General OOC

Current Debts: 900,000 credits owed to Ad Astra Associates
Ship Stores: 360 person/days of life support. (Full)
Ship Fuel: 2 drills (full)
Maintenance: Up to date, Due in 6 months

General OOC stuff here

If you guys want to get a better deal from your patron, it'll be a Talk/Cha or Trade/Int roll.

Notice/Wisdom check
https://orokos.com/roll/768181 = 8

Roz Int/Fix check

Rolled 3,6,5 (Specialist so discard lowest die) +1 (Fix) and +1 (Int)
13 https://orokos.com/roll/770624

Ziggy would like to impress Roz with a 'lil sleight of hand trick. What should I roll Kobras? Do I need to roll?

You have options. It would be a Dex based roll, probably with shoot if you want to do a fancy gun twirl thing. Perform could work too, or it could be a straight Dex roll to do something else slight of hand related.

Looking at your sheet, it looks like you only have 0 in Shoot, so that would be a straight dex roll anyway. You expert special ability would apply in any case.

No shooting involved!

Here goes...

6

https://orokos.com/roll/772749

I think I'll be using my Expert ability to re-roll that!

Second time...

13!

https://orokos.com/roll/772750

Okay, so Ziggy is trying to impress Roz with a little coin trick he picked up on his travels. Would that result qualify?

Wow yeah, nice reroll there. You can describe the specifics of your trick IC if you like. Objectively, the result is a trick that is pretty flashy and technically difficult to pull off. Subjectively, how much that trick impresses Roz is up to Nitafrong.

I'll try to connect some info sources
https://orokos.com/roll/776305 = 8

Ana's contact is Changying Spiros. She is an paternalistic entrepreneur who owns a ever expanding contracting company. For a price, Changying will dredge up rumors from what her workers hear whispered while they go about their jobs (throughout all levels of society). Ana only met her once before on a job, but she proved remarkably helpful in providing a detailed layout of the building where Ana's target resided.

Just a heads up for remaining players, Carnelian's had to step back from the game and Pendraig is on a temporary leave of sorts, so its just Roz and Henrietta for now. If you guys are still interested, we can press on with you two and NPC the others for now. I'll bump the recruitment thread, see if there's any takers.

We might want to do that. Henrietta isnt of much use in game right now, and not a good proponent of moving forwards.

Welcome new players! Like I mentioned to most of you, most forum members use the LINE app to speed communication, but I can also answer questions here.

There's also an introductions thread near the top of the forum, feel free to drop a post there as well!

We should also start talking about how the new character will be introduced. I can think of a couple options.
-We handwave it and say they were part of the crew the whole time.
-The existing crew is looking for additional manpower for their job and the data-broker they're talking to recommends the new characters.
-Some or all of the new PCs start on a parallel job that will eventually result in everyone meeting up.

I'm open to alternative ideas as well.

Personally I'd be happy with either option 1 or 2. Being that we've just landed and there's only been limited character interaction we could just slip in the new characters, but it would probably be better story line wise to go along with the second and have them recommended to us.

I'd prefer to get the new characters in and interacting with us asap.

You're right, that's probably best for the pace of the game. I guess we'll just say the new PCs have been with the crew the whole time, and have an equal stake in the ship. Unless there's any objections.

Hi,
being one of said new characters, I am also fine either way.
My character being somewhat of a bounty hunter, he could also just be hunting Yuri himself and then join forces, when things get tough.

On another note: Kobras told me you guys use LINE to communicate off-board. I installed the app, how do I find you?

What’s your username on there? I can add you, or you can add me at “Kobras Aquairre” and ill get you in the relevant groups

I'd prefer option 2 for myself, and I imagine it can be worked in rather quickly. I just don't like that kind of hand-waving where it can be avoided. I also haven't had the time to read through the whole thread.

I've read enough to gather that the PCs are currently at a meeting with someone important, probably the employer, but that's all I've got. Would somebody be willing to give a TL;DR on the story so far?

Sure, the initial mission was to recover an experimental medical device for a wealthy magnate of the Cornucopia Corporation from a biotech lab. So far the investigation has revealed that the lab was recently bought by a local megacorp that has been aggressively expanding. Along the way, the crew learned of a lucrative bounty job to bring in a freelance strikebreaker who stole something mysterious and dangerous from a research facility. You have secretly been offered extra credits to break the object before returning it to the company. Currently you’re talking to Changying Spiros, an information broker who uses her general contracting business as a front for a covert spy network. She’s given you some actionable information on the bounty target and will get you the floor plans for the biotech lab tomorrow.

Okay I'm finally caught up on all the threads. I don't have a character yet, but I was thinking I could play one of Changyang's contractors. Kind of a jack of all trades who does a variety of temp work and such, while also being a pretty skilled hacker/spy/thief type who gathers intel for her. That's all I've got at the moment.

I also got Line and added Kobras as a friend.

Excellent! I just added you to the chats on LINE. I like the character concept, it’s easily incorporated and we were just talking about the party is suddenly a smidge warrior heavy, so a sneaky/tech oriented character sounds useful

Welcome owenstreetpress,
I also think we could use a spy/thief kind of person. Just not sure about the Hacker part. "Program" is kind of the only thing my character brings to the table, that is not yet covered.
Except maybe "Connect", since Anastasia dropped out, even though Henrietta and potentially Danzig have that covered as well.

Looking at everyone's sheets, the only important skill that nobody has to any extent is Sneak. (Nobody has Work or Stab either, but I don't think those are necessarily important.) Maybe someone with experience in bypassing security systems would be good. Certainly could be useful depending on how you approach the biotech job lol

Kolya also brings Trade to the table, don't forget that. Extremely useful if you want to start hauling cargo.

I can drop the hacker angle and go for more of a connections angle, that makes sense for my concept. I was also planning on covering Work as I'm probably going to grab the Worker background. Sneak also feels like a good fit.

Excellent!

So what I'm thinking is that we'll say Ian was with the crew from the start, Zhen and owen's character will join the group right now due to a connection with Spiros, and Kolya will be pursuing a parallel thread, likely to meet up shortly

Sounds good. Unless you had an NPC in mind I was thinking I could be the person Changying has moving stuff into the lab.

Oh yeah, great idea! I'll use that to introduce your character, and give you a little extra intel.

So I built Gomez and he's in the PCs thread, though I have to write up more of the fluff stuff for him. He's got Connect and Sneak (with Specialization) in the latter. I didn't see any gear that jumped out as thief/spy type stuff that I could get with starting credits (I took the Civilian package) so I haven't bought much.

Excellent! There's plenty of opportunity to buy gear on this planet. Off the top of my head, a toolkit or metatool might help you since breaking and entering falls under the sneak skill.

Reading you IC post Owen, do you want to make a Connect roll with charisma to see if you know anyone close to Yuri?

Also, I'd recommend everyone put a link to their character sheet in their signature. It makes referencing stats super easy.

I'll grab a metatool then. How do tools work mechanically?

And yeah I'll make a Connect roll for 5.

Hmm, ok. As an "infiltrator" I'm also going to pick up Sneak next level. I was considering Specialist for it, but we'll see.

Nothing wrong with having overlapping skills in the party. In a game as minimalist as Stars Without Number its almost inevitable. The flavor of each individual character is what distinguishes them.

owenstreetpress wrote:

I'll grab a metatool then. How do tools work mechanically?

And yeah I'll make a Connect roll for 5.

There's no explicit mechanics for tools except possibly for modding items, its more of a narrative thing. It would be hard to justify how you pick a lock without anything in your inventory to do that.

With regards to your connect roll, unfortunately that's a failure. You don't have Yuri's contact information, nor that of any of his close associates. Plenty of strikebreakers but none that you know to be close to him.

Kobras_Aquairre wrote:

That's what your program pulls back without any difficulty. To see if you get anything juicier than that back, make a Program roll with Int.

I try a Program (INT) check: 8 (orokos)

Success, IC post incoming

Did the footage of Yuri show which direction he left?

@Kobras Is the house standing alone, or is it a townhouse? As in, are there alleys left and/or right of it?
Is the red grav-car in front of the building and if not, does it look like the building has a garage?

I assume my character would know this, but I don't want to assume something that might be story-relevant: Would the keypad securing the entrance door be hackable (without raising too much suspicion)?

@Sharadnar, it looked like he walked out the front door.

@Thelonius, its a large apartment building, freestanding. There is an alley on one side and on the other is a parking garage. There is no red grav car immediately visible from your position. You could probably hack the door panel without making too much noise, though there is a security camera directly above it that would have a great view of your face while you're hacking.

@PlagueDoctor could I get a Notice roll with Wisdom to see what you see?

Yeah sure thing

https://orokos.com/roll/791707 that's a 6 if I'm not mistaken

Nita can I get a Heal check with Wisdom from you as you try to Sherlock the blood stains?

I figure the caution tape is holographic so Gomez will just walk right through it. Let me know if I need to make any rolls!

Sneak/Dex check:
Correct me if I am wrong, but as far as I understand that is 2d6 +1 (Dex) -1 (no Sneak) = 2d6 -> 6 (orokos)

Yep, you're correct.

Yuri rolls to notice you. https://orokos.com/roll/791782

He got a 6 as well, PCs win ties. He does not notice you and you can get the drop on him. You might be able to line up an Execution Shot if you wish.

Here's a Talk roll of 8 in case anyone is actually in the main room of the building when Gomez enters.

Or here's a Notice roll of 7 if he's alone so he can get a sense of the room.

Man, that was lucky!

I will try a non-lethal Execution Shot, trying to his his weapon arms shoulder (in order to avoid return fire).

Accompanying IC post incoming.

Execution Attack: Shoot/Dex check: 2d6 +1 (dex) -> 5 (orokos)

Alas the luck runs out - as far as I understand, this is a fail.

That is correct, lemme get an initiative roll while you're here. Per protocol, I'll lock the IC thread during combat and you can post your actions with any accompanying IC stuff here, and I'll consolidate each round into a single IC post.

https://orokos.com/roll/791787 Yuri initiative: 7

https://orokos.com/roll/791788 Priya initiative: 3

My initiative roll: 7 (orokos)

PCs win ties, you're up.

I will try to shot Yuri again. Still trying to shoot non-lethal.

Attack roll: 1d20 +2 (according to Sharadnar - not quite sure myself) -> 8 (orokos)

IC:
Kolya sees Yuri whirl around, his should barely scratched. Hastily Kolya fires another round using what little of his surprise advantage is left.