Actually I really find myself wishing
for a simple, old-schoolish game that is softer in its science and
weirder in its tone, but that's for another post. In the meantime
here are some variant tweaks and some Space Cantons campaign news for
some local color.
Alternate Starting Chargen Skills
Player characters can opt to make new
choices to what you get upon enlistment or promotion in a service
(existing Space Cantons players can opt to retro-fit any skill
choices). All skills listed trump existing rules in Book 1. New or
tweaked skills are listed in italics.
On Enlistment:
Army, Autorifle-1 or Combat
Rifleman-0
Marines, Chain-Cutlass-1 or
Combat Rifleman-0
Merchants and Other, Streetwise-0
Navy, Vacc Suit-1
Scouts, Pilot-1 or Survival-1
Scientist (from Citizens of the
Imperium), Hard Science-1 or Soft Science-1 or
Comp-1 AND one Science at 0.
On Commission/Promotion:
Army Lieutenants receive Snub-Pistol-1
or Pistols-0
Marine Lieutenants receive
Snub-Pistol-1 or Bolt-Pistol-1
Merchant First
Officer, Pilot-1 or Navigation-1
Navy Captain, +1 SOC or Vibro-Foil-1
The Cantonment Holo-stem Report from
Raving Foxoid News
Deputies of His Most Resplendent and
Indomitable Overlord Vunce Augustus are vigorously denying that there
was a massive explosion that rocked the Novo Marlankh Prime
Spaceport yesterday. “We are most certainly not investigating
baseless rumors that the fuel compartment of Astro-Hermetic
College star-cog combusted on detonation of Cantonment
Marine-issue blastex,” they added.
One of two Spacers Guild
dromon-traders has returned from a senseless and foolhardy expedition
into Weirdspace. The ship was shuttled with great perspicacity into
one of the guild's tower-hangars. Ground crews noted what looked to
be blast marks on the ship's stern.
Underclerks of Hydracorp's
shipping arm are confirming that two metric tons (a cantonal
“crapton”) of depleted-uranium, zertax-covered snub pistol rounds
were not accounted for in their recent run to Outpost Nine's
planetary militia. “We are confident that they will show
up...somewhere,” they commented with officious shrugs and sweeping
gestures toward the sprawling chaos of their spaceport storage
facilities.
What the Cantonment Scout Service
has deemed an ACO (Anomaly Class Object, term for the various
celestial oddities that appeared through the Veil) has appeared
beyond Leguiin, a gas giant in the Kugelworld system. Upon completion
of the fortnight-long Subsector Stellar-Surfing Competitions on Novo
Marklankh the Scouts vow to “check it out, man.”
Holy shit I wanna play this game. And I'm with you on a soft-science space opera game - more LeGuin (great planet name, btw) than Lensman. And I love the inclusion of the Weird as a "known unknown."
ReplyDeleteYeah, I just used something Donald Rumsfeld just said. If it helps, I threw up in my mouth a little.
On point, awesomesauce, fella. Keep going. You running this in G+ or meatspace?
Your continuing Cantonization of Classic Traveller is quite fun to read--it must be a blast to play in. As far as a set of rules; you seem to be doing a good job of building the game you want all on your own. If you write it, people will play it.
ReplyDeleteI think for this "Actually I really find myself wishing for a simple, old-schoolish game that is softer in its science and weirder in its tone" you'd really just have to gut the equipment, and spaceships and reskin everything ; which you've done some of in your other mods. I plan on using this for a pre-novels DUNE setting (eventually) and will just be stealing the core mechanics, and reskin the entire thing like a computer game retro-mod.
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