The Tycho Accords 25 Interpreting the Tycho Accords—26
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A Roleplaying Game with Character by Joshua BishopRoby Illustrated by Lemuel Pew and Kirk Mitchell Art Credits Lemuel “Hot Soup” Pew drew the cover and the piec- es on pages 17, 21, 31, 41, 95, and 120. His work can be found at http://lethaldoses.net and at http://brickshot.net. Kirk Mitchell, who has no culinary nickname, did the pieces on pages 68, 136-137, and 139. He also created concept art that helped devel- op the game. He can be reached at [email protected]. Full Light, Full Steam is copyright 2006 by Joshua BishopRoby. With the exception of the Play Aids at the back of this book, no portion may be reproduced without the express written permission of the author. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 - 10 09 08 07 06 for Laura, the original Commander Alexander Table of Contents A Clever Gambit Beyond Ceres 1 What is Full Light, Full Steam? 3 What You Need to Play—4 What Makes Full Light, Full Steam Different? 4 The Steampunk Genre 5 Anatomy of this Book 6 Mechanical Sidebars—7 For Queen and Country , FU Attention, Brave Young Boys! 9 HT LL IG S L T The Fairer Sex and Her Majesty’s Navy 10 E L A L Playing a Lady Officer—12 M U F Etiquette for Ladies in the Service 12 VY ROYAL NA Abstract of the Olympic Solar Steamer 13 AS L TRONOMICA Understanding Class and Classification 15 Rank and the Chain of Command 19 Driving Force 20 The Solar Powers 22 The Tycho Accords 25 Interpreting the Tycho Accords—26 A Daring Tourist’s Solagraphy Venus: Jewel of the Empire 27 The Lowlands 27 Blood Wasps—28 The Highlands 28 The Natives 29 Venerian Characters—29 Ishtar, British Venus 30 The Great Game—34 Lada, Russian Venus 34 Many Times Through Luna 35 The Surface 35 The Tunnels 36 Victoria Station, Mare Crisium 37 New Moon and Many Ports 38 Mars, Contested Ground 39 Her Majesty’s Canal Cutters—40 The Canal Basins 40 The High Desert 41 Sandbeasts—41 The Low Martians 42 Argyre and Cydonia, British Mars 43 Martian Characters—43 Solis, American Mars 46 Amazonis and Elysium,Russian Mars 47 Hellas, French Mars 48 The Dune Sea 49 Deimos, Japanese Mars 49 Hub of the Solar System — Mercury 49 Zonnendam, Dutch Mercury 50 New Dakota, American Mercury 51 Mercurial Horrors—52 The Czerpizak Mines, Russian Mercury 53 Vulcan, Japan’s Desperate Gambit 54 The Belt: the Sky’s Frontier 55 Ceres,premier British port of the Belt 55 Other Notable Asteroids—55 Juno, a French possession 56 Vesta, an American enterprise 56 Beyond the Belt 57 Jockeying for Position—57 Layman’s Reports from the Royal Society Mysteries of the Luminiferous Ether 59 Ether Storms—61 A Primer on Mechanical Physics 62 The Buzz about Beekeeping 64 Beekeeping Lingo—66 Today’s Horticulture 68 The Heavens and the Earth: Planetology 71 vi The First Session Create the Social Contract 73 Roles Around the Table 73 What is a Session?—73 The Virtual First Session—74 Power Around the Table 75 Comfort Zones 75 Taking Notes—76 Expectations 76 Game Structure 78 Upstairs-Downstairs Troupe Play—79 Reinforcing the Social Contract 81 Characters 84 Steps for Making Characters—84 The Character Sheet 84 Step One: Character Points 84 Exchange Rates—85 Step Two: Character Concept 86 Step Three: Thematic Batteries 87 What Does the Number Mean?—88 Step Four: Attributes 89 Step Five: Skills 91 Breaking and Entering—94 A Girl in Every Port—96 An Empire of Parties and Gifts—97 Intimidation and Cogs—98 Speaking the Language—99 Rousing the Troops—99 Producing Gadgets from Pockets—101 Exotic Skills—102 Step Six: Setting 103 Condition Batteries—106 Step Seven: Elaboration 106 Engineering the Situation Step One: Gather Inspirations 107 This is Not the “GM Section”—107 Step Two: Create Conflicts 109 Step Three: Build Conflicts 111 Conflict Defined—111 Crew Characters—112 Critters as Props—115 Step Four: Complicate Cogs 116 Step Five: Engage Cogs as Foils 117 Step Six: Situation Abstract 119 Step Seven: Elaborate Cogs 119 Preparing for Cameos—119 Reusing Situations—122 vii Roleplay Starting a Session 123 Narration 124 Game Master Narration 125 Player Narration 126 Passing the Spoils Scrip 127 Direction 129 En Medea Res—130 Handing off the Conch 131 Delegating Narration 131 Interruptions by Check 132 Interruption by the Game Master 133 Checks Initiating an Interruption 135 Setting Stakes 135 Steps for Checks—135 Rolling Dice 136 Static Checks and Difficulty Factors 137 Difficulty Factor Scale 138 Stat Suggestions and Difficulty Factors 139 Dynamic Checks and Opposing Rolls 139 Risk and Discharging Condition Batteries 141 Degree of Success—141 Sprung Batteries 143 Trying Again 143 Promotions and Demotions 143 A Word About Grace—143 Situation Effects 144 Cooperative and Supporting Rolls 145 Effects of Condition Batteries 146 Using Thematic Batteries 147 Optional Rule: Promotions Beyond Rank 4—147 Ship Thematic Batteries—150 Recharging Condition Batteries 150 Combat Rules 151 But How Do You Kill Things?—151 Naval Battles and Fleets 152 viii Between Sessions Spending Spoils 155 Changing Thematic Batteries 155 Feedback 155 Bluebooking—155 Packing Up 156 Appendices Acknowledgements 157 Steampunk Bibliography 158 Ludography 160 Index 162 Play Aids 166 ix x “Captain,” the etherwave radio squawked, “the pirate A Clever Gambit cutters are taking refuge in the asteroid field. We’re stay- ing uplight from them, but the shadows are increasing.” Beyond Ceres The warbling voice warned, “We’re going to lose them, and they know that, sir. Request permission to open fire.” “Negative,” Captain Aldis Fitzgerald responded, folding his hands behind his back. “They only have so much air, lieutenant. Their containment can’t be much more than one hundred cubic feet, and they’ll need to re- turn to port soon. We shoot them down now, we lose the port. Keep a wary eye out.” “Yes sir,” came the response, and the Captain sig- naled for the wireless operator to cut the connection. “Get me the apiary,” Fitzgerald growled next, and the bridge crew hurried to comply. Distant echoes came up the voice tube as segments connected to create a path to the rooms deep in the ship where the analytical engines were held. Once they were ready, he barked into the fluted voice bell at his side, “Lieutenant Commander, we need that profile identification immediately. The Aries pilots are about to lose them, and we’ll have nothing to show for this endeavor.” The reedy voice of the beekeeper downstairs came echoing up the voice tube: “We’re punching petals as quickly as we can, Captain. The daguerreotypes we were able to expose were less than clear. The hive is buzzing, sir, but no honey yet.” “Dammit man, we need to know who is supplying these pirates with their ships,” Fitzgerald spat. “If it’s the French...” “Yes sir, we’ll notify you as soon as something comes out,” the beekeeper promised, and then hesitantly added, “I really need to be getting to work, sir.” “Results, Lieutenant Commander,” the Captain re- minded. “Show me it’s worth lugging that infernal con- traption around. Dismissed.” Introduction “Sir?” The towheaded Ensign Theodora Schwartz- child called, approaching the quarterdeck from the lower portion of the bridge. At the Captain’s nod, she lifted a few plates of tactician’s glass. “I may have the answer here. We’ve been assuming the cutters will be returning to a sta- tionary port on an asteroid, but if their eventual destination was instead moving...” “Pirates with capital-class ships?” Fitzgerald laughed, but then quickly sobered. The lady officer was rarely wrong in tactical matters. “You think they’ve got something with bays large enough to take those cutters?” “Those cutters’ manoeuvres make little sense with an assumption of a limited operating window and a stationary destination,” Schwartzchild explained, and held the plates of glass out for the Captain to see. The coordinate grid printed on the surface was littered with markers and dotted lines. “They’d be killing themselves, or at the very least, playing with their own lives. And pirates are not known for self-sacrifice, sir.” She gestured at the second glass. “But if one assumes a destination following the course marked epsilon there, the cutters’ maneuvers perform a slow spiral, always keeping within range, able to bolt back when their air ran low.” “Optics!” the Captain shouted across the bridge. The optics officer flinched, then looked up. “Train the tele- scopes on a bearing of thirty-six degrees with a declination of sixteen. Reflect it up on the screen when you have it, and lower the bridge lights.” As the opticians began work- ing, the Captain bellowed into the voice flute, “Starboard battery, ready the snap cannons to fire at thirty-five, twelve down.” The gunnery officer’s acknowledgment came up the voice tube, and then there was the distant clatter of an- other connection being made somewhere down the tube. “Captain, we have your profile identification,” reported the feathery voice from the apiary. “It’s about time,” Fitzgerald grumbled even as he smiled with satisfaction. The lights went down, and a ghostly image flickered up on the screen set above the for- ward windows. At first it merely appeared to be a series of white flecks of light, but as the focus was adjusted, they resolved into the sunward side of tumbling asteroids, dented with pockmark craters. The focus resolved further, and the dis- tant backdrop of stars appeared, dusting the background with points of light.