Lecks Solo Adventure

Beth decided to start a campaign based on James H. Schmidt's Hub stories, sf, which I still haven't read. Character creation used OTE rules and the following requirements:

1. The PCs are basically the good guys.

2. All PCs have their own private space yachts and some method of flying them. This makes pick up sessions with any number of players easier, as PCs can team up and separate quickly.

3. All PCs have a kick butt (4d) combat trait.

4. If a PC isn't a powerful psychic, there has to be another trait that gives the PC some other way to be powerful.

5. PCs are not limited to what beginning OTE characters have.

Once I got over my initial surprise that the GM was forcing me to create an ultra-competent PC, I had a lot of fun and, I think, re-invented the Paladin, sf / OTE style.

Dr. Marius Lecks

Doctor, 5d (Xeno-)Biologist, 4d

While Lecks' family is rich, his personal fortune comes primarily from his own medical research, and he has patented a few drugs. He's also been a military doctor. As a Xeno-Biologist, he specializes in alien flora.

Sign: Tends to wear a lab coat, reads the latest medical journals

Empath, 4d emotions, 3d sensations

Sign: Excellent reflexes when someone is shooting at him. Good bedside manner.

I always favor playing an empath over a telepath. Lecks can sense minds (numbers, locations, etc.) and read and project emotions. With physical contact, he can read and project sensations. He can tell exactly how much a patient hurts, and exactly where it hurts. (Beth notes that Lecks can probably locate the sensation better than the actual victim -- he has the advantage of being able to make the sensation stop and start for contrast.) He can project pain, nausea, itches, heat, and cold. Lecks has to make physical contact to do any of this, and he can't affect sight, sound, or smell.

Pilot, 4d -- Specialties: flying through hostile conditions, including bad weather and enemy fire

Sign: A sure hand on the controls of his ship.

When I chose this trait, I knew someone else might want to be a hotshot pilot, and I didn't want to dilute anyone else's pilot schtick. As it turned out, Erik Hanson created a 4d Pilot, but with different specialties. His were stealth and smuggling.

Blaster, 4d

Sign: Often carries a blaster, tends to lay down covering fire when the shooting starts.

Lecks has been in some local planetary wars, generally when his sense of right has been offended.

Drawing, 3d overall, 4d for technical accuracy

Sign: Several sketches of plantlife in various media, accompanying technical notes

Lecks isn't really an artist, especially as Josh's PC is. But he is very good at drawing anatomy and the local flora in precise detail.

Flaw: Fanatic

Sign: Determined look in his eye, occasionally updates his family about latest additions to his enemy list.

Lecks has a few hot buttons. Addicting minors to nasty drugs is one of them. Playing corporate profit games with medicine, especially when lives are at stake, is another.

Dr. Lecks was trying to discover how a viral epidemic on a newly settled planet was spreading. Several pharmaceutical corporations had medical teams working on the problem, but only 2 were willing to pool information with Lecks.

The virus apparently originated on a couple of now evacuated and quarantined islands. It seemed to be seasonal, linked to the planet's autumn season. The doctors had uncomplimentary things to say about surveyors who hadn't waited a full year before deciding it was safe to send colonists. And the original victims of the virus were primarily woodworkers. While tempted to share these findings only with the cooperative corporations, Lecks decided that common sense and medical ethics demanded he tell everyone.

He decided to take an expedition to the larger of the quarantined islands. Planetary authorities agreed, but said that they would also send a military escort, and that everyone, including Lecks, would need to spend a month in quarantine when they were done. Lecks agreed, and invited only people from the cooperative corporations. Lecks packed his medical equipment, his blaster, and a tranquilizer gun, as he'd been told there were wolves on the island.

The expedition landed and broke up into several groups. Lecks went with Dr. Zy Blan and one of the military people. They came across a house in a clearing.

Lecks, using his empathy, realized there were 11 people in the house who were suddenly hostilely inclined. He shouted a warning, ducked behind a tree, and began firing his blaster as the people left the house and fired on his group.

Lecks and the military man each took out one person, with blasters set to stun, while Dr. Blan prudently climbed a tree so she'd be out of the way and not a target. The military man was stunned.

Lecks realized these couldn't be opportunistic looters, as it doesn't take 11 people to loot a house. He used his empathy to keep track of where everyone was -- and I learned what a 4d empathy trait let me get away with.

5 of the attackers fanned out to look for Lecks while the other 4 worked on securing the military man and trying to revive their companions. Lecks dropped 2 with his tranq gun, while Dr. Blan tossed a powerful stink bomb to distract the other 2. Either she or Lecks took them down, but I know she stayed in the tree. Lecks also took out 2 of the 5 combing the woods as they returned. He went into the currently empty house and radioed for back up.

It took a bit of cat and mouse, and one of the attackers contacted their own back up, but Lecks managed to stun everyone. By the time his back up arrived, he'd figured out that one of the less cooperative corporations had drawn the same conclusions he had and broken quarantine on the island by sending people to woodworkers' houses. The attackers had been in process of packing up all of the wooden furniture, taking samples of fibers, and very carefully packing the woodworking tools. Everything was being loaded into an airtruck.

As Lecks' team needed exactly the same things, the military people offered to finish the job. Lecks apologetically explained that he had blown up the truck's engine. Undaunted, they cheerfully fetched a pair of floaters, following Lecks' instructions about treating the woodworker's instruments with care. As they later learned, the attacking corporation had spoken privately with the house's owner, getting his permission to take samples. The owner didn't know the corporation was acting independently.

The prisoners were rounded up and their call for backup was traced. Dr. Blan commented that she hadn't expected shooting so early, and that she hated folks who, as she put it, dicked around with viruses. Lecks found himself liking her, but her corporate affiliation made him wary. His wariness increased when she asked if she might call her bodyguard / assistant to join them on the island, but the request was reasonable, and his empathy confirmed that she was sincere.

After some research, Lecks' team learned that the virus was carried in the mouths of insects who bred in certain types of wood on the island. A vaccine was created. Lecks asked Dr. Blan what the aggressive corporation hoped to gain. She guessed it wanted to get its vaccine out first, and, just possibly, to create a weapon of assassination with it. Neither of these were now likely, but the corporation would be fined, at worst, for the "unauthorized actions of overeager personnel".

I discovered that I don't like playing when I'm drugged to wooziness with anti-histamines, not fully aware of what I'm saying. At one point in the 2nd session of the adventure, I babbled something about shuttlecraft, and Beth asked if I wanted her to work it in. I demurred.

I did like, very much, playing an ultra-competent PC in a simple system. In ArsM and the pulp game, I deliberately play somewhat bumbling PCs, while Altclair has a very different tone. Variety is nice, and I like having one character who, to paraphrase Babylon 5, knows he's the good guy and enjoys the thunk made by bad guys when they hit the ground.