[DitV - Firefly] Whirling with the Dervish

[Taltos]

The background: Some friends and I are inspired by the DitV mechanics, but one of our players is horribly turned off by the setting. He is a big Firefly fan. Perfect and fine - as GM I said "yes" :)

Anyway, this is how our first character was created (with the anti-Dogs setting player, incidently).

(For you non-Firefly folks out there, my apologies in advance.)

We talked for a bit about what he would want for a character - basically he wanted someone out on the Rim "against his will" and a bit of a fish out of water. We end up representing that by making him an Alliance supporter, and formerly in the military. From there he becomes a supply officer, not a real combatant, that everyone takes a shine, too. With a knack for business and the art of the deal. He ends up cashiered out of the service and to the Rim after a superior wants him to requisition something that isn't above board. He refuses... and now out in the Black with a bad record and his guilt for letting down the Alliance in the midst of former browncoats... at least one of those relationship dice held back are destined for that superior officer. ;)

Went with 'Strong History' and ended up with some traits related to his service time. Plenty of the standard/expected, but also some nice ones like:

"Can carry a tune-1d6",
"Grandpa was a Shepherd-1d8" (which developed by accident out of discussing his background and gave him a relationship to learning at Grandpa's knee),
"Remarkable lack of tolerance for alcohol-1d6",
and one that I think will be a lot of fun down the road "Everybody likes me-2d8"

Now, the accomplishment almost stumped us. I had intended to have it be about how he joined the ship (the Dervish)... but there is a foregone conclusion since I already know he joins, so it had me confused. Instead I opened it to the player - "what do you still want to finish your character, something from his past to challenge him and help round him out"?

He wanted the opportunity to try to save a fellow crewman's life during his service time.

cool

We talk a second and the next thing we know, he is on the surface of a world on leave during the war. He hears shouting and some gun fire and looks out the door of the bar he is in and sees Alliance MPs across the street preparing to fire on some brown coat raiders up the block. Then his really drunken friend (William) steps out from the bar across the street, practically in the midst of the fight and likely to get gunned down. We picked up dice and rolled (him terribly - a trend continued later when he chooses to escalate to physical).

These are the moments I remember clearly:
* He tried to get the attention of the MPs to usher his friend back to cover - the MP that started to turn and help went down in hail of fire.

* William stumbled of the stoop of the bar he was at and fully into the street. The player tried to get William's attention... and instead the drunken fool realized there was shooting and stands gaping at the brown coats.

* So he runs into the street and picked up the fallen MPs gun, and tried to use it to intimidate William back into the building. So William laughed and took the gun right out of his hands.

In the end he watched as bullets thudded through William's chest and killed him. He took the blow at some point in the process, and ended up with long term fallout and experience. The long term went to a 1d4 relationship with the Browncoats (which should be interesting in a few episodes) and the EXP went into increasing his Body - explained as working out more after failing to tackle his friend and save his life.

Now, the important part. Even though he failed in the accomplishment he was totally jazzed about the experience and loved his character. He wanted to start playing immediately, but we need the rest of the crew first. :)

More on the crew of the Dervish in a day or so, I hope.

[JMendes]

Hey, :)

This looks interesting.

Question: how are you as GM going to come up with a parallel for 'towns'? Are you gonna use the default cosmology?

Cheers,
J.

[Taltos]

Hey, :)

This looks interesting.

Question: how are you as GM going to come up with a parallel for 'towns'? Are you gonna use the default cosmology?

Cheers,
J.

Thanks.

I have spent some time thinking about the town parallel... and can't come up with a decision that I really like.
For now, I am starting with a structure that is really loose and probably not a 'good', but I am planning to find a rythm and build one after a couple of sessions (I hope that works).

To start, the main elements of each episode I have pre-built have elements of:

Job - what is the premise of why they are going were they are
Payment - what is it worth to them
transit - what happens, if anything, to draw them off target on the way
who you know - who or what one of the crew knows in or around the job to grab their attention
not according to plan - what is it about the job that goes wrong and forces a decision on them

[Taltos]

The next member of the crew ended up with complicated history and after a lot of discussion came from the streets. He had a criminal past and was in a street gang. Eventually he signed up to fight with the browncoats, but not as a believer in the cause. Instead, for him it was just as a way to get away from his life (I am thinking we may play a flashback or two for him on why he left).

He set his character up as a fighter - hard and strong in a tussle. And then ended up with the an interesting trait of "always wants to be in charge" - came out of discussing his characters driving need to continually climb and get off the bottom of the social pile. Particarly intersting because he is not the captain. or the first mate.

For his accomplishment he wanted to have earned his way as leader of his street gang as a youth - tying to his "in charge" trait. Quick conversation had this requiring him to steal the "symbol" of a rival gang. The attempt to sneak in failed and it ended up as a fight - where his abilities kicked my butt and he walked off with "I was leader of my street gang".

The last player in the crew was a kid from the core who ran away and enlisted in the rebellion - so an educated, core kid who is a believer in the cause - a real Browncoat. He was an officer in the war. He is the pilot of the group and can really fly, to the point of having nearly in traits related to his Body or Heart and we parleyed that through discussion at the table into "what's that on your face" and other ugly and socially challenging tidbits - which worked nicely as a group. The accomplishment was that he wanted to have made a key mission - that became delivering supplies to ground troops by air during battle. We had Raises and Sees for target lock, ECM, ECCM... missiles and evasive maneuvers and the troops got their supplies.



For these accomplishments, I think they ended up playing to the strengths of the characters, so there wasn't a lot of room to "grow" or challenge the character. This is something I am filing away for future reference.

The crew of the Dervish?
NPC captain and first mate are browncoat sympathizers who sat out the war.
Player who is an Alliance believer and fought in the war.
Player who was a browncoat purely as an opportunist
Player who was a browncoat and is a believer.

These dynamics alone are going to make for some fun internal conflicts. :)