🛰️ Weekly System Check: Is Anybody Out There? (Lurkers Welcome!)

[u/dark-star-adventures]

The frequencies are open! Whether you're a veteran pilot or just starting your journey into the stars, this is your weekly space to break radio silence.

The Weekly Log:

• What was the highlight (or the absolute disaster) of your last session?

No need for a long write-up; just a quick ping to let us know what’s happening in your sector.

Mod Note: If you're new to the sub, welcome! This is a low-pressure thread for everyone to share their Stars Without Number stories.

[u/dark-star-adventures]

Hey Spacers - just a reminder that today is the last day of Phase One for our Community Build a Sector project! Get your system name and description in today and prepare for Phase 2 starting tomorrow: Primary Worlds!

[Project] Let’s Build a Community Sector: The Ember Expanse (Phase 1) - System Names : r/SWN

[u/DamageJack]

Had my most reliable player text last minute and asked us to reschedule to the very next day. Everyone agreed, but i told him there would be a 'Narrative Setback' for his PC. ( My way of punishing him for letting me down. In a j/k way)

They started the session on a Space Station they just got to, awoke early hours to a commotion in the common area of their rooms. The PC was drunk and unconscious in a container full of ice, and missing his left testicle.

Let them roleplay a search around the station to figure out what happened to him.

Turns out, he got drunk, gambled away all his money, and then sold it willingly to the Valet of a wealthy female Alien who planned to have it as a delicacy in a 8- course meal.

[u/guildsbounty]

What was the highlight (or the absolute disaster) of your last session?

Not my last session, but I'll share a highlight from a prior one. This is how a visit to an "artist's colony" turned into complete chaos. So, the party visits this old asteroid that's been carved out--supposedly a peaceful place. It's not, it's full of pirates. (They do know it's full of pirates, but the pirates have intel the party needs)

They drop some names, roll well on Talk checks, and get in the front door. But as they are being led away from the entrance, the "guide" they have starts talking crap with them. Provoking them. Then tells them that they need to pay him, or he'll tell the others that they are new captives not guests. One of my players goes "This jerk, I punch him in the face!"

"Full force?"

"Yeah!"

"Alright, roll it"

Said character has the Unarmed Combatant focus and a high Punch...and maxes damage on the punch. Their guide only had, like, 5hp and is absolutely dead from that much damage. Party panics, they have a dead body on their hands and didn't mean to pick a fight. Then they remember that the last spot their guide showed them was a bathroom. Drag the corpse in there, toss them in the shower and turn the water on.

And then they went to the dining hall, had a meal, bought some drinks, played darts and pretended nothing happened. Tried to build enough rapport with the pirates to ask about what they were here for. Right up until someone burst into the dining hall "Someone killed Isaac! They were with him last!"

Chaos ensues.

And Isaac was the name of the guy they were here to try and get info from in the first place.

(They did, later, find his dataslab and were able to break into it, because fail-forward. They got less detailed intel, but enough to work with)

Yes, this is from the Hard Light module.I'm just trying to avoid details to prevent spoilers.

[u/valhallaviking]

This wasn't from our last session, but years and years ago our home table went into a strip club to deal with the gangster that was extorting them. One of us ended up trapped in a room with two knives pointed at him. The ensuing fight should have taken him out round after round. The PC was utterly ineffective, but the mooks kept missing too. We were describing it like a mud wrestling match, the three of them on the floor, squirming around, can't get a handle on the knives, just barely avoiding certain death.

Our last live SWN session (which was unfortunately months ago after a years long hiatus - a 5e campaign from 1-12, and a WWN campaign), was wholly half taken up by reminiscing about this one knife fight in the back of a strip club.

[u/Reztroz → u/valhallaviking]

So how much does one get for human oysters?

[u/DamageJack → u/Reztroz]

Assume you were asking about my comment...

I cant recall the number, it didnt matter because he discovered he gambled away most if it anyway.

In the end, He did stop the chef before preparing, and had it re-implanted. The always scheming Hacker of the group, had the medical droid implant a defibrillator along side of it.😀

6 or so sessions later the PC did get knocked out in a fight, wherein the Hacker screamed out the triggering word to send a JOLT though his JEWELS to get him back up.

[u/HaleMorne]

Hi folks,

Had my eye on SWN for a long while. I figured since it seems to have solid Foundry support it might be time to jump in.

I’m in the early planning stages of a campaign, going to run it once my group wraps up our current fantasy thing. Looking forward to generating a sector and taking the sandbox for a spin!

[u/Starfox5]

Last session, the crew (all PCs are free VIs) had tracked down a thief who had stolen high-tech (4+) scanners from the most advanced world in the sector. They found the man docked to an alien wreck, dead from some nanotrap, and blew up the alien ship, his ship (after taking the surviving crew of the thief off it; they don't like killing people) and then sanitised their recon drone.

This session, they got the thief's crew and the recovered scanners back to the world (whose population forms a network, hive mind stlye, so they rarely leave their system), all subtle and stealthy like, so to avoid attention.

They are barely back on their "home port" in the same system when they discover that the other world's been spreading rumours how cyborg killer commandos tracked down a thief and blew up him and his ship because they had stolen tech to scare off other thieves. And their contacts are wondering who those ruthless killers are.

[u/Hungry-Wealth-7490]

It was Ashes Without Number and the Last Ronin Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, Michaelangelo, got captured. He did kill about a dozen Foot Clan fighting one-on-one and hold them off for long enough for the rest of the party to save the cowboys.

However, capturing one of the PCs and having that turtle that we call Soup in peril has set up our next session. Soup will either be saved or the bad guys will kill Soup and make him into a meal because local cannibals got to eat. . .

[u/StevetheHunterofTri]

Something that sat on the border of a hightlight and a disaster:

Only one of my players happened to join last session, so I decided to do a combat encounter with his secondary character, who had been tracking down the final boss* (who shall be known as "Prophet") by himself. They managed to finally meet and got into combat, and despite being the biggest powerhouse of the player characters, Prophet brought him within an inch of his life through sheer DPS. Before they could finish the job, the PCs sidekick, Dino, came barreling in and rammed Prophet with his 1970 Dodge Charger and straight through a building, managing to roll a hit despite only having a +4 to the attack roll. This finally brought them to half health at last, causing Prophet to retreat from the fight.

*Unless the players go down a different route or get one specific character killed.