Running a “Political” Game - Campaign Retrospective

Is your RPG adventure “political?”

As in, are there different factions and stakeholders, with different interests, at odds with each other? Do the players have to make tough choices about who to trust, who to align with, and who to stab in the back?

If not… Do you want it to be?

From February to July, I ran a short campaign set on a remote space station gripped by a labor strike. The PCs were newcomers, caught up in events when their crewmate was murdered in the middle of the night. Through eight sessions spanning five in-game days, the PCs contended with company bosses, union workers, corrupt rent-a-cops, mafia enforcers, militia fighters, hardened terrorists, and people just trying to get by. They got into three firefights, and their actions put the whole station on a course toward all-out-war.

Along the way, I’ve learned quite a bit on how to run this sort of game. I don’t have all the answers, but here’s what comes to mind — with input from my players, because they were kind enough to humor me and fill out a post-campaign feedback form.

Outgun the player characters

The biggest key to establishing tension in a political intrigue game is to take away the PCs’ ability to solve all their problems with violence. That doesn’t mean they have to be left defenseless, but they should quickly run into people who can bring way more firepower to the table than they can.

Most RPG characters are built to get into — and win — fights, so system does matter here (I’ve been using Violence by Luke Gearing). This kind of game probably won’t work very well with, say, 4e or 5e D&D. The PCs need to know that they can easily be killed in a standup fight.

And most NPCs won’t fight fair.

Played right, this high lethality should encourage the PCs to choose their battles wisely, to take care when confronting powerful interests, and to stack the deck in their favor using the extent of their wits and cunning. NPCs, of course, will do the same.

Early in the campaign, two PCs dug up clues pointing to a union-controlled warehouse across town. To get access, they were told to do the union a favor and ransack the space traffic controller’s office. It was supposed to be a bloodless job, but they failed to bluff their way past the night patrol, and things went south from there. Thanks to cover and a heavy dose of luck, they managed to down three cops, giving them enough time to call for help and flee to the maintenance tunnels. They both took injuries, but thanks to quick medical attention from the union doctors, they lived to see another day.

This was a moment that stuck with all of us through the rest of the campaign. It raised the stakes dramatically — the station was put under martial law, with no ships allowed in or out. Furthermore, a detachment of marines was dispatched to the station to restore control. The PCs would have to complete their investigation and find a way to escape Nylund Station before the marines arrived.

It was also my players’ first brush with death, their introduction to this system’s extremely high lethality. Here’s one player’s description of events:

Honestly I’ve done a few DnD campaigns, I’ve had my character killed more than once, but the absolute shitshow that was the terrorist attack on the STC tower was one of the wildest things I’ve seen in DnD. Rarely does post-combat make you feel tense, but because I was actively dying in the tunnels I was like on the edge of my seat praying I’d make it out. I get attached to my characters!!!

Conflicts, not enemies

This all sounds quite punishing, but with danger comes opportunity. Don’t create too many dedicated antagonists — instead, weave a web of tension between different factions, and drop the PCs into the middle. They’ll have to step carefully in order to avoid blowing up the powder keg, but so will everyone else. Give the players room to exploit these conflicts in their favor, negotiating with different factions as it suits them. Depending on the situation, an adversary today can become a partner tomorrow, and former friends can easily turn on each other. Let the players take risks and drip-feed them the consequences.

The players in my game had a complicated relationship with the Outer Planets Liberation Army, the left-wing militia active on Nylund Station. It was OPLA fighters who helped them escape from the space traffic controller’s office, and they relied on the militia’s help to navigate the station and get around the barricades put up by union and police. But the union and OPLA, while aligned against the authorities, were not terribly friendly themselves. The OPLA wanted a free hand to do as they liked, whereas the union wanted the OPLA to answer to them. And as the PCs uncovered more and more clues, they came to realize that the murderer was a member of the OPLA.

They needed to learn more, but they struggled to land on anything they could offer to the major factions in return. The plan they landed on was simple: go to the union boss and offer to independently frame the OPLA for the space traffic controller’s attack. Hopefully, this would marginalize and contain the OPLA, at least a little bit, while keeping the union’s hands clean and keeping the door open for a continued union-OPLA relationship — one where a weakened OPLA was subservient to the union.

At this point, the campaign had become more than a murder mystery. The players were now debating how to avoid the marines, how to exploit the major factions to their advantage, and how to escape Nylund Station. Here’s one of my players on the union boss and the way the campaign developed:

Mehmet also seemed like a very interesting figure, being just ideological enough to defy the solar government but just pragmatic enough to lead a substantive opposition. Finally unraveling the circumstances of Mendoza’s murder, and how it was practically a minor point by the end of the campaign despite it being our initial cause for action, was great.

Know the world

This sort of game necessarily involves a lot of prep. As the game master, you’re responsible for playing the world, seeing how different characters and factions respond to the PCs’ actions. To do this correctly, you’ve got to understand the situation in your game very well.

This is hard. I kept a lot of notes, including lists of major characters, a map of the station, session notes, and a timeline of events. Still, I often found myself having to slow down and flip back through my notes mid-session. Here’s what one player had to say about it:

There were some times where the story would grind to a halt as [GM] tried to find out certain details he couldn’t remember.

I’ve never GM’d, I don’t know what his prep looked like or what kinda notes he had, but maybe there’s a way to streamline notes? Maybe not, again, this is something that [GM] would have to review (though if he sent me his notes I could give some advice!) Not memorizing every detail of your campaign is human, so we obv don’t expect perfection here and this didn’t like sour the campaign or anything.

Let the players outsmart you

One of the reasons I love GMing is because I enjoy seeing my players come up with their own solutions to their problems. Wild ideas, brilliant schemes, doomed plots — it’s the bread and butter of my gaming. If my players come up with a well-reasoned plan, I usually bend toward saying yes. And then I love showing them the consequences.

Toward the end of the campaign, the PCs found themselves in an OPLA safe house. They feigned that they were OPLA sent from leadership to get some answers about the space traffic controller’s office incident. The agents there were skeptical, but eventually relented and gave their alibi (they were at work at their day jobs). The PCs, in a gambit to force their hand too early, impressed upon them the necessity of swift defensive action ahead of the marines’ arrival. One thing led to another, and the militia fighters agreed to disperse the safe haven’s firearms to the station’s OPLA cells, and to carry out some unspecified “operation” — the bombing of Nylund Station General Hospital.

With the clock ticking, the PCs pressed for more information and a way out of the safe house. They learned some final details about the murder — the killer was an OPLA agent whose gambling debts led her to turn coat and become a police informant. When her comrades found out, they kidnapped her and told her to make a high-profile assassination in three days, or else. She aimed for a senior police captain staying at a hotel by passenger arrivals, but broke into the wrong room, killing an innocent person — the PCs’ crewmate. The murder was a complete accident.

It took a firefight to escape the safe house, firmly severing the PCs from the OPLA. One player was injured so badly he had to go to the hospital… the very hospital in danger of being bombed. When they got there, they called their contact at the Bureau of Intelligence, and she had police sweep the hospital for OPLA agents. The bomb plot was foiled, but now the players were defenseless at the hands of the police.

The intelligence officer offered to let the PCs leave Nylund Station… but only if they gave up the location of the union boss and other important union members. It was heavily implied that things would get complicated if the PCs refused. They mulled the offer over, decided that they didn’t have much of a choice, and agreed to turn coat.

The players’ scheme — get some information about the murder out of an OPLA safe house — set off a chain of events that led them to betray the union and the militia to secure a ticket off the station. Not very heroic, but it got them what they wanted.

Say yes to their plans, then drip-feed them the consequences.

…But don’t be afraid to say no sometimes

My tendency to be permissive with the PCs’ schemes led to some great moments, but multiple players mentioned that they felt like the non-player characters were pretty gullible.

Many of the characters were too trusting at times. In the end we brought down the union mostly because they trusted us with a domestic terroristic attack, a couple goobers they’d never met with unclear loyalties.

For the most part the characterization was solid, but I do feel there were times that some reasonable doubts/concerns a character may have had. Particularly surrounding the union and the deals they made with us. It didn’t break my immersion and it wasn’t unbelievable, hell real life people make rash decisions, but there were a couple occasions where I felt like we succeeded more to move the plot along than cause we succeeded.

And… yeah, that’s probably true. That they even got into the OPLA safe house was a product of some extreme gullibility from the NPCs. And the union did trust the PCs with a high-profile operation right from the get-go. Worth thinking about for next time.

In conclusion

The finale of the campaign was the outbreak of all-out war between the police and the combined forces of the union and OPLA. As the PCs attempted to make their way to their ship, a detachment of OPLA agents ambushed them in a warehouse, looking for revenge.

It was a jumbled, chaotic affair, with bullets whizzing around with abandon. By the end of it, one player character and multiple named NPCs were dead. The other militia members had either surrendered or fled. The remaining two PCs had little time to grieve before hauling ass toward passenger arrivals.

This final firefight, as dramatic as it was, did expose some issues my players had with the ruleset we were using. Here’s one player’s opinion:

Characters rolling to die after combat is a little weird. It’s not done in most other DnD systems and generally I think you could tell if someone is at least dead by gunshot.

Only reason I bring this up is I felt it was a little anti-climactic that Brat didn’t die in the fight, but rather in a kinda mundane dice roll after the action had settled. It sorta took away from the action I think; if it had happened in real time we’d be like NOOO, but cause it was so delayed it just kinda happened.

The lack of any kind of system for modeling things that aren’t violence also caused some hangups. Here’s another player’s thoughts:

I think it would be nice if we had a system for our competencies too, as it could have been interesting to have mechanical use for our careers and backstories. This didn’t come up much in a campaign of mostly politics, but it could in future if we have to solve other kinds of problems, and it might bring more focus to our characters’ personalities and interests.

But! I think Violence proved an ideal system for an adventure of high intrigue. With no character stats to speak of, the only thing my players and I could fall back on was our knowledge of the characters and the situation on Nylund Station.

With no charisma stat or social skills, every interaction with an NPC was defined by uncertainty. My players could never tell if their threats and bluffs were landing, or if an NPC had something to hide. They had to make decisions based off their best guesses about an NPC’s personality or a faction’s goals.

Combat, on the other hand, was quick, tense, and bloody. My players knew that the consequneces of misstepping could be fatal, and that if they picked up the dice, they were taking a huge risk. They were incentivized to avoid a fight when possible, and to stack the deck in their favor if not.

Another thing I liked about Violence was that the drama was firmly set on getting hit rather than taking damage. Characters didn’t have hit points — even one bullet could kill, forcing my players to duck for cover, find places to hide, and use the environment to their advantage.

What’s next?

I’d like to continue this story, following the player characters as they explore a Solar System inching closer to revolution. The tone is probably going to change quite a bit, becoming an open-world sandbox with more of a system behind it. I want to refine and flesh out my spaceship combat rules to make them suitable for a real campaign. As much as I enjoyed using Violence for this arc of the campaign, I probably won’t use it for a campaign that isn’t primarily about intrigue. Maybe Mothership?

Miscellaneous

The Three Clue Rule is essential. There really is no better advice for designing a mystery.

I think it’s good to have some player-facing notes. For my players, I kept a timeline of events, a list of unsolved mysteries, and a list of important characters.

I made sure to write down a summary of events after every session, so I wouldn’t forget anything as I prepped the next session.

I found that while there was a lot of work up-front before the campaign started, it wasn’t a huge amount of work to prep sessions once the campaign already started. I had already done the work to create factions and NPCs and establish their motivations — after that, it was easier to come up with their next move.

Links

• Violence, by Luke Gearing
• Boot Hill and the Fear of Dice
• HOW TO GM (A Campaign Post-Mortem)
• Three Clue Rule
• Node-Based Scenario Design — Part 3: Inverting the Three Clue Rule
• Node-Based Scenario Design — Part 9: Types of Nodes

July 24, 2023 Sci-Fi Rockhoppers Space Campaign Retrospective GM Advice

Better Religions in RPG Settings

On some level, I don’t think it’s really possible for most of us (at least in the predominantly secular global North) to build a fictional religion that truly captures the texture, essence, and dizzying complexity of real-life religion. Religion just doesn’t affect our lives nearly as much as it once did, and while its influence is still considerable, it’s mediated through the Scientific Revolution and a specifically Christian (maybe even Protestant) conception of what religion is.

In tabletop roleplaying games specifically, religion often boils down to what deity’s name is written on the cleric’s character sheet. That works fine for most games, but I’d love for there to be more color and texture to the fictional religions we include in our campaign settings. And it’d be great if we could create more than just Christianity or Greek/Roman polytheism with the serial numbers filed off.

I don’t have a complete answer on how to do religion better in RPGs, but I have some thoughts. I got the idea for this post from watching Religion for Breakfast’s videos about the religion and demonology of The Legend of Zelda. In the first video, host Andrew Mark Henry mentions a book titled God Is Not One by Boston University professor Stephen Prothero. In it, Prothero argues that different religions address different problems, and don’t all take different paths toward the same goal. He also offers a four-point rubric for how to assess each religion’s approach.

To be clear, I haven’t actually read the book all the way through (I might in the future, though!). I just wanted to take the basic framework and apply it to RPGs.

Anyway, according to Prothero, each religion articulates:

• A problem
• A solution to this problem, which also serves as the religious goal
• A technique (or techniques) for moving from this problem to this solution
• An exemplar (or exemplars) who chart this path from problem to solution

He provides two examples immediately afterward. For Christianity:

• The problem is sin
• The solution (or goal) is salvation
• The technique for achieving salvation is some combination of faith and good works
• The exemplars who chart this path are the saints in Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy and ordinary people of faith in Protestantism

And for Buddhism:

• The problem is suffering
• The solution (or goal) is nirvana
• The technique for achieving nirvana is the Noble Eightfold Path, which includes such classic Buddhist practices as meditation and chanting
• The exemplars who chart this path are arhats (for Theravada Buddhists), bodhisattvas (for Mahayana Buddhists), or lamas (for Vajrayana Buddhists)

(that both Christians and Buddhists might have qualms with the above is a feature, not a bug — it provides a scheme for easily understanding differences between religions, but also provides an axis for understanding at least some differences within religions.)

Now, this is really, really optional. You can get by just fine with a handful of names for deities (or just one, maybe!) for your cleric to worship.

That rubric is good, but I have a few additions I’m borrowing from a post in Religion for Breakfast’s Patreon (you’ll need to be a patron to see it). My version of the rubric, with an emphasis on utility in worldbuilding, is as follows:

• A problem with people and the world
• A solution to this problem, providing a ‘goal’ for the religion
• Techniques for moving from the problem to the solution
• Exemplars who chart this path from problem to solution
• Internal differences (they likely agree on the problem, may or may not agree on the solution, and probably don’t agree on the techniques and exemplars)
• “Lived religion” — that is, contradictions between what ordinary people believe and practice and what’s espoused by the religion’s elites
• Evidence of syncretism, the blending of of different beliefs and practices across cultures, and the influence of different religions on each other

Let’s come up with an example — a religion in which there are many gods, ghosts, and spirits which inhabit this world, who can inflict fortune or suffering depending on how humans behave (toward them and toward each other).

• The problem is chaos — the misfortunes that arise when people live in hate and lawlessness, and forget to attend to spiritual matters.
• The solution is harmony with gods, ghosts, and spirits, the preservation of peace in the material and immaterial world.
• The technique for achieving harmony is to follow the guidance of the Canon, an ever-evolving collection of poems, songs, sacred sayings, legal rulings, and ritual procedures. The Canon spells out how to treat one another, how to organize family and society, and how to negotiate with supernatural beings.
• The exemplars who chart this path are sorcerers — religious figures, usually women, who cast spells and lead ceremonies that treat with the unseen world. Other exemplars include a sorcerer’s husbands, known as attendants, who are charged with assisting the sorcerer and ensuring worldly adherence to the prescriptions of the Canon.
• Most internal differences revolve around the composition of the Canon. Different schools of thought borrow from different teachers and emphasize different practices. Notable points of contention include acceptance or rejection of adorcism (possession by spirits), the presence or absence of monastic orders, and the relative importance of a solar deity.
• Evidence for lived religion includes what is broadly termed witchcraft — spiritual activity conducted without the mediation of sorcerers educated in the Canon. This can range from merely misguided to outright malevolent, but it always carries dangerous consequences for the practitioners and their associates.
• Evidence of syncretism includes the veneration of a supreme sun god, a practice borrowed from foreign sun cults and adopted by some sects of the religion. Some versions of the Canon even directly include portions of holy texts from other religions.

This is just an example, but can you see what I’m going for? I think if you’re worldbuilding a religion, it’s much better to start with its internal logic, the thing that — on a very high level — the religion is about. Once you have that down, you can then come up with gods, rituals, holy sites, stories, and all the rest.

June 26, 2023 Fantasy Worldbuilding Religion

Three Campaign Pitches

I started a new campaign this past February. I had a couple ideas for games I’d have fun running, so in the spirit of Matt Colville’s advice on pitching your campaign, I decided to present those ideas to my players and let them pick which one they liked best.

Below is the document I wrote for them. I think it worked really well! I thought it was a great way to generate investment in the game from the get-go, and it clearly set expectations for what the new campaign would be about. If you’ve never pitched campaign ideas to your players, I think you should give it a try!

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Campaigns I’d Like to Run

This is a campaign pitch doc — really high-level, I just want to see what excites y’all. I’d be happy running any of these games!

Self-direction and player ambition are a big part of my games. Not everyone has to want something, but ideally some of you will.

The Ochre Isle

It is an age of chaos.

The island of Mislan was once a wealthy province of the Dolelan Empire. But the imperial ruling line is extinguished, and the Empire is but a memory. Trade has broken down — the roads are no longer safe, and brigands and cursed creatures threaten the people. Ambitious nobles scheme against one another, and rumors abound of ancient and powerful magics hidden in the wilderness.

Medieval Fantasy Sandbox
System: Old-School Essentials (probably)
Politics: Medium
Tactics: Medium
Lethality: Medium
Player buy-in: A classic fantasy sandbox game where you get dropped into a small town with lots of potential adventure hooks, and you have to work your own shit out. You’ll get to delve into ancient tombs, acquire powerful and dangerous magic items, and contend with the politics of feudal lords. You’ll have the classic zero-to-hero progression of a fantasy protagonist, with plenty of opportunity to make your mark on the world.

Picket Line Blues

The Ceravolo Gas & Freight Corporation is sole proprietor of Nylund Station, a Helium-3 refinery station in low Neptune orbit. Nylund is a huge investment — it took some big loans and a handful of government contracts to purchase the station, and if CGF doesn’t make big profits from the investment, the whole company might go under.

But CGF’s authority over Nylund Station is fragile. The workers have gone on strike for higher pay and better working conditions. The shareholders demand action, but the company’s enforcers aren’t sure they can win a fight with the union militia. Everything sits on a knife’s edge.

Amid the impasse, the Dead Friendly sits docked for routine maintenance and repair. But the sudden death of a crew member threatens to entangle the whole crew in a web of intrigue that could decide the fate of Nylund Station.

Sci-Fi Murder Mystery
System: Violence, by Luke Gearing
Politics: High
Tactics: Low
Lethality: High
Player buy-in: The rules here are minimal and super lethal. You’ll have to navigate diverse agendas and powerful factional interests using only your wits. One wrong move could end with you being ambushed and shot in a back alley. Nobody fights fair. If Boot Hill and the Fear of Dice sounds fun to you, you’ll probably like this.

Operation Solstice Rain

Your mechs are prepped and loaded aboard the dropship, ready for deployment. Through your chassis’ camera feeds, strapped securely into the cockpit, you watch as the hatches slide closed around you and the hangar airlocks open for launch. From up here, Cressidium looks peaceful — a shimmering jewel hanging in space.

“Ten seconds to drop.”

You take a breath as the pilot counts down. Inhale. Exhale. Then your stomach lurches as the clamps disengage and the dropship’s thrusters kick into full burn.

Mud and Lasers
System: Lancer
Politics: Low (but not none!)
Tactics: High
Lethality: Medium
Player buy-in: This is straightforward military sci-fi. Challenging, tactical grid combat will take up a majority of play time. Along the way, you’ll get to build, upgrade and personalize your mech. The game will be more structured and less self-directed than the other games in this doc, but there’ll still be opportunities to fulfill your own ambitions.

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These are three pretty different sorts of games, each appealing to me in different ways.

I really like the idea of building my own fantasy world, one that would persist across campaigns. I’ve never really done that yet, so Ochre Isle was my chance to do that. Building out a setting during a campaign sounded like a fun project. I’d start small and slowly work up, adding new locations, characters, and details as the players explored.

I got the idea for Picket Line Blues after I read Boot Hill and the Fear of Dice. I immediately wanted to run a game in that mold, and tying it to the world of the Restitution Project seemed like a perfect marriage. I’d drop the PCs into a powder keg of a space station, always ready to blow. The players wouldn’t even have a character sheet — they’d need to solve problems with only their wits, the possibility of super-lethal violence hanging over them like the Sword of Damocles.

Operation Solstice Rain is a published module, geared explicitly toward new players and GMs. I had the chance to play Lancer a few years ago and really liked it, but the prep work was too much for our GM. I thought this adventure would be the perfect way to get into running Lancer without overwhelming myself.

My players ended up choosing Picket Line Blues, with Ochre Isle as a close second. My players were mostly uninterested in a tactical mech combat game. We got the new campaign started shortly after, and I’m trying a lot of new things — it’s my first time running this setting, my first time running a murder mystery, my first time running with such a minimalist ruleset. I might have more to say about it later, but it’s been a ton of fun!

April 29, 2023

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