The OOC thread.

So we've got two players interested. I'll put up a public ad for the game shortly--in the meantime, I'd be very interested to hear any thoughts you have on what I've got so far, as well as any thoughts on what sort of ship you'd like.

Good to meet you! I'll muse thoughts and see what comes to mind. :)

Had two more bites in rapid succession, so this may be ready to go sooner than I thought.

Hi there

I'll be playing the navigator

 Whereas I'll be the Explorator!

It seems like we're getting a team together!

In addition to the characters, there's also the most important question--what sort of ship do you want?

Hm. Always a tricky question.

To me that also depends on our operating methods. Are we focused on exploring new worlds scientifically, helping with colony efforts, aiding military efforts, privateering, etc.

(Though this of course also depends on what sort of themes our GM has in mind. :) )

Nothing too specific--combat and exploration, but there's a lot of ways to approach that.

 I quite like the expensive old junker approach - something big and ill equipped as a result of it being fabulously ancient. A fixer upper, in other words.

Crumbling and epic is a big theme in 40k for me, together with subtle vs obvious peril

Going to be your Missionary

When it comes to ship hulls, just about any Imperial ship could qualify as being fabulously ancient. :-) Some that spring to mind are the Murder*, Conquest and Turbulent hulls, plus the good old Sword has been around basically forever.

One thing I noticed when running Rogue Trader was that Profit Factor generally got neglected in favour of starting with a cool ship, so I wanted to make that process a bit easier. I also didn't have an archaeotech distinction.


* The Murder was the only ship hull I added. It fills the niche of a faster cruiser option, and I figure if there are stats in RT for traditionally-Chaos grand cruisers, that would be an obvious addition.

There's always the universe class Mars conveyor but that's not something you want to take into dangerous waters. Something rugged but old and with a fair amount of crumbling? I'd propose a frigate for that.

It's not really relevant now, but one thing I did want to do was make running multiple ships less of a bookkeeping nightmare, with rules for NPC ships hopefully making them easier to run, while the dynasty system incentivises having secondary ships off making money or attending to crises rather than bringing them all along to every mission.

As to how well that actually worked, we'll see. :-)

What about the Secutor? With us being a Fallen Dynasty, but with some assets and not much petty cash (ie remaining spare points in Assets, then Prestige)

3 Light Cruiser, Secutor
1 Personal Equipment
2 Major Asset, Smuggling Operation
2 Prestige

This message was last edited by the player at 21:16, Tue 30 Nov 2021.

 I do love me the Conquest. Rigged one out as a carrier once, and just drowned enemies in swarms of small ships. Little dependant upon good requisition checks though.

It would be handy to have a ship loadout that's well-rounded, so I can give the combat system more of a stress test. But go with whatever you feel like!

I've put up a thread for character sheets. If anyone needs any help getting their characters ready, just let me know! :_)

I think that layout for the Secutor looks good. I'll try and offer more constructive thoughts when I'm fully awake.

Hi guys how's everyone this, weekend?

Wife nad I had our booster because we are old and grumpy lol

Christmas de oration also went up today I put the tree up then let world War 3 break out as my teenage daughter and wife de irsted it...... Went for a long walk with the dog :)

Doing all right, thanks for asking. :-)

And it looks like the gang are assembled, so all we need to do is decide on your ship, the loadout, and any extra starting gear.

Right now, we have two votes for the Secutor and one for the Conquest (I think), so it looks like it's the former.

For modules, you've got 5 points to spend, so maybe you could choose one each?

Given the Secutor's origin with the Adeptus Mechanicus^[1] and Aurelius' own background with the Imperial Navy, my pick is a Munitorium

^[1] https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wi...lass_Monitor_Cruiser

I see Odette as a bit of a scholar, so would like to go with the Librarium Vault for my pick.

 Hmmm, it's two mods and it wouldn't be my first choice, but since Aurelius is going 'Munitorium', then how about snagging a Barracks? That'd set us up well towards military ventures and it can be parsed as a combination of martial crew and a selection of combat-modded servitors maintained by Jak and the other tech-priests on account of the group obviously having strong Mechanicus ties.

 Throw in some light cruiser launch bays, and we could really mess someone up with boarding actions. ^_^

So that's two suggestions. Any picks from Morton or Jak?

Apologies not experienced in the choices available if someone wants to suggest something good for the ship I'm happy to go with that

• Aurelius: Munitorium
• Odette: Librarium
• Jak: Barracks
• Morton: Perhaps Jak's suggestion of Launch Bays?

I'd also suggest considering it from a roleplay perspective too. I'm also new to Savage Worlds and I'm nott sure how mechanically effective my choice is, but I felt it fit Odette as I imagine her.

That was my perspective; the Secutor is a Mechanicus design, typically pressed into service supporting Exploratory Fleets and Aurelius has a connection with the Battlefleet … so a militarily focused vessel used to recording what it finds seems to work

In general, just go with what sounds cool. I want to test the system, and see what works. :-)

So the module slots are full, and there's still two weapon slots. The question is if you go with two batteries, or one battery and a lance, and what balance of range vs power you want.

Perhaps a traditional monitor cruiser load-out, with a Macrocannon Battery in the Prow and a Lance in the Dorsal? Otherwise I might be tempted for Plasma Batteries for turning it more into a knife

It depends if we can reliably close in on enemy ships. That said, the lance is slightly longer range and could soften them up until we can bring the plasma battery into play.

Depends on what collectively we saw the ship's past role to have been? With the modules we've picked, I see it more as a regimental blockade runner with assault shuttles wading in to deliver folks to the action...

 While in ship to ship engagements, we probably want to hold the distance open as we volley assault shuttles in to nobble the enemy - so long-range weapons of some sort would serve us well.

If that’s our flavour than a Lance and Lance Batteries?

Could work, but might have problems getting through shields for heavier ships.

Sounds like we're just about done, so I'll kick things off in a day or so. One other thing you'll all want to do is decide on your additional starting gear--you have two points each, so that's one Very Rare purchase or two Rare purchases.

 I think there's an element of 'if it's a big shielded ship, run' to be taken into consideration, but if we think about the design of a ship with plenty of troops, launch tubes to get them aboard an enemy vessel and lances, we're probably going to be flying a vessel with special operation vibes - the sort of ship that would lead an AdMech planetary assault, dropping Secutors on key targets with pinpoint lance fire coming down as ortillary.

Thematically, I think I need to take a Refractor Field and a Chimera (presuming sufficient crew to drive the thing)

Yes, you have more than enough. :-) It might be worth thinking about where your well-armed private army came to be attached to the Dynasty.

Also, any suggestions for names for the ship?

Oh, and would you like the heavy bolter or heavy flamer model?

I likewise need to muse over my starting acquisitions.

As for a ship name, hm. I could see Odette having renamed it Resurgence, but there's a good chance several of you have better ideas.

 I'm always partial to variations on the theme of 'Thunderchild' because of the banging disco musical track for it, but since we're talking Adeptus Mechanicus here... Oh, and renaming ships is a big no-no. Even in the real world it's frowned upon, but when you're talking an AdMech light cruiser paid off into the service of a trader house for some unimaginable service?
 Yeah, you take the name on the commissioning plate and you're grateful for it. ^_^

 Child of Thunder would be the appropriate format for a variation on Thunderchild.

 Forlorn Hope rather fits the idea that this is a 'first in the breach' ship originally intended for planetary assault.

 Rain (or Reign) of Steel, natch.

I'm a fan of Resurgence, Odette, or the Forlorn Hope



Flamer, please



Spitballing a little...

Our Dynasty has a long and storied history with the Adeptus Mechanicus in the Segmentum Obscurus. Perhaps a millennia ago, three or four Lord-Captains, he ferried a Centurius of the Auxilia Myrmidon - the war savants of the Mechancius - to the siege of a death world infested with tech heretics. We lost two vessels and were gifted the ship in return, together with an ancient savant, gone to seed. In his failing years, the savant laid the foundations of the Dynastic training regimes

 That'd make good sense. Figure that the Hope (or whatever we call her) was badly damaged in the assault and refitted for our use, which makes the ship both interestingly glitchy in the below-decks (complete with possible heretek components here and there) and old enough that we're only as tightly bound to the Adeptus as we choose to be, rather than still making up for a recent gift.

I'm also happy to lean towards Forlorn Hope. :)

What rarity would you assign a digi weapon and the conversion field?

Both are listed as Very Rare in the Character Creation thread, msg #10

So two purchase points each.

Of course, you can pick up stuff during play, it just comes out your Funds score for each story.

Thanks. :)

In that case, I'll pick up the conversion field. Digi weapons are handy in a tight spot, but they still only have one use.

Do we need to spend any profit or funds on a regiment for the barracks?

It's covered by the module itself. Though I'd say you could upgrade the quality / equipment of your troops as a Rare / Very Rare purchase.

Also, any thoughts on where they might have come from? Leased from an Imperial Guard regiment? Loyal household troops?

I'll also note that one of the reasons I like Savage Worlds is that you can actually run a battle with lots of Extras, and not have things slow to an agonising crawl, since they're either okay, Shaken or out of action.

I'll kick things off tomorrow. :-)

 Hmmm, household troops would be loyal but less skilled... Probably a good way to go, since it means we have less external obligations?

hi guys

still here sorry for being quiet really busy at work as I finish for the holidays on Friday so trying to clear my desk before then.

Need to sort out my rare equipment not sure what would be good for a navigator any ideas very welcome

I'd like to agree with house troops, at least to start off with. Could be we'd have other chances for recruitment later on, or training, etc.

A power board. But then again, that's my recommendation for everything. :-)

If you're not sure, you could just go for something like improved armour (superior carapace armour or an energy field) or a fancy signature weapon (a shuriken pistol or other xenos weapon, digi-weapon).

And we're off.

This scene will be mainly exposition about your mission and establishing characters, so describe yourselves. :-)

If you haven't already spotted it, the Librarium Vault thread has the write-up and an outline of the mission. :-)

link to a message in this game

Moving on, but you can still ask any other questions you would have had during the meeting, hatch plans, make purchases, etc. :-)

Oh, and don't forget your PRestige level gives you one floating Favour you can use now if you choose.

Do we want to make some inquiries rather than necessarily cash in our Favours at this stage? Having knowledge of Battlefleet patrols, for example would be helpful if we need to call upon some muscle later?

If we're cashing in, I would suggest we ask for:

• Naval scans and records of the system (using my renewable 'Friends in High Places')
• Expertise or equipment related to mining promethium

For sure, I like those ideas and the information is valuable, so I'm all for it. :)

We can't set our own operation up, but we do have potential colony control which is going to be useful.

In fact, anything that's part of the colony remains under our control, by the agreement just made. Hm.

But I'm getting a little ahead of myself. I'm also curious as to whether any transports that visited the system prior to things going awry are around. Their captains might possibly have some tidbits of information themselves.

As a warning (though I suspect I won't be the only one), I'm going to be around less over the next few days until after the weekend.

Merry Christmas one and all keep safe

Jas

Merry Christmas Edgar :)

Happy Christmas holidays, everyone. :-)

Merry Christmas all!

Before we leave, Aurelius would like to understand a divination with the Imperial Tarot... in case it suggests additional preparations

No proble--do the power roll, then ask your questions.

A couple of general things. First, I am trying to keep things moving when it seems like any given scene is winding down, but if you ever want to carry on with a scene or go back to it to add something, just say. I don't want to feel like I'm rushing you. :-)

The other is that I'm rolling some checks for you, but if you thinka  roll might be necessary as a result of something in your post, go ahead and do it for yourself. If it wasn't actually necessary ot had a modifier you weren't aware of, I'll adjust acordingly.

Aurelius' question for the tarot cards is: what is the nature of the threat in where they're travelling to

12:24, Today: Aurelius Vorn rolled 4,4 using d10,d6, rerolling max with rolls of 4,4.  Imperial Tarot (Faith).

You could spent a point of your Funds on thorough preparations and sanctification of the ship (or call in a Favour from the Ecclesiarchy), which would give you the benefit of a Warpsbane Hull modification for the duration of this mission (-2 to powers affecting the ship or crew from outside, ignore one Warp Travel result).

Moving on tomorrow, but again, if you want to slip something in after I narrate you setting off, just say!
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:50, Tue 28 Dec 2021.

Both those options sound great! What do you all think?

It's a Yes from me

 Seems reasonable to me, invest in reconsecrating some of the plasma conduits, updating the purity seals on the Geller Field Generator, lubing the elevator rails and other theological precautions. ^_^

Those options get thumbs up from me to

Odette isn't too focused on repairs or piloting, but could she use another skill to try and bolster Morton's morale?

Sounds good. Persuasion should do it. Oh, and you need a Spirit roll.

Sounds good to me, coming up. :)

08:03, Today: Odette Faye rolled 7,4 using 1d8,1d6, rerolling max.  Spirit check.
08:05, Today: Odette Faye rolled 16,3 using 1d10+1,1d6+1, rerolling max.  Persuasion check.

All happy with me making another persuasion check here?

(I should also sort an IC post when I shake off some of the post holiday lethargy)

In reply to Odette Faye (msg # 78):

Aye!

Updated some stuff.

I didn't realise nobody actually had Pilot there! You can always use the crew rating of your ship for a roll you don't have a d6 or better in, but someone still needs to make the roll, since you might choose to reroll it. :-)

Active scanning is a Computer roll, modified by the Sensors of the ship (+0 for this one). If you're trying to go undetected, that would be a -2 penalty on the roll.

Silent running would be a Piloting roll, but you would reach the destination more slowly (6 weeks vs 4).

We do seem to have a blind spot in the piloting. Sorry but what's the crew rating? I can't find it.

D6

This is 40K, actual physics started weeping softly in a corner as soon as the Titans appeared. Running silently is possible. :-)

 True up to a point, but it takes ages. If we accelerate enough to get there this year were visible, if we don't we're pretty stealthy.

 40k does pay some attention to reality in the way it accepts space as huge, distances as vast and pretty much everything in the void as taking ages.

In real life yes. This is not real life, as evidenced by how travel from the outer to inner system isn't measured in years. Running silently doesn't cost you speed, it just stops you attacking and using active sensors (you'd detect things in the normal radius, nothing beyond that).

Anyway, if nobody says "we're doing X" by tomorrow, I'll assume you're just heading in-system with no particular measures.

Just wanted to give this a quick bump. What are people doing? :-)

I’m hoping one of the more ship-minded folks can roll for Auspex or Vox; not much I can do in the meantime

Just a couple of things. First, you can and should make your own rolls. If it turns out it wasn't necessary, that's fine.

Second, it's fine to declare you're just doing something, rather than getting ready to do it, checking if it's okay to do it, etc. Momentum is everything in a PBP, and we may already have lost too much time to everyone waiting for someone else to post.

Lastly, we may have lost Odette; 9 days since she last logged in. I'll drop a mail to check.

Really sorry everyone, I've had several hectic days. That said I should have said something, and I'll work on catching up.

Good to see you again! If you need to take a break, that's fine. Hope things have eased up.

You'll have time to do the equivalent of a Strategic Round's worth of preparation if you choose, but then you'll be in battle. I'll put the map up tomorrow.

Hm, lesse what to do here..

In addition to the round of preparation, you go first. Just to recap--

Everyone does their actions, and specifies anything about the order if it matters (ie, "I'll fire weapons after he does a Lock On")

Ships must move half their speed and up to maximum (3-5" for you) and turn up to 45 degrees at any point during the actions. Only one Piloting action can be done per turn.

Each weapon can only be fired once.

When it comes to Attack Craft, you can either command them with Battle (if on the ship) or Piloting (if leading them directly)

If you want to take an action you're not good at, remember you can use Motivate to use the crew's d6 in place of your own die.

Morton, remember you have some unique actions.

When everyone is done, then the NPC's will go.

Don't hesitate to ask if you have questions or want to check something!
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:01, Thu 20 Jan 2022.

If you want, you could make that hail into a Test of Wills as your action for the bonus round or first one. If so, roll Taunt, which will be opposed by their Spirit check.

And sorted. Not too bad a roll there. :)

Sorry, that should be Electronics. Make the roll (I assume it's the Lock On action?)

 Done, thanks boss.

Just to check, what action was that a roll for?

Motivate one of the Squadrons to attack Raider 2

Got it! So that just leaves Morton and Odette, plus someone needs to decide where they ship is moving to.

*winces at roll*

as the navigator can I set a course that keeps us at a distance but allows us to bring to bear our weapons ? what would that roll be?

Remember you can move between half and full speed and make one 45 degree turn without needing to dedicate an action to it. You could use your action to make an extra turn, move faster, or move slower, but those actions will give a penalty to other actions on the ship this turn.

Without using a piloting action, you could move 8" away from the raider on the right (which would be facing towards you, +2 to hit) and open fire at maximum range with the lances (Shooting roll, -2 to hit).

Total Shooting modifier if you do would be +0 (-4 range, +2 angle, +2 Lock On).
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:25, Mon 24 Jan 2022.

Just need Morton's action, and somebody to state how the ship is moving. :-)

Happy to, if the Lady-Captain doesn't have a specific intent

Past putting us in a prime position to bring weapons to bear, Odette is fairly content with any decision in that respect.

OK, I'll resolve the turn tomorrow. :-)

Round two! If you want to fix the shields, you want the Repair action.

Like before, everyone post one action, and somebody also specify where the ship is moving to. :-)

Bear in mind that both bomber squads currently out are depleted, and will need to return to the ship before they can attack again. You can control 4 squadrons at once, so you or someone else could launch them. Then you can use an action to command them to attack with either your Battle rating, or the crew rating (d6).

Apologies, I hadn't remembered they were single shot. Recall them and launch two more with the orders I suggested, please

Would we be in a good position to swing by and broadside raider 1?

 It seems to be that concentration of fire is the best approach. Hit one raider and put it the hell down, then move onto the next. But Jak's busy. ^_^

I think I can have Odette do that if all are good with it. :) She's reasonable at shooting things.

Just need Morton's action, and we're all set.

While we're holding, what do you think of the SW conversion so far, and ship design / combat? Be as general or specific as you like, I always intended this game to be a beta test. :-)

Mechanically, it works, but I'm not sure if it retains so much of the flavour. Too early to tell, I suspect, but I found the Savage Rifts conversion stripped a lot of the gonzo feel from the setting

 But put back in a great deal of sense (at the cost of some really weird playtesting results - Bursters became absolute beasts).

 That said, this one's interesting but I don't think we've gotten all that far with it yet. One thing to look out for is how much impact raises and exploding dice can have, over and above the results expected on the old D100.

It's inevitable when you're using a general system. Though I found SW Rifts to capture the action-movie feel the original aspires to a lot better--MDC numbers are bought down, extras are something the system badly needed, and subsystems like chases and dramatic tasks just fit a lot better than Palladium. Plus, Juicers feel much closer to their "live fast, die wide" design, whereas in the original, it would never kick in unless you had lots of timeskips. Original Rifts was my first ever RPG and I have a massive degree of nostalgia, but it's really not a good system!



Yes, exploding dice aren't something I'm a fan of--it's very rare in practice for damage dice to go totally crazy, but it can happen, usually at weird moments. That was my gripe with Savage Rifts--combat between big things with big weapons alternates between "slapfight" and "instant death", and I find it works a lot better if you put a cap of 30 on toughness + armour. It was something I wanted to address here, and not have numbers go totally out of control.

I love the FFG Rogue Trader RPG in terms of atmosphere and worldbuilding, but I've steadily been more and more put off by the way the skill system works, and the way you're expected to constantly try and scrape up every +10 you can to be even semi-reliable at what should be a character's specialty. And then you get adventures that casually throw around -20 or worse penalties to skills that struggle to clear 50% without hyper-specialisation.


Also, no response from Morton. I'll NPC him tomorrow, and press on.

 That's been a problem with D% systems since Chaosium. Call of Cthulhu had the epic 'parachute' skill which needed three rolls to survive, all of which were at like, 60% if you were really good at them. Runequest had the horse nomad child of horse nomads whose main skill was riding and who would still fall off. A lot.

 Savage Rifts does at least make MD gear less instantly deadly (which is nice) but it doesn't handle size well. I played a hatchling dragon in one game of it, and my options were: fight like a normal human or miss everything because of the size penalty to hit anything, which wasn't quite the power fantasy I was expecting. I had a ton of fun mind, just not in combat. The Burster, meanwhile bumped his flame blast a lot and was doing cheap MD blast templates for 6D8 in no time.

 I've only ever seen a character one-shotted from intact to absolutely dead once though, in Deadlands. And once to a ship, in a sci-fi game based on the old XXVC Buck Rogers setting.

I'm following this discussion but I'm not good with figuring out system mechanics myself. Still I enjoy seeing inner workings of systems. :)

The second raider that got hit, is it intact enough to be boarded with void suits?

Yes it is.

On a related note, one thing I wanted to address in this conversion, but only really left half-finished was the inevitable "we board it and add it to our fleet" thing that every RT group comes out with the second they destroy or cripple an enemy ship. :-) The FFG system kind of....explodes if the PC's have a fleet, which was why I designed the dynasty mechanics to incentivise having other ships off-camera except in real emergencies.

Generally when a ship is taken out, it's missing a plasma drive and other vital components, other internal systems are damaged, and to salvage it, you'd need to get it somewhere safe, get new components and spend a lot of your Funds repairing it

They're not inherently flawed, just so long as you don't have base skills being absurdly low and THEN stack big negative modifiers on top of that. Just let characters be good (75%+ for a specialist) at the things the fiction says they're supposed to be good at, and then use negative modifiers when the task is supposed to have a serious risk of failure.

In reply to GM (msg # 121):

 I +1 the idea of having ships off-camera doing things (saving fleet team-ups for those odd occasions when a big event is taking place). I also +1 the notion that wrecking a ship instead of boarding it leaves it... well, a wreck - particularly since we can spam boarding shuttles and get a lot of bonuses for doing so...

 ...that said, I do not recommend boarding the obviously Slaanesh-possessed raider. Neither does Jak. ^_^

Psst, someone needs to roll for sensors.

 He asked an NPC crewman to do it, so... We should probably include crew rating as a stat for ships. ^_^

21:05, Today: Aurelius Vorn rolled 3 using 2d6, rerolling max ((2,1)).

Are we in the right system?

I assumed you were going to roll it. :-)

And yes, that's one of the perils of a beta version.



Remember you have Bennies if you want to reroll. If not, I'll proceed.

In reply to GM (msg # 127):

 Well Jak's handling the repairs... Also, I have to admit that I'm not entirely sure which skill is used for sensors, so I was hesitant to roll something. ^_^

Electronics. And we're out of combat time, so you can always roll one, then the other. In general, just roll and I'll tell you if it was actually necessary. :-)

Hey, everyone, got an update.

Odette's player has had to pull out of the game, so with 2/4 gone, I don't think it can really continue. Thanks for the playtesting, though, and if I decide to give this another shot, I'll drop you a mail. Hope you enjoyed it while it lasted! :-)

 Wellllll nuts!

 I'm definitely up to give it another run though.

Appreciate the heads up, boss