OOC Discussions

[Davy, aka GM]

By the way, happy 12th anniversary of the game!

[Nolmir]

Wow, time flies!

[Renny]

That is so amazing. Glad I got he chance to come back and well done Davy. What an amazing run!

[Patrick Goodman]

Hey, Davy, when the time comes, are we making Treyva a commodore or a fleet captain? As it's explained in the Command Division sourcebook, the ranks are roughly equivalent, but what they do is different. The commodore is generally still in active command of a ship, but in overall command of flotillas/small fleets. The fleet captain is more of a ground-based rank, serving as adjutants and advisors to the admiralty.

If I read it correctly. I will tell you for nothing that when the time comes, Treyva would more than likely prefer to remain on a bridge.

[Davy, aka GM]

All things being equal, I would say that he'd be appointed a commodore in a fleet staff position, or, perhaps, he'll be the fellow tapped to take over Starbase 11.

That said, you never know if Rear Admiral Vandenboogard or Commodore Krane will try to pull him into a fleet captain position if they get a new appointment. Or, he could always pick up a position as military liaison for a Denobulan consulate, which would probably be more fleet captain than commodore.

[Patrick Goodman]

Not in any hurry, mind. I was working on updates for my campaign guide and happened upon that sidebar in the Command Division book.

[Patrick Goodman]

I have Ryback's fourth Value! "Nobody beats me in the kitchen."

[Davy, aka GM]

Nice.

[Patrick Goodman]

Guys, you may get a FB friend request from Patrick E. Goodman. It's more than likely me on a temporary account, trying to get some things moving on my primary account. If you could accept, and invite me into some of our common groups, I'd be most grateful.

[Patrick Goodman]

Seeing as how FB doesn't seem to think I'm me in spite of evidence I've provided to the contrary, I might just give up on them entirely.

[Davy, aka GM]

For my own purposes, the orbital battle ends around Stardate 8850.6. Add 0.1 for post-battle stuff, so end of Treyva's scene with Styles is at 8850.7.

[Davy, aka GM]

The title of Episode 2.02 will be "Rivulets of Copper, Eyes Aflame".

Also, as a reminder, we will institute the following soft cap on Crew Support (i.e., the introduction of Supporting Characters in the episode):

"The Players may introduce/feature a number of Supporting Characters without penalty equal to the ship's Crew Support value. The first Secondary Character introduced beyond the Crew Support limit costs 1 Threat; the second such Supporting Character over the limit costs 2 Threat; the third costs 3 Threat; and so on.

An easy way to determine the Threat cost of introducing a Supporting Character to an episode is subtract the ship's Crew Support rating from the character ordinal number (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc.). If the result is 0 or less, then introducing that Secondary Character has no Threat cost; however, if the difference is greater than 0, then the difference becomes the Threat cost for introducing that Secondary Character.

So, if your ship has a Crew Support of 4, the 5th Secondary Character introduced in an episode costs 1 Threat (5-4=1), the 6th costs 2 Threat (6-4=2), and the 9th costs 5 Threat (9-4=5).

However, the use of Supporting Characters should not count against the players if the GM has set up a scene that inherently requires the use of secondary characters (e.g., a security team on a surveillance mission). If the players haven't already introduced the Supporting Characters earlier in the episode and they don't plan to use them again later in the same episode, then the use of the Supporting Character doesn't count against Crew Support; however, such characters will also not receive a benefit from being featured, if they were introduced in a previous episode."

The last paragraph pertains to scenes like the initial landing party investigating the escape pods and the rescue mission in the Apellan village, where we had, by story necessity, a security team take the lead. Supporting Characters used only in that scene wouldn't count against the Crew Support limit, and, if they had been introduced in a previous episode, wouldn't get a benefit for being featured, either. (Obviously, a character who is first introduced in this way will have their character sheet created.)

We'll continue to ignore the "uncontrolled Supporting Character" rules; I think that's too restrictive with regards to gameplay and good storytelling.

The other thing we (meaning "I") need to be more vigilant about is what characters use Momentum and what characters use Threat. Any named member of the crew generates Momentum; any guest star allied with the crew always generates Threat. In Episode 1.13, all of the characters on the Christopher Robin were members of the crew and generated Momentum; however, the crew of the Chandley and Cole's former Academy classmate would instead generate Threat, even when performing tasks in support of the PCs.

[Davy, aka GM]

Rough day for me today. Left me in need of some number crunching to wind down, so I worked on a Traveller ship instead of writing. I'll get responses back to you gents tomorrow.

[Renny]

No worries. Hope you are ok

[Davy, aka GM]

Just a hell day at work. Multiple failures from start to finish.