RPGaDAY 2023 # 1
FIRST RPG PLAYED THIS YEAR
This is my first post for RPGaDay 2023, if you’re not sure what that is you can find Autocratik’s blog post about it by clicking here.
Basically a list of prompts is provided to generate discussion around RPG topics, with creators making a blog post, video or podcast each day during the month of August, the list of prompts is included below:
First RPG Played this Year
Aside from running some one-shots at the UK Games Expo each year for Games on Demand, my roleplaying at the moment is pretty much limited to the EZD6 campaign that I run on a bi-weekly basis and the weekly Stars Without Number campaign run by Johannes Paavola. It’s great to have a couple of regular games on the go—even if lack of free time and work prevents me getting much other gaming in—and I really enjoy both running a game and having the opportunity to be a player in SWN.
In the Stars Without Number campaign Tapestry of the Void, we decided—after a previous campaign—that we all fancied a bit more magic in our Sci-Fi so we’re all playing various different types of spellcasters, using the Codex of the Black Sun supplement for SWN. At the start of the campaign our group consisted of:
Drake Rsycandor (my character): A Sunblade Warrior (basically a re-skinned jedi) who was a member of the Order of the Blue Dawn, he fled when his order was destroyed by the Hegemony (basically the evil empire of the setting) and is now starting to accept what he did and his place in the world, utilising his metadimensional powers to help others.
Lorn Odres: A noble-born man with contacts throughout the system and beyond, he has the ability to psychically link the members of the group and even heal them, taking the damage on himself, his powers have seen the difference between defeat and victory many times.
Lucien Mondoe: A man with a shadowy past from an order of demon-hunting psychic warriors who is sensitive to the emanations of malign matadimensional entities and has the ability to manifest a psychic weapon from the power of his will alone.
Later in the campaign we were joined by our friend Rob:
Lieutenant Falcon Dituri: A ranking military member of the refuge fleet was is accompanied at all times by a bodyguard droid and who has the power to craft and weave spells from ancient texts and his understanding of metadimensional energies.
SWN is basically a sci-fi reskin of old-school D&D with a skills system and some additional bits and pieces added on by the author Kevin Crawford. IIRC it was his first in the “…without Number” series of games and there have been some others since since as Worlds Without Number (fantasy) and the forthcoming Cities Without Number (cyberpunk) all of which use the same chassis with different sub-systems added, or highlighted, to tweak them towards the flavour of the genre in question.
The basic premise of the campaign is that our characters are part of a refuge fleet, fleeing from the Galactic Hegemony, that has all but destroyed our homeworld as it begins to conquer the galaxy, rolling up any opposition in their way. A spike-drive (hyperspace) mis-jump saw our fleet land in an unknown, distant part of space known as the Veiled Reach, where we have been trying to establish allies and discovering evidence that our people may have—in the dim and distant pasy—actually have originated in this very area.
Currently we’ve become embroiled in a plot in an adjacent area of space known as The Meridian to unlock a series of ancient devices known as Manifolds, although it is not clear exactly how, our allies believe that unlocking these manifolds will restore the lost, technologically progressive Golden Age. So far we have unlocked two of the Manifolds, empowering both Dituri and Lucien, exploring zombie-infested planets, back-waters lead by demon worshipping cults and strange space-station death-cults along the way.
The game has been great fun and has been a nice change of pace from our previous campaign (also run by Johannes) which was very enjoyable as well, but was arguable more standard sci-fi. The game is run online using a mixture of Discord (for the audio/video) and Roll20 (for the maps), Johannes has really gone above and beyond in preparing numerous maps and getting the game set up.
See below an example of the current campaign map:
I’m thoroughly enjoying the game, in our most recent session, in order to get money for our first ship (we later captured another, but that’s a long story) the Valiant’s maintenance and upkeep we accepted a commission from a shady mob boss to infiltrate a hotel and steal a large data-tower without raising the alarm. After much planning I think we were all surprised when the plan went off pretty much without a hitch and we were able to secure the device.
I’m looking forward to seeing what the next session holds.
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