Jump space is always a time to catch up on various things: studies for certification, shipboard maintenance, and when we have passengers, talking with them as at least it is new people on board the ship. Mr. Simril and Ms. Tachac both worked for the League's Currency Department it turns out. Apparently Hendar is the only place where the albra capella, or groat willow, can grow. This tree has a very unique cellulose property that apparently cannot be artificially created without costing more than the results are worth. The League has its own paper currency, though most systems also take the Imperial credit. You just generally pay a surcharge for the Crimp outside the port and most of the merchant hubs. It also reminded me that the Navy often carries the fleet payroll in actual credsticks and cash. Many stories have been told about fleet payroll carriers crashing. I've yet to follow up to see how much stellar myth that is versus just tall tales to tell over drinks.
Regardless, Ms. Tachac and Mr. Simril were going to Hendar to inspect the pulping and paper production facilities. In talking with Captain Luax, it turns out we have shipped out paper currency on the No Refunds before, but he felt the paperwork was not worth it. Ewo's eyes lit up - she really enjoys paperwork, almost as much as a Bwap at times. Turns out that the currency created on Hendar is in itself worthless: the bills are created on large sheets and printed only on one side in a process called intaglio printing. The currency is then shipped to Montca for the final processing and reverse side printing. Hendar is simply the first few steps in creating the League script. These inspectors were to check the inks, raw materials, processed material and whatever else. While they actually seemed quite enthusiastic about all this, I'll admit to abject boredom. Most of my life was spent with the credstick, so I rarely used actual currency other than odd and ends.
While we tried to ignore it, our engineer Lanod Dietgard and Ms. Tachac spent a lot more quality time in her stateroom than some of us were comfortable with. Or perhpas it was just me: the rest of the crew seemed complacent about their affair, and there were apparently some bets that I must have missed out on.
I was happy when we finally emerged from jump a few hours past the expected time, and Hendar's bright F3 star shone on the sensors.
For fun I did look up some info on how money is made: http://www.madehow.com/Volume-3/Paper-Currency.html. And figured for safety reasons, only half the printing is completed here on Hendar. Seems like a fairly safe thing, though I suppose stealing half-printed currency could be useful if you could print the other half. Of course, there is all that about inks, the plates, and a fair amount of other detail.
The jump tables rolled up a crew member having an affair with a passenger. I still maintain a mostly PG-13 game even in solo playing, so it was all behind closed doors. And I also realize I've not really fleshed out any interactions between the various characters other than Ewo and Malik. I may try & spend a session working on that at some point. There are rules in the Solo book to have the cross-crew relationships, so I should see how that works. I've got some behind the scenes stuff with the captain and some of his crew. Malik is just pretty naive which is strange as he spent several years being a reporter. I think it is because I am generally quite naive about a lot of things. Most of my characters in games I play are the same way. As much as I complain about others always playing the same type of character, that could be some projection going on there. I generally play "good" characters (the paladin, the do-gooder). I suppose I play a type as well.
There are 2 planetoid belts and no gas giants in the Hendar system. The planets I made there just have interesting atmospheres (I found a fun way to make gas giants in GIMP and played around a bit. Need to see if there is a way to make rocky, no atmosphere planets like that).
And while the father is excited about the new game, his kids not so much. While I'll not share that family moment, I do want him to know family is more important than games. If we can game with family - great! But they grow up way too fast. Speaking as one whose son is now tattooed and pierced in more places than I know about (based on guessing). Enjoy them while they are young & listen to you! As a result, it does not look likely we'll be playing OSE or any game any time soon. I can hope for summer break and they get bored and want to play. The father & I may get some solo TFT in as I do have a few solo Fantasy Trip games. Not quite as much fun, and now wondering if I could convert the mechanics to OSE. I also made up a small package for them: a couple "treasure chests", 3 sets of dice for his 3 kids from the mystery dice kickstarter, and I printed out the basic character generation from the free rules for OSE that can be found here on DriveThru. While I would have saved a bit of money had I bought the tomes via Kickstarter, it was worth it to start reading these and get excited about an old game. And I am hoping that the thief class as outlined in the basic rules may entice them back to gaming. I never could get my son to play sadly. While I don't exactly envy my friends who can play with their kids, it could have been fun I think.
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