Dynasty Campaign

[locarno24]

Always liked the Secrets of the Ancients 6 adventure, and have been looking at the Dynasty supplement recently, thinking about running a Dynastic campaign - not using it as a backdrop for scenes, but literally as each player being a dynasty.

This has largely been triggered off by acquiring the collected works of stargate SG1 in a car boot sale for not many pounds, and thinking how awesome a lot of the early bad guys are. Essentially, the idea is running a campaign pre "Stargate-the-movie" where each of the players is a Goa'Uld System Lord (either a lesser independent System Lord, more likely, a major vassal of one of the 'Big Names' - meaning I as the GM have the big stick available if I really want them to do/not to do something). I'd assume that we'd use the Military Charter or Religious Faith archetypes for most of them.

This should, to my mind, work - but I'll need to do a bit of modification to the Dynasty rules; some of the aptitudes and values work perfectly (Posturing is a must for any megolmanaical immortal warlord - where would Ba'al be without it?) but others don't (Fiscal Defence seems a little odd as it's never made clear how much of an interstellar economy there is). Equally, some sort of opportunity for attempted personal assassinations should be there (so perhaps scenes might get used after all?). Certainly, the generational tradition changes don't really fit - it's always the same guy...

The rules for things like Wars will need a bit of modification for the tech base changes associated with the stargate universe. Fortunately, with Dynasty being very much focused on 'high level' campaigns, that doesn't mean I need stats for a Ha'Tak's fuel capacity - but I do need to know how many ships a 'holy crud' quantity of ships represents (i.e. how many ships you actually have if you've got fleet/5 - six, sixty, or six hundred?) . Equally, I suspect the presence of gates will change the 'space race' aggression quite drastically, whilst the economics goals seem largely inappropriate.

Any thoughts or advice is welcome.

 

[locarno24]

Have got a couple of players, and am going to be starting up the campaign sooner or later.

Having made them be a bit creative with characters (they can't have any in the series), they're going with Hadúr and Raiden.

The Dynasty "Character Generation" seems to work well, although admittedly I've only done one so far. Going with points-buy characters (I generally prefer that for 'specific character' campaigns as it's annoying not to get decent stats where you want them).

All of the skills and stats sort of translate - although 'management asset' is more 'leadership style' - the leader won't change, after all.

Still getting my head round the mechanics a bit. I get that characteristic+aptitude is the equivalent of characteristic+skill, so you do MIL+Tactical 8+ for a fleet assault where a soldier would do DEX+Gun Combat 8+ for an aimed shot. Not quite sure on the Fleet/Culture/etc stats, though. They mostly seem to serve as hit points to get attacked in wars, etc.

Best guess on fleet sizes, based on what I've seen of the show - two ships was a big investment for Apophis (who wasn't very powerful), and Anubis (who was) managed thirty, whilst the combined forces of the system lord council could supposedly throw a hundred or so. Therefore I'm setting thirty Ha'Tak (or equivalent fighting power) as 'biggest fleet going' (Fleet value at maximum) and dropping the numbers below that proportionally.


Probably won't use the decade events/threats/etc. I will use generation goals - representing personal 'evil plans' quite seperate to any individual mission goals.


Which is the main thing - I need to figure out the overall campaign/mission architecture.

Time-line wise, this is being set a few hundred years ago; Earth has yet to find the stargate and start screwing things up, the Asgard are able to actually enforce the Protected Planets Treaty (but don't want to have to), and Anubis, Hathor, Osiris and Seth are still MIA.

The players will represent minor system lord or potent underlord Goa'uld, answerable to the Council of System Lords - which, at this point (as I understand it) is principally Ra (as supreme system lord) with Cronus, Yu and Heru-Ur as chief henchmen and assorted other named lords as feuding minions.

The main thing I need to do is figure out mission ideas. "Opress the people of planet X" is an easy enough one, as is "eliminate rival goa'uld lord X for goa'uld lord Y". Something featuring the Tok'Ra might work, along with some sort of tech recovery. Other than that, anything requiring you to yell "Kree" a lot seems to work...

Any suggestions are welcome.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Well there is the key one that kept cropping up. Obtain weapons grade Naquata (however you spell the stuff). Gain and maintain control of worlds where it can be found, transport it to refineries, present most of the end product to your boss (of course you hold some back for yourself, you are Goa'Uld after all).

So you need to take new worlds, hold the ones you have, expand your armies and fleets to deal with loses taken when you are attacked by the thieving scum of the universe (other Goa'Uld :twisted: ) or when you have been raiding them.

Mines run dry so you need to find new ones. Increase your power base. One day your current boss will be on his knees begging for his pitiful life after your fleets and armies have crushed him :twisted:

Diplomacy, make and break alliances with the other minor lords for protection from the Big powers or to crush any upstart minor lords that are in your way. The Goa'Uld have expanding families and a need for new hosts. So its not so much that the next generation is being prepared to lead as you are getting the next batch of fresh young bodies ready to host you and your court.

Where do ships and bases come from. Do the lords have factories or is there a simple setup where by semi neutral manufacturing worlds run by very minor lords build everything and you just buy them with credit you have gained from weapons grade or raid loot or tribute or something else. Or does each lord need to maintain factories on his worlds and then gather the resources needed to build each ship.

Probably easier to have the very minor lords own and run the iron mines, farms and factories and through a system of trade or tithe you as a minor system lord simply buy what you need rather than bother. So you need to control sources of wealth in order to buy those shiny new ships and the staff weapons for all your new warriors, or intimidate the very minor lords that make those things to get a discount. Then protect everything form all the rival minor lords out there who are doing the same.

Still you have plenty of time before things go badly wrong over the decade that the Humans spend travelling through the star gate. The fall/rise/fall/rise/fall etc of the system lords and high council, the Jaffa rebellion, intergalactic invasion, war, walking once dead now half ascended system lords wiping out everyone else, war, the pirates getting powerful enough to field fleets and claim resource worlds for themselves, those annoying Asgard giving serious tech advantages to the Humans of the Tar’re. Plus the minor problems like the replicators.

You could spend two hundred years of game time to become a member of the council just in time for a bunch of uppity humans to wreck all that hard work :roll:

 

[locarno24]

Obtain weapons grade Naquata (however you spell the stuff).

Meh. If you can spell it, you can have it. But fair point.

Probably easier to have the very minor lords own and run the iron mines, farms and factories and through a system of trade or tithe you as a minor system lord simply buy what you need rather than bother.

It's never made entirely clear where the System Lord's stuff comes from - certainly the bulk of the population on a borderline iron age/hellenic age world like Chulak can't build deathgliders, and more importantly that's the sort of knowledge that doesn't get distributed to the minions because it gets in the way of the whole "goa'uld sorcery" illusion. Supposedly the knowledge of advanced technology is a hereditary memory of the goa'uld, but I can't see Apophis standing there with an arc welder...

We figured that a Megalopolis power base implies a world with a sufficiently enlightened population (including sufficient lesser goa'uld and jaffa 'priests') to actually build Naquadah-tech items rather than just use them, whilst frontier worlds are "Goa'uld palace towering over planet of primitives" (like Apophis's palace). The only one which doesn't really work is 'urban offices'.

You could spend two hundred years of game time to become a member of the council just in time for a bunch of uppity humans to wreck all that hard work

It's more the replicators, as I remember. Not that "death-by-lego-bricks" isn't equally embarrasing.

The reason I was setting it a few hundred years back is to avoid bits where the players know the details of what's going to happen - they know the names, they know the places, but other things are a bit vague, and I have room to drop some nasty surprises on them.