Kharis2000

Do you have the Rocketship Empires 1936 books John? They're no longer available for sale on DriveThru, but there were at least four items (all I have, anyway): Rocketship Empires Core Setting, Setting Book In Fury Triumphant, Ship Focus book The Gunslinger Betty, and Starship Compendium 1.

First block of characters - two humans, a Mindalari, and a Haltaxan. 

Observations:

So far, almost everyone's chosen to go broad as opposed to taking a deep dive into a specialty or stat. Stroud's player is the outlier, as he maxed Dex for a human and went heavily into piloting.

No personal combat-heavy characters.

Amusingly, and without planning, both humans chose names with the same initials.

So far, only Stroud and Fartraveller have bought Heroic Talents, and one of those was really just a flavor buy.

Characters to come: female Venusian Doctor, female Trinalaxan Botanist, male Mindalari generalist, female Martian Amazon (NPC)

PC - Ace_Stevenson.pdf

PC - Axel Stroud.pdf

PC - Hogan Fartraveller.doc

PC - Tawny.doc

As they roll in, I'll post the characters built for the game as well.

Version 10 of the document attached. This is likely the final version going out to players.

More edits, some more images added, discussion of cadet life at the Academy added, additional material inserted in CRRS Stellarax and ship's NPCs.

At the very least, for her sake I'm hoping that Midnight Sun will have enough defenses to interact with her in some way to make her complications seem reasonable.....

What John said. 

I was saddened to find that there was not an electronic version for sale at Warehouse 23, but such is life with licensed products.

If you're interested in additional source material, try GURPS Lensmen (2nd edition if you can find it, since they added additional material to it)

Thanks! Those two are now fixed in v.8 of the document (not posted yet)

I'm assuming most people will have a base of 11- to 12- (slightly higher for Venusians), so I may need to revisit the penalties. I think that the shield system has a success on a roll giving one level of effect, so I likely need to go back and ensure that all the systems give one level of effect on a successful skill check, with the next levels coming every multiple after that. I may need to look at subdividing Systems Operation or requiring PS: Tesla Shield Operation or something of the sort to prevent one skill from being too useful, though.

I tried to structure the templates to a) ensure everyone had the base skills they needed, and to ensure that the alien races were distinguished and generally grouped by their stat adds. Humans were deliberately left wide open as they were structured as the supreme generalists of the game to balance out their lack of superior stats and racial abilities (and racial limitations)

Version v.7 of the document uploaded.

Fixed Cosmic Rangers template issues [Astrogation (Space) costs 2 points, I was charging for TF's that were covered by the skill], added campaign expectations on page 1, added more details on the CRRS Stellarax.

To the folks that have downloaded and read the document, are you seeing any issues?

Things I'm particularly interested in external viewpoints on are: the starting point levels and the size of the alien race templates in relation to them, the shipboard operations rules, and overall campaign requirements as reflective of the genre.

Version 6 of the document uploaded.

Small additions again: brief bits on languages, added material (including some images) regarding the CRRS Stellarax and her Captain, XO, and Chief of the Boat, and redefined some of the ranks to add NCO ranks.

Version 5 of the document uploaded.

I will point out that this is A) not a complete setting y any means, and not the completed version. I found several issues today (like the hideously embarrassing fact that I intended the organization to be the 'Cosmic Rangers' and not the 'Cosmic Patrol' as it was referred to for the whole document, for example), and it will likely evolve a bit more over time as I add things like quick name guides for the alien races, address issues that crop up with my starship operations systems, and so on.

Hope folks are, at the least, entertained!

I'm trying something different here and planing on running a local retro-pulp space game in the vein of Captain Video, Tom Corbett, and the like (all my previous pulp games have been terrestrial and temporally restricted to the late 20's - late 40's).

Since there was talk about games of this sort, I'm attaching the current version of the campaign document for folks to check out and draw inspiration from.

I make no claim to originality or ownership for anything in this material; it's fan fiction. Some of it came from Star Hero, some from Steve Long's Solar Smith setting, some from the Cosmic Patrol setting, some from GURPS Tales of the Solar Patrol, some from the Rocket Age setting, some from various Traveler supplements, some from ICE's Spacemaster: Privateers setting, some from actual pulp materials, and probably a dozen other places. It's only intended use is to be a campaign bible for my game to introduce the setting and such to my players. All copyrighted materials are owned by the original producers and no challenge is intended.

If you want to comment on it, then please feel free - I can always use constructive ideas, suggestions, corrections, and observations.

If, in fact, I need to take the file down lest I cause an issue, then just let me know!

Tales of the Cosmic Rangers Campaign Document - Final v10.zip

That broad scope was, I feel, made necessary by the understanding that because pulp systems and settings tend to not be the big sellers in an overall product line, to maximize their appeal, they need to present as broad a front as possible. If the line had 'caught' and taken off, I had ideas for a version of the Empire Club based out of Hudson City (no relation) and more. 

I had a blast writing it, and a blast just figuring stuff for it out. Things like, "How do you hide a lost city in a reasonable and not done to death way?" "How much space *is* there in a major opera house that no one really sees but the stagehands?" "What's a cool way to hide a villain's base in plain sight?" "Where do all those guys go to learn kung fu in the 30's?" and so on.

I remember Atlas - that has the super surfer dude in it, and a stretching guy with the personality of a mob legbreaker, right? 

As a shameless plug, if you're looking for locations to set adventures or use as campaign touchstones, Thrilling Places for 5th Edition is also useful.

(Fair Disclosure: I wrote both Masterminds and Madmen and Thrilling Places)

I'd have to go shelf-diving, but I think I recall one of them having a 9d6 NND - the Horsemen were not characters that characters under 300 points had any business fighting, and if they were out in force, that threshold climbed quickly. 

I'm trying to think of a single character that's died in the Marvel Universe and stayed dead.  Even some of the really dumb ones that were killed by Scourge during the late 80s have come back.

The only one that come to mind is the Executioner. Walt Simonson killed him in Thor #362 in December of 1985 and he's still dead. He died in Hel's domain in Asgard and finally made it to Valhalla, so he's been seen several times... but he's still dead, and still knocking them back with the einherjar.

O,k. These haven't been considered as much as the M&M crowd but since you ask.

 

The Dragon Crown

 

Well this isn't really so much of a who as a what. Which makes it rather interesting. More of a fantasy story sort of protagonist. But as the pulps included those it fits in, and makes a nice change of pace.

 

The Master of Ghost Cay.

 

He's o.k. You could either take him in an eerie mystery direction by keeping his friends hidden the first few encounters, or more the Deep Rising/ Mummy remake with them crawling all over the cruise ship the passengers are on.

 

The Maestro

 

Again he's o.k. a solid enough entry, but being more of a  ahem one note sort of story between the two I'd go with the Master of Ghost Cay.

 

Mistress of the Hunt.

 

This ones a bit trickier. At first glance she seems to be Cimba light, and as such not overly useful. Though as I think of it with her city skills she fits in better with an urban campaign than if you brought in Cimba . And not every adventurer is going to want to go to the jungle. The Robin Hood aspect helps.

 

Benevolent Master

 

A solid entry if nothing special. Still a nice change of pace from most of the people in the published books. And what gm wouldn't want the chance to have the players crushed by a python?

 

The Smoky Mountain Bandits

 

Bonnie and Clyde in the game. A fun and useful pair.

The Master of Ghost Cay went the Syfy horror film route in my home game. After some attempts to dissuade the party on land (sea snakes in bathtubs, etc) it was 'swarm the boat' time when they reached Ghost Cay. Highlights included the Master water skiing behind a pack of spiders, crawling through underwater web tunnels to try and find carried off party members, ad one player saying '<bleep> it' and slitting the web tunnel open to let the sea in rather than fight the spiders again.

The Maestro was supposed to be a one note (pun intended) villain. Lots of them in the pulps were, and every campaign needs a stock of them.

The Mistress of the Hunt was supposed to fall on the line of folks that were interested in many of the same things as the heroes, but went about it the wrong way. In her case in my home game, she went the Robin Hood route mentioned in her 'power up' text and began to not only steal, but engage in vigilante 'hunts' of callous, greedy businessmen that ruined lives and exploited the masses and criminals that escaped the law by buying judges, intimidating witnesses, and the like.

Ravi Singh was played with a light touch in my home game, as a potential con man that might or might not really believe his own story. His scam entailed setting up groups of five people that donated money to do charitable works, all using the same law firm as the manager of their bequests. The law firm took a high (very high in the day) 15% commission (7% to the firm/lawyer within it and 8% to Ravi) off he top... but the rest of the money went straight to the charity intended. Projects were done, the 'Hands of Five' felt better about themselves, and Ravi and his partner quietly took in tens of thousands of dollars for no effort whatsoever.

The Smoky Mountain Bandits were used as a change-of-pace criminal group in my game, with Walter actually doing the 'spell my wife's name in robbed bank first letters' plan. I also tied their Hollywood plot seed into the one in M&M's Caroline Nefertari Madison for a Hollywood extravaganza session.

Glad to help out! 

I think that the write-up you recall was in the Bestiary. I know it's in the 6th Ed. version, and it may be in the 5th - should be back with the 'Terminator robots' and such.

Let me know how you liked it - and thenm - once you're done reading.