Wartech Campaign: Introduction

Wartech is a game system and setting that Jarom and I have been working on for a while now. Since Jarom is home for winter break from college, we decided to run a campaign while he was still here. He is GMing it and my brother James, Jarom's friend (James A.), and I are the players. This campaign's purpose is to help explore and flesh out the setting more than paytest our RPG rules. So for simplicity we are using the Rogue Space system. We liked it during our MECHS campaign and modified it a bunch to fit the nuances of the setting. I am borrowing a lot of the mechanics and rules in my Star*Drive posts as a basis.

I may cover these in more detailed posts later, but these are some of the other things we have modified for it:

• A skill system: Instead of backgrounds for your character, you have a list of skills. When creating your character you buy skill ranks with some skill points set by your GM, and when making an action, you add the skill's rank (if applicable) plus its appropriate FASER attribute. It's a little more structured and dynamic than character backgrounds.
• Stun points: You still have your standard hit points, but you also have a second health track called stun points. Your stun points are half (rounded down) of your hit points. Some weapons and attack types (like stutter weapons, and unarmed attacks) do stun damage. When you run out of stun points, you are knocked out. They also can represent fatigue.
• Two damage types: There are 2 damage types in this game. Energy and Physical. Laser, particle, and stutter weapons etc. do energy damage. And slug weapons, unarmed attacks, blades, etc. do physical damage. The only thing this factors into is armors have 2 protection values. So an armor may be L against physical attacks, but M against energy attacks, etc.
• Different archetypes: Fitting with some of our original game's terminology, the archetypes are renamed. Technician stays the same; Warrior is renamed to Combatant; Rogue is renamed to Operative; and a fourth is added, Moderator. Which is the leader or diplomat type archetype.
• Broad psionic skills: Psionics are changed with broad categories. Buying ranks in a category allows you to attempt any power under the category. I'll clarify the categories and powers another time.
• Dynamic gear system: Jarom presented a neat system we are playing with that allows players to create the gear they get on their character, by buying traits of the weapons and armor. Credit costs for the traits helps to curb min-maxing but give the player freedom for defining what their character has. If it works well here, we will try implementing it with our original system planned.
• Expanded ship rules: No real changes to how ship construction or combat works, just expanded upgrades, weapons, quirks, etc.

With these new mods, we got excited for our game. The basic premise is my brother James and I are independent traders. We built a ship that is more akin to the Millenium Falcon (we built it to make our own Kessel Run.) We called it the Needle, and rolled sturdy hull and haunted quirks. The haunting we're not sure what it means yet, but we know it will be giving the two of us strange dreams.

Here are the three of the player's basic dossier's.

Serro
Player: Jared (me)
Archetype: Moderator
Race: Fairin
As a child he exhibited some psionic ability, but in the nation of Saunos, psionics are known to suddenly disappear from families. His parents sent him to live with his uncle to work on a remote relay station for his early years, in hopes of evading government agents. He grew up there, saving his money, until he could buy a ship and became an independent trader, and captain of the Needle.

Gra'zeknum
Player: James (my brother)
Archetype: Combatant
Race: Cardoon
Like most cardoon, Gra' was born on his homeworld and conscripted into the Hezakian Combine. And like many cardoon, he was put into the shock trooper squads with low survivability rates. His specialized in taking on heavy armor. Despite all odds, he survived his term and like most cardoon, was given a crappy pension. He was later recruited to work for Serro as the muscle for when things get ugly. He takes the job seriously.

Jin'kins
Player: James A. (Jarom's friend)
Archetype: Operative
Race: Quiv
A Primeus escapee built for a specific purpose, and a hidden past. He hitches a ride on the Needle with the rest of the party in the first adventure when he gets caught up in things.

I will be posting journal entries of Serro, captain's logs, as they are happening.