Cepheus Deluxe: The Bounty Hunter - Session 12

Honi 3 in the Caloo Subsector

Introduction

Arman Doyle has finally made it off Siento 1 and arrived on Honi 3, a recently settled planet with a thin and tainted atmosphere. He's been given a ship with a mortgage, the Red Devil. To play Cepheus Deluxe solo we're using Mythic Game Master Emulator 2nd Edition. I'm also going to use Zozer Games's Solo. 

The Adventure

Scene 12 | Jaketown, Honi 3 | 3023.05.18 | Cr44,558 | Chaos Factor: 6

Arman takes a tour of the ship and meets its computer which is capable of verbal communication anywhere on the ship. The computer informs him the recommended crew complement is a captain (him), one pilot, one sensor operator, one medic, one engineer and two gunners. Seven crewmen in total. He also needs to procure a weapon for himself and ideally replace his hidden body pistol that was confiscated at the hospital in Krinnai.

He asks the computer to give him an overview of where he is. The nearest monitor shows the image from Session 9 and the computer recites the following:

The Honi system was discovered in the year 2813 by a scout who noted the mainworld's large oceans and abundant forests. It was marked as low priority due to its isolated location. Twenty years later a colony ship arrived, bringing a few hundred families who began a logging operation in the forests, spreading across one of the small continents and establishing five settlements that began trading lumber and fish with each other.

Although the population is low the asteroid belt attracts miners from nearby systems who sell their ores in Honi 3's main settlement, Jaketown.

Opening the ship's locker he finds it stocked with the expected survival gear and vacc suits but no weapons, so he'll have to procure some here. In the cargo hold he finds five identical crates labelled "Mk1 Combat Drone". The crates are each about the size of a small groundcar, and images on them show a spherical metallic craft with some kind of beam laser fitted. Interesting.

Down to business then. I've been reading more of Mythic GME and realised I wasn't following the procedure very well. At the start of a scene you're supposed to roll a D10 and compare it to the chaos factor. If it's over the chaos factor, the scene proceeds as expected. If it's equal to it or lower, it'll either be altered or interrupted, with procedures for figuring out how. We've also got a whole load of random event tables from Cepheus Deluxe, Solo and a couple of very good value supplements I got from Drivethru RPG recently. In Solo Paul Elliott recommends rolling for a random event once a week while on a planet, so I'll roll on the random event tables on a roll of one on a D6, once a week.

First things first - I need to make two lists in order to generate random events for altered and interrupted scenes. A threads list, which is made up of Arman's current goals, and a characters list which upon reading about it, sounds more like it should be called a "things" list, as you can add not just characters but objects, factions, groups of people and locations too.

The threads list only has one entry for now: Find a crew. I'm not going to put "Find guns" because he can legally buy guns here in Jaketown. The characters list looks like this:

Abe Clarke (Bounty hunter)

Frank Hancock (Network contact on Siento 1)

Adela Puckett (Network contact on Honi 3)

Cousin Jimmy (The cousin of the tech shop guy who ended up in hospital when Arman tried to help him on Siento 1)

So, let's roll the D10 for scene 12:

1. That means the scene isn't altered or interrupted.

Now let's roll a D6 to check for weekly random events:

4. No event.

Arman leaves the Red Devil in the hanger and buys a breather with an oxygen tank to protect him in the thin, tainted atmosphere of Honi 3 (-Cr325). Then he heads out into the startown around the port looking for potential crewmates to hire. He'll use his new Streetwise-0 skill for this so he won't get a -3 DM, but unfortunately with a Social Standing of 6 he won't get a bonus from that either. When he succeeds let's use the effect of the roll to decide how many crewmen he finds that day.

That means if he rolls 3 over the difficulty he finds three crewmen. If he hits the target number exactly (8) then we'll say he finds one.

Arman makes a check (Difficulty 8)

6 +0 Streetwise = 6. Failure.

He wanders around the local bars all afternoon and evening, trying to get the word out that he's looking to hire a crew but it's a quiet day in the startown and he doesn't have any luck. He pays for a cheap hotel room (-Cr50) and calls it a night. Are we going to just keep doing this every day until he's got a whole crew? Yes, but game-wise it does make sense. Each day he has to spend credits and check for an altered or interrupted scene. If he's still looking a week later we'll roll for random events again, and one month from now he'll have to make a Cr168,750 mortgage payment on the ship, and he's only got about 44,000!

Once he hires someone he can get them to go out looking each day as well, and remember if we roll an altered scene and it affects the "Find a crew" thread then it could mean a random encounter with a potential candidate.

Scene 13 | Jaketown, Honi 3 | 3023.05.19 | Cr44,233 | Chaos Factor: 6

The following day Jake heads into the startown to see if it's any busier.

Scene test: 5. The scene goes as expected.

Arman makes a check (Difficulty 8)

5 +0 Streetwise = 5. Failure.

Still no luck today. In between visits to the bars he heads to a gun shop to look into buying some weapons for the ship and himself. At the shop he buys a new revolver and the following to stock the ship's locker:

6 boarding axes

6 automatic handguns

6 pump action shotguns

10 flashbangs

6 kevlar vests

18 revolver rounds in speed loaders

288 handgun rounds in magazines (enough for three magazines for each gun)

108 shotgun shells (enough for three full loads of six for each gun)

It comes to Cr3771 in total, and the eager shopkeeper is happy to deliver the items to the Red Devil the following day, except for the revolver which he takes with him. He asks about getting a concealable handgun to put in his forearm compartment but the man forlornly explains that such weapons are banned on Honi 3 (they're illegal on worlds with law level 4+). Arman wonders if he can find one in a less than legal way - I've added "Find a concealable gun" to the threads list.

Then it's back to the hotel again (-Cr50).

Scene 14 | Jaketown, Honi 3 | 3023.05.20 | Cr40,412 | Chaos Factor: 6

Scene test: 1. An odd number equal to or below the chaos factor means an altered scene. I'll roll on the scene adjustment table...

5: Remove an object.

Hmm, the object in this scene could be the equipment delivery that was due to be delivered to the Red Devil. Let's say Arman waits for it until the evening but there's no sign of it, so he calls the shopkeeper on his communicator. What does he say? Let's use the Mythic oracle.

29: Delay

72: Plot

That makes sense, there's been a delay getting the order out to him. Not everything has to lead to a lengthy side quest.

Will the delivery take longer than one more day? (50/50)

48: Yes.

Let's say the shopkeeper promises the goods within 1D4+1 days:

5. That's annoying, but it'll probably take that long to find the crew anyway. Arman agrees to check back with the shopkeeper on the 25th and makes a mental note to try and get a partial refund to make up for it. Back to the recruitment drive then.

Arman makes a check (Difficulty 8)

4 +0 Streetwise = 4. Failure.

He's not having much luck! Another Cr50 goes on room and board, and then it's back out the next day.

Scene 15 | Jaketown, Honi 3 | 3023.05.21 | Cr40,362 | Chaos Factor: 6

The same routine again today. This time Arman uses some cash to loosen the locals' tongues (-Cr50). Someone must be able to point him in the right direction.

Arman makes a check (Difficulty 8)

8 +0 Streetwise +1 Bribe = 9. Success!

Finally! That evening Arman gets talking to a former scout called Meredith Gibson. I've generated her using the lifepath character creation rules and statted her using the standard array from Cepheus Deluxe (10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5).

Meredith Gibson

6A8975

Skills:

Piloting-3, Gun Combat-1, Grav Vehicles-1, Computer-0, Repair-0, Stealth-0, Survival-0, Zero-G-0

Age: 26

Armour: Space suit

Weapon: Laser pistol

Hailing from the capital world of the Caloo subsector which we'll generate later, Gibson enlisted in the Scout Service at age 18. In her third year there she responded to a distress call. A ship had suffered a catastrophic engine failure which had caused an explosion onboard. Docking with it and boarding, she found herself on what was obviously a pirate ship. The crew were dead except the captain and his second in command, a woman called Kara Bell. Gibson managed to save Bell's life but the ship depressurised in the process and the captain was spaced through a small hole in the hull, a horric accident. Kara Bell blamed Gibson for this and swore revenge on her. I've added her to the characters list.

Aged 25 she was collecting plant samples on an uninhabited planet when she was attacked by a pack of local predatory animals. She managed to fight them off with her laser pistol but was badly wounded, losing two fingers. The ordeal left her traumatised and she quit the Service soon after, using saved up pay to have replacement cybernetic fingers installed.

Let's roll on Mythic's tables for her appearance, description and personality.

Familiar, adventurous, angry.

She reminds Arman of an old friend, and while she's keen to get out and explore the universe she has a short temper when it comes to dealing with others. However the piloting skills she picked up while flying her own scout ship will come in very handy on the Red Devil, so Arman hires her as his pilot on the spot for Cr6000 per month. In Cepheus Deluxe they got rid of the Navigation skill so ships don't have navigators, instead using the pilot to plot jump routes using the Piloting skill instead.

Arman goes back to his hotel after a good day's work (Cr-50). Gibson is staying in a cheaper one, as the rules give characters of lower SOC less outgoings, so she spends Cr25 of her own money. She agrees to help Arman find potential crewmates the next day.

I've just realised I completely forgot to check for an altered or interrupted scene this time. Looks like I still need some practice getting used to using all the Mythic rules!