What are you doing with your game?

Ghost2020

Mongoose
I might be running some B5 in the future, but after Fiery Trial, where should I go from there?

For some reason, I'm at some sort of adventure block, I can't seem to get an idea going that I like. It ends up being a rip off some B5 episode or modeled after some other game (Star Wars) and the feel doesn't quite fit.

Help me out...

What are you doing with your game? What's happening?
 
Join the Yahoo group b5_rpg and lurk to see what's going on in my PBEM game.

I have a number of story arcs which are based on the events in the series but I am letting my players explore the universe with their PCs and many are going in diverse direction.

Sidney
 
The Fiery Trial takes you through a year of campaign time. Assuming you run some additional adventures in the gapos between, it should take you a long time to get through, giving you some time to figure out where things are going.

My own opinion is that you can't really make any long term plans until you know something about the characters themselves. Once you know who they are, you can look at the upcoming galactic events and begin to get an idea of what role they might choose.

Take your groups as individuals. Find out what their goals are. Do they have shared goals? Contradictory ones?

Make some long range decisions about where you'd like to see those characters go in your campaign. Will they find what they are after? Will they fail? Will they learn that they are wrong (G'Kar), or be led astray by those who would use their own desires to mislead them (like happened to Londo).

Plan some mini story arcs in the first year around the individual characters that wil carry them in that direction. As the campaign continues you can start to get a feel for where things have to go in the second year to continue your arcs.

Again, depending on what sort of characters you have, you will also want to decide what role they will play in the greater story of B5. Do they have few interests in the goings on of the series? Then maybe they need a different path that takes them to other places. Are they hard line officers? Maybe they will be recruited into Nightwatch. You can use the scenarios you run to give them a bad impression of the command staff. Have Ivanova or Garibaldi come down hard on them everytime they break the rules, dock pay, suspension, etc. By the time Nightwatch comes recruiting, they'll be ready to throw Sheridan under the bus. Once B5 breaks away, they'll have to decide if Earth is out of control and switch sides, stay and fight Sheridan, or return to Earth and take up the fight against the alien influences.

Centauri could get involved in the war or tangle in the politics back home.

Keep in mind that not all your PCs will make the same choices. It could be very exciting if one character is loyal to Sheridan because of past service aboard the Lexington and good friends with him, while another joins the Nightwatch. No non-humans will join Nightwatch obviously, and will in fact become the enemy once things start getting c\razy.

I guess the only specific advice is to find out about the PCs before making too many plans. You already have the module to get them started and a couple sessions of play. Then you caqn start planning side arcs based on who the characters are, their hopes, dreams, and flaws.
 
Thanks Potts that's all good advice, which is always nice to have, but it's stuff I already use for my gaming in general. : )

I was looking more for a description of what other people are doing for their campaigns. I want to hear war stories from people's B5 campaigns.
What races are being played, what's happening, missions, adventures, etc.
 
Tonight, only two players showed up. The beautiful Centauri dancer Nadira who works at the Dark Star and the human Ranger Michael Smith.

Last week the female Minbari Ranger, stopped a Minbari warrior from beating up a castless Minbari in Downbelow. Unfortunately, she killed him in the ensuing fight. We had a trial and she was found guilty of manslaughter (or should that be Minbarislaughter?) She was sentenced to 10 years of hard labor working on the B5 waste reclamation system.

In any event, our two players, started a restaurant with a human female they had brought back to B5 from last week’s session. It turned out that the human female was a fantastic cook and could prepare spoo in a variety of ways all of which were very tasty. They decided on an Arabian Nights theme for the restaurant and had its grand opening on 1 July 2260.

While the restaurant was being set up our human Ranger was called back to Minbari space where he was trained to command a White Star. (It’s good to be at each gaming session.)

Nadira was asked by Vir to help with his problem of his wife and how he should relate to her. Seems as though he wasn’t satisfied with Ivonava’s advice.

Sidney
 
Okay, in that case, the plot I'm working on is going to spend a lot of time in Dilgar space, dealing with those Dilgar who escaped the final destruction of their world and have remained hidden.

I'm still going through the published material, so I may have to make some changes, but what I am working with now is the idea that Freedom Station is not really run by an alliance of raiders, but that a Dilgar group is pulling the strings from behind the scenes. Hidden in the system is a Dilgar task force which escaped distruction. They use the Freedom station as a cover to bring in supplies for the fleet while they plot to take their revenge.

It is very likely that they will seek to ally themselves with the Shadows, and will be working mostly behind the scenes. Having only a dozen or so heavy ships, they lack the might and resources to do much more than commerce raiding at the present time. The Shadow War will open a window of opportunity for them to make a grab for power and resources during the confusion of the larger conflict.

The Shadows have, through intermediaries, offered them a new homeworld in exchange for favors to be specified later. The Shadows envision them becoming a new servant race, like the Drahk.

The Dilgar will be acting throughout the first two years without revealing themselves. The players will come to suspect their hand some months after the death of Deathwalker. Dilgar ships will begin striking at soft targets in support of the Shadows about the same time as the Shadows begin to move openly. They will not move openly themselves during the war due to their limited resources, but the players will probably know what is going on towards the end of year 3.

I'm thinking of a scene towards the end of the year where the players are in League Space investigating Shadow attacks, but the facts don't add up. The weapons are wrong, the tactics are wrong. They receive word about Sheridan's fall at Za'ha'dum and the pause in the fighting, maybe relieved at thinking the war is over, but just then the attack they have been looking for happens in front of their eyes, carried out by a Dilgar battlegroup, augmented with Shadow technology (sort of like Clark's Advanced Destroyers).

Year 4 might be spent trying to find the Dilgar base of operations and proof to present to the League and B5 of what's going on. In the meantime, Dilgar agents will be after the party if they let slip that they know anything.

After the Shadows depart, the Dilgar will be in sort of the same situation as the Drahk, and will need to fade into the background, coming back during the ISA/Centauri War in Year 5. The players are likely to come into direct conflict with the Drahk as the two races with undoubtedly be cooperating against their shared enemies.
 
Ok, that sounds friggin' cool!
Man, let us hear the updates on this campaign as the PCs work through it.

That'd be great to have a pre-minbari war book. Something that details the Dilgar and stuff like that.
 
In my PBEM game I introdused "QUIK-HEAR"

A medtech was taking care of Sean. "What did he hit you with, commander?! I'd have thought he used an I-beam. You're lucky he didn't hit anything vital like your windpipe. Nothing to worry about. The bandages will help a little, while the 'quik-heal' accelerates the ribs repair. Your records don't show any reactions so I'd expect that you'd be 100% in a day or two."

NOTE: "QUIK-HEAL" trademark by Edgar's Industries Bio-Medical Division. "When Serious First Aid is required, you can trust 'QUIK-Heal'." Side effect include drossiness and nausea. To be administered by qualified medical personnel only. Not for oral use. Should 'Quik-Heal' be swallowed, do not induce vomiting. Drink plenty of water and call your nearest Poison Control office.

Sidnet
 
PottsBr said:
I'm still going through the published material, so I may have to make some changes, but what I am working with now is the idea that Freedom Station is not really run by an alliance of raiders, but that a Dilgar group is pulling the strings from behind the scenes. Hidden in the system is a Dilgar task force which escaped distruction. They use the Freedom station as a cover to bring in supplies for the fleet while they plot to take their revenge.
Amazing idea! 8) That solves the problem of the PCs living in the shadow (no pun intended) of the serie's main characters as their base of operation is not B5. It also gives them a unique adversary (Dilgar) so their contribution to the war effort is remarkable, i.e. without the heroes tackling those Dilgars, they could tip the balance for the Shadows, being their hidden wild card.

Another point : Don't forget that Agent One is working on the continuation of "The Fiery Trial", so in a few months, you might have another campaign book to give you ideas...
 
El Cid said:
NOTE: "QUIK-HEAL" trademark by Edgar's Industries Bio-Medical Division. "When Serious First Aid is required, you can trust 'QUIK-Heal'." Side effect include drossiness and nausea.
I will certainly use something similar to keep downtime to a minimum. It works just like bancta fluid pools in Star Wars. A few hours dipping and voila! The character is just like new again... That's not out of setting since we're talking about sci-fi, after all.
 
PottsBr said:
Okay, in that case, the plot I'm working on is going to spend a lot of time in Dilgar space, dealing with those Dilgar who escaped the final destruction of their world and have remained hidden...
-Snip-
Interesting Idea. I have been working on a different kind of BG involving Dilgar for my campaign... but in my fluff they're quite a bit further away, as I imagines the league would have made very, Very, VERY careful searches of old Dilgar space for dilgar - any dilgar - to blast into plasma... (remember how hot the blood was in B5 time, almost 30 years later - now imagine how hot it must have been back then, and you can guess that they went through every cubic klick of space the Dilgar had been passing through with a fine-toothed comb to make sure none of the "demons" as some of the races involved called them could survive. For some races, like the Markab, it was a religous thing - they had declared a Jihad-like crusade to kill all Dilgar. Other races were just pissed - like the Drazi. And even the most pacifistic of them, like the Abbai, were out for blood).

So I sent the Dilgar I made to a place where I theorized none of the allied forces would even think of looking for them. And there I let them build up a small empire in my BG - to be discovered some day by my player characters. Of course, they will find clues before the great discovers - a few league ships that go missing, the wrecks of some are found later, blasted apart by weapons unknown to any race (well, actually one or two might have the info linking the residual energy signature to experimental dilgar designs tucked away in an forgotten file somewhere - Hmmm, Neutron Bolters...), reports of strange sensor readings, rumors of "dilgar ghost ships"... that sort of thing. And in the end we'll see how things go - will the neo-Dilgar be attacked by the IA, or will they establish diplomatic relations, and how will all the member races react - who will want to go to war with the descendents of the Dilgar that invaded their space, and who will refuse to consider punishing them for the crimes of their fathers... that sort of thing. And of course there are other considerations - even tho the Shadows themselves are gone, others are not, and the Drakh weren't the only allies they had. There is another ShadowMinion race of my devising lurking behind the scenes of my campaign, a race that is both powerful in some ways but weak in others, and looking for possible allies... and if my PC's ever find out how deep the Daar'gon have plunged their arms/tentacles/pseudopods (that's a hint BtW :wink: :D ) into things they'll be astonished...

...but since they're capable of reading forums too I'll not give away too much. But they'll be in for interesting times...
 
as I imagines the league would have made very, Very, VERY careful searches of old Dilgar space for dilgar - any dilgar - to blast into plasma... (remember how hot the blood was in B5 time, almost 30 years later - now imagine how hot it must have been back then, and you can guess that they went through every cubic klick of space the Dilgar had been passing through with a fine-toothed comb to make sure none of the "demons" as some of the races involved called them could survive.

My own thoughts on this is that they escaped into hyperspace and then hid in the vast spaces between inhabited systems. Space is VERY big. Within just 50 light years of Earth are over 800 star systems. The map has about 200. The map is not to scale, and no real distance is given, but it looks like we probably have a fare number of star systems in the immediate region that are not colonized by any race.

They would have probably set up a base in an unremarkable and otherwise unihabited system. Built a jumpgate or at least set up a beacon for their ships to use. They might be using a large warship to open jumppoints for smaller ships to avoid having a big jumpgate that might be found.

We know that both the Narn and Centauri colluded with the Dilgar. They might be dealing with them in secret, or League races not involved in the war, for supplies. They might even have dealings with the Minbari.

On related note, The only distance that we really have a good number for is B5 to Narm, 12 ly. We know this is a solid number because it was so important in the plot of an episode. Most other distances given were really throw away numbers that could have been guesses, exagerations (75 ly to Centauri Prime for instance), etc, but B5 to Narn had to be very accurate because it was a key to one of the subplots. I think we also have a pretty solid number from B5 to the Brakiri homeworld of 27 ly. Given these numbers, anbd discarding all the others, it looks like the field of play given by the game map (which obviously isn't to scale) is about 60-70 ly across. That should contain close to 300 stars, leaving 100 or so unaccounted for on the map.

Another interesting fact is that we often think about the arms of the galaxies and the voids between them, but this thinking is in error. Earth is in one of those voids! The closest arm is hundreds or thousands of light years away. Those parts of the galaxy would be even denser with stars and civilizations, and from what little information we have about the locationns of B5 and the other races, ALL of them are in that gap between the galactic arms. The "Rim" assuming that it refers to unexplored space, probably doesn't reach the nearest arm of our galaxy.

Makes me wonder what is beyond. Could some galactic empire exist nearby? Were the Vorlons and Shadows really all that powerful, or just by comparison to the other races in this part of the galaxy? Often B5 made it seem like those events were shaking the entire galaxy, but when the most distant number thrown out with any seriousness was 75 ly, and the galaxy is 100,000 ly across, that is sort of like having a major war on Guam (entirely contained to Guam and involving no people not living on Guam) and claiming the whole world was changed.

We have seen probes and ships from beyond the local area of space, "A Day in the Strife," "A View From the Gallery." These came from extremely advanced and unknown alien races somewhere beyond the main story area and probably completely uninvolved in the Shadow War or anything else that was going on in our little corner of space.

This leaves a lot of room for anyone who wants to take their players on a five year mission where no man has gone before on an EA Explorer Ship. No telling what they might find.
 
My own thoughts on this is that they escaped into hyperspace and then hid in the vast spaces between inhabited systems. Space is VERY big. Within just 50 light years of Earth are over 800 star systems. The map has about 200. The map is not to scale, and no real distance is given, but it looks like we probably have a fare number of star systems in the immediate region that are not colonized by any race.
I'd say that's a given. :wink:

They would have probably set up a base in an unremarkable and otherwise unihabited system. Built a jumpgate or at least set up a beacon for their ships to use. They might be using a large warship to open jumppoints for smaller ships to avoid having a big jumpgate that might be found.
That would be no problem... however, the real problem is that the league forces will have searched every single such system in and near Dilgar space. That is what I found problematic in my work, and so I let a group of Dilgar leave after the battle of Balos (that was when they realized they would loose the war), and travel "battlestar-galactica like" through the stars in search for a new home where their enemies wouldn't find them - at least not before they had rebuilt their strength.

We know that both the Narn and Centauri colluded with the Dilgar. They might be dealing with them in secret, or League races not involved in the war, for supplies. They might even have dealings with the Minbari.
Well, considering where Jha'Dur ended up, I'd say at least one of them had :D

On related note, The only distance that we really have a good number for is B5 to Narm, 12 ly. We know this is a solid number because it was so important in the plot of an episode. Most other distances given were really throw away numbers that could have been guesses, exagerations (75 ly to Centauri Prime for instance), etc, but B5 to Narn had to be very accurate because it was a key to one of the subplots. I think we also have a pretty solid number from B5 to the Brakiri homeworld of 27 ly. Given these numbers, anbd discarding all the others, it looks like the field of play given by the game map (which obviously isn't to scale) is about 60-70 ly across. That should contain close to 300 stars, leaving 100 or so unaccounted for on the map.
A bit further actually - if you check the star names on the map, you'll find a few that are much further then 100 ly (Antares...). Hyperspace just isn't corresponding to realspace in any reliable ratio I guess...

Another interesting fact is that we often think about the arms of the galaxies and the voids between them, but this thinking is in error. Earth is in one of those voids! The closest arm is hundreds or thousands of light years away. Those parts of the galaxy would be even denser with stars and civilizations, and from what little information we have about the locationns of B5 and the other races, ALL of them are in that gap between the galactic arms. The "Rim" assuming that it refers to unexplored space, probably doesn't reach the nearest arm of our galaxy.
In one of the voids? I always thought earth was on the edge of one of the arms...

Makes me wonder what is beyond. Could some galactic empire exist nearby? Were the Vorlons and Shadows really all that powerful, or just by comparison to the other races in this part of the galaxy? Often B5 made it seem like those events were shaking the entire galaxy, but when the most distant number thrown out with any seriousness was 75 ly, and the galaxy is 100,000 ly across, that is sort of like having a major war on Guam (entirely contained to Guam and involving no people not living on Guam) and claiming the whole world was changed.
Well, considering the age and influence of the Vorlons and Shadows I'd feel confident that they were all over the galaxy - however, it's true that the events of B5 covered only a rather small section of it.

We have seen probes and ships from beyond the local area of space, "A Day in the Strife," "A View From the Gallery." These came from extremely advanced and unknown alien races somewhere beyond the main story area and probably completely uninvolved in the Shadow War or anything else that was going on in our little corner of space.
Well, they weren't that advanced... but advanced enough from the younger races PoV. Mid-born would be my guess about the "berzerker probe", while the "Crimson Helmet Horde" didn't seem much more advanced then any of the older younger races. They certainly didn't do more damage then the EA attack on B5 in "Severed Dreams"... so I wouldn't rate them on par with the Minbari for example.

This leaves a lot of room for anyone who wants to take their players on a five year mission where no man has gone before on an EA Explorer Ship. No telling what they might find.
True. And such exploration will be very much done, especially once the events in 2267 come to pass :wink:
 
ShadowScout said:
They would have probably set up a base in an unremarkable and otherwise unihabited system. Built a jumpgate or at least set up a beacon for their ships to use. They might be using a large warship to open jumppoints for smaller ships to avoid having a big jumpgate that might be found.
That would be no problem... however, the real problem is that the league forces will have searched every single such system in and near Dilgar space. That is what I found problematic in my work, and so I let a group of Dilgar leave after the battle of Balos (that was when they realized they would loose the war), and travel "battlestar-galactica like" through the stars in search for a new home where their enemies wouldn't find them - at least not before they had rebuilt their strength.

It's possible that they could have retreated to a system and turned off the jump gate and its beacon.

POOF!!

All gone.

Sidney
 
El Cid said:
It's possible that they could have retreated to a system and turned off the jump gate and its beacon.

POOF!!

All gone.

Except that would be very, very suspicious. Suddenly a system drops off the beacon network. It's not as if they don't know where to look for it.
 
ShadowScout said:
In one of the voids? I always thought earth was on the edge of one of the arms...

As any good H2G2 fan knows, the Earth "is an utterly insignificant blue green planet" which lies "Far out in th uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy"

:lol:

LBH
 
Anonymous said:
ShadowScout said:
In one of the voids? I always thought earth was on the edge of one of the arms...

As any good H2G2 fan knows, the Earth "is an utterly insignificant blue green planet" which lies "Far out in th uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy"

:lol:

LBH
Sorry, that last one was me. I forgot to log in before browsing the boards!

:oops:

LBH
 
El Cid said:
It's possible that they could have retreated to a system and turned off the jump gate and its beacon.
POOF!!
All gone.
frobisher said:
Except that would be very, very suspicious. Suddenly a system drops off the beacon network. It's not as if they don't know where to look for it.

True... but only when the jump route in question is already known to the allied forces. Major routes and such - the very minor ones that aren't even on the map (or only on Dilgar maps) can disappear without attracting great notice. And of course new jump routes are discovered any day - it's just that most don't lead somewhere useful (all those dead planets where indipendent surveyors like Cat Sakai didn't find anything), or are too difficult to travel (what a rugged explorer ship or military convoi may survive an lowly freighter might not - and it's bad for interstellar commerce to have routes that swallow up half the ships trying to get through - imagine a road today, if it was soo dangerous, the government would have to close it or suffer the wrath of their voters) to be made into premanent routes.

However, even if they'd go to an newly discovered system and pulled the jump route after them, it wouldn't work for long - sending out scouts to discover new possible jump routes is standard practice in B5-universe wars (after all, even if they're too dangerous to be useful for civilian traffic, an battlegroup that suddenly pops up in the enemies rear can win a war... or at least influence the outcome greatly. Especially in these long affairs between great powers, where striking at the unprotected rear of your enemy can cripple his supply situation), and sooner or later a league ship would find their escape route, and them on the other end (and even if they killed that ship, the race that sent it would know there was something dangerous there, and would be very likely to guess correctly it might be some more dilgar to kill). And I'm certain the league did look as hard as they could to make sure they wouldn't forget a nest of Dilgar hiding somewhere.

Of course, that doesn't mean the idea is completely without merit - it's what my Dilgar used to get through the allied "front lines"; an newly discovered jump route, which gate and beacon connection they destroyed after they went through. Since it was only the first step on their exodus, there was nothing to find for league scouts that might have found the route afterwards... and since it came out near another interstellar power that could assure any seekers they hadn't seen any Dilgar (and could be trusted by the Dilgar to stay bought - though it cost them more then they had expected or liked), well, the tracks are covered enough for a start... and of course that was only the first step of their way to a new beginning, they went quite a bit further than that... later...

But as I wrote, I won't tell too much here.
 
Don't forget how big space is.

The Dilgar use a little used jump route to an unihabited system. They then take their task force and head out to the Oort Cloud and hide in the debris, billions of miles from any planet of interest. Any ship searching the system would find nothing as the Dilgar ships hide on or next to the thousands of icy black objects that orbit in the furthest reaches of the system. They could even carve out a base in one of the larger objects (which can be hundreds of miles across) in which they could dock the ships, completely hidden from any search.

They wait quietly while they work through intermediaries to set up a supply system and set up their front at Freedom Station. Any sensors that the hunters set up are carefully approached and rigged to show whatever the Dilgar want them to show.

After two or three years, the hunt fades. After five years, it is over and the Dilgar are declared extinct. Any ships that came into system would be spotted by remote sensors as soon as the jump point opened. The Dilgar would be alerted and halt any activity that might draw attension. Eventually things would become safe enough to start planning revenge and taking limited risks. All this becomes even easier if the Shadows or their allies help hide them.
 
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