Character Creation

My character will likely be up for anything morally. Slavery murder, its all a means to an end for him.
I'd like him to be more interested in the jobs and goals at hand and eventually warming up to the group, but if that is too much I can skip ahead to him caring for the rest of the group right at the start. I guess it depends if we start off knowing each other for a long time or only a short while.
Ganks typically have a pack mentality as well, so even when he is less committed at the beginning he would do what he can to ensure the group succeeds.
As for a personal goal, it would be to free his friend from his debt-enslavement which ties directly into his Debt Obligation.

So I just decided to go with the gunslinger. He's more balanced than combat focused, with coercion, streetwise and a 3 willpower, cunning, agility. He's human. Haven't totally fleshed out a backstory, and I'm completely willing to be old friends with anyone wanting to work characters together. Grabbed some stimpacks, too, and a handheld comm.

He's going to have a bounty on his head for a murder that he denies committing, and he's trying to avoid the law.

@Nikcollini - Since we are building the story together i am fine with the Gank accepting the party as crew but not family until we've proven ourselves. Gives kind of a Jayne Cobb feel to the character.

@MoMo - Really curious to know who your character "didn't murder." Was it an Imperial, or could it have been a gang leader? Are you on the run from just The Law or also some bad folk who won't even give you the semblance of a fair trial?

I'm curious about that, too! Leaving it vague at the moment in case anyone wanted to work their characters into it. Could've been a family member of one of the other PCs who believes me and wants to find the true killer. Could've been an imperial or rebel leader. Could've been killed in cold blood or in a high noon style shootout. Whichever! If no one is interested, or doesn't have ideas that could be tied in, then I'll define it before we start.

Maskcot, it's possible that our characters have known each other a long time, and I contacted you when I needed a quick getaway from the planet I was on. Perhaps I've stuck with you on your ship ever since.

Well the more I think about it the more I think a Colonist-Doctor may be a better fit for my character....thinking he was running a back alley clinic, primarily making a living patching up people who need to avoid a certain amount of "official" scrutiny when your character came in to be patched up MoMo and he got tagged as an associate which led to him being on the "run" with your guy (which he may not be best pleased about).

I'm thinking his Obligation will tie directly to why he was running a shady, back alley, clinic and not a more reputable establishment and also to why he ran with MoMo's guy rather than face more intense scrutiny

I'd actually like you to put your backstories up for the other players to read. However, I'd also like you to each send me 1-3 things that your crewmates don't know about you.

Love the way things are developing so far.

I'll put my full background up later but in brief, my guy was a politician on Coruscant when his mouth got him noticed (and not in a good way) by certain people with influence. He was shifted to a backwater planet to run small time affairs. Now disillusioned and disenfranchised, he is embarking on a new life.

Long story short he is interested in joining a crew with the goals of making money and following their own set of rules and sense of morality. If those conflict with the rules of the sector or empire, then those rules get broken. Governments and large organizations (including the Rebellion) are to be scorned and their rules need not be heeded.

So, breaking the law is not only ok, it's good. However, there should be a core, mutually agreed upon, code. No slaving would be a good start. But accepting bounties and tracking down certain marks coupled with smuggling "illegal" products could be a great source of income.


Just an idea. Happy to entertain others.

For my part...

Maskot, your ship could be grounded on a crappy little backwater. In order to get it, yourself, and the crew free you come to me in the hopes of bribing me. You find I'm already happy to break the law in exchange for passsge off world and escape from my crappy life.

Could that work?

Ack! Sorry about that!

That sounds great though :)

This sounds like a great connection for our characters. I was struggling with my Obligation, but this gives me an idea. How would you feel if my character felt a Responsibility to help. My first thought is that she somehow helped get you into the situation you are now on the run from. Maybe she could have stopped the real murderer, but chose not to get involved. Later as she was about to take off, the gunslinger and the medic forced their way on board (at gunpoint maybe?) and she took you off-planet. Once you opened up about why your were running she realized part of that was her fault.

So her Obligation is Responsibility: trying to get your character's names cleared. I went ahead and took the extra obligation for the bonus 1000 creds. Not sure if this means I need to 5 point Obligations or one 10 point. The stories for the gunslinger and doctor are closely related, hard to clear the doc without clearing the gunslinger, so I will confer with or GM on that detail.
YES! She will hate having a "corrupt" politician on board, but will begrudgingly admit it has it's perks. Were you thinking that is how the story opens, or that happened in the past (recent/distant). I like the dynamic it implies, the politician being something of an outsider among the "crew"

This links 4 of the PCs. Still room to grow/change things up...still waiting to hear from Nikcollini with his Gank Bounty Hunter, and Metagamegate on his Rodian infiltrator.

Also, I wanted to talk about ship choices...

I don't necessarily want to elect myself "captain" or owner of the ship...I can be, but I don't want to step over anyone else. I have been looking at the options laid out in the book. Our GM has given us the option of choosing our ship, so I went deep and looked up schematics/floor plans we could use. I've got two top choices.

The HWK-290 Light Freighter - Exterior(*sort of)/Interior

This would be my character's first choice. With the stats in the book it does not come with any weapons, but at only 70,000 creds and 5 available customization hard points, perhaps we can talk our GM into a gun turret or two for saving him all that money! Also no dedicated Med bay, but there are more quarters than we technically need, so we could further convert one of them. I'm thinking one of the larger ones near mid-ship, centrally located and away from the engine noise.

*I say "sort of" because the exterior image doesn't seem to include the escape pods that the interior has, but I don't have a lot of source material on this one.

The HT-2200 Medium Freighter - Exterior/Interior

This is more of a workhorse ship. Lots of cargo room. Makes for a more utilitarian vessel. Still no dedicated med bay, but plenty of room to modify. It comes in at 140,000 creds, still has 5 customization hard points, and comes with mounted weapons. So it is more an "out of the box" ship.

Both of these ships are found in the FaD book. I am not against a Corellian Engineering Corp. YT model, but I didn't find any layouts that accommodated 6 crew without major modification, and I have a slight aversion to flying around in the Millennium Falcon when no one on it is named Han(#R.I.P. #gonetoosoon #Hanshotfirst) or Chewie. X-D

I like the game concept, very Firefly w/o the western feel.

My Rodian joined the crew when they were hired by the Rodan Intelligence organization. After the job my dude stuck around. He is the nervous sort and seems to favor the safety of the crew rather than being on his own.

I don't care so much on the ship type and my character will not be the owner. Maybe the player having the hardest time finding a party connection can be the owner. That would tie the pilot and them together.

Nice...so what did the Rodian Intelligence organization hire us to do? A cargo run that hid an ulterior motive? Diplomat transport that fronted an assasination attempt? Do we know that there was a secret purpose? Or maybe it was totally legit but they had so many hand-offs we might think there was something sinister.

Hmmm, from the stats the HWK only has enough "living space" for 4 peeps (2 crew and 2 passengers) as stock so may be a tight squeeze for the full group....I'm not against it but it might be a bit impractical long term (although I guess that means we'd just have to pinch another ship! ;-) )

Since it involves the group I am happy to leave to everyone. Could have been our first job all together. I like that there are loose ends and some secrets the GM can use later.

As far as ship recommendations go, here are some other options:

The Fly Casual book has the YKL-37R Nova Courier. It goes for 130,000, but I don't think we'd need to worry about asking for anything extra to go with it. Same size and speed as the YT-1300, but a bit more maneuverable. Same hyperdrive, navicomputer, sensor range, consumables. It has a Passenger Capacity of 6, so we'd be able to take on an NPC or two, or offer passengers a ride for pay, with a complement of pilot and co-pilot/engineer.

The drawback is that its encumbrance capacity is only 100, where the YT-1300 has 165, so if we were wanting to carry goods from place to place, it wouldn't be as good.

A big benefit, though, is that even though it still has 5 Hardpoints, it has dorsal and ventral medium laser cannons and two concussion missile launchers, one forward and one aft.

Alternatively, if we go with my preference and want to start smaller instead of going with a powerhouse like that (and missiles are expensive!), we could go with the YT-2000 for 120,000.

YT-2000

Same hyperdrive, navicomputer, sensor range, etc. However, the passenger capacity is 7, the consumables are for 3 months instead of 2 (fewer stops during long travel), and the encumbrance capacity is a whopping 170.

The guns, like the YT-1300, are two twin-linked medium lasers on the top and bottom. Also, like the Nova Courier, it's slightly more maneuverable. 5 hardpoints, too.

EDIT: I should add that as soon as our pilot gets Skilled Jockey, which is at the top of basically every pilot-esque talent tree I can think of, the difference in maneuverability between these ships won't matter as much, since he'll just remove the Setback die on most checks anyway.

That sounds great! I'd like for my character's involvement in the murder to not be entirely clear one way or another, whether or not your characters believe him, and leave room for at least a small bit of doubt. Because of that, if I had to pick, I think if your character introduced mine to the victim (either as a relationship matchmaker or setting my guy up with a job), thereby putting him in the position for this tragedy, that'd be good. Perhaps he was in a slump and didn't want to meet with him/her and your character was very encouraging/insistent. Could feel responsible for that :) Unless you've got other ideas!

Also, as I understand it, you could separate your Responsibility either way. Since they're so closely related, they could easily be combined, or not. Marithyme's call, of course, but that's just how I remember.

For what it's worth, I also think this sounds great!

Also, Marithyme, are we going to have a specific thread for the backstories, or just put them in here? Thanks!

And doubly thanks for starting this up! I'm really excited!

We'll have a specific thread for the backstories. I'd also like you all to put your character sheets in the library once we're done for ease of reference for the other players.

I think I may have missed some other questions, will get back to this when the kids go to bed.