Pirates of Drinax - GMs thread

[J. L. Brown]

I'm not happy with 'System Attitude' and 'Standing' and 'Pirate Response Index' and 'Reputation' and 'Infamy' and 'Faction / Asset value' and all the rest all being separate things -- I feel like there ought to be a single tool to track attitudes towards 'Drinaxi Unification / Establishing the New Kingdom' and other people, groups, and agendas. Instead there is a hodge-podge, and if a referee wants to keep another half-dozen balls in the air then they can add as many of these different, contradictory systems as they want.

I like the granularity of 'Standing', but the way it is actually described (especially the implied instantaneous omniscience of the Imperial Powers) seems poorly executed.

My inclination is to start with 'spider' plots, or something similar. Each individual, or group, or system, or Aslan Clan, or great imperial power has a spider plot reflecting how it feels about certain issues or entities -- or maybe two, one for 'attitude towards others' and another for 'attitude of others toward'. The players are trying to undercut other powers while increasing the opinion/influence of The New Kingdom. It would be a nice bonus if the new system also incorporated or aligned with the three-digit 'political stance of potential members systems' from 'Finale'.

[Edit:] Maybe each system or entity has a unique basic spider plot of 'things that matter to me' -- security, trade, technological progress, population or economic growth, 'respects our traditions', etc. Every other entity that it is aware of / cares about fills out a copy of this spider plot -- or charts their own data on the same spider plot as others but in a unique color. As a general rule, the area of the filled in portion of the spider plot is a 'strength of positive sentiment towards' -- so NaHu systems have a plot where the Imperium has a smaller area filled in, whereas a CsIm system has the Imperium filling in a somewhat larger (representing a stronger positive feeling or relationship) area.

Part of diplomacy is figuring out what each system has as axes on their unique spider plot; and potentially shaping the regime to add to, delete, or redefine those axes.

[Edit of the Edit:] Perhaps the axes should not be expressed as an absolute value, but as 'percentage of agreement on topic X'. Two different regimes which strongly value 'destroy all post-1600 AD technology and live in harmony with nature' might have a negative attitude about technology, but since they both have a high degree of agreement, their 'technology' axis towards each other is quite positive. [/Edit of the Edit]

[/Edit]

 

[Hootenheimer]

A question for @Hootenheimer and any other GMs who are running Drinax for a "we're not really into this whole piracy thing" group: did you still use the Standing and port status systems as printed, or did you rewrite them to fit? (Or just drop them entirely?)

My approach is almost if not identical to what @Endie did, down to having a GM Prep Spreadsheet of Doom™ that tracks the System Attitude in each system, which represents how a planetary government or a people feel about Drinax generally rather than their attitudes toward piracy. I mostly kept the initial values the way they were, though I might have made an adjustment or two if a system felt entirely out of line with that new goal.

Reputation, Infamy, Faction and Asset values, and Pirate Response Index I haven't tracked numerically. I have loosely tracked them narratively with written notes about the capability of factions and the relationships the party has with those NPCs and factions. I do have a sheet in my Excel workbook for Pirate Response Index but because my players aren't doing much piracy it hasn't gotten much use.

 

[Endie]

Here are a few more update posts from recent weeks as I (gradually) catch up to where the campaign currently stands:

• https://drinax.net/borderland-run-4/ - this continues the Borderland Run series of adventures, as the crew of the So Much For Subtlety and their reluctant, Aslan passenger attempt to mislead their pursuers by meandering around the Wildeman and Voidsedge Clusters. They had solved the mystery of Captain Envai's Cavern (finding an abandoned Sindalian base that had later been used then stripped by pirates). Next, they travel back towards Tyokh via Cordan, where a representative of Baroness Lux approaches them about a political conflict she would like their help in at some point. They're on the clock, so they say "maybe later" and move onto Exe where they spend a lot of time in a bar talking to other spacers (this was an RP-heavy session). Next it is Falcon, where they provide assistance to another ship pirated by the "mercenary enforcement" ship the Bayern.
• Versions of the same events from Krrsh (their somewhat whole-hearted Vargr crewman) - https://drinax.net/borderland-run-4-krrshs-version/ - and by Sharyl, the Aslan marine who has been a handy way to demonstrate Aslan culture to them - https://drinax.net/borderland-run-4-sharyls-version/ The players still seem to love both the NPC versions and the NPCs themselves. Also, the latest INS news stories to reach them: https://drinax.net/borderland-run-4-ins-news/
• I also posted the stats for the ships that the crew have so-far gathered - https://drinax.net/fly-the-broad-pennant/ - this includes one ship they gained later, so spoiler alerts on that one...
• In https://drinax.net/borderland-run-5/ the party meet the enemy of Dr Parsifal: the fellow-scientist who had copied the work of Dr Parsifal at university then betrayed him. This tied in so well to Dr Nazif from JTAS that I simply had to use him. I roleplayed him as condescending to Dr Parsifal, and it worked a treat: the player now loathes Dr Nazif and has been plotting non-stop to gain his revenge ever since, with increasingly outlandish plans involving imaginary stolen shiploads of clones. The party then met the crew of the Seskehalen and worked out, rather too late, that one of the crew - Zira Loft - was psionic: what did she know of their secret, Aslan cargo? The So Much For Subtlety's crew was also hired to deal with a pirate gang which had stolen a small cargo of Lanthanum ore and which was now hiding on Ergo, so there was a change of plans... At Ergo, the Travellers are subjected to a lengthy powerpoint slideshow from the ruling barons. Again, I've included the latest INS stories to reach the SMFS: https://drinax.net/borderland-run-5-ins-stories/
• https://drinax.net/borderland-run-6-policing-ergo/ The next session was a classic raid scenario on Ergo where the party hit the headquarters of the Black Arrow gang.
• Finally, I created an audible podcast version of events thus far for the players. They loved this, as it really showed the scope of what they had done in the campaign thus far. They also appreciated that it made them sound far more capable and blessed with more foresight than might perhaps be considered to be the case: https://drinax.net/borderland-run-6-the-podcast/

 

[Uqbarian]

Another random question: an Aslan heavy bomber shows up at the Battle of Drinax. Stats aren't needed for the adventure because of the abstract naval combat, but just out of interest, are there stats for this type of ship in any of the Aslan books?

 

[mavikfelna]

Another random question: an Aslan heavy bomber shows up at the Battle of Drinax. Stats aren't needed for the adventure because of the abstract naval combat, but just out of interest, are there stats for this type of ship in any of the Aslan books?

I swear I've seen an Aslan bombardment ship recently in something but I can't find it at the moment.

 

[J. L. Brown]

Another random question: an Aslan heavy bomber shows up at the Battle of Drinax. Stats aren't needed for the adventure because of the abstract naval combat, but just out of interest, are there stats for this type of ship in any of the Aslan books?

There is nothing like an Aslan 'Heavy Bombardment ship' (that I can find) in 'Core', 'Companion', 'High Guard', 'High Guard: Aslan', 'Aliens of Charted Space #1', 'Ships of the Trojan Reach', 'Deep and the Dark', 'Spinward Extents', or the 'JTAS' up through volume 18.

Maybe I have missed it.

 

[Uqbarian]

There is nothing like an Aslan 'Heavy Bombardment ship' (that I can find) in 'Core', 'Companion', 'High Guard', 'High Guard: Aslan', 'Aliens of Charted Space #1', 'Ships of the Trojan Reach', 'Deep and the Dark', 'Spinward Extents', or the 'JTAS' up through volume 18.

Maybe I have missed it.

Thanks, that sounds pretty thorough!

I picked up Clans of the Aslan as an early Christmas present to myself, and it's not in there either.

I might just cobble one together based on a Sakhai-class (EDIT: Ships of the Reach, pp. 92–5), swapping out the bays for orbital strike equivalents.