I wanted to share some pictures I took of our notes from tonight's design session. Bill and I meet once per week (schedule permitting) to discuss the next steps for the FrontierSpace game. We then assign tasks and have until the next meeting to complete.
Referee Material - Character Generation Guidelines
Random Adventure Generation Tables, Guideline: How to build random encounter tables.
Adventures in a nutshell;
Bill finished most of the tables for the Adventure Generator and I observed that FrontierSpace is more than just "a rpg", it's chock full of Referee tools. Minor tools are in the Core book while the Referee Handbook will have an amazing amount of tools, ideas, maps, creation systems, how-to's, etc.
Exciting times!
I truly feel that Player's and Referee's will be blown away, I know I am.
Rolling some dice and making adventures is fun! Here is my first try at the new Referee section we added to the Core Handbook. I hope you enjoy! (If it's hard to follow don't worry, the chapter in the book is easy to follow and riddled with examples).
Let's see, how many areas will the adventure take place in?
d100 = 05, 2 areas
Now for the specific area's;
d100 for each area = 26 and 17, Frontier town and Factory
Off the top of my head I really don't have an idea so I'll roll on the descriptor table to give the areas some flavor!
d100 = 23 and 70, damp and dank, rocky/jagged
OK! Now something to work with.
A small frontier town has been built under the overhang of a large cliff. The town is far from the forest and river, it appears the town may have been placed here for protection rather than close to natural resources. Rocky debris litter the town and jagged rocks push up from the ground at odd angles.
Off in the distance a damp, dank factory is nestled between two streams.
Now that I have the locations what are the party's objectives?
d100 = 49 and 66, Salvation (players must rescue someone from the clutches of someone/something else), Destination the players are just passing through - and they'd get through if not for the obstacle(s)
Hrm.. not sure what to do, let's roll on the obstacles table to see what the party has to overcome.
d100 = 02 and 14, Enemy characters and Easy mistake (situation that the characters come across where the obvious choice isn’t the correct one)
My mind is racing!
The player's are passing through this system and have need of supplies. This planet is far from civilized space, it doesn't even have a space station! The party travels to the only town that might have the supplies they need. While passing through the party learns that several workers are being held captive by Big Bart Wrathbone in the factory. The townspeople will gladly pay the party for their assistance, they don't have much but have all the supplies the party is looking for.
When the party arrives Bart is fuming and beating up the workers claiming their corporate spies.
Unknown to the party Bart is the local muscle that protects the workers from corporate spies! While Bart was making his security rounds a diseased-infected rat bit Bart. The infectious disease caused him to go delusional, he thinks the workers are corporate spies! Will the party make the right choice and capture Bart or put him down for the count! If they kill Bart who will protect the townspeople?
This is just an idea generator, when detailing this adventure I'll need to answer some questions like; Why does the town need protected? Why was it built under the protective safety of the cliff overhang? Additionally I'll need to provide stats for Bart, creatures the party might encounter, etc. All possible with the Referee's Handbook. :-)
The random adventure generation tables look to be a great way to get creative and to keep players interested and engaged. Thanks for keeping gamers posted on how FrontierSpace is taking shape!
Issue 15 of the Star Frontiersman will include this Referee tool. Can you say w00t!?
Crickey!- that sounds great- can't wait to try it out! w00t !