Skip Tracers

[RabidVargr]

There's an interesting book(let) I just picked up for about 6 bucks from the local game shop. It's the little bounty hunters book for GURPS TRAVELLER. In it it has several different "careers" if you will including skip tracers. These sound like they could be a really interesting group to run.

For those of you who don't know, Skip Tracers are people hired by a bank or corperation to track down people who default (skip) on a loan. Now there's a vast amount of starships out there, and even if .1% actually skip (probably much more than that), that's still plenty of recovery ops for the pc's. Some will be just a trackdown, others may be undertaking new ventures (piracy, smuggling) and be quite resistant to reposession.

Anyways, the book's about 6 bucks, and worth a look.

RV

 

[RocketTurtle]

There's a great animated series called Cowboy Bebop that I'm a fan of. It involves bounty hunters, nicknamed Cowboys travelling through the solar system (via hyperspace gates) tagging and bagging bounties.

The overall plot wasn't to save all of humanity, but it was merely a continuation of all the life changing events that got them in to bounty hunting.

It was my hope that my players would take up this line of work so that I could run some interesting bounties their way. Since communication takes time, they'll be dealing with sector or cluster bounties.

Of course, there has to be a bounty management organization and some legal sanctions towards hunters, but then again, where there's frontier there's bounties, and those who hunt them.

 

[RabidVargr]

Clairification:

The book is "GURPS TRAVELLER HEROES 1, BOUNTY HUNTERS" by SJGames. ISBN 1-55634-613-1

Lots of good stuff in there.

Haven't seen cowboy bebop. I stay away from japan stuff since one of my friends showed me some seriously nasty tenticle stuff going on in one of his. All the rest I've seen the chicks mouths are twice the size of their heads and the volume is 400% a normal little girl and just annoys the heck out of me. And then pokemon *sound of keyboard crunching*

RV

 

[GBoyett]

Originally posted by RabidVargr:
Haven't seen cowboy bebop. I stay away from japan stuff since one of my friends showed me some seriously nasty tenticle stuff going on in one of his. All the rest I've seen the chicks mouths are twice the size of their heads and the volume is 400% a normal little girl and just annoys the heck out of me. And then pokemon *sound of keyboard crunching*

I highly recommend trying to see Comboy Bebop on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim on Saturdays, or buy the one of the DVDs. I think you will love it.

The Vargr in you will love Ein, the Welsh Corgi, who is the only realy intelligent and stable member of the crew. (Me and my sister's favorite character!)

 

[RabidVargr]

all right, all right, I'll try it. What's the first episode? Better not be loudmouthed obnoxious chicks (grumble grumble tenticles grumble)

RV

 

[Shadowdancer]

Cowboy Bebop has no tentacles, and the only loud-mouth obnoxious chick is at least an adult, and hot, and doesn't show up until the fourth or fifth episode.

I don't like most anime, but I really, really like Cowboy Bebop.

 

[RocketTurtle]

CB doesn't subscribe to many of the cliche anime elements, save for animation style and certain character design elements (long legs, tall main characters). Their storytelling methods are very modern as well, as the characters don't go into long monologues describing everything that they're doing at the moment. In fact, you'll be hard pressed to understand each character's motivation until you piece together their past through each episode.

On top of all that, the jazzy soundtrack is the best music I've heard for any entertainment medium, better than some movie soundtracks. I'm even using it for some action parts in my Traveller game.

 

[Shadowdancer]

Yeah, I love Cowboy Bebop's music.

 

[lightsenshi]

Originally posted by RabidVargr:
And then pokemon *sound of keyboard crunching*

RV

Pokemon.... *shudder*

Having run many different sci fi/fantasy style games, I can tell you that skip tracing can be a good background and a nice alternative from the usual mercenary/adventurer style game.

 

[ArchTangent]

Cowboy Bebop rules. The entire thing is mind-bendingly stylish.

The first episode is called "Asteroid Blues". It introduces the two main characters as they try to get the bounty on a drug runner.

 

[Skylinkdave]

I was surprised to see that Cowboy Bebop is actually available from NetFlix. Just added the first 3 discs to my rental queue. Thanks for the tip.

Originally posted by ArchTangent:
Cowboy Bebop rules. The entire thing is mind-bendingly stylish.

The first episode is called "Asteroid Blues". It introduces the two main characters as they try to get the bounty on a drug runner.