Character Generation

We'll spitball/pitch characters and setting elements here.

Are their a set of races, or just humans? Do we all come from the same planet?

That's up to you.

"Players will design many aspects on their own. Alien Races, planetary cultures, etc, can be submitted as part of the setting and I will work them in."

If you want to wait for me to post the "highlights reel" of the setting, I will be working on that over the next couple days as I decide what I want to file the serial number off from fiction. ;)

Thanks, I'll open the dances with a character pitch:

Mick 'Spanner' Wright

Give Spanner some parts and tools, and he is very likely to put together a device that will probably look rather ugly, but do exactly what you need. Born on a high gravity mining planet (hence his squat appearance), he practically grew up in a workshop, showing great talent in fixing and adapting engines and machinery from an early age. This led to several engagements on spacecraft of various sizes, cutting his teeth on various types of propulsion engines.

He made himself two helping bots (the size of a present-day computer mouse) that he calls Left and Right. They can each produce mechanical limbs and can send an audiovisual feed back to Spanner, perfect for those hard to reach places. They can shine a powerful light and have a set of useful tools (laser cutter, welder, screwdrivers etc). They plug and recharge on docking stations in Spanner's respective forearms.

Spanner has a very mechanic, deterministic view of the world. For him everything works as a string of cause-and-effect situations. This puts him at a disadvantage with living, thinking beings that work in more complex emotional ways.

Seems perfect for the setting!

Jilick Tam'plenick is a member of the insectoid hive race, Ick. There interaction with humanoid races has started to influence the culture, so that young have begun to leave the hive.

Jilick is one of those. From an early age he found the hive constricting and was always, accidently, breaking the rules. He found this frustrating and confusing, to the point that when he came of age he left the hive. Outside, among the humanoid races, he found himself alone and isolated. He no longer had the support of the hive around him, and he found the other races strange and unfamiliar. But he persevered and finally found a way to form his own "Hive" by joining the Lancers. Among them he found the hive that he wished to be a part of, but they also allowed him to act independently of the group think. He has slowly built up his confidence, and in doing so has become thoughtful in how he acts, but still willing to push against the rules when he knows it is the only way to get something done.

He has a gift for data. He will spend his off-days happily scouring the net, examining trends, predicting what will come out in the culture wars next. He is never without his deck, and has learned the ways of the humanoids well. So when a Lancer team needs a nethead he is one of those taken along.

Organised and methodical in his approach, both to his work and life in general. Understanding anything is always done by having all the data. But this means that he is not quick to act, and dislikes too much, or too sudden, change.

Drakis2: Excellent. We now have the tech covered from both ends. :)

I'm going to borrow a species from a book that I like. Allow me to introduce the Gentians.

Gentians are superficially very similar looking to humans, having the same essential body shape, but they differ from humans in a few key ways. The main one is that Gentians attain a biological age of 25 at the age of 3, then live precisely one hundred more years in the exact same health, dying rapidly at age 103. The second major difference is that there are only ever at most one million adult Gentians in existence at any given time. Gentians long ago lost the ability to reproduce naturally.

Every 100 years, all one million Gentians gather in a secret location, consolidate their memories in one massive pool, and then clone the next million Gentians. The ancestor Gentians have a huge end of life party as the new generation grows, working together to sort and prune the memories, and then the memories are copied to the next generation of Gentians to restart the cycle.

Several generations Gentian Cycles have given each Gentian a broad knowledge base in many topics. Gentians trade mostly in knowledge - it is their greatest asset, and what they value most. The breadth and quality of memories a Gentian brings back is what ensures their inclusion in the next generation. Boring Gentians effectively die, as none of their memories live on. Gentians who make the most interesting contributions are effectively immortal.

Physically Gentians are like 25 year old humans, in peak condition, as though they were Olympians of any given sport. Their mastery over biological processes gives them liberty to look like almost any humans, though most favor larger eyes, larger ears, and smaller frames, making them look sprite-like. Gentians have very morphic physiology, however. In the span of about a month they could change themselves to look like any human. They also have engineered themselves for survivability in a hostile universe. They don't need to breath, and can sustain themselves on nearly any source of energy, carbon and oxygen. Their bones have the strength of titanium while not being heavier than an ordinary human's, and their joints are made of a material which allows deformation under great stress, but always (eventually) return to their previous configuration. They die (as do most things) to high energy weapons and explosives, though conventional ways of killing a person can only, at best, disable them for a time.

Gentians, among races that know of them, have a reputation of being something like genies. Help is always rewarded many times over, while harm is disproportionately punished. Gentians try to foster their reputation by promoting the idea that finding a Gentian in trouble is a lucky event, like winning the lottery - help them, and afterwards, your life will be dramatically changed for the better. Harm a Gentian and The Worst Thing You Can Imagine will happen. Part of the duties of a Gentian is to subtly spread this rumor wherever they go, for the protection and well-being of future travelling Gentians. This meme-packet obviously contains how to recognize a Gentian (and spot imposters) and how to make it known that you are a potential ally once you've found one. The material is adapted to each particular culture.

Afinlo is a Gentian of about 50, who joined the Lancers mainly to gain access to many different species and worlds. His main interest is interpersonal relationships, how they are expressed differently among different cultures, how those relationships can change as situations change. He's 4ft high, kind of a blueish grey skintone and blue spikey hair. He wears a perpetual, disarming grin. He can be a bit of a prankster - he loves understanding people by pushing their buttons and seeing how they react. He'll defend himself and others if necessary, but abhors most violence. Killing any sapient creature removes a potential source of knowledge from the universe. Though, on balance, a mass murderer destroys much more knowledge than they produce themselves, so he'd kill one to save many. Afinlo also shuns most of the high technology of his kind, preferring to integrate more closely with the species he interacts with. Gentians have found that simple awe of their technology can be a barrier to learning about a species as it is. Not all Gentians feel the same (variances in opinion and temperament are deliberately introduced so that each Gentian goes off to do something different), but Afinlo feels that introducing high technology to the people he's studying destroys the traits that he's trying to study. So he uses only native technology he can find on whatever host world he ends up on.

Naelick: Works. :) I like the addition to the setting a lot, and the implications therein.

Silverlion was running through a concept with me on Facebook Messenger last night, so that just leaves MagnificentFly. We're making good progress. :)

Have something for the setting. I slept 16 hours last night, and my 4 day migraine has finally let up. So. Some creativity:

The 63 worlds in the Assembly do their common business on Hawking. An icosahedral artificial structure of impenetrable exotic matter surrounding a small planetary body (about the size of Pluto or Eris) that was left orbiting Cibiyar, the small black hole at the rough center of the Cluster by the ancient, vanished race of the Txheej. The spaces between the structure and the planetoid house the central orbital structures used by the Accordance Fleet and their Patrol personnel. (Only used for missive interplanetary matters or emergencies. Lancers handle local business via Contract.)

Exciting character concepts and worldbuilding! Looking forward to interact with my fellow Lancers

I added in my character. The toughest bit was trying to figure out how to word the Stunts so that they made sense. I did read the rules on it a few times, but I still struggled. Would appreciate some input ZivenOfNine on how to get it working correctly?

Looks OK to me. It took me a bit as well when I was in my first FAE game.

For reference, this was mine, so you can see you did well.

---

Aislinn "Ace" Cartwright



Refresh: 3.

High Concept: 3rd Generation Galactic Hero, Junior Grade

Trouble: I'm A Cartwright. It may as well be spelled "Trouble".

Aspects:

I Have A Buddy There.

I Could Tell You, But I'd Have To Space You.

In Her Shadow.

Approaches:
+3 Clever
+2 Quick, Sneaky
+1 Flashy, Forceful
+0 Careful

Stunts:

I know a guy.
Because I have a buddy there, once per game session I can find a helpful ally in just the right place.

Read In
Because I could tell you but I'd have to space you, once per session I can create an Advantage related to classified Parallax Intel about a person or situation in which I am involved.

Watch out for the little ones.
Because I am In Her Shadow, I get a +2 in combat when negatively or dismissively compared to more famous senior members of my family.

Ok, here is my character with additional lore bits, let me know if I need to make adjustments and/or add anything.

Ok, I will go back and make some changes to get the Stunts corrected. Thank you for the examples, they are really helpful!

Looking good all. I love the addition of the Nihlusians. Very Nietzschean/Klingon flavour. :)

Some more lore: Ships of the Accordance Fleet tend to be named after high art concepts. The largest capital ships are the Orchestral class, the flagship is the AFV Symphony, AA-68.

Excellent.

Silverlion is fine tuning his character, and Naelick is apparently still working on theirs.

So first, a question: Do you want to begin each episode with a contract assigned by me, or do you want a choice before we start them?

Second some more lore.

There are several grades of contract.

Copper contracts are small potatoes. Guard a shipment or facility, escort cargo or VIP, act as a courier, anything you might need special handling and protection for. Often referred to as Babysitting or Milk Runs. Low value.

Silver contracts are more the bread and butter of real Lancer work. These are the mercenary police actions, major troubleshooting, and in general complicated, multi-step and extended period jobs.

Gold contracts are only offered to the most trusted Lances. These are the very wealthy, planetary governments, or huge multicorps, and can be almost anything, and never easy.

Platinum contracts are rare. A Lance has to be exemplary in reputation and results to be offered one, as they are offered by the Assembly itself for whatever reasons it has to outsource instead of using the Fleet.

Money: Before the Accords, interplanetary trade was done with Universal Credit Equity, called Credits by most. The Accord replaced this system with its own standardized Alliance Credit Exchange currency held by compublock chips. Devalued UCE is still legal, but officially rated at 100 to 1. (Real example: 1 dollar for a candy bar in the new currency would cost 100 dollars of the old.)

ACE is the official exchange used by everyone, is fully electronic, and based on the morphopgenic profile of the individual. However, the black market and other less than legal enterprises use it like Bitcoin is used today. In shady circles, DeUCE trades up to ACE at 5 to 1. Getting caught using it this way is not a crime.. but it will significantly affect the unofficial currency of the entire cluster: Reputation.

(I won't be hardcoding Rep into the game, it's a background element).

Any questions and/or comments on how you get offered contracts?

I think the first contract should be assigned by you, so it would work a little bit like a tutorial, so that players new to the system (me in particular) could get a bit of training and all of the players could get settled with how they want their characters to behaive and if it is working. After that, I think we will be more comfortable to pick our own contracts.

Agree with Fly, I also want to get my head around this unusual (for me) action resolution system

I'll wrap up the character for tonight

I am all for getting offered a contract by you ZivenOfNine. I too could use some help getting use to the system.

Being that people want a "tutorial" I think it ought to be a copper contract to start. Escorting a potentially troublesome VIP might be a good place to start

Excellent. We'll start with one I assign, then. :)

Candidate for the as-yet-unnamed ship belonging (as long as they keep up the payments) to this as-yet-unnamed Lance.

Questions about the as-yet-unnamed ship:
1. How big is it? Is it more of a transport/shuttle ship like in Firefly and Mandalorian or a bigger ship with a shuttle like in Mass Effect?
2. What are its defensive and offensive capabilities?

Questions about the as-yet-unnamed Lance:
1. How long our group had been together? Or is it our first job as a team?
2. What Lance teams are usually called? Something like Fire Lance, or the word Lance is not compulsory? Is there a theme for naming Lancers as well?

I think I prefer that the group has already been together and completed missions together, and we just take for granted that it works somehow, because it puts everyone in the right mindset to keep the game going. It's like the famous sneaky rogue/virtuous paladin problem. It can get to the point, if each is playing their roles without thinking of the party, that you start to think "why are these two people in a group together at all". But the more productive way to see it is to state the fact, then ask the question: "These two people with totally contradictory worldviews are somehow happily in the same party - why?". To do that, I think that you need to start from the position that these people know each other and have already established some kind of relationship. If they're just meeting at the start of a campaign, sure, they might go through something together that allows them to see past each other's differences, but they could just as easily not do that. And if they don't, well, likely one person will need to have their character leave and bring in a new character, and so on until a group is formed. But, we can skip all that by saying, hey, we have a group, and they might not agree on everything, but they hold to some common purpose, and that keeps them together.

There, there's my rant for the day :)

Well, technically, they are already part of an "organisation" and are bound by the contract, so they already have a reason to stick together regardless if they've been working together before or not.

I m fine with either options, however, the drawback of them already being a team for some time is that our characters would know the strenghts and weaknesses of each other as well as their quirks. Given that we've never played together before we don't know each other's playstyles, so it may cause some difficulties in party dynamics. We might get on the same wavelength from the get go but we might not and it would be weird to have characters who'd known each other for some time to try and figure out how to talk to each other.

The benefit of having our characters meet for the first time (or work for the first time together) is that it will allow us, the players, to get used to our own characters and figure out how our characters should interact with each other without too much OOC discussion. It will also provide us opportunities for character development moments.

Good questions MagnificentFly, I am curious about those facts too. I am happy with us being a newly put together group, or a longstanding team.

That's one cool looking ship. Maybe it could be called "AFV Fugue", "AFV Minuet" or "AFV Andante", to go with the musical convention?

Lancers team: would be fun to have a band-like name, something like "The Debuggers", "The Troubleshooters" :D

I see merit in both naelick's and Fly's views on how long the characters have been knowing each other. It's a pulp game, so I personally don't mind losing a bit of character depth to embrace high adventure.

It's up to the group how long the team has been together, and any names for the team and the ship.

EDIT: I see it as about the size of Serenity or Lucy.

Lancers are like bounty hunters. Only kind of part of any organization unless they are called into service in times of extreme emergency to the entire Alliance. (This has never happened.)

Team names are up to the team, anything from the exemplary and legendary Lorne's Losers to the less sterling semi-scoundrels The Hoppers.

Added lore: Lorne was always fair and extremely ethical, but notoriously once charged a Gold Contrator he disliked 2000 ACE to write a 10 word letter. On the converse, the Hoppers were shady and dealt in DeUCE a lot, but also notoriously fought off a pirate raid for a town with nothing but a sheltered valley (in mountains whose composition that happened to block scanners, sensors, and comms from the Fleet) to their over a 3-day siege (which earned their leader her signature scar) and accepted as payment the Most Bestest Hug from six year old Ellie May for all four members.

I like AFV Fugue as a name for the ship

I also like The Debuggers, or even The F Majors

I like "The Debuggers" as well

Sorry I've been behind, had to fight some serious RL pain (finally got in to see someone who cut and acid burned the source.) I like the Fugue as a name and The Debuggers as well.

One small change... AFV is big ships. You gouys would be an Alliance Chartered Vessel. ACV Fugue.

As soon as Silverlion finishes tweaking his sheet, I'll be starting the game. No later than Monday, likely sooner.

I like the ACV Fugue as well for the name of the ship, however, The Debuggers seem a little wierd to me, considering one of the crew is an insectoid. I think the name of the team should signify some aspect of the team, like Lorne's Losers are clearly under command of Lorne (why they are losers I am not sure but there probably a story about it) and The Hoppers, I think, move around a lot and don't stay in one place for too long or they don't have a ship (or didn't at the time the name stuck).

I also have a suggestion about the forming of the team:
Let's says that our characters worked on their own or had other teams before, maybe they interacted with one another on occasion but never worked as one team. All of them could've been saving money for their own ship to move around easier and it so happened that there was one available and if the four of them would pulled their resources together they could afford the downpayment. Thus, the team was formed. (Personally, I think it is the best of both worlds. We bypass possible initial distrust by knowing about each other and will still get to form the bonds through the game.)

Also, I have a request:
Considering that Lancer have to deal with the authorities on groung/stations and navy/army (not to mention that I made a character with military background), could we have a sort of Codex with terms and higherarchies of the Assembly?

As the guy playing the insectoid I am fine with Debuggers. My character left his Hive because he felt like an outsider, so he is not bothered by the name's connotations. If it is still not a favourite then I am happy for us to pick something that represents the Team. Maybe we all had the same person we considered a mentor, or someone we looked up too, and we name it after him/her as a tribute?

Getting together as a Lance works, you could have all been hired on a Silver to infiltrate a new secure base (standard security test) and Something Went Wrong... meaning you had to fix the problem to survive and get out. Working that well together and building situational trust led you to form a team. Or something like that. :)

I'll put together some notes on structure in a bit.

The Assembly is composed of 63 Speakers, one per world. Every six months, one of their number is appointed Prime Mediator, who enforces the rules of procedure and does not vote except to break ties. Different areas of government, such as Tarrifs, Economy, Regulations, and Minimum standards of Education and Health throughout member worlds and headed by Ministers.

The Legal System is adjudicated by 63 Legates, one per world. All Legates are experts in the laws of all member planets and of the Assembly.

The Fleet is headed by The Admiral. There is only one at a time, and the rank expires when the job does. Retired Admirals are addressed as Commodore, a purely ceremonial title.

Fleet Captains oversee large groups and operations. Individual ships follow the Captain -> Lieutenant -> Ensign structure of most RL modern navies. Enlisted are either Warrant or Petty officers, or Chiefs, or some combination that makes no sense to anyone not in the Fleet, and many who are. The rank and file are referred to as Nautics, jokingly nicknamed Naughts by everyone including and especially themselves. There are also grades, someone may be a 2nd Lt., Jr. Ensign, or Chief Petty Warrant Officer 5th Class.

Patrol is below Fleet, but operates effectively separately. Think Fleet -> Patrol as Federal vs State/Provincial law enforcement. Patrol Offices are a lot like Lancers, but a lot less fun, a lot more organized, and much better funded. The prime difference is Patrol will not intervene in a local matter ever. (In the brief shooting war between the planets Cipactonal and Oxomo over control of an equidistant naked singularity, Fleet kept the hostilities from spilling out of declared combat zones, Patrol escorted non-combat traffic. Neither world dared oppose them.) Both Fleet and Patrol actually spend most of their time as de facto police, customs, rescue/first responder services and a great deal of community service and charity.

Patrol is controlled by the Marshall, similar to the Admiral (to whom they answer directly). Retired Marshalls are given the ceremonial rank Inspector, which has no active field equivalent. Patrol member ranks are Colonel, Commander, Major, Sergeant, and Agent. The rank Sergeant-Major exists for those in training or oversight roles that do not involved field work.

Any gaps need filling?

Better than most rpg sourcebooks! . :D

How about someting with Nomads in the Lance name.

Nelson's Nomads (following Drakis' mentor idea)
Naughty Nomads
Galaxy Nomads
Nova Nomads
NFH, Nomads For Hire
or linked to the ship, the Fugue Nomads or The Fugees?

I like the Nomads. We could also make it an acronym, something like this:
Normally
Organised
Murder
And
Diplomacy
Specialists

Murder? surely we are not Hitmen too? 😱

I'd say it depends on the Contract. I just thought of it as an example, we can substitute the words, Masacre could also work but I think it is too dark.

How about:
Normally
Organised
Militaristic
Acquisition
(and)
Diplomacy
Specialists

I'm pro NOMADS, whatever it ends up standing for :).

I like the compromise that we've worked together but the team is new.

Yep, NOMADS works for me too.

OK then. You are officially Lance Charter #86, "The Nomads", registered vehicle the ACV Fugue AR-3030.

IC thread is up. We're underway.

While looking through some art I stumbled upon this, a pretty spot on depiction of Terror:

That'll work.

Hello all, just caught up on this chat and finishing up my character who will be a pilot.
I like the backstory of everyone. And The NOMADS name.
As for ship size, i may have missed it, but i only saw answers on size (of which I think I saw a feeling of Serenity~ish sizes). I was hoping for something maybe just a bit bigger? 20-50% bigger? Thoughnot the most important thing.
I also did not see an answer for armorments, i think it may have medium-low armorments to start. Both because cost and because of licencing. I was thinking maybe re-purposed mining lazers or torpedos. ?

hi Phoenix, welcome -- no preference about size/armaments personally .
Looking forward to seeing the new Nomad!

the File details needs some edits, the name is still Del Gravius

Should be fixed