Solo StarWarsD6 pt15: Cold Assault

System: Star Wars D6 by West End Games.
Setting: Star Wars Era of the Rebellion.
Character: Royxand Handscul ‘Roy’, Corporate scout
Luca Delste, Smuggler
Kuna Desyk, Hacker
Solo Tools: MUNE, donjon, GameMaster’s Apprentice deck of cards
Books: Star Wars The Roleplaying Game Second Edition (West End Games), Galaxy Guide 8: Scouts
Homebrew Rules: D6Legends

Q: Does the team have medpaks with them? (likely)
A: Yes
Q: Do they find cover in the glacier? (likely)
A: Yes

Luca carries the wounded Roy to a crevice nearby. The opening slowly widens to a cave. Kuna escorts the snowtrooper along.
“Look after him.” Kuna mentions the snowtrooper to Luca while he pulls a medpak fom his backpack and kneels over Roy.
“Don’t even think about it.” Luca threatens the snowtrooper, aiming his blaster rifle at him.

Kuna: First Aid (Technical) on Roy: 2/3 Failure
Q: Do they have another medpac?
A: Yes, but it’s their last. They will have to return to the ship to get more supplies.
Kuna: First Aid on Roy: 1/4 Failure (increase difficulty by one for each attempt in the same day).

Kuna turns to Luca. “Both wounds are pretty nasty. We’ll have to get him back to the medbay.”
“Crap.” Luca swears. “It’s going to take us at least 6 hours to get back. At least let him rest a bit to recover his senses before we depart.”

Incapacitated says unconscious for 10D minutes, I roll 40 minutes. That would mean at least 30 more minutes since some time has elapsed from the point he was wounded.

In the meantime, Luca interrogates the snowtrooper.

I got to printing the 60 free cards from the GameMaster’s apprentice deck that at being given with the Alone game engine, and decided to spice up the game a bit by using them. Whenever I will be using them, I will note GMA for reference purposes. For the snowtrooper, I got the following:
Vice: Fear
Virtue: Compassion
Reaction: 8 (Hate/Dislike)
I interpret the results. This man shouldn’t have been a stormtrooper, he probably was conscripted or had no other choice. Maybe he wanted to be an officer but didn’t pass the tests. Hence his utmost failure in the preceding combat with our team. Since the reaction is 8, but he doesn’t have the upper hand, I decide that Fear will be his driving characteristic in the interaction.

Luca puts his rifle to the face of the snowtrooper. “Why are you here? What does the Empire want in this forsaken place?”

Luca: Intimidation (Opposed): 1/0 Success.

“My name is Crevil Ghyron. Private of the 125th Snowtrooper Battalion.” The snowtrooper answers the preset declaration as a prisoner, his voice shaking.
“Answer my question!” Luca repeats in anger, and pulls the snowtroopers helmet.
Behind the mask is a scared boy, no more than 20, who also starts feeling the cold unhealthy atmosphere of the moon.

Q: Does he know details?
A: No, but he overheard rumors.

“Please, please don’t hurt me. Are you rebels? I didn’t hurt any of the locals even if my superiors applaud this behaviour.” Stutters Crevil.
“No one cares about what you did. What locals? Quit whimpering and speak up.” Luca presses on.
“We have them mining. I don’t know details. Rumour has it that this is the claim of a major corporation. When their second scout ship never reached back, they figured the place is hostile and sold the coordinates and claim to the Empire.”

What does the Empire want?
GMA words give Hide, Aberrant, Fear.
What kind of fear? GMA Icon tags give Tower (=Stationary obstacle), Skull (=Death), Target (=Object of search).
Where? GMA gives Location Dangerous Ground.
The results are pretty self-interpreting. There is something scary and deadly in a dangerous site on this moon, that the Empire wants for its own interest.

“What are they mining for?” Luca questions.
“It’s not what. It’s where. We are trying to reach something beneath the ice of the Amal moon. The locals seem very scared and don’t want to keep mining, so we’re here to coerce them.” Crevil responds.
“Do you have an outpost? We didn’t spot anything from orbit.” Luca continues.
“It’s all under the glacier. Near the locals settlement.” Says Crevil.
“Any ships we should worry about? Reinforcements on their way?” Luca interrogates further.

Q: Does he know? GMA
A: No

“I.. don’t know. Our scout ship may be orbiting the other side of the planet and our transport may have left for reinforcements. That information is need to know only.” Crevil says hoping they will believe him.
Luca sighs, nods, and leaves him be for now.

I have to ask a meta-gaming question. I will need to find a way to address those in the future.
Q: Did the Imperials or the locals reach the flare/combat site first? GMA
A: Imperials
They will search to find tracks: (Moonlight, Combat, Difficult): 2/4 Fail.

6 hours have elapsed from when they left. 10 hours to daybreak.

Time passes and Roy regains consciousness and some mobility. The group slowly heads back towards the Red Rancor.

I roll a bunch of skills for their trip back.
Survival: 1(+)
Search: 1(-)
Climbing: 3
Stamina: 2
Hide: 1

They get lost a bit in the glacier and it takes them longer than expected, having to make multiple stops for resting, and doubling back when the path doesn’t go further. Finally, they manage to get to the Red Rancor undetected.

Q: Has the ship been detected yet? (unlikely) GMA
A: No

Luca puts Crevil in the brig as Kuna gets Roy set up in the med bay. He will rest until the next day when, another treatment will follow.
Luca goes outside to see how well hidden is the Red Rancor.

Q: Is it well hidden? GMA
A: YES! Snow has covered their tracks and the Red Rancor’s top.

Luca is content with their hideout. In addition to the small crater that the Red Rancor is located out of sight, fresh snow has provided natural camouflage. They should be safe for a while.

I decided to use GMA random event generation, mainly to try it out. At first I couldn’t find where to fit it, but a few Oracle questions down the road, it made sense and fit perfectly.
So the random event draw was: Trap, Haven, with a significance of 6 (5-6 is average combat encounter significance). Location: Mountains obscured by clouds. Catalyst: Kidnapped!.

The next evening Kuna tries to heal Roy using the medbay medicines and a few medpacs.

Kuna: First Aid (+1D Medicines) 2/3. Fail.
Again: 3/4. Fail.
Again: 4/5. Fail.

No matter Kuna’s attempts, Roy doesn’t seem to be getting better. The shoulder hit especially has caused a significant loss of blood, and doesn’t seem to patch easily.

Here I ask further questions from the Oracle. I did two mistakes which I will explain in the end of the post.
Q: Is the Red Rancor detected? (Unlikely) GMA
A: Yes.
Q: Is it Locals or Imperials?
A: Imperials.
Q: From where? Space/Air/Land.
A: Space.
Q: Is it an imperial scout ship? (Likely)
A: Yes.
Q: Does the Red Rancor have a chance to detect the imperial ship?
A: Yes, but they have passive sensors.
Luca: Sensors (Passive): 1. Fail.

So here everything falls into place. The Imperials recovered their downed troopers (most were incapacitated) and they learned about their skirmish with our team and how the must have captured Crevil. (Kidnapped, catalyst).
They sent a message to their scout ship to perform a search, and it located the Red Rancor in the crater. (Mountains obscured by clouds, location).
By morning, they have surrounded the ridge of the crater where our team safely resides. (Trap, Haven).

Next morning, by first light a loud bang noise shakes the ship.
Luca and Kuna run to the cockpit.
They can see the ridge surrounded by Imperial snowtroopers. Two of them have mounted an E-Web repeating blaster and fire warning shots to the Red Rancor’s nose. The comms blink and Luca picks it up.
“Unknown vessel. You are surrounded by the Imperial army. Release your prisoner and surrender. You have five minutes to comply. Any attempt to escape will be considered failure to comply.”

Luca and Kuna look at each other. “How much time to power up the Red Rancor?” Kuna asks.
“A bit too much. We were hiding-passive.” Luca responds.

Here I am at a loss as to how the group will react. Since they’re both NPCs and my main character is out of the scene, I ask the Oracle.
Q: Does Luca agree to surrender?
A: Yes, but he will try to Con their way out.

“Give them Crevil.” He says to Kuna.
A couple minutes later, a surprised snowtrooper is out of the brig, and leaving the landing ramp of the Red Rancor. As soon as it closes back, Luca opens the comm channel.

“Here’s your trooper. Unharmed. -look this all has been a huuuge misunderstanding. We’re Karflo scouts from the second expedition. We just lost our way and just arrived. Our lead scout who was wounded in our fight can explain everything to you if you treat him.” Luca exclaims through the comms.

Luca: Con: 0(-)/3. Fail. No complication, but zero successes and a 1 on the wild die!

“Trying to take us for a fool rebel scum?” The commander’s stern voice is heard through the comms, and a blast from the E-web is shot at the ship.

‘Crap.’ Luca thinks as he starts powering up the Red Rancor.

A couple issues here. I don’t know how long it will take to power up an idle starship, so I do what a GM would do. Call it. I decide that once Luca succeeds in a Difficult Space Transports they can start powering up shields, weapons and using the engines.
Second issue is the scaling rules. I’m using the Second Edition rulebook (Blue Vader) where the scaling rules are a limit to the roll of each separate die. This doesn’t work with my homebrew success count rules, so I used the REUP rules where scaling is done by adding a number of dice based on the scale difference.
Therefore the E-web (character scale) has a +6D to hit the Red Rancor (starfighter scale) and the Red Rancor has the same bonus to resist the E-web damage.

Round 1:

I roll for the E-web distance and I get a Medium range (30-200 meters: 120 meters).
E-web: 6/3. Hit. 3/6: No damage.

The first shot of the repeating blaster glances of the Red Rancor.

Round 2:

Luca: Space Transports: 2/4.
E-web: 6/3. Hit. 2/4. No damage.

Another shot of the E-web barely scratches the freighter surface armor as Luca begins the power up sequence.

Round 3:

Luca: Space Transports: 2/4.
E-web: 4/3: Hit: 5/4: Lightly damage, lose 1D shields.

The next shot of the blaster takes out the shield energy transmittance as Luca hasn’t managed to get power to the shields yet.

Round 4:

Luca: Space Transports: 3/4.
E-web: 3/3. Hit: 3/3. Controls ionized.

Another shot from the blaster hits an ion fuse box, sending electricity over the cockpit. Controls are frozen.

Round 5:

Luca: Controls Ionized.
E-web: 6/3. Hit: 0/3. No damage.

Luca waits for the surge of electricity to die down before attempting to touch the controls again, as another shot glances of the freighter.

Round 6:

Luca: Space Transports: 3/4.
E-web: 4/3. Hit. 8/4: Destroyed!!!
A really lucky roll from the E-web 8D damage against the Red Rancor’s scaled up 9D+2 defense!
Now since a GM wouldn’t TPK the team necessarily due to a bad dice roll, I will ask the Oracle if I am to give them a chance.
Q: Do they have time to abandon ship?
A: Yes

With the next shot from the E-web red lights flash all over the cockpit. “What?!” Kuna asks worried.
“The Core Influx Regulator is unstable! We must jump ship! Get Roy. She’s about to explode!”

I roll an easy Dexterity roll for each of them, and they pass, to get out in time.

Luca and Kuna assist in getting Roy down the ramp.

I don’t want to give them an easy out, so:
Q: Do they get out of the blast radius in time?
A: No, and the ship exploded moments after they get off.
Damage to each: 3D.
Luca: 1/3. No damage.
Kuna: 1/0(-). Wounded.
Roy: 2/2. Stunned.

The Red Rancor explodes as the Are hurled on the ice of the glacier in front of them. Smoke, flames and debris spread in every direction. Roy momentarily loses his consciousness from the blast wave, and Kuna gets a nasty cut to his forearm.

Q: Do the snowtroopers perform a close up search?
A: No, but they will do a search with binoculars to ensure there are no survivors.
Q: Are the survivors possibly visible through the destruction? (Unlikely)
A: Yes, but the smoke, snow, fire and debris make it difficult to find them.
Snowtrooper: Search: 3/4. Fail.

The snowtroopers perform a long-vision sweep of the area, but they can’t find any survivors. A few minutes later, they depart, while our team is left to pick up their pieces.

Session Background: Wow, just when I thought it couldn’t go harder for my characters, this happens!!! Something evil is going on in this moon, and now they have no way to leave. Wounded, without a shelter. They will need help if they are to make it. Will they find it with the locals? Will they manage to get there?
Mistakes I made: The question if the Red Rancor was detected has two flaws. First it instills meta-gaming. It’s unavoidable at times, but I don’t like it. Second, it is at odds with the previous question if the ship was well hidden (even though I turned it to Unlikely). I should have at least made an in game mechanic sensors roll and turned the question to if the Red Rancor was possible to be detected, just like I did with the snowtroopers at the end of the session.
New tools: GMA cards fit perfectly for my session. They are well suited for portents and adventure events seeds. I think it’s better than totally random word generators found online, since I am not that much creative to explain abstract words. I made the mistake of asking Oracle questions to cards at one time and to MUNE at others. I decided that since I have dice available I will stick to MUNE for the Oracle.
Character Points: So, I realized I forgot to award character points so far. The rulebook says that you should award CPs at the end of the adventure but no longer than 4-5 sessions when the adventure is a long one. Also it states not to give more than 15 CPs per giveaway.
So even though it’s not the best time, I will give 1 CP on each character per session that they participated.
Roy: 14 CP, Luca: 11 CP, Kuna: 3 CP.
I will try to be more organized in the future.