Out There - Session 3
A session report of a planet-hopping sci-fi game I am writing and playing with my in-person group.
We rejoined My Ex Husband as the tramp freighter emerged from concealment behind a floating jump beacon. In the cockpit were:
- Polly, the ship's captain, former atmo rigger, and divorcée
- Evit, currently at the helm, a smoker and void runner
- Iago, wreck picker and thrillseeker
The ship they were tailing, Late Again Darling, sped away towards Egret and they followed behind.
The pin drive system is structured around a system of buoys that connect each planet to its neighbors. Interchanges are carefully regulated by automated systems and watching STA vessels to ensure that no one tries to merge into the system just as another ship is arriving at a significant fraction of light speed.
Still, things happen. As My Ex Husband arrived, a small freighter with its transponder off was just lining up for a jump. Evit swerved the ship wildly, narrowly avoiding a head on collision. The ship, Wrong Place Twice, radioed an apology, telling the crew they couldn't stick around to chat, but if they ever found themselves on Cormorant II, they'd make it up to them.
My Ex Husband sped off in pursuit, noting with relief that the ambient comms chatter seemed to mostly be talking about Wrong Place Twice and not them.
In Transit
What followed was a month of relatively uneventful space travel, trailing a day behind their quarry to avoid detection.
The crew amused themselves with games of cards. Polly offered Iago a fancy salt scrub. Everyone took turns cooking - noodle soups, Nutella toast, bacon and eggs. Everyone got to know their passenger, Priyava Farrow, a little better. The young Salvage Licensing Bureau agent was spireborn, belonging to the highest echelons of Egret society. She had signed on to distance herself from her family but was tired of doing deskwork. She had volunteered for this risky reconnaissance mission in the hopes of being promoted to detective. She seemed to always lose at cards.
The crew paused over Finch to refuel, keeping a careful eye on Late Again Darling as they did the same. The huge green gas giant was laced with orbital refineries and hab complexes. They disembarked at a refueling station with an underslung neon sign - "Gas! Gas! Gas!" Polly and Iago flirted with the attendant for a discount on some candy cigarettes and rare, blowfish-flavored Cheetos.
They flew past Gannet, an icy planet with three tiny moons, and on towards Hawk. Iago noted the floating wrecks of the Battle of Gannet, a fight between the STA and a rebel faction called the Starling Pact that had taken place a few decades prior. Priyava noted there weren't that many places for Late Again Darling to be headed.
Over Hawk
My Ex Husband picked up some speed, aiming to arrive over Hawk just an hour after their mark. The small planet was known for its liquid nitrogen seas and carbon monoxide glaciers, but was hardly populated at all. Only a few small research stations clung to its surface. There, on the dark side of the planet they saw the silver shovelhead shape of Late Again Darling docked with an unknown ship. From its cylindrical, turbine-like silhouette, the crew guessed it was of STA make.
Polly hatched a plan. Iago readied the small skiff they had found Priyava in for flight. The SLB agent would tuck herself back into its cockpit, then My Ex Husband would throw her with its robot arms. The skiff could fly by their targets unobserved and record the ship's name and any other details, then return via a slingshot around Hawk's orbit. Priyava agreed enthusiastically. Soon enough she was hurtling like a black dart through space.
Hours passed and Priyava's mission seemed to be going fine. The skiff flew by their targets and disappeared around the far side of the planet. In the meantime, Late Again Darling decoupled from the other ship. The STA vessel flew down to the planet, towing the power coupling under its fuselage with one large crane arm. They left the tangled wreckage and the crew's hidden nav beacon behind. Late Again Darling, on the other hand, began an ungainly flop down towards the planet. Iago was first to realize the luxury transport was out of control.
The crew sprung into action. Evit gunned the throttle, sending My Ex Husband hurtling to catch up. Iago and Polly donned spacesuits and unfurled a huge metal-fiber cargo net, tossing it from the back of the hold as red plasma started to radiate from the front of the two ships. Iago dashed to the controls for the robot arms. They grabbed the net and scooped up Late Again Darling.
By this point they were already in Hawk's atmosphere. External plating began to warp and buckle from the heat and pressure of the too-fast re-entry. As soon as Late Again Darling was secure, Evit pulled My Ex Husband up with an extravagant twirl - nauseating to most, but exhilarating for thrill-seeking Iago.
They flew back out of Hawk's pull and made their rendezvous with Priyava. With a little pride and a little trepidation, she shared that the unknown ship was an SLB vessel named None Shall Pass. The disappearing tech seemed to be an inside job. Polly explained the situation with Late Again Darling. They'd need to go aboard to see what had happened and she asked Priyava if she would lend them a gun. The agent agreed.
GM Notes
This session was really useful for finding some holes in the original system I had designed.
First off, the travel system I had designed is somewhere between an encounter roll and a PbtA move like Dungeon World's "Undertake a Perilous Journey". In ours, the players roll with a relevant skill (so, often +2 unless they are doing something tricky), and encounter something on a 9 or less. A 7-9 has it happening when they arrive; a 6-, while they are still traveling at interplanetary speeds. In practice, the players made four jumps this session and this system felt like it both made the travel uneventful and required more mechanical adjudication. I'd rather roll once for the entire voyage than for every jump, but how do you parse that out across multiple jumps? It could be that I have them plot their course (including refueling stops) and then they roll once for the whole journey.
This sparked a sidebar conversation between players. I had initially envisioned this setting's travel system like a subway system. Each "stop" (a planet) takes a week to traverse. My players thought that it would take one week to travel from any planet to any other planet. Normally, I would just say "no, it's the other way," but the linearity of the solar system as structured might actually pose a problem. It might be nice to use the opportunity to Jaquays the system a little.
Second, we needed a little more granularity in this system with our ship: tracking fuel, transponder state, scrap available to improvise with, and damage. This suggests the need for a ship character sheet, on which I could formalize a deckplan as well. This is easy enough to prep, but is fun to think about folding into the character creation process.
Overall, this session had a nice mix of slice-of-life content and Interstellar-style worrying about orbital mechanics. We got some good detail on the setting in terms of the fish-orientation/-origin of most foods and brief glimpses of a few major planets.