their loot, and level up. This means that any combination of characters can set off for adventure each week, which makes the open table work.

I’ve coupled this with a silver-for-XP system to reinforce the default goal of the campaign — steal treasure and give it to the crown — with a twist: only the silver turned into the authorities gets traded for experience points. This gives the players a choice between spending their money on XP and spending their money on anything else, which I think is interesting.

I have my own rules for hexcrawling, a calendar to track time, a rumor table I have new players roll on when they make their character, and a growing collection of adventure locations I’m plopping onto the map. It’s gonzo — one player’s character is named “Georgebush McCrimble” and another is named “Curmudgeon” — but that’s all part of the fun. This isn’t a grand epic adventure, it’s casual gaming over drinks and snacks.

It’s been a good few sessions! One group of players explored an abandoned mine where they dodged boulder traps, threw bar soap at goblins for lack of a ranged weapon, and did battle with a living crystal statue. Another group met an elf witch-poet in a prehistoric henge, learned of his goal to map ancient locations of Fairy myth, and recruited him to plunder an old wizard’s tower.

I might post some post-session reports as the campaign continues. If you’re struggling to line up players’ schedules for a normal D&D game, I highly recommend trying an open table.

August 19, 2022 D&D Fantasy Knave Open Table