Gameplay discussion

courir service, finding and bringing tech, maps, info
We could be Exploration Ltd. in a relatively organized civilization, where the government contracts undesirable elements for risky ventures, who are resourceful enough to be useful, but unreliable enough to be kept away with their ideas of more individual freedom.
What's your view on this type of team?

That sounds amazing, Drama. I love that idea. I am all for it. My character would be a perfect candidate for the 'unsophisticated bodyguard' role. Or I could even be the group assassin who goes out to kill regardless of the situation.

Would there be a way to combine the two types?

I don't see why not, really. From a system perspective, that'd be on Hageru to make a final call on. But I can easily see it where we are a unique company, offering less than legal means of handling risky cargoes. We are explorers and such, with enough combat backing to be able to not die in round 1. The government uses us when they need to have the ability to disavow. Blended work of possibly picking up key political figures, recovering pieces of re-discovered tech for military purposes, taking certain unmentionables out for a long walk out a short airlock.

I love it.

I like both your ideas, the only problem being how they conflict with each other where the government/law is involved.
I can envision both scenarios :

- Organized civilization would not be actively hiring independent troubleshooter to find lost tech/explore uncharted territory. If they want to explore themselves I feel like they would have a department focused on that or something.
However you could still go to them when you've discovered something they might be interested in buying - they're not actively looking for your help but some of the prospects you offer could. Your main clients might be private companies and the like.

- Or organized civilization does not have the personnel and training that you have and rely on you and perhaps other for mapping other sectors or finding interesting artifacts. There might even be a need to find habitable planets or specific resources to ensure humanity can keep going.

Either way, I get a high action/pulpy vibe. I will definitely take that into consideration during actual play.

I'd like to know other details :

A successful job you guys accomplished. You don't have to provide specific stuff right now if you don't want to.

Does your group have a name ?

Is there a leader figure amongst you ?

I forgot to write down that the government would only hire us for jobs when they don't want to lose their own trained / loyal employees, or when they want 'deniable assets'. And, a (some?) rich but non-adventurous person / group can also hire us to retrieve things for their personal collection, and with their eccentricity, can be simply interesting NPCs as well.

That sounds good. Would you consider yourselves "bad guys" then ?

Not necessarily bad guys. Good guys that aren't afraid to test the bendable limits of the law to accomplish things. Think Han Solo, Indiana Jones, Robin Hood, the entire Privateer force in world history.

Of course, everyone can be viewed as good or bad depending on your perspective and your lens.

As for the government contracting us, it would definitely be more like greenvoid mentioned: when the government has a need to not be there (the lost tech is in an area known to be held by opposing governments, there's an agreement not to explore an area but they need it charted, the risk to actual government personnel is too high).

I will step down from the talk about who the leader is. My character, a trigger-happy assassin, would not be a good fit for leader.

What does a trigger-happy assassin do in an exploration team?

What if we are encountered by a business/the government and they want someone to be killed and made look like an accident? Who you gonna call? An assassin :) It's not about what is going to happen, it is about the possibility of it happening. Plus, Assassin is just the training. He has a background as a soldier so he can very much stand his own and fight for the team.

It doesn't feel like a group of 4-5 people would be what the government might be employing as mercy, but that kind of cost saving is exactly the kind of thing coorpirate would do! Maybe we are employed by a firm to gather high TL items for resale/ feeding to RND, but while we're arround the planet also gathering info on it, like ore abundances, petrochemical surpluses, etc.

If you have ever seen the move "The Expendables," I would assume we are like that except technologically advanced.

I'd like to get clear on this with the whole team, because that's a completely different attitude than exploration. Doing sneaky jobs, and doing cold-blooded murder jobs are totally different, and the idea itself that the team is willing to accept the latter needs a fundamentally different team, an makes a fundamentally different game. At least as I see it. I don't mind either, but I think it's better to discuss this.

That's a good point. The character I've been getting together in mymind is essentially a researcher, and wouldn't take up a contract that required performing hits. If we choose to take that game style thats fine I can rework the RP to suit but we would need should discuss that...

Also the only place a character this squishy would appear in the expendable a is back at base.

I haven't created my character to be an assassin just yet. I had seen commando, exchange enforcer, mercenary, or even adventuring warrior (allows me to choose 4 skills of my choice).

I think a lot comes down to the flavor, like greenvoid said. I don't think we'd necessarily be doing hit work. Even for explorer's that's not quite there. Now, we may take it upon ourselves to, ahem, encourage other explorers to NOT encroach on our territory.

I'm also fine abandoning the idea of mercenaries altogether. Going purely research/exploration based. I'm really just kind of good with any direction.

Sorry that's not super helpful.

So would a warrior even be useful if we go the research/exploration route? I'm trying to add diversity while also trying to benefit the group.

Of course we're going to need a warrior, I mean imagine how dead all the characters in Star Trek would have been without their security officer! Even when exploring were bound to come across opposition.