Player Primer

Saga of the Cosmic Oceans is an Astro Punk adventure that takes place in our distant future. It deals with a galaxy still being colonized and explored by humanity. As an adventure setting, Cosmic Oceans includes many compelling locations and adventures spread across a hand crafted story of war, desperation, and hope.   The adventure is full of twists and turns. You will discover multiple solutions to many of the conflicts you will face within this campaign. This campaign will have a heavy focus on the story, your characters, as well as the world around you.   This is a living breathing world that will react accordingly. Pissing off an entire government and having no escape plan will most probably lead to the arrest of your character. And dependent on local laws an execution could soon follow.   Cosmic Oceans explores some adult content as such this game is marked for a mature audience. Some triggering topics can include war, animal cruelty, torture, murder, famine, slavery and racism. Many of these topics are for the most part unavoidable and are deeply entwined into the lore of the world as such I will be unable to remove these topics if you are uncomfortable with them. I will fade to black when it comes to anything akin to torture and sexual intercourse. (I don’t ERP sorry y’all).   I plan on running this game for 4-6 players, I will be personally vetting players for this campaign however. If you don't make the cut sorry in advance. I run one shots on occasion that will be much more open table for you to join.   I welcome all players of any experience level, no matter race, gender, religion, political leaning ect. I just ask that you do not bring any of that to the table. I will only give 1 warning before booting someone from the table for any of that behavior. Expect the campaign to take about 6-8 months give or take. The game itself will see tactical battlemaps mixed with some theater of the mind to augment some encounters or locations that really don’t need a full battle map. I will be placing the following rules/restrictions in effect for character creation.  

1. No overly edgy social outcasts that do not want to work with a party. This is a team storytelling game. It gets tiring dealing with the archetype after hour 8.
2. No stealing from fellow party members.
3. No rolling dice against other party members.
4. No characters that give off blatant red flags.
5. Characters will be expected to have a backstory that must be approved by me. You did not just materialize out of nothing after all! Your characters have lived a life up to the point they became adventurers.
6. No Homebrew
7. No blatant murderhobos.
8. No evil characters. This is not the easiest to define sometimes but check with me if you are unsure. I don't mind grey but keep it within reason.
9. Keep the Chaotic Goblin levels to a minimum. This is a difficult trait for the party to have to put up with and me to GM for that often derails the story or session.

  We will be playing the game on a program called Foundry VTT. The program is 100% free to the player. World Anvil will be used to organize all information for this campaign.

The Hook

You have been living in New Vancouver for quite a few years now, or maybe you were born here and have never left. Either way after the War of Souls and the fall of PAX. The Federation of Free Planets quickly came to power as many planets under the control of PAX became independent. These planets would then go on to create a single council chamber of representatives similar to the United Nations of Old Earth. With the very little power it could wield however, it still at least allowed the many now free planets to still show some civilization in discussing matters of state and diplomacy. This ended up causing many problems that were both expected and unexpected. Trade between many worlds ground to a halt as new trade treaties and agreements were established. Border skirmishes would crop up from time to time, and colonization disputes would cause strife between many of the member planets. On top of all that entire planets quickly found themselves trying to rebuild an economy from scratch in a post war galaxy. The scars of such a war are still found to this day, marking many old battlefields, moons, valleys, and even colonies. As such many planets almost starved from not being able to support themselves with food and other basic necessities.   This unfortunately lead to a sharp increase of crime, piracy, corruption, you name it. If there were places for criminals to find a home they quickly established themselves. This lead to another type of person though. Fixers. Groups of freelance contractors who would get jobs done no matter the legality behind it. Bound by only their own personal code of ethics and honour. Even large corporations and even some governments would find their services useful from time to time. This is who you are. A small time Fixer in New Vancouver. From the slums where you live you have first hand experience dealing with the criminals, police, and all those in between. Your latest job however; you have been hired as a simple bodyguard who won't ask to many questions by a man named Jeremy Lawson an older man, and scarred face that suggests a history of warfare even. He has hired you (with compensation well beyond your regular rate) to pad his side of the playing field as it appears he had hired the Jade Fang Soldiers, a minor local gang to do a job of collecting something. However smartly Jeremy doesn't trust them and probably rightly so. Now the hand off is about to happen...  

Session 0 Topics

Advancement: Advancement will be less tide to sessions and hours played, and more towards goals and accomplishments that happen within the story. This could mean a series of quick advancements at one point, to suddenly it being a while before your next one. Advancements will be much more tide towards the pacing of the story itself.   

Player, Behaviour, Game Behaviour & DM Expectations

 

• Alcohol - Please come to the session sober. I don’t mind if you have a drink or two but I am not willing to DM for someone intoxicated.
• Narcotics - Again please come to session sober.
• Player Attention - If a player is constantly distracted without reason I will ask you in private if you need to step away. Constant disruption will result in asking you to leave the table for the night.
• Disruptive Topics - have already touched on this already. However please do not bring it to the table. I will only give 1 warning before kicking a player.
• Unannounced Dice Rolls - I do not accept unannounced dice rolls. I will pretend it never existed. I will ask you to roll dice. You are free to negotiate a different skill check however if I have put my foot down that is the roll I need.
• Dice rolls against one another - I do not use dice rolls to settle player arguments. If you disagree you must roleplay the encounter out to convince the other person. If it starts to become an OOC matter I will step in as needed.
• Player vs Player - I am ok with tension between players however you still have to work together as a group. You are not to steal from one another. I do not condone PvP however if there are any cases that it might come up. At this point it gets rolled just like any other combat encounter.
• PC Secrets - Try to keep the secrets to a minimum. It stresses me out as a DM trying to keep up with everything! I don’t mind one or two though.
• Player Expectations, Types, Goals & Diversity - This campaign will be RP, and combat heavy with a large amount of exploration.
• Player Discomfort - As discussed earlier: war, animal cruelty, torture, murder, famine, and racism as well as other topics may appear within the campaign.
• Player Agency - I am a strong supporter of Player Agency. However there may be certain situations where you can lose control of your character. This is hard to give examples for.
• Game Balance & Fairness - The encounters at times will be very deadly if players make certain decisions or take certain actions they can become unwinnable. I as a DM will not hold back in either case. Expect to have to think on your feet and play smart.
• Rules Debates - I facilitate rules discussion at the table however in many cases I will make a ruling on the fly to keep the game moving. We can always revisit the rule after the game to discuss further on the rule. When I have made a call I expect everyone to run with it as is.
• Spotlight Sharing - Players should try to share the spotlight where they can. As DM I will try to shine the spotlight on as many players as I can. Please try not to trample over another player's spotlight during a scene. That is just bad practice.
• Meta-knowledge - try to separate your characters from yourself. Just cause you know the troll doesn’t regen from fire damage doesn’t mean your character would know. I treat knowledge checks as a free action. Use them as needed. I as well will try to enforce limited discussion while already in an encounter. You should spend the time outside these encounters discussing strategy and tactics then.
• MinMaxing - I would suggest being careful with MinMaxing in this system, the Maxing is possible but the Min will hit harder than you might initially expect. In fact you should strive to have many skills of various types instead of being a one trick pony(and being super good at that one thing) in this system its actually detrimental. 
• Character Party Fit - You players will be required to create a character that is willing to at least be a part of the group. Do not create a social outcast that refuses to work with the party, or causes problems for them. After all "Why don't we boot them off the ship next space port we don't have to put up with this!" Is a very valid viewpoint any character can have.
• Murderhobos - just no… it really becomes a boring game for everyone involved when you go and just start killing random civilians. Your characters do not know the concept of Advancements! It is a player mechanic to track your character's growth through quantifiable numbers.
• Other behavior Rules - always be respectful of one another

 

The GM

• Player Absences - I will run a game as long as 4 players are present. The missing players will fade into the background unless they are really really needed for something then in which case I the GM will roll for them. When they return it is as if they were always there. The missing player still receives their cut of any advancements, and payment even if they miss a session. Working adults have things that come up, that is life. There won't be any punishment for missing sessions.

 

Ethic Concerns & Topics

 

• Gender - players can play any gender they wish and you will not be judged at my table by me or any of the players.
• Attraction & Sexual Orientation - same as gender you can play however you see fit and you will not be judged by me or other players.
• Rape, Sexual Assault - NO, players trying to do this at my table will receive 1 warning. Next time it happens they are booted from the campaign. I won’t be an outlet for any sick fantasies sorry.
• Racism, Prejudice - When creating your characters try to shy away from this topic as much as you can.
• Slavery - Players will not be able to own slaves