I ran my first IHW: StarCluster adventure Saturday. The first half of the session was players gearing up - the armor was new to everyone, and it took some time - but one of the players missed the last session, and had to make a character, and another player decided to drop the character he made last session and create a new one, both of which took up too much time. One player didn't make it - work emergency - so I was playing his character. The character dropped was the winged bioroid - the player decided to go with a human male. The new character was an uplifted housecat named Felix Jinx.

The mission was a hostage-rescue. At least 50 well-equipped, well-trained, politically-motivated men had taken 35 SaVaHuTa citizens - some of them very well connected - hostage at a mountain resort on an earth-like world. SaVaHuTa citizenship is like knighthood in the UK, given sparingly, and with at least the semblance of great service. The leader of the group elected to use drop capsules to insert at dawn, on the other side of a mountain from the resort. On the drop, the missing player's character fumbled his Drop Cap roll, so I ruled he was not there when the capsules broke open and the PCs grav-chuted the rest of the way in. Easy out for me! An attack copter - one of three patrolling - saw something and came to investigate. The PCs managed to evade detection by the helo - one by diving into a small, deep mountain lake - and they gathered together.

They decided to wait until dark where they were, but after a while, they sighted a foot patrol coming over the ridge to the north. The PCs set an ambush. The point man of the patrol saw something funny, but one of the PCs used a LUCK point to convince him it was just an animal. They let the point man walk through the ambush, and the robot took him out with a broken neck. The rest of the patrol almost saw him drag the point man into the bushes, but failed to spot him. The PCs took out the rest of the patrol - two dead, two unconscious.

After a successful interrogation, the leader told Slick to kill the two unconscious guys. Slick, the VaHu, asked if that was a direct order, because she wouldn't do it otherwise. The officer said no, but it had to be done. Hick, the new human, did the dirty deed. Both got a point of Practicality. They buried the bodies on the bank of the stream that drained the lake, but the robot, Melissa, didn't do a good job, which became important later.

At this point, the leader told Slick and Hick, who were both excellent swimmers, to infiltrate the resort by going downstream to the big lake and swimming in. The rest of the gang would go over the ridgeline and attack the camp from the east.

Hick had been reporting in to the enemy's base as the foot patrol, using their frequency and codewords, but they had begun tracking him by triangulation, and knew he was not where he was supposed to be. When asked about this, Hick pleaded that his positioning device screwed up, and they had gotten lost, so the base sent out a search party, without telling him.

As they came down the banks of the stream and were approaching the big lake, the search party arrived just downstream from the west. Standing there in plain sight, Slick had to scramble to the edge of the wood where here active cammo skin could help her, while Hick, who was wearing an active ghillie cammo skin, crouched down and became to the eye a boulder covered in moss, lichens, and weeds. Realizing the search party was tracking them by the captured radio, Hick used a LUCK to have the body that Melissa had done a poor job burying float by at just this moment. He tossed the radio onto the body.

The search party spotted the body and hauled it in. It had a broken neck - the point man for the other patrol - so at first they thought he had slipped and fallen, but they began arguing that that was impossible - the sequence wouldn't work. As they discussed this, they failed to notice Hick in his ghillie skin, one of them even leaning against the boulder as they argued. Slick, listening to the conversation, decided to take the opportunity for surprise. Alerting Hick, she sniped two of the patrol as Hick, jumping up in the middle, wasted the other three. They dragged the bodies under the trees and, reaching the big lake, started the long swim. Session over.

Things worked very well! The players loved the new armor and all its capabilities, and really got into character. The discussion on killing the prisoners was very cool for all of us. Melissa and Felix were both easily distracted - Felix as a consequence of being a cat, Melissa because of aberrations in her robot brain. They all worked well together when they had to, though! All in all, an excellent start for a new game!

-clash

BTW, a couple bits of the Armor rules came in REALLY handy in this game, and I forgot to mention them! Hick's suit was a Scout suit, which has several encoded Comm channels. Hick used one slot for Monitoring, which searches for active channels and monitors them for you. Using this, he was able to figure out what the Base and Search party were up to in real time. The boss decided to fill four slots of his Comm lots with one-on-one side channels, which allowed him to talk to up to four different men at once without anyone else hearing it. Both turned out way cool in game.

In disguising himself as a weed and moss covered rock, Hick used the Freeze program, which held his powered armor absolutely motionless. This also came in handy as the Search Party member who used the "boulder" to lean against found out to his sorrow.

It's these little things that let you know the effort you put in your design wasn't wasted.

-clash

You want some more playtest input, Clash? If you do, e-mail me the relevant files. I should have a spare session or two in the next month between SH playtest and starting a new WFRP game.

One good turn deserves another and all that.

Quote from: One Horse Town;281826You want some more playtest input, Clash? If you do, e-mail me the relevant files. I should have a spare session or two in the next month between SH playtest and starting a new WFRP game.

One good turn deserves another and all that.

I will, but not yet, Dan. It's not ready for beta testing yet. Much of it is in note and "mental note" form at the moment. This initial Alpha testing gets it into shape as an actual game, at which point the system should be solid enough for anyone to run a game.

Thank you for the offer though!

-clash

Okey, dokey. Sent you a PM, BTW.

Quote from: One Horse Town;281831Okey, dokey. Sent you a PM, BTW.

Actually, in a couple weeks, things could be firmed up enough to send out. I'll keep you in touch.

-clash

Second playtest session:

As Hick and Slick swam up the lake to the resort compound, Curly (the Mission commander), waited with Spacey and Mittens at the river just beyond the camp. Curly and Mittens noticed an armored hand sticking up from the muck on the river. Curly went towards it, but a rubber boat with a four man patrol was seen coming downriver by Mittens, and the commander went into - and under- the water. Mittens found a hiding space, but Spacey - true to her name - had been skylarking. She walked over to Mittens and asked "What are you doing crouching down there, Mittens?" Mittens grabbed her and pulled her down, but it was too late. The sentry on thoi boat saw this and the rubber boat turned in to shore as the crew cocked their weapons and called into base. Curly, using his combat knife, ripped through eight feet of rubber underwater, and the four men flipped sideways into the drink. One man staggered ashore while the others slashed about, getting their bearings.

Mittens and Spacey shot the one coming ashore, while Curly took out one of the guys in the water with his combat knife. The two others gained shallow water and began fighting back, hitting Mittens, but missing Spacey, but they both fell to a hail of bullets from the two. Curly rejoined them and told them to get across the river and fight openly now that surprise was gone. Mittens noticed the armored hand again and tried to pull it from the muck, but couldn't as he was wearing unpowered Speed Armor. The two others pulled out the missing Captain Crock, who was unconscious. they woke him and started to go, but just then they noticed two attack helos boring in on them, one half a kilometer away, the other just at a kilometer.

Curly was the only one of the four who had a heavy weapon, a shoulder mounted rocket launcher, but the the helos both got off a brace of rockets before he could target them. Three rockets missed, but knocked the team down with their concussion, but the fourth hit square in the middle. Mittens, using his extraordinary leaping ability and the Speed Suit's A-grav flight capability, jumped out of the blast radius and across the river. Spacey successfully found cover behind a big tree, but the tree itself was knocked over, pinning her to the ground otherwise unhurt. Curly and Crock got slammed, with shrapnel penetrating both their armors. Crock was hurt bad, though he managed to keep his feet. Curly was just hindered, and he shot down one of the helos despite his wounds.

At this point Hick and Slick arrived at the base. There some ten men were running towards the big garage type building adjoining the two main resort buildings, while the ground-to-orbit shuttle was beginning to lift off on A-grav, and more men poured northeast toward the rest of the team. Slick had training in flying atmospheric craft, so Hick told her to take the shuttle
while he took ot the guys running towards the garage. Using a powered automatic crossbow,  Hick took down three men from behind. Slick ran and launched herself at the shuttle, skimming along the ground at running speed on a-grav.

Meanwhile the other helo fired another two missiles. One missed the three, but another was perfectly targeted and slammed into the ground equidistant from all three. LUCKily (Meaning one of the PCs used one of their character's LUCK points) the safety pin didn't fully disengage on the fuse, preventing the fuse from operating. Crock shot one of the throng advancing from the base, while Spacey changed her malleable hands into shovels and dug herself out from under the tree. Curly badly damaged the helo which had fired on them, and the craft had to crash-land. Two more were coming, from the south and west, but both were currently out of range.

Mittens, alone across the river, used his genetic modifications and released a secreted drug cocktail into his bloodstream, speeding him up to three times his normal speed. Using his armor piercing pistol, he slashed into the oncoming group, firing at six and downing five.

Mittens and Curly were lightly hit, Crock more seriously. He couldn't stay on his feet and crashed to the ground, beginning to bleed out. Spacey was not targeted, due to her being under the tree.

As the shuttle lifted off, Slick made a power-assisted jump and grabbed the tail of the shuttle, punching through the thin skin there into the drive compartment, and hauling herself in. Hick silently picked off three more with his crossbow as he followed them to the garage, the four up front not noticing the others dropping behind them as they entered the garage.

Mittens slashed through the group again, firing six shots and downing four, while Spacey downed two and Curly shot one of the two helos targeting them as it came in range. Crock bled into the dirt. Curly was hit again, LUCKily lightly as he had accumulated a lot of hits and was barely standing, as was Spacey. Mittens used his LUCK to have the one shot that hit him jam in the gun of the bad guy. The two shots from the surviving attack helo both missed badly.

Meanwhile. Slick kicked in the door connecting to the passenger compartment, which was filled with hostages, and killed the guard, pinning him to the forward bulkhead with crossbow bolts. She ran up to the door to the pilot's compartment, reporting to Hick that there were 28 hostages in the shuttle. Hick leaped through a window into the garage, where he found all aboard an armored grav-vehicle, already moving toward the open door. he leapt up onto the top, punching through a weak point in the armor, and dropping into the interior, killing the guard over the hostages with his crossbow.

Curly, barely standing, knocked out the last helo  Mittens, in his last round of speed attack, downed four more as he was shot again, dropping him to hindered status. Spacey was shot at and missed, as was Curly, and Crock bled more, slipping towards death. Spacey managed to bag another bad guy. The baddies, despite their losses, managed to make their morale check.

Slick kicked in the door to the pilot's compartment and shot the pilot dead then wounded the copilot severely, she hauled the pilot out of his chair and grabbed the controls. Hick killed the gunner and driver with his crossbow, and downed the baddie with his last shot. He stared bewildered at the controls as the vehicle slid down the shore and onto the surface of the lake. LUCKily, a nine year old girl among the hostages knew how to drive the rig.

Mittens, a trained medic, dashed back across the river in time to stop Crock from bleeding out completely. Curly and Spacey kept up fire on the last few bad guys left on their feet, downing one each. They made their morale check again, probably because they thought the armored vehicle would come to their rescue, but surrendered when Hick, climbing into the turret, shredded three of them from behind as the girl drove ashore. Slick landed the Shuttle at the pad.

After extraction, Curly handed out the Notice. Slick, Hick, and Mittens reaping large awards. Spacey got a reaming out and some negative notice from Curly because her screw up started the attack too early, but she had enough positive notice to come out ahead. Crock had started and ended the affray unconcious, so he didn't get as much notice as the others. Curly, of course, as the commanding officer got much Notice himself. All in all a good end to a tough day.

We rolled right into the next adventure, which I'll post later.

-clash

Dramatis Personae:

"Curly" - Human leader of the team, from Mickey's Birthday. Badass officer and man of unblinking pragmatism. Curly has risen fast in SpecOps, making every promotion possible. Chews cigars and shaves his head - thus his call sign.

"Crock" - An uplifted crocodile officer. He blew his drop cap insertion on the last mission, but survived the fall. Hasn't yet made an impression, as he was severely wounded immediately after being located.

"Mittens" - A Dyfed Cat from Glorianna. Sgt. Mittens is black, with white face, chest, and mittens. An extremely high-tech uplift, whose species was created as dancers and entertainers, his species is born with uncanny balance and leaping, plus adrenaline cocktail control allowing a tremendous temporary burst of speed.

"Spacey" - A human-looking robot also from Mickey's Birthday. Spacey is driven by quirks in her electronic brain, introduced in her manufacture, which make her apt to wander off, both mentally and physically. She appears to be a human female, and is a master programmer with a direct interface.

"Hick" - Human corporal. Hick is a Ranger, tall and long-legged, and specializes in outdoorsy stuff like climbing, swimming, mountaineering and the like. He's from a planet maintained as a Park-preserve, thus his call sign. He is a slightly better shot than Slick, and thus the best shot on the team.

"Slick" - VaHu corporal. Slick is a human-Vantor hybrid from the water planet Faren. Small and muscular, Slick swims like a seal, using her powerful tail to scull through the water, and has implanted artificial gills to breathe underwater. She has almost no hair at all aside from her eyelashes - leading to her call sign - and a layer of subcutaneous fat to keep her warm. Her skin is patterned with blue, green, and brick-red stripes, with spots of the same color down her back.

-clash

Interesting stuff, Clash. Is this a "for-sure" move away from the original Star Cluster mechanic? If so, are you planning on powering all of your material with the IHW engine?

Quote from: JohnnyWannabe;282963Interesting stuff, Clash. Is this a "for-sure" move away from the original Star Cluster mechanic? If so, are you planning on powering all of your material with the IHW engine?

Hi Rich!

This is a for sure move, but will exist for a time alongside the original StarCluster. The IHW mechanics are developed for military emulation, and work far less well for civilian emulation. I will eventually be developing StarCluster 3E to replace SC 2 - there are a lot of small details I need to change, and those changes will be in line with those changes in IHW: StarCluster:

* Psionics will be radically changed. SC2 PSI is clumsy at best. PSI will work more like magic in Blood Games II - PSI is a capacity rating, not a resource pool, and use of PSI burns Stats. This is what I love, self-balancing systems.
* PSI skills will also be changed - much less overtly powerful, overall more subtle.
* I may be releasing three alternate task resolution systems with IHW: StarCluster - Original percentile, StarPool, and RiskDice.
* LUCK will be introduced into the system.
* Human stats will be capped at 15, with 17 being an over-all max. Powered armor will not increase the stat, as it does in SC 2, but increase the effect of the stat. This is to better integrate with the alternate task resolution sub-systems.
* Damage reduction will be introduced along with type of armor determining hits.
* INT will replace IQ, with IQ only a reference.
* Wealth system will replace costing of items in credits.
Probably more as I get into it.

-clash

Info: The last mission took place on Hoboken, in the Allez-Oop system. Hoboken is a SaVaHuTa Colonizer - a powerful, rich, and populous world. The Drop Ship Aurora is the team's home. A big troop carrier armed with defensive weaponry and a regiment of Drop Troops, she is orbiting Aurora.

Curly is summoned to General Bourdin's office a month after the last mission. The General has a new mission for him - a courier has arrived in system from the next system over - Cry-In-The-Dark, AKA "Dark". Dark has no SaVaHuTa worlds, but does have a SaVaHuTa affiliate - the big, modern asteroid mining station Hammurabi just inside the thick, chunky Dark Belt. The Governor of Hammurabi Station has requested help from the Aurora. His daughter, returning to the station from University on Hoboken, has disappeared along with the Governor's yacht en-route. Foul play is suspected.

The team goes to the Dark system on the courier. After entering the system at the outer jump point, They are contacted by the governor, who confirms a huge ransom has been demanded. When the team arrives on-station, they meet with the governor. Curly orders Spacey to examine the electronic ransom note. After cracking the layers of misinformation and anonymizing, Spacey gives her opinion that the note originated on the station itself, and her opinion that it came from the desk of the Under-Secretary for Mining Relations.

The Under-Secretary lives in a condo adjacent to a park on the station. It has two exits, so Curly orders Hick to cover the back exit while he goes in with Slick. The Under-Secretary greets them, and under questioning by Curley, Slick uses her Interrogate PSI skill, burning several points of END to reach int the Under-Secretary's mind as the woman evades Curley's questions. Under pressure, she finally thinks of her connection to the kidnappers - Slick reaches up and pulls down a book form her book case. The Under-Secretary's face pales. Inside the book is a comm device. Curley examines it. It is designed to encode messages into the carrier wave of standard, innocent station Comm radio. The Under-Secretary confesses all. Her partner is a pirate, but she doesn't know where he is. Slick confirms this.

Curley takes the U-S back to the courier ship, as he doesn't trust the Station Guards - Hammurabi Station is known for it's corruption. Slick collapses from the strain of interrogation. The team sends out a message to the pirate - "SaVaHuTa agents investigating. Getting close. What do I do?" The answer comes back - "Sit tight - we will take care of you." Without a baseline for triangulation, they can't pinpoint the origin of the signal, but by carefully timing the lag, they have a range - within a margin of error for reciept and response - of how far away the signal originated. Laying that zone over a map of the current system configuration, they see it overlaps three objects. Two parts of the Dark Belt, and the planet Friday 13th. Friday 13th has alien (Etvar) ruins on it, and the Etvar have disputed all claims on it on the possibility that it might be their lost homeworld. Etvar ships patrol in orbit over the planet - but ancient Etvar artifacts continue to appear on Hammurabi Station's black market. The Dark Belt is so thick it blocks most of the sunlight from getting to the outer system. Both are great places to hide - if you can get past the etvar patrols on Friday 13th.

The Session ended, and the group broke for the week. This part of the session took longer than the first part, posted earlier, which ended the first adventure. It just looks shorter because of the nature of the investigative vs combat-oriented play.

-clash

I should have added - another change is the elimination of Boost. Boost was a life extending drug used in StarCluster 1 and 2, but the principal self-balancing mechanic of the game is the trade-off between age with lots of skills but physical degradation and youth, with high stats and few skills.

Boost had to go.

-clash

Quote from: flyingmice;283026I should have added - another change is the elimination of Boost. Boost was a life extending drug used in StarCluster 1 and 2, but the principal self-balancing mechanic of the game is the trade-off between age with lots of skills but physical degradation and youth, with high stats and few skills.

Boost had to go.

It's a good thing you are a systems' man. A full conversion can be painful; sometimes more painful than building a new system from the ground up. Still, Star Cluster 2.5 shares many similarities with IHW. An IHW Cold Space edition would be nice.;p

Quote from: JohnnyWannabe;283059It's a good thing you are a systems' man. A full conversion can be painful; sometimes more painful than building a new system from the ground up. Still, Star Cluster 2.5 shares many similarities with IHW. An IHW Cold Space edition would be nice.;p

Agreed - I've been thinking about it. It was a tossup over what would be first - StarCluster or Cold Space, but I was always taught "age before beauty."

-clash

Quote from: flyingmice;283061Agreed - I've been thinking about it. It was a tossup over what would be first - StarCluster or Cold Space, but I was always taught "age before beauty."

-clash

That's why I am always pushed to front of the line. ;p