Kiero
2015-03-21, 06:08 PM
This worked out really well the last time I crowdsourced NPC generation (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?241109-Mass-Effect-Fluff-Help-me-populate-a-Systems-Alliance-Marine-company/) to the Playground, so I'm going to do it again.
We've got a Mass Effect backup game soon to start, provisionally titled "Spacebase (http://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/MtE_Spacebase)", set in 2179 on a remote asteroid observation post. It's a hollowed-out rock which is used to monitor a pre-spaceflight civilisation on a water planet below. Originally found by an asari science team, they discovered Prothean relics as they explored, eventually realising those ancients had used the base for exactly the same purpose. The Prothean find has overtaken the original team - it's now a big deal with everyone wanting in on a piece of the archaeotech potential. After much negotiation with the Asari (http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Asari) Republics (who stepped in to make it all official), the Systems Alliance (http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Systems_Alliance) have been granted access for a science team of their own to explore the base. Only a tiny proportion of the interior has been explored and catalogued so far, it's all early days.
That science team will comprise about ten specialists in various fields - archaeologists, biologists, linguists and so on. The team is led by one of the PCs, a Lieutenant Commander who's an engineer and scientist and veteran of virtually every conflict since the First Contact War. Supporting that science team, ensuring they can focus simply on their area of expertise and not mundance concerns like where the food is coming from or how to get equipment is a support team. Their Team Leader is another PC, my character, who is a Marine Gunnery Chief and biotic. We haven't decided yet whether he's there by special request of the Commander, or the military bureaucracy fouled up somehow, but he's a combat leader assigned to manage a team of tech support specialists. For added administrative tension, he's a Marine and they're all Navy (the Marines are a subordinate branch of the Navy in ME), and one (but only one or it'll get tedious) of the team really resents being put under a Marine. He may have been brevetted Operations Chief for this assignment so that he at least isn't outranked by anyone in the squad.
What I'd like people to put forward are ideas for that team. They'd comprise a name with a paragraph-long biography. They'll cover the following roles:
Maintenance
Communications
Logistics
Medical
Food Service
So that's five people, who should be Enlisted or NCOs (see ranks (http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Codex/Humanity_and_the_Systems_Alliance#Systems_Alliance :_Military_Ranks)), though the Medical role might be a 2nd Lieutenant if they're a fully-qualified medical professional (though newly commissioned and inexperienced) rather than an experienced corpsman. I'd like to get a good mix of gender, ethnicity and nationality, also of origins (whether from Earth, the colonies or spaceborn).
This is a serious game, but colourful and comic stuff is allowed, just not outright silly. After all my character is deliberately being put in an absurd situation for the (OOC) laughs of the players. The best ideas will end up in the game (and you'll get to hear us as usual on our podcast site (https://insanitywetrust.wordpress.com/)).
We've got a Mass Effect backup game soon to start, provisionally titled "Spacebase (http://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/MtE_Spacebase)", set in 2179 on a remote asteroid observation post. It's a hollowed-out rock which is used to monitor a pre-spaceflight civilisation on a water planet below. Originally found by an asari science team, they discovered Prothean relics as they explored, eventually realising those ancients had used the base for exactly the same purpose. The Prothean find has overtaken the original team - it's now a big deal with everyone wanting in on a piece of the archaeotech potential. After much negotiation with the Asari (http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Asari) Republics (who stepped in to make it all official), the Systems Alliance (http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Systems_Alliance) have been granted access for a science team of their own to explore the base. Only a tiny proportion of the interior has been explored and catalogued so far, it's all early days.
That science team will comprise about ten specialists in various fields - archaeologists, biologists, linguists and so on. The team is led by one of the PCs, a Lieutenant Commander who's an engineer and scientist and veteran of virtually every conflict since the First Contact War. Supporting that science team, ensuring they can focus simply on their area of expertise and not mundance concerns like where the food is coming from or how to get equipment is a support team. Their Team Leader is another PC, my character, who is a Marine Gunnery Chief and biotic. We haven't decided yet whether he's there by special request of the Commander, or the military bureaucracy fouled up somehow, but he's a combat leader assigned to manage a team of tech support specialists. For added administrative tension, he's a Marine and they're all Navy (the Marines are a subordinate branch of the Navy in ME), and one (but only one or it'll get tedious) of the team really resents being put under a Marine. He may have been brevetted Operations Chief for this assignment so that he at least isn't outranked by anyone in the squad.
What I'd like people to put forward are ideas for that team. They'd comprise a name with a paragraph-long biography. They'll cover the following roles:
Maintenance
Communications
Logistics
Medical
Food Service
So that's five people, who should be Enlisted or NCOs (see ranks (http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Codex/Humanity_and_the_Systems_Alliance#Systems_Alliance :_Military_Ranks)), though the Medical role might be a 2nd Lieutenant if they're a fully-qualified medical professional (though newly commissioned and inexperienced) rather than an experienced corpsman. I'd like to get a good mix of gender, ethnicity and nationality, also of origins (whether from Earth, the colonies or spaceborn).
This is a serious game, but colourful and comic stuff is allowed, just not outright silly. After all my character is deliberately being put in an absurd situation for the (OOC) laughs of the players. The best ideas will end up in the game (and you'll get to hear us as usual on our podcast site (https://insanitywetrust.wordpress.com/)).