Random Space Encounter

Anonymous's picture
Anonymous
February 20, 2010 - 2:15pm
I need some help with a random space encounter in Alpha 2.1

My sections (Alpha, Beta, Gamma) are designed for a single nights game session, about 3-4 hours of playtime. I need a filler encounter that should not take more than 30-40 minutes. (Unless I place a random encounter once the party is planet-side, maybe after Alpha 2.3 Hiring a Guide?)

ALPHA SECTION                    
Alpha 1.0 Introduction

Alpha 2.0 Hired
Alpha 2.1 Random Space Encounter
Alpha 2.2 Arrival at the Port
Alpha 2.3 Hiring a Guide
Alpha 2.4 Sick Miner
Random Encounter rather than using Alpha 2.1 ?

Alpha 3.0 Ambush


Alpha 4.0 Session Wrap-up


Comments:

jedion357's picture
jedion357
February 20, 2010 - 8:53pm
? not exactly following the story here woot
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

Anonymous's picture
w00t (not verified)
February 21, 2010 - 12:54am
I didn't want to give too much away. :-x

I'm looking for an encounter that would happen between -- leaving on the adventure aboard a starliner -- 1 day layover and -- hooking up with a ship for the final destination. Each of these points could provide said encounter.

I'll give it some w00t thought.


jedion357's picture
jedion357
February 21, 2010 - 8:04am
Ahhh- I C

What sort of stuff happens on an Ocean liner?

stolen luggage/ pickpockets
love connections
Romeo and Juliet scenario- 2 families who hate each other and the kids are smitten.
sick passenger or lots of sick passengers.
some numbnut brings a dangerous creature on board like a cute little tribble that would never hurt anyone. missing hull raker acid cube missing since last overhaul.
Invited to eat at captains table

"could you help me" little old lady needs help with her luggage but shes the pickpocket from the starliner and here comes star law.
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

elpotof's picture
elpotof
February 21, 2010 - 2:00pm
what is the role of the adventurers on the liner - security, passengers, crew? just to narrow down the options you need

Anonymous's picture
w00t (not verified)
February 21, 2010 - 7:18pm
elpotof - good suggestion, I need to keep that in mind when writing adventures.

Currently the party are passengers but I can see them being hired by the liner to provide extra security. Perhaps this is common in the frontier for lower-class liner companies who can't afford their own security staff.


jedion - I was going to use the rogue hull scraper... would you like to write it up for the module?

Note: I'm willing to share what I have written so far if someone wants to volunteer to help write sections of it, provide artwork, roll up pre-generated characters w/ backgrounds, make a map, etc... One of my good buddies denied helping because he wants to play the module. So.. I just kinda assumed that would be the case with everyone.  Disclaimer: Serious inquiries only!

Inigo Montoya's picture
Inigo Montoya
February 22, 2010 - 11:04am
Have stow-aways been done to death? It is versatile in that it could be as harmless as a youth (or vulnerable person) trying to escape from some person or situation. Or it could be a shadey character on the lamb or an assassin or thief on the clock. This could be an isolated event or could tie into a storyline for a future or related adventure. Food and supplies mysteriously missing could lead to their discovery.

Rum Rogue's picture
Rum Rogue
February 22, 2010 - 7:04pm
Could throw in a Red Herring of some kind.
PC sees a well dressed man flirting with a gal at the bar.  Pc doesnt recall seeing this guy get on the ship.
 Later the gal is missing some expensive jewelry. Or the two are seen leaving the bar/lounge together and she found unconscious shortly after that.  either way, the pc is one of very few to recall the guy, but of course he cant be found amongst the passengers.
yadda-yadda-yadda... the dude is a low level tech who works for the company and is using some of his free "light-years" travel time, but he is staying in the crew quarters.
 He is old friends with the gal.
The lost jewelry is found behind/under furniture in her room.  OR if unconscious, she passed out from too much alcohol and bumped her hed after they parted ways.
Time flies when your having rum.

Im a government employee, I dont goof-off. I constructively abuse my time.

Bilygote's picture
Bilygote
February 22, 2010 - 7:30pm
Woot,

I would recommend the following for your use in the future

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=20839&it=1

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=20573&it=1

Both are a couple of bucks and handy when you're having a mental block

You could try (without knowing the plot of your adventure)

bomb scare - pcs race against time to find a diffuse a bomb hidden in the ship

computer virus - pcs are asked to assist in purging a virus from the nav computers before the ship hits a comet or asteroid, etc...

terrorists - some of the passengers are not what the seem

jedion357's picture
jedion357
February 23, 2010 - 8:48pm
Rum Rogue wrote:
Could throw in a Red Herring of some kind.
PC sees a well dressed man flirting with a gal at the bar.  Pc doesnt recall seeing this guy get on the ship.
 Later the gal is missing some expensive jewelry. Or the two are seen leaving the bar/lounge together and she found unconscious shortly after that.  either way, the pc is one of very few to recall the guy, but of course he cant be found amongst the passengers.
yadda-yadda-yadda... the dude is a low level tech who works for the company and is using some of his free "light-years" travel time, but he is staying in the crew quarters.
 He is old friends with the gal.
The lost jewelry is found behind/under furniture in her room.  OR if unconscious, she passed out from too much alcohol and bumped her hed after they parted ways.


Man is absorbed by hull raker girl passes out and when revived she gives hysterical account. The hunt is on for the man but he isn't here the raker is but the mysterious man was both a stow away and a company employee and a red herring. He's a company employee who secretly catches free rides and sets him self up in a life boat (has rewired the alarm that would tell the bridge the life boat was openned plus he uses the waste recycler in the life boat and sleeps the chairs and catches up on his reading though occassionally he sneaks out on the night shift and pilfers some food). he's a red herring cause investigating and discovering all that could take a substantial amount of game time and he's a total non issue to the actual situation.
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

Anonymous's picture
w00t (not verified)
February 23, 2010 - 10:18pm
Great stuff!

I'm considering writing our own little "20 Things You're PC's Would Love to Role-Play But Were Never Allowed Until Now".

Stock Number: 20TYPWLRPBWNAUN

Foot in mouth

Serious, I love the ideas. +1

jedion357's picture
jedion357
February 23, 2010 - 10:54pm
Woot check out the "Big List of RPG Plots"

http://www.io.com/~sjohn/plots.htm

good stuff.
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

Bilygote's picture
Bilygote
February 24, 2010 - 9:00pm
Here's something to throw your players a curveball

http://www.tv.com/kolchak-the-night-stalker/the-werewolf/episode/43618/recap.html?tag=episode_recap;recap



Anonymous's picture
w00t (not verified)
February 25, 2010 - 8:41am
@Jedi - cool stuff. Expanding the details of that list adding Star Frontiers'ish twists would be a fun task.

@Bilygote - werewolves?
A mysterious infection or an experiment gone wrong effects humans and has the following effects.
  • Hair grows 6cm per hour up to a length of 36cm
  • Overworked adrenaline glad boost STR by +20
  • Bloodlust; the infected person goes crazy at the site and smell of blood
  • Irrational; the infected person become aggressive and irrational, they might feel caged and want to break free

Bilygote's picture
Bilygote
March 10, 2010 - 8:36pm
Why not werewolves? The old Buck Rodgers TV show had a space vampire. I've seen zombies incorporated into space based video games. Heck, Jason was in space.

Instead of "some numbnut brings a dangerous creature on board", the numbnut is the dangerous creature.

Just an off the wall idea. The PCs would probably look for an alien stowaway and not even think about a werewolf. Think about this killer running amok on a luxury spaceliner. Chaos.

Would silver be the only way to kill it? Could it infect the PC races other than humans?

Anonymous's picture
w00t (not verified)
March 10, 2010 - 10:15pm
Bilygote wrote:
Why not werewolves? The old Buck Rodgers TV show had a space vampire. I've seen zombies incorporated into space based video games. Heck, Jason was in space.

Instead of "some numbnut brings a dangerous creature on board", the numbnut is the dangerous creature.

Just an off the wall idea. The PCs would probably look for an alien stowaway and not even think about a werewolf. Think about this killer running amok on a luxury spaceliner. Chaos.

Would silver be the only way to kill it? Could it infect the PC races other than humans?


Ya know... I like that idea.
Man brings locked box on board starship and ask for it to be sent to his cabin.
Man is seen eating dinner, very nice man.
Later that eve a creature can be seen roaming the halls but not caught.
A passenger is missing!
The party believes the man brought something on board, they need access to the box.
Man says "Over my dead body." Come to find out the rich man has six well payed gorillians!

Only humans are effected - they turn into ruddy looking yazirians without wings.

In human form the Man can be killed easily, but in the other form only sonic weapons can harm.

Just some random thoughts - Thanks Billygote, I'm warming up to the idea.

iggy's picture
iggy
March 11, 2010 - 12:46pm
Go Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde on it.  The guy (human) is convinced that yazirian adrenalin improves his intelligence, kills cancer, makes him more macho for business and the women, is the ultimate steroid, or whatever.  So this guy goes and has the yazirian gland associated with battle rage grafted onto his adrenalin gland.  The locked box is all the drugs to keep his body from rejecting the graft.  However, sometimes when he sleeps he looses control and rages.  Unfortunately one of his drugs causes him to loose his memory about these rages when he sleeps.

There could be a small black market supporting those obsessed enough to do this to themselves.  This leans me to this being an extreme  steroid thing for human body builders.

-iggy
-iggy

Bilygote's picture
Bilygote
March 11, 2010 - 7:15pm
Nice Iggy.

jedion357's picture
jedion357
March 11, 2010 - 7:27pm
Bilygote wrote:
Why not werewolves?


Interesting thought- but rather than werewolves in space why not the mutants from Total Recall- the ones who were able to hide their mutation- passing for normal but the mutation has "touched" them a little.

maybe they got ahold of "that which should not have been disturbed" and thats the cause of the mutation.

maybe there is some psych thing to it too.
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

Bilygote's picture
Bilygote
March 11, 2010 - 8:06pm
I'm glad to see this getting a little traction.

@Jedion - Mutations are cool. I'm a die hard GW enthusiast. I wasn't even thinking in that regard when I made the initial post here.

Maybe, the person has an alien artifact (that which should not have been disturbed) that periodically scrambles his DNA (because of some trigger), producing the "werewolf" after a period of time he reverts back to his natural form.

Or, the trigger is a religious icon from one of the PC races. The person possessing it is experiencing the "wrath of the gods"

Maybe the person was experimented on by a corp to test a bioweapon formula. He escaped, leaving a trail of blood.

@Woot - I hope you can make some use out of this. I think there have been some creative ideas laid down here.



jedion357's picture
jedion357
March 11, 2010 - 8:45pm
Bilygote wrote:

Or, the trigger is a religious icon from one of the PC races. The person possessing it is experiencing the "wrath of the gods"


Do not, Do not look into the gold jewish box especially if you're Nazi!
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!