June 2016 – Store32

June 20, 2016

Jump Temp Starmap

I realized it would be very helpful to have a star map for Jump Temp so I started looking for a real map of stars. I ran into Winchell Chung’s HabHYG maps and though, “Perfect!” only I realized his warning about the 30 parsec maps being accurate, that they were unusable due to the number of stars in them. I then realized I needed to reduce the number of inhabited stars in the map but I couldn’t do that without re-drawing the map. I also wanted to indicate where alien worlds were. I resolved to re-draw the map for myself. Which proved to be far harder than I thought, which is saying something because I thought it would be pretty difficult.

I ended up getting a new web server running (my old development one died a bit ago) and fired up the ol’ PHP code to read the HabHYG dataset and draw the maps for me. I’m very happy with the results even though there’s a lot of crowding going on. I’ve never used PHP to create an image so this was really new to me. It took way less time than I thought it would. The above picture is the central region, about 15 parsecs square.

I still can’t show the whole map in one image. If I make the text bigger, the stars start to crowd each other so I split the map into regions.

Thanks to Winchell for the dataset!

June 16, 2016

Drive

I was leaping down the rabbit hole that the internet is, and found a comic called Drive that has some very similar ideas to the game I’m working on Jump Temp.

The comic story and the game story are actually very different, but there are key elements that show a similarity. The drive tech is discovered by accident and while it can be modified and recreated, no one knows why they work. The other is a class of characters that are very short lived, are big and strong. And there are no shields.

Okay so other than that, the two stories are very different. I just thought it was a little weird. And you should check out Drive if you haven’t already because it’s funny and well done.

June 12, 2016

Jump Temp and Protector

We’ve been playing two games that run on the Energy System lately. Jump Temp is a space opera that’s near future maybe 50-100 years from now. Protector is alternate history where aliens attack earth and super heroes save the world, are idolized, take over the world and then are hated.

We’re having fun in both. Jump Temp had the players transporting an alien government official which I would have loved to spend more time on but it was getting late after character generation. In Protector, the heroes were investigating a newly formed volcano off the coast of Scotland and found a giant lava snake and lava coated robots. Pure fun! I’m looking forward to continuing both games.

My last post was about getting larger numbers represented in the system and that’s really opened things up as far as functionality. It’s also brought a lot of clarity to the system. The thing is that the Energy System just plays differently than any other system I’ve played. As GM I have to keep reminding myself that small challenges are ok. The idea that a hero is invulnerable to small fries hasn’t happened yet. I have a feeling that we’ll get there, so I’m working on tweaking the system so that it doesn’t.

It also paces itself differently and I’ve been struggling to not fall into old habits formed from every other game I’ve played. I’m starting to feel the system’s flow a bit now and that’s good. I wonder how other GM’s would handle it though.

Although I tried to keep the concepts in the game to a minimum, they are a bit alien to players but after a play or two they’re starting to get the ideas. Heck, I’m trying to write the games using the simple concepts and I don’t always get it right. Things like money are a challenge to handle but I’m getting that nailed down.

All in all, the game takes adjustment, but it does things that I’ve always wanted in a game. It organically handles normal RPG fare like combat, but also deals with something like a space flight being mentally fatiguing. Most of our last Jump Temp game was the new crew dealing with two transits they had to make. The interesting thing is, the players enjoyed it! The Artificial Intelligence character wasn’t challenged by the trip though and the player lamented that he wasn’t getting in on the action.

So we’re having fun and the Energy System is maturing. Watch this space!