Destiny (A sci-fi merc RP)

Jargo

Enough talk. Witness.
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Hey guys, I know sci-fi isn't really that popular in here, but I've had an idea for a group RP and I have an idea I'd love to pitch, if any of you are interested. We only need about 3 people, though I think I could accommodate for for around 4 or 5.

The setting is a sci-fi where humanity shares the galaxy with about 4-5 other races, but after wars and conflicts, they each mostly keep to themselves in their different corners. Obviously, the story will be taking place in human space. The characters would all play as mercenaries, although if you can think of a reason why your character would take a mercenary mission, you're welcome to have a different profession. My idea is to have an actual RP system, wherein you get a certain number of points, which you get to separate within a number of standard character stats (I'm thinking literally only DEX, STR and INT), and also a number of flex points, which you can use to place into your character's abilities. I'm considering giving 10 points each, which you can place into literally any kind of ability you may come up with yourself. Combat will be dice-based, wherein you can add your ability score to your dice roll to see if it is successful. I plan for the story to take part in several arcs and at the end of each one all the characters would get flex points to put into their abilities or design new ones. There would also be a progression, wherein your characters will have a basic income based on their stories and each missing would net you a profit (spread however you agree), which could be used on in-game stuff, like new guns and such. As for classes, I don't plan on there being any classes, seeing as you can design your character's abilities, but please be aware that psyonic power is a thing in this setting, albeit incredibly rare, so if you wanted to roll with that, you could. I'd ask the players to have a backstory for their characters which, upon approval, will also tie into (and help me with) the worldbuilding of the setting.

So, if there are any takers let me know.
 
I'm interested! I've been wanting to do some sci-fi and I've thought doing something more table-top inspired on a forum could be fun.
 
Alright let's flesh this out a bit more.

You got a system, you gone into detail about that, so there you got the right idea.

But I want to know more about this universe you have in mind and where the PCs will be.

The cast is made up of mercenaries but from your meager brief explanation of what's going on, there's no more war, that's all exhausted by now and everyone is keeping to their space.

That's implies business is bad right now for mercenaries if there's no active war and no desperation for soldiers on the various frontlines.

Not to say there isn't work to be had...But it mostly would be in the form of dealing with pirates who may be more of a nuisance than an actual threat. Working as guards for some merchant guild. Or hell, doing some shady shit against a faction on the behalf of another - which could lead to more war.

Another thing is the drive of the story - which I dont doubt you've already thought about - but where is the cast heading? Just job to job? Paycheck to paycheck? Do we play a bigger role?
 
Hello guys, glad to see some interest. Even if nobody else is interested, if the two of you stick together and have a good dynamic, a two-man army campaign could work pretty well with some minor changes. Now, to answer @Proficiency 's questions:

  • You are correct, there is, indeed, "no more war", as in full scale, all-out war, that is. And that's a good thing for literally every single fraction in the galaxy, which is why this state of quote on quote peace persists.That is because a full scale war in this faraway future is quite terrible, with moon-sized vessels, quite often made out of actual hollowed up moons, creating literal inferno within entire star system sectors. Fleets of literally millions of bio-mechanical, self-piloted fighter ships engaging with each other en masse to prevent each other from launching deadly missiles on the aforementioned ships. Mercenaries have, and historically have had, only minor auxiliary functions in such an all-out war, mostly in very minor or very fringe engagements on distant worlds, as otherwise they could hardly expect to muster the resources necessary in order to take part in actual space combat. And even if they could, there would be no one able to pay them enough in order to recuperate their losses and make ROI. Which leads me to the next point:
  • The human societies of the future are morally and politically unrecognizable. There is no single center of authority or even several centers of authority. There is no "Human Federation", "Imperium of Man" or "Human dominion". Political systems of such sort, in this setting, became obsolete the moment humans could travel among the stars and millions of wealthy individuals could afford to purchase huge lightspeed and hyperspace-worthy ships and start new colonies, taking millions more along with them. Megacorporations rose, but space was simply too large to monopolize or even oligopolize. Nations, with some small exceptions (there are always exceptions), were also soon obsolete, governments arose from collaboration of nearby planetoid colonies, not bonds of the past. Some span mere systems, others - hundreds. Usually those governments represent a council of the most powerful parties engaged in creating the utility on these worlds, such as different corporations, military organizations, terraforming unions, technocratic leviathan-size machine growing clans, powerful clergy, even psychic megacults and massive biomechanical creature farming conglomerates and alliances. That is not to say dictatorships and democracies do not exist, however those are exceedingly rare and primarily dominate small systems where the conditions are particularly harsh, ending up with one of the two extremes. That is not to mention the actual billions of space station and starships, each of which being its own sovereign space, unbound by the laws of anyone but themselves.
  • Regarding the utility of mercenaries. As I said above, there is no centralized or decentralized center of authority. There is just a loose concept known as "Human space" and even that is not quite clearly defined. In that situation, thousands of wars are waged daily. Nearby human systems often solve their disputes with a military confrontation, and in those cases each side doesn't hesitate to hire mercenary forces to beef up its own. Insurgencies and coup d'etat attempts happen in even greater numbers, not to mention corporate struggles (often solved with a military and paramilitary confrontations) and literal fights between the numerous factions within the numerous government structures, described above. Since "Human space" isn't really that clearly defines, there are many colonies and systems on the fringes or literally just infringing on alien space and in those worlds battles with "local" alien military structures. That is not to mention piracy, privateering and simple grudge-matches between different mobile fleets. Finally, while the main intelligent alien races and humanity share the general contours of the galaxy, there are minor alien races, intelligent or not, pop up and exist within the boundaries of each and every one of those "main" spaces. The plot of "Alien" is just a relatively casual "parasite infestation" on many worlds. Numerous smaller, less advances, intelligent races are either kept down, used as vassals, serfs, slaves or outright genocided based on which human society they border and what those races themselves are like. Mercenaries are used in each and every one of those scenarios. Please do not mistake this description with an "In a grim dark future, there is only war." On the contrary, most citizens will never even witness war. Most of those conflicts have only marginal influence upon the lives of ordinary people. Life is just another craft and fighting is just another means of conflict resolution. It is actually rare for a conflict to take place in immediate proximity or in front of the eyes of the ordinary populace. Of course, if you live on a ship that is being raided, it will affect you more directly than if your system alliance loses a trade war over some particularly resource-rich moon. But given the fact that human space encompasses hundreds of millions of worlds, ships, stations, asteroids, planetoids etc., war is only common for those who specialize in it - mercenaries.
  • Now where do you fit in all of that? Well, I imagined you would all be somewhat well-reputed mercs who each have several contracts behind their backs (thus also giving you space to develop your characters). You're looking for the next most profitable thing and your contacts let you know about a relatively small mining colony called Illaria-1, which pays a hefty sum for a contract, with the provision that they will choose the team. The task is flagged as running out insurgencies off the world. I was planning on revealing the task as a part of the actual RP, but if you really wan to I can review it before we being.
 
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I forgot to answer the final part of the question. I have a plan of the party making up their own goals. I have three "paths" that you can embark on, based on your common interest and what you choose to chase throughout the campaign.

1) is related to deciphering a message that has the potential to let humanity know the reason behind the existence of the universe.
2) is related to the rise of a new Interstellar empire
3) is related to bonding and siding with or chasing down and eventually executing a particular villain, who is closely involved with both 1) and 2)

All of those will have a common start with the same mission. Choosing to focus on one of those will let the other 2 develop without the party's interference and you will be able to observe the results of your inaction as you go through the world, chasing your main goal. Action and inaction will both have effect on the universe and people around you. It will be quite easy to distinguish which path you're taking. You will be able to take jobs that lead you on your path, but you are expected to go and do stuff on your own initiative and even, perhaps, creating your own jobs by negotiating situations where you can be paid to follow your chosen goal.
 
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Hmm, this seems interesting! I may be interested in joining.

Just a couple of questions: What would be the maximum points you could put in your abilities/stats? And what would be the expected posting schedule?
 
I'm gonna stalk this to see where it heads. I'm definetly interested, and I'll join if I have the time once it starts.
 
@Lykata to answer your question I will try to post the actual table and an example character build today. It's all rather simplified because we're in a roleplaying not a standart tabletop environment.

As for the posting schedule: I assume we all have jobs so a 1 or 2 posts per week doesn't seem unreasonable to me. Maybe it will be slightly higher if there are only 2 players so that we don't lag too much.

There will be no posting order, but in any sort of combat situations, the characters with higher DEX will go fist. If two or more people have the same DEX they either 1) negotiate between themselves who goes first each time or 2) react simulteniously. A chart will be provided and updated as a sticky post in the IC. That will need to be taken into account when posting.
 
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Interesting what are the other alien species like?

I haven't thought about them yet, I really have no particular interest in aliens. If any of the players would like to contribute, they are welcome to try, at this point in time the aliens are just for flavor and because I consider it impossible to not be any at such an advanced stage of space exploration.
 
@FeralRoleplayer @Lykata @Proficiency @neobendium @Apeking4
Check this post out even if you saw the tables before, I wrote several paragraphs of explanation on them. Let me know what you think.

You can find the basic character abilities (DEX, INT, STR) scales as well as the ability scaling below. The descriptions to the right are for you to get a sense of what each score means. Keep in mind, you will have to roleplay those scores. You can't RP a dumb character as a smart one and vice versa. Additionally, more intelligent characters will have more information about their surroundings as they are better at noticing patterns. Stronger characters will, of course, be more resilient and able to handle and dash out more punishment than the others.

The more perceptive of you will notice that the "average human score" is 5, while the scale has 12 levels. This is because the humans of the future are able to tap into most of the species' potential, hence being able to exceed even what we consider prodigious levels today. The geniuses of he past are no longer the limit. Nevertheless, those who achieve this are only a select few, meaning that the bulk of humanity still operate at 5/10 level, which is why a 5 is the average person, neither too good nor too bad at the thing in question.

You will have a total of 18 points at your disposal when making a new character, allowing you to be very good at one stat, while being average in the rest, or being modestly above average in all. Scaling above 12 in any dimension is impossible with the normal human form, but purchasing and installing biological or cybernetic enhancements to improve your natural abilities can launch you above the limit. Such can be purchased to improve your abilities even if you're not yet at a peak level.

With regards to your abilities, the scaling is infinite. You can, potentially, have 20 points in a singular ability, ensuring you're almost guaranteed to always be successful with it. Beyond level 10 it's considered impossible to determine how good you are, since you're simply a virtuoso, probably being that good because you're inventing new ways to do the thing, that lack an established measurement scale in the first place.

You have 16 flex points, but you cannot put any more than 10 in a single ability at the point of character creation.

Some guidelines for the abilities: literally anything can be an ability. If you feel it is necessary, please add a description of what the ability encompasses. I would advise you to be more general at your abilities. For instance, "Proficiency with long-range laser weapons", instead of "Proficient with the SSS-MA 772 Lasgun" (yes, please feel free to invent weapons), because the chance that people in the world where you're going will be using the same model of weapon are negligible - most systems will have their own weapon models.

IMPORTANT: PLEASE BE CREATIVE!
Consider that this setting is taking a place in the faraway future. Millennia after today. No, really, consider it! Whatever you see as a limit nowadays is not going to be a limit in the foreseeable future, let alone several millennia later! What we see as combat in a faraway, spaceworthy future in popular media such as Star Wars is a joke. For instance, consider weapons: in modern warfare soldiers can barely spot the enemy with their naked eye when they shoot them down. It's quite a normal thing: why would you ever want to let the enemy be able to touch you or even get near you at all? You'd want to destroy them from as faraway as possible, at best, before they can even spot or react to you. In this setting, any weapon without at least 10km reach would not be considered long range. Artillery-grade targeting computers are contained in micron-sized brain implants. There would hardly be a weapon which does not have the potential of interfacing and connecting with a control implant in the user's head, allowing them to fire, switch firing mode, turn off or "lock" their weapon with mere thought. Normally, characters will need to pay money for implants and other enhancements, however standard weapons control implants are so common among mercenaries, I'd take it as a given each one of your characters will have one. In this context, being able to properly operate your weapon "manually" in the even of control implant malfunction is a separate skill in and of itself, but I will also take it as a given that characters are proficient in doing so with the weapons they have so far.

Lastly, psionics is also considered an ability, though there are a few separate abilities connected with them. I will write a paragraph on psionics tomorrow.

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I like this!

I'd suggest, though, that the characters could start with 20 points for their stats. Since they would be mercenaries who have already been on the job for a while, it makes sense for them to have two slightly above average stats, while being pretty good in another one. Although I'm not sure whether out not this would be too much, I wouldn't think so. Anyway, this is just a thought.

Also, for"untrained" abilities (abilities we haven't put any point on), would they start at one? So the characters could still attempt to do the task, only they'd be more likely to fail.


Additionally, if the aliens aren't really important and are only there for flavor, there are a few good online alien species generators that can give you a pretty nice outline. They could help and save time and work. ^_^