Adventures of the Black Lotus Part 1

Adventures of the Black Lotus Pt 1

Art Credit: Quiet Among the Stars by http://doommetal101.deviantart.com/

Adventures of the Black Lotus is a sci-fi compaign that I started about 5 years ago.

I spent alot of time setting up the background, the mysteries and conspiracies. And its a sandbox game with 20 minutes of introduction. 

I really wanted to run a travelleresque game, but I didnt know the Traveller rules very well so I ran it as a straight hero system game. But, I didnt have the right group. Some players were very transient / unreliable. Others, didnt know the system.  But really the way I run an rpg game, I try to make the rules as transparent as possible, while still keeping the mechanics there for people who enjoy it.  And as you might know, HERO GAMES has tons of mechanics. Id say, its almost cultish. On the downside, these very finite mechanics also slow the game down and suck the flavor out of the game. 

Since only one person beside myself knew the mechanics of hero games, I instructed the players to say AGGRESSIVE, Normal, Defensive, and I applied the appropriate modifiers thus unburdening the players. I also stripped out the segment chart, and STUN. 

So where are we now? Well I think for now I will stay with my cut up version of Herogames for combat. One of the new players has made some squeaking sounds about playing it in Traveller. I will Have to think that over.  I have a real suprise coming up for you TFT fans. But I dont want to spoil it. 

So tell us about the Sandbox Universe.

About 500 years ago Earth finally masters Jump technology. They sent out seven waves  of colony ships. It became a great corporate race to find a star. There was a low percent. None ever returned. They were assumed gone. 

Then again 400 years ago, another colonization wave took place. Some thirty jumps out from earth they found a grouping of colonizable systems, and set the flags down to extend humanities grasp.  All was not perfect. The first colony was ravaged by misfortune. it grew for a hundred or so years before they could restock and re-colonize the 19 closest star systems

 There was quiet among the stars. And progress.  Humanities greatest quality  is its resilliance.

Next up?  The map, The races. The mysteries, conspiracies and cat people who are still human.