A Reactive Setting: Starfinder
Nov 17, 2017 6:28:49 GMT -8
Post by GM Radio Rob on Nov 17, 2017 6:28:49 GMT -8
Hi all! It's been a while since my last post.
I've run one session of the Starfinder RPG online for some friends. I dig the game world for how it takes the core D&D idea of the scruffy pack of adventurers out exploring for fun and profit and gives them a starship. My idea for a campaign is that the group is working for a company that specialises in settling new worlds and/or the Starfinder Society, tasked with exploring Talfarr Sector, a largely unknown region of the Vast (wild space). I like the mash-up of Star Trek-esque exploration of strange new worlds with Indiana Jones-flavoured uncovering of lost civilisations.
While I've had a few ideas (and my players have come up with some fun stuff) I'm trying to avoid planning adventures in favour of having the groups and powers in the sector of space the players are exploring react to whatever craziness the players / the dice come up with.
I reckon I need to do a lot more fleshing out of the sector and the people in it but I keep writing the same notes out over again, so I think I need to throw this open and ask for some help.
In the first session, the characters have woken aboard the transport ship taking them from Absalom Station to Talfarr Sector; before it can dock at the colonial company's space station, it's boarded by pirates who are aiming to steal a cure for a slow-acting but deadly virus that has struck the Sector's colonised worlds. They've been introduced to one NPC who has a wife and kids afflicted by the virus; we're two rounds into the combat and the players have just discovered that the pirates have taken the husband and kid of the captain of their transport ship hostage. We had to call it there due to time constraints.
My players have made the following:
Ideas I've had:
And there's got to be a dragon in there somewhere.
How do I turn my and the players' ideas into sources of instant or between-session hooks or logical "what comes next" reactions to what the players do?
I've run one session of the Starfinder RPG online for some friends. I dig the game world for how it takes the core D&D idea of the scruffy pack of adventurers out exploring for fun and profit and gives them a starship. My idea for a campaign is that the group is working for a company that specialises in settling new worlds and/or the Starfinder Society, tasked with exploring Talfarr Sector, a largely unknown region of the Vast (wild space). I like the mash-up of Star Trek-esque exploration of strange new worlds with Indiana Jones-flavoured uncovering of lost civilisations.
While I've had a few ideas (and my players have come up with some fun stuff) I'm trying to avoid planning adventures in favour of having the groups and powers in the sector of space the players are exploring react to whatever craziness the players / the dice come up with.
I reckon I need to do a lot more fleshing out of the sector and the people in it but I keep writing the same notes out over again, so I think I need to throw this open and ask for some help.
In the first session, the characters have woken aboard the transport ship taking them from Absalom Station to Talfarr Sector; before it can dock at the colonial company's space station, it's boarded by pirates who are aiming to steal a cure for a slow-acting but deadly virus that has struck the Sector's colonised worlds. They've been introduced to one NPC who has a wife and kids afflicted by the virus; we're two rounds into the combat and the players have just discovered that the pirates have taken the husband and kid of the captain of their transport ship hostage. We had to call it there due to time constraints.
My players have made the following:
- Max, Android Ace Pilot Mechanic (Lawful Neutral) with a hover drone but no real character history / backstory yet.
- Coral Raine, Android Scholar Envoy (Chaotic Good) whose main schtick is that they're trying to pass for human. Coral's player also has the idea that Coral is a lot older than they look with some Jekyll-and-Hyde violent tendencies that Coral is working to suppress.
- Thanatos Cerillian, Half-Elf Bounty Hunter Solarian (Chaotic Neutral). Is seeking a lost family; the only clue is a map hidden in the stock of his grandfather's crossbow. Current bounty is a ysoki who has stolen something from a very powerful person.
- Kima, Lashunta Outlaw Operative (Lawful Evil). On the run from her former gang / mercenary group, the Sunspots, after killing one of their senior members.
- Edrinat-tra, Shirren Spacefarer Technomancer (Neutral). No real character history / backstory yet.
Ideas I've had:
- Kel'Thrannki Colonial, the PCs' employer, is looking for more colony worlds in order to ensure its next wave of settlement is successful. They're also trying to set up regular communication channels between their existing planets and ensure the populations are self-sufficient.
- Apex, Kel'Thrannki's ruthless competitors, happy to turn its erstwhile customers into indentured servants
- The obligatory Ancient Race a'la Mass Effect, sealed away in cryosleep in distant worlds, with uncertain motives.
- A force of undead from the planet Eox, who have the idea of finding the Ancient Race, shutting down their cryopods and turning them into labour / soldiers.
- The Starfinder Society, on its usual mission to explore strange, new worlds and blog the crap out of them.
- A group out to either concel
- At least one pirate group.
- Colonists fleeing shady pasts.
- Prospectors hoping to make it rich.
And there's got to be a dragon in there somewhere.
How do I turn my and the players' ideas into sources of instant or between-session hooks or logical "what comes next" reactions to what the players do?