#galaxy squad

[theresattrpgforthat]

The Galaxy Squad Campaign.

Back in September, I posted what I hoped to be the first part of a series in which I blogged about a multiple-game campaign called The Galaxy Squad: a series of inter-connected games all taking place in the same galaxy. The continuous blogging about this series didn’t happen, but the games certainly did! So I’m going to re-cap that series now.

I’ve already talked about our Last Fleet series, so I won’t repeat myself too much, but the biggest piece of that series that we carried forward was the ending: the blowing up of the technology that enabled Faster-Than-Light travel, so as to set up the scene for Starforged. (Last Fleet play-kit)

Starforged was not a game that I ran, or managed to participate in; this series began a trend where I and another GM handed the reins to each-other every month to give both of us a chance to tackle games that were on our to-play list. We also had a higher rate of sign-ups overall for Galaxy Squad, possibly because Monster Squad ended up being a pretty big hit.

Star-Forged can be played with or without a GM, and presents the characters with Vows that they are expected to work towards to try and complete. In Star-Forged, much of the new galaxy that our players fled to was built, because this game has very good tables for setting generation. The group generated a number of planets with different power-structures, resources and danger levels, and established a number of factions with various shady goals. This included a large corporation that was funding a lot of Forge-Spawn research, as well as a cult called the Oracles of Larissa, which dealt quite a bit with the strange space-magic that certain individuals were able to wield. (Stargazer journaling app)

One of the most important contributions from the Star-Forged game involved the creation of Celadon, a wild and lush planet teeming with dangerous life. The players landed on the planet, took one look, and took off again, which meant that it was perfect for the next game in our line-up: Moth-Light.

For Moth-Light, we started with the premise that our characters would be the descendants of one of the ships from Last Fleet, crashed into a planet and reverting back to a pre-space-flight level of technology out of necessity. This is because Celadon (called Beacon by its inhabitants) was populated by gigantic, dangerous insects called Moths. We pushed the timeline forward to a point where our players could not remember how they ended up on this planet, and then put them in a precarious situation where their current settlements were in danger. The solution: to search for another, safer place to call home.

In more abstract terms, this means that we used the Promise Pact from Moth-Light, which takes plenty of inspiration from media such as Legend of Korra, Farscape, Horizon: Zero Dawn and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Moth-Light’s story and tone can vary drastically, depending on the kind of story we want to tell. When creating this game, I briefly entertained the possibility of playing Scavengers, which would be much grittier and harsher, but the group and story seemed to fit the Promise pact better.

Moth-Light is Forged-in-the-Dark and is a phenomenal game. While it’s FitD, the Pacts provided to the group do a lot to help you determine what kind of concept and tone you’re playing in. The typical action ratings and Stress mechanics are also re-worked in a really interesting way, making them slightly modular so that they can change to reflect the Pact you are working with. I really enjoy the prompts left on character sheets that give you just enough information to start brainstorming what these pieces mean exactly for your character. The designer also has a fantastic set of Google-Sheet play-kits that put my character sheets to shame. You need to check this game out.

After Moth-Light, our timeline had a little bit of a stop-and-start. One of the games we were originally planning to include in the lineup didn’t turn out to be easily translatable to our method of play, so we pivoted to another game intstead: Wetrunner. Wetrunner is a FATE - powered game that takes place in an oceanic cyperpunk future, and we weren’t sure where it would fit in our current galaxy.

We decided to put it into the timeline before Last Fleet, on one of the planets that was eventually destroyed by a robot uprising. There, we decided that at one point in this planet’s history, climate change and decreasing oceanic wildlife led to a great profit for folks who managed to steal aquatic life from power-hungry billionaires.

In other words, we were a diver-themed Leverage crew stealing fish from Eelon Mollusc.

This is where our Squad took a turn for the wacky. We were donning secret identities, wrestling with former connections to the Calamari mafia, and coming up with elaborate Seahorse-racing schemes to lure in our marks. It was hilarious, it was goofy, and it was a great tone-shift from our previous drama-heavy games. (Wetrunnner play-kit)

Next up: Scum & Villainy. This is where a lot of the set-up in Starforged really did us a favor. We had a lot folks at this point who were excited about Scum & Villainy, so we ended up running two games on two different days of the week. Both games were set up as bounty-hunting crews on the Cerberus, for reasons that I’ll mention later.

We started by recalling the factions we had created in Starforged and mapping them according to theme and tier. I also ported over some of the planets that had been created in Starforged, and started them out in ways that made sense, giving them levels in Weird, Crime, Wealth and Tech. Then the players created characters, and we added more details to the world based on their interests. (Scum & Villain play-kit)

For group A, this led to an investigation into Obsidian Inc, the shady company introduced in Starforged, where Forge-Spawn research invited plenty of cult-related trade and imperial intrigue. We had one player with a robot character continuing the theme of betrayal, turning on the group in the last scene, leaving us with an open-ended ending hinting towards a future rivalry between her and the rest of the crew.

For group B, we set out on an investigation of a racing circuit that was being fixed against the organizer’s will, with strange artifacts and a very humorous rivalry between the crew’s pilot and an NPC called Flick.

As a game, Scum & Villainy elicited mixed reactions. Some folks really loved the chances to experience a number of dramatic moments and heavy role-play, especially during downtime. Others found the harsh consequences from mixed successes to be a bit jarring, especially since Moth-Light, which uses the same bones, feels much more forgiving. Scum & Villainy is definitely a much closer hack of Blades in the Dark, which is meant to be pretty brutal in dishing out harm and consequences. I know that as a GM, I was expecting the Gambit mechanic to carry much more of the weight than it actually did, and if I run this game in the future, I’ll want to have a much more in-depth talk with my players about how harsh we want the consequences to be.

Last, but certainly not least, is A Complicated Profession. This is a game about bounty hunters experiencing a career change into cruise ship employees - and this is why we all played as bounty hunters in the previous games. This was a chance for anyone to carry forward a character they had already created into a new setting, and two players did exactly that. Hatchet, our Mystic, took up the mantle of the ship’s janitor, and Kalo, our former pilot, took up the role of the ship’s bouncer. (A Complicated Profession play-kit)

Once again, we were provided with a much-needed change in tone. A Complicated Profession has so much room for light-hearted comedy, and we took it and ran. Our ship is in a weekend-at-Bernie’s situation, with a captain that is totally out of commission but we need to maintain the facade that he’s still alive in order to make sure we can still get paid. We had occasional run-ins with junk pirates, organized birthday parties for alien teenagers, and solved many a problem with a food processor.

A Complicated Profession is another game that can be run without a GM, although in this case we still had one person take the role of a facilitator because a) we had too many people show interest and b) not everyone had access to the book. As you play, characters will slowly let go of pieces of their old lives, and pick up new skills to help them with their new job, including choosing a new name at the end. I have laughed so many times while playing this game and I’m so happy that this is how we decided to tie up the Galaxy Squad series.

After this my friends and I are re-organizing how we play our games, so we might not have a thematic timeline in the same way we did for Monster Squad or Galaxy Squad. But these experiences have taught me some really valuable lessons, the primary one of which is this:

Choosing games to play based on a theme will sometimes point you towards games that you may not have otherwise thought to pick up. Those games may end up being something that you absolutely love. In this case, I was very excited to run Scum & Villainy, but it ended up being the biggest let-down on the list. Meanwhile, I had never heard of A Complicated Profession before my co-GM introduced me to it, and it is now going at the top of my list of recommendations.

If you are in a game group and you have access to a number of different games between you and your friends, taking turns to try out the stuff you are all interested in will introduce you to so many games, and while not everything will be a hit, you’ll learn a lot about what you like, and you may find your next favourite game. So try stuff!!

#tabletop games #indie ttrpgs #mint plays games #galaxy squad #space games #cyberpunk #space opera #sci-fi #dnd

[monochromayhem]

Sonic [x]

Shadow [x]

Silver/Onyx [x]

Finn (Infinite) [x]

Watts “Tails” Prower [x]

S.C.R.A.M.B.L.E. [x]

Sylphic the Hybrid [x]

Blue the Darkling [x]

Akshi [x]

Jareth/James (Starline) [x]

Mimic [x]

Slinger the Ocelot [x]

#system maintenance #system files #system category #galaxy squad #sonic fictive

[wjbs-bonkle-au]

Ok so it's heavily implied that Galaxy Squad and Ultra Agents are set in the same universe (or, at the very least, alternate versions of the same one), but I personally headcanon that Agents (2010) and Alien Conquest are also the same universe, and they're set in out-of-universe set order, though not over the same timespan (AC is set a few years after Agents, GS is set somewhere between several decades and a full century after AC, UA is set several decades after GS).

Also I legitimately forgot that Galaxy Squad had robots with unique head-moulds. They should bring them back (the moulds, not the minifigs); they were really cool.

#not bionicle #lego #galaxy squad #ultra agents #lego agents #alien conquest

[marveltournaments]

#marvel #marvel comics #namor #namor mckenzie #rocket raccoon #avengers #star-sheriff #guardians of the galaxy #defenders #nova corps #x-men red #invaders #x-men #phoenix five #all-winners squad #polls

[noomi-is-god]

Daniela Melchior

#daniela melchior #actress #the suicide squad #ratcatcher 2 #cleo cazo #Fast X #guardians of the galaxy vol 3

[the-far-bright-center]

Disney SW fans who claim to love Anakin but think the Prequels suck, you're part of the problem. And the OT purists who hate the Prequels and then turn around and blame them for why Disney SW sucks...yeah, you're part of the problem too.

One of the many reasons the Disney SW 'Sequels' were so terrible and destructive was because the people making them decided to completely ignore the importance of the Prequels and reject them as an intrinsic part of the saga. And they seemed to believe they were pandering to 'what the fans wanted' by doing this. But the Prequels are half the entire story as Lucas told it, and they just threw it out the window. The Prequels COMPLETED the saga. But Disney pretended that the saga wasn't complete yet and that it was up to them to do so. Instead of just making 'interquel' material from the beginning (like Rogue One, etc), they arrogantly took it upon themselves to 'finish' a story that was already completed back in 2005. And in doing so, Disney also decided to reframe the saga into something decidedly lesser (a repetitive grimdark story where the cycle 'wasn't broken ackshually', instead of an uplifting and transcendent mythic fairytale), but one which would allow them to continue making 'new canon' material indefinitely (cause that is more lucrative for them). But the Prequels had already reframed the saga and given it a very specific meaning. Without the Prequels, ALL of Star Wars loses that meaning. And without a happy ending for the OT characters and an unequivocally positive resolution to the their storyline, the entire saga is rendered into a perpetual tragedy. So, unless and until so-called 'Star Wars fans' can acknowledge and embrace just how intrinsic the Prequels are to the fictional story they supposedly 'like', they will be running around in circles trying to blame Disney's failures on the very thing that Disney so carelessly ignored and discarded in the first place.

#anti-disney #pro-lucas saga #the skywalker saga #the real skywalker saga #pt x ot saga #anakin skywalker #Anakin is the Chosen One #and he SAVES THE GALAXY #and Disney stans and OT purists alike can go cry about it #prequels defense squad #prequels appreciation #i am am PT x OT fan for life #that's the actual saga

[whxre-bxby]

These two give off the same energy:

Lyle and Drax are so silly

#avatar #avatar the way of water #avatar movie #recom squad #lyle wainfleet #recom wainfleet #recom lyle wainfleet #recom lyle #atwow #atwow lyle wainfleet #guardians of the galaxy #guardians of the galaxy vol 2 #gotg #gotg vol 2 #gotg3 #drax the dad #gotg drax #drax #drax the father #drax the destroyer #marvel #marvel universe #matt gerald #dave bautista

[incorrectgotgquotes]

Quill: No one likes a show-off.

Rocket: Unless what they’re showing off is dope as fuck.

Quill: [whispering] Fuck. That’s true.

#incorrect quotes #guardians of the galaxy #peter quill #rocket raccoon #source: the suicide squad

[smh0217]

Qurikless Hero Course Student AU

*After a training exercise where Midoriya’s team beat Bakugos team*

Bakugo, stomping towards Midoriya: YOU! You thought you could beat me?!No!

*Bakugo lets off an enormous explosion at Midoriya, which cause him to fly back and everyone around them to scatter*

Bakugo: You think you have some worth in and of yourself? No! You're an abomination!

*Bakugo rushes towards Midoriya and begins to beat him while he’s trying to get back up*

Bakugo: You’re nothing more than a pebble on my path! You little quirkless freak! How dare you think you are more, DEKU!

*Midoryia is finally able to free himself from Bakugos assault by pulling out his stun blaster and blasting Bakugo at point blank range. Bakugo is sent flying away from Midoriya. As Bakugo try’s to recover form the attack, he sees that the green haired boy is now standing and aiming the blaster right at him*

Midorya: My name is IZUKU MIDORIYA! AND I WILL BE THE FIRST QUIRKLESS HERO!!!

*Bakugo roars at him and launches himself at Midoriya, but he is intercepted by a close line from Kirishima. As Bakugo goes tumbling, he is then hit from the left by a recipro burst from Iida which sends him flying towards Todoroki, who then puts up an ice wall that Bakugo then collides with. Bakugo try’s to recover again, but he’s then kicked in the chest by Tsu, which sends him crashing straight through the ice wall. Finally, he’s then touched by Uraraka, who uses her quirk to effortlessly lift him up by the ankle and slams him down onto the ground. Disoriented, Bakugo opens his eyes to see all of class 1-A prepared to attack him if he decided to try anything. Bakugo proceeds to pass out from his injuries and class 1-A then drops their guard now that the deranged sociopath is out of commission*

#My Hero Academia #MHA #Midoriya Izuku #Bakugo Katsuki #Deku Squad vs Bakugo #anti-Bakugo #Anti Bakugo #Not Bakugo Friendly #Bakugo gets his ass beat #Quirkless Hero Student Midoriya AU #source: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 #incorrect my hero academia quotes

[hotandfunnywomen]

Daniela Melchior

#daniela melchior #the suicide squad #guardians of the galaxy volume 3 #fast x

[theresattrpgforthat]

The Galaxy Squad Log (Part 1): Last Fleet

So I've started up another series of games with my play group, and this time we're doing space games! I'm also not the only one GM-ing this time around - another one of my friends will be co-GM-ing half of the space games, all taking place in the same galaxy. To kick things off, we decided on Last Fleet, which might as well be Battlestar Galactica: The Game. If you want to take a look at the digital play-kit we used, you can check out my Google Sheets spread here.

The Breakdown

We had an Aries Tactician, a Sagittarius Engineer, a Cancer Influencer, a Leo Marine, and a Gemini Investigator. In the very first session, one of the smaller ships of the fleet went dark, prompting most of the party to go and stage a rescue. The most dramatic moment involved the Gemini Investigator sneaking into the medical bay and taking out an Android infiltrator without anyone seeing. Cue the Marine entering the medical bay to see a dead body and a gun in the hand of the Investigator. Drama ensues.

One of my favourite scenes in the second session was the terse interaction between the Tactician and the Influencer, who was acting as the fleet's therapist. The Influencer happened to be in a relationship with the head of the fleet's airforce, and slipped up in mentioning the Tactician's gambling addiction to the Commander. As a result the Tactician was forced to drop his gambling habit, so he went to his therapist to tell her she needs to break up with her girlfriend if she wants to do her job correctly. He decided to Call Her Out on Her Shit, and rolled a 10+, so she only had two options - either agree to it in order to gain experience, or refuse and mark Pressure. The tension in the air was palpable.

Meanwhile, the Engineer and the Marine ended up getting a bit too drunk, and woke up the next morning in bed together. This was great for our Engineer, who was completely oblivious to most of the intrigue going on, but it was not great for the Marine, who was responsible for investigating missing parts - which was the responsibility of the Engineer. The two of them ended up being sent on a clandestine mission to a civilian ship to try and figure out what exactly was up with the black market in lieu of the Tactician, who was prohibited from investigating it himself, and had to coordinate their efforts from afar.

Our third and final session had no right going as hard as it did. We had our Investigator shut down all access to civilian ships from the military fleet after he found out that a number of refugees were being held in the navy's headquarters. Our Influencer was saddled with calming a bunch of very panicked refugees, while our Engineer tried to get in with the gambling ring and the black market while civilians were actively blocking all military personnel. Everything was tense - and then our Investigator hit his Breaking Point.

Now, the player who chose a Gemini Investigator had made his character sheet in a bit of a hurry, so he hadn't fully read every piece of it, particularly his Breaking Point options. And his play throughout the entirety of the game was always at least a little big antagonistic towards the other PCs, which made a few players suspicious, to put it mildly. Neither of us had made any plans behind the scenes - and in fact, he didn't even know that betrayal was an option - until I read out his Breaking Points. And right there, second-last on the list, was this:

Our Investigator didn't hesitate. He immediately switched sides, turning the tables by stating that another NPC who was trying to send out a communication was actually calling for help from another ship outside the fleet - and that the Investigator was trying to bring the civilian ship to our Android pursuers. There was a mad scramble to stop him, in which our Tactician and Influencer pulled out all the stops to set up a chance to turn the ship around, and our Marine sacrificed themself to give the Engineer one last chance to save the civilians and prevent an imminent Android arrival. It was dramatic and heart-wrenching, and after a series of terrible rolls (I'm talking like, snake eyes for at least three different people terrible), the Engineer rolled a 12 and brought us back from the brink. We were all on the edge of our seat, and at the end, emotions spilled out in the most satisfying way.

Thoughts

Last Fleet is a truly special game. What I loved about it was the tight mechanics: the Pressure track on each character sheet provides a resource for the players to improve their rolls, but at the cost of stressing them out and pushing them to do something that escalates the situation even further.

The GM advice is also top-notch. It guides you to create a threat that is always at the back of the players' minds, but hardly ever front-and-centre. The players cause most of the problems themselves, because they all have their own reasons for working just outside of the law - and bringing all sorts of consequences to bear for their troubles. As a GM, I didn't have to do much - just hint at NPCs being suspicious, and throw a wrench into the daily running of things, and the players took it from there.

This game was also great for the players who love instigating or participating in conflict. The moves Call Someone Out On Their Shit and Cover Up allowed them to make demands of each-other, get up to shady shenanigans, and lie to important NPCs. The characters of Last Fleet might be heroes - but they're first and foremost flawed and stressed people, put into a very demanding situation.

Lastly, relationships are key in this game. You have the ability to interfere or support other characters when they're attempting to do something, and while the base move tells you which stat to roll with, you can substitute that stat with your relationship level instead. So having a good relationship with someone makes helping or hindering them much much easier - and that really encourages players to Reach Out to each-other, in the hopes of keeping together something that they desperately need to survive.

What's Next

Next up, a friend of mine will be running Starforged, by Shawn Tomkin. This is a game about spaceborne heroes undertaking perilous quests.

To make this game line up with the timeline of Last Fleet, we had to reconcile some key facts. We knew that in Last Fleet, faster-than-light travel existed as it helped the characters keep just ahead of their robot pursuers. But in StarForged, FTL travel no longer exists. Our Starforged crew decided that something about the drives that powered the Last Fleet caused rips or holes in reality, which made room for supernatural powers and dreadful forgespawn in the Forge. Our Engineer in Last Fleet put forward that for her end-game Breaking Point, her character decided to foolishly alter a fundamental part of FTL technology such that it was impossible for the androids to follow the last of humanity to the Forge. In other words, she used her broken heart to break reality.

Of course, the tragedy that humanity fled was the android uprising, and the Starforged crew decided to continue that legacy of trauma by dictating that advanced computers are not trusted in their version of the forge. As a result, adepts called seers who use mind-altering drugs are responsible for getting ships from point A to point B, and the bio-mechanical precursors of the Forge who survived their creators' deaths are treated with heavy suspicion.

I'm really excited to see where this game goes, and I hope to keep you updated along the way!

#last fleet #pbta #mint plays games #ttrpgs #galaxy squad

[ordinaryschmuck]

Superheroes are stupid, but that's why they're awesome

This might be an opinion that might get people to hate me, but it's worth saying: Superheroes are stupid.

Now, that's not a bad thing. In fact, superheroes being stupid is a large part of why they work. I mean, think of your favorite superhero. Think of how they look or what their powers are. Think about the villains they often fight day after day, week after week, year after year. Think about THEIR NAME.

Spider-Man, Captain America, Wolverine, Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, The Avengers, The X-Men, The Justice League, The Teen Titans.

Everything about a superhero is stupid, and the best stories aren't JUST the ones where Joker cripples Batgirl or Green Goblin dropped Gwen Stacy off a bridge. I mean, those ARE good stories, but they're not good because they were super serious or incredibly dark. They're good because writers EMBRACED the stupidity of superheroes.

Believe it or not, but embracing stupidity means more than just making jokes or comedies. It also means playing the stupidity straight, telling a story so good that no one could care about nonsense like powers, suits, and even names. Think about it: If a serious story DIDN'T embrace the stupidity of all those things, then it would do away with all of them.

Daredevil may be a crime drama about the cold death grip a mob boss has on the city and the constant battles to fight against him through the justice system, but it still features a blind lawyer who knows martial arts and jumps across rooftops in a devil costume. And the Dark Knight Trilogy might be a more realistic depiction of Batman, but it still has him dress up as a bat as he battles Two-Face and The Joker. Despite telling more serious stories about superheroes, both of them were still willing to embrace the silliness of the character. They just played them for straight instead of for laughs.

And with that said, there's nothing wrong with making comedic stories with superheroes either. Guardians of the Galaxy may have made jokes about the lunacy of a talking raccoon, but that talking raccoon also turns out to have the most tragic backstory of the entire MCU. The Suicide Squad may have people placing bets over which supervillain dies first, but the movie is still about the dark corners of the US government and how it views convicted criminals and "lesser" countries.

A superhero story can embrace stupidity in a serious and comedic fashion. They just need to remember that...

A. Don't reject the notion that superheroes are stupid. Do that, you have a movie like Fant4stic, which takes itself too seriously to the point where it can't even say the name Fantastic Four.

B. Don't lean too much into stupidity. That'll get you something like Batman and Robin, filled with so much cheese and camp that not many people can stomach it.

Whether you play it straight or play it light, never forget how stupid superheroes are. If you forget it, you forget what made them last for decades, nearly centuries. Writers embraced that stupidity and told great stories because of it, and fans couldn't care because they got a good story that lets them see past the stupidity.

We know superheroes are stupid, but that's what make them awesome.

#superheroes #marvel #dc #daredevil #the dark knight #guardians of the galaxy #the suicide squad

[nintendoni-art]

"Are you three spiriting away people again?"

"…No?" "Define people." "What's a Jackal?"

#Sonic AU #Galaxy Spiral AU #Zeti #Zeti OC #Zori #Zori the Zeti #tikal the echidna #Chaos 0 #Feel the Rabbit #Jackal Squad #my art #sonic oc #sonic #sonic the hedgehog

[wjbs-bonkle-au]

If I was, like, really good at art, I'd do pictures of various Minifigures as, like, actual people, but specifically ones from discontinued story-based themes like Agents, Atlantis, Power Miners, Galaxy Squad etc.

#not bionicle #lego #lego agents #lego atlantis #power miners #galaxy squad

[disco-orange]

Hahahaha 43 is one more than 42 the answer to life the universe and everything do you think that was on purpose hahahah that'd be funny what if he was just one off cause he could have been the perfect agent [or the answer], he was SO CLOSE, but he wasn't hahahahahahahaha what if

#odd todd #also yes i know the badge number is based on the spelling but what if that was deliberate #odd todd odd squad #todd odd squad #the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy #hhgttg #odd squad pbs kids #odd squad #odd squad fandom

[moonstreak]

Eh, screw it, let's do this.

Starting today (once I get the polls made and posted) I'm gonna do a little bracket of superhero teams. In the process of picking teams to fill out the 16 slots, by sheer coincidence, I ended up picking exactly 8 each from DC and Marvel. So round 1, in addition to being at least somewhat seeded (best I could from my own perspective), is set up with each heat being a Marvel vs DC match-up. Ought to be fun.

Each round will last a week, in the hope of getting more people clued in as we go, so do please reblog this and/or the polls themselves, cause if nobody does then it's gonna be a smaaaaall sample size indeed.

Right, all of that being said...

SUPER TEAM BRACKET: ROUND 1 MATCH-UPS

#moonstreak speaks #super team bracket #super team bracket round 1 #marvel #dc comics #justice league #avengers #fantastic four #birds of prey #guardians of the galaxy #runaways #suicide squad #x-men #super family #bat family #young avengers #champions #gotham city sirens #titans #teen titans #defenders #outlaws #red hood and the outlaws