Character Workshop for The Star Frontiers Adventure - Mission to Alcazzar (SF4) Actual Play Event

So I'm finally back home and I got together with friends to do a quick primer, brush up, and overview of Star Frontiers. Tonight I got together with friends to tackle one of the tougher and more dangerous Star Frontiers adventures Mission to Alcazzar (SF4). This is an adventure to be respected for its plot, tightness of design, and dangerous encounters for Star Frontiers adventurers.
The set up is classic Frontiers ; "You press against the steel hatchway,as the explorer bounds up the river bank, out of the water. Over the: roar of the engines comes the unmistakable whine of a high-performance groundcar. Quickly, you scan the horizon. At first the plain appears empty. Then you see them.
"Bandits at 11 o'clock. Three of them!'7 you shout into your chronocom. Instantly, the driver slams the heavy explorer into reverse, backing down the bank for cover. The rear doors burst open as Rocton dashes out to set up a heavy laser. Harradd, the Yazirian, follows right behind carrying five power beltpacks. Already someone is handing extra ammo up to you.
At 80 kph, those ground cars are closing fast. Targeting the lead car, you squeeze the trigger and a rocket flashes out of the tube. At the same instant a shell streaks past you, exploding in the river and spraying steam into the air.
You came to Alcazzar on a tough mission — it just got a lot tougher.""
Basically what we did was went over the rules, brushed up on any rough spots, set up PC's and gave the whole party background for this module. This module is one part sandbox, two parts plot driven corporate and military adventure and three parts adrenaline rush. This module gives everything the PC's are going to need to get themselves dragged into a planetary cluster hurt with all of the trimmings.


 
The basic idea here was to pull all six players into the deep end of the module to get the players hooked into a party of adventurers right out of the gate. We basically picked PC's together and had the whole group helping each other with generation and application of the Star Frontiers rules. We as both a group and players were pretty damn rusty. But things got off the ground rather quickly and we had to deal with the well organized kitchen sink approach that this module takes. This is in stark contrast to the way the Volturnus series of adventure handles its encounters. This module was a welcome change up, here everything is well organized and concise. This is not a module for the inexperienced or those who want to be hand held through the adventure. This is a wild planet with lots of dangerous encounters for an experienced set of adventurers.


Like many of the other Star Frontiers adventures everything is supplied straight out the gate for PC's with background and more boiled down right in the first couple of pages. Here the DM and players are given everything that their going to need to run and enjoy this module and this includes mission details, equipment, starting pay, and more. Everything in this module shows off the system just like the first series of adventures did but in a more one on one style of focused gaming. This isn't a bad thing at all, this style of gaming keeps everyone focused on the adventure and not really what's happening in the greater universe of Star Frontiers.
By doing a character work shop we do not only the PC builds together but keeps everyone on the same page. This adventure has a nice focus on bringing to the fore the military and corporate war aspect of the Star Frontiers game an aspect that many players seem to forget. But came through loud and clear in the various Dragon magazine articles with the Star Frontiers support.  This adventure takes that old school sand box corporate & military elements and brings them center stage.


So over the next day or so I'll be posting updates and keeping you informed as to this latest venture into old school gaming. But now I'm off to bed, we'll talk in the morning.