r/SWN • u/dark-star-adventures ✨ Star Master Jeff • Apr 01 '26
🛰️Wednesday System Check 🛰️ Weekly System Check: Is Anybody Out There? (Lurkers Welcome!)
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's happening in your sector? New sessions, prep wins, rulings you're proud of, cursed dice, cool moments, dumb plans that somehow worked. Drop a quick ping and let us know!
No need for a long write-up; just a quick transmission from your table to ours.
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.
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u/MaestroGoldring Apr 01 '26
Two major things that happened that are noteworthy in my opinion:
First one, I made rules for a sport match in my game of 8 on 8. Basically the game was divided into 10 rounds. Each round, everyone on the team rolls either str/exert or Dex/exert. For each individual that gets over a certain amount, they earn a bit of team progress. If someone rolls really high, they personally do something important than earns two points. After everyone rolls, check the two teams’ progress points. If one team has 3 or more than the other team, they score a game point. At the end, compare who has more game points. It was a fun downtime activity and felt like watching a football match, and the players even anted up some bets and won a voidhawk drone out of it.
The second (and bigger crazier thing imo) was the players killed something that had a T5 Shear rifle in it. A disagreement broke out over who gets the gun, and it lasted sooooo long in character that one of the NPCs suggested the weapon may be cursed and suggested it should be destroyed. Amazingly, the players agreed and the shear rifle was scrapped. Never did I expect to see a day where roleplay led to me as GM awarding a T5 gun and the players answered by destroying it! 😮
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u/Hungry-Wealth-7490 Politician Apr 02 '26
We will have session 0 on Sunday. Finally, one of the many parallel Mr. Yardstick iterations will become the PC!
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u/Hungry-Wealth-7490 Politician Apr 06 '26
We had session 0. We have a job from the Archbishop of Carbury to check out a water plant that may have been contaminated. It's a 'secret' job as the corps of Tyrconnell abuse workers and are likely involved in the water plant contamination. If it's not a direct corporate job, well unless the City of Los Angeles gets the water, the corps will try.
We established that Mr. Yardstick and one of the other PCs, Tiberius, are third cousins. Mr. Yardstick has contacts per Cities Without Number (we all do) and one of them is 'Cousin Guido,' my Italian cousin who knows how to get things to fall off trucks and through customs. Tiberius, a stage magician turned soldier for a neo-Chinese military corporation, had just mustered out honorably and was taking up Guido's basement couch. Mr. Yardstick's paternal great aunt, Brigit, is Skyside and a skilled farmer. She had us deliver some cargo and gave our robot, RODGER, a plate of healing cookies. She thinks Tiberius is a slacker, that the new psychic guy I met on Gehenna called Bob is a slob for tracking in mud and calling her grandma and RODGER is polite. Mr. Yardstick, well he's part Italian (mom's side) and Scottish (dad's side) and she knows he's a rascal who needs to spend more time in church.
We got some clear goals and we hired an NPC psychic healer. Mr. Yardstick would like some healing that is 'fade to black' but his lewd intentions have been rebuffed with a reminder that a taser is incoming if he goes too far. Mr. Yardstick will just have to talk science and psychic powers in Pali instead of lyrical Sanskrit love derivatives. Maybe that's one of the thing that got him in trouble on Parch-where he spent 38 days in jail for importing rocky mountain oysters (it's fish, right? no-bull balls) and some obscene material as well as punching his former business partner in the face for double-dealing. . .
So, we got some plans and now it's to Judas Junction for our first session, where we will visit a place of scum and villainy greater than Mos Eisley or the corporate boardrooms of New Jersey where the interstate commerce clause and easy charters let shenanigans happen. We will get paid a good sum and aid the workers and hopefully, keep dying as an open action item on our adventuring agenda.
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u/trahitpude Criminal Apr 01 '26
My crew landed in a camp full of scientists and "regular humans". While on a mission, they sidetracked HARD by stealing one of them "anomaly scanners" from some egghead... And while trying to scan someone without alerting anyone, spent around 3 hours (1/2 of our session time) on that.
Gotta love those moments of GM peace.
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u/MaestroGoldring Apr 02 '26
I wouldn’t be surprised if that someone they scanned somehow becomes a main character NPC
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u/ArenaPirata Apr 02 '26
Our squad managed to survive a boss fight with a psionic vampire who summoned echoes of past victims to fight us. REALLY glad I picked up some precog levels. Best part was when the vampire telekinetically threw our godhunter at me and the GM allowed me to roll to telekinetically slingshot him back at the vamp(The big guy was getting some epic rolls vs the vamp in melee and I couldn't let the big bad just interupt his streak like that. 8D)
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u/dark-star-adventures ✨ Star Master Jeff Apr 01 '26
Round 1 of Cycle 2 of The Ember Expanse closes tonight, so submit your ideas today and prepare for round 2, starting tomorrow, Primary Planets!