What kind of Star Hero 'teams' are you gaming?

[Eodin]

Beyond the Star Hero genres (Space Opera, Military Campaigns, etc.), What kind of teams are you GMing/gaming? When I say that, I mean:

• Merchant crew
  
• Passenger liner crew
  
• Space Exploration
  
• Soldiers
  
• Adventurers For Hire
  
• Spies
  
• Pirates
  
• Scientists
  
• Space Cops
  

and so forth.

 

And how much work would it take to make a generic published adventure fit into your campaign? What kinds of settings does your team frequent (bars, spaceport docking bays, high-tech city streets...) ?

 

I'm waiting anxiously for my half-price FH Battlegrounds to arrive, and hoping that there will one day be a Star Hero Battlegrounds or the like

Maybe if enough people give Steve some good ideas here, we might eventually see one in print (hope hope hope).

[Geryon]

Re: What kind of Star Hero 'teams' are you gaming?

 

I haven't ran star hero yet, but in the "game-that-would-have-been-star-hero-if-I-was-playing-HERO_System-at-the-time" near future space smugglers game I ran a few years back (97) my players spent a lot of time in: 1. on board their ship 2. in space stations/urban space settings, and 3. in cities on the surface of various planets. They were a group of smugglers, each had his reasons for being criminals (mostly good, it took place in a universe with an oppressive government and rampant xenoracism) so they were a combination of pirates, mercenaries, smugglers, and han solo type entrepeneurs.

 

In the star wars campaign I played in a couple of years ago 80% of the action took place on the surface of the planet so most of the maps could be converted from other settings. The only thing I recall the GM working on heavily was the outlay of this palace/base which we got contracted to protect... which he could have just stole from any random fantasy supplement. That group was 2 young jedi types who kept getting sent on this or that errand by the jedi council, and the rest of the group (4 of us) were the crew of the ship which they used to get around Basically just a game designed to let the players play jedi or pilots or gun bunnies, or whatever we wanted and still have it fit the plot pretty well. This was done since half of us wanted to do a grittier pilots/engineers with blaster pistols type of game and the other half wanted to do jedi knights.

 

 

I would love to see a star hero battlegrounds. I would like to see it include basically things you can't get from other supplements. For example no futuristic space bar (ala star wars) even though they are probably pretty common in star hero campaigns, since bars are something we can get elsewhere and probably would be in a Dark Champions battlegrounds, if that ever happens. I would like to see 1-2 spaceship layouts, with some details on areas where combat might take place as well as main areas for character interaction like "the bridge", maybe a space or docking station, a map of a futuristic colony (maybe one not located on a normally inhabitable planet for added flavor), and maybe a layout of a sort of complex galactic marketplace. Of course, my terran empire hasn't come in the mail yet (thank you, 50% off sale!) so its hard for me to say.

[BlackSword]

Re: What kind of Star Hero 'teams' are you gaming?

 

Not Star Hero, but any scifi game can use adventures and plot seeds. We had one Star Wars game where we were a mix of crew and passengers or an star-liner (which quickly crashed).

 

For Star Hero I plan on running a game where the players are part of a crew of Free Traders/Smugglers. Only have three players, so they will be part of a crew of 8. I plan on running it when my turn at GM comes up in sometime around September. We'll see how it goes.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: What kind of Star Hero 'teams' are you gaming?

 

My group over at Hero Central (once I get my home Internet connection back up and running... eventually) falls under the "space cops" category -- the game is based around my Terran Diplomatic Security Force article in DH18.

 

However, there are three basic assumptions one can make in any written adventure set in the Terran Empire: 1) the PCs work for the government, 2) the PCs work for the rebellion, or 3) the PCs work for profit. There are other possibilities, of course, but nearly all campaigns will fall into one of those three areas.

 

As for what to put in SHB, I'd hope for a space station and a starship, and would also suggest an embassy or consulate of one of the "foreign powers." That would give an opportunity to explore an alien architectural style or three.

[JohnTaber]

Re: What kind of Star Hero 'teams' are you gaming?

 

The PC in my new campaign are pretty different. My campaign started with the PC travelling towards a distant asteroid mining colony. (This was my only stipulation for the players out of the gate: They must be on their way to the mining colony having never been there before. That was it! ) Along the way the ships crashes and the PC work together to save themselves and make their way on foot to the domed mining colony. During the trek every PC does something in their skill set to help save the group. Once they reach the done they discover the ship was sabotaged! Who did it? Why? They are also mysteriously given group control over a business that was run by one of the people who dies on the ship. Did they know about the crash? The group owned company and serveral common goals are enough for the PC to stick with eachother. It has been a blast so far!

 

The PC include the following. (These will be on my site once I get a chance to work them from paper into HD2. )

+ Lena - Psionic cop on leave. Uses a power sword.

+ Mack - Loveable cybernetic digger with a mysterious past.

+ Captain Schaffer - Blood thirsty smuggler pilot.

+ Vlad - Paranoid Va Rulen spy. (Va Rulen are space born elves kinda.)

+ Hannibal - Thawed cryogenic sleeper now bounty hunter.

+ Stooz - Kid hacker with a secret bio computer implanted in his chest.

 

It has been REALLY fun!

 

Re: Locale. Right now my PC are solely on the asteroid mining colony. I use warehouse maps, bars, garages, the port, etc as locales. When they get enough money to fix their ship I plan to let them lead the campaign a bit. Once I figure out what they want to do I'll create some adventures to tie into the rest of my game ideas.

 

Re: Published Adventures. Boy I am having a hell of a time in this area. I found some stuff but I really near StarTown adventures and those are non-existant. I found some old stuff for Traveller but it is not super helpful. The best thing I have found is 100 Science Fiction Adventure Ideas (see RPGNow) and GURPS Far Trader. I purchased StarTown Liberty but I have not had the chance to read it yet. If anyone has good books that I could use PLEASE send me a private email!!!

[Rigel]

Re: What kind of Star Hero 'teams' are you gaming?

 

My group over at Hero Central (once I get my home Internet connection back up and running... eventually)

 

Ah, so that's the reason! :-)

 

Waiting patiently,

Rigel

[Eodin]

Re: What kind of Star Hero 'teams' are you gaming?

 

Hmmm,

So far then we've essentially got space cops, an adventuring group of diverse individuals, outlaw (smuggler) heroes, and starliner crew/passengers.

 

For maps/layouts we have spaceships, space station, futuristic colony, an alien embassy/consulate, and typical starport facilities such as warehouses and such.

 

Anybody else with good stuff to add?

[BobGreenwade]

Re: What kind of Star Hero 'teams' are you gaming?

 

For maps/layouts we have spaceships, space station, futuristic colony, an alien embassy/consulate, and typical starport facilities such as warehouses and such.

 

Anybody else with good stuff to add?

I think this is a very good starting list for a potential Star Hero Battlegrounds manuscript.

[Heroman]

Re: What kind of Star Hero 'teams' are you gaming?

 

My current game, established at least a year or more before SH (and still running!) originally were 'cleanup agents' for a megacorp. Since then, they left with their main contact who branched out on their own, some freelance but mainly assignements for him. They consist of a 'drives/flies everything' pilot, a super intelligent and quite mad scientist who was thought to have blown up pluto (acquitted), a violent merc known as the 'Butcher of IO Station', a former diplomatic attache, a swift hand-to-hand expert who came from Year 2000 Chicago (more parallel universe than past), and a human-looking doctor who seems adept at killing. NPCs are the hand-to-hand expert's daughter (who no one knew about, not even him), and a spider like combat robot (GITS is a fun resource ). A lesser NPC is 'Don', a sphere about the size of a basketball which has abot 40 different brain segments all interconnected, created by an unknown alien.

All I can say is that my group is wary about taking 'Reputation' now

[jguerin]

Re: What kind of Star Hero 'teams' are you gaming?

 

My Star Hero game is based on the old TSR Star Frontiers Universe..

[Maelstrom]

Re: What kind of Star Hero 'teams' are you gaming?

 

I'm running a Star Hero game with one 'jedi', one 'scoundrel' and one 'warrior/killing machine'. They seem to enjoy it.

[Guzalot]

Re: What kind of Star Hero 'teams' are you gaming?

 

I am about to start a new campaign based on a "lost in space" premise. The PC's have been catapulted through a rogue wormhole (one that appears and disappears seemingly in random places). They are now no longer even in the Milky Way galaxy and have only each other, their ship, and their wits to survive. They will need to find or improvise spare parts, feul, and food (no replicators). I am still working out the details so any suggestions are welcome.

[Peregrine]

Re: What kind of Star Hero 'teams' are you gaming?

 

Don't make survival impossible. Make it take some effort, but make the results worth the effort. Reward creative solutions, even if the solution is radically different than what you had planned; even if it derails a major plot line. And don't play "Gilligan's Island" - if there's no chance of getting back home, don't dangle the illusion of the possibility in front of them just to get them to follow a plotline. And if there is a chance, make it a real chance - don't leave it to the roll of the dice, let good play carry the day.

[HeroGM]

Re: What kind of Star Hero 'teams' are you gaming?

 

Cops who work for the IMB, Illegal Modifications Bureau, whose job it is to

hunt down people with cybernetic or biogenic items.

[Hermit]

Re: What kind of Star Hero 'teams' are you gaming?

 

Arrr, Star Pirates ahoy

 

Make up and wing my own stuff adventure wise, but I use the Terran Empire setting for it.

[CorpCommander]

Re: What kind of Star Hero 'teams' are you gaming?

 

I've been working on and off again on a sort of post apocalyptic game. Its not as depressing as the Mad Max world or as desperate as the world of LA in 2029 in Terminator. Its more along the lines of wierd like the Logan's Run TV show from when I was a kid (and many of you weren't yet a gleam in Mommy's eye!)

 

I've got a technically backward population that covers most of the world with a few vault dwellers whose job it is to go out and tame the wasteland and bring order back. Its The Morrow Project meets Parinoia meets any of dozens of Post Apocalyptic Utopia stories.

 

--Pete

[BobGreenwade]

Re: What kind of Star Hero 'teams' are you gaming?

 

Arrr, Star Pirates ahoy

 

Make up and wing my own stuff adventure wise, but I use the Terran Empire setting for it.

I've pointed this out before, but... it does seem as though an unusual lot of TE games are affected to some degree by space piracy. There's this; there will be some space pirates in my game; someone else's TE game (I forget offhand who) has government agents undercover as pirates; and I think Ben's running (or at least is in) a game set on Venwordien IV. All of the above are in or near the Terran/Mon'dabi border. If there's ever a setting expansion for TE, it does seem as though the Vorsan Expanse would be an ideal candidate....

[Ben Seeman]

Re: What kind of Star Hero 'teams' are you gaming?

 

I've pointed this out before' date=' but... it does seem as though an unusual lot of TE games are affected to some degree by space piracy. There's this; there will be some space pirates in my game; someone else's TE game (I forget offhand who) has government agents undercover as pirates; and I think Ben's running (or at least is in) a game set on Venwordien IV. All of the above are in or near the Terran/Mon'dabi border. If there's ever a setting expansion for TE, it does seem as though the Vorsan Expanse would be an ideal candidate....[/quote']

That campaign of mine is basically dead, but the info I wrote up is still in on disk. I think the Expanse works as a good campaign location because it provides the GM with a lot of freedom to create while still keeping it within the confines of the TE. There are things you can do there that you couldn't do (at least believably) if the adventures took place within the border of any of the galactic powers.

I think I should write a DH article adventure for the Expanse.

[Guzalot]

Re: What kind of Star Hero 'teams' are you gaming?

 

I think I should write a DH article adventure for the Expanse.

Yes, you should...

 

Seriously, I am always looking for good plot hooks and ideas. It seems my "lost in space" heroes have a penchant for piracy. Who knew?

[Rigel]

Re: What kind of Star Hero 'teams' are you gaming?

 

someone else's TE game (I forget offhand who) has government agents undercover as pirates

That might have been Monolith's TE game that you're thinking of. He and I sent several messages back and forth about his adaptation of TE and it was very interesting.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: What kind of Star Hero 'teams' are you gaming?

 

That might have been Monolith's TE game that you're thinking of. He and I sent several messages back and forth about his adaptation of TE and it was very interesting.

You're right; it is Monolith of whom I was thinking.