An Independent Ship (Star Wars, freeform, leaning F/F)

[Daril]

I've been toying with the idea of doing a freeform Star Wars RPG about an independent ship doing jobs in the Outer Rim around the time period of the Original Trilogy.  The ship's captain is a former Rebel pilot who barely survived a massive Imperial assault that virtually annihilated the force that she was part of.  She still has a sense of justice, but at this point her view is that some other fool with delusions of grandeur can get themselves killed trying to challenge the overwhelming might of the Empire.  She'll be trying to eke out a living with her ship on the fringes of the galaxy... and while she's at it maybe she'll lend a hand in some neglected backwater where she feels like her efforts might actually be able to make a difference.  Her core crew is made up of a handful of fellow ex-Rebel survivors including her former copilot/gunner, perhaps joined by a few of the more adventurous or desperate among the people they have helped during their travels (bored backwater colonists seeking a little adventure, liberated slaves, etc).

I really want the ship's crew to include some alien women with colorful skin tones (I would particularly like the captain to have a Pantoran with white or blonde hair as her copilot/lover/confidante).  I'm actually leaning towards making the crew all female because I want to include lots of girls but want to avoid too much of a harem situation.  That being said if enough potential players express significant interest in playing male characters I will consider trying for a crew with a mix of male and female characters.

Speaking of potential players I want to limit this game to three or maybe four including myself in order to keep the game moving (I don't require or even necessarily want people to make super long posts most of the time, but I am hoping to get players who can post with reasonable frequency).  But I would also like to have a good size crew with the capability to take on bigger jobs, so I encourage people to consider playing multiple characters.  As noted earlier, the ship's core crew is a handful of former rebels who were lucky to survive a massive Imperial operation, possibly joined by a few people that the group has met during their journeys.  Aside from backgrounds I would like potential players to consider what skills their characters might have and what roles they might play.  I've been thinking the Captain's current crew might include the flight crew from when she flew a Longprobe or ARC-170 for the Alliance, but a trooper or technician could also have ended up aboard her ship during a desperate attempt to escape the Imperial onslaught (or perhaps there was more then one ship if we want to have a few extra pilots around).  Newbies could be adventure seekers with useful skills, or a mechanic rescued from pirates, or former slaves such as dancers or gladiators.

While it depends a bit on the size of the crew we end up with, in general I am leaning towards the crew having a reasonably big and capable ship.  Perhaps something like a C-ROC that's big enough to carry some small ground vehicles or even spacecraft like a shuttlepod and a couple of heavily modded/customized snubfighters.  Perhaps that's a little much for a rag tag group of ex-Rebels but they could have captured or stolen in from pirates or slavers.  Those are the type of people they may end up fighting anyway (though they could also run into the occasional Imperial agent obssessed with tracking down former rebels...).

[Bondagier]

I'd potentially be down for this, I've got a few ideas for characters. My initial concept is a Human or Mirialan, maybe an escaped slave-turned-smuggler or a former military pilot?

[Daril]

I'd thought about including a Mirilian or ersatz Orion gunner in the flight crew for the scout fighter the captain flew when she was still with the Alliance (though I had also considered making the captain herself a green skinned alien space babe ).  Or if you want to play a pilot perhaps she was flying an escort fighter or a second scout.  Actually if there were two ships on the fateful mission rather then one then we could make the "core" crew of ex Alliance members a quartet which might be useful for establishing a sense of identity for the group.

Having a couple extra pilots wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing as I was thinking it might be fun for the crew to have a couple of small, very heavily modified/personalized short range fighters at their disposal.  As for a former slave, I'd been thinking the group might have captured or stolen their main ship from some unsavory mercenaries or criminals (pirates or slavers?) so they might have ended up as part of the crew that way.

Also for some reason I thought Mirilians all had green skin, but it seems they've actually got a broader range of skin tones.

[Bondagier]

Also for some reason I thought Mirilians all had green skin, but it seems they've actually got a broader range of skin tones.

Yeah, but green skin is hawt.

[Daril]

I know, I'm leaning strongly towards making the captain a green skinned alien space babe.   Probably fine if there's two green skinned girls though, especially if they're different species.  Although yellow can also be hot!

I am leaning away from my original plan of loosely basing the captain's appearance on the bronze skinned elf (NSFW) though I'm still considering having a character based on that image -perhaps a rescued slave or one of the other rebels.

I heavily reworked the OP post at the start of the thread to reflect how things have been developing, and also changed the title to something that's hopefully a little more catchy.

[keyotess]

What type of situations are you looking to run the crew into? :) 

[Daril]

Are you thinking in general or in terms of sexual content?  I'm actually aiming for this to be a somewhat action oriented RPG with ship chases, firefights, etc.  I want to have sexy content but I don't want it to completely dominate the RPG.  I'd like to have some intimate relationships, maybe some crew members lounging around in states of casual undress while off duty, but I don't want the ship to be a nudist colony or constant orgy even though I've considered playing a character with polyamorous tendencies.  There is potential for characters to get captured and rescued though I'm uncertain about how much I want to get into NC content with this particular RPG.

[keyotess]

Kewl, then I am planting a flag of interest.   :)

[Daril]

Since three to four people including myself is my ideal group size (because I want to keep things moving) I should probably remove the "Interest Check" bit and start asking people about what sort of characters they're interested in playing.  I'm not looking for something long and detailed, and I don't want to limit people by requiring a character image though you're welcome to use pictures for inspiration.  Details I'm interested in are species and appearance, the characters skills and role in the group, if there's any particular gear they favor along with a little bit about their personality.  Note that you can create non canon species for this.

For instance Captain Vleda is a medium size Norion (NOT!Orion ) woman with light green skin, blue eyes, and slightly wavy shoulder length black hair.  As a former long range scout pilot she's a skilled flyer with training in dismounted scouting and basic ship maintenance.  She generally carries a A280 CFE because it can be reconfigured for various environments and broken down for storage, along with a traditional Norion knife and a few smoke grenades to aid in escaping if things go bad.  She is observant and likes to weigh her options which sometimes masks her strong sense of justice, though her strong loyalty to her crew shines through.

Okay that's perhaps a tad generalist so here's another.  Renara is a tall and slender woman with bronze skin, blue eyes, waist length white hair, and the curved and pointed ears characteristic of the Elvaran species.  She's a hotshot snubfighter ace, and also quite good at getting what she wants with her beauty and charisma.  She favors a basic DH-17 blaster pistol because its easy to use yet small enough to fit in a cramped cockpit, but her real weapon of choice is the Dragonhawk, a salvaged Eta-2 that she has heavily modified and personalized.  Like most Elvarans she is rather free spirited and tends towards polyamorous behaviour.

I don't know if I'm actually going to play the second character there, it may depend how many people want to play pilots (even with a main ship capable of carry a few smaller craft not everyone should have pilot as their primary role).  I would advise people to consider making a couple characters with differing roles -not only will that help fill out the crew, but it also means a greater chance that one of your characters will be relevant to whatever the current situation at hand is.  I should note that the main ship probably requires a couple gunners to utilize its full capabilities.

[Bondagier]

So I'm stuck between playing a Human or a Mirialan.

Anyways, I'm thinking my character (unnamed as of yet; it's super late) was a highly competitive swoop biker on Nar Shaddaa who seemed to be "gifted" at it (she's subtly Force sensitive, but doesn't know and probably won't ever discover it). When she won what was supposed to be a fixed race, she earned an impressive bounty on her head from a Hutt gangster and decided now was the time to get out of dodge, trading swoop racing for piloting, taking any jobs she could and learning to fly any vehicle she could. She's always had a thing for the mechanical: she's very good at fixing/operating vehicles and talking to droids, and she's not half-bad at slicing into computers, either.

[Elizabeth Ecsed]

I'm interested. Probably leaning towards a lesbian twi'lek gunner.

[Daril]

So I'm stuck between playing a Human or a Mirialan.

Anyways, I'm thinking my character (unnamed as of yet; it's super late) was a highly competitive swoop biker on Nar Shaddaa who seemed to be "gifted" at it (she's subtly Force sensitive, but doesn't know and probably won't ever discover it). When she won what was supposed to be a fixed race, she earned an impressive bounty on her head from a Hutt gangster and decided now was the time to get out of dodge, trading swoop racing for piloting, taking any jobs she could and learning to fly any vehicle she could. She's always had a thing for the mechanical: she's very good at fixing/operating vehicles and talking to droids, and she's not half-bad at slicing into computers, either.

While its useful to have extra pilots I am wondering how much unique flying she's going to get to do.  The Captain would probably want to entrust the ship to someone she's familiar with during critical situations (presuming she isn't flying it herself) and I figure most of the crew knows how to handle a speeder bike.  Though being exceptionally skilled with a speeder bike could potentially get her a star role in certain situations.

If she was in trouble with organized crime perhaps she stowed away on the crew's ship.  Or if the crew stole/captured the ship from criminals of some sort in the first place maybe they liberated her along with it?

The crew could definitely use a skilled mechanic.  I'm kind of wondering where she developed hacker slicer skills though.  Breaking the program protection on droids so she could modify or repair them herself?

I had been thinking one of the crew might be knowledgeable in jamming type electronic warfare, but it would probably make more sense for a character with that particular skill to be one of the former Rebels since there's even less cause for the average civilian to have that sort of skillset.

I'm interested. Probably leaning towards a lesbian twi'lek gunner.

One of the possibilities for the type of ship the Captain flew when she was an Alliance scout pilot is an ARC-170 which would have had a tail gunner.  Though if your character was part of the Captain's crew she should probably also have training in dismounted planetside scouting as well.  (I had originally just thought of the Captain as more of just a recon pilot, but since she might need to lead the crew on the ground I decided to expand the scope of the type of scouting operations she did for the alliance to include landing and scouting on foot.)

This might be a good opportunity to discuss the titular "Independent Ship" (feel free to suggest a name) and its armaments.  I'm thinking its an "Armoured Transport" that was designed for high risk transport jobs so its pretty well armed.  Inspired by the system of directors and remote turrets on the B-29, I'm thinking the ship has multiple gun turrets linked to a remote fire control system that allows one or two gunners in the cockpit to manage its defenses.  Though since the rear sector is really important it might have its own dedicated gunner position with a substantial amount of firepower as well (and maybe the ability to remotely direct the dorsal and ventral guns at targets in the ship's rear sector).

[Daril]

A few more thoughts on the as yet unnamed vessel, which for the time being I am going to refer to by the placeholder name "Cool Ship." As I noted earlier, the Cool Ship is an "Armoured Transport" designed for high risk transport work.  It has a slab sided main hull ~60 meters long with two decks.  The high ceilinged lower deck is divided into several cargo holds and a small vehicle hangar.  The upper deck has crew facilities forward and an engineering section aft, with a prow like cockpit and a tail gunner's position at the extreme ends.  Sublight propulsion is provided by three engines mounted in large cylindrical pods on the port, starboard, and dorsal surface of the ship's hull just forward of the tail.  Armament consists of ten heavy laser cannons mounted in pairs in a quartet of remote control dorsal and ventral turrets and a crewed rear ball turret, supplemented by a remote operated rear firing ion cannon and fore and after missile launch tubes.  The ship's armament is notable for its high degree of centralized fire control.  A pair of gunner's stations in the cockpit section can remotely operate any weapon on the ship, and multiple turrets can be slaved to fire on a single turret's target.  The remote operated weapons can also be slaved to the manual controls in the rear gunner's position which can also control the rear missile tubes.

I've also been considering the layout of the Cool Ship's cockpit since characters may spend a fair bit of time there.  My current plan is to have the pilot and co-pilot's stations forward, with a pair of side facing gunner's stations behind them on the starboard side and a flight engineer's station on the port side.  I'm also thinking there might be a station for a sensor specialist on the port side though I'm not quite as sure about that part.  This arrangement would allow a pair of crew members to fly and fight the ship when the rest of the crew is tied up, but also allows other crew members to play a part if they are available to do so.  For instance having a tail gunner would give the crew some eyes to the rear to supplement the ship's sensors, while the flight engineer could reroute power to compensate for the effects of hits.  The crew would likely have a fair bit of cross training on the various positions though certain crew members would probably tend towards certain positions.

On that note, I'd like to try to fill out the group of ex-Rebels who form the core of the ship's crew.  The captain is probably willing to train people the crew takes in, but initially I'm thinking the core group is the one she really trusts and relies upon.  At the very least I think that core group should include the crew of the scout fighter she flew when she was with the Alliance (which if it was an ARC-170 would have a copilot/sensor operator and a tail gunner).

[keyotess]

I was thinking MC could be the engineer or Sensor operator.

[Daril]

I was thinking MC could be the engineer or Sensor operator.

It would make sense for the former crew of a scout ship to include a sensor operator.  It's also possible that they ended up with someone from the maintenance crew aboard while making their escape from the Imperial assault that destroyed the Rebel group they were part of though they might also have recruited a mechanic through some other means.

I think @Bondagier was considering a character with good mechanical skills as well though I'm not sure they were planning on that being the character's primary role.

[Daril]

I haven't seen much response here after initial expressions or interest.  I am wondering if people have been distracted by current events.  If that's the case then that's fine.

I am a bit concerned if this is gong to be the typical pace though. I hoped to strike a balance between keeping the game moving (and the players engaged) and keeping the game from becoming too big a time commitment.  A few paragraphs every day or two sort of thing.

[Nim]

I am very interested in becoming part of the crew if this game idea comes to bloom so to speak.  I will be keeping an eye out for any new developments with the recruiting stage.

~Nim~

[la dame en noir]

I'm definitely down to do this! I've been dying for a sapphic leaning SW rp.

[TheGrandAdmiral]

Am interested in playing a Togruta, need to think of a role