Category: Solo RPG

A black and write image of a man in a suit and trench coat writing in a notebook with a pen atop a desk decorated with several different office accoutrements and the words "The debts of Captain Jack Quincy" along the top and the words "A Genesys RPG Solo Game & Iron Horizons Demo" along the bottom

The Debts of Jack Quincy 4: A Genesys Solo Game

Posted on by Kaleb

(If you’re new to our Genesys setting demo and solo game here, you can check out the earlier posts: session 0, scene 1, scene 2, scene 3. If you want to check out the setting demo for yourself, I have it in this Google Doc.)

Where we left off…

Wind whips through the cockpit, tugging at Jack’s utility suit and whipping his hair in the wind, despite the helmet clasped tight beneath his chin. The air whistles as it screams through the broken pieces of the hull from where the last salvo had torn it open. He blinks away the smoke-tinged sweat that burns his eyes, watching the altimeter needle spin wildly as the gray sky and purple clouds outside are replaced by green-gray moorland that stretches for miles across this part of Alathni Major. Even that begins to disappear as the heat shimmers from the air being compressed against the nose of the shuttle at far higher speeds than safety protocols allowed.

An image of a Hero Forge miniature of Jack Quciny, featuring a man with dark skin wearing a bomber jacket, red bandanna, and blue work shirt gazing at the camera.

He sets his boots against the cockpit console and shoves with his legs, throwing his weight against the yoke. Creaking and grinding, the shuttle’s controls grind in response, bringing the nose upward from a straight dive into something that more closely resembles a controlled crash landing. Pressure grows on his eardrums as the atmospheric pressure increases rapidly and he clenches his teeth and arcs his back to get every last inch of course correction.

Technically, I should probably roll dice here to calculate the damage both Jack and the shuttle receive. Rereading the crashing rules in the alternate vehicle rules, however, don’t seem to indicate a roll for a ship crashing from high atmosphere into the surface of a planet. I would say that’s generally going to be considered catastrophic— the equivalent of several Critical Hits. We’ve only had one of those so far, and it was the fighter pilots in the previous scene.

In Genesys, critical hits work by rolling a D100 and looking to see the result on a chart. Different Talents, rules, and qualities can add or subtract to that roll. I didn’t bring it up last time because the result on the chart was that the shuttle’s hull was compromised, reducing the armor to zero, but the shuttle has no armor, so it didn’t have much of an effect.

Introducing Story Points

I’ll also introduce a mechanic that we haven’t really touched on yet— the Story Point. For those who played the Edge of the Empire/Force and Destiny/Age of Rebellion games, this would be the equivalent of the Light Side/Dark Side points. Rather than rolling a Force die like in the SWRPG, Genesys gives one positive Story Point to each player and one negative Story Point to the GM. These form a pool that get flipped back and forth as players and game masters use them to create various effects.

Since I am both the player and the GM in this case, I’ve included two Story Points, one for each. As the player, I will now flip my Story Point (giving me as the GM two Story Points to play with). With that, I will say that Jack has a parachute under the command chair, even though it’s not been mentioned or alluded to anywhere else yet. Technically, it’s a ret-con, but in Genesys terms, it’s a necessary narrative development.

Jack flings himself away from the console, stuffing the briefing papers into a large jumpsuit pocket, as the control panel begins to smoke, carrying the tang of burning hydraulic lines, turning the smoke into a thick, choking fumes. He gags and grabs a breath mask from the emergency kit and slips it over his face as he tears open the panel beneath, revealing a carefully packaged parachute that he flings onto his back, pulling the straps tight as they latch into place. Jack staggers momentarily under the weight, and one hand clings to the side of the cockpit as the plane’s dive grows steeper, sending him into weightlessness before he slams against the side and bounces off.

One hand grabs an emergency exit latch, and he pulls on it. The lever creaks, shifts, and then breaks free as the bolts blow the hatch from the hull. The air pressure in the cabin immediately drops in a howling rush and Jack hauls himself to the hatch before flinging himself out the door. The air this high up is cold, but the jumpsuit overalls are well insulated and have heat packs that keep it from being too cold and the oxygen mask protects his face. The parachute flares open and Jack bounces as it slows his fall. Below him, he watches the shuttle continue its dive before exploding far, far below against the surface.

The wind whistles past him, but beneath he it, he can hear the hum of the fighter engines as they circle around and he feels himself very exposed, hanging in the sky from a parachute, when the wind from the storm curls back around and carries him into the dark clouds. The already cold air gets even colder as he falls, falls, falls…

Heading to Ground

I’ll do an Athletics check to gauge how well he manages to land on the surface. Zero successes means that it is a failure, unfortunately. I’ll count that as three Wounds. Unlike Strain, which is more mental/physical stress, wounds are actual injuries.

A screenshot from RPG Sessions featuring the dice roll for Athletics. It has two green dice, two purple dice, and one black die. It reads zero successes.
A screenshot of Jack's character sheet, featuring Soak, Wounds, Strain, and Defense. His Soak is 3, Wound Threshold is 12 while current Wound is 3. His Strain threshold is 12 and he currently has 5. His defense is zero for both ranged and melee.

As you can see, Jack isn’t doing very well. He’s a fourth of the way to his Wound Threshold and almost halfway to his Strain Threshold. I can use Momentum to temporarily cure all of the wounds.That’s not quite necessary yet however, so I’ll keep that in my back pocket.

Jack lands hard on the surface of the ground, feeling piercing pain shoot through his body as he impacts. He tumbles and rolls roughly across the ground and coughs as the air is knocked from his lungs. He lays still for a while, partially conscious, as the storm screamed overhead. Heavy raindrops hammered against him and he can feel his body begin to chill. Fortunately, the utility jumpsuit keeps him warm enough to not worry about dying.

Why had the legionnaires shot him down? How had they known where he would be? He fumbles at the jumpsuit before pulling out the documents. There’s just enough light left for him to read.

He studies the weather charts and patterns carefully, scrutinizing them. The forecast, allegedly regarding a past storm, had been identical to the one he heard on the radio. His head spins at the implications. They had pulled a future forecast, forged it to be from before, and then sent him that way.

An image of a retro weather chart reading CAUTION AREA, with a circular compass and lots of different lines, along with a stamp reading Coast and Geodetic Survey 1807-1957
The charts are something like this, I think. Public domain from NOAA


There was no shuttle crash. He was supposed to be the crash. The entire thing was a set up. But why? And how hadn’t he anticipated that? His face burns at the thought that he’d been had and he forces himself up, staring at the sky, looking for the glow against the horizon that indicated Athena Proxima. He sees it and starts walking….

That is our Call to Adventure as well as our Motivation, using the Structured Mode from the Unmastered Play Guide. Since it’s the Call to Action, we can go ahead and reduce Entropy by two. That drops it down so that Momentum and Entropy are equal. If this was 5e, I might go through the entire journey and check for random encounters.

This is Genesys, however, which is not designed around having between six and eight encounters per long rest, so we can skip right ahead. Plus, Iron Horizons isn’t set up right now for wilderness survival or exploration. Also, I’m going to swap to past tense, because writing in present tense is not something I enjoy, even though it makes more sense for TTRPGs when played in person.

Athena Proxima

After a long slog through the soaked, but otherwise pleasant, landscape, the glow of Athena Proxima finally turned from light on the clouds into a sight of the massive city itself. Jack paused to rest his hands on his knees. Air traffic traced contrails across the sky and a few heavy trucks rumbled across the landscape
The glass dome barely protruded over the lip of the canyon, but he still made out the intricate iron structure that girded the dome.

Think something like this, but in the Grand Canyon and stretching from rim to rim. (Gray Glass Building photo by Yusuf Evli, used under the Unsplash license)



The lights of the city below lit up the framework and turned it into a light show that rivaled any theater marquee. With a deep sigh, he pushed himself up and forward until he trudged into the edge of the shantytown that spilled over the top of the canyon. The landscape here was flat and wind-scrubbed by the storms, so this part of town was cheap and often rebuilt from scrap.

Hard eyed men and women watched him as he paused next to the lift. The Scar dropped hundreds of feet to the bottom of the rift valley. As far as the eye could see, from below him to sprawl across the vast width of the canyon, and glittering on the far side, the city of Athena Proxima revealed itself.

Sleek towers, curved and graceful, emerged from the dome’s iron frame, interlaced with it and each other by countless walkways. Warm yellow lights glowed in hundreds of windows and, even from here, the faint strands of music reverberated beneath the yards-thick glass of the dome.

The official capital of Alathni Major and the center of Aldottorai control over the system, Athena Proxima had more money flow through it in one night that he’d seen in his entire life. And somewhere in there, there would be answers as to why a powerful Aldottorai merchant princess and a high ranking officer in the foreign legion double crossed him…

A black and write image of a man in a suit and trench coat writing in a notebook with a pen atop a desk decorated with several different office accoutrements and the words "The debts of Captain Jack Quincy" along the top and the words "A Genesys RPG Solo Game & Iron Horizons Demo" along the bottom

The Debts Of Jack Quincy 3: A Genesys Setting Demo

Posted on by Kaleb

(If you’re new to our Genesys setting demo and solo game here, you can check out the earlier posts: session 0, scene 1, scene 2. If you want to check out the setting demo for yourself, I have it in this Google Doc.)

Flashback to Last Time

We return to the adventures of Jack Quincy as he tries to pay off the family debt to the Jets and purchase his own tramp freighter!

His first job is to retrieve some fallen cargo from Athena Proxima, dumped by a high ranking Aldottorai Colonial Trading Company merchant because of mechanical failure in her shuttle and she can’t be bothered to retrieve it. When we last left off, Jack managed to lose someone who was following him through the maintenance corridors, got a shuttle started, and left Forlorn Hope Station, where we’ll pick up once again.

If you remember from last time, we had an uncancelled Threat that took our Entropy to 2, meaning it’s time to do a System Move. This System Move is transitional, meaning we move to Act 1- The Call to Adventure. Isn’t the job already a call to adventure, you may ask? Not really. Up until now, other than being followed, it’s a typical job for a freelance pilot. So now that we’re in Act 1, we also shift the focus to a Flaw. In this case, Jack’s flaw is Pride.

Time for Space Travel!

Jack leans over and pulls the radio headset toward him from the empty copilot chair before placing it on his head, glancing at the documents on the table indicating the ship’s registry number.

“Flying Bus” by Neil Kairanna- Maybe something like this?
I’m bad at visualizing things, so the actual aesthetic is still up in the air

”Forlorn Traffic Control, this is ACTC shuttle 7961, requesting departure slot.” Jack says while watching the temperature and pressure gauges slowly climb up to takeoff levels.

”ACTC Shuttle 7961, your course has been pre-approved and prioritized,” the reply came back instantly through the radio, still clear, although interference would get stronger as he moves further from the station. “You may depart when ready.”

Jack raises his eyebrows in surprise, but manages not to say anything, except to confirm and start the countdown. In less than a minute, he finds himself out of the station and adjusting the navigation computer controls on the table beside him. It’s usually the co-pilot’s job to handle navigation, especially for planetary entry that needs to be gradual enough to avoid burning up.

A quick increase to the thrust sends the shuttle arcing away on the departure vector given by traffic control and Jack sets the autopilot before getting up and adjusting the dials and knobs on the navigational computer, watching as the clicking of the computer parts is mirrored by a course sketched on a loose map of the system, mirroring as closely as possible the recorded route of the earlier flight.

He nods in satisfaction and returns to the pilot’s seat, adjusting the angle of the navigational plot with a foot-lever so he can see it clearly. It will take a few hours to match velocity and vector, so Jack shuffles through the papers until he finds the weather records, perusing them.

They show the radio forecast transcripts and a weather chart indicating one of the major storms that often surge across the northern hemisphere of Alathni Major. Bad and severe, but to an experienced local pilot, not usually an issue, so perhaps the pilot was new or from out-system.

First, we need to have the vehicle statistic sheet, which I made and you can view here. Yes, this is a new starship added for this adventure, as it’s not (currently) included in the demo.

Jack leans back in the chair, one hand resting lightly on the controls, and the other hand flicks the switch on the radio, adjusting the dials until the jaunty sound of starswing fills the cockpit. Time passes and Jack guides the shuttle into the upper atmosphere, where a radio bulletin announces an approaching storm.

First Structured Encounter

I’m actually going to make two rolls here- one for Piloting and one for Vigilance, both of which will be Hard difficulty, meaning they have three of the purple Difficulty Dice. Two rolls in Narrative/Non-structured play means we also increase our Momentum.

First up is piloting! Our first Triumph result of the campaign as well. That means the next roll is Vigilance, for reasons which will come clear shortly.

Still a Success, but no Triumph, and that’s because there’s no yellow Proficiency die. Now, because the two also have uncancelled Threat, we increase Entropy by one for each roll. I’ve been using a Notion set up to keep track of the campaign, both text and the mechanics. Here’s my makeshift Momentum/Entropy tracker .

As you can see, the two are neck and neck so far, which helps keep things a little balanced. I haven’t done much yet with the Unmastered Play Guide mechanics for these yet, but Momentum can be cashed in for rolls, while Entropy affects rolls, especially oracle and NPC rolls.

Jack feels the controls begin to shudder under the wind and he looks back and forth between the cockpit canopy and the weather forecast charts, trying to gauge the best way to respond. But then lightning tears through the sky and momentarily blinds him and sends an electric shock racing through his body (Using the Threat from the piloting check to give Strain).

He falls limp in surprise, but quickly shakes his head and grits his teeth to push through, half-closing his eyes and relying on instinct more than conscious thought. The ship rattles and groans under the onslaught of conflicting forces- gravity, the antigravitic fields, the wind, and the engines. But Jack gets the rhythm of it quickly and follows the winds, letting them guide the course, quickly dropping through the layers of the storm, until finally popping out into clear sky with no real harm done, and at his destination quicker than the given course allowed (The result of the Successes and the Triumph).

With the sky now clear, Jack frowns as he spots two distant dots racing in on the horizon. There’s only a single small signature on the radar and nothing on the radio indicating who they might be. He squints at them and uses the shuttle’s magnification lens to get a better view of them

Fighters! And they’re coming straight for him, and the flash of muzzles indicating that they’re firing at him! He can’t make out any markings on the gray hulls. Jack is caught off guard and finds himself moving more slowly than expected (Result of the two Threats is to give Jack a black Setback die on the next roll). He realizes, however, that the storm was a blessing— without that extra speed, he would have landed right in their crosshairs without ever seeing them.

Dogfight!

Right, now we move into the first Combat encounter, a Structured Encounter meaning we increase Momentum again, and one using the Alternate Vehicle Rules from the Genesys Core Rulebook. If you’ve played Edge of the Empire, you’ll know the Vehicle rules used to be a little questionable, but I’ve heard that they fixed them with Genesys. Jack is flying the Shuttle, of course. If you looked at the sheet, you’ll notice that it’s unarmed. Not an ideal situation for Jack Quincy. He’ll be going up against a Multirole Fighter from the setting playtest document. (Jack isn’t expected to win this one, in case you were wondering.)

So, I’m going to roll Vigilance for the enemy pilots, as Jack already rolled his. Normally, they would be rolling Cool, but the Triumph negated that and caught them off guard. I’m basing the pilot stats off the Airship Pirate minion block from the CRB. Their initiative score is one Success and two Advantage. That means Jack moves first. The shuttle was moving at Speed 1, so he’ll take the Accelerate maneuver and Dangerous Driving action, which is a hard Piloting check, with a Setback because of the shuttle’s poor handling and another for the Threat on the last roll.

And that’s not good. It’s a failure, and Jack takes a Strain in addition to not passing the check.

Tracer rounds cut through the still-gloomy sky as bullets hiss past the shuttle while Jack desperately hauls on the controls and pushes the throttle all the way forward. The ungainly shuttle lurches forward and he throws his body into the controls, trying to twist away. Sweat beads on his brow and one hand flicks the radio switch, only to hear nothing but static. There’s no one to call for help and the sudden maneuvers send the shuttle plummeting toward the surface.

Now, we move to the other pilots. They’re a Minion, so they act as one group. Their fighters are moving at speed 3 and take the Reposition maneuver to move one range band closer, followed by the Attack action, using their Air Attack Rockets. They get two Failure as their result, because the rockets are Inaccurate 2, which adds two Setback die. That’s it for their turn.

Jack hears an aggressive hiss through the air and cranes his neck to look out the front and sees four attack rockets hurtle past where he would have been. The shuttle still plunges through the atmosphere and the fighters are diving after him, closing the distance fast. With a massive grunt, Jack pulls back on the yoke to try and ease the dive.

That’s another piloting check, with only one Setback this time. The result is one Failure and two Threat. This time, the Threat will inflict System Strain on the shuttle.

The speed is too great still and the shuttle still plunges downward, cutting through the lingering storm clouds and the ground grows clearer and clearer with each passing second. Jack can see the Scar now, lit here and there by the lights of settlements in the gloom. The vessel rattles and shakes around him and a siren pairs with a flashing red light in the cockpit.

Fighter Design by E Wo Kaku Peter
I’m torn on this one, as it almost has too much of a Cold War/1960s look rather than a 1930s-1940s style?

And back to the fighter pilots! They repeat the Reposition maneuver to get into Medium range, moving at speed 3, and they attack with their heavy wing-mounted machine guns. Again, no successes.

The fighters are behind Jack now and he can’t see them, but he can see the barrage of tracers snapping through the air above him, meaning they’re haven’t figured out the leading distance yet. That gives him a sigh of relief, but sweat still pours down the back of his jumpsuit. He gives up on trying to stop the dive and instead tries to angle the shuttle away.

This time, we have one Success and two Threat. Jack stops the dive, but the strain is beginning to show on the shuttle.

The shuttle slips sideways with a deep groan through the hull as the resistance slams into the side of the shuttle rather than being deflected around the nose. Something behind Jack crackles and pops, sending a cascade of sparks spraying across the cockpit.

As this happens, he hears what he fears most: the crackle of bullets slamming into the shuttle, tearing through the hull, electronics, and hydraulic systems. Instantly, the controls begin to go stiff and unresponsive, but he still has some control through dead stick flying. With one hand, Jack tightens the chin strap on his helmet. Smoke pours into the cockpit from behind.

That was the next attack from the pilots and this time they hit. Not a bad hit, only two Success results to add to the default damage of four. The shuttle has a Hull Trauma Threshold of 12 and it just took 6 damage in one round, so that’s half of its physical integrity. Jack needs to pull some fancy flying now, so he’s going to take the Decelerate maneuver, taking two System Strain on the ship to reduce speed to zero. That should mean the fighters will overshoot.

Jack cuts the engine entirely and rams the throttle all the way back to full close. The engine’s shrill scream goes silent in a heartbeat and the two fighters scream past him. They’ll have to circle around as they rapidly shrink into dots. That buys him enough time. Jack grabs the magnification lens and stares at the landscape below. There’s not much. The only water he sees is at the bottom of the Scar, but he’s not sure he can fit the crippled shuttle into the relatively narrow entrance to the massive canyon.

Ahead and below, the turrets on the fighters swing upward and fire at him from Long Range. The smaller bullets smack into the hull but do no real damage, despite him hearing the hull be shredded beneath the impact. He leans forward and nudges the throttle forward again and the engine chokes back to life, helping generate a little more lift to ease the fall.

The fighters have swung around now and he can see the fire from the thrusters of their rockets as they fire another volley. These rockets skim just past the shuttle and explode in the distance.

Jack pushes the throttle forward again, regaining what he can of his speed, still speeding across the ever-approaching landscape, and tries to push the craft down closer to the surface at a gradual angle. The metal creaks and shrieks, but he drops down much closer to the surface now where he can identify specific landmarks.

The smoke billows out thicker behind him and he coughs, slapping a mask over his mouth. He’ll have to crash land. The fighter engines roar above the sound of his poor shuttle’s own struggling engine as they come up close behind and the throaty chatter of the machine guns tear through the ship. He heard the vessel die, its engine giving a few last gasps before coming to a grinding halt. Silence fills the cockpit and the ground races ever closer….

A black and write image of a man in a suit and trench coat writing in a notebook with a pen atop a desk decorated with several different office accoutrements and the words "The debts of Captain Jack Quincy" along the top and the words "A Genesys RPG Solo Game & Iron Horizons Demo" along the bottom

The Debts of Jack Quincy 2: A Genesys RPG Solo Game

Posted on by Kaleb

I think we can jump to scene two. This one I’ll jump to the end of the Unmastered Play Guide to use the Scene Mechanic, which again uses a deck of cards to determine what the scene should be. I drew the 3 of Spades, which gives the result of an Easy Skill Challenge and Adversarial. An Easy skill challenge typically uses one Difficulty die (the purple one) and Adversarial means it’s opposed by another character. I think it’ll be a Streetwise challenge against the Mysterious Stranger from the previous scene.

Remember, you can check out the first post, which has the demo play test and campaign set up, here.

Jack stands, waiting for Clyde to stagger his way out from behind the table. Ruby and Adeline remain sitting, pouring their next glasses of wine. Clyde and Jack make their way through the crowded bar, floating down the side of the bar in the low gravity before stepping into the old airlock, wheeling the hatch shut while the pressure adjusts between the bar and the main station. After a few minutes, the other indicator flashes that the pressure is stabilized, and they make their way into the main corridor.

Our hero, Jack Quincy

The hall is narrow and cramped, with iron bulkheads extending from the hatchways every ten yards or so, with garbage and detritus piled along the walls, scribbled with graffiti and makeshift addresses. Some promise a good time, other promise a bad time. Clyde cringes as he walks, flinching away from everyone they pass, but Jack presses forward, tipping his helmet to the women as they pass, and nodding to the men. The hair on his neck prickles. Something feels wrong.

“Clyde,” Jack whispers, “Something’s wrong. I’m not sure what. Slow down a bit and let’s stop at the next vac-garden.” The other man freezes and almost bolts, but Jack rests a hand on his shoulder. “Stay calm.” He guides the gambler down a side corridor into a wide open room with thick glass windows facing the distant sun. Plants hang from trellises and curl through raised, wrought-iron beds as Jack glances behind them.

Well, that’s a relief compared to our roll from the last scene. Two Successes, plain and simple. It’s a very straight forward roll. It also increases our Momentum by one. Now we’re starting to make some process.

Jack recognizes the strange figure as it ducks back behind one of the bulkheads, but not fast enough to escape notice. The trench coat and scarf are distinctive and he remembers seeing the man enter the Angel Red shortly after himself.

“We’ve got an amateur on our tail,” Jack murmurs to Clyde. “Take the scenic route.”

Clyde goes pale and sweat drips down his forehead as he chews on his lip, but weaves through the plants to a service hatchway with a rusted, dog-locked hatch that he throws his entire weight behind. It creaks, shifts, and then breaks loose, revealing the small maintenance passageway behind. Clyde steps in, followed by Jack, who heaves the door hatch shut and reseals it. Dim emergency light flickers through the gloom and their boots echo on the walkway. Spider-webs hung in the corners, their inhabitants scurrying away into the recesses at the sight of the two men.

”How’d you get involved with this lot?” Jack asks after several moments. Clyde turns to look behind him, his face pinched.

”Needed to repay a debt,” the man growls, voice low and gravely. “Got an offer that would clear the debt if I found someone to do a job for them.” Jack raises his eyebrows in surprise.

”Not like you to lose big time,” Jack notes, chewing his lip thoughtfully. “Find someone who knows all the card shark tricks?” “Ruby,” Clyde grunts. “She seems all dainty and lady like, but she’s the best damn gambler I’ve ever met, with both the cash and the guns to back it up.” ”Adeline?” Jack asks, remembering the woman in the officer’s uniform.

”She’s the one,” Clyde grunted. “Not sure which of them is running this show, but Adeline runs a dragoon battalion in the Foreign Legion. Nastiest bastards I ever ran into.” That made Jack whistle. Silence fell as they wound their way through the warren of passages snaking through the station, connecting the original station to the dozens of ship hulls welded, riveted, and bolted atop each other. Heat radiates from the pipes running along the wall and the metal creaks as it expands and contracts from the ever shifting temperatures.

Let’s make another Streetwise check here, to see if they managed to successfully lose the tail, and if they know they did so. In this case, we’ll make it an Average check, with two of the purple Difficulty die.

That gives us two Successes, with one Advantage and two Threat. Advantage and Threat cancel each other out at a one-for-one ratio. That means we find ourselves with a final result of two Successes and one Threat. So, like last time, the roll is a success, ensuring that Jack and Clyde do lose the person following them, but there’s a negative outcome. Because there’s not a lot risk right now, I’ll take the easy route and use it to inflict Strain.

We’ve not talked much about Strain yet, but it’s a type of resource pool that is primarily non-physical. Characters can “take Strain” to get a second Maneuver in combat, for example, or if something is difficult and dangerous, they accumulate Strain to indicate the emotional and mental toll. Plus, since we are doing the UPG’s Structured Play, we add one Entropy for the Threat, as well as one Momentum for making the roll at all. Some Talents use threat for their activation, especially Parry (Improved). Jack doesn’t have any of those Talents (or any Talents at all), so we don’t need to worry about that for the moment.

Jack frowns as he feels the hair on the back of his neck prickle. Did they lose the man in the coat and scarf? He keeps glancing over his shoulder as a knot of unease begins to grow. Something about this job was off, but he can’t tell what.

After winding through the maintenance corridor and passing through numerous airlocks between what used to be ship hulls, they enter one of the smaller, private hangars, this one reserved for the Aldottorai Colonial Trade Company and their representatives. The access to this hangar is guarded by two Aldottorai Foreign Legionaries rather than the usual company security team, who glare at them after assessing the pass shown them by Clyde.

Something like this for the Aldottorai Foreign Legion

Inside the hangar sits an assortment of ships: several Aldottorai officers’ gigs, a cutter in for maintenance before returning out-system to the asteroid mines, a few interceptors, and in one shadowy corner, the shuttle. It wasn’t a large vessel, just large enough to carry a group of people, luggage, and emergency supplies from ship to ship or from orbit to the ground. Clyde leads them through the hangar to the shuttle, which has its hatchway open and ramp extended.

Clyde passes him the access key, a heavy steel key on a ring, before backing away. “I’m done now. My debt’s paid. The rest is on you.”

“Where am I taking the cargo? Or letting them know when I retrieve it?” Jack frowns as he speaks. The other man just shrugs.

”It’s in there waiting for you.” With that, he turns and hurries away. Jack frowns and scrathes his head in thought, before heading into the ship.

Its oily, mechanical smell stings his nose compared to the charcoal and ozone filtered air from the station. He pulls a lever and the hatch seals shut, its hydraulics echoing through the small vessel as they slam shut. The atmospheric system kicks on noisily, with the sound of a small generator running below the deck.

Jack passes through the cargo section and climbs through the hatch into the passenger section and into the cockpit, with its two pilot chairs and control panels. His eyes range across the controls, taking in everything’s location and the manila folder laying haphazardly on one of the chairs beneath a seemingly forgotten pilot’s jacket.

He leaves that for now and slides into the primary pilot’s chair, inserting the access key into the control panel before giving it a hard, steady turn. The compression cylinders at the heart of the shuttle begin to grumble as they start turning over and then ignite. The shuttle comes alive with that, vibrating and shaking under the engine movements. He watches the oil pressure gauges as they stabilize, seeing if any stick.

But the ship is in pristine condition and soon settles into a smooth purr. Jack nudges one of the side thruster controls, giving the shuttle a slow rotation on its landing gear, crawling along the hangar floor into the departure chamber. Sirens sound as the interior hatches seal shut behind him and the air is depressurized back into the station.

An alarm sounds while a light goes from red to green and the external hangar slides open, revealing the vastness of the Alathni System. He sees both Alathni Major, massive in the sky, as well as Alathni Minor, far smaller than the planet it orbits. The distant lights of ship thrusters leave glowing trails across the system as he nudges the thruster forward to launch the shuttle out of the hangar. His stomach drops as the gravity drops away, but the safety harness keeps him in place.

One final nudge on both thruster controls and sends the shuttle darting forward while Jack opens the folder and spreads the papers across the seat next to him. The journey will take several hours to get to a safe approach vector to land on Athena Proxima, so he adjusts the ship’s course and activates the autopilot, setting the calculating computer to work in maintaining a steady velocity and and course. With that accomplished, he turns his attention to the documents from the Manila folder…

I think that’s enough for scene two. There’s not really anything more needed from this scene. Technically, I could do a piloting check to get to Athena Proxima, but I don’t really see a point. Have to say, I’m really enjoying diving back into the Iron Horizons universe. It’s been a while since I’ve done any proper writing, so it’s great to get back into it.

A black and write image of a man in a suit and trench coat writing in a notebook with a pen atop a desk decorated with several different office accoutrements and the words "The debts of Captain Jack Quincy" along the top and the words "A Genesys RPG Solo Game & Iron Horizons Demo" along the bottom

The Debts of Jack Quincy: A Genesys Solo Game and Iron Horizons Demo

Posted on by Kaleb

Right, returning from last time when we did the pregame set up, it’s time to start the actual adventure. Let’s be cliche and start it at a bar aboard Forlorn Hope Station, the Angel Red. If you missed the last post, which includes both the Iron Horizons demo and campaign set up, you can read it here.

Scene 1

Jack enters the Angel Red through the hatch, waiting for the half-functioning airlock to finish its cycle, despite the hulk of what was once a freighter being welded to the side of the station for an expansion. He rotates himself ninety degrees to adapt to the different gravitic direction, half-floating/half-walking through the crowded room, which stinks of alcohol, sweat, air filters overdue for replacement, and the ever-present lingering scent of oil and diesel that emits from the body. The bartender, Callahan Gibbs, nods and gestures to a table corner. Jack returns the nod and saunters, as much as he can in the direction of the table, at which sits….

Let’s roll for some NPCs here, these will be our quest givers. I’ll just grab a random name generator that does dieselpunk-sounding names and then I’ll use the Stars Without Number NPC generator for the details.

In the corner of the table sits Adeline Yates, an elderly woman wearing a finely-tailored and highly decorated Aldottorai Foreign Legion uniform that seems sad and neglected despite its pristine appearance; Clyde Potts, a sallow, shrunken middle-aged man, well known aboard the station for cheating at anything that could be cheated at, but pitied for his synthetic heroin addiction; and Ruby Mullen, a much younger woman in an elaborate, vibrantly colored evening gown accentuated by a pearl necklace, and a cape whose brooch indicates a high-level Aldottorai Colonial Trader.

A black and white photo of Joan Crawford from 1928.
Let’s fancast Ruby as Joan Crawford from 1928.

That’s a good start. We have ourselves two representatives from the Aldottorai Colonial Trade Company, either working for them directly or their subsidiary, Alathni Company, as well as a locally known criminal, suggesting a conspiracy or collusion between the two for some mutual benefit, especially since they’re basically on neutral ground.

The parties introduce themselves as Jack takes a seat, shaking hands with each in turn.

“This is the lad I told you about,” Clyde explained to the other two, “Honest, dependable, quick on his feet, decent enough at piloting for someone without a ship.” Jack grins and puts his helmet on the table, running a hand through his hair.

“Clyde’s always dependable in his judge of character,” Jack replies. (I considered making a roll here, but decided against it, since Jack is technically telling the truth.) Ruby merely laughs politely and adjusts her dress to be further away from the table. A bottle of wine sits in front of the three of them, but only Clyde seems to be drinking.

“Marvelous,” Adeline replies, fingers interlaced and resting on the table in front of her. “We need someone with those abilities to do a job for us.”

“Why not the Legionaires?” Jack asks, resting his own hands on the table and leaning foward.

“Too indiscreet,” Ruby replies instantly, tracing the rim of her still-full wine glass with one gloved finger. “The Legionaire’s are famous for their heroic deeds. As soon as they leave the base, the press are after them.” That draws a dark glower from the miners at the closest table, and Clyde wipes his brow with a stained handkerchief, smiling weakly at them.

“What sort of job is it?” Jack asks, lowering his voice.

“We need you to go to…” Adeline responds.

I’m pausing here to put together a suuuper basic oracle. The demo document has 6 regions, so I’ll roll a D6 and let that determine where the job takes place at. I rolled a 1, which gives me Athena Proxima (because it’s the first one in the demo). That’s an interesting twist because Athena Proxima, the continent, is run by the Alathni Company on behalf of the Aldottorai Colonial Trading Company. That means whatever is going on is something that Adeline and Ruby don’t want their bosses to know about.

“Athena Proxima,” Ruby interrupts. “Because there is something we need retrieved, but are unable to get it ourselves.”

“Because of the danger or because of the legality?” Jack asks.

“Neither,” Ruby replies smoothly, “Merely inconvenience.”

Here, Jack is going to need to make a Vigilance check. Ruby is also, essentially, a Trader, meaning she likely has the same career skills as Jack, but more experienced. So I’ll say it’s a Hard check, meaning there will be three Difficulty dies (the purple ones). I could give Ruby her own character sheet, as she’s probably considered a Nemesis (an NPC that uses the same mechanics as a PC). I’m not quite ready for that yet, so I’ll just do the one sided roll right now.

Oof. That’s a painful one. Now, referring back to the Unmastered Play Guide, because we made a roll, we increase Momentum by 1. Additionally, because there’s an uncancelled Threat, we also raise Entropy by 1. Neither of these are significant enough to have a major impact on the campaign yet, but it does mean that Jack doesn’t realize Ruby is lying, and then there’s an additional negative consequence.

Jack considers this and nods, “Fair enough. I understand Athena Proxima isn’t the most pleasant place to be outside on.” None of them notice this, but another man, trench-coated and scarved, slips inside the bar, moving to a table at an angle from their own and facing away. They don’t see it, but this person is carrying some sort of eavesdropping device.

So, you can see the results of the check there. Jack doesn’t know that Ruby was lying, which will be an interesting twist later on. Additionally, a currently unknown NPC is eavesdropping on them after having followed Jack to the bar. This will tie into the mysterious and enemies, complications, and/or rivalries roll results from the adventure set up process.

“What am I retrieving?” Jack asks, leaning closer across the table. “And what’s the payout?”

“One of my shuttles suffered a mechanical failure and had to jettison cargo over the Scar,” Ruby answered. “It was a bad storm and we’re not sure where it ended up. Someone has to go up over the lip of the Scar and track it down, preferably someone familiar enough with piloting to guess at where the shuttle was and how the cargo may have fallen. And depending on how much cargo you recover, we’ll pay you five thousand Aldottorai dollars. Not Company scrip, true dollars.”

Jack lets out a low whistle. “I’ll need an identical shuttle to understand the feel of the atmo and flight plan.”

“Completely acceptable,” Ruby replies without hesitation. “We’ve fixed the one that suffered the failure, so you can take that one. Clyde can show you the hangar with the shuttle.”

Let’s go ahead and end scene one here, as that wraps up the point of this introductory segment quite well. Keep it nice, contained, and a manageable length. For Structured Play from the Unmastered Play Guide, we’re currently at Entropy 1 and Momentum 1, so just getting started in Act 1.

Join us next week as we return to The Debts of Captain Jack Quincy: A Genesys Solo Game & Iron Horizons Demo! More dieselpunk space opera action will be on its way!

(And if you don’t want to miss it, subscribe to this blog with the little popup button that should be on the bottom right corner of your screen.)

A photo of the Earth against a black horizon, with a sunset on the horizons, with the words Iron Horizons curved to match the horizon and the words A dieselpunk space opera parallel to the flat bottom.

Iron Horizon RPG Demo Now Available! (Plus Solo Sample Adventure)

Posted on by Kaleb

Now that we finished the setting creation process and worksheet from the Expanded Player’s Guide, it’s time to start putting the material to the test! You can view the completed RPG demo (as a Google doc) here. I’d love to hear what any of you think of the material and for any feedback you have for the setting. I’m not going to put it on the Foundry quite yet, because it really isn’t ready. Once this material gets tested, then I’ll make it an official demo for the Foundry! Until then, feel free to share it with people.

I don’t have a regular group to play Genesys with, sadly, so I’ll be starting off by doing a solo play test using the Unmastered Play Guide, which can be purchased at a PWYW price here (DTRPG Affiliate link to support the Unmastered Play Guide authors and Iron Horizons’ future development). We’ll be using the Structured Play Mode.

(If you haven’t seen any Iron Horizons material yet, here’s a quick set of links: Setting Introduction, Creating a Minimum Viable Setting for Genesys, Tropes/Themes/Technologies, Building the World, Religions/Societies/Factions)

Our Protagonist

The first step for any TTRPG is to create a character. I’ve gone ahead and done that, using the material from the play test material, the UPG, RPG Sessions for dice and character management, and Hero Forge to create some images. Our main hero will be Captain Jack Quincy, whose character sheet can be seen here. His archetype is Average Human, from the Genesys Core Rulebook, and his career is Trader, which I put together using skills from the play test material. There is an official Trader career in one of the official source books (Secrets of the Crucible, I think? I don’t have it, however.)

He’s a trader, which, in game terms, primarily blends piloting with social skills. So, the Career skills (which are cheaper to improve), are Astrocartography, Cool, Discipline, Piloting, Streetwise, Ranged (Light), Negotiation, and Knowledge (Commerce), which you’ll remember as being a skill I invented for this one. I fudged the standard rules on starting money, going with 1000 starting monies rather than the default 500.

Iron Horizons is a very technologically heavy setting, so characters need a lot of gear to thrive in it. Most of the money went for the handheld computer, which cost 400 monies, followed by a portable medkit, and spacesuit. All of which seem pretty critical to an independent trader in the Diskward Marches. His armor is a utility jumpsuit and his weapon is a light pistol, both of which are pretty cheap and serviceable. The book describes the light pistol as being the equivalent of a 9mm or .38 caliber, so I went with a 1911 frame, basically in .38 caliber.

That leaves him plenty of encumbrance to carry other things, while being decently enough protected against the low-level issues we’re likely to see in the Alathni System. I gave him a worker’s hardhat in the picture, because I thought it would make sense to have that while working aboard a ship or on a space station (he’s raised on Forlorn Hope Station).

If you’ve played the Star Wars RPGs from Fantasy Flight Games/EDGE, you’ll remember the Obligation/Duty/Morality mechanics, which helped create character-driven plot. Genesys has replaced these with motivations broken into Desire, Fear, Strength, Flaw. Each character gets a minimum of one of these. For Jack, his Desire is Wealth, as he desperately wants to get away from Alathni. His fear is Poverty, because that was how he grew up. His Strength is Adaptable and his weakness is Pride. I think that should give him plenty of interesting personality dynamics.

The Plot

For the Unmastered Play Guide, the first step is to generate a Campaign Goal. This is the overarching goal for the story line, which is broken into smaller Adventure Goals. To generate a Campaign Goal, there’s a very handy table to roll on. Now, as the authors point out, unlike in a standard Genesys roll, the symbols will not cancel each other out this time around. The primary pool is a green Ability die and a purple Difficulty die. So, we pop that into good old RPG Sessions and get the following result:

For those not familiar with the Genesys dice, this result includes one Success, one Advantage, and one Failure. In a normal game roll, this would end up being a single Advantage and an overall failure. For a Campaign Goal, this instead gives us some key results: The character must become something and an entire organization stands in their way. Additionally, the one Failure includes a suggested number of steps to accomplish the campaign goal. In this case, it ends up being 14.

Now, that is a fantastic goal for a campaign. And there’s a lot of different ways we can run with that based on our worldbuilding in combination with Jack’s motivations. He wants wealth, because he’s terrified of poverty, but he’s proud and adaptable, so he won’t ask for help.

He’s a trader by career, so let’s say the goal is to become a Free Trader, someone who owns their own tramp freighter and is beholden to no one. So, for this, he definitely needs to get a ship, most like a Tramp Freighter. Referring once again to the Iron Horizons setting demo, we can see that a Tramp Freighter costs 62,000 monies and has a rarity of 4. Not rare, but not easy to acquire.

Probably something like this from www.shapewright.com. You can’t really see from this angle, but there are two loading ramps on the bottom in the middle of the ship that look like it would be easy to drive cargo aboard.

For comparison, Jack currently has… 60 monies (Technically it’s probably Aldottorai Dollars, but Genesys is abstract). So he needs to multiply his net worth by a thousand. Plus, he needs to hire a crew, buy a cargo, and then find a buyer for that cargo. And there’s an entire organization opposing him in this. He’s from Forlorn Hope Station, so let’s say it’s one of the gangs on the station. For simplicity sake, let’s call them the Jets.

They probably sell illegal substances, extort local businesses and inhabitants, and smuggle people into the system and onto the planet, bypassing the Alathni Company’s procedures to charge people to live on Alathni Major.

My guess is the Quincy family came to Forlorn Hope Station with the dream of living on Alathni Major, but were never able to afford the cost, or able to indenture themselves to the Alathni Company. So, for several generations, they ended up living on the station, trying to scrape up enough money to pay either the Jets or the Alathni Company.

In the meantime, they’ve probably also become deeply indebted to the Jets for not being able to pay. Again, Jack’s fear is Poverty, and it’s part of what makes his desire Wealth. He wants to escape the Forlorn Hope and create a new life for himself.

Yes, I know we’re basically just playing Han Solo at this point. It’s fine. Han is a classic. We can run with this. And unlike lots of people, I really enjoyed Solo. We’re kind of re-enacting that opening part of his story with this anyway, so let’s just lean into it.

That gives us a few steps on the journey:

  1. Pay off the family debt to the Jets.
  2. Start earning 75,000 monies to cover all the ship essentials.
  3. Turn a profit.

That’s roughly a three act structure, at least one we can start working with. The UPG has its own system for working with story acts which we haven’t gotten to yet.

The Adventure

With a campaign goal in mind, we can now move to the next stage, which is the Adventure Goal. Again, we can use the provided table for this. This time, however, we’re rolling a Proficiency Die and a Challenge Die.

This gives us two Success and two Threats. That result gives us the following:

Recover something valuable and/or dangerous from a force of nature

Oh, we really are going full Solo on this, aren’t we. No coaxium fuel, I promise. Additionally, there’s a table to determine the kind of reward gained from the adventure, using a simple d10. Back to RPG Sessions for that roll and I get a 10, which gives me a result of Roll 2x. Two more rolls result with a 5 and a 2. For the 5, that means the first reward will be Assistance and the second reward will be Treasure.

So, upon completion of this goal, Jack will have someone who will help him later in his journey as well as some sort of treasure. I suspect that will be either what he recovers from a force of nature, or in the same place.

These are the fundamental elements necessary for the UPG’s pregame preparation, but it then goes into the Oracle section. The first one is the Theme Focus Deck and uses a deck of cards, with both numbers and card suits having an impact. I don’t own a deck of cards, so I went over to random.org and used their playing card shuffler, drawing the nine of clubs. The nine gives the result of Mysterious while the Clubs carries a result of Enemies, complications, and/or rivalries. This section also has a random event table, which I don’t we need at this point.

Let’s combine all of our results and see what we end up with:

Jack’s story is about how he needs to become something, but an entire organization stands in his way, and the first step of this process is to recover something valuable and/or dangerous from a force of nature, while dealing with something mysterious as well as enemies, complications, and/or rivalries. Upon success, Jack will receive Assistance and Treasure.

This will take me a bit of time to get up and running, and I’ll draw in other resources to supplement the Unmastered Play Guide. I own the newest edition of Stars Without Number, as well as several digital copies of the older supplements, which have plenty of tables and such I’ll likely use.