What do you like about Spycraft 2.0 over D20 modern? Every time I pick up the core rulebook, I think about how slick a package it is (at least compared to the 3.0 PHB ). So, what do you dislike about D20 Modern?

Yep, King David's Spaceship was one of the sources pillaged for this. An Orion or Daedalus drive is quite noticeable.

Stealing and reproducing an alien drive is two edged - much faster, but much less noticeable. The only reason the ship chatter is so noticeable as the fleet enters Sol system is that, like in Turtledove's World in the Balance, they were not expecting any radio communication technology when they launched over 150 years ago. They were sloppy, and remain sloppy - not stopping ship chatter after finding signals, but simply switching to an unused frequency. (This is called 'hubris'...)

Six military motherships will take be in the fleet, and eight that just carry civilians. A number of smaller craft will be carried by the military mommas.

There are other aliens out there - who will enforce the 'reach space to be civilized' clause. What the faction 1 aliens are doing is considered to be skirting the law. The problem is that a 'noisy' ship is easier for the stellar community to notice, but also faction 1...

The Auld Grump

LoL...I like it
I have'nt read the Turtledove (must do so ) Are these Generation ships? or are you looking at a long lived Alien 1 Faction?
150 years is a LOT of time invested to just give up and turn around

I am finally running the second game of my Spycraft 2.0 game on Wednesday. Because of the long delay we have had a change of players, one leaving and another joining.

This is not the XCom game that I have in planning stages, but rather an 1880s setting. (The same one that I was using for my Steampunk campaign.)

PCs work for an independent agency that is primarily employed by the British crown. (Believe it or not that is the way that espionage used to be run - a game of amateurs rather than professionals.) On the side they function as an independent inquiry agency (ie detectives).

This session should see our first full blown combat, there was a minor firefight (one bad guy - who took out an NPC contact) the first session. The NPC ended up very dead at the hands/claws of something other than the PCs. The contact had some information about a mole in the agency and the assassination of several other agents.

Two PCs jumped the gun and went to see him before the time for the meeting, and got to see him get assassinated himself, exchanged shots with the assassin, then chased him into an abandoned area of the London Underground. (In this alternate London the subway grew much faster than in the real world, and there are several abandoned stations.) Then something got to him...

The PCs found enough information to plan who to interrogate next, and will be dropping in on a meeting between the double agent and his control. Things will likely get messy! The player who left was the only one who's character got seriously injured, if he can fit the game back into his schedule we can just say that it took a while for him to recover. Juggling schedules is not much fun.

The subway encounter was pipe being laid for a future plotline. (Four major plotlines to the campaign, one overarcing.)

The Auld Grump, who needs to game more...

Ugh... Ran my game, ran it late, and had a blast. Got home and not only had my new Word Perfect come in but also my new hard drive and my copy of Galactic Civilizations... So I had to crack open the boxes and get them all into my computer, right?

Happy, but about three stages past exhaustedzzzzzzzz

The Auld Grumpzzzzzz *snrk gak* zzzzzzz

[quote="TheAuldGrump
High point for me was one of the PCs making a flying tackle on the control, carrying both of them over the railing and into the Thames. The he had to swim like crazy, pulling the (non-swimming) villain with him to avoid being chewed up by the ship's screws.

For the quays I used Skull Cove stone piers. I wish that I had a moddle that would have worked for the ship.

The Auld Grump - Still way too tired...[/quote]


Into the Thames? Genius! Cholera and typhoid checks!!!

In this forum I won't mention where the cardstock ships are, since another firm is involved! Hopefully these free airships don't count as a rival: