Closer to Escape.

Table setup - mostly wooded terrain.

Sam is continuing to try to escape from No Hope. This time it is a wandering encounter to try and get more resources and trek closer to the spaceport. The area was heavily wooded with only one clear patch. Leaving at daybreak to get a head start on the day he started exploring.

Sam discovers a settlement.

Almost immediately he encountered a settlement of three vacant buildings and three houses. True to form as a thief, Sam decided to loot the vacant buildings. Checking the first two vacant buildings resulted in finding nothing. The next building was a house.

Sam encounters a Razor ganger.

I generated the NPC as a Neutral Razor Ganger(Rep 5,Fit 4,Pep 3,Sav 5 Pack). I failed the People challenge so the encounter switched to combat. The Razor attacked first with a mental blast. Sam had to use Star Power to reduce the effects of a stun result. A couple of lucky pistol shots and Sam dispatched the Razor.

Sam leaves the settlement.

Sam recovered some food and a bolt action rifle. The next order of business was to get the heck out of dodge. Sam left the area.

The encounter was a success. Some food and another weapon was found.

Venturing Into The Unkown.

After a case of nerves Sam moves on.

This was a wandering encounter with Sam exploring the area and trying to get his bearings. The terrain generated was hilly. LOS was limited and 3 PEFs were in areas 2,3,5.

Sam started moving using the path of least resistance. Why climb hills when you don't have to? The chances of finding anything are slim, but Sam can't go back. Sounds and a glimpse of movement appear off to the left. After investigation nothing was found. A bad case of the nerves was not a good way to start exploring a strange planet.

Sam and Eve meeting for the first time.

Moving out of shade of a hill into an open area a figure appeared. A young female pack wolf standing in the clearing. (Eve Neutral Y Rep2 Fit2 Pep1 Sav0 Pistol Resilient Kidnap Thief) Neither party was inclined to waste time and energy on a pointless fight. After a bit of chat Eve agreed to show Sam the way to the settlement that she is a resident of.

Heading off into the wilds.

Settlement is a generous term for the group of four buildings. Three were vacant and the one home is occupied by Eve. A search of the vacant buildings turned up a pistol that Eve had somehow missed during previous searches. Now Sam has a vacant building to occupy and plan his next moves.

Landed on a Prison Planet, now what?

Starting negotiations and barter.

The pod landed safely, the prisoners left and spread out into two groups and the encounter starts. The supplies in the pod are assumed to be 1 unit of rations and 1 medkit per prisoner. Sam is my character and Jose is the leader of the other group.

Other side activates first.
They move close and spread out intimidatingly to "negotiate".
People challenge Sam(PEP5) vs Jose(PEP4). Success=even distribution of supplies,Failure=melee.
Sam wins the challenge and the equipment is evenly divided amongst everybody.
The groups move on to barter with one barter check per each of my group members vs one member of the other group. The results meant our group ended up with 3 medkits and 4 rations. Deciding that discretion is the better part of valour our group decides to leave the encounter and explore the surrounding area. One of my group members has the mooch attribute so our rations are now down to 3.

After the encounter the keeping it together test is taken. Sam rolls 5d6 with 1 success. Each grunt gets an extra d6 because there aren't enough rations. All roll at least 2 successes. Sam survived the encounter but was deserted by his group. He is now stuck in the wilderness with a ration pack and a medkit. So much for the plan of exploring the area and mounting a raid later if nothing interesting was discovered.

I think I will play through this scenario a few more times with different NPCs to see what happens.

Escape from No Hope.

Now that fall is here I am getting back to playing. I have been thinking of modifying the 5150:NB justice system to extend a campaign. What I have been toying with is instead of a death sentence or a long term in jail the characters get transferred to a prison planet. The campaign would then switch to ATH rules in an Escape From New York type setting.

The setting would be a small deserted planet without much going for it economically. The walls around the town and spaceport keep prisoners out instead of in. Scheduled drops of basic supplies like rations/water/medicine are dropped into the countryside by drones. Ideally these would be equally distributed, but more likely these will be fought over by various gangs or snatched quickly by the most mobile prisoners. A No Go Zone around the walls would be enforced with various automatic weapons, droids, drones, mines and whatever nasty technology can be deployed to keep prisoners from trying to get to the spaceport and escape. A shanty town would have developed around the No Go Zone with various enterprises run by the more powerful, connected or skilled prisoners. The further away from the walls the more likely you would be to run into the more insane, demented and antisocial prisoners. A setting where everyone you run into is almost guaranteed to have no redeeming qualities would lead to interesting encounters with lots of combat almost by default.

The character's goals would be to survive and thrive on the planet or maybe try to escape like in Escape From New York. It still needs to be fleshed out but that is the basic idea so far.

2 groups of prisoners face off after landing.

Here is an update to my scenario so far. Prisoners will be deployed to the planet in Portable Prisoner Units(PPU) 10 person pods that are parachuted to the surface and unlock on touchdown. Each unit contains rations and medical supplies to last one month. The Unit itself can become a living unit. It would be cruel punishment for the New Hope penal system to drop prisoners into a hostile environment to serve their sentences without a chance for survival. The committee in charge of prisoners has determined that this is the most efficient system for enabling justice.

Of course in reality the first scenario for my character is going to be to see which prisoners get to keep the pod, rations and medical supplies. Unless diplomacy works out this will probably result in plenty of melee combat.

I created the roster of prisoners using a combination of charts from 5150:NB and ATH. To generate the crimes that each passenger was convicted of I rolled 1d6 (1-Arson,2-Kidnapping,3-Mayhem,4-Murder,5-Sedition,6-Treason). To generate the professions of the prisoners I used the criminal element generator in 5150:NB. Then I rolled for Pack(1-3) or Lone(4-6) Wolf for each individual. Followed by the NPC generator in ATH. I plan on having the crime or profession of characters and NPCs modify challenges in the campaign. Thieves are likely to stick together, individuals convicted of similiar crimes stick together and so on.

Here is the happy go lucky group that will be dropped to the surface of the prison planet with my character. (Name,Crime,Profession,Rep,Pep,Fit,Sav,Class,Age,Attribute)

Al Treason Netrunner 4 3 4 2 Pack M Fast
Sue Sedition Thief 3 3 1 2 Pack T Child at Heart
Jose Arson Netrunner 5 4 5 3 Lone M Initiative
Abe Kidnap Ganger 4 3 2 4 Lone T Brawler
Rob Kidnap Ganger 3 1 2 3 Lone O Clumsy
Mike Treason Netrunner 2 1 2 0 Pack O Mooch
Nikki Mayhem Thief 4 4 2 3 Lone T Logical
Hank Kidnap Thief 4 4 2 3 Lone M Stone Cold
Bill Treason Netrunner 4 3 2 4 Pack M Logical