Friday, January 21, 2022

Portal Complex: Rules for The Team

The central characters of Portal Complex are "The Team"! The Team is a group of resource poachers who have discovered an alien installation deep in the wilderness. With criminal pasts and no way of profiting from alerting the authorities of their world-shattering find, they will be delving into the portal complex, looking for alien artifacts to sell.

Our Explorers and their assistants will be built using Action 4. The base package costs 100 points, of which 75 points are stats, another 15 points of which is luck, and a final 40 points of which are advantages. When building characters costing 100 points or less, some of these 135 points should be dropped to make room for packages. Points towards advantages and disadvantages may be set aside as "unspent" until that character receives a bit more focus time... but advantage points may not be spend until the corresponding disadvantage points are spent! Characters will not be finely polished, but rather thrown into the complex to see how they do!

The group of explorers may be as large as desired... but they have to pay everyone well, to ensure loyalty! All explorers and camp staff must be paid their monthly wage. Hands built on 50 points cost $2500 a month. 100 point hands cost $5000 a month, 150 point hands, $7,500 a month, and 200 point delvers are $10,000 a month. This is slightly less that the monthly job pay for TL8, but much rounder. This price will also include the cost of living out in the wilderness, and all of those trips back and forth to town.

The delve site is a permanent camp, but gear will have to be brought in. Its a three hour trip for the most basic supplies, Six hours for the needs of a real town, and anything else has to be ordered and then shipped in over multiple days... which will include weapons. Speaking of weapons, the team has black-market contacts that will purchase alien artifacts and sell LC2 gear. Going beyond that requires additional skill and attribute checks to be played out.

In addition to the explorers, the camp will start with four people who keep supplies moving, cook food, stand watch, and generally keep the camp together: each of them draw $2,500 a month. The man who fences goods on the black market and has criminal contacts lives in town, and draws $10,000 a month from the operation. More people can be hired, of course.

The base "budget" of the camp is $100,000. Most of this should be trucks, camping gear, resource extraction gear, and weapons.

I anticipate needing at least the following roles on the team: 

  • The Shooter: A combat man for if (when) they run into trouble, and who provides moral leadership
  • The Tech: A Wiz who views dangerous areas remotely with drones and tinkers with alien circuitry
  • The Engineer:  An expert at drilling open doors, knocking down walls, shoring up ceilings, moving heavy equipment, and blowing up enemies

A terrain expert may also be needed, at least back at base camp, and someone with some first aid to take care of injuries.. A doctor would be ideal, but I don't think they can justify that... yet.

Character points will be awarded based on the number of obstacles overcome. Characters will count how many times they overcome a specific type of obstacle. They receive a point after overcoming 1, 3, 6, 9, 12,15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 42, 49, 56, 63, or 70 obstacles of that type, and every multiple of 10 afterwards. Obstacle categories are very specific: Each type of enemy is a separate category.

 The location of the team will be determined randomly at the start of play, from among:

  • Siberia
  • Amazon
  • Sahara
  • Rocky Mountains
  • Outback 
  • Southeast Pacific
  • Somewhere Else

I look forward to statting out our team, and seeing them in play!

 

Portal Complex: Rules for the Complex

The Portal Complex is centered around the complex itself. The complex is large, spans multiple worlds, and will be generated at random. We will largely be using Starship Geomorphs for the maps. 

Some doors will be closed, some doors will go outside into hostile planetary environments, and some doors will be various sorts of portals. We'll use a modifier to try and keep the complex at any given location an manageable size.

We will be using the scavenging rules from After the End: 2 pages 38 and 37 to pad our results. Because this complex is not actually in an after the end scenario, all rolls are at +4, and all monetary values are quadrupedal.

Ultra tech items will sell for x20 the first time, then x15, then X10, going on down the range and speed table, until it reaches it's minimum value.  The minimum price is double the listed price if the item can be used, half the listed price if it's a usable part, and a tenth of the listed price if it's broken but shows potential for reverse engineering or raw materials.

Geomorph Odds (470 options)

  • Full Geomorph  (120 options)
  • Edge Geomorph (160 options)
  • Corner Geomorph (120 options)
  • Interstitial Geomorph (4 options -- 5 times as likely for 20)
  • Elevator Geomorph (4 options - 5 times as likely for 20)
  • Train or Tram (2 options - 10 times as likely for 20)
  • Flight Deck (6 options)
  • Something new (4 options)

Door Odds

  • Absent
  • Portal
  • Outside
  • Locked
  • Lacking Power
  • Open
  • Unlocked 
  • Something New 

Subtract 1 from the result each time a portal is found or five modules have been discovered, add +1 if in an edge geomorph or +2 if in a corner

We want to keep the planets quite hostile, but we also want to make them accessible. The following options for planetary environments:

  • Airless
  • Icy
  • Something New

Going outside doesn't always lead into the open either:

  • Buried
  • Tunnels
  • Open 
  • Something New

Immediate Danger:

  • None
  • Gunbot
  •  Something New

Compartment Problems

  • None
  • No Power (roll again)
  • Environmental Leak
  • Something New

Outside Door

  • Open Air
  • Tunnels
  • Burried
  • Something New

Gate Status

  • Broken
  • One-Way
  • Two-Way
  • Something New

The Portal Complex: A High Tech Dungeon Crawl

The Portal Complex is a room-by-room dungeon crawl, but with a High Tech and Ultra Tech emphasis rather than a magic emphasis. A small group of modern explorers go through a portal discovered on earth, equipped with only what they can carry. They arrive in series of long abandoned installations connected by portals, and guarded by hostile robots, alien fauna, and long lost secrets.

 The Complex will be almost entirely generated randomly. Most tables will have an option for "Add something new". When we get this result, we  will come up with three ideas that could be true, and then select one of them.

 This game will relish the simplicity of its format, but will be quite willing to delve into complex systems. While this is a solo game, we'll be playing with a full team, and with the possibility of the team growing. 

I am really looking forward to this game!