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Why I enjoy CT

D

DElrick

SOC-12
I ran the first game in a new CT campaign last night (over OpenRPG, as the players are scattered across the country).

Yesterday afternoon I was prepping for the game - rolling stats for important NPCs, creating cargo and passenger numbers, expanding the star systems using book 6 and I suddenly remembered that this was why I enjoyed CT so much.

See, I've been running one-off games over the last couple of years and I don't need to do all of that prep beforehand, because that level of detail doesn't matter so much. But specing out a system (even with some of those formulae in the back of book 6) and so on is quite relaxing.

Now I've just got to crack making up believable NPC names... :-)
 
Grab your phone book.
First name, randomly pick a page and bounce a penny onto the page. Pick one of the first names under it.
Repeat for last names.
 
Yeah, its those random tablesthat do it for me - they really take some of the hard-work and boredom out of prepping for a game. A real lift to the imagination.
 
CharGen is a game unto itself with CT. I used to spend hours just rolling up NPCs for the fun of it; got some good characters that way, too. In the past I saw no end of players lose it big time when their character got nailed just before it mustered out.

One guy had a Book 6 scout with shedloads of skills who failed the survival throw in year 3/term 7. Boy, was he mad........:file_23:

"Bloody stupid survival rule!!

His next character did 6 terms in the Scouts and survived :)

I also enjoy building systems, but these days I like 'em realistic so tend to build them by hand, rather than by using dice. I don't remember the last time I looked at the stellar data tables and formulae in Scouts; I use RL formulae and "seek professional advice" ;)
 
Good going. I tried to run CT via Open for years. Ended up I found more people that wanted to play Star Trek, and Cyberpunk, or D&D 1st ed.

CT is just a great game.
 
It's the simplicity of the system that I always loved. I think the skills need an overhaul and a task system, and the combat rules need to be replaced, but I'll take everything else ;)
 
hunter said:
It's the simplicity of the system that I always loved. I think the skills need an overhaul and a task system, and the combat rules need to be replaced, but I'll take everything else ;)
Click to expand...

The simplicity of the system works in its favour for me. I prefer to play a rules-light game, so CT is perfect.
 
Merxiless said:
Good going. I tried to run CT via Open for years. Ended up I found more people that wanted to play Star Trek, and Cyberpunk, or D&D 1st ed.

CT is just a great game.
Click to expand...

Well, I knew the players anyway, rather than finding them through the OpenRPG forums or other means, so that made things easier. They are all friends that I see at various conventions, but they live in different parts of the UK so getting them round a table is not really possible.

The game session worked fine, although one of the players had a little trouble with the interface at first (the scroll lock on the chat window had somehow become set at off, so he wasn't seeing much activity...). We didn't roll any dice at all, apart from the test ones to show how the die rolling utility worked. They started at Regina, picking up a J-1 free trader which had just finished its annual maintenance. After a drunken night out watching bar fights, they took on a Vargr archaologist who wanted to work passage to Rech. Then they met the department head of the company who own the ship who asked them to look out for a couple of missing ships and finally, after imagining all sorts of things that might go wrong, they worked up the courage to press the jump button and jump to Jenghe. They have a nearly-full cargo bay and a near full set of mid and low passengers, so they should realise quite a of of money on this run...

I ran some D&D over OpenRPG a while back and it worked OK, although my indifferent talent at drawing maps, coupled with my rules-light DMing style meant that the combats were a little too abstract for some of the players' tastes.

I'd love to run Cyberpunk again. I had a really great idea for a mini-campaign just the other day.

One of my players is planning a Cthulhu game over OpenRPG too, so I've made some converts.
 
Merxiless said:
Sounds like a great CT game via open. Much needed. Good luck with it.
Click to expand...

Thanks. It's going well so far. We've had three sessions now. They have arrived at Jenghe, docked and posted their next destination. Then they accepted a small insystem job (go and check some survey results on one of the gas giant moons). They've found a wrecked ship that someone is using as a store for contraband and they were just arguing about how to proceed.

It's been very rules-light so far. Not much die-rolling at all, but plenty of in-character chat and poking fun at the NPC Vargr.

Hirch might post something about it here. They seem to be enjoying it though.
 
Speaking of Vargrs, I have a crew aboard a "salvage" vessel being accused of piracy. The captain is a powerful man in the more back world planets and has a first officer who is a Vargr. They operate slightly above the politics of the war. The "adopted crew" still have yet to fully warm up to him.
 
CT has and always will be a very familiar friend and pleasure. I grew grew up in california during the 80s playing with my uncle. I would also have to say, other than my medical career, it brought a lust and curiosty for science and technology that prior to the introduction to the spinward marches never existed.

I agree with some posts that it needs to be overhauled, but the very essence of it brings a smile to my face.
 
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