Wednesday, October 23, 2013

A Deeper Look Into The Free Stars Without Number Resource - :"Mandate Archive: Scavenger Fleets" From Sine Nomine Publishing

Mandate Archive: Scavenger Fleets
Get It Right Over
HERE

According to the Drivethrurpg Description: 

They forge a path between forgotten worlds, bringing the treasures of foreign suns in exchange for the prices that only earthdwellers can pay. Open this free supplement for the equally free Stars Without Number RPG to learn of the Scavenger Fleets and their age-old trade between the far-flung worlds of humanity. The ruthless heirs of the Scream's shattered fleets, these ships will go anywhere and do anything to turn the profit they need to keep flying.
You'll find a history of the Scavenger Fleets in the Stars Without Number world, along with example fleets, tables for generating your own bands of nomadic scavenger-merchants, and a selection of new hulls and ship fittings to tantalize your players.
("But where," you demand, "are my tools for mercantile campaigns and star-faring traders?" To this, I can only counsel continued vigilance. Your needs are not forgotten, and even now strange things brew for your future delectation.)

Ever since I took a look at Suns of Gold I've been wanting to revisit this particular ten page Mandate Archive.
This one packs into ten pages some very useful information about the Scavenger Fleets. The book packs all kinds of useful bits in it about these roving traders to the stars, bits and pieces about life aboard these fleets, and some but not all the information needed to modify some of the existing information about generating PCs from these incredible factions. 

Thought you might not need it I'd recommend using this set of rules for gaming with the Scavenger Fleets. Why? Because it contains the complete rules needed to slice deep into this ten page overview.
 
The rules for the creation of  - 
  • Society creation guidelines and generation tables to help GMs flesh out their worlds with vibrant, living cultures and their ages-old conflicts. Every culture comes with built-in struggles to fuel adventures on that world and give GMs a quick and easy hook for pulling in the players.
    Come in really handy when utilizing the rules found in Scavenger Fleets. While not completely necessary they make some of the guess work a lot easier.
  • While Suns of Cold fills in many of the gaps found in Scavenger Fleets not all of them are filled in alas. There are certain things that the  DM will have to do himself.

  •  The Rules for buying and selling cargo between the far-flung planets from Suns of Gold come into play when using the Scavenger Fleets as per encounters and the holdings of said fleets can become all kinds of jump off points for drama during adventures. 
  • Guidelines for building interstellar business empires and planetary holdings act as an excellent bench mark when dealing with many of the situations that Scavenger Fleets create when they appear!
  • Scavenger Fleets while not essential to an SWN campaign adds much more to the take away value of campaigns set using interstellar trade and salvage as part of its backbone.
    Suns of Gold also adds even more enjoyment and you can get that right over
    HERE

2 comments:

  1. Still bummed I missed it last week when they were bundled. Looks cool.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It will come around again to be sure. Maybe Christmas time Mr.Crawford will do a bundle again. Besides X plorers this is my go to science fiction system. I'm quite fond of it. Thanks for the comments Jay and I really do have more coming up.

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.