Steve

Hmmm. I get the impression of a control freak, my way or the highway, personality in this description. Throwing fits during conversations is not a sign of maturity, and I’m actually now thinking he is trying to take control of your campaign with his actions. You let him change characters once already, which caused you to retool some aspects of the campaign and now you’ll need to do it again.
 
Frankly, he does not sound like someone happy being a player, since your description is of him makes it sound like he was only GM-ing in prior play sessions. Give him one more chance if you want, but be prepared to let him walk away.

I still wish for a Champions Villain Volume 4: Organizations . A simple place to get basic information on villainous organizations and basic agent writeups, all mostly in one place with a small sidebar about where one can get more infomation if one wishes to find it. 

We here at Hero Games are deeply saddened to announce that long-time HERO System writer and support Scott Bennie passed away earlier this week. Please see the thread in Company Questions for more information or to post your own memories of Scott.

I'm not sure -- perhaps Dan S. or someone else removed it (or changed its "pinned" status) during a clean-up session. I'm still working hard on MH, trying to get at least a little work done on it every day, and more than a little whenever possible.

We here at Hero Games are deeply saddened to announce that our long-time friend, and frequent Hero Games author, Scott Bennie passed away earlier this week from complications due to pneumonia. As many of you already know, Scott suffered from extensive health problems for most of his life, and unfortunately this was one last struggle he simply couldn't win.
 
I personally met Scott in the early Nineties -- probably at one of the first DunDraCons I attended -- after I began writing for Hero myself and hitting the con circuit. In addition to being a talented writer and game designer -- perhaps best known to Hero gamers for his superb work on Classic Enemies and two VIPER sourcebooks -- Scott was quite simply one of the kindest, gentlest people I've ever had the privilege to know. I'm so glad I had the chance to work with him on several projects, including the VIPER and Villainy Amok sourcebooks for HERO System 5th Edition.
 
The world is a darker place without Scott's light in it, and all of us here at Hero Games shall miss him terribly.

Hmmm. I get the impression of a control freak, my way or the highway, personality in this description. Throwing fits during conversations is not a sign of maturity, and I’m actually now thinking he is trying to take control of your campaign with his actions. You let him change characters once already, which caused you to retool some aspects of the campaign and now you’ll need to do it again.
 
Frankly, he does not sound like someone happy being a player, since your description is of him makes it sound like he was only GM-ing in prior play sessions. Give him one more chance if you want, but be prepared to let him walk away.

All:
 
O managed to respectfully give my observations and indicate it would greatly change the campaign.
 
The player caved and indicated no changes…they will play the same character.
 
Cygnia:  Good call to call out their bluff…it worked.
 
Thanks all…

Hmmm. I get the impression of a control freak, my way or the highway, personality in this description. Throwing fits during conversations is not a sign of maturity, and I’m actually now thinking he is trying to take control of your campaign with his actions. You let him change characters once already, which caused you to retool some aspects of the campaign and now you’ll need to do it again.
 
Frankly, he does not sound like someone happy being a player, since your description is of him makes it sound like he was only GM-ing in prior play sessions. Give him one more chance if you want, but be prepared to let him walk away.

Steve:
 
Funny you should ask...the genre is Blade Runner/Prometheus, with other similar genres mixed in, including existence of Mutants, Psionics, and Magic.  Imagine Blade Runner and Prometheus/Alien--which do exist in their same universe--and mix in a dash of ShadowPunk.  I have adapted a lot of movies/stories that are tightly linked and connected them together.

Example:

Besides the link between Blade Runner and Prometheus/Alien, most people don't realize that the movie "Soldier" with Kurt Russell is VERY strongly tied into the same universe.  If you go to the garbage planet where Sgt Todd 3465 was dropped off on to fight alongside the civilians against the baddies, you clearly see a police spinner from Blade Runner in the trash pile.  Also, the Bad guy, played by Jason Lee Scott (Caine 607), was actually a Replicant, believed to be Nexus 3, which replaced the Soldiers from the "Adam Project" which Sgt Todd 3465 was part of.

In addition, aside of canon or not, Predators are also part of this universe.

I managed to also tie in Westworld, as I found a reference between the two--however, I can't find it now--but also if you look at the Hosts on Westworld, they are very similar in structure to those in Prometheus/Alien.  I also found in a wiki that Yutani sued Weyland for the creation of Weylands first synthetic, David:

https://avp.fandom.com/wiki/Yutani_Corporation

So, they have synthetic flesh and bone, used to emulate the human body.

The game started with all at 165 CP / 40 Complications, which I call "Exceptional" level normals, above Competent normals which are 125 CP.  We are in Chapter 1 of 5, which they are on Delos Island, hunting down copies of Delores' pearl--if you have ever watched the HBO series of Westworld.

I think you need to settle with the player what “more fun” means. Are they not getting enough screen time? Are they not as effective as others in combat? Is the player borderline ADHD?
 
I throw the last one in because I’ve dealt with players that just keep wanting a change apparently for change’s sake and just never seem happy with their characters, like it’s boring for them to play the same thing more than once or twice.

I think you need to settle with the player what “more fun” means. Are they not getting enough screen time? Are they not as effective as others in combat? Is the player borderline ADHD?
 
I throw the last one in because I’ve dealt with players that just keep wanting a change apparently for change’s sake and just never seem happy with their characters, like it’s boring for them to play the same thing more than once or twice.

I think you need to settle with the player what “more fun” means. Are they not getting enough screen time? Are they not as effective as others in combat? Is the player borderline ADHD?
 
I throw the last one in because I’ve dealt with players that just keep wanting a change apparently for change’s sake and just never seem happy with their characters, like it’s boring for them to play the same thing more than once or twice.

Hero Games' The Valdorian Age took the concept a little farther, briefly outlining a race of reptilian shape-shifters, the Silyssen, who have infiltrated and even subverted some human lands. There's reason to suspect they may have been the ancestors of Hero's later Lemurians. Steve Long is fond of his own race of Serpent-Men, or Ssujala, who appear in the Turakian and Atlantean Age settings, and in the modern world at least up to the pulp era, usually as a hidden underground civilization.

Civilla’s player has been a bit shocked to learn that the Alazario family are actually canon in the Pathfinder setting, especially since they’ve played 3 different Alazarios across the various campaigns, and they’ve all been politically connected and cunning troublemakers. That pretty much describes the ones in the canon, too. An example of that cunning will feature in today’s episode.

Kintargo’s Ghosts spend much of the next fortnight on various schemes, including the installation of not just one printing press, but two - one upstairs printing legal stuff to cover the noise of the one printing all the libel underground. Not cheap, especially given the cost of cleaning out that cesspit and erasing the summoning sigils, and paying the workers for absolute discretion. We also plant the rumour that Thrune’s bodyguard Nox was seen fleeing the city, instead of occupying a number of unmarked graves under the Phantasmagorium. All but one of her team of Redactors are also thus interred. Just goes to show that good leaders lead by example.

We do hear rumours coming the other way, however, including whispers that more children are going missing, including twins from the Iudeimus tenement; that Captain Cassius Sargaeta of the Chellish warship Scourge of Belial is no fan of the current regime; and that the temporary jail currently occupied by many of Thrune’s enemies is also the residence of something far from human. Thrune has also massively increased the toll to cross the bridge between the north and south parts of the city, effectively cutting off the rich side of town from the poorer - and greatly inconveniencing the market stalls that operate on the bridge.

He’s also announced a Ninth Proclamation - that the Hellknight Order of the Torrent are now declared outlaws, all their properties seized, and that citizens are commanded to hand over any may have escaped the authorities. That might be because the Order of the Torrent really don’t like slavery, despite slavery being legal in Chelliax. Or he just wants to install a more loyal order of Hellknights in their place, such as the Order of the Rack.

Laria, a veteran of the Kintargo Coffee Wars, wants to know if we can help one of her rivals, at the Tooth and Nail. Given the fact that Setrona Sabinus is a cousin of the Torrent’s erstwhile leader the Lictor Octavio, we can take an educated guess about what kind of assistance she needs. Unless it’s a ploy to get all the people that might sympathize with the Hellknights in one place.

Setrona Sabinus: Thank you for coming - it’s been a bit of a week.
Rajira: I can imagine.

Apparently a fair number of the Hellknights were outside the city when Thrune tried to break them, and Setrona is confident that a man of Octavio’s code of honour will side with the rebellion given the chance, even if he disagrees with our methods. She even has an idea where he might be hiding - a small shrine in a swamp outside the city. Thankfully not too far - if we all vanish for a few days, people will notice. As it stands we should all leave Kintargo separately, and meet up outside. Suitable outfits might help, too - Civilla, for example, will be unrecognizable if she just wears an outfit that doesn’t cost a handful of gold. Rajira has a variety of outfits - for ‘entertaining’ - but not all of them are suitable for slogging across rough country even if they are made of leather.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FHlW2kBVIAg1ALh.png 

Civilla's player: It’s amazing how many people keep Link in the Gerudo Armour even after they leave that part of the game. On the other hand the unofficial name for Breath of the Wild is “Everybody Is Thirsty For Link”

Civilla's player: It still s***s me that Australians call the smallest things lakes or rivers.
Terzo's player: Well we have so few of them.
Civilla's player: ‘Welcome to Southern River’ ‘ What river? You mean this creek? That I can step over?’

The shrine is on the other side of a tidal stream that counts as flowing enough to frustrate many divination spells. Setrona has tagged along - it might help or may not. Her having the family signet ring certainly does.

Shrine Guardian: Who goes there!
Rajira: Friends! Seeking a friend.
Shrine Guardian: You already seem to have some.
Rajira: A particular friend who is … less than welcome in the city these days.

Shrine Guardian: The one you seek has been granted asylum below. If you wish to talk to him, you must prove worthy to pass the shrine of Saint Senex. Good luck, friends.

The shrine is filled with fog, which is a bit much given it’s dedicated to those that died at sea. The fact that the Saint expects us to perform artificial respiration on the statue of a drowned sailor is perhaps more understandable.

Lictor Octavio Sabinus is downstairs in a room with the magically preserved bodies of the drowned.

Rajira OoC: Camping with the dead? That’s usually a very bad idea.

Civilla: Yeah, he’s Chellish alright - look at that dour expression.
Rajira: And the widow’s peak and slightly pointed ears.
Civilla: Hey, the blood of the High Men is spread quite widely around the Inner Sea.

Lictor Octavius: Ah - the Ghosts of Kintargo.
Rajira: Our reputation precedes us.
GM: Let's face it, you’re not the Silver Ravens anymore.
Civilla: I plan on playing out the whole 'ghosts of Kintargo' thing to be the ghosts of the original Silver Ravens. The spirits of the vengeful dead come back to battle a great injustice.
Rajira OoC: Are you sure you’re not playing a bard?
Civilla OoC: I’m going to get Terzo to pretty it up, I’m just writing the basic outline.

Lictor Octavius: You are certainly hopeful idealists, but in my experience, passionate revolutionaries lack discipline. Like my cousin, you have good hearts, but it takes more than heart to stand up for what’s right. If I’m to throw in with the Silver Ravens, I need two things. First, I need to know that my surviving armigers are safe. Second, I need to know that the Silver Ravens are more than thugs who seek to fight in the streets—I need to know you can exercise subtlety and work at least partially within the bounds of the law to solve problems when such an option exists. As it so happens, this is a perfect chance for you to accomplish both goals.
Civilla OoC: This module really assumes we’re playing murder-hoboes, doesn’t it.

Civilla: If diplomacy doesn’t work there’s always having them chase non-existent shadows outside the city. Just providing options.

There’s also the thing his order was investigating when the Ninth Proclamation was released.

Lictor Octavius: We were investigating rumors that Lord-Mayor Bainilus didn’t actually flee the city for Arcadia as the government claims. I believe she’s been imprisoned—or worse—by Barzillai Thrune. It didn’t help that I took offense, quite publicly, at our new lord-mayor’s recruitment of the Order of the Rack as additional guards. The man spins webs like a spider, though I can’t decipher his design yet. Whatever his reason, I’ve come to believe it bodes ill for all of Kintargo.

The outlawed hellknight is concerned about repercussions to the citizenry if we do get his fellows out of prison. Terzo is very pleased about this, and shakes the man’s hand with both of his.

Terzo: Then I am very pleased to meet you, good sir! There is hope for the country yet! *hugs him firmly*
GM: He seems a bit taken aback.
Terzo's player: I don’t doubt it, but I’m quite sincere - if even one order of Hellknights has recognised that there’s a problem in Cheliax, it’s a good sign.
Rajira's player: ProblemS.

But then Terzo still hasn’t realised he’s the only Good member of the party, despite all the murderising, poisoning, and dismemberment going on in his vicinity. Denial is not just a river in Osirion.

The fugitive Hellknight also provides us with his mother’s mithril shortsword, which should convince the other members of the Torrent that we’re allies, and might be useful against the rumored demonic entity in the jail. At least we can still carry swords in public - Thrune hasn’t banned anything longer than a dagger yet.

Civilla does come up with one plan straight away - fake prisoner transfer papers. We perhaps shouldn’t be surprised she has a Masterworked Forger’s Kit and Esquire Attache Case. Alternatively we can blackmail the person in charge of the jail to send real transfer papers. Or better yet, forge an order that looks like it was forged by Nox. Civilla’s cousin might be able to help with that - he was one of her Redactors after all.

The warden of the Holding House is one Sabo the Spider, an Inquisitor of Asmodeus. It’s rumoured that she’s killed multiple lovers.

Terzo: I’m surprised she isn’t called Sabo the Black Widow.

We do come up with another name associated with the Holding House - one Ghenemahl, who is the only other permanent inhabitant of the Holding House, and one that even Sabo is scared of. Civilla casts Ears of the city, to determine 1) Who is Ghenemahl? - a Devil of considerable power and sadism; 2) Where are the prisoners being transferred to? - the Temple of Asmodeus, since they’ve been sentenced to be the first public Excruciations sanctioned by Thrune 3) Who else is a prisoner there? - four unlucky curfew breakers and halflings

There’s no way we’re going to leave those other innocents in the prison, so we have to get them out too. Civilla also considers planting a subtle compulsion on Sabo.

Terzo: So ‘clear out the prison, you have a lot more prisoners coming in?’
Civilla: ‘I’m sick of all the screaming, I want them out gone, out of my prison - the sanctimonious pr***s.’

Rajira suggests we disguise ourselves as Hellknights of the Order of the Rack - although whoever leads the group will have to carry the mithril sword so the armigers of the Torrent don’t kick up too much of a fuss when we drag them out. We’ll need to find out who does their laundry, even if Terzo and Rajira turn their theater skills to the rest of the costumery.

Rajira: And then I’m going to pull the old Purloined Letter trick, and go on a little nighttime excursion. Break into the laundry, replace the real uniforms with cloth, and start a fire.

GM: I must say I’m pleased to see you’re turning what could have been some simple dice-rolls into a whole investigation.
Terzo's player: Look at the way we played Shadowrun.

Will will need to copy the Lictor of the Rack’s handwriting and signature too.

Rajira: Time to go dumpster diving.

Although she’ll probably have to break into the Temple of Asmodeus to find some.

Civilla OoC: This is why you burn sensitive documents, people - otherwise, if they have enough pieces intact, one cantrip later you have the whole thing.

Civilla: I hope you don’t think badly of me that I have all these materials for forgery.
Terzo: I'm just glad all those calligraphy lessons I gave you helped.

Terzo leads the group of fake Hellknights of the Rack to the prison - as Civilla points out, he has the build of an officer that’s let himself go.

Civilla OoC: One of nature’s sergeants.

We also bring a cart to carry the prisoners.

Civilla OoC: I can’t believe we’re pulling one of Moist von Lipwig’s heists from the second book. I know you accuse me of having read the module, but I‘ve just read a lot of Pratchett.

Even Inquisitor Sabo would have difficulty recognising the forgeries, although she does look up when Terzo pauses at one question.

Sabo: And who are you representing?
Terzo: …
Sabo: *looks up suspiciously* A bit of a pause there?
Terzo: *gestures to the uniforms* The Order of the Rack - I would have thought it was obvious.
Sabo: Apparently. These days it’s hard to tell who’s who. *suddenly pointing at Ayva* You! How long have you been worshipping Asmodeus?
Terzo OoC: You could just tell the truth ‘Since before I joined the Hellknights’
Ayva: I’ve worshiped my God for about 50 years, ma’am.

Which is true-ish - she’s certainly been worshiping HER god that long.

Unfortunately, not all the prisoners are in their cages.

Gaoler: Uh, I’m afraid this prisoner isn’t available, ma’am.
Sabo: What? Where is she?
Gaoler: Ah, Ghenemahl has her, in the Interrogation room.
Sabo: Ah. Oh. Well, let’s go fetch her. You, get the rest of the prisoners ready.

Civilla OoC: And now Terzo has to lie to a devil of Law.
Terzo OoC: Believe me, I am keenly aware.

The armiger is bound to a rack, and has been gruesomely mutilated.

Ghenemahl: And who are you? Covered in lies, I can smell them on you. Do you wish me to remove them? You will just have to wait - I have this one to minister to.
Terzo: Hardly. We’re here to transfer the prisoners to the temple.
Ghenemahl: Come to ruin my fun, have you?
Terzo: I’m sure you’ll have more prisoners soon.
Rajira OoC: Probably Sabo, if this works
Ghenemahl: Well, show me the orders.
Terzo: *gestures to Sabo to hand them across*
Ghenemahl: The signature is misaligned on this one.
Terzo: *starts sweating bullets*
Ghenemahl: But they pass.

Civilla: *writes them a receipt for the manacles* Sign here please
Sabo: *signs*
Civilla OoC: And now I have a copy of her signature.
Ayva OoC: And we nonchalantly run away at top speed.
Rajira OoC: No we don’t - we drive the cart off in the direction of the Temple, THEN head off into an alleyway.
Civilla OoC: And get the Armigers into the fake uniforms so they can get out of the city. ‘Lictor Octavius says hello’

We were very lucky - the Bluff and forgery checks we needed to pass were in the 30s - and we only passed them by 1. But now we have the Hellknights of the Order of the Torrent as allies and advisors.
 

This is a free pdf on drivethrurpg. The author basically reversed engineered the books from the ODD (Little Brown Books), D&D B/X, BECMI and AD&D 1st. Margins, table strokes, layout, etc along with what fonts were originally used as well as alternatives. Included is the PDF of his findings as well as InDesign files setting up Master Pages for the different layouts.
 

Fireflash’s player: This is mostly for [Hardlight’s Player], but it's also a heads up for everyone else. Fireflash has had an idea. A wonderful, awful, terrible, great idea. The whole situation as regards the Moreaus is balanced on a legal knife-edge. (I've been chatting to [The GM] about this.) Particularly in terms of Property and Corporate law. Moreaus are classified as "wildlife"...and wildlife cannot own property or hold corporate office.
We know Moreaus who do both of those things.

Fireflash is going to talk to our friendly neighborhood corporate overlord about a possible way to kick over all the dominoes. If we find a WILLING Moreau who's in that position, we then sue them in court (or the corporation they work for) over that position. If we can get past initial standing issues, we should have a real shot at completely upending the current legal status of Moreaus. At the very least we should get some good publicity for their cause.

Hero Shrew’s player: Is 'part-time troubleshooter for the Justin Hammer-expy' a corporate position?
Fireflash’s player: Probably not a sufficiently high one. You're an employee, not a manager.
Hero Shrew’s player: true - plus putting Scooter anywhere near a courtroom is asking for the kind of chaos you don't want.
Flux's player: Plus I think Hardlight suing himself might not be appropriate.
Hardlight's player: I mean... I... COULD actually pull it off. I can technically be in both places at once - though if someone with even an inkling of special detection powers sits in the courtroom, the entire jig is up
GM: The issue would be Gareth Lowell suing Lowelltech.
Hardlight's player: yeah, probably not the best idea. I'm sure there's another poor dude who tried to get a job at Tyrell or something
Fireflash’s player: We need someone who actually has the position.
Flux's player: It just struck me that the keeping/sale of exotic wildlife is technically illegal in most states without a suitable permit. Please tell me that little hiccup was smoothed over ages ago Last thing we need is a wild VS domestic issue coming up. And now thanks to reading legal documentation I had to look up what a mayhaw is.

PENAL CODE - PEN
PART 1. OF CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS [25 - 680.4] ( Part 1 enacted 1872. )
TITLE 14. MALICIOUS MISCHIEF [594 - 625c] ( Title 14 enacted 1872. )
599b. In this title, the word “animal” includes every dumb creature; the words “torment,” “torture,” and “cruelty” include every act, omission, or neglect whereby unnecessary or unjustifiable physical pain or suffering is caused or permitted; and the words “owner” and “person” include corporations as well as individuals; and the knowledge and acts of any agent of, or person employed by, a corporation in regard to animals transported, owned, or employed by, or in the custody of, the corporation, must be held to be the act and knowledge of the corporation as well as the agent or employee.

Flux's player: ok, that's interesting. "dumb creature" “or any other dumb animal." Not sure if that's a good or bad thing. Oh my god, you are allowed one potbellied pig per residence in addition to normal pets.
GM: A number of Supreme Court rulings have stated that the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantees of due process and equal protection do not apply to sentient aliens, extradimensional entities, artificial intelligences, and the undead, because they are not “persons” under the law. On the other hand, they do apply to mutants, mutates, clones, and genetic constructs based on human stock. Congress has, however, passed laws granting at least limited rights to all “independent, free-willed, sentient entities” in American territory.

Although the GM does point out that for the last fifteen years, the local courts have always reached whatever decision stopped the cases going to a higher court. Which is especially odd since quite a few of the people involved hate Moreaus, and some of these decisions found in the Moreaus’ favour. Everybody in Edge City seems to accept that as the norm, and only outsiders like The Magus have thought it worthy of comment. It might be because some of us have high enough Power Defenses, or because some of us have even left town for more than a day.

GM: Remember that character you had to play for a while because Flux had been kidnapped?
Flux's player: Sunnuvabitch.
GM: Remember that ritual? My arms were getting tired swinging the clue bat.

Madam Lil is rather surprised when Fireflash brings her idea to her - she’s noticed the weird lack of impetus on the problem too, and had given up trying to push the matter forward.

Madam Lil: So it suddenly changed for you? I’ve noticed that before - it’s like this city can turn on a dime.
The Magus: … I’ll be back in 20 minutes.

He hurries off to check the ends of the local leylines - he has a suspicion that something arcane has been affecting the city for over a decade. But if it is, it’s really well hidden. But then it’s quite likely that we keep missing the clues the GM keeps dropping.

GM: You guys are REALLY distractible.

GM: You’re not a superteam, you're a therapy circle!

The Magus has a moment of inspiration - somebody has been summoning Memes. In fact they’ve been summoning multiple Memes.

GM: And then you take one look at Edge City and think ‘well f***, that explains so much.’

Memes are essentially AIs that run on peoples’ brains and spread by argument. They’re not essentially antagonistic towards humans, but the odd behaviour of the Edge City population suggests they aren’t necessarily benign either.

We get a request for a meeting, apparently from somebody who’s appearance just screams ‘Gothic Vampire Chick’.

Flux: Oh, a zombie.
GM: Wait, what, you see THAT picture and think ‘Zombie’?
Hero Shrew: Well, she’s not doing much breathing with a corset that tight.

The Magus’ player: Vampires aren’t really that dangerous in Champions.
Flux's player: What with all the androids, energy beams, etc.
The Magus’ player: They’re expensive pointwise too. They could be a lot more dangerous but it’s a really inefficient build.
Hero Shrew’s player: Well there’s the Watsonian and Doylist explanations.
GM: They also have the Stoker problem - everybody knows their weaknesses now.

The vampire Laura is amiable enough when she appears, out of a cloud of mist.

Fireflash: Nice trick.
Laura: Thanks - you try long enough and you get the knack.

She’s concerned that we’ve been rounding up some of her ‘blood relatives’, but just as concerned that the aforementioned vampire thalls have been acting openly enough that they got caught. Laura has also recently killed her sire, who is the DoLs mistress, which may have been a factor in their increasingly incautious activity. On the other hand, the DoLs vampirism was a new method recently invented by them, possibly in an effort to fill the void in their minds.

Laura: I’m trying to be a socially responsible vampire.

Laura: Now, I’d like to leave before your associate explains to you why using my blood won’t work.
The Magus: I wasn’t going to bring it up.
Laura: I want them to know, I just don’t want them to know about it.

Laura: I sorry but I don’t swing that way - you HAVE read Camilla, haven't you?

Laura turns back into a cloud of mist, which rolls off avoiding the increasingly stiff wind.

GM: She’s not a very powerful vampire.
Fireflash: That’s just how she rolls.

Flux: We keep getting all these fliers for cheap henchmen.
The Magus: Well, there’s an idea, if you have the money - hire all the henchmen and use them for public works, and price the villains out of the market.
The Magus: ‘I haven’t been shot at in weeks, AND I get dental!’
GM: Hey, don’t underestimate the Goon-ion.

Eventually we find a corporation that’s willing to volunteer to be the target for the lawsuit, with a Moreau employee that’s willing to risk their job if the suit doesn’t play out as everybody plans. Apparently the corporation is puzzled that nobody has tried it before too.

Corporate-type: Finally pulling the trigger on that, are they? Have at it!
Hardlight: If he turns out to be a goat I’m out of here.
The Rep: Yeah, that would be bad optics.

On the other hand, even as the various lawyers and groups involved conspire to kick the case up to the Supreme Court, we still have to deal with the feral memes. Although how feral are they, if they’re so tightly constrained to Edge City? Are they short-lived in this reality, which would explain why Edge City is so prone to sudden reversals in public opinion? We’ll have to keep a close eye on the zeitgeist in Edge City, to try and locate whatever summoning circle our opponents are using to sabotage social progress. Since they only spread by word of mouth, we may be able to track the associated memetic rumours.

Flux: Part of me wants to warn the Spinnerets about this, and then the rest of me goes ‘stop, no, that’s a terrible idea!’ - we don’t want the Spinnerets to even know these things exist!

The Magus: F*** me, this is a bleak apocalypse - there’s probably nobody in Edge City that’s still the person they’re supposed to be.

The corporation we’re working with to advance Moreau right via lawsuit is Erikson-Gulsvig Logistics GmbH, and their subdivision E-G Employment, who have been doing a lot of social outreach, street clinics and charitable programs lately - Safe houses for domestic violence victims, Homeless shelters, Rehab counseling & a number of camps where troubled youths receive guidance.

Flux OoC: It’s depressing, in the superhero settings, how often charitable groups turn out to be Evil.
GM: That's because we never get to see what the Johnathan and Martha Kent Foundation actually do.

We start an investigation, just in case our choice of collaborator is going to bite us on the bum laer. Scooter pokes around at street level, and suspects some of the Greys are staying at the homeless shelters, but nothing that would count as a big end-of-episode reveal.

We should probably tell somebody about the meme problem, in case something happens to us.

Hero Shrew: Flux knows Witchcraft, doesn’t he?
Flux: No no, Witchcraft kindly refrained from killing me the last time we met.
Hero Shrew: Well, she’d probably take it seriously if you go to her for help

On the other hand The Rep is probably immune to the meme, since any meme trying to infect him would have to get past his worldclass bulls***ing skills.

Although calling the Greys over the secret underground phone line does go a little strangely - apparently the ones at the homeless shelters are there to help, because the Moreaus suddenly approached them for help. But everything is going fine despite the Greys suddenly meddling in surface affairs. But meeting them in person to discuss it further is a bad idea. Really bad. Absolutely not on the table.

Grey: I mean, even if we met at Lake Park at 3AM someone would see us.
Fireflash: I… see. Well, you’ve been very helpful.
Grey: Actually I’ve been no help at all.
Hero Shrew: I’ve clearly missed something there.
Fireflash: Things are far from normal and they want to meet at Lake Park at 3AM.
GM: Their cyberpathy might not be the strongest but they can absolutely tell when a phone line is tapped. And this is their secure line.

The Grey Commune is currently highly stressed because somebody contacted them, psychically, and helped them out with a few problems.But now the time has come to pay them back, with little bits of psychic manipulation around town. Nothing apparently major, but some of the Greys are worried about it - some of the alterations they’ve been asked to do are weird. And it’s very weird that the psi-boosting drug they are provided with works on the Grey’s genetically modified biology.

The Grey we’re talking to is keenly aware that they’re going to get exposed sooner or later, but is doubly sure no-one will trust them because they’ve been hiding behind the scenes manipulating stuff for the last 15 years. And any sort of mental manipulation counts as Assault.

Grey: But don’t let the fact you might expose us stop you from doing the necessary.

Either way we’re going to need some way to tell when somebody has had their mind altered recently.

Fireflash: So you two had better invent some aura-detecting glasses. Or better yet goggles - that way when you fail we can say ‘The Goggles Do Nothing!’

The Magus’ sneaking around reveals that some people in the clinics are getting mental work done on them without their consent. The people are certainly in need of help, but it shouldn't be secretly like this. And there’s at least one member of stuff here who starts getting very suspicious whenever Magus and Flux report their discoveries, which may indicate a powerful dangersense. Her build - Russian Factory Worker - and Mama Bear vibe make the Magus reluctant to get any closer.

Hero Shrew: OK, these people need help, but the people given the help are going to be in so much trouble when they get found out. How will they react if we tell them we know?
Flux: Have you ever been mauled by a bear, and not in a sexual way? Because that’s what is going to happen if we get any closer.

We decide that they need to turn all the work they’re doing to voluntary treatment only, or we’ll arrest them. It’s a clear abuse of superpowers, so we won’t even need a warrant.

Hero Shrew: And if they do try to kill us then obviously they WERE up to something evil and we get to stop them anyway.
The Magus: The quickest way to get a result is to walk into the ambush and punch them in the face if they start anything.

Hero Shrew’s player: What the hell is that noise in the background, Weldun? It sounds like a cricket on cocaine.
The Magus’ player: What have you been doing on the weekends that you know what a cricket on coke sounds like?
Fireflash’s player: Have you been doing unauthorized experiments? Again? Reminds me of those experiments on spiders.
Hero Shrew’s player: I’ve got the t-shirt.
Fireflash’s player: My favorite was LSD.
Hardlight's player: Why would you give a spider drugs?
The Magus’ player: It’s way easier to get funding for spiders than orphans.
Hero Shrew’s player: Now THAT sounds like something The Magus would say.

Although to be honest they all seemed pretty in-character.

The Magus and Fireflash head in while the others watch for trouble - the Russian greets them cautiously, and certainly recognises Fireflash.

The Russian-presumed-Super: Permission? Written permission? Do you need written permission to take person through guided meditation? We tell them we will change their minds.

They claim they did have permission, but won’t let Fireflash see the files. She warns them that she’ll probably have to report them if they won’t.

The Russian: Why, because we are telepaths? You are bigot! This no different to telling ‘we summon good feelings into you!’

The counselors might well be licensed to operate in California, but the Greys looking through two-way mirrors in each ‘counseling session’ certainly aren’t. At least as mutates based on human stock their personhood is beyond legal dispute, and they don’t have to be registered as medical devices.

GM: It becomes, legally speaking, a very grey area.
Hero Shrew: ha ha.

On the other hand there’s also the matter of the drug our Grey contact mentioned. We’ll avoid mentioning that until we’ve done some more staking out and legwork. And background research on this Russian dame. If the Karen Sholokhov we investigate is actually the same person, she’s known as ‘Perestroika’ - Russian for ‘reconstruction’. She’s a rather powerful mass telepath, who can make any nearby her willing slaves, if they’re weak-willed enough. Although the Magus didn’t notice her actually using her own powers. She left Russia about the time Putin came to power. Surprisingly, she’s not superhumanly strong - but her Combat Luck and Danger Sense have kept her alive so far.

It looks like the aromatherapy program the Greys are on includes a psychoenhansive inhalant And with some sneakiness we can get hold of the stuff.

GM: Continual surveillance on somebody with Danger Sense could count as cruel and unusual punishment.

And then coming up with something to counter her Danger Sense will just ramp up her paranoia - ‘why can’t I feel them watching me anymore???’

The drug turns out to be very odd indeed, with some similarities to drugs circulated by the Scarlatti drug family in Baltimore in the 1990s. One of their customers was the first iteration of PSI.

The Magus: I’m just looking up the entry for the current iteration of PSI, and it says they’ve never been defeated thanks to caution and careful planning. And then they got accidentally defeated by Quadrant.
GM: Just goes to show you where bad luck can get you.

Flux: Now I’m worrying that somebody will get hold of the PSI drug and dump a bunch in some city’s water reservoir.

GM: PSI is also one of the few supervillain groups that hasn’t been plagued by internal betrayals.
The Magus: It helps where you’re basically the top rung of a psychic powers pyramid scheme.

It also looks like all of the precursor chemicals are coming from a company tasked with destroying them. A company that has all the facilities to turn merely dangerous chemicals into extremely dangerous chemicals. In industrial volumes.

Hero Shrew: Looks like the city reservoir idea is back on the menu.

We could always get them on Improper Storage And Disposal violations, but it’s probably going to require sneaking around first. It’s just as well we do sneak, because everybody in the facility is armed. With blasters. And there’s something weirdly fuzzy about them, even on the Magus’ scrying.

Hero Shrew: What are laws about private ownership of energy weapons?
GM: Not that different from kinetic weapons, honestly.
Flux: So you can only own an Orbital Death Laser for educational purposes.

And Magus’ mental awareness power is going ‘ping!’ continuously. And also weird that the rest of us didn’t think the place was weird until now.

Hardlight: Are we going in lasers blazing?
Hero Shrew: I can think of a few reasons not to, and one of them is that scene from Robocop.

(next session started with a long discussion that by complete coincidence included Bhopal, the Tianjin city explosion, the Halifax disaster and the fertilizer explosion in Beirut.)

Hero Shrew OoC: Anyway, speaking of chemical factory explosions…
GM: I haven’t found a map for the chemical factory.
Hero Shrew OoC: Just find a crater, it’ll probably end up that way.
Hardlight: Let’s just watch our backstop shall we?

Flux: On the bright side, if we do f*** up on the scale of any of the above, we won’t be around to get in trouble for it.
Fireflash: That’s not as reassuring as you think it is, Flux.

Unfortunately the moment we march onto the premises to announce the raid, the guards react by transforming their uniforms into armour. At least one of them is superpowered, too.

Fireflash: Nice trick.

And then the other defenses go off, which include an alarming amount of electromagnetic radiation going well up into the ionising variety.

Fireflash: Ouch!
Hero Shrew: Well, aren’t they going to be embarrassed if we were just here to invite them to a charity event.

A second super shows up.

Fireflash: A scary black person?
GM: A LIVING SHADOW
The Magus: I thought it was Hardlight with Foot-in-Mouth Disease
Flux: The difference is he does it by accident.

Magus hits one of the supers with a very effective illusion of teleportation to an alien cliff, Hardlight hits a mook with a point-blank PHOTON WAVE CANNON, and Scooter goes after another.

Hero Shrew: What’s the move in Mortal Kombat where you tear somebody’s entire spine and skull out through their a**hole?
The Magus: … I think that may have been from another title.
Hardlight: I’m pretty sure he pulls the opponent’s spine *upward*.
Fireflash: Forward, Down, Forward, High Punch in close range with Sub-Zero.

The mook instead gets thrown at the next one.

Hero Shrew: He’s probably just relieved I didn’t tear out his entire spine etc.

At least the radiation field doesn’t interfere with one of Flux’s powers.

The Magus: ‘BWAHAHAHA, you will never escape my anti-teleportation trap hero- oh f*** he can walk.’

The Magus: That would have been a good thing to add to the illusion - a giant sandworm appearing in the distance.
Enemy Super #1: *shakes his head to get rid of the illusion* Well, aren’t you a tricky one *lightning bolts Magus*

The living shadow is swooping in, and appears to be giggling. And the mooks have Goop Rifles. And the first supervillain hits Scooter in the face with a ball of lightning (and an under-the-breath ‘Hadouken!’).

GM: You are also blind for a time, and your radio is all staticky.
Fireflash: Hey! That’s my trick!
Flux: Then maybe you should stop demonstrating it to the bad guys.

It’s just as well Hardlight is such a bombastic character that there’s no chance Scooter will attack him by accident.

GM: ‘Don’t worry old chum, I’ll help yo- oh, you’re getting up by yourself.’

Fortunately, whoever the shadow is, we never find out what he had planned because he’s entirely vulnerable to EGO attacks. The Magus suspects that somebody has the ability to let their dark side off the leash.

Losing his back-up, and having his point-blank attack on Fireflash have absolutely no effect, the lightning-wielding super thinks that this might be a good time to leave. He just doesn’t leave fast enough, and get sniped out of the air by Magus. We’ll have to disentangle him from the maze of pipes later. Hero Shrew blinks off his blindness, and goes to deal with a mook that’s still blinded by Hardlight’s earlier, otherwise ineffective attacks.

The Magus: Yes, you should probably take that gun off him before hurts someone.
Hardlight: *charging up another PHOTON WAVE CANNON* Third time’s the charm…
The Magus: Oh, you think you can handle him now he’s blind and disarmed?

Hardlight: Remember your backstop!
Hero Shrew: I am. That’s why I’m not throwing a concrete slab at those two.
GM: I reserve the right to make bad suggestions on occasion

Shortly thereafter Hardlight finds himself in a very unfortunate position as regards a familiar-looking robot dinosaur.

GM: It opens its mouth.
Hardlight: … am I about to be Godzilla’d?
GM: Well, Mechagodzilla’d

Hardlight: That blast is going to hit 3 of us!
Flux: But nothing explosive. I think.

The energy blast certainly takes Hardlight out of the fight, and even knocks Scooter out briefly. In fact, if there is somebody in that Tokusatsu suit he’s certainly confident if he’s standing in the middle of three heavy hitters. And smart enough to Gank The Wizard First.

The Magus: Bad luck for him that I've got the strongest defenses in the team.

And further bad luck that Hardlight had taken out his Lightning Horn, before it could blat us with atomic fire from range again. Of course Gareth is probably the only person on the team that would recognise the cultural inspirations of the suit and target accordingly.

Hardlight: AlI know is that I want one.

Of course if the Mechagodzilla was supposed to keep us busy while the bad guys were getting away, they have a problem, because a few lucky hits leave it dazed on the ground, and Hero Shrew is coming around.

GM: Scooter, you’re awake.
Hero Shrew: Gimme a minute, I’m looking around for the asteroid that hit me.

Scooter goes full HULK SMASH on the suit, and after that rounding up the rest of the bad guys is short work. As well as all their other rather advanced technology, which includes subdermal radios and colour-change armour, the mooks have guns with mental controls.

Hardlight: Shoot. SHOOT. Hmm, maybe I’m not thinking hard enough.
The Magus OoC: If I remember the EGO of the rest of this party, then yeah, not thinking hard enough is definitely the problem
Hero Shrew: Huh. Were the lights supposed to come on?
Hardlight: WHAT???
Hero Shrew: The lights on this gun. Look, they’ve all come on. *waves it around*
The Magus: Hmm. Well, many Moreaus are at least passively psychic, although I don’t believe that’s common knowledge.
Hardlight: PUT THAT DOWN
The Magus: Huh, it must simply take a powerful enough mind to activate it.
Flux: That’s just mean.

We might not find where the drug pipeline actually starts, but we’ve shut down the literal pipeline at least. Although the clinic we were investigating has been cleaned out by the time we get back there.

The Magus OoC: He wants to spend a point to put a trailer on the Quadraphibious Qruiser.
Flux: It’d make a good accessory.
GM: … He wants to turn the Qruiser into an articulated truck.
Hardlight: I’m gonna make some scans of the MechaGodzilla so The Rep can make action figures.
GM: Did you negotiate likeness rights?
Hardlight: err…
Flux: ‘We have made a legally distinct villain who might look very similar but is actually legally distinct.’

Of course, as the Magus points out, the psi-boosting drug really is a very minor problem compared to some of the other things going on in Edge City, like the Sentient Memes. Gareth Lowell agrees - one wonders if somebody threw the drug situation at us to distract us from the issue at hand!

one wonderful legit free resource for Traveller Hero and Star Hero in general is the Starship Geomorphs book, its all deckplan modules, akin to the old Dungeon Geomorphs sets for AD&D. 
http://travellerrpgblog.blogspot.com/2020/07/starship-geomorphs-20.html while not official Traveller, it has the permission of Marc Miller... and the older version is available from his site
 
 

Many years ago, my group was dedicated to AD&D and Traveller.  When I discovered the 4th Edition BBB, I saw the light and immediately converted our campaigns to the Hero System.  Some time later, the Traveller characters acquired an old, beat-up Gazelle Close Escort, the "Windfall Prophet".
 
Over several years of gaming and technological advances in my Traveller Universe, the characters made a number of upgrades and enhancements to their ship.  When shadowcat1313 and FFE released Traveller Hero, I picked up a copy and, using his Gazelle Close Escort as a template, was able to upgrade the characters' Gazelle to 6th Edition.  Attached is the current iteration of the ship.  Included deck plans were obtained from the Web.
 
The ship itself was based on shadowcat1313's Gazelle build.  I imported it into my own Hero Designer template which combines the features of a Vehicle with those of a Computer, without having to design both separately.
 
 

Was working up for a Solarsystem limited game, before the players decided for me, that I would be running Cyberpunk Red.
 
The ships in the game were varied, with most ships being a "Torch Ship", but some being "rack ships" which were basically radio tower structures with a reaction engine on one end, vacuum tight shipping containers all up and down it, and the living quarters and bridge on the other (though many of them were robot * radio driven). Rack ships were the slowest and cheapest way to get from point A to Point B. , Then there were landers, and those were everything from winged shuttles, and space planes, to Space-X style  up and down rockets. I didn't get too much further with this, but that was kid of the framework.  IT was influenced a lot by "The Expanse", though.
 
I also played a lot of Traveller, and Space Opera, and very briefly an FGU Offering called "Other Suns", which had incomprehensible mechanics so we dropped it. Other Suns was also the Genesis of the furry fandom.
 
 

Let's get a discussion going involving our wonderful group of misfits:  FIREFLY 
 
We will attempt to maintain the talk about their ship,  not the crew (but they are all one in the same). The entire nature of the series is more solarpunk than full SF, but Serenity still meets all the criteria stated in the OP.

Hearing the tale of the Glassie made me long for the days spent on the Far Venture.
   She was part of a Star Wars campaign I was Co-GM for.  She was a YT-1300 and I was her Engineer.  (A Dwaarf from the Gaigax system) Over the course of time we hade some “special modifications” done for her.  The most noticeable were the landing skids and thruster installed on the roof...Those went in after the third time we crash landed upside down. But my favorite was the torpedo tube installed at the rear of the ship. We called it the “Take that with ya”, since we saved it for ships locking a tractor beam on us as we hauled a$$ out of yet another bad situation.  Normal torpedo speeds times the velocity added by the beam made it too quick for anybody to react to.
   For roleplay I included a list of protocols that automatically went into effect during a “red alert” situation.  All lighting and life support was cut by 1/3 to save power.  All airtight doors closed but did not lock in case of hull breach. And I stated that drawing extra power to the engines, weapons and shields caused the motion dampeners to go a little out of synch so the inside of the ship rocked like standing up on a moving bus. (Safe enough to walk, if you keep one hand on a grip of some kind but a little chancy if you’re doing repairs or emergency surgery)
    No matter what we went up against, she always pulled us through....The Far Venture!  May The Force always be with her!

Yeah, I wish I could take credit for that, but that was entirely-- of all people, Davien.
 
Yes: the Davien of all the horror stories I have told over the years.  But that's the story of our nearly-two-hundred-year-old luxury liner cum airframe. 
 
Oh!
 
I left out one that amused me:
 
Paying passengers (on the lamb while some criminal organization hunts them) as we creep out to 100 diamaters at Maneuver 2 while being pursued by a pair of corvettes with Maneuver 4:
 
Can't this thing go any faster?!
Well, we have kind of an escape pod feature that makes us a lot faster, but it's kind of a final solution; we like to keep it in reserve.
You have an escape pod that goes faster?
Well, the Bridge can, if the drive is intact.
So the Bridge is a separate ship or something like that?
Well, not exactly--
What then?  How can we outrun them?
Well, the closer they get, the more likely they'll hit us!
That's why we need to faster!
But the more parts they shoot off, the lighter we are, and the faster we can run!
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 

Let me tell you about The Glassie....
 
 
 
As everyone here knows, I started in RPGs with a group that alternated between Traveller and Tunnels and Trolls.  So yes: I played a bit of T and T, too, but mostly I was in the group of folks that showed up for Traveller.  I _loved_ Traveller!  I was still hard in my "I can't believe this wonderful thing that you can do with dice!" phase, and I am a sci-fi junkie; Traveller was perfect for me.
 
I participated in two or three campaigns, during which time the group swelled up to... I seem to think there were a dozen or so, but only about six that played in both games.  By the time of the Glassie, we had eight regular players for Traveller and it seemed that every couple of weeks there was a new face who wanted to "try it out" for a session or two.
 
 
Anyway, we were preparing for another campaign-- the third or fourth since I had joined the group.  The GM had worked up some background stuff, but he also wanted to use some of the "great new stuff that was coming out"-- the Mercenary book, High Guard, etc.  This was all very exciting to us-- "new character classes!" to use the vernacular of the day (because everything was colored by D&D back then.  It was hard to shake terms like "character class" and "level," etc.)
 
At any rate, we were doing character creation-- the lot of us: the eight Traveller regulars plus a new guy (who stayed for about four months, if I recall.  I think we lost him to a military PCS, but it's been a long time ago).  Anyway, during the Mustering Out portion of play, one of us _immediately_ rolled "Ship."
 
Now I am sure you remember how that works: if you roll "ship," you are given a ship that is 10-25 years old and 1/4 paid for.  If you hit it twice, add 10-25 years to the age and another 1/4 to the "portion paid for" column.   If you are very lucky, you can walk away with a forty (or one hundred)-year old ship that is entirely paid for.  Then, someone else rolled "ship."  Right away, this lead to a conversation:
"Can I add _my_ result to his?"
 
GM: What do you mean?
 

Can we co-own the ship, kind of?

What?
Okay, so he has a ship that is 20 years old and a quarter paid for.  I am in the same service, and I rolled "ship."  Suppose we served together, and we're mustering out together, and they are giving _us_ a ship, instead of one ship to each of us?

The GM  was surprisingly intrigued, but at this point he knew us extremely well, so he remained very, _very_ wary....  But we could see the wheels turning..... 
 
Finally, he capitulated: Okay, but it's going to be 30-40 years old, and you still owe 50 percent on it....
 
It seems he didn't know us well enough, however.  As soon as he passed his ruling, it began.  From the first guy to roll "Ship:"  How about we get a bigger ship?

You can't do that--
 
No-no-no; hear me out.  They are talking about an x-size ship (I don't remember, but I _think_ it was a 200 or 400 ton ship; it was bigger than the 100 ton scout ship).  How about we get a ship that's big enough for all of us, and we apply the "ship" to that, but there's more left to pay off?  Even if it has to be older or something; it would be cool to have a campaign where we actually owned the ship instead of hiring on or buying passages all the time--!
 
This was true: it _would_ be kind of cool!  It would also be super convenient for the GM-- the temptation was _visible_, even through his poker face.  He thought long and hard about it-- I mean _really_ hard.  We all sat there, almost unto boredom.  Twenty soundless moments later, he agreed.  He would agree that the first ship could be either 40 years old and half paid off, or a ship of twice the tonnage, 20 years old, and 1/4 paid off.
 
We were _delighted_ at the idea of that!  Awesome!  And 800-ton ship!  Super-cool!  Incredible!  This is going to be the greatest campaign _ever_!!!!!
 

Oooohhhh, but that's going to be a lot of money to have to earn regularly...  Not just the _Payments_, but the fuel, too....  We want _adventure_, not commerce!  Suppose....  I don't know-- suppose we make it 20 years older and we apply my benefit  (A third guy had rolled "ship), and say it's half paid for?
Two-thirds paid for.
Okay; cool.
But it's Sixty years old!
All right; we can live with that.

It was the beginning of the end.  We smelled blood in the water, and suddenly we kind of wanted to know just how far we could go with this.....
 
 
--Suppose it's a decommissioned ship that's not going to be replaced because it's like a discontinued model line or something, and and and and and and...
 
It doesn't help that between the eight of us, "ship" was rolled eleven times on the mustering out charts  (No cheating, but a House Rule got horribly, _horribly_ abused once we'd gotten the agreement to let the first three "Ship" results combine to a single ship     ).
We _all_ piled in......

And, four hours later, we had a ship, free and clear!
She was one-hundred and sixty ( maybe a hundred and sixty?) years old and 1200 tons of adventure-enabling device!  (if you're saying "there were no rules for anything over a thousand tons in the LBBs, you are _correct_!  But once Lars (the GM) had established a rough sliding scale of age / tonnage / payments, it just kept getting worse and worse and worse.....
 
Never create a mechanic!  Never!  If you create a mechanic, anyone can use it, and you've made it that much more "mean GM" to say 'no.'     
 
 
The agreements got so very awful....  The GM made us surrender _all_ money benefits that were rolled, but we had a ship!  By the time it was all over, and this ship was so sad.  According to the GM when we met mid-week, it took him two hours after we left to figure out just how he was going to meet all the requirements of the bargain (and cobble some rules for 1200 tons), and he admitted that he came very close to saying "screw you guys; you get what you rolled, now start selling or paying for it!"
Fortunately, he persevered!
 
 
And we ended up with a ship.   He had to fudge some things, and typically when we came up short, he made it up by increasing the age and dropping the condition of the ship.  We ended up with a ship so bizarre and so old that he had to work it into the backstory! 
 
 
Eight parsecs off of a main trade route there existed a "chain" of systems, all Jump 2 from each other.  Both "ends" of the chain were eight parsecs from "civilization," but this zone of habitable worlds (referred to as "The Chain;"  I hope I didn't ruin the surprise) had been colonized a couple centuries before, but all of them were pristine and beautiful, and The Chain was something of a tourist attraction for the mega-rich.
 
Alas, a trade of nothing but yachts and high-end liners meant lots of rich people relatively undefended at least two jumps from civilization.  Piracy began in earnest.  Not too long after that, valuable ores were discovered on one of the worlds of The Chain, and suddenly megacorporations began pouring in and buying and building and mining and doing all kinds of things that no one in the Chain actually wanted---
 
System Defense boats weren't much good against the resources that a mega corp could pile in, but eventually it came to a war.  Seeing the end of their way of life, even the pirates pitched in with the locals, and fighting began in earnest.  The military from the established Confederation (remember: no Third Imperium at this point, and even when it began to dribble out, it's not like we could really afford to keep up with it) didn't have any interest in getting involved because what good were fissionables that so many jumps away when they could be had much closer to home?
 
Soon the corps were sending in militarized ships and _troops_ to "assist" the locals with defense and securing their ground locations (which were being secured against the corps, but the corps were fighting to essentially steal large chunks of the settled continent).
 
Now let's back up a bit.
 
To make everything work and stay within the "pricepoint" allowed, the ship was not streamlined.  This ship was an "airframe."  We weren't entirely certain what this meant.  Finally we figured out "like the Eagles on Space: 1999.  Okay; that's fine.  Didin't see that coming, but we'll work with it!"
 
Well, it's not _technically_ an airframe; it just.... it kind of counts as one.
 
Uh....  Well, since we're not seeing any kind of difference, we're still pretty okay with it.
 
Let me continue; the ship is pretty rough.
 
Okay; we're all pretty jazzed to be learning about our ship!  You go right ahead, Bubba!
 
Before the war-- oh, the war has finally ended, just recently.  That is the military event from which you are retiring, which is why you are all here, together.  You will like that because of how much it helps me."
 
Again: sure!  Now tell us more about our glorious, glorious gigantic ship!
 
Okay, prior to the war-- just before the war started, an SDS managed to catch a pirate vessel tethered to a luxury liner in mid-space.  They attacked, and the pirate ship was badly damaged!  The pirates forced everyone on the liner onto the pirate ship, and they escaped in the liner, which was fueled to jump, and the SDS could not follow.
 
So... we're getting a pirate ship?  With _guns_?!  Sweet!
 
Please let me finish.
 
The pirates of course kept their prize-- the luxury liner, but they had no real need for a flying hotel, so they began to add hardpoints and to rip out bulkheads they did not need, and make many sturdy but unprofessional changes to the boat.
 
okay, but what about the pirate boat?
 
This is the pirate boat; their old boat was captured.  This converted liner became their new home, and when the war came, it was the single biggest ship the Chain had operating in its defense.  Alas, her Maneuver Drive is not too fast, in spite of being pushed up by the pirates (maneuver 2), but she has tankage for three Jump 2.
 
Why does this matter?
 
This ship lead many valiant defenses against corporate aggressors, and even launched raids on moon stations, taking out much equipment and many ships.   Alas, she was attacked many times, and very easy to hit because she was so big and so slow.
 
How did she become an asset to the defense, then?
 
She was very hard to destroy.  She has been holed many times, but doing so has done nothing but expose empty staterooms and cargo holds to space.   The swimming pool water was sucked out into space with the air.  No matter where she was targeted, there were seldom vital parts hit.  (I can vouch for that: we took a complete through-and-through in one battle.  Absolutely nothing vital was damaged.  HA!)
 
large portions of her hull have been torn and peeled away, but her frame is still sturdy, and if you have enough cables and nets, you can keep the cargo completely inside.  This is why she is qualified now as an airframe.
 
Wait... what-- what are you saying?
 
 
Your troop-- your characters-- were distinguished warriors in the fight against the corporations, even taking part in the final charge to seize the last moonbase.  This is why you, as a group, have been rewarded with a ship of your own upon your retirement, and why you were given a massive ship that could accommodate and possibly provide for all of you a future.  However, you were also known for your constant insubordination and disregard for orders, and doing things "your own way."  Your superiors would not dream of refusing to give you a ship, as it is by long-established tradition, your right as retiring war veterans with such distinguished careers.  But just to show you their appreciation for all you have put them through, they have decided to award you one of the captured pirate ships you helped to liberate from the salvage port on this remote moon.  Congratulations, Soldiers.  Enjoy your retirement.
 
And then he went on at great length, taking a delighted pleasure in describing the ship and its condition-- how it was "sort of bent just a bit, probably because of the removed stanchion to make room for the missile launcher and the missile that was used to target it"  and "the bridge is fine, but you should not move from location to location without having a suit handy.  When passing through any bulkhead, you must roll a die.  If it is six, the the life support or the gravity is not functioning in this area; roll odd or even to determine which, and it must be repaired before it will work again.  If it is gravity, high number is no gravity; low number is too much gravity.  There are four staterooms scattered about that have reliable life support, so you don't have to worry unless you are leaving it.  If you wish to use the kitchen or the fresher, you must roll a die.  If you roll an even number, then it works.  Otherwise, it will need to be repaired.  There is a fresher behind the bridge that works reliably; there is no kitchen that works reliably, so you should have many canned goods available--
 
at this point, one of the guys wants to kind of move things along, a little tired of hearing how horrible this ship actually is.  As we are supposed to be observing the ship from an observation deck, looking down on the ship where it was moved in preparation for salvage just before being "liberated," he points and asks, in character "What about that golden area along the center of the roof there?  Is that laser damage?  Reflective armor?--"
 
Without missing the slightest bit of rhythm, Lars interrupts with "that is the linoleum of the floor beneath, I am certain."  (Lars spoke english beautifully, but with odd mannerisms that let you know it wasn't his first language). 
 
Linoleum?!
 
Congoleum, I am certain.  It is a very quality brand to still be available a thousand years from now, of course.  But it is yellow and ugly because it has been too close to the sun so many times.
 
What about weapons?  What sort of weapons do we have?
 
There are no weapons.  There are four hardpoints that were installed by the pirates, and they are all non-standard because this ship is a luxury hotel and not a navy vessel, and had no hardpoints.  The corporation has already removed the guns and used them to repair their own ships. 
 
 
 
And on and on....
 
Finally, done with "making sure we understand that we asked for this."  he changes characters.
 
"There she is, Captain (the guy who rolled "Ship" three times was defaulted to captain).  There's your ship.  _Enjoy_...." he sneered.
 
She's not the prettiest ship in the sky, is she?
 
No.  No, she is quite possibly the most miraculously ugly thing ever to fly.
 
Yeah... but she can fly, right?
 
Probably.
 
That's more than we had an hour ago.
 
"You will _keep_ her, then?!"  Lars beautifully feigned shocked disbelief.
 
Oh yes!  Absolutely!
 
You will be rechristening her for the registry?
 
Yes.
 
She will be a freighter ship or passenger ship?
 
I'm thinking freight.  Those holes don't look passenger-friendly.
 
Her name, for the Registry?
 
The captain looked down on her, and studied her long and hard (by glancing over the notes and long list of "here's what's wrong with it" that Lars had presented to him).  Finally, he looks him in the eye and says "She will now and forever be known as the IFV (Independent Freight Vessel) "Still Better than Glasgow."
 
And never once, throughout the entire campaign, attempted to explain or assign any significance to that name.
 
 

 
 
We had so much fun with that ship....
 
As you roll over to chance attitude, you notice that she fights you when you try to stop, as if her balance has changed--
 
Are the winches secure?  Someone get a vac suit on and go see what's hanging out this time....!
 
Glassie, this is Orbital Six; you are cleared for-- Jesus!  Is that gold plating--
No; it's just the linoleum--
On the outside?!
on the inside, Orbital Six; we're don't have any outside right along there....
And that crater in the deck--?
Ah; that's the swimming pool.  Thanks for noticing!
Glassie, recommend that you change vector and heading for Orbital Two.....
 
 
or
 
Glasgow we are not equipped for the repairs that you ne--
Repairs?  You jackass, we just want fuel!
What about the damage--?
What damage?  Wait...  Holy Hell!  What did you do to my ship?!  I swear, I will sue!  Sue!
 
And
 
Okay, we did it!  We bought a skimming pinnace!  We can refuel ourselves now!
Sweet!  Okay, I am preparing to dock--
Where do you wish to dock it?
I don't know...  I guess either in the first cargo hold--
you don't have a large enough door there to accommodate the pinnace--
Okay, then... the shuttle dock?
You don't have a shuttle dock.
"Uhmm, Captain...."
"Go ahead, Shuttle"
"We don't have a shuttle dock..."
"Why the Hell not?!"
Player, catching on immediately: "You haven't told me where you'd like one, Sir...."
Find a matching pair of holes, and shove 'er through sideways, Pilot!
Yes, Sir, Skip!
 
 
And of course, I've already told you about getting shot completely _through_ the ship and not even slowing down.
 
Oh!
 
The final bit with the Glassie:
 
Lars decides he wants to do a riff on parts of Star Wars (still a fairly recent movie back then).  We have to rescue the diplomat's daughter.
We rescue her and lead her to the ship (which has been pinned down by "gravity beams" that half the party has found and disabled).  We caught on really, _really_ quickly just how this "moonbase rescue" was going to go: Lars was quite taken with Star Wars, and I think he had been itching to do this for _months_.  At any rate, we were kind of annoyed to be on rails, so we were, jackasses that we were, doing everything we could to out-guess the action and steal the thunder:
 
 
You came in _that_?!
Yeah.  We're braver than you thought--
You're F*&^ing IDIOTS!
 

 
For every ship and campaign before and since, I have never enjoyed any ship so much as the always-being-repaired-by-at-least-one-PC Still Better than Glasgow.
 
 

 
 
 

This bears repeating; the standard pattern for travelers in times past was to stay at someone's home.  In fact, in the frontier, up until around 1900 it was very standard to put someone up at your home when they were passing through.  Hospitality and being welcoming to travelers in need was not just a virtue, but a feature of many myths and legends of horrible punishment by the gods/God for not doing so.  You didn't look for an inn to stay at unless it was a standard byway or fairly large community.  You stayed at someone's house.  Usually travelers would repay the hospitality by doing repairs, cutting wood, drawing water from the well etc, even providing meat from a recent hunt.

Here are relevant paragraphs from Medieval Demographics Made Easy, by S. John Ross:
----------------------
Merchants and Services
In a village of 400 people, just how many inns and taverns are realistic? Not very many. Maybe not even one. When traveling across the countryside, characters should not run into a convenient sign saying "Motel: Free Cable and Swimming Pool" every 3 leagues. For the most part, they will have to camp on their own or seek shelter in people's homes.Provided they are friendly, the latter option should be no trouble. A farmer can live in a single place all his life, and he will welcome news and stories of adventures, not to mention any money the heroes might offer!
 
Each type of business is given a Support Value (SV). This is the number of people it takes to support a single business of that sort. For instance, the SV for shoemakers (by far the most common trade in towns) is 150. This means that there will be one shoemaker for every 150 people in an area. These numbers can vary by up to 60% in either direction, but provide a useful baseline for GMs. Think about the nature of the town or city to decide if the numbers need to be changed. A port, for instance, will have more fishmongers than the table indicates.
 
To find the number of, say, inns in a city, divide the population of the city by the SV value for inns (2,000). For a village of 400 people, this reveals only 20% of an inn! This means that there is a 20% chance of there being one at all. And even if there is one, it will be smaller and less impressive than an urban inn. The SV for taverns is 400, so there will be a single tavern.
 
Business SV                                         Business SV
Shoemakers 150                                    Butchers 1,200
Furriers 250                                          Fishmongers 1,200
Maidservants 250                                  Beer-Sellers 1,400
Tailors 250                                            Buckle Makers 1,400
Barbers 350                                           Plasterers 1,400
Jewelers 400                                          Spice Merchants 1,400
Taverns/Restaurants  400                      Blacksmiths 1,500
Old-Clothes 400                                    Painters 1,500
Pastrycooks 500                                    Doctors 1,700*
Masons 500                                            Roofers 1,800
Carpenters 550                                      Locksmiths 1,900
Weavers 600                                          Bathers 1,900
Chandlers 700                                       Ropemakers 1,900
Mercers 700                                          Inns 2,000
Coopers 700                                         Tanners 2,000
Bakers 800                                           Copyists 2,000
Watercarriers 850                                 Sculptors 2,000
Scabbardmakers 850                           Rugmakers 2,000
Wine-Sellers 900                                Harness-Makers 2,000
Hatmakers 950                                   Bleachers 2,100
Saddlers 1,000                                    Hay Merchants 2,300
Chicken Butchers 1,000                     Cutlers 2,300
Pursemakers 1,100                             Glovemakers 2,400
Woodsellers 2,400                             Woodcarvers 2,400
Magic-Shops 2,800                            Booksellers 6,300
Bookbinders 3,000                             Illuminators 3,900
*These are licensed doctors. Total doctor SV is 350.
 
Some other figures: There will be one noble household per 200 population, one lawyer ("advocate") per 650, one clergyman per 40 and one priest per 25-30 clergy.
 
Businesses not listed here will most likely have an SV from 5,000 to 25,000! The "Magic Shop" means a shop where wizards can purchase spell ingredients, scroll paper and the like, not a place to buy magic swords off the shelf.
--------------------
Dean Shomshak