Badass Space Dragon - Rules & Gameplay

games
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Introduction

Welcome to Charybdis, a swirling, half-flushed toilet of a galaxy. Once only home to a sparse scattering of homesteaders and recluses, this place has been overrun by fortune hunters, confidence men, scoundrels, thieves, and dreamers.

The population boom was brought on by the recent discovery of dense gas giants, ocean planets brimming with hydro-methane crystals, and asteroid fields littered with rare metals. We also have some protein rich algae and a few terrafarmers but I’d stick to canned food.

The rush for resources has outpaced any sense of law and order. Everyday, we see new ships arrive to stake their claim but it’s not a forgiving system, too many nicknames are derived from missing body parts. Three-fingered Wes, One-armed Kang, Doc Nonose… That sort of thing.

What I’m saying, and pay attention here, this is no way to make a living. You think you’re out to build a name for yourself or make a fortune, and you might, but it’s far more likely you’ll end up as a space pancake under much bigger boots.

I see rebels and misfits like you get shot up everyday. You think you’re special, you think you’ve got grit, but hacked-out, bible-quoting androids and wonky, vegetarian space lizards are going to scrap your ship and leave you floating out there in the soup.

Ok, that’s the EULA. I view it as my duty to warn off as many chechakos as possible.

Captain Attributes

The captain of your ship has only one attribute – GRIT. Think of it as a combination of skill, luck, honor, confidence, charisma, sex appeal and survival instincts. It’s a yardstick for how much of a badass you are.

You earn GRIT by completing certain tasks and can lose it by washing out or taking a lame mission. Some missions will only be available to the most gritty and those with true GRIT are more likely to pull through when the chips are down.

Captain Species

  • Humans - These squishy organics don’t often live to see old age, but those that do are well respected.

  • Space Lizards - Thick skinned and aggressive, these cold blooded creatures are well suited to the rigors of space but less inclined towards technology.

  • Androids - These humanoids are good with tech but suck at relating to other life forms and often find themselves in existential crises.

Ship Attributes

  • Fire Power (FP) - A reflection of the accuracy and strength of your arsenal and used to determine how much damage you can dish.

  • Shields (SH) - Defends against asteroids and all forms of hostile projectiles. Guaranteed to prevent rust.

  • Engineering (EN) - Determines your speed and ability to accomplish certain technical tasks like salvage or mixed drinks.

  • Stealth (ST) - A measure of your ability to avoid trouble and sneak around in the dark… and there’s a lot of dark out here.

  • Luck (LK) - Increases the chance that you’ll be able to recast the dice of fate at crucial moments.

  • Hull Integrity Points (HP) - A measure of the damage to your vessel. If your ship reaches 0 HP, you’ve experienced a critical hull breach. Congratulations, you’re dead, another floater.

Turn Overview

Each weekday, I’ll dispatch a new post in the BBS with the results of the previous day, the store inventory, and new missions.

You have until around 8pm (PST) to leave a reply with your purchases and daily mission selection. You may only choose one mission each day and can spend only what you have. No credit.

The store inventory will change from day to day and allow you a chance to repair or upgrade your ship. Any purchases you make will be applied to your account before mission selection. That means your repairs and upgrades will kick in before you head out but overspending at the store might cause you to flop a mission. In other words, check your math.

At around 8pm (PST) I’ll put a lock on the missions and crunch the numbers for the next day.

Mission results will look a little something like this.

Ship HP FP SH EN ST LK CASH GRIT
Badass Space Dragon (60/100) 18 17 18 20 30 $11,500 15
You delivered the documents but got caught in an asteroid field. It's a good day, no one died.

+1 GRIT - Mission Accomplished
+$1500 - Payment
-40 HP - Asteroid Damage
-1 FP - Lasers on the Fritz

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Just to point out 8pm (pst) is 5am THE NEXT DAY UK time

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So what is the endgame here? Richest? Grittiest?

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Perhaps a function of those two. “Grooviest.” Say, (Grit X 1000) + $. Just a suggestion.

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Now I’m starting to wonder how P Vs P is going to be handled :smile:

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“All his life has he looked away… to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm?”

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Shouldn’t be too much of an issue, the turns will have something like a 10-16 hour window for posting. Let me know if it gets to be a problem and I’ll see what I can do to accomodate.

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I removed the date from the post, it now says - “Round 1”

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What happens with the player, after his/her ship is destroyed?

PS: Got kind of bummed because of what happened to the Hobar.

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That’s a good question. I just sort of assumed that dead was dead but now I have a new idea.

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Hey, it’s not any fun if there’s no risk, eh? I had sort of assumed we’d play to the last ship flying, given the layout.

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That was my assumption as well, but I’m having so much goddamned fun I want our little fleet to last forever, or at least until our ships and their captains expire of natural causes (like if we get more time-consuming jobs or we forget to pay our AOL bill or something).

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I’m assuming everyone gets a chance to tell their (slightly intersecting) stories.

Unless they get iced.

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Well, don’t go overboard on the sympathy, because I had the idea that I was going to eventually get the chance to blow the rest of you up - which is why I was following the strategy that so fatally failed me! :wink: I honestly don’t have the time to play a “forever” game, although I enjoyed helping get the ball rolling on this (to me) intriguing idea of a game run in the comment section of a blog. I’d rather see a lot of fast games than one that ran forever… more like Catan, less like D&D.

If the bounty mission hadn’t been co-operative, I would have taken it immediately. But as the most powerful ship, I assumed you’d all ride my coattails to victory, so I took a risky high-profit low-investment job (that suited my conceit of being a true friend to hot belter chix) instead.

(hot belter chick image credit Bruno Bellamy)

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Don’t be too hasty, you’re only ‘PRESUMED DEAD’.

You may have drifted through the core systems, but blind luck might lead to a deep space salvage crew finding you.

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I like the “more like cattan less like d&d” idea, I really like it.

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So are new captians and ships being accepted or is it locked for now?

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^

Great that Xeni alerted us with a post on the 27th, but entries for ships closed the 23rd? We recommend a late entry system.

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I moved a post to a new topic: How do I format posts here?

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Thanks for that.