Fringe Space One-Off Random Event

[hansuke]

I wanted to try and get the hang of playing the actual game, instead of using the game for campaign ideas for other games. I started a one-off game of 5150 Fringe Space. I am curious if I did it correctly, so please give me pointers if I missed something.

My PC is Chagatai Renault (M); Joe LWC Rep 5. The NPC robber is Dóra Byqvist (F); Exotic (Mercenary?) Rep 5.

#3 random event = ROBBERY. You are being Robbed. Go to a Confrontation (page 45). Generate the Settlement Area on the Settlement Map, by rolling 1d6. This tells you where the Robbery will occur. This will be in the Daytime (1 – 2) or Night (3 – 6).

Settlement = Mid-Level and its night.
I rolled up one less than group but since its just Chagatai, then just one adversary.
Went to walk the walk with both sides counting active and found that: Mercenaries versus LWC will not use deadly force, just a good old fashion butt kicking. Unless you make them do it twice, then count them as Gangers.
Next instruction was: If using non-lethal force, go to an In Sight with the active side charging into melee. No Charge into Melee Test is taken.
Since Dóra is the robber, I think she would go first, and she rolled 5 dice and came up with 3 successes.
I rolled on the damage table and got a 2; added the 3 successes to get 5 and a result of Out of Fight.
So if I did this correctly, Chagatai got his butt whipped, got robbed, and now has a history with Dóra.

Does this sound about right?

Thanks

[squidlord]

Firstly, I think you might have skipped over a few too many important things at the beginning to set us up for this., For instance – providing a little bit of the fictional placement. What was the character doing where they were? It must've been a Chillin' encounter to transit into a Robbery. What were they doing there?

Though the process that you're describing mechanically doesn't match the 2015 Fringe Space mechanics. Do you mean you were using Known Space? That doesn't seem to match up, either.

Basically, I can't figure out how you got to where you were, procedurally, so I'm already looking askance at the result.

You probably should have rolled for the actual profession of the exotic you ran into, though it would have been perfectly reasonable to just say "criminal muscle" since that's on the list. Rep 5 is fairly unlikely on the table, so that's just bad luck. Also, you didn't note what the species of either was, which makes a difference on the Talk the Talk table. I'll assume that they were both Basics for now.

Page 44 actually says to carry out the Robbery as you would and Arrest with the robbers acting as the police.

In which case, the hired muscle should've challenged you with weapon drawn and said, effectively, "give me everything in your pockets or I shoot."

You say no – then and only then does it turn into a Confrontation.

An exotic will first give you a stern beating, so you've got that going for you. It's going to be a fistfight.

No Charge into Melee Test was necessary – but you failed to do the In Sight Test which would have given you at least a 50% chance of getting the first hit in. There is no "I think she would go first" in this context. Giving a +1D6 to In Sight for the crim would have been appropriate but not strictly by the text.

And this is where you blew it entirely.

Melee combat is simultaneous and resolved off the same table. Page 77.

Both Chagatai and the muscle should have rolled 5D6 (because there are no other modifiers that appear to apply), looking for 1s, 2s, and 3s. If they roll an equal number of successes, fight another round. Whoever scores more successes first wins and then you resolve the damage, which is just rolling a D6 unmodified in this case, and compare it to the outcomes. Worst case, Out Of the Fight.

Of course, if you just handed over your wallet when first confronted, there wouldn't be a 50% chance that you ended up on your ass in the street, I suppose. That'll teach you to be out in residential areas at night.

Assuming that he lost, then yes. That would count as history.

Fringe Space is not my favorite manifestation of the core mechanics, I'll admit. The organization is a little wonky and of the obsession with Battle Boards doesn't yank my crank. Ultimately, I don't think it manages to be simpler in terms of mechanics than 5150: New Beginnings, though that might be slightly unfair since the latest edition has 10 years of evolution on it.

Otherwise, is what is.

[hansuke]

Thanks for the feedback squidlord. Much appreciated. I was just looking at Fringe Space last night and that is what I used since it seemed like the tables were easy to find in the back of the book. I will look at it in more depth. I just started on page 21 Turn Sequence for game play experience. It looked like in a one-off game I would start with #3 random event, and i got the robbery. Maybe I need to watch some game play videos. I thought it was odd that I didn't get a chance to throw a punch in first, but I played through so see how it would end.

Is there an easier book, that gets me into action more quickly? Fringe Space seemed to be easy to read, but I have several other books. I use Known Space for other miniature games since it gives me an idea of where the worlds are and what they look like. But I wanted to get into personal actions so I picked up Fringe Space (and I like the picture on the cover).

[Ed the Two Hour Wargames Guy]

Thanks for the questions. Just reminded me of why 5150 New Beginnings Quick play was made. I love the game. NB Quick Play Totally compatible with all the 5150 games.
Here's a video.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebir3M2St6Q 

I added the NB City Deck for more detail yet speed on play still.

[squidlord]

It's an RPG, effectively. What kind of action do you want to get into quickly? Fringe Space does a really garbage job of showing you where to get onto the experience. What it should be is Campaign on page 60, but that just meanders around in an undirected way and doesn't really help much at all. It's a book full of mechanics looking for a game, to state it very cynically.

The new 5150: New Beginnings has much more meat and many more mechanics available to pull but isn't really significantly more complicated. In fact, the clarity makes certain parts of the game less complicated than Fringe Space. The campaign rules start on 153 and immediately jump into "here's the turn sequence that you go through for every month; have a good time."

Now you have to decide what you want to do. The sort of expected/strongly implied set up is a call back to Traveller where you're in debt for a spaceship that you hustle around looking for cargoes and trouble to get into; it's a tried-and-true formula that works really well. But you don't have to do that. You could pick up the New Hope City PI book and play exactly that; it's a custom set of encounters that walk you through being a private investigator in New Hope City.

With any and all of them you can be "in the action" in a ridiculously short period of time compared to most RPGs. Character generation is fast and lightweight, the mechanics provide an entire randomly generated set of experiences if that's what you want, but the game doesn't bring motivations to the table like a lot of modern RPGs do. That's not necessarily a slam; more just an observation.

You have to build your reasons to care yourself. Then the system will give you stuff to react to.

[Ed the Two Hour Wargames Guy]

You have to build your reasons to care yourself. Then the system will give you stuff to react to.
Yep, you have to build your Story. I've used Billy Pink for over ten years. 

Billy Pink Elysium

[Ed the Two Hour Wargames Guy]

Wow. Just went back and took a look at Fringe Space. Yikes! 9 years ago. Yep, new stuff is more streamlined. Use Down the Road. It'll help move things along. 

5150 Down the Road v5-23-21.pdf (263.57 KB)

[hansuke]

Thanks for all the help y'all. I will watch the video later today and may consider the fast play game. I have the latest version New Beginnings, but it just seemed so big. That's why I went to Fringe Space. That and the cover .

This is my go to Known Space system. I have used it for other skirmish games and i like it. It feels like home.

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ring 9 / sector 3 / system 1 / system solo / planets 5

Nik-Nik 1. class 2 MARGINALLY HABITABLE Pop 0 - Uninhabited

Nik-Nik 2. class 3 and an asteroid belt LOTS OF ROCKS Pop 0 - Uninhabited

Nik-Nik 3. class 3 and an asteroid belt LOTS OF ROCKS Pop 0 - Uninhabited

Nik-Nik 4. (Main World) class 1 HABITABLE Pop 4 - Developed F farming L2 -
6 major cities - 2d6+6 city areas
>>Vibtsy 10 areas Star Port, Middle Income, Pub & Rec, Middle Income, Lower Income, Lower Income, Lower Income, Pub & Rec, Lower Income, Middle Income
8 settlements - 1d6+1 settlement areas
>>Ribla (Hometown) 4 areas City Hall / Admin, Financial, Pub & Rec, Financial

Nik-Nik 5. class 1 HABITABLE Pop 2 - Frontier FC factory L4 - This planet is snow covered for better than half the year. Bugs have been seen occasionally.
8 major cities - 2d6+6 city areas
11 settlements - 1d6+1 settlement areas

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I decided to flesh out Chagatai, as you suggested. Here is his story so far. He is a little bruised but still eager to go.

pc mid-level - Joe - lwc rep 5 Chagatai Renault (M)
star, race basic, class Mercenary-Resilient, Character Drunkard Slow to React, Homeworld Nik-Nik 4 (Ribla), Class LWC-Joe Medical Field, Social Standing ?, Age 40, Family Ties Parents Mother, Weapon Machine Pistol, Armor No,

Just flew into Vibtsy Star Port and was staying in a hotel in the Mid-city area next to starport when he decided to walk around at night because he couldn't sleep. That's when he got robbed. Chagatai hopes to get a crew and a ship so that he can go mining in the asteroid belt in the Nik-Nik system.

Thanks again for all the help.
Hans/Bobby

[squidlord]

The funny thing is that New Beginnings is really not all that big. A lot of the space is tables, obviously. A lot of the space is bulleted points which have a lot of white space around them. In terms of sheer amounts of text that you need to be aware of any given time… It's really not a whole lot. There's effectively one mechanic that 90% of things are resolved by, not a lot of special cases, the special cases are all on the tables… It's a very straightforward game in certain ways.

The two games that I'm reaching for most often these days are 5150: New Beginnings and Ironsworn: Starforged, which you may have never heard of if you're not out in the deep RPG space but it's probably the best RPG written in the last decade, and I'm not kidding. But it's extremely fiction-first and narrative and it doesn't really provide that tabletop wargame interface that sometimes is what you want.

Five Parsecs from Home is good too and does do that tabletop wargaming experience pretty aggressively – but it doesn't integrate with anything other than man-to-man skirmish. On the other hand, it does have a "let's set up the setting in ways that you find interesting" thing that a lot of modern games are doing, including Starforged so…

It's an exciting world out there these days.

[Ed the Two Hour Wargames Guy]

Yep, you got it. The "work" you put into at the start and the tracking makes your games great. Track the NPCs as well and it's even better. For example - if you get robbed again in the same area roll 1d6 - score a 1 and it's the same robber again. Or when you run into Criminals and Talk the Talk. If you succeed in interacting with them - score more successes - do it again. Succeed again and they can tell you where to find the robber. Then set up a Confrontation. Maybe hire some things to help you. The possibilities are endless. 
Give this a look as well.

Universal Interaction and Challenge.pdf (197.86 KB)

Five Parsecs

Ivan and I go way back.