Scratch that, I'm posting it tonight!
First off, anybody interested in the non-event aspects of Winter War 2013 are directed to read my earlier post in the thread. Lots of juicy details there and hopefully these two recaps will lure a few of you to the convention. It's a blast and so long as I'm around there will be an ICE presence there.
So first off I had a full table of 6 participants including a few new faces as well as some familiar ones, roughly half and half by my estimation. What's really interesting is the event filled up as soon as it posted and so did HARP. This took me completely by surprise this year. Don't get me wrong, the quality of the products speaks for itself, and I've been known to run a fun game or two in my time, but in previous years I've struggled to fill my ICE events. At best we were at half capacity the previous two years so hopefully this year isn't a fluke 'cuz I love a full table and I love exposing folks to new games even more.
This was the last slot of the con and the organizers have a history of abruptly ending events extending beyond con hours. Once the clock strikes 6:00 PM you had better be packing up because the hotel personnel want to get in and get out quick quick.
So I mustered my remaining strength and dove right in with a quick overview of the kinds of pregens I had in relation to the Privateers setting. I recycled the 1st level characters from the previous year. For those keeping score I only had two players in 2012 so this was my first year actually running SM: P for a full table. I was a little anxious but confident we would muddle through.
The pregens consisted of a Kagoth explorer, a falanar Soldier, a human space pilot, a human space marine, a human criminal and an Oort; you know, your typical ragtag gaggle of privateers. To save my sanity I didn't include any psychics although I may generate a half-psychic or a character with a talent for psychic abilities at some point. Also there was interest in Valiesians so I'll probably create one of these for future games. Xatosians are a bit of a mystery and seemed tough to roleplay in the limited setting of a four hour convention event but I could be wrong.
I deviated slightly from the attribute generation methods in the core rulebook. There's nothing wrong with those systems per se however for convention games I've found players like the idea that the characters are all on equal footing (more or less) when it comes to stats. I opted for fairly generous with more than half the stats above 70 and few below 50. I also used a set number of Development Points, I believe I gave out 35 DPs per level so each character had 70 DPs. I didn't use the Talent system from Future Law as I figured the characters were relatively low level and those extra bells and whistles would only lead to confusion. These design decisions were key to retaining my sanity as I created the characters as there are a lot of variables especially when compared to HARP.
I did mention to the characters that the various sourcebooks contained a wealth of extra options for adding color to characters and they seemed genuinely interested. At this point I handed out the copies of Tech Law: Equipment Manual to five of the players, the sixth got the Tech Law: Vehicle Manual. They were pretty stoked about the swag so big thanks to the fine folks at ICE for generously providing the books as convention support.
I handed out the characters and showed the players the few pages with skills and asked them to briefly read them over to familiarize themselves with what's there. A few seemed a little anxious over the four page character sheet, until I pointed out the skill pages and how to read the bonus number tallied along the far right.
I quickly ran through the key mechanical concepts for Spacemaster, the most important was almost every roll was 1d100 and the impact of open ended dice rolls. They got it right from the start, several of the players having played in my HARP game were right at home. To aid the players I purchased 5 inexpensive (but colorful!) calculators.
We burned about 10 minutes getting up to speed which was pretty good all things considered.
The opening shot was of empty space a short jump from the usual tradelanes. The mission: intercept and detain an ISC freighter suspected of smuggling manufacturing parts and electronics to the Jeronan Empire. The intel purchased from a nefarious Valiesian info-merchant named 'Scales' was spot on. The smuggler's freighter was in mid-deceleration from it's jump when the PCs throttled clear of the debris field and closed within firing range of their autocannon batteries and disruptor cannon. The smugglers were expecting to meet up with their Jeronan customers but instead they found themselves targeted as the PC Falanar and space marine sent bursts of autocannon shells as a warning while Ace the human pilot backed by the oort co-pilot opened the comm line ordering the freighter to stand down and prepare to be boarded.
The freighter was silent but the two small Jeronan fighters detached themselves from the hull and rocketed towards the PCs' ship which was a modified Wolverine medium freighter. The fight was highly entertaining with piloting and gunnery rolls all over the spectrum. The first fighter ended up impacting the PC's freighter and due to my die rolling and a Fate Point (yes borrowed from HARP) on the part of the Pilot, the damage was minimal. Eventually the freighter was damaged to the point where it dumped it's cargo containers and accelerated at maximum speed. The PCs snagged the cargo but took note of the trajectory making sure to send a communique via Tachyon beam to ISC space to pick up the damaged freighter. Elated the PCs took the cargo onboard and jumped back to ISC controlled space and HAVEN space station.
I quickly narrated through the approach, dock, offload, and departure of their ship to the far side of the station. Several of the PCs mentioned they were going to search the cargo for booby traps but I countered with sorry, you must've missed 'em. I then reached over the screen, threw a few +10 Fate Points mentioning the explosion and whatnot was included in the convention event description for a reason and there's no avoiding it. One of the players playing the criminal immediately rolled her dice, didn't look at the result, and proclaimed loudly nope, nothing dangerous here.
The other player remembering the con blurb just nodded his head sagely and said oh right!
So off to the Gravity Well, the local Privateer watering hole. Within minutes the station is rocked by a tremendous explosion. Apparently a powerful fusion weapon was detonated inside the spacedock and it just so happened it was the very same cargo the PCs delivered an hour before.
The PCs spotted ISC security moving through the Gravity Well with holo-images of the suspects broadcast on the big screens on the walls. All Hell broke loose as the PCs fled through the crowd and the Oort, thinking quickly, ducked into a ventilation shaft behind the walls. The Kagoth didn't fit all that well, but they managed to crawl through a mile and a half of shafts and found a large chamber where they could do a little hacking. They found the location of Scales and with a little coordination the PCs managed to feed false images of themselves in different places on the station. They also found out their ship had not been given clearance to dock and therefore the ISC didn't know where to look to find it.
At this point the Oort got cocky and attempted a computer crime roll to try to erase their records but he fumbled the roll and fried his hacking rig while at the same time alerting ISC security to their whereabouts. Scales loathed the smell of mammals so he covered the scent by living and operating his business out of one of the recycling plants deep in the bowels of the station. So the PCs trekked through the ducts where they hacked the wily Valiesians's security and then laid an ambush. The Falanar went in first, hazzok at the ready as he clambered down a duct through a fan, and stood over Scales while the other PCs got into position. Scales was joined by three human goons all of whom were wearing kinetic vests and armed with blaster pistols. Scales was transferring and deleting files from a secure console while the thugs loaded up grav-pallets of (presumably) illicit goods. Scales had finnagled departure clearance by providing information to the ISC security on the PCs. Nice guy, right?
The ambush went off swimmingly except for Scales rolling opened ended up and getting over 200 on his sense ambush roll. He reversed the ambush on the Falanar as he jumped down from the duct and the Valiesian sprang back and then forward raking with his talons while at the same time drawing his heavy blaster pistol.
The fight around the room was heated as the thugs jumped behind cover and the PCs moved in trading shots. The fight took a little longer than I expected with the PCs being very cautious but after a few of the criticals I can't really blame them.
The Kagoth, who usually lurked in the background, plowed forward through interior walls and smashed the heck out of two of the four thugs. He didn't even have a weapon skill and yet his large claws made short work of the lightly armored defenders. The PCs had a healthy respect for the pacifist bear from that point on.
The Falanar ended up on the ground and stunned as the wounded Valiesian sprinted towards the door but he was overtaken by the bear. True to his dinosaur ancestry, Scales took the hit, rolled onto his back claws up and while the bear raked at him he returned the favor and emptied the blaster pistol into the bear. The Kagoth went down but not before the Valiesian gained initiative and stood over the downed bear like an executioner.
At this point we were running short on time, like 5 minutes to go so we moved to parley.
In exchange for his freedom, the Valiesian (true to his nature) gave up his contact - a well known administrator in the station hierarchy as a Jeronan agent. The Valiesian even had a scan of sensor scan he took on the sly of the administrator who turned out to be a variety of covert Jeronan dragoon of some sort. Had we the time there would have been a great confrontation, flight, and then running gun battle with the administrator and her conspirators all the while the PCs would have been dodging the ISC security hot on their heels.
Oh well.
We had a blast and I learned a lot from the game session. The first being I need to organize my attack and critical tables with tabs so I can more quickly navigate them. Secondly the characters need a few more DPs and level 3 would probably be better. Lastly, I've gotta outfit the PCs with gear lists because players work better when they have lists to consult and any additional gear can be handed out on a need be basis.
So once again, thanks to ICE for allowing me to run games under their banner. It's always an honor and pleasure to represent your fine company and wonderful products at conventions and I eagerly look forward to doing so again in the near future.
Best!
>>ReaperWolf