In the beginning...

[Sierra]

From the initial post of interest: "So, I'm planning on running a game in a futuristic setting, perhaps six hundred years in the future. Humanity has spread to more than half a dozen other star systems and some of the new worlds begin to approach Earth in sophistication, wealth and population. Sufficiently so to develop plans for independance, in some cases, a fact which has not gone unnoticed by the central government. The UES (United Earth States) government itself is increasingly run by geriatrics, as medical technology extends the human lifespan almost without limit (for those who can afford the treatments). The demographic effect of this is almost inevitable, with whole generations of youths heading for the border worlds in search of better opportunities, leaving the Earth itself a stagnant overseer increasingly out of touch with the new powers rising around it.

Compounding this is the development of psychic abilities in one of the early colonies. One of the first humans to exhibit such traits exploited them to found what eventually became a dynasty before his charisma and uncanny knack for reading the intentions of others became recognized for the supernatural abilities they actually were, and by this time he and his family were too well-entrenched to remove. Branches of this dynasty eventually migrated to other star systems; they are less influential elsewhere but are almost uniformly wealthy. The psionist families remain tightly-knit, secretive, and the subject of rampant speculation (and, in some areas, paranoia) in the popular imagination.

The PCs will be something akin to a mercenary squad in a frigid world on the edge of human colonization. Out of necessity on an underdeveloped world far from the central government's control, such groups are commonly hired by local businesses for security or even by local law enforcement to help wipe out bandits. Of course, it's only a matter of time before they get drawn between larger powers..."

To expand on this, and provide some specifics:

-FTL travel still does not exist. Travel between star systems is generally done through stationary gates that link two holes in the fabric of spacetime, allowing travelers to bypass the vast interstellar gulfs between them. This is a pretty standard SF concept. Each gate is a strictly two-way affair: it can take you from system A to system B and from system B to system A, but that's it. They cannot be redirected with present technology. Establishing a gate is costly and time-consuming--for one thing, the parts and engineers need to travel to a new system at sub-light speeds in order to establish one in an uninhabited system. This makes establishing a new one something of a gamble, as efforts to detect suitable, Earth-like worlds at a distance are not always 100% reliable. Any venture setting out into a new star system is likely to be a joint project between government and private industry. This can result in private corporations wielding heavy influence in a developing colony (too much, in the eyes of some critics).

-The average human lifespan has expanded considerably. It's no longer uncommon for someone to reach a hundred years in age. With top-notch medical care, one can expect to reach two centuries. The bureaucracy back on Earth is increasingly monopolized by the upper age brackets, oligarchs clinging to positions of influence past their prime. "Good ol' boy networks" have a whole new meaning here. Average human height has also increased by several inches (this has actually been an ongoing trend over the last few centuries).

-Planets you'll need to know about:

Wellington: On which our story begins. An example of how efforts to detect temperate worlds from afar can yield uneven results, Wellington is Earthlike in many ways--similar mass and composition, breathable atmosphere--but negligible axial tilt results in a lack of seasonal variation, a fact which seems to bother newcomers, and a generally chilly climate precludes mass settlement. The bulk of the population is strung along a fairly narrow band around the equator; beyond that, most of the flat land is covered in coniferous forests, eventually giving way to tundra and then to arctic wastes. Wellington is also mountainous and extremely mineral-rich, which draws both mining conglomerates and stray prospectors. Inevitably, out in the wilderness, private interests clash.

This is where you all make your living. Mundane security jobs, eradicating bandits, putting down the local wildlife when it gets a bit too frisky, settling private vendettas...Plenty of your jobs are perfectly legal, but what the colonial bureaucrats don't know won't hurt 'em, right?

Coleille: Wellington's "parent" world, the only gate Wellington has access to goes to and from Coleille. One of the first colony worlds outside humanity's home solar system, Coleille has grown enormously in population, wealth, and influence. On its own initiative, and over the objections of the UES government back on Earth, Coleille established Wellington as its own colony as well as funding a gate with neighboring Sudoul. Various orbital stations play host to a contingent of psychics, though they remain reclusive and their interference in local affairs is minimal (unless you heed the mutterings of conspiracy theorists, at least).

Sudoul: Another of the earliest offworld settlements, Sudoul was the first world to exhibit psionic abilities amongst its population. Although the total number of psychics is still extraordinarily low (much less than 1% of the population), a small handful of them rule Sudoul in all but name, owning a controlling share in many varied business interests and wooing politicians with their money and influence as well as their supernatural abilities to read people. Like Coleille, Sudoul openly flaunts Earth's difficulty in controlling it economically and politically without ever quite provoking military action.

Earth: It's Earth. Horribly overcrowded and hemorrhaging young emigres, Earth remains the administrative center of human civilization, desperately trying to hold together a "nation" spread over nearly a dozen star systems through every means at its disposal.

There are two or three other heavily-populated worlds and several more marginal colonies which I needn't go into right now. Anything else of relevance will be detailed in-game when appropriate.

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Chargen notes: For ability scores, you can either try your luck with the bot (*shudder*) or use one of the planned generation methods in the book. I don't much care which one you choose, but I'd like to be there for the rolling if that's what you go for. You can still opt to go for planned generation if Hatebot gives you total ass for stats (not that he'd do that, of course).

Everyone starts at level five, reflecting the fact that you dudes already have some experience in this line of work. Stick to the same heroic class for those first five levels, for the sake of my sanity, but you can start multiclassing as soon as you naturally gain a level if you want. Prestige classes are available as soon as you meet the prerequisites. The only classes that are outright banned are Jedi and the prestige classes branching off of it (all of which I'll give a flavor overhaul to match any espers you meet), and those are mostly unavailable to you guys for plot reasons. I'd encourage you guys to talk over who's aiming for which kind of PC and make sure the team has all bases covered.

Everyone is human, obviously. Yes, you get the extra feat at level one just for being human, because feats are shiny and fun. No skills or feats are outright banned (well, barring those relating to psychic abilities), but I will say that Ride and Swim are not likely to be useful ever. I can see pretty much everything else having some utility, but those two would be a waste of skill slots. Otherwise? Well, you won't start with a spaceship, but it will be possible to acquire one eventually. So you can consider building with an eye towards acquiring piloting skills later on, but you don't need them from the get-go.

Money and equipment: The SW book came with a (hopefully) balanced economy and I see no reason not to swipe it wholesale. Thus, your starting cash will be just as stated in the rulebook (3d4x400 for Noble, 3d4x250 for other classes), plus another 1d4x400 (or 1d4/250) for each level you start with after the first (again, to reflect that you all have been in business for a bit already). So, 7d4x400 for Noble, 7d4x250 for all other classes.

The Wealth talent can be selected for extra cash if someone plays Noble, but not more than once. As it stands, that 5,000x5 credits will be far more than you'll actually need at the start of the game considering that you won't immediately have access to the high-end Military-grade gear anyway, and that some amenities (some means of ground transport, an HQ) will be provided to the group free of charge at the start anyway.

As for gear, you can buy anything in the manual that's not listed as Military, Illegal, or Rare. The breakdown used in the manual is fairly sensible and translates easily to this setting, so I'm pretty much importing it wholesale. Include the appropriate licensing fee for objects listed as Licensed (extra 5% cost) or Restricted (extra 10% cost). Ignore the bit about making a Knowledge check to get it. Just the fee is enough to worry about for chargen.

You don't have to spend all your cash immediately; anything left over will sit around until you need it.

Background: You can be a local on Wellington or someone from Earth looking for opportunities elsewhere (and by Earth, I mean our solar system in general--Mars, the moon, various orbital colonies exist and so on). If you're from Earth, make whatever decisions you like in regards to the local history of your character's birthplace. I don't have an intricate future timeline charted out for every damn country or anything. So if you're Rat and want to make Melbourne the new capital of Australia, more power to you. Just keep in mind that there is a world government now that commands one's respect above local concerns. It may not always work as smoothly as people would like, but it is an established fact of life.

Otherwise, just think about how your character wound up in a quasi-legal, all-purpose task force in the boonies on a developing world. You don't have to be a compassionless killer, but it's safe to assume you're familiar with the ugly side of humanity.

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Scheduling: As I've noted, I'm quite willing to be up at absurdly late/early hours to get this off the ground. I often do that on weekends anyway, so let me know what times you all will be available. I'm really hoping to run twice a week if possible.

Otherwise...questions and character ideas go here! I'll make a separate thread for finished sheets, this is basically an all-purpose discussion topic.

[Sierra]

Rattributes preserved for posterity:

<Carthrat> !rollchar
<Hatbot>  [4d6=5, 5, 6, 1] -> 16
<Hatbot>  [4d6=2, 4, 6, 6] -> 16
<Hatbot>  [4d6=5, 2, 2, 2] -> 9
<Hatbot>  [4d6=3, 5, 5, 2] -> 13
<Hatbot>  [4d6=1, 5, 5, 1] -> 11
<Hatbot>  [4d6=6, 4, 1, 4] -> 14
<Hatbot> Carthrat: 16, 16, 14, 13, 11, 9

That's some nice rollin' there.

[Carthrat]

Well, while we're talking about me...

I think I'd like to play a guy who, when he was a young entrepreneur, ended up getting shanghaied by psionic interests and wound up turning to a life of white-collar crime, most of which was based around screwing businesses that he and a few other zealots felt were backed by espers. Along the way he associates with the wrong crowd and learns a few things he is probably better off without, before he gets wind of some heat coming his way and decides to set out for Wellington. Sudoul sounds like it could be a good homeworld for him.

Exactly how he got into the merc business is anyone's guess, but it's a convenient way of surrounding himself with heavily armed people, and even they need someone to find clients and run the numbers. He's probably more experienced in dealing with street fighting than wilderness stuff, but hey, picking up experience from all over, right? He still dreams of making it in a 'respectable' fashion, and on a world like this, respectability is usually defined after the fact.

[Ebiris]

I'm aiming for a mix of Scout/Solider heading into the Officer prestige class.

My guy would be from some orbital colony around Earth, originally, and from there went into the military. Frustrated by a lack of advancement opportunities for people of his generation, he'll have become more and more insubordinate before finally getting a dishonourable discharge for an altercation of some sort with a superior.

From there he'll put his finely honed killing skills to use by going out to the colonies and joining up with a merc outfit, such as the one all the PCs are part of.

For party role I'm going for a special forces reconnaisance type - a blend of perception/stealth/tactics skills/abilities for the most part, with a few odds and ends here and there to round him out. Might take a dash of piloting skills for emergencies like if the main pilot is incapacitated, but he's predominantly a ground pounder.

[Corwin]

I guess that leaves scoundrel for me! Despite kinda sucking wrt other base classes, it should be fun enough theme-wise to try. Intent to go into Ace Piloting or Gunslinging later on, maybe both eventually.

Interested in handling mechanics/computers/data gathering/driving and piloting/all that stuff. And shooting stuff with a pistol because it's fun.

I pretty much need to roll stats first to see how Hat shafts me, cause I usually don't have a concrete idea on what I want to play until I get those.

[Sierra]

Eb stats preserved for posterity:

<Ebiris> !rollchar
<Hatbot>  [4d6=3, 2, 6, 4] -> 13
<Hatbot>  [4d6=3, 3, 4, 5] -> 12
<Hatbot>  [4d6=5, 1, 6, 3] -> 14
<Hatbot>  [4d6=3, 4, 4, 4] -> 12
<Hatbot>  [4d6=4, 6, 3, 3] -> 13
<Hatbot>  [4d6=1, 2, 2, 6] -> 10
<Hatbot> Ebiris: 14, 13, 13, 12, 12, 10

[Carthrat]

I should note that I'm not adverse to changing my concept. It really depends on the sorts of missions we're going to take, and given the nature of our operation, I maaaaay be looking to be a soldier instead of a noble (although I may well have a roughly similar background, merely with a more military rather than business slant.)

As it stands, it's seems we're better suited as spies than anything else- which is perfectly fine and I just want to be clear on this. Think it'll work, Cid?

[Carthrat]

Oh, while we're at it, I'd like to enquire about knowing multiple langauges (is it useful, and if so, what should we be looking at?)

Cheap plug for replacing the freebie linguist feat Noble get goes here if we don't need 'em. >_>

[Corwin]

Cid! Cybernetic limbs, prosthetics... are they basically amount to 'same as the old limb, only more expensive' or could they do something COOL? I want a flamethrower in my replacement arm~

[Ebiris]

Regarding my own character concept, I think I'll give soldier/officer a miss and just go pure scout all the way.

[Sierra]

Rat: It'd be good to have a tank on the team...but it's also pretty much necessary to have a charismatic leader, and Soldier lacks the ability to be trained in Deception and Persuasion (granted, I guess Cor could build for those, but he's aiming for a hacker type). It's your choice, of course. And if the team does wind up being best-suited for stealth and espionage then I'd consider it only natural that the missions they take reflect that. The central plot will require a certain level of martial expertise, though, as not everyone you meet will be willing to listen to reason.

If we do snag a fourth player, I'd strongly suggest that they stick with a combat-intensive soldier in the event that you don't.

Languages: English is widely known across all settled worlds. As long as you know that, you can generally get by, but it doesn't hurt to know extra languages. Linguist is a freebie for Noble, after all, and not everyone you meet will know English (just most of them!)

Cor: I haven't yet sussed out how military-grade prosthetics would work gameplaywise, so for now cybernetic limbs are just replacements for biological ones. Something to consider for the future, perhaps. So if you want to turn yourself into a combat cyborg, maybe you can do it bit by bit in-game once I've sorted out the mechanics of it.

[Sierra]

Cor stats snagged from chat:

<Jeanne> !rollchar
<Hatbot>  [4d6=3, 4, 3, 3] -> 10
<Hatbot>  [4d6=4, 4, 5, 1] -> 13
<Hatbot>  [4d6=4, 6, 5, 6] -> 17
<Hatbot>  [4d6=2, 6, 3, 3] -> 12
<Hatbot>  [4d6=2, 1, 1, 5] -> 8
<Hatbot>  [4d6=2, 1, 1, 4] -> 7
<Hatbot> Jeanne: 17, 13, 12, 10, 8, 7

Not great, but you can still opt for planned generation if you want (aaaand I wasn't planning on allowing rerolls in the first place, so it's this set or planned).

[Corwin]

Changing mechanics to work with soldier, actual concept remains the same~

A misanthrope who prefers the company of computers, I'm sure it's not a terribly original approach.  >_>

[Sierra]

Character concepts are fine. You guys need to make sheets now! To that end, here's what level five gets you:

+1 to two abilities of your choice (standard ability increase at level 4)
Three talents from your class's pool*
Starting feats for your class (assuming you meet the prereqs; I believe Linguist, for example, requires 13 INT)
Two bonus feats from your class's pool
Three feats of your choice (one gained at level one, one gained at level three, one for being human**)
You do indeed get an extra trained skil just for being human**

As far as languages go, English is everyone's default. If you only know one, that's it. For others that might be useful to know, ones that have a massive amount of speakers today can be expected to be widespread here as well. Also, languages from prominent, industrialized nations that could get in early on interstellar colonization. Chinese, Spanish, Hindi from the first category, Japanese, Korean, German and Russian from the latter. Coleille has a fair amount of French speakers, so that's a reasonable thing for a local to know.

*These are generally all open. However, for Rat: Wealth is out. I reread the description: 5,000 x Noble level? Yeah, 75,000 is far more than you need to start with. You can make do with the standard Noble cash (hey, you'll still have more than your buddies).
**Even though human is the only choice, yes. There are some non-sentient beasties and robots to beat up, so I decided to leave that racial trait in.

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So get crackin', guys.

As for the start date...earliest it could conceivably be is the weekend after this one. I'm gonna be doing family stuff for a lot of this weekend, so that's right out (Eb: don't worry, I should be here for Sunday. As far as I know, nothing's happening then). Still like to get a fourth player, too, but let's get those character sheets up for now.

[Corwin]

[21:02] <Corwin> roll 7d4 cash
[21:02] <Misukibot> Corwin rolled 7d4 cash --> [ 7d4=16 ]{16}
[21:02] <Corwin> roll 4d10 hp
[21:02] <Misukibot> Corwin rolled 4d10 hp --> [ 4d10=23 ]{23}