PARTY CREATION​

Howdy folks, finished my read-through of this here fine book and thought I'd throw it open for those of you that expressed an interest in playing. Like I said in the Pen & Paper thread, you're all going to have to source this book yourselves, there's no SRD and no quickstart either. That said, I don't expect you to do so immediately and in the mean time, there's some general housekeeping and forward planning to take into consideration.

Essentially I'd like you guys to work out how you all come together as a crew. This could start broad with a rough idea of how your ship works (ie. Alliance Patrol Boat, Smuggling Vessel, etc) or a shared profession for your crew (Bounty Hunters, Pirates, Peacekeepers, etc) or merely describe your relationship with each other (Rag-Tag Bunch of Ne'er-do-Wells). This'll have the twofold advantage of ensuring that you guys aren't constantly at each other's throats, and telling me what sort of campaign you're interested in.

Once you guys have agreed on this, you can figure out your character and where they slot into the whole thing. I'd prefer you guys to come up with character concepts before you have too much exposure to the book itself and had your mind all polluted by all the shiny things within. Similarly, I'd prefer if you could come up with distinct characters that occupy specific niches— too many captains sinking the boat and all that. But that said, if you all really want to be Wash clones, I won't stop you.

TL;DR, Questions that need answering ASAP:

a) Why y'all folk on a ship together?
b) What sort of things do you get up to?
c) Roughly, who is your character?

In addition to this, there's a couple of thematic questions that I'll ask as they occur to me, just to tide y'all over until we're ready to begin:

Let's start with: What's everyone's opinion on character death? If anyone's uncomfortable with it, I'm more than happy to take it off the table.

 

Character death should always be on the table. That being said, it's a serious move that should be taken seriously.

As for character concepts, I'm leaning towards a female captain.

 

Agree. Death is something that happens. If we decide to become a terrorist group bent on destroying the Alliance, or fly in circles in Reaver space, we should probably expect to die.

As for character, I was thinking detective turned bounty hunter.

 

I've downloaded the rulebook but I haven't opened it yet, so all of my suggestions here are based on what I like from the Firefly TV series and Serenity.

I'm good with character death as long as it's meaningful and dramatic. There's no fun in dying to a random mook (as unlikely as that is to happen), but dying in order to save a team mate from the Big Bad? Yeah, I'm all for that.

Anyway, question time.

a) Given that I've watched Firefly almost a billion times now, I'm inclined to go for something completely different to what the show has. Something that will let us explore the 'verse without tying us to canon characters in any way but tangentially. Enembee is a great GM so I trust him enough to think up a good 'verse to play around in. So, I think we should go for a crew of Alliance patrol men that get in over their heads in something.

b) What we do would be pretty changeable at the start of the game. We'd start off just patrolling around (or investigating something in one of the Border Worlds) until something catches our attention that leads to a larger story.

c) My character... Would be female. I haven't played a female character before, so it'll be interesting to see if I can play it well. Other than that, I want to be involved in a bit of everything. Action, relationships, subterfuge. All the interesting things that made Firefly what it was. Probably not a Companion. If not heroic, at least having a good moral compass. Perhaps a cop?

Something that lets me have a code of honour I can use for character development. Cop sounds good to me. I swear not to turn her into Karrin Murphy.

 

I'd rather not play as a direct member of the Alliance. I just feel like we'd be too tied down to an institution.

We don't have to be criminals, but I'd rather be free to what we want without so much oversight.

Contracting with the Alliance? Sure. But I'd rather not be a member.

 

Hmm. I might be interested in playing, if there's even room left at this point, but I'm not sure. I've never played a PnP game online, or without people I really know for that matter. I obtained the book a few days ago, but I've only skimmed through it so far (by the way, jeez, like 25% of the book is pictures of the cast). I suppose if I could get used to the format I could try it.

I've watched the show, albeit only once all the way through, and that was about two years ago now. I've seen the Serenity movie a couple times. I'd probably brush up on the series and rewatch some choice episodes if I were to play.

As for the content, well, pretty much all the RPGs currently running on this site that I've seen look like they're about playing criminals of some sort. I think this game should do something different. I like the idea of playing as a cop, or something like it. Actually, now that I think about it, I wonder if it would be possible to take some inspiration from Mass Effect with Archangel and the vigilante group he set up on Omega between ME1 and 2. We wouldn't have to be confined to one city-station -- we'd have a ship obviously and could go from place to place -- but an organization like that would be appealing.

 

Vigilante group sounds like a great idea to me. The Alliance doesn't have much control over the Border or Rim worlds, so a group of wandering bounty hunters/magistrates/cops has taken it upon themselves to police a world or two and try to keep things going smooth.

 

I'm good with either vigilante group or pirates; I think it goes against the spirit of Firefly to be too government-afiliated. And I'll probably be a male... I'm thinking maybe a pilot. Definitely something skill-based. I'm still reading the book now, so I'll update that as I get a better grasp on things.

Oh, and I agree with the rest of the people who have posted so far: I don't want to constantly feel as though I'm near death, but it should definitely be on the table for big moments.

 

I honestly wouldn't mind being slightly more official than just a group of vigilantes. Vigilantism on the side I don't mind at all.

Edit: Also I think I'm gonna change from detective-bounty hunter to Mechanic/salvager.

 

Considering your various opinions, are you envisioning something like a 26th century Pinkerton agency? It would place you on the side of the law and give you a veneer of respectability without all of the restrictions and implications that working directly for the Alliance would bring. Not to mention inevitably lead to a whole heap of trouble.

Seems everyone is in the same boat as far as character death is concerned. I'll put this up here now, I will as a GM always make sure you know if that's at stake when you roll the dice.

 

Fleshed out my character some more. I'm looking at a female captain, Chinese, with a few elements from the former Companion archetype.

 

I guess I'll go for a cop type role. I do like my investigations.

I'm about to open the rulebook for the first time, so I should have a decent idea of what I need to do with my character in a bit.

 

I'd really prefer not to go too legit. I'm not saying we go crazy blood-drinking space pirate, but the best space stories have always been space outlaws, and that's a fact. Smugglers and cowboys are what I want.

 

Personally, I like the idea of starting as a 26th century Pinkerton Agency-type group, and slowly moving away from even that legitimacy as we become disillusioned we the people that we work for. Something like that, anyways.

 

Pinkerton Agency type thing actually fits my character concept perfectly. I'm all in favour of it.

 

Alright, changed my mind. Can I join the group? I know I'm a bit late so just tell me if it's not possible.

I'm on with the others on the death thing. Always fun as long as its meaningful.
A) Vigilante sounds nice. Or we could simply be some sort of private sector peace keeper. Government is paying us to enforce peace on a couple of backwater planets. I'm thinking also we could be contractor for the Alliance when they have some dirty work to do, either it be smuggling, killing, kidnapping, etc.

B) As for character development, I'm thinking maybe a lawyer, a doctor or even a pure fighter style. I'm really open to all those three ideas so depending on what might be missing in the group I could adapt.

 

I think I'd be fine with that.

 

So far we've got:

Lamora - Captain
Cteatus - Mechanic
Aekiel - Detective
Sorrows - Tentative
Red Aviary - Tentative
Typhon - Pilot?
Basilisk - Lawyer? Doctor? Fighter?

Working on the basis that we can expect at least one of you to drop out before the end of the first episode I'm happy to accept the very next person that posts a character concept. In addition, if Aviary and Sorrows could come up with a confirmation one way or the other before Friday, that'd be swell.

 

ehhh fuck it, i'm in.
I'm leaning more towards playing a socialite, effectively the secretary of the group. He takes calls, writes memos, talks down very hostile people with guns, gets invitations to all the best parties (as nice as you get on the rim anyway), and couldn't figure out any intellectual type things without a manual and someone explaining each step. And even then its dicey.

As far as group types, I like the moral ambiguity that comes with mercenary work. So a merc ship that does some policing when we feel like it, and treasure hunting when we get bored, and other odds and ends.