The New Calderon Campaign

Having had some time away from gaming, the members of the Friday Night Gamers (who have met fairly regularly since 1998) have agreed to try to get the band back together.

We’re going to try something a little different to our past gaming style in an effort to get some play in the face of some pretty complex personal schedules.

In short, I’m going to try to run the game I can actually offer rather than the game that I would most desire. While it’s difficult to admit, most of my past failings arise from trying to do too much within a very limited set of parameters.

Running The Game You Can

The main reason for the collapse of the Friday Night Gamers a couple of months ago was due to a mismatch between the expectations of the Game Master (me) and the ability of the players to attend regularly. In short, I was trying to run an interesting mystery campaign which needed a stable player group. The reality of our group is that, for various reasons, it’s hard for most players to commit to attending every session.

The proposed solution is to run a game that anticipates low attendance and frequent changes of players actually at the table. Of the five potential regulars, it’s usual for there to be two or three at the table each session. Therefore I’m aiming to offer an “adventure of the week” episodic format.

Here’s the premise of the new game:

The adventurers are part of a starship crew travelling from world to world with the goal of re-establishing human contact after the Long Silence. You will explore forgotten worlds, plunder the ruins of some and make contact with the survivors of others. With a multi-skilled crew, crack Marine compliment, and full scientific equipment, your mission is to begin to stitch together a new alliance of worlds so that humanity can reclaim the stars.

Sandboxes & Starships

Given the need to run an episodic format and the desire to run a game that is very easy to prep, I wanted to be able to create a fairly interesting sandbox within which to operate. I find the open nature of the sandbox appeals to me creatively and gives the players something to explore over the length of the campaign.

That said, one of the major stumbling blocks with sandbox play in the past has been the inability of the player group to forge a series of self-directed goals with any consistency. This is in part due to the fractured attendance of individual players. Put another way, they seem to find it hard to set group goals and work together in a consistent fashion over time.

Instead of patiently watching the group flounder around, I’ve decided that the episodic nature of the game means that goals will need to be set ahead of each session. Each mission will be custom-built for the next session but the players will be expected to declare any objectives they wish to set in advance. This is reasonable given the nature of starship travel which requires forward planning.

As we’ll skip the dull bits to get to the adventures, if the players say they want to go to a given location or tackle a given problem then I can adapt to that request in time for a future session. If the players don’t set the agenda, that’s okay too as the organisation they work for will give them orders and stuff to do.

Stars Without Number

I’ve decided to use the Stars Without Number (Revised Edition) SF Roleplaying Game. Actually, I’m utilising the Expanded Version of the book which contains loads of extra content, but that’s beside the point.

My reason for using this game are that it offers me three things that are going to help keep me on track as GM:

1. The game is designed to play in the “Old School” tradition that I am more comfortable with. What I mean is that characters don’t have plot immunity, that combat is dangerous, and that the power level is more manageable.
2. The game is designed to encourage sandbox play and provides me with loads of useful tools to get the campaign up and running.
3. The game is easy to prep for and, being based on some older D&D roots, can easily import elements from other old school resources.

Crawford’s SF game is a nice blend of familiar D&D-esque tropes mixed with also familiar elements from Traveller. The system is simple to learn and seems robust. The game is also flexible and designed to be easily hacked if necessary. On top of all that, it comes complete with suggestions on all manner of SF and science-fantasy inclusions, from trans-humanism through to space magic.

One final important element is that Stars Without Number offers me a loose and open default setting. There’s enough background to give everything a nice feel and shape but the details are left for the GM. This allows me to focus time on creating my own corner of the setting without having to worry too much about the bigger picture.

Building a Sector

To begin, I have spent some time building a sector and mapping it out. Using the guidelines in the core rulebook, I’ve taken a standard 8 by 10 hex sector map and populated it. Having rolled up the layout of the star systems, I popped it into Hexographer and knocked up a simple map:

From there, I rolled up the basic details of all the systems, as per the material in Stars Without Number. This was fun to do and very easy, taking maybe an hour or so. Given the outcomes, I decided the adventurer’s home world would be Calderon. After some thought, I modified the premise of the campaign and developed a slightly more detailed background:

The Calderon Mandarinate was one of the first worlds to re-discover the technology that allows interstellar travel. Scouts and far traders from this and other worlds have begun to explore the sector. Although there is enough commercial traffic to justify starports and trade stations, free and easy transit between worlds has been lost for centuries and is only slowly returning. As a relatively stable society, the leaders of Calderon are positioning themselves to expand and kindle the hope for a new human empire. In the shadows of Calderon, unknown to all but the Mandarins themselves, is the still-operating Perimeter Agency which has survived since the days of the Scream.

Before the Silence, the Perimeter Agency was a Terran-sponsored organisation charged with rooting out use of maltech, technology banned in human space as too dangerous for use or experimentation. Most Perimeter Agencies collapsed during the Silence, but a few managed to hold on to their mission, though modern Perimeter agents often find more work as conventional spies. On Calderon, the Agency acts as the covert arm of the government and seeks to further the aims of the Mandarinate.

The adventurers are part of a Mandarinate starship crew travelling from world to world with the goal of re-establishing human contact after the Silence. Officially, the vessel is on an exploration and diplomatic mission with broad goals. While many of the crew are regular Mandarinate Navy officers there is also a small contingent of Agents on board.

You will explore forgotten worlds, plunder the ruins of some and contact the survivors of others. With a multi-skilled crew, crack Marine compliment, and full scientific equipment, your mission is to begin to stitch together a new alliance of worlds so that humanity can reclaim the stars.

What’s Next?

We’ve set a date to gather as many players as we can to create adventurers. In the meantime, I’m going to come up with a handful of initial adventure ideas that I can drop in to play.

I need to be ready for when the players don’t have a particular plan (very likely in the early sessions) but also remain flexible enough should something spark their interest. Once I know who the characters are, I can plan a specific first adventure.

Game on!