In my 5 Parsecs campaign, the Crew of the Rhapsody of Inanna started out on the planet Aceso Menrva Prime. As part of the game you generate the planets randomly. In this post, I describe the three planets I've generated thus far, the Patrons and Rivals that I've gained on them, and a House Rule that I've been using in regards to Patrons and Job Offers.
Planet Name: Aceso Menrva Prime
Planetary Designation P3-1-1
Freelancer License Required, and has been Aquired (cost 1 Credit).
Salvage License Required, and we don't have one yet, which is why I haven't tried any Salvage Jobs yet. This is a salvage-rich environment, so a license costs 5, and has above average odds of salvage opportunities.
Medical Science World - The cost for accelerated medical care is only 3 credits per character.
Import Restrictions - You cannot sell any items on this world. This is a real drag. My cargo hold is piling up full of junk that I'd love to sell, but can't. At least not through normal channels. (If I roll up a Campaign Event that allows for some sort of non-standard extra-legal sales opportunity, like selling guns to a revolutionary, I'll allow that. If I remember correctly, that Event is limited to selling a small number of weapons, and the implication is that it's already illegal, so that seems to fit the spirit of the restriction.)
A few sessions in, Leonidas (one of my PCs) rolled up the character event of "It's kind of nice here". He's decided he likes the planet Aceso Menrva Prime and will only leave in the event of a planetary invasion, or if I spend a Story Point and come up with a reason for him to stay with the ship.
I've got a lot of Patrons and Rivals on Aceso Menrva Prime. I started with 3 Patrons and 1 Rival, and have gained a few more of each.
Patrons
1.Patron: Seraphim Foundation (Patron from Juniper's Orphan-Utility Program background.) Type: Private Organization. B8+ H8+ C8+ Recurring Benefits: Provides a Rumor when I succeed.
2.Patron: Menrva Bail Bonds (Patron from Juniper's Enforcer Class) Type: Corporation. Payroll: +1 to roll on the Danger Pay table regardless of success or Benefits. B8+ H8+ C5+ Recurring Benefits: Provides a Rumor when I succeed.
3.Patron: Kezellan VAW (Veterans of Alien Wars) (Patron from Leonidas' Loyalty Motivation) Type: Private Organization. B8+ H8+ C8+ Recurring Benefits: Roll on the Loot Table (pg 131) when I succeed.
4.Patron: Mr Persi Manselli (Patron from Turn#1) Type: Wealthy Individual. B5+ H8+ C8+ Recurring Benefits: if you accept this job, you may reroll the Danger Pay and pick the better of the two rolls.
5. Patron: Segno Bioscience (Patron from handing over the Vital Info on the Skulker Mercenaries. ) Type: Corporation. Payroll: +1 to roll on the Danger Pay table regardless of success or Benefits. B8+ H8+ C5+ Recurring Benefits: Health Insurance: If the mission is a success, mark down 2 campaign turns of injury recovery, assigned as you see fit.
6. Patron: Fellowship of Temporal Philosophers - (Patron from Turn #8) Type: Private Organization. B8+ H8+ C8+ Recurring Benefits: Persistent (this Patron is available on other worlds).
Rivals
1.Rival: E'Rex K'Gal (Rival from Inshubur's Hacker background. She may have hacked their defense mainframe.) Type: K'Erin Colonists (Page 100), +1 when rolling for Unique Individuals (and reroll 1s in number of opponents if the mission is a Quest). - Invasion Threat -
2. Rival: Ratlobe Kur - Type: Criminal Elements / Skulker Brigands (Page 95), Alert, Scavengers. As criminal elements, they are worth extra bounty (page 94). These guys are after The Strange Brain of the Skulker. They're mad at me after I killed the Large Bugs, so maybe they were the ones who unleashed them in the first place?
3. Rival: The B'Lilu Gang - Type: Criminal Elements / K'Erin Outlaws (page 95), Stubborn. As criminal elements, they are worth extra bounty (page 94). They were originally led by Warlord Girt B'Lilu, who I left for dead in a toxic junkyard, after fighting over The Strange Brain of the Skulker.
4. Rival: The Radiant Quiver of Resheph - Type: Criminal Elements / Cultists (page 95) Intrigue. As criminal elements, they are worth extra bounty (page 94). This is the cult that Moreva used to be part of. They consider her a traitor, and want to capture her and drag her back to their compound. If Moreva leaves the crew or dies, this Enemy will stop harassing the Rhapsody.
The House-Rule and the other two planets are below the fold...
New-Patron House-Rule:
The continuous accretion of new Patrons is actually something I find mildly problematic in the rules. Every time you go looking for a Patron job, you roll 1d6+X where X is the number of Patrons you have. If the total is 5, an existing Patron gives you a job. If the total is 6+, you get 1 job from an existing Patron and also meet a potential new Patron who offers you a job. That can snowball out of control, potentially leaving you a dozen or more Patrons.
So in my campaign, I've instituted a House Rule: if you roll a 6+, you get one offer from an existing Patron. Then you roll another d6, without any modifiers. If this roll is higher than the number of Patrons you currently have, you gain a potential new Patron. If it is equal to or less than the number of Patrons you have, then use that number to determine which of your Patrons at random offers you this second job (so you don't get a new Patron). Sometimes this will result in you getting two job offers from the same Patron in a turn, in which case you can choose which offer you wish to take them up on.
This puts a limit of 6 active Patrons per planet, without significantly slowing down the acquisition of Patrons at the start of the campaign, or during the first turns after arriving at a new world, or after a bad run of luck costs you most of your existing Patrons. So it seems like a good fix. The only real failing of this rule has to do with "Persitent" Patrons, ones that stay with you if you leave the current world. They're only 10% of all Patrons, and there's some hoops you have to jump through before a potentially persistent Patron gets that Benefit locked and triggered, so it would take a long campaign to accumulate a bunch of them... but it could happen, and since the Persistence is the only Benefit such Patrons give you, having 4 or 5 of them filling up most of your 6 Patron "slots" would kind of suck. If you're using this House Rule and get stuck in this problem, I'd say you can spend a Story Point to ditch any number of Persistent Patrons.
At this point in the Campaign, I haven't yet traveled to another world, but I have invoked the option to roll up nearby planets to see what's out there. Here's the basics of two other worlds:
Planet Name: Daret Vol 5
Planetary Designation P3-2-5
Freelancer License - Required, and will cost us 2 credits.
Salvage License Required - No, it's a "Free Zone" No Salvage License is required or sold. All salvage is legal. Don't leave your ship unguarded. House Rule:Penalty of -1 to checks to see if Rivals attack you, since your ship is a tempting prize.
Unity Safe Sector - The world cannot be Invaded.Import Restrictions - You cannot sell any items on this world.
From Turn 5 log: Checking out our options, we look up Daret Vol 5. The Daret Vol system has basically no salvage laws, so we could make some money there salvaging wrecks in the local rings. But looking into it further, we realize they have similar import laws to Aceso Menrva Prime, so we won't be able to sell anything there, either. That mostly defeats the purpose of getting off planet. We need to offload our current cargo somewhere before we can start packing in salvage. Back to the drawing board.
So I tried again the following Turn.
Planet Name: Tiresias-3 aka "The Soup"
Planetary Designation P3-3-6
Freelancer License - Required, and will cost us 1 credit.
Salvage License Required - Salvage Rich Environment. Increased chance of Salvage Jobs being available. Local Salvage Licenses cost 5 Credits. Universal License is recognized, and would cost 30 Credits.
Planet-Wide Fog - All shots beyond 8" are -1 to Hit.
Booming Economy - When rolling for post-battle credit rewards, any 1 on the dice are rerolled until it shows a score other than a 1.
This is more like it. There's multiple in-character financial incentives for visiting the world: I can try out the Salvage Missions from that expansion I have, the booming economy makes jobs pay better, and I have a cargo bay full of stuff to sell. And on top of it all, the Planet-Wide Fog will make missions harder (which is a welcome boost to late-campaign challenge) since I currently rely on my ship's armory full of long-range Plasma Rifles. Looks like I'm diving into the soup first chance I get!
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