[Science Fiction] Shared story - Test session

[Bingo]

Hey SoloRPGers,
In this thread we’re going to run a test of a shared story, much like a play by post RPG but using the RPGSOLO engine.

Here are a few common sense rules:

1. We’ll use a free form rule set (that is, no rules). Use the engine to determine outcomes. Don’t worry about hit points, etc. just create characters that have interesting skills and abilities - and limitations too!

2. Start by introducing your character.

3. No god-like abilities please. Let your character have vulnerabilities. They can even die!

4. Let the story develop but don’t completely derail it.

5. Jump in any time but in the context of the story.

6. Have fun but don’t ruin other’s fun

Lets make this happen!

[Bingo]

Steal the plasma cutter at the confederate stargate.

“The Plasma Cutter”, one of the Confederate Navy’s newest ships is a sleek new design. It’s light on armour but the thing is fast, real fast and carries a decent weapon load.

And our job is to steal it!

I’m Captain Dane Conners and i’m looking to get a crew together for the heist. I’m not the biggest guy in the room and not exactly the quickest, but I can think fast in a tight situation or talk my way out of it. My ship “The Hummingbird“ is an old trash hauler. She’s slow and virtually unarmed, but is reliable and tough. There’s rumours around that I tend to drink too much, but that’s bullshit.

Right now I’m sitting in the “Overlook Bar” in the top spire at Regulus Station, nursing an ale. My first one, I swear!

Is Conners drunk?

(Likely | 9_[d10]) Yes

[Hyfrydle]

I'm going to jump in now if that's okay?

[Hyfrydle]

As I sit in my very slightly inebriated state I eye the bar looking for anyone who will fit into my plans.

Do I spot anyone I know?

(50/50) Yes

For this heist I'm going to need people I can trust and trust can be hard to come by but it can be earned.

As I scan the bar I spot someone I know all too well and if she can be convinced would make a great member of the team. Her name is Zinta and she is one of the best hackers I know.

Zinta is a member of the Vargi race and has blue skin with striking yellow eyes. The Vargi are humanoid in appearance. Zinta has helped me out in the past and can be hired for cold hard cash, we have had our differences but if the payouts big enough she should be in.

I walk over and sit down opposite her in the booth, I can tell by the look on her face she's not too pleased to see me.

[Bingo]

“Captain Conners”, Zinta says with an air of disdain. “Drinking again I see?”

I start to say something, then stop. It’s not worth it - that was a long time ago and hopefully our differences are in the past.

“Zinta,” I smile at her. “So good to see you again”

Helplessly / Delicate

Our relationship is, well, quite delicate. We’ve run jobs together in the past and sometimes they haven’t turned out successful for all parties. In fact our last job I left her in a helpless situation: her code was compromised and she was unable to hack security before a trace bot got on her trail. It was my fault for giving her the wrong software after a night of heavy drinking.

But surely she has forgiven me for that, right?

(Unlikely | 4_[d10]) No

[Jingo]

I rolled up my character.

Race: Human
Name: Jennifer Harrison
Gender: Female
Role: Engineer

What am I good at?

Disguise

Psychology

Engineering

What am I OK at?

Land navigation

Diplomacy

Survival

She was an engineer for the military and before that had an acting background and got very good at reading people and their moods. She also developed some wilderness survival skills from a tour of duty aboard the cruiser "The Bloodwind" that ended up crash landed two years back. She was the only survivor of the crash.

Do I know Conners?

(50/50 | 8_[d10]) Yes

Was Conners ever on the bloodwind too?

(Somewhat Unlikely | 1_[d10]) No, and... +Twist: Emotional event / Changes the goal

No, he was ordered to captain the Bloodwind but for unknown reasons turned it down and was booted out of the military. I blame his not taking the ship as as the reason for the crash.

Jennifer sees Captain Conners nursing a drink. She smiles and approaches him. He's talking to a Vargi. "Whatever. Doesn't matter. I'm going to give him a piece of my mind," she mutters. She tosses back the drink, a Vargi brew that burns hot going down and sits cold in your gut, but gives a good buzz. She tosses a credit to the bar tender and marches towards Conner.

"Captain," Jennifer flashes a smile, more teeth than smile and sits across from him, interrupting his conversation with the Vargi. "Remember me?" She scratches her head. "Course you do. And my, aren't you sitting pretty again?" her eyebrows shoot up. "Drinking expensive ales. Living it up? Hope you enjoy that... Did you know because of you, I almost died. I was stranded on Vega 13 for two months, the sole survivor of the Bloodwind crash?"

Jennifer grinds her teeth and leans forward. "I never could figure out why you walked away from that assignment. That idiot Morris was promoted and took over the ship. The idiot had dura-crete for a brain! Course that didn't stop it from getting split open. He took us into Spex space if you can believe that!"

(Spex is short for Species X, the designation given by scientists for a relatively unknown insectoid race recently discovered.)

Jennifer leans forward, her eyes flashing. "We got mauled! Our shields and armor were punctured in multiple spots. We were venting atmo when we went down on Vega 13. Let me tell you, that's one arm pit stink of a planet. Volcanos. Eletrical Storms. Lotsa crap like that. But yeah, I survived, because I had to. For six months I was there, drinking my own spit. I was the only one that survived. Because you didn't have the stones to accept orders and take the Bloodwind commission."

She leans back and folds her arms across her breast. "I got booted from the mil because of that. Section eighted me right out. Load of crap. 'Course I can't help that my hands shake whenever I get on a ship."

[LazzerusThanatos]

I'll take a similar but different approach that Jingo did, though I'll stay put and avoid interaction with the first post, and just establish a character:

Core Concept: Relentless programmer
Race: Kla'vi
Name: "Cyprus 22"
Gender: Male?
Profession: Hardware/Software Programmer

Defining Skill:                              Major Skills:                               Minor Skills:
Electronics                                 Sleight of hand                          Persuasion
                                                 Build/repair                                Pickpocketing
                                                                                                  Xeno-pathology
Key Items: Broken Gauss rifle, Blast helmet, Laser scalpel

(My idea for the Kla'vi race was they were a predominantly sky-blue-skinned people (With occasional red-skins that are prone to violence and tend to be rulers) that are lankier than the average human, but stand about as tall. They don't really have definable genders, as their people are literally grown in test tubes with certain materials. Red ones tend to be ready to throw away a life so long as it can be replaced, while blue ones are actually indifferent to the matter. They're not peaceful or malicious, they just kinda roam a few select solar systems and colonize when they can justify the elements on a planet are needed.)

"Cyprus 22" as they're deemed is a sky-blue, whom simply left home because they was told they could by merchant traders. They're simple to convince of things, and tend to avoid attachments, save a few that can't be helped. They've made a small name for themselves in this belt of planets as a programmer that doesn't refuse a job, and does quite good at it too. Though they have got quite the quick hands, and there are several accusations flying around them that if you don't watch your pockets, you may lose anything in them. They just think that its part of the merchant's dance, like they were taught. They're good at making small devices for a variety of uses, too.

And as of currently, they were venomously pouring over a Data-Jack Device that was probably older than they were. And boooooy did it refuse to take to new hardware OR software without a fight. They'd even started stripping parts from some of their throw-away devices to try and get the bloody thing to accept anything new.

"Where in Shammos Twelve's afterlife did that Vargi even get this? You could donate it to a museum and buy six new hacking tools with the creds." They mumbled as they looked to the helmet sitting on the table, as though expecting a response.

"No, it's not that important I know, but I don't see why you'd want a Backstabber program on this old hunk of wires. It would be hardly effective, if my memory serves me." They toned in more of a response fashion than to themselves.

That's when the voices behind them started to pick up.

Can they make out what's being said?

(Somewhat Unlikely) Yes

"We got mauled! Our shields and armor-"

They turned their head slightly, and only for a moment, and looked back to their work when they deemed it was nothing interesting. "Never a dull moment here in Overlook, is it? And no, I don't want statistics for that." They continued to try and tinker with the Data-Jack device, hoping there was some way they could safely integrate the Backstabber program without having the entire device start a data-wipe.

Was there a way the device would accept a Backstabber program?

(Unlikely) No, but...

"Mmmm....this isn't gonna work. The coding is way to old to house anything as advanced as a Backstabber.........but...but just maybe I could code in the skeleton of a Backstabber and make it grow its flesh and fluids from whatever it's currently hooked up to. Hmmm, what a wonderful time to experiment and test..." A smile grew across their face as lines of code floated across their cortex. They pulled out a scalpel, and with a flick, it started glowing red, and had a soft thrum emanate from it, as they began with the first of several steps this would take.

[Bingo]

Well shit. Isn’t this nice. If running into Zinta wasn’t enough to drive me to drink then running into Jennifer Harrison surely will! I wouldn’t blame either one of them if they shoved me out an airlock right now. I’m sure no one here would even care. Yeah Morris was an incompetent fool and I guess I figured and incompetent fool was better than a drunk.

“Nice to see you too Jen”, I give her a little salute for what it’s worth. To her, it’s not worth much.

“The Bloodwind, eh?”, I mutter. I look at Zinta, I’m sure she doesn’t have a damn clue what we’re talking about. “Good ship. Good crew. Bad captain.”

Oh bravo! I’m sure that’ll go down well.

“Look Jen...”, this is basically my only chance now of making amends, “I had no idea they’d give the ship to Morris. I though Li’san would’ve made captain. I didn’t know he’d been killed 2 weeks before in that ambush at Ridgeback Run. No one would’ve wanted a drunk in charge so I stepped aside...I.....I’m sorry for how it all turned out...really. I’m sorry”

Suffering

“You’ve...suffered. I know that. And, well...I hope you can find a way to forgive me?’

[Hyfrydle]

Name: Zinta
Gender: Female
Role: Hacker
Race: Vargi

The Vargi race are characterised by dark blue skin and striking yellow eyes they are slightly reptilian in appearance with some humanoid features, they are generally more intelligent than the average human and excel in skills requiring programming or computers.

The Vargi race are skilled at Telepathy and also due to the mountainous nature of their home planet they are skilled mountaineers.

Main skill: Hacking

Other skills:

Medicine

Telepathy

Mountaineering

Gear:

Particle gun

Chrono-scanner

Electro-binoculars

I've decided to continue the story from the perspective of Zinta so here are her skills and gear and a bit more info on the Vargi race.

[Hyfrydle]

This booth is getting rather crowded and it looks like Conners screwed this Jen over as well.

Has Zinta heard of the Bloodwind crash?

(Likely) No

I asked Jen how she and Conners got involved and she explained how she was stranded on Vega 13 after a commision Conners turned down turned bad and this in turn led to her dismissal from the military.

It seems Conners has a tendency to leave people high and dry. In my last job with him I had an issue hacking a security terminal and have been evading a trace bot ever since.

Is Zinta aware that the hack failed due to Conner giving her the wrong software?

(50/50) No, and...

I never did understand why the hack failed the software all seemed fine but as soon as I jacked into the port red lights started flashing and all hell broke loose. We did manage to escape and I have Conner to thank for that he can be a useful ally in a firefight.

I turn to Conners and ask why he decided to gate crash my booth as I'm sure he must want something he usually does.