Oolite Bulletins

...was an RPG adventure I ran at the London Dragonmeet games con today yesterday, which owed more than a little to Oolite.

This all began about three months ago when the con organisers asked for people to run games - I put my name down for a couple, one of which I described as follows:

Custodians of the Cosmos
A motley assortment of adventurers join forces to visit strange new worlds, seek out new life and civilizations... and terminate anything that seems a threat to interstellar peace and harmony. Needless to say they _are_ a threat to interstellar peace and harmony, but hey, nobody's perfect. Especially when there's a big bar bill to pay, and someone's offering a reward of 500,000 credits for the Dread Space Pirate Robots...

This was going to use a very cinematic games system.

Then, of course, I more or less forgot that I actually needed to write the damn adventure. Until earlier this week, when panic set in. Fortunately the solution was obvious - since I'd wasted a lot of time dealing with the Great Rift problem in Galaxy Seven, I set the adventure there! That let me use the galaxy map rather than having to invent my own - I printed it out across three sheets of A3 paper them got various random strangers to add cryptic notes to the map before I ran the adventure, e.g. "here be dragons," "Best burger bar in galaxy," a note in Japanese that I have no idea about, and so forth. I then got each of the players to choose a famous TV SF character and come up with some simple stats; this gave me the elderly Obi-Wan Kenobi, Tegan from classic Dr. Who, and Buck Rogers (and the little robot Twiki) as the team.

The plot was actually dead simple - an alien businessman offered the adventurers money to eliminate pirates who were attacking ships along the edge of the Great Rift. They guessed fairly quickly that the pirates must be based on the other side. They also learned that the pirates (who only communicated by radio) claimed to be robots, and were stealing things that would be useful to them - computers. machinery, precious metals (useful for components), gems (useful for lasers etc.) and so forth.

So they came up with a plan - they found a hacker and got him to sell them a deadly computer virus, guaranteed to take out any computer know, loaded up with computers and started trolling up and down the edges of the rift. During a certain well-known jump a freighter followed them into the wormhole then crashed them out in interstellar space and transmitted a message: "Be ye Turing-competent AIs, or human scum?"

As it happens the adventurers did have a robot with them - Twiki.



So they told Twiki to say they were robots - the stranger then transmitted a coded signal that made Twiki go berserk and start hitting Rogers. Fortunately Twiki was too small to do much damage. The stranger then demanded that they yield their cargo of computers to the "Thought Collective." Needless to say combat then ensued, which led to the attackers using their hyperdrive to escape across the Rift. The adventurers followed them through their wormhole, and resumed slugging it out on the South side of the rift. This eventually left both ships damaged, the players' ship out of fuel, and the attacker fleeing on fuel injectors. By the time the adventurers limped to a Rock Hermit the pirates had been and gone. The adventurers got Twiki rebooted and went on the hunt again.

After another inconclusive encounter the Collective decided to take out the threat. One of their ships pretended to be an innocent freighter dropping cargo and fleeing from the adventurers' ship - they naturally went to scoop it up, taking aboard three tons of radioactives and two of computers. A couple of minutes later alarms started sounding from the hold, and they went down to find that the five crates had assembled themselves into a large robotic bomb (stolen from Dark Star) which screwed itself to the floor plates, with a 300-second countdown. It then asked them to prove that they were Turing-competent intelligences, with the countdown starting up whenever they stopped talking. The adventurers solved this one by feeding the computer virus to the bomb, which promptly started to sing Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" - the virus had rickrolled the bomb! While it was distracted they used Kenobi's light sabre to cut out the floor plates, dumped the bomb, and put the pedal to the metal. A BIG explosion then ensued, but they got away.

Finally the adventurers worked out the most likely location of the pirate base, and went after it. This did not go entirely to plan - when they navigated to the local navy base, it turned out to have been replaced by a Borg-style cube, and they were promptly boarded by another robot which cut through the hull, the dreaded "Blackturret" (a Dalek - yes, I know real Daleks aren't robots, exactly, but bear with me). The adventurers claimed to be aware of secret government anti-piracy plans that they would only reveal to the pirates leaders - this got them in to see Long John 3PO, their leader. They tried the virus trick again but 3PO just downloaded and sneered at them... except that it started to tap its foot as they were being dragged away for execution. The adventurers guessed, correctly, that things were about to go badly wrong for the pirates, and made a break for it as "Never Gonna Give You Up" began to play over the cube's speakers. They then made a break for their ship and escaped as the cube finally imploded, triggering a Queridium blast and eliminating the robot pirate threat once and for all. They escaped into hyperspace seconds ahead of the blue sphere of death.

Fadeout to a happy ending, apart from the sudden realisation that they didn't have an address for the alien who had sponsored them, or any way to claim the reward...

I was actually pretty pleased with the way it went, and I think a lot of the credit for that was that I knew the Oolite universe well enough to explain technology, the way its hyperdrives and jump drives worked, etc. so well that I never had to grope for an explanation. The robot pirates were the only real invention, and they worked well in the fairly silly context I was creating.

Thanks to everyone who helped me with the Great Rift problem - I couldn't have done it without you!

A great tale, and it sounds like it was a lot of fun.

ffutures wrote:

terminate anything that seems a threat to interstellar peace and harmony. Needless to say they _are_ a threat to interstellar peace and harmony

a note in Japanese that I have no idea about
...
Fadeout to a happy ending, apart from the sudden realisation that they didn't have an address for the alien who had sponsored them, or any way to claim the reward...

Have you ever GM'd a game of Paranoia? Sounds like you'd be a natural..

Some of the most fun I've ever had, torturing.. err.. I mean, messing with their heads.. err.. I mean, GMing a team of Troubleshooters..

Diziet Sma wrote:

A great tale, and it sounds like it was a lot of fun.

ffutures wrote:

terminate anything that seems a threat to interstellar peace and harmony. Needless to say they _are_ a threat to interstellar peace and harmony

a note in Japanese that I have no idea about
...
Fadeout to a happy ending, apart from the sudden realisation that they didn't have an address for the alien who had sponsored them, or any way to claim the reward...

Have you ever GM'd a game of Paranoia? Sounds like you'd be a natural..

Some of the most fun I've ever had, torturing.. err.. I mean, messing with their heads.. err.. I mean, GMing a team of Troubleshooters..

Back in the day I ran and wrote quite a lot of Paranoia for White Dwarf and other magazines.

I have a few of those white dwarfs myself. Paranoia: yes, your going to die and if you think your NOT going to die your obviously in possession of treasonous knowledge above your clearance level. The computer is not happy, not happy at all. You will be terminated immediately. See? I told you you were going to die.

Have you ever played "tales from the floating vagabond"? Now there is a comedy RPG.

It's good to see the maps getting an outing!

ClymAngus wrote:

I have a few of those white dwarfs myself. Paranoia: yes, your going to die and if you think your NOT going to die your obviously in possession of treasonous knowledge above your clearance level. The computer is not happy, not happy at all. You will be terminated immediately. See? I told you you were going to die.

Have you ever played "tales from the floating vagabond"? Now there is a comedy RPG.

It's good to see the maps getting an outing!

If you remember a Paranoia adventure with Daleks wearing Mexican hats that's one of mine.

The trouble with Tales from the Floating Vagabond was that it tried too hard to be funny for the sake of being funny. I always find that contextual humour (arising from the situation, not things like funny names and character descriptions) worked better for me.

Ah, the days when WD wasn't just a mail order catalogue for GW. (how they manage to keep such a shop presence in this day and age I'll never know, oh yeah, they charge ridiculous money for kit placky figures. Airfix eat your heart out) I miss fiend factory, gook, thrud and the rest. Then they went all "my way or the highway" as did dragon magazine a few years later. I miss the plethora of games. It was truly a magical time, anyway:

Oh, you mean little lost warbot? I think it's little lost warbot. I have been remiss in my mental cataloguing strategy.

I remember daleks, burned sombreros, giant guns being casually levelled at shiny spacecraft and tentacles accidentally hanging out of the nostrils of ultaviolet mission givers. But the mind fails these days.

Vagabond had a good backdrop, but it needed a good GM to make it work. Paranoia set up a metric sh*t ton of conflict between the players so.... A senario could practically run itself. You could be nice as a gm or nasty, it didn't really matter the deck was stacked against any sort of cohesive "team" game play.

Just as long as no one took it too seriously and tried to actually "win" you can't win in paranoia, you can't win in call of cthulhu. Just crack another beer, don't take it personal and enjoy the ride.

You really wrote that? I truly am not worthy.
And your older than you look.

This is cool actually, I must have read and re-read your work dozens of times growing up. With the vector maps I (well we) helped push that legend a little bit further. It is a pleasure, nay an honour to have a chance to give back to one who has given so much over the years.

Rest assured your work is not lost to the unkind hands of time sir. It lives on and propagates in many, many quiet ways.

Yes it was Little Lost Warbot, your plot summary sounds about right. A group of aliens (who originally looked like teddy-bears) are corrupted by TV signals from Earth, forced into colour-coded combat armour by their evil overlord, and sent to Earth to look for The Doctor. I still have some model Daleks with sombreros somewhere, because I am a sad git.

Thanks for the reminder of my impending senility - I'm 62 later this month.

ClymAngus wrote:

Just as long as no one took it too seriously and tried to actually "win" you can't win in paranoia

I did once hear tell of a team who, despite everything the GM threw at them, actually did manage to complete a mission..

Since characters tended to die frequently in that game (so often that they had multiple clones off-stage waiting to take their place) staying alive was usually very difficult. Except one time...

I signed up to join a game that was being run for charity, with players paying a quid to play, and replaced by a new player (or paying again) if their characters were killed. Ten minutes in I realised that there was a tiny problem - I'd written the scenario, which I think was Little Lost Warbot (not 100% sure now) and had run it multiple times. So I told the GM I was going to get my character killed so that I wouldn't have an unfair advantage and survive too long. And for the next fifteen minutes everything I tried to get my character killed failed - I confessed my crimes publicly and The Computer lauded me for being public-spirited, I drank experimental chemicals and gained weird psychic powers, I volunteered to test exciting new inventions and they worked perfectly, traitors tried to shoot me and ended up shooting each other. A lot of it was down to the GM being an awkward bugger, but I really did make some of the best dice rolls of my gaming life when it came to things that would keep me alive.

Then just as I was becoming resigned to it I failed a dexterity roll, tripped over a bottle of Bouncy Bubble Beverage, fell down a flight of stairs, and broke my neck...

Ah, yeah, Paranoia. I have a slideshow where a giant eye looked at the clones from my desktop the few times we played and of course it had some text with an assortment of propaganda. And in between some orders... even one in blue.

And somebody should make a mission out of this.
EDIT:This meaning the Dread Space Pirate Robots, of course.

It would be nice if there was something that took advantage of the Great Rift, I've crossed it several times now but when it comes down to it things really aren't particularly interesting on the other side, and because the region is so small opportunities for cargo contracts etc. are thin on the ground. A scenario (possibly like mine) which made crossing it more useful and gave more of a challenge might be a good idea.

ffutures wrote:

It would be nice if there was something that took advantage of the Great Rift, I've crossed it several times now but when it comes down to it things really aren't particularly interesting on the other side, and because the region is so small opportunities for cargo contracts etc. are thin on the ground. A scenario (possibly like mine) which made crossing it more useful and gave more of a challenge might be a good idea.

Well, you could always try coming up with the plot/storyline, and see if anyone could help with the coding.. Norby may be up for it, now that he has a mission OXP under his belt..

Diziet Sma wrote:

has a mission OXP

... in a different Galaxy and with long todo, but the idea is good, so maybe.

OK, my suggestions for this (and I have no idea how hard/easy they would be to implement):

1: Rumours of pirates in the region, or a client who wants the pirates suppressed. Mention that they are believed to be robots, not aliens.
2: The ship encounters a credible but unusual pirate threat that can be beaten off with difficulty - e.g. attack ships accompanied by robotic fighters. When the player starts to defeat this, one of the pirates jumps out to a certain point in interstellar space, the rest follow through the wormhole, then another takes the hyperjump across the Rift and the rest follow that. If the player ship follows it should be obvious that the mid-point is unsafe; maybe dangerously radioactive, maybe Thargoids are around, or a REALLY dangerous pirate ship still there and shooting at the player ship. Make it clear that the only way out is the wormhole across the rift before it closes (or the player ship might jump by itself if it has full fuel tanks).
3: On the other side of the rift the pirates are pulling out and their wormhole is closing by the time the player ship arrives. There shouldn't even be time to get confirmation of the wormhole destination. The departing ships drop some junk including metal scraps and cargo pods.
4: If the player ship scoops up the junk it turns out to include a bomb that does some damage to the player ship including fuel loss, fuel scoop damage, and some other equipment damage. They're going to need to dock before they can pursue the pirates. Fortunately it's a high-tech station and by galaxy 7 any player should easily be able to pay for repairs.
4a: If the player ship DOESN'T scoop up the junk it suddenly decloaks as missiles, something like Thargoid swarm, or whatever seems appropriate. Again, the goal is to damage the player ship enough to require repairs/refuelling.
5: At the space station there are more rumours of the pirates, pointing towards various anarchy worlds of the Five Points Trade Barrier. I think I used Enener in the session I ran, which is a fairly obvious location.
6: Also at the station, a seedy contact offers to sell the player an anti-AI virus - this is probably best handled as something like a one-off device added to the ship's equipment. He warns that the more times it's used, the less chance that it will work - AIs can adapt their firewalls etc. However, if this is bought, as soon as the ship leaves the station with it installed it will be classed as fugitive - Galcop were tracking the vendor, and it's classed as a Weapon of Mass Destruction. This should make things more complicated.
7: A couple more encounters with the pirates, make it clear somehow that they are robots - e.g. they take minerals, metals, electronics etc. but dump food, furs, and booze. Maybe more odd weapons etc. If they use the virus play "Never Gonna Give You Up" and the enemy ship(s) explode. But each time it's used it takes longer to work.
8: More trails to the pirate base, basically a weaponized Rock Hermit with a LOT of defences. If possible bring the player ship in as a captive - perhaps the pirates have viruses of their own, and use them to take over the player ship's controls - like autodock that can't be switched off. To make this extra creepy maybe the HUD goes funny in some way, or the external view (F1 to F4) switches off or goes to pixelated static. Or use extra-powerful tractor beams to bring it in, a la Death Star.
9a: Aboard the station things seem weird, with the usual docked controls not working or giving weird results - e.g. the ship can't buy anything, even fuel, the view out of the window shows robots trying to dismantle the hull, the cargo sale screen only offers computers for sale (and what will happen if they are loaded?) while the ship's cargo rapidly disappears, the shields, energy and fuel rapidly drop, etc.
9b: If the player ship is never captured it's a VERY tough fight - lots of fighters, maybe a Q-bomb to drive the ship off. The virus will take down the defences temporarily - how long is dependent on how many times it has already been used.
End game:
- If the player does nothing the ship is eventually chewed up and recycled. Maybe the escape pod gets sold to galcop for an exorbitant ransom.
- If the virus is used the ship controls unfreeze - all of them, including things that are usually off-line in dock such as weapons. It turns out that the base is rather vulnerable to an internal attack... How long this lasts depends on how often the virus has been used.
- If the player ship gets away somehow (and I suppose this should be a possibility) without blowing the pirate base up, the base (which is actually a disguised ship, not a real rock hermit) will be relocated to another system and attacks will resume. Rinse, lather and repeat until they get things right... Eventually they should be victorious, but it should be VERY difficult. Until the robots are defeated there will be more and more attacks. Cargo runs on offer will almost entirely be things the pirates don't want, at fairly low fees, and prices throughout the region will go crazy because a lot of cargo is being lost.

Does this sound like something you could work with?

Wow, what a plan.
This fill out a standalone mission package, which is cool but too much work for me at the moment, so if anybody would like to make it then feel free to do it.