[Space] Anyone Ever Run A Campgain Based Off Of Wild Life?
 

OK, first up Wild Life is one of the worked examples designed for Space that had to be cut. The chapter 7 and 8 vignette's are set in that setting and the full details can be read here: http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid/sample.html?id=5878

So has anyone ran a campaign based upon this? What was it about? Do you have any advice for someone interested in running it?

Re: [Space] Anyone Ever Run A Campgain Based Off Of Wild Life?
 

No, but I've wondered about where that particular setting came from. Thanks for pointing it out!

I will admit I'm a little at a loss as to what the 'default' adventure in such a game would be. high tech espionage, perhaps?

Re: [Space] Anyone Ever Run A Campgain Based Off Of Wild Life?
 

I would think it would be similar to the modern V series and series like that.... but on the other side of the occupation of course.

Re: [Space] Anyone Ever Run A Campgain Based Off Of Wild Life?
 

Interesting concept, but the whole modify humans to be less competitive etc seems misguided. Making humans more cooperative would make them more dangerous, not less - you've just solved a whole lot of collective action problems for them. Sounds like a good way for the conquerors to get subverted.

Of course that could make for a darkly humorous campaign - a combined New Human/Tarcaseru alliance takes over and the Shahar and Wild humans desperately join up to oppose them.

Re: [Space] Anyone Ever Run A Campgain Based Off Of Wild Life?
 

If they diminish aggression along with competition, or channel it into technological/creative rather than physical/psychological expressions, not so much of a problem.

Re: [Space] Anyone Ever Run A Campgain Based Off Of Wild Life?
 

I think the best way to stave off species based rebellion is to tweak with our Us vs. Them mentality. If you can get us to accept non-humans as Us, then we would rarely if ever rebel.
Imagine what aliens would have to do to make you rebel vs. what your second cousins would have to do to make you rebel violently.

Re: [Space] Anyone Ever Run A Campgain Based Off Of Wild Life?
 

I actually know of some situations where cousins would be rebelled against more violently and quickly than strangers/aliens would.

Re: [Space] Anyone Ever Run A Campgain Based Off Of Wild Life?
 

True, but as a vague statistic, people are more likely to side with relatives than against. My country, right or wrong. My family, right or wrong.

I imagine that the first order of business is to reduce trouble rather than trying for perfection right out of the gate.

Re: [Space] Anyone Ever Run A Campgain Based Off Of Wild Life?
 

It vaguely reminds me of the campaign I've been running recently (currently in a holding pattern while we hash out who is and isn't going to be able to be a part of it). Except that alien invasion occurs in 1938, and is taking place "in the now" rather than being part of the background. My invaders, though, are a cosmopolitan alliance of species, only a few of which the players have encountered.

Re: [Space] Anyone Ever Run A Campgain Based Off Of Wild Life?
 

The real objection I have is that the subject races don't appear to have been tinkered with to make them more tractable. I can see the Qasuti being left alone and the Tarcaser slipping under the radar, but the ascended and Gustrogin still have will 10. Its possible that they started out with higher wills and selfish, but I don't think that really fits.

That said, I think this thread has inspired me to start a campaign loosely based on the setting. I plan on toning down the alien stats, changing the superscience to allow portals onto planets, and starting the story during the invasion (and in modern times), but otherwise the setting should be quite similar.

Re: [Space] Anyone Ever Run A Campgain Based Off Of Wild Life?
 

Alternate stats for unmedicated Ascended and Male Gustrogins, both of which are tightly-restrained in this society, are given. The ones the average overlord has to deal with may be Willpower 10, but they were a lot more problematic "in the wild." The Willpower of female Gustrogins wasn't tampered with because they want to use them for soldiers and don't have a reliable way to give them -Will but +Fearless.

ETA: On a related note, I'd personally overhaul the Ascended build a lot if I was running this. Their natural mental Disadvantages make their native society completely unworkable as-described. At worst, they should've had a quirk-level Pride or Bad Temper and either quirk-level Uncongenial, Chauvinist, maybe both, or at worst Intolerance [-5] against everybody outside their core group, if they had a comfortable presence in space when the Shahar found them. That level of infrastructure simply does not get achieved by violently-introverted lone wolves; I consider their medicated stats excessive for a civilization at that level of technology that does not have access to genius superheroes who can make that stuff happen by themselves, let alone what they supposedly have on their own.

This is all relative to the average Human, of course, who might be much easier to get down to a typical Willpower of 9 because we started at 10 with no major universal antisocial flaws, which provides a plausible reason why they'd try to make us into the obedient little butt-monkies with keen eyes and clever little hands who do the technical tasks like powerless bosses. They probably would've tried to make half or all of us into their bureaucrats, too, if they hadn't conquered the Tarcaseru first, because we get along so well compared to everybody else in the setting.

Re: [Space] Anyone Ever Run A Campgain Based Off Of Wild Life?
 

Well, it did take them a long time to just reach "orbital habitat" levels of space colonization.

Re: [Space] Anyone Ever Run A Campgain Based Off Of Wild Life?
 

How long is "a long time" here? As-written, these guys (expletive deleted) hate each other, and everybody else. How did they ever get massive, cooperative industrial stuff done, even given an indefinite time-frame?

Re: [Space] Anyone Ever Run A Campgain Based Off Of Wild Life?
 

Bad temper, Loner, Selfish, Oblivious, Curious --- Oh, and broad minded. I have no idea why they have broad minded if they only . If anything they would function better in a large society -- one where mistakes can be moved on from. The [-5] intolerance is a fair start (though I think a group that large is [-10]). I'm trying to imagine what else would make a society unable to function at sizes larger than 300. Perhaps a tendency to factionalism? I think the broad minded, Oblivious, and curious are an attempt to make the society work, but I'm not seeing it. The really hard part is that its quite possible what makes us different from animals is not our intelligence, but our ability to communicate and function in very large groups.

I personally get the impression the author was trying to recoup all those points he spent on their arms -- the octopus build is insanely expensive, particularly for the benefit it gives you (no, not even +12 to grappling is worth 100 points). I did a rework where they have 'four' arms -- meaning that they only have the ability to do the work of four hands, and are doubling up limbs for a lot of their work. I also made their arms short as well as flexible (hydrostats really struggle with swinging things compared to endoskeletons). I'm debating adding extra legs to indicate their stability from multiple limbs as well.

The ascended are especially weird for me, because their shape is something of a deja vu moment for me. I built a set of aliens with an emphasis on physiology a while back and one of the things I got was a swimming, climbing invertebrate with 12 limbs and a prehensile tail. It ended up with six tentacles, six fins, and filling a very similar ecological niche to the ascended. Half of me thinks of treating them the same. The other half imagines what they would think of each other.

Re: [Space] Anyone Ever Run A Campgain Based Off Of Wild Life?
 

I think the Curious might be an attempt to justify their technological advancement, but Obliviousness is just because they don't like socializing so don't get very much practice. I'd love to hear how reproduction works with these guys - forget getting into space; how do raging @$$holes of this caliber even maintain a positive birth rate? (Legit question; maybe they spawn like fish, without close proximity being necessary?) Bad Temper, Loner, and Selfish all together feels like a halfway-triple-dip (a 1.5 dip?) to me, because they all function very similarly. Broad-Minded was included because they don't discriminate in how much they dislike other people by race, gender, morphology, etc. They are equally d-baggy to all. :]

You could do that, but I'd think that after millennia of climbing and swinging around in trees, Short Arms would be more likely considered a major physical disability than the norm. I'd be more likely to pillage ST (and maybe lower SM) than mobility if I wanted to save points with these guys (they're already kind of small, and hey, big guns are pretty manageable when you can bring 4-8 limbs to bear on them), or just let them be expensive.

Why not Legless (Crawling/Slithering) [0]..?

Re: [Space] Anyone Ever Run A Campgain Based Off Of Wild Life?
 

Ahh, I forgot to explain why short arms --

The primary limitation of short arms is swing damage and the distance at which you can effectively wield a weapon. If you observe an octopus or the trunk of an elephant, you will notice that the ability to swing something is extremely limited. Also notice that the ability to move around a sizeable object (relative to body size) quickly and accurately is limited to closer to the base of the limb. they can do simple grabs at the full reach of the limb though. Making all of their arms "short" does nothing to change how long the limbs they use to swing through the trees are.

Its an exercise in "Pay for the effects, not for the name of the advantage"

The legless is a good thought. Though I was thinking of trees, but I suppose that's covered with the arms, even if I'm only using 4.

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As a side note, is there a place where using more than two arms increases your ST rating for using a weapon? you seem to have implied that there is one...

Re: [Space] Anyone Ever Run A Campgain Based Off Of Wild Life?
 

Not officially, that I know of, but I'd totally allow it as justification for a Huge Weapons Perk.

Re: [Space] Anyone Ever Run A Campgain Based Off Of Wild Life?
 

Well... first you need more than just the guys...

Probably the same way it works for badges and wolverines. They're both overcome with the need to procreate just long enough to get over the raging territoriality they normally posses.*

If the native Ascended had 12's for Self-control... it would be easier to see them as working together, but 9's does make it hard to imagine.


* And that could be it. It's possible the procreation "put up with another of your species" imperative lasted long enough for the occasionally collaboration, often enough to get to long-distance communication. From there you can collaborate without needing to make all those SC rolls. And this ties in with the "Drug", if it's just hormone treatments keeping the Ascended in the "calm before and after procreation" phase...

Re: [Space] Anyone Ever Run A Campgain Based Off Of Wild Life?
 

Maybe remove some severity from the antisocial Disadvantages and make up the difference with Lecherousness? They propagate the species because they can't help it, and hopefully their offspring are at least as independent as those of snakes...