Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 073 – March 13th.

We are going to continue rolling at the Casino/Gambling Establishment. In 3 hours, we get the e071, which is a gambling mini-game which takes the rest of the day.

You put your money on the table and roll two dice. Doubles will win back whatever you bet (Break Even). 5 or 9 doubles your money while 3 or 11 triples it.

There is also a game called jackpot in which the only winning roll is a 12. That will net you 30 times your initial bet.

Jackpot has a 2.78% chance of winning, which a bad deal. In the other game you have 16.7% chance of breaking even with doubles. There is a 11.11% chance of rolling a five or a nine. There is also 5.56% chance of rolling a three or eleven. A little math helps here. Believe it or not, there is almost a 50-50 chance of not losing.

Emily and Duke both bet 5,000 in two independent games.

Emily rolls an 11 while Duke gets an 8 (a 6 and a 2). Duke loses 5,000 while Emily wins 15,000. We are up 10,000. We do it again, this time with 10,000 each. Duke rolls a 5 and Emily gets a 9. We doubled our money each. Third round. Duke decides to have a drink and hands out 9,000 secs. to the crew to play. I haven’t listed the crew in a while.

Crewman	Bet	Die 1	Die 2	Total	Results
Ratchet	1000	1	5	6	Lose 1000
Doc	1000	4	5	9	Win 2000
Lefty	1000	1	4	5	Win 2000
Deadeye	1000	6	1	6	Lose 1000
Bones	1000	5	1	6	Lose 1000
David	1000	2	5	7	Lose 1000
Lucy	1000	2	4	6	Lose 1000
Michael	1000	2	2	4	Break Even
Jonathon	1000	5	3	8	Lose 1000

Well, six of the crew lost, so Duke throws issues another 6,000 secs. to the losers so they can try again. Michael broke even, so he tries again, too. The winners each ante up another 1000 from their winnings and Emily and Duke join them with another 5,000 each.

Duke loses 5000 while Emily breaks even.

Crewman	Bet	Die 1	Die 2	Total	Results
Ratchet	1000	2	2	4	Break Even
Doc	1000	6	3	9	Win 2000
Lefty	1000	6	6	12	Break even
Deadeye	1000	2	2	4	Break even
Bones	1000	5	4	9	Win 2000
David	1000	5	4	9	Win 2000
Lucy	1000	1	4	5	Win 3000
Michael	1000	6	3	9	Win 2000
Jonathon	1000	5	5	10	Break Even

Duke foolishly drops 1000 on the Jackpot game and loses again. One last time, Duke tries his hand at the first game with a 5000 and rolls a 9. He doubles his money.

Crewman	Winnings
Ratchet	1000
Doc	4000
Lefty	3000
Deadeye	1000
Bones	2000
David	2000
Lucy	3000
Michael	3000
Jonathon	1000

The crew is pretty happy now. They all have cash in their pockets. Collectively they took in 20,000.

Duke and Emily did worse, but managed to score 9,000 secs. Walking home with our winnings, we roll a 5 and nothing special happens. Isn’t that ominous?

I have 54,183 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek system.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 072 – March 12th.

I still need Stasis Units, Fuel, Life Support and Hypercharges. Let’s try again.

I get the last three on the first roll… then nothing. Sigh. That’s another 2013 secs. gone. I also do a bit of RRR, the engineer installs the boat’s guns. If you look at the ship’s pictures, I have added HSA for “heavy side arms”, U for “U-suits”. Anything else I messed up is gone.

You'll notice I am getting short on space. The Antelope has 18 free spaces in the hold, while the Alicorn has 28 free spaces. I am sure you can see the point of playing "Russian stacking doll" and loading stuff into the ship's boat or other crew spaces.

I won't be doing that any time soon.

1 Antelope starship with TL-5 Guns. I owe nothing.
1 Hopper with boat guns, TL-3.

Cargo of note:
1 Boat guns, TL-2,
4 CU Status Unit (e103),
7 Side Arms TL-1,
2 TL-4 heavy hand weapons with explosive effects,
5 TL-1 Heavy Hand Weapons,
4 Doses of pheromones (e009) in Duke’s pocket,
and the ship is fueled with 6 hypercharges.

1 Alicorn starship with TL-1 Guns. We owe nothing.
1 Hopper with TL-2 Boat guns,

Cargo of note:
5 Military U-suits (e044)
5 TL-1 Heavy Hand Weapons,
and the ship is fueled with 6 hypercharges.

I have 47,183 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek system.

Another Assassin Post - The Swindle Pig

Here is another look at assassins. You can download the full file here as a pdf.

I generally don't do single page character sheets, but this assassin popped into my head fully formed.

The Swindle Pig is an atypical assassin. His real name is unknown, but he goes by “Patch”, “Plug” and “Paully”. Sometimes, in the same conversation.

He specializes in information gathering. He is able to provide the player characters with many useful details.

From the DM side, The Swindle Pig excels at spycraft so he knows what the party needs. He is horrible at negotiation,  so he doesn’t bother. He offers his information for “free” at the outset and explains that people should repay him according to their means once the information proves useful.

This sort of indebted exchange rubs a lot of people wrong, but they still pay accordingly. 

Many player characters will realize that The Swindle Pig is an excellent assassin and fighter but he sees no value in killing people if he doesn’t have to. On the other hand, people who try to cross him or the people he networks with will end up very dead. He will never double cross honest people and won’t work with honorless people.

The Swindle Pig has two journals or notebooks. He is very educated and has excellent penmanship. When he gives out information, he writes it on a page in the red book and tears it out. When someone gives him a reward, he places their names in the black book, no matter the amount.   

There is a story about him rescuing someone who came to harm from his information. It’s an ugly tale, but also proof positive that he is honorable.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 071 – March 11th.

We are all patched up, sitting at the Talitar Spaceport. We are flush with cash and I need to get stuff done.

Meta-note: I have flubbed up my character inventory over the past couple of days. I need to fix that. But let’s get today done before I do it. I have 10 rolls to make.

I need fuel units, life support units and a hopper. I also need sale-able goods. I get the hopper, which helps. It costs 900.

At this point, I am going to impose an penalty on myself for not keeping good records. If I can’t easily find a record of an item, I am going to delete it. This isn’t exactly punishment, I just don’t want to drive myself nuts. If you notice a mistake, it’s true, I made mistakes. I have also been cheating a bit, which isn’t going to end, so that is that.

Lost items... Maybe the pirates got them or perhaps they got blown out of the cargo hold in the fighting with the scout ship.

Better luck tomorrow.

1 Antelope starship with TL-5 Guns. I owe nothing.
1 Hopper with boat guns, TL-3.

Cargo of note:
1 Boat guns, TL-2,
4 CU Status Unit (e103),
7 Side Arms TL-1,
2 TL-4 heavy hand weapons with explosive effects,
5 TL-1 Heavy Hand Weapons,
4 Doses of pheromones (e009) in Duke’s pocket,
and the ship is fueled with 4 hypercharges.

1 Alicorn starship with TL-1 Guns. We owe nothing.
1 Hopper with no boat guns.

Cargo of note:
1 TL-2 Boat guns,
5 Military U-suits (e044)
5 TL-1 Heavy Hand Weapons,
and the ship is fueled with 4 hypercharges.

I have 49,196 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek system.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 070 – March 10th.

We take another day of RRR to get the Antelope patched up.

Why is it so important to have undamaged ships? If you attempt to enter hyperspace with a damaged ship, you have a 1 in six of being destroyed, per hit. More than 5 hits and you are automatically destroyed on jumping.

There is also another form of risk, being to close to a planet. Jumping from the surface has a 5 in 6 chance of destroying the ship. From low orbit, an asteroid or a space station, it drops to 4 in six. Each level of out reduces this number by one. Four levels of "out" is a zero chance.

Why take any of those chances?

Today, I realized that I didn't update the record sheets for the Alicorn and Antelope and now they are a complete hash. I will have to go over my inventory and fix them both.

Rather than plug another product, would you mind taking some time to answer a poll for an upcoming product?

Here is the poll link.

1 Antelope starship with TL-5 Guns. I owe nothing.
1 Hopper with boat guns, TL-3.

Cargo:
1 Boat guns, TL-2,
4 CU Status Unit (e103),
2 TL-4 heavy hand weapons with explosive effects,
5 Military U-suits (e044),
7 Side Arms TL-1,
10 repair units,
4 Doses of pheromones (e009) in Duke’s pocket,
and the ship is fueled with 4 hypercharges.

1 Alicorn starship with TL-1 Guns. We owe nothing.

Cargo:
1 TL-2 Boat guns,
10 repair units,
5 Military U-suits (e044)
10 TL-1 Heavy Hand Weapons,
and the ship is fueled with 4 hypercharges.

I have 50,096 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek system.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 069 – March 9th

We take a day of RRR to get the ships patched up. It takes one day per hit, per engineer, per ship. Alicorn is ready at the end of today, while the Antelope needs another day of RRR.

It’s midterms, so I won’t bore you with more ads. I will simply offer the game design books, I mentioned before. They are very interesting, packed full of good ideas I wish I was reading, but am not because of midterms.

1 Antelope starship with TL-5 Guns. I owe nothing.
1 Hopper with boat guns, TL-3.

Cargo:
1 Boat guns, TL-2,
4 CU Status Unit (e103),
2 TL-4 heavy hand weapons with explosive effects,
5 Military U-suits (e044),
7 Side Arms TL-1,
10 repair units,
4 Doses of pheromones (e009) in Duke’s pocket,
and the ship is fueled with 4 hypercharges.

1 Alicorn starship with TL-1 Guns. We owe nothing.

Cargo:
1 TL-2 Boat guns,
10 repair units,
5 Military U-suits (e044)
10 TL-1 Heavy Hand Weapons,
and the ship is fueled with 4 hypercharges.

I have 50,096 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek system.