A Fate Game: Rocket Rangers and Saturday Gaming

One of our regular players is out for a few weeks, so we switched gears for a short pick-up style game and are in the middle of a Fate-based game, Starblazers. The referee made a nice timeline for us and it is very much pulp inspired. I wish we could use the 2 technical manuals I have that would work: the International Rescue (aka Thunderbirds) and the Dan Dare book both have a lot of things that would work in this game. And really strange - apparently that Thunderbird book is hard to find now. A few more years and I may be able to retire if I sell it! Assuming you can actually find someone willing to actually pay that much.

Anyway, I used an AI to draw some older pulp SF characters, and this one spoke to me:

He's an older Ranger, never commissioned. His parents were diplomats on Mars which is Russian-controlled. He spent his childhood out in the red rocky canyons and got to know the Martians. Joined the Rangers when he was 16 by lying about his age. He met the other player's character in the siege of Albraster II, when after-action they got drunk and ended up in the same cell. 

A bit of a country boy, he is a crack pilot. Which really worked out well in our first night's game. As I roll really badly generally, I maxed out that pilot skill. We had some good dog-fighting out past the Kuiper Belt with some aliens on our way to rescue the passenger ship Pollux. Between my piloting and Captain Willywhistle's gunnery we managed to shut that downright quickly, then a similar battle against the pirates attacking the passenger liner. 

It was a lot of fun, though I think it could have been even more fun at a table. I'm using one of the 0-Hr retro ships as our Space Ranger ship:

And I had enough smaller shuttles that could work as the fighters. And as per the heisting of the Xuan Wu I have a luxury liner or two that would have worked for our boarding actions. However, we're doing this over Discord and so far, it has been all theater of the mind.

It has been a blast. Interestingly enough, when asked what we wanted to do and pulp SF was picked, I did ask ChatGPT for a good plotline. This is what it gave us (and yes, Lana is our technical & comms person):

World: Zalaxia, a planet in the Andromeda galaxy, where humans have colonized several cities and outposts. The planet is rich in minerals and exotic life forms, but also dangerous and unpredictable. The native Zalaxians are a reptilian race that resent the human intrusion and often raid the human settlements. The planet is also plagued by cosmic storms that disrupt communication and navigation.

Mission: Two space rangers, Rex Starfire and Lana Solaris, are sent to Zalaxia to investigate a distress signal from a mining outpost. They discover that the outpost has been attacked by a giant worm-like creature that burrows underground and devours anything in its path. They must find a way to stop the creature before it reaches the nearest city and causes more destruction.

Possible plot: Rex and Lana arrive at the outpost and find it deserted, except for a few survivors who tell them about the creature. They follow its trail and encounter several obstacles along the way, such as hostile Zalaxians, cosmic storms, and mechanical malfunctions. They eventually catch up with the creature and use their weapons and gadgets to fight it off. They discover that the creature is actually a bio-engineered weapon created by a rogue scientist who wants to wipe out the human presence on Zalaxia. They manage to destroy the creature and its control device, but not before the scientist escapes in a spaceship. Rex and Lana report their findings to their superiors and vow to track down the scientist and bring him to justice.

Interestingly, over on COTI CyborgPrime is playing a ChatGPT-refereed game and it seems to be going really well, though I've not really followed along, While the whole AI thing is changing a lot of things in some ways, it can be a useful tool. Until the T-1000 comes along I suppose!

Anyway - we are using our toys for our Saturday games where we do meet in person every other week or so. Last time we started a random dungeon crawl using the Tiny D6 RPG system, and we're rolling up the dungeon as we go along. A no-stress RPG game. I decided to play a bear character, and a roll of the dice and she was a female Kahru. Her name is Ursa Major, so she is a star to me! Pretty much a barbarian bear though there are no classes in this game from what I can tell. But I picked tough, strong and berserker as traits and if that does not scream barbarian fighter I don't know what does. Oddly enough another player picked a tree person, and I am really trying not to have Ursa start scratching her back against him!

We used the minis at hand, but I am painting a bear now that will work (though it is a bear without a 2-handed sword, but the only bear I think I have. Unless there is one somewhere in those Bones boxes that I've not gone through yet. In 2 years or more...) And yes, that is a little lizard guy perched up on the tree character. Not too string and he is our healer. It too is a lot of fun.

And there is a finally - I am slowly getting adjusted to the new work. It helps that I have 2 work from home days. So I am hoping that I can run the OSE game after we get to a good stopping point in the Delve game (of which we're on that short Fate hiatus while one player is out of touch for a few weeks). So expect some more OSE game prep. And I do need to get the next month for the town stuff, see how Windemere Crossing is faring.