Star Navy comes with four missions but if you are a space pirate; you only get the one mission. Patrol can be fun but since this is space pirates, I would like to delve in something more high swashbuckling action.
One of my inspirations is the random mission table in the old Realms of Chaos game. if you haven't played it, it is a simulation for chaos warbands fighting each other. It is fun and pretty ridiculously broken. A bad roll can make for some ugly unfair fights where you can throw a cultist and his two peasants versus knight and his pet hydra. On the other hand, random missions had you performing prison breaks, hijacking wagon trains and engaging in crazy duels.
I would like to come up with something that is fun but not quite broken. Star Navy has a fairly good system of generating random enemies that keeps it interesting. The only thing it is missing is doing something a smidge more dramatic.
My initial idea is that every period in the pirate campaign, the player can choose to either go on a patrol, or they invest their time in ports and bars looking for a good score. They roll on a chart and find out what adventure is happening at the time. If they decide not to go on the adventure, well they lose their turn in the campaign map and must make a morale roll as if they had failed a misison.
How many adventures will be on the chart? I think Realms of Chaos made you roll a D00. I don't think we'll do that many. Say, six to start with?
Showing posts with label Rules. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rules. Show all posts
Saturday, April 5, 2014
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
Help is on the Way Adjustment
When a merchant ship calls for help in Star Navy, there is the possibility of fighter squads coming to the aid. If any other ship comes, then the rules are clear as to the Rep of the ship but with fighters, there is no guidance.
To aid with this, I plan to use the following chart.
Roll 1d6
1-4 Rep 3 Fighters
5 – Rep 4 Fighters
6 – Rep 5 Fighters
Obviously Rep 5 fighters would be terribly lethal, especially in multiple numbers but hey, random butt-whooping is what Star Navy is all about.
To aid with this, I plan to use the following chart.
Roll 1d6
1-4 Rep 3 Fighters
5 – Rep 4 Fighters
6 – Rep 5 Fighters
Obviously Rep 5 fighters would be terribly lethal, especially in multiple numbers but hey, random butt-whooping is what Star Navy is all about.
Thursday, March 13, 2014
Resolving Pirate Patrol PEF's
I played a rather epic battle of Star Navy this week. The battle itself had twists and turns and the total playtime went for quite awhile. I had no problem with the playtime taking so long as it was an epic fight, but the part I did mind was that when it came to resolving PEF's for my Pirate Patrol Mission, I had to do a lot of page flipping.
It doesn't help that there is a section for resolving patrol mission PEF"s for a regular campaign, and a section for what parts to tweak of the previous section in order to run a pirate campaign. Like any good pirate, I have created a fast and dirty cheat sheet. It breaks down the three steps that require charts for the PEF resolution but leaves out the fleet lists. It assumes that you know how to do all of this but just need the right pages in one handy place.
I will be using this to help speed up future play and I am sharing it for my fellow pirates who may have encountered similar issues.
Click here to download the Pirate PEF cheatsheet
It doesn't help that there is a section for resolving patrol mission PEF"s for a regular campaign, and a section for what parts to tweak of the previous section in order to run a pirate campaign. Like any good pirate, I have created a fast and dirty cheat sheet. It breaks down the three steps that require charts for the PEF resolution but leaves out the fleet lists. It assumes that you know how to do all of this but just need the right pages in one handy place.
I will be using this to help speed up future play and I am sharing it for my fellow pirates who may have encountered similar issues.
Click here to download the Pirate PEF cheatsheet
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Contraband Rules
The concept of Contraband in Star Navy fascinates me. According to the rules,
“Weapons, restricted tech, certain narcotics, dangerous Xenoforms, Turing AIs or even slaves are examples of Contraband.”
Any one of those could be a seed for an adventure. In fact, they almost seem to be more trouble than they are worth. How are your happy go-lucky freedom fighter pirates going to react when they find out that they have slaves in the cargo?
I offer the following optional rules for dealing with contraband in your Star Navy game.
Roll 3d6 to determine your type of Contraband
3 – Illegal technology.
4-5 – Controlled Luxury Items
6-8 – Profitable Narcotics
9-12 – Weapons
13-15 – Slaves
16-17 – Artificial Intelligences
18 – Xenoforms of a Dangerous Quality
Illegal Technology can be anything from an experimental terraforming machine to giant Soylent Red ovens. Most pirates are not interested in something they can’t drink, snort or kiss, so they tend to sell these things pretty easily.
Controlled Luxury Items are things like rare furs from restricted worlds, cases of limited edition platinum sketch cards from galaxy famous artists and antique copies of Earth wargames. These items are nice and wonderful but doesn’t hold much interest to pirates and are therefore easy to sell.
Profitable Narcotics are drugs, plain and simple. These are a big temptation to pirate crews and the ship that seizes this cargo has to make a Controlled Looting Test.
Weapons are the biggest thriving illegal industry in the galaxy. There is a reason that most of the games in the 5150 universe are war related. All sides have their rules of war and all sides have their fighters who would much rather break those rules and have a gun that kicks ass. Weapons are great loot but you run the risk of the crew taking the best for themselves. Make a Controlled Looting Test.
Slaves are intelligent beings held against their will. Most pirate crews will feel bad about selling such misfortunate creatures and will think darkly of their Captain for doing so. Quite frankly, if your pirate crew is cool with selling slaves, they are likely not the kind of people you want having your back.
A Pirate Captain who wants to sell slaves for their Cargo Value can do so, but they must make a Campaign Morale Test on one die. If they fail, the Rep of all ships in the Pirate Force go down by one.
If a Pirate Captain decides to free the slaves, they gain no Cargo Value but they can add one die to their next Recruitment Roll.
Hishen Pirates ignore any rules for slaves and treats them like cargo.
Artificial Intelligences are androids, robots, smart programs on Frisbees carried around by midget robots, etc. The rights of AI’s vary by region to region but almost everyone likes a robot sidekick. There is a chance that the AI’s will be absorbed into the crew like lost puppies. The ship seizing such cargo makes Controlled Looting Test.
Xenoforms of a Dangerous Quality are nasty beings usually armed with more teeth, more acid blood and more claws than you. Ever since man first went into space, man has tried to bring back eggs that they really shouldn’t have. There is money to be made but you are always one minor accident away from becoming a cautionary tale for other ships.
A pirate ship who takes Xenoforms cargo must make a Rep test on one die. Succeed and you can sell the cargo as normal. Fail and you take one hit to your ship as if from a ship of Higher Class. This represents the Xenoform getting loose, impregnating your crew, punching holes in the hull and reenacting a scifi horror film on your ship. Needless to say, you don’t get to sell the Xenoforms as cargo as you probably had to kill them in a very dramatic and messy finale.
Controlled Looting Test – 2 die vs Rep of Ship
2+ Successes – Pirates behave themselves for a change and you can sell the cargo for the full value.
1 Success – Pirates take first pick at the best stuff. Cargo Value is reduced by half.
0 Success – Pirates take the best stuff, the average stuff and even some of the bad stuff. There is nothing left worth selling. Cargo Value is reduced to zero.
“Weapons, restricted tech, certain narcotics, dangerous Xenoforms, Turing AIs or even slaves are examples of Contraband.”
Any one of those could be a seed for an adventure. In fact, they almost seem to be more trouble than they are worth. How are your happy go-lucky freedom fighter pirates going to react when they find out that they have slaves in the cargo?
I offer the following optional rules for dealing with contraband in your Star Navy game.
Roll 3d6 to determine your type of Contraband
3 – Illegal technology.
4-5 – Controlled Luxury Items
6-8 – Profitable Narcotics
9-12 – Weapons
13-15 – Slaves
16-17 – Artificial Intelligences
18 – Xenoforms of a Dangerous Quality
Illegal Technology can be anything from an experimental terraforming machine to giant Soylent Red ovens. Most pirates are not interested in something they can’t drink, snort or kiss, so they tend to sell these things pretty easily.
Controlled Luxury Items are things like rare furs from restricted worlds, cases of limited edition platinum sketch cards from galaxy famous artists and antique copies of Earth wargames. These items are nice and wonderful but doesn’t hold much interest to pirates and are therefore easy to sell.
Profitable Narcotics are drugs, plain and simple. These are a big temptation to pirate crews and the ship that seizes this cargo has to make a Controlled Looting Test.
Weapons are the biggest thriving illegal industry in the galaxy. There is a reason that most of the games in the 5150 universe are war related. All sides have their rules of war and all sides have their fighters who would much rather break those rules and have a gun that kicks ass. Weapons are great loot but you run the risk of the crew taking the best for themselves. Make a Controlled Looting Test.
Slaves are intelligent beings held against their will. Most pirate crews will feel bad about selling such misfortunate creatures and will think darkly of their Captain for doing so. Quite frankly, if your pirate crew is cool with selling slaves, they are likely not the kind of people you want having your back.
A Pirate Captain who wants to sell slaves for their Cargo Value can do so, but they must make a Campaign Morale Test on one die. If they fail, the Rep of all ships in the Pirate Force go down by one.
If a Pirate Captain decides to free the slaves, they gain no Cargo Value but they can add one die to their next Recruitment Roll.
Hishen Pirates ignore any rules for slaves and treats them like cargo.
Artificial Intelligences are androids, robots, smart programs on Frisbees carried around by midget robots, etc. The rights of AI’s vary by region to region but almost everyone likes a robot sidekick. There is a chance that the AI’s will be absorbed into the crew like lost puppies. The ship seizing such cargo makes Controlled Looting Test.
Xenoforms of a Dangerous Quality are nasty beings usually armed with more teeth, more acid blood and more claws than you. Ever since man first went into space, man has tried to bring back eggs that they really shouldn’t have. There is money to be made but you are always one minor accident away from becoming a cautionary tale for other ships.
A pirate ship who takes Xenoforms cargo must make a Rep test on one die. Succeed and you can sell the cargo as normal. Fail and you take one hit to your ship as if from a ship of Higher Class. This represents the Xenoform getting loose, impregnating your crew, punching holes in the hull and reenacting a scifi horror film on your ship. Needless to say, you don’t get to sell the Xenoforms as cargo as you probably had to kill them in a very dramatic and messy finale.
Controlled Looting Test – 2 die vs Rep of Ship
2+ Successes – Pirates behave themselves for a change and you can sell the cargo for the full value.
1 Success – Pirates take first pick at the best stuff. Cargo Value is reduced by half.
0 Success – Pirates take the best stuff, the average stuff and even some of the bad stuff. There is nothing left worth selling. Cargo Value is reduced to zero.
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