Wednesday 13 March 2013

Durance RPG - Blog Play - 01 Planetary Survey

OK lets get this thing rolling...
On a remote planet far from civilization, the worst criminal scum from a dozen star systems have been dumped, charged with building new lives under the watchful eye of Authority. Within a brutal hierarchy of savagery and servility, convicts and guards alike must make hard choices. Every colonist has their own code of conduct and their own aspirations—aspirations that invariably come at the expense of others. This dangerous new world is too small for everyone to succeed. In fact, it may well be too small for anyone to succeed. Only the shrewdest, the toughest and the luckiest will get a chance to find out. Will you be among them?
OK first up is the planetary survey. In this part of the game, a list of six favourable survey assessments about the state of the planet is passed to the left of the host (me!), and each player in turn highlights one, and crosses one out. Each of the statements has a letter associated, and the three letters of the favourable survey assessments form the planet's Universal Terrestrial Survey which can the be looked up in the rules book.

We've already done this part via email, I used a randomiser to pick the order and the results are:

The Actual comments were...

Karl (Yellow Smudge)
A. Atmosphere is excellent (I want to breathe)
E. Biology is benign (we're gonna have triffids)

Rebecca (Terminator)
C. Geology is stable (not sure I want to battle against falling rocks as well as various monsters!)
F. Intelligent life is absent (There's gonna be a ton of strange indigenous beasties)

Matt (Medical Marvel)
B. Climate is mild (Why would I want the weather to be mild? Let there be storms!)
D. Hydrology is favorable (Killer plants? No thanks!)

OK so this leads us to the planet named RFS 617 with the following survey...
Recommended. The surface’s water is clean and plentiful, atmosphere is perfect gas mix and pressure, and the planet is geologically stable. Excellent colony candidate.
That sounds dandy! We'll not worry about the revised survey just now, I'm sure those surveyors have done their job thoroughly. :)

So next up is the colony, and it's much the same again with the Colonial Survey. So choose one and lose one in the comments from the following, and I'll update in the next post. The order will be David, then myself, and then back to Karl.


U. Planning is meticulous
V. Density is low
W. Workforce is motivated
X. Prosperity is high
Y. Order is well-established
Z. Justice is universal


Cheers all, looking forward to settling our lovely clean, geologically stable planet!

3 comments:

Jay said...

OK getting this going..

I've had David's comments by email:

Yes: Density is low (got a nice planet here, don't want people spoiling my view)
No: Prosperity is high (we're all doomed, dooooooooomed!)

OK and for me:

Yes: Justice is universal (...and Justice for all!)
No: Order is well-established (Anarchy!)

So over to Karl.

We can also strat thinking about what these choices could possibly mean. I'm looking forward to working out how the chaos, and universal justice manifest. :)

SereneJ said...

So it comes back to me to finalise the colonial survey.

Yes: Workforce is motivated (Let's go to work)
No: Planning is meticulous (We might not do everything in the right order (but our heart's in the right place))

So what do we actually have here Jay - a decent locale where we stand half a chance?

Jay said...

Oh yes it's a veritable paradise I'm sure.

Will update in a post shortly.