Misjump

[Tom Kalbfus]

The idea of a miss-jump being the way to introduce the characters to a setting that is not 3i is not a bad idea at all.

I did this once - effectively sent the players to Athas (actually a non-charted system that was still close to the 3I, so they had a chance to make it back to civilisation...

That is kind of what the Volturnius modules were about in the old Star Frontiers set, players get stranded on some Primitive Planet, and they stop an evil Sathar plot while trying to get off! Actually that planet was the most Earthlike one in the whole setting, it had multiple sentient races, and even a race of machines, well worth colonizing.

 

[DanDare2050]

Using misjumps to introduce a new setting can be fun, but if you tie that to the regular missjump mechanics you may find yourself changing whole settings a lot.

My thinking more boils down to this:

Melissa, pilot: Those two cruisers are blocking the 100 radius boundary. I'm going to jump from here.
Frank, gunnery: What about missjump?
Mellissa: If I roll 3 or 4 that's bad. A 2 would be really bad but hey that's only 1 in 36 right?
Crew: Ok
Melissa presses the big red shiny button and rolls a 2.

As a GM which outcome do you now want to have as a misjump resolution?

Outcome A
You feel the hyperspace stress go off scale. A singularity forms in the jump control line and in pico seconds the ship and crew are sphagettified. Let's get out some blank character sheets.

Outcome B
You feel the hyperspace stress go off scale. A singularity forms in the jump control line and the ship is hurled 60 million kilometres away in the blink of an eye. The jump drives are consumed by the singularity and will need to be replaced if the ship isn't just scrapped for salvage. The ship's hull is down to 1 point of integrity and the navigation computer and manoeuvre controls each need major repairs before they will be operative again. Each of you takes 2d6-1 damage from the hyperspace stress over flash. Ok, who is still alive, and who needs medical attention?

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Using misjumps to introduce a new setting can be fun, but if you tie that to the regular missjump mechanics you may find yourself changing whole settings a lot.

My thinking more boils down to this:

Melissa, pilot: Those two cruisers are blocking the 100 radius boundary. I'm going to jump from here.
Frank, gunnery: What about missjump?
Mellissa: If I roll 3 or 4 that's bad. A 2 would be really bad but hey that's only 1 in 36 right?
Crew: Ok
Melissa presses the big red shiny button and rolls a 2.

As a GM which outcome do you now want to have as a misjump resolution?

Outcome A
You feel the hyperspace stress go off scale. A singularity forms in the jump control line and in pico seconds the ship and crew are sphagettified. Let's get out some blank character sheets.

Outcome B
You feel the hyperspace stress go off scale. A singularity forms in the jump control line and the ship is hurled 60 million kilometres away in the blink of an eye. The jump drives are consumed by the singularity and will need to be replaced if the ship isn't just scrapped for salvage. The ship's hull is down to 1 point of integrity and the navigation computer and manoeuvre controls each need major repairs before they will be operative again. Each of you takes 2d6-1 damage from the hyperspace stress over flash. Ok, who is still alive, and who needs medical attention?

Outcome A is boring, Outcome B is boring. As far as A is concerned, the ship is simply never seen again, no one really knows what happened to it. If B happens then the starship is a wreck, the PCs are down one starship.
Outcome A simply boils down to the ship disappears and is never seen again by the outside world, that the ship is spagettified is only one possibility, and that is only if you want to role up new character sheets.
Outcome A:
1. The ship is destroyed in Jump Space and is never seen again.
2. The Ship appears in interstellar space, the jump fuel is used up in the jump, so the ship can't jump again until it refuels, but it can limp to the nearest star system going sublight, the crew get into their low berths so they can last the journey.
3. The ship goes back in time, it ends up in the middle of interstellar space as in 2, as it limps to the nearest star system, they find that they went back in time. After several jumps, they make it back to Terra, it is the 17th century AD. (Or whatever era you prefer) What do the PCs do with their starship then?

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Here's another situation. Lets say the PCs have just arrived at a planet, and all of the sudden another starship arrives out of Jump space, it looks just like the PC's starship except I looks battered, as if it just been in a fight. The other ship radios the PCs ship, and a duplicate of the PC captain warns the PC's of a pirate ambush, identifies the assailant, and the two ships engage the pirate ship in a fire fight.

 

[DanDare2050]

Using misjumps to introduce a new setting can be fun, but if you tie that to the regular missjump mechanics you may find yourself changing whole settings a lot.

My thinking more boils down to this:

Melissa, pilot: Those two cruisers are blocking the 100 radius boundary. I'm going to jump from here.
Frank, gunnery: What about missjump?
Mellissa: If I roll 3 or 4 that's bad. A 2 would be really bad but hey that's only 1 in 36 right?
Crew: Ok
Melissa presses the big red shiny button and rolls a 2.

As a GM which outcome do you now want to have as a misjump resolution?

Outcome A
You feel the hyperspace stress go off scale. A singularity forms in the jump control line and in pico seconds the ship and crew are sphagettified. Let's get out some blank character sheets.

Outcome B
You feel the hyperspace stress go off scale. A singularity forms in the jump control line and the ship is hurled 60 million kilometres away in the blink of an eye. The jump drives are consumed by the singularity and will need to be replaced if the ship isn't just scrapped for salvage. The ship's hull is down to 1 point of integrity and the navigation computer and manoeuvre controls each need major repairs before they will be operative again. Each of you takes 2d6-1 damage from the hyperspace stress over flash. Ok, who is still alive, and who needs medical attention?

Outcome A is boring, Outcome B is boring. As far as A is concerned, the ship is simply never seen again, no one really knows what happened to it. If B happens then the starship is a wreck, the PCs are down one starship.
Outcome A simply boils down to the ship disappears and is never seen again by the outside world, that the ship is spagettified is only one possibility, and that is only if you want to role up new character sheets.
Outcome A:
1. The ship is destroyed in Jump Space and is never seen again.
2. The Ship appears in interstellar space, the jump fuel is used up in the jump, so the ship can't jump again until it refuels, but it can limp to the nearest star system going sublight, the crew get into their low berths so they can last the journey.
3. The ship goes back in time, it ends up in the middle of interstellar space as in 2, as it limps to the nearest star system, they find that they went back in time. After several jumps, they make it back to Terra, it is the 17th century AD. (Or whatever era you prefer) What do the PCs do with their starship then?

So let me get this straight. I suggest 3 things:

OutcomeA : ship and crew are out of game as per rule book. An outcome this whole thread is an argument against.
OutcomeB : ship and crew are severely damaged and have to deal with the situation, but it's recoverable in meaningful play time and offers player agency.
Outcome C: time travel / different universe. I suggest at the start of my post that this would be rough on the GM if its built in to the mechanics, because you may have to change campaign settings due to dice rolls in the game at any time during play.

Your Reply is that my A and B is boring and what should happen is:

OutcomeA : ship and crew are out of game as per rule book.
OutcomeB : ship and crew are severely damaged and have to deal with situation, with recovery being far outside the players interest or available time and with no option for player agency. That makes it a drawn out version of A.
Outcome C: time travel / different universe.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

What about a short misjump back in time. Lets say they jump into a star system, and are met with a battered starship that looks just like theirs, has the same navigational beacon and ID, a person contacts them on radio, the PCs see themselves speaking to them on the view screen, they say they are from the future and they have come to warn them about the impending pirate attack which forced them to misjump and go back in time to this point, they want to convince the PCs to attack the alleged pirate ship that they say will attack them in the future. The question is, are these people really the PCs future selves, what if its a ruse just to get them to attack another starship for some other reason? The PCs have t decide whether to trust these other guys, it seems a rather elaborate hoax if the whole thing was faked, the hardest part would be to create the duplicate starship, the images on the view screen could be fakes a lot more easily than to make actual duplicates of the characters, either clones or androids. But what if they were telling the truth? Suppose the PCs actually did duplicate themselves by going back in time and doubling their timeline?

 

[-Daniel-]

What about a short misjump back in time. Lets say they jump into a star system .... [SNIP] .... by going back in time and doubling their timeline?

So while I enjoy a good mind puzzle once in a while, I would imagine this is one of those ideas better handled in a TV show or movie. If a GM were to try this, I would expect it would take some real story telling skills to handle it right while not tipping their hand too far either way.