Dramatic spaceship roles

[Stormcrow]

I'm thinking about restarting my Tales of the Solar Patrol campaign. To that end, I am considering how to make characters' jobs exciting and dramatic during a space battle.

I have used Spaceships with Tales of the Solar Patrol, and found the results unsatisfying. Not only were my players uninterested in learning the basic space combat rules (lazy bums!), but I felt the play failed to allow players to focus their characters on dramatic actions. For instance, the engineer would simply make a repair roll when needed. It was too abstract. We wanted to know what we were fixing.

Matt Riggsby's article "Mr. Fixit" in Pyramid 3 #37 completely solves this problem for me—as far as the ship's engineer goes. It's not compatible with the damage-control rules in Spaceships, and given the failure of Spaceships for me in this particular case, I would rather just go back to the basic vehicle rules and use "Mr. Fixit."

But there remains the problem of what other characters are doing during combat. Their roles need to be cinematic and dramatic. So I have two problems that need answering:

1. What roles are there?
2. How do you make them cinematic and dramatic?

The role of engineer is fully defined by "Mr. Fixit." Here are some of my thoughts so far regarding other roles. I would like suggestions anyone may have to fill out these ideas and make them playable.

• Pilot: Spaceships in Tales of the Solar Patrol mostly seem to have Move 20/0.1c, though an engineer can increase the top speed a great deal. But in combat the top speed won't matter much, since acceleration 20 doesn't actually match the description of these ships reaching 0.1c in an hour and stopping dead again in five minutes. Maneuvers will consist of first assuming that ships have maneuvered to relatively similar speeds before combat begins, then announcing speed changes and turns from that point. Combat could take place on a hex grid where each hex represents 20 yards and all accelerations and decelerations take place in multiples of 20. Then use the normal high-speed movement rules. Question: do we need rules for special stunts, or is it enough to allow the player to come up with something and then make a control roll?
• Tactical Officer: For ships with independent turrets, there is need of a gunner. Is pointing and firing interesting enough? It seems to be when using ordinary, hand-held, ranged weapons.
• Navigator: Is this an important role during combat?
• Sensor Operator: Might be useful before combat, but during? Maybe you can help the gunner or pilot lock onto specific systems on the enemy ship?
• Captain: Does he do anything other than give orders? How do his Shiphandling and Leadership skills come into play?
• Are there any other roles I'm missing?

[Turhan's Bey Company]

I remember Starfleet Battles or some variant thereof dividing up tasks among players so you could have a many-player game with only two ships. Unfortunately, I don't recall all the roles. I think it went something like this, though:

• Captain: gives orders.
• Science officer: Runs the sensors.
• Helmsman: Does the actual maneuvering.
• Weapons officer: Fires the guns.
• Damage control officer: Deals with ad-hoc repairs.
• Medical officer: Gets wounded crew (necessary for repairs, boarding actions, etc.) back up and running.
• Engineer: Allocates energy among systems (important, because in SFB a ship has more power-consuming capability than it has power-generating capacity and the combined demands of all the other crew are more than you can give them).

...and there was someone who ran the shields, but I forget who, and probably a "marine captain" who ran the boarding parties.

Anyway, in order to make all of these useful, you may need to introduce more detailed results in combat. For example, the guy running the sensors is can be useful if you can determine how much damage you've done and/or to which systems on a successful roll ("Enemy's starboard shields are buckling, captain." "Weapons, target their starboard weapons battery!"). The medical and damage control officers are vital if you can get damaged people and systems back up and running in combat time (which is probably an argument in favor of using the damage control rules in Spaceships).

[pyratejohn]

Not SFB, but the FASA Star Trek rpg. And the roles quoted seem right to me, though it has been some time since I last looked at those rules.

[pyratejohn]

If memory serves, there was also an energy allocation component to the FASA system. The engineer had so many points of energy to allocate to each station. Then each station manager would use those points to energize weapons, etc.

I think I used the system once, but don't recall how it went. I know it always looked like it would be fun.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

Medical officer: Gets wounded crew (necessary for repairs, boarding actions, etc.) back up and running.

Ooh, are there any rules in GURPS for the cinematic trope of "Just give me something for the pain Doc; keep me on my feet for just five more minutes"? Or should I just assume the existence of a wonder drug that simply gives a character a big bonus to HT rolls to stay conscious?

For example, the guy running the sensors is can be useful if you can determine how much damage you've done and/or to which systems on a successful roll ("Enemy's starboard shields are buckling, captain." "Weapons, target their starboard weapons battery!").

Ah, yes, good.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by pyratejohn

Not SFB, but the FASA Star Trek rpg.

Ah, yes, that's it. I think I confused them because the SFB gamers I knew were also into the FASA material, so I always saw them together. Anyway, never played it more than a couple of times, but it was a very cool idea.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

Ooh, are there any rules in GURPS for the cinematic trope of "Just give me something for the pain Doc; keep me on my feet for just five more minutes"? Or should I just assume the existence of a wonder drug that simply gives a character a big bonus to HT rolls to stay conscious?

I suspect that Ultra-Tech or Biotech has some sort of wonder drug. And if there isn't one, it's clearly necessary to invent it (roll against Physician skill to see if it actually works; there's a difference between "The superzoomaline will only replace your blood and suppress pain for five minutes; you need to get back to sickbay by then!" and "Yeah, we really need to get those legs reattached first...").

[Randover]

Hmm seems like lots of pre-game work. How large the star ships are? There is huge difference between Firefly type ( 3 people could fly it) and imperial destroyer (thousands are needed). The role of captain is sometime irelevant, players generaly hate to be ordered around.

[Stormcrow]

The ships are mostly relatively small. A Patrol Ship (the usual PC ship) has Occ. 10+2ASV, though the book says it can have a crew anywhere between 3 and 10; a Patrol Cruiser, a heavy warship, has Occ. 50+50ASV. The largest listed ship is the Jovian Conqueror, with Occ. 100+250ASV.

[Grouchy Chris]

Funny, I've been thinking of running a one shot along the lines of Tales of the Solar Patrol, and I was just talking about this issue last night with my wife. We came up with this:

Captain -- gives orders. Probably the least interesting role, and so maybe held down by an NPC.
Pilot -- flies the ship, makes rolls to pull off tricky maneuvers.
Gunner -- shoots enemy ships.
Engineer -- allocates power to engines, weapons, and shields, and also makes repairs. This role could be divided.
Science Officer -- monitors sensors to discover how the enemy is allocating his power, and what damage the enemy has taken. Alternately, uses Quick Gadgeteer to invent a new weapon or propulsion system on the spot.
Radioman -- intercepts enemy communications to find out their intentions, or jams them to give them a penalty to Tactics
Doctor -- patches up the crew and keeps them in the fight.
Ship's Cat -- hides in hold.