[UA] Unknown Firefly

[Shawn Isenhart]

Eric Bertish wrote:
> All responses to this thread have been very good and useful; please 
> keep them coming!
>
> From: "Mario Magallanes" <aegypto at gmail.com>
>
>> Incidentally, I love the idea of tying mental stress to ship
>> malfunctions and maintenance. Moreso because it makes glaringly
>> obvious that Reaver ships are deeply insane or sociopathic - just like
>> their masters.
>
> As do I, though I don't think ships should earn Hardened notches on 
> their own. That sounds like the result of crew modifications to me 
> (though I'm not sure what those should cost, XP-wise).
The only flaw I see with the ship madness meters is that it changes how 
you interact with the ship.  In the show, the ship might start off with 
some massive malfunction, but the bucket of bolts would somehow come 
through in the end.  In this system, you'll start with an OK ship, but 
as you put stress on it it will start to break down.  I think that's a 
cool idea, but it isn't quite what I think of as Firefly.

One way to fix it would be to allow a player to purposely take a ship 
failed notch in order to succeed at a roll.  Now you have a ton of plots 
centered around trying to fix the ship, after you broke it last episode 
doing that daring stunt. 

But you need to make sure that the players know how to fix the ship - is 
it a mechanic check, or time in a space port?   Both of those sound 
dull.  I'd borrow an idea from the chase rules.  If you want to fix the 
ship, you need to come up with what you're doing to fix it.  If it is a 
simple thing, it doesn't really help.  If it's dangerous/hard, it helps 
a little.  If it's insane, then it helps a lot.

"Tighten the power couplings" - eh.
"Get a new reactor spanner from the Alliance.  Reckon we'll have to be 
payin' them a little visit." - not bad
"The unobtainium has worn out - and the only mine is deep in Reaver 
space."  -Nifty!

Note that this means that the same act done at two different times has 
two different effects.  Going out on the hull to re-polarize the control 
panels is only an "eh" when done at dock.  Doing it while you're being 
shot at is more dangerous, and so it helps more.

-Shawn