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Hacking Diaspora: Mass Effect HACKING DIASPORA TO Variant rules and options to create adventures and characters in the MASS EFFECT setting using the Diaspora Role Playing Game. By M.Gooding (Reaganstorme) Document Version 2.0.2 MAY 2012 2 Table of Contents PAGE PAGE Introduction 4 New T3+ Powered Armour Stunts 51 New T3+ Energy Weapon Ammo 53 The Diaspora Mini-Games 5 New T3+ Energy Weapon Mods 55 Fudge Dice New T3+ Powered Armour Mods 56 The Ladder Sample Advanced Gear 59 The Mass Effect Premise 6 Adversaries Setting Background Cerberus 62 Element Zero and the Mass Effect Geth 63 Husks 64 Cluster Creation Mini-Games Changes 8 MECHs 64 New System Stat – Order Mercenary Organisations 66 Character Creation Mini-Game Changes 9 Rachni 67 Racial Backgrounds Thresher Maws 68 Asari 10 Varren 69 Batarians 11 Vorcha 69 Drell 12 Space Combat Mini-Game Changes 70 Elcor 12 Spacecraft Geth 13 New T0+ Spacecraft Stunts 70 Hanar 14 New T1+ Spacecraft Stunts 71 Humans 16 Sample Mass Effect Spacecraft 72 Krogan 17 Quarians 18 Platoon Combat Mini-Game Changes 74 Salarians 19 Mass Effect Platoons Turians 20 New Platoon Stunts 74 Virtural Intelligences and AIs 21 Example Platoons Volus 22 Alliance Marine Platoon 75 Vorcha 22 A61 Mantis Multirole Gunship 75 Yahg 23 Asari Huntress Platoon 76 Class Packages 24 Geth Platoons 77 New Skills and Stunts M35 ―Mako‖ IFV 78 Biotics 25 Salarian STG Platoons 79 New Skill: Biotic Training 26 Other Platoons and Units 80 New Stunt: Bio Implant 29 Campaigns and Themes 81 Omni-tools 31 New Skill: Tech Training 31 Blank Mass Effect Character Sheet 83 New Stunt: Military Grade Omni-tool 33 Variant Rules Quick Sheets 84 New Stunt: Combat Excellence 34 Paragon and Renegade Emulation Open Game Licence 1.0a 94 Option 1: Skill Progression 36 Gear Manufacturer Tables Option 2: Status Tracks 37 Weapon Manufacturers 48 Sample Characters Bio-Amp Manufacturers 50 Garrus Vakarian 38 Omni Tool Manufacturers 50 Kaiden Alenko 39 Armour Manufacturers 52 Dr. Liara T‘Soni 41 Tali'Zorah nar Rayya 42 Urdnot Wrex 44 Personal Combat Mini-Game Changes 46 Weapon Types 46 Equipment New T3+ Energy Weapon Stunts 46 Sample Weapons 47 Spectre Gear Options 49 3 Introduction Welcome to the updated version of my first attempt at system hacking, the process of taking an es- tablished setting and creating, ignoring or modifying a role playing rules system to be able to game and tell stories in those worlds. Bioware’s Mass Effect and its sequels, Mass Effect 2 and 3, were fantastic games that begged to be explored. Countless worlds and star systems linked by a network of mostly understood technology called mass relays that enabled starships to traverse the galactic void; Mass Effect told the story of a group of civilisations about to meet their doom. Assembling a group of champions, the player trekked across the game setting exploring uncharted worlds, rescu- ing colonists, battling synthetic intelligences, and more. As you can imagine, despite the available scope of the setting, Bioware could only put so much into the game. Some things were hinted at, others left as blank slates. Wanting to explore and tell my own stories against this compelling backdrop of impending galactic doom, I first had to find a system that could do it justice. That‘s where VSCA Publishing’s Diaspora comes in. Introduced to Diaspora by friends on RPG.net, I realised I had found a game system that would suit my needs. What you see here is the culmination of my efforts to blend the two, but if some of the sample aspects, stunts, gear or mods don‘t quite suit your game, don‘t be afraid to make up your own versions. I hope you find this document useful, and that you undertake and enjoy the adven- tures that are waiting for you. Matthew Gooding (Reaganstorme) May 2012 ACKNOWLEGDEMENTS I would like to thank the creators of Diaspora, chiefly Brad J. Murray (Halfjack), for allowing me to play with their toys by releasing them under the Open Gaming Licence ver 1.0a (see page 90). Special thanks goes out to my playtesters, Darth Illithid, Silent Wayfarer, Barbacobra, and Stacie_gmrgrl. Also, fellow RPG.net members Stevenls, James the Dark, prototype00, Chop- Sockey, Yook, EonTrinity, Travellingdave, PolkaNinja, HumAnoydd, zircher, and Propagandor for their comments and encouragement. Some text has been taken from the Diaspora System Reference Document, which can be found here: http://www.vsca.ca/Diaspora/diaspora-srd.html. Page references in this document that refer to the Diaspora rulebook are for the 2010 corrected version. I acknowledge that Mass EffectTM and all related races, characters and equipment are Product Iden- tity of EA International (Studio and Publishing) Ltd, and are used in this document with Fair Use intent, and are not meant to challenge ownership of such ideas. Their home page can be found here: http://www.ea.com/. Some text has been taken from the Mass Effect Wikia pages under the Creative Commons Attribu- tion-Share Alike License, and can be found in their fantastic completeness here: http://masseffect.wikia.com/. Please see the Licence section for further details. For those looking for the font I used for the titles and headings, it‘s a freeware font called Slider.TTF. 4 The DIASPORA Mini-Games Diaspora is a set of mini-games. Each of these use fate dice, Aspects, and other elements from the FATE system but they each have other distinctions. These mini-games are: * Cluster Creation * Character Creation * Personal Combat * Space Combat * Platoon Combat All conflicts in Diaspora are resolved using the FATE mechanics as elaborated in Spirit of the Cen- tury and available from the System Reference Document for that game, available on the Internet. You roll your set of four fudge dice, which yields a result between -4 and +4, you add an appropriate skill, and then you compare against some difficulty level, which might be someone else's roll or might be a level imposed by the referee. FUDGE DICE Almost every roll in Diaspora is 4dF: a single roll of four Fudge dice, yield- 4dF in statistics ing a range from -4 to +4. A Fudge die is a d6, with two faces marked -, two faces marked +, and two faces blank. You add up the +s, subtract the roll odds % -s, and you have a total. Without special dice, you could treat 1-2 as -, 3-4 -4 1/81 1.24 as blank, and 5-6 as +; this is functionally the same as rolling 4d3-8. This -3 4/81 4.95 yields a particular curve, around which the game is built. -2 10/81 12.35 The system will work with a different -1 16/81 19.75 probability curve by rolling two 0 19/81 23.46 different coloured six-sided dice and subtracting the darker from the lighter. 1 16/81 19.75 Treating the -5 and 5 results as zero 2 10/81 12.35 keeps the expected range though, 3 4/81 4.95 with better chances for extreme results. 4 1/81 1.24 The remainder of this document will assume you are familiar with FATE mechanics and at a minimum the Diaspora SRD. Refer to the provided links if you wish further clarification of any rules based information. THE LADDER In FATE, successes and difficulties are rated by numbers or by the terms +8: Legendary on the Ladder. Our Ladder here is slightly different from the Spirit of the +7: Epic Century Ladder, in that the term Fair is replaced by Decent. +6: Fantastic The words are only applicable directly when a single character acts. +5: Superb Since an apex Skill is at level 5, as per character generation (Diaspora +4: Great page 31) and since the best result from a roll of the dice is +4, a result of +3: Good +9 represents an exceptionally successful attempt at something by a dedicated professional. +2: Decent +1: Average While higher numbers are possible, through the invocation of Aspects, +0: Mediocre most numbers in the game, when all things are considered, are single dig- -1: Poor its. If one is looking for appropriate adjectives to describe an action, it is often the difference between two rolls that might determine the quality of -2: Terrible success. So, in an opposed roll, in which a player roll is compared against a referee roll, results of 7 against 5 represent a decent success. 5 The MASS EFFECT Premise An advanced hybrid race of sentient syn- SETTING BACKGROUND thetic/organic warships, the Reapers wait thousands of years for sentient races to climb Some of the fundamental basics of the Dias- again to the stars before harvesting them in a pora setting mesh quite well with Mass Effect. devastating orgy of extinction. By leaving the In particular, the idea of technological ad- mass relays, and their focus, The Citadel, be- vancement to the point of collapse is here, as hind them when they again leave for millennia, are limited FTL routes, and the heat debt ac- the Reapers provide the building blocks for quired by interstellar travel. These routes are their next harvest. In anticipation of intelligent only able to be navigated using space ships life reaching for the stars, the Reapers wait for with special Element Zero power cores, allow- the coded signal from their keepers that tech- ing them to tap into dark energies to reduce nology is progressing, and that the time to feed their mass. has come again. Using the energy field created by the mass The last such galactic extinction event hap- relays, skilled navigators are able to propel the pened approximately 50,000 years ago.
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