Manic development ongoing for a Convention/Competition game

[Bismark]

Having run a STAR HERO campaign for most of this academic year, I am once again GMing at the UK Student Roleplaying and Wargaming Nationals competition.

 

I was planning to run a different system (just for a change), but lots of Real Life work and time constraints (the tournament is on the 9th-10th April) have made me go back to the game system I have by far the most recent experience with.

 

The good news is that I can use characters from my campaign with the serial numbers filed off for the majority of the party (5 of them - I need 2 more) and I will be running the game in the same homebrew universe I have been using all year. The bad news is the time constraint and the fact that I have a bit of writer's block regarding scenarios. I will therefore do the characters first and hope that the inspiration comes from there.

 

Now I need to design some insectoid aliens which are a bit like the Star Fleet Battles Seltorians crossed with Starship Troopers (the original book - what else?) Bugs who will be the main villains for this adventure. They have cropped up in the campaign already but I want to stat them up properly this time - the leader-types (who are bigger and more intelligent than the drones) at least.

 

To add a small amount of humour into what will be a dangerous universe, some of the character names might be familiar:

 

the party medic is called Franklin McCoy, and the gun bunny is called Clint Bronson (I know… but I could not resist).

 

Ideally the party should be finished and a skeleton of a scenario should be ready for a run-through next Sunday, with further tweaking at another run-through with a different set of players a week later.

 

So far the party (finished characters, that is) consists of:

 

1. the aforementioned Medic (ex-Marine, lots of contacts and positive Rep)

2. a hot-shot pilot with lots of Complications relating to his inability to stop bedding women

3. an explorer/archaeology assistant with corporate connections and a serious skill at using sniper rifles, but with a weakness for fine booze - especially weird alien concoctions

4. a technician/all-around mad scientist (he's a Transhuman - genetically altered to be stronger, faster and more intelligent than humans, but sadly, he's also a mass of Mental Complications) - he has the classic Transhuman identifier of pointy ears. He spent most of last year obsessed with making ever-more-powerful back-pack-powered heavy weapons for him to carry around; having finally been convinced that a particle beam was just plain dangerous , he settled on a coilgun.

5. An ex-marine with a set of scrounging and grifting skills, plus a mortal fear of vacuum (having been accidentally 'spaced' once)

 

In development is the gun bunny - tough ex-Marine with lots of weapon skills and some cyberwear (the internal stuff that would make some sense rather than stuff that would be better kept external for ease of upgrading).

 

I may do one more to have a spare in case someone gets "croaked" early.

 

Well, back to work - HERO Designer needs my attention…