Starfarer

Hi-tech sci-fi hack of Wayfarer by Chaoclypse. 

Updated 8pg zine release on itch with lots of Chaoclypse art!

Character Creation 

Roll 2d6 down the line for the four Stats: Strength (STR), Speed (SPD), Intellect (INT), Privilege (PRV).

HP is average of STR and PRV, rounded down.

Every character starts at Level 0.

Privilege Bonus

Characters with a PRV score of 11+ receive material bonuses in a personal estate on their homeworld OR an 8-person starship, and Sector-wide corporate contacts OR connections to government officials.

Skills 

Allocate 5 rolls between the Regular, Special, Streetrat, Landlord, or Institutional Skill tables to determine Skills. For example, a player can roll 3 times on Common Skills and twice on Specialized.

For each skill, allocate an inventory item appropriate to said skill.

After the first 5 Skills, players may choose to make a Death Save to survive another 5 years of life and gain a new Skill. 

Common Skills

1. Melee Combat (Specify weapon)
2. Ranged Combat (Specify weapon)
3. Survival (Specify Worlds or Void)
4. Piloting (Specify vehicle type)
5. Tech Repairs
6. Computing

Specialized Skills

1. Medical
2. Admin
3. Cultural Studies
4. Pharmacology
5. Astrobiology
6. Engineering

Streetrat Skills (Must have PRV 6-)

1. Fraud
2. Extortion
3. Streetwise OR Cultural Studies
4. Pharmacology
5. Piloting (Specify planet-based vehicle)
6. Tech Repairs OR Computing

Landlord Skills (Must have a PRV 8+)

1. Fraud
2. Bribery
3. Sector Law OR Admin
4. Pharmacology
5. Piloting (Specify vehicle type)
6. Engineering OR Computing

Institutional Skills (Must have INT 8+ or PRV 8+)

1. Medical
2. Sector Law
3. Astrobiology
4. Cybernetics
5. Superintelligences
6. Genemodding

Encumbrance

Inventories are slot based. Characters have an encumbrance maximum that is equal to their current STR+2.

Checks

To attempt an action where success is uncertain, roll 8+ on 2d6 to succeed.

If the task is easy, and you still feel it necessitates a Check, roll 6+.

If the difficulty is unclear, roll 2d6 for the target number. Any result below 6 is trivial and does not require a check. Even most easy tasks do not require a Check.

Dice Modifiers

Some conditions may modify the Check, called a Dice Modifier, or DM. This boon or bane applies to the 2d6 result.

• If a Stat applies to a the Check: 
• Stats of 6- grant -2 DM 
• Stats of 10+ grant +2 DM 
• If Skill applies to the Check: Add the Skill bonus. 
• If lacking a Skill required for the Check, -4 DM.

Stat Checks

If a singular Stat is all that matters, roll 2d6 under or equal to the stat to succeed.

World

Base chance of encounter/patron/rumor: 2-in-6 

If actively searching (takes time): 4-in-6

Reaction rolls

Roll reactions when a character’s reaction to the party is unclear. This also works for unclear situations.

2d6	Reaction
5-	Negative
6-8	Neutral
9+	Positive

Combat

Combat uses Checks as per normal. Each combat round, characters may move between range bands, and perform an attack.

To hit	2d6
No Armor	6+
Modest Armor	8+
Full Armor	10+

Slow targets gain +2 DM to hit; fast targets gain -2 DM.

Range Bands	Effective Weapons
Close	Melee
Medium	Throwable + Ranged
Far	Ranged
Distant	Ranged, -2 DM

Attempting to flee uses a combat round. Make a check with a +2 DM if Distant, and -2 DM if Close.

Damage

If less-than-lethal, take d3 damage. If it could kill a person, d6 damage. If it could blow a hole in a wall, 2d6 damage. If it could destroy an engine block, 4d6 damage.

Surprise

For random encounters, 2-in-6 chance of surprise for both sides. Roll d6 for distance, with -1 DM for each side that’s surprised:

d6	Distance
1-	Close
2-3	Medium
4-5	Far
6+	Distant

Death Saves

At 0 HP, enemies are killed (or unconscious), but player characters may make a Death Save, and roll 2d6 under SPD.

If failed, the character dies. The higher the difference, the more gruesome the death. A natural 12 is always a horrendous sight to behold.

On success, set HP to 0. Roll d6, with a +1 DM for every death save made that session.

d6	Death Save Effect
1	Gain d3+1 HP, and immediately perform a free action.
2	Gain d3 HP. Downed.
3	Unconscious.
4	Unconscious. Lose 1 point in a narratively appropriate Stat.
5	Unconscious. Scarred: Lose d3 points in a narratively appropriate Stat.
6	Unconscious. Bleeding out. Dead in 2d6 rounds without Medical intervention.
7+	Die on your own terms: Do one last action with +4 DM.

If any Stat drops to 0, the character dies.

Unconsciousness normally lasts 10 minutes, usually rendering the character useless for the rest of the fight.

Advancement

Award XP at the end of each session. If: 

• a character took a significant risk, earn 1 XP. 
• a character was in immense or constant risk, earn 2 XP.

The character needs XP equal to the level they are trying to reach, cumulatively. Player characters start at Level 0.

Level	XP required
1	1 XP
2	3 XP
3	6 XP
4	10 XP
5	15 XP

etc.

Level Bonus

Each level, do the following: 

• Add +d3 to maximum HP 
• +1 to a chosen Skill, up to a max of 3 
• Note: This must be a skill used in a risky situation during this advancement stage
• To increase skills beyond 3, one must seek out willing masters and prove their worth or parley with them.

To learn a new Skill, one must find a teacher with at least 3+ in the Skill, and a month of dedicated training time. This achieves a Skill of 0, preventing the -4 DM for lack of specialized skills.

Re: Second Wave Solarpunk

This post was originally a Discord reply to the Planets & Monsters post, Second Wave Solarpunk. and then I realized thanks to Seraphina's Short Blog Manifesto that I should just post this on my own, very infrequently used blog.

Planets & Monsters writes:

[Solarpunk] slaps trees on skyscrapers instead of wondering how society might have to change to get into ecological balance. It isn't looking to imagine new ways of living outside the capitalist mode of production. 

Bingo. The major failure of solarpunk fiction (and the greater aesthetic form), is in failing to present new, anticapitalist economic pathways, and instead buying wholeheartedly into the messianic techbro mindset that "tech will save us," which it cannot. Only we as people can help each other. We might use tech to assist, but it must be a human endeavor.

Science fiction that imagines a better future doesn't imagine a world without conflict, it imagines what new conflicts will be there, or what conflicts that exist today have taken new form in the future.  

What Planet & Monsters writes about here is the basis for the critical utopia genre, as Tom Moylan calls it in his seminal work Demand the Impossible (1986). 

Planet & Monsters is not looking for Second Wave Solarpunk, but for the critical utopia. A genre that takes in the true, face value of the challenges of modern and future civilization and presents a better way of life in the path forward. It's hard, many failures occur along the way, and life is not the idyllic perfect society, but one of struggle and constant fighting for a better life. Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed and especially Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy are perfect examples of this genre.

Kim Stanely Robinson (KSR) has based his whole writing career on writing utopian fiction, and I think his books are more "solarpunk" than anything else lauded as such. I still find it striking how the dichotomy of futures between The Gold Coast and Pacific Edge reflects our modern times, and these were written in the 80s. The latter is a major solarpunk book, and I don't think I've ever met anyone who has actually read it (but I haven't been asking around for the past few years either, granted).

KSR collected an anthology that hits at the utopian heart of that solarpunk's arrow missed, Future Primitive: The New Ecotopias. I grabbed this from my university library in 2010, and I'm not sure it's widely available. This book was how I discovered Terry Bisson & Gene Wolfe. I read it shortly after reading Le Guin's Planets of Exile & Illusion for the first time.

Anywho, great post from Planets & Monsters that let me relive my uni days of studying utopianism.