DEBRIEFING: THE STARGATE SG-1 ROLEPLAYING GAME

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THE STRONGHOLD BUILDER'S GUIDE FOR SHIPS

"Welcome to the Federation Starship SS Buttcrack!"
- John Crichton, Farscape, "Self Inflicted Wounds: Wait for the Wheel"

One of the major differences between Stargate and Farscape is that Farscape is heavily focused on space ships. While a wormhole got John Crichton to the Uncharted Territories, that isn’t a reliable mode of travel for anyone except The Ancients. If you want to travel off-world in Farscape, you need a ship. Stargate presents space ships in limited roles; they aren't as vital to travel because of the stargate system of portals.

But if a team is stranded in the Uncharted Territories, they're going to need passage on a space-worthy ship to move between worlds. This isn't a bad thing. Space ships can be treated like homes and weapons, all in one, and can be improved over time. If the player characters rent rooms on a ship or purchase their own vessel, they should be able to personalize their space as much as they want - or at least as much as they can afford. This is where the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook comes into play.

To benefit from this section, you’ll need the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook and the Farscape main book. The Guidebook is a great resource that allows DMs and players to outfit their settings in detail. Its usefulness need not be limited to medieval fantasy settings, however. With some alterations, the rules for purchasing rooms can be applied to space vessels and futuristic buildings.

Room Quality

Room quality is a rule-of-thumb indication of how pretty and functional a room is. Every room has a rating, whether it’s poor or luxurious. Elaborate and well-supplied rooms grant bonuses, while rickety rooms exact penalties.

Anyone who knows a room well and has full access to it can benefit from all of the bonuses it offers. Those who are new to the space will only get half of the numerical value of any bonus (such as +1 to a skill when the room otherwise grants a +2) until they learn their way around. During an invasion, those who control a room gain its advantages. As the dominant force is pushed back, its members may lose half the numerical value of bonuses offered as the room and its contents take damage. They may lose access to certain bonuses if they’re pushed away from items they need for the skill check. As a general rule, everyone suffers the penalties associated with a room’s quality.

Room Quality: Poor

A poor room may not have all of the essentials, and the things it does have are badly off: linens are worn thin, furniture is patched and might retain some unpleasant smells. Poor rooms cost half the listed price but impose a -2 penalty to any Charisma-based checks made inside of them. Also, poor rooms are prone to needing repair work and poor quality furniture is more likely to break under pressure (treat most items as having the fragile gear quality).

Room Quality: Basic

Basic rooms are simple and functional but not hideous. They have the necessities for their function but not much more. While basic rooms do not impose special penalties, they also do not grant special bonuses.

Room Quality: Fancy

Fancy rooms, on the other hand, are where comfort and style begin. The furniture within them stands out as being better than average, and decorations look like they belong. Fancy rooms cost five times the basic price but grant a +2 bonus to all Charisma-based checks made within them and denote a certain amount of prestige. They also offer a +1 circumstance bonus to skills involved in the room’s function.

Room Quality: Luxury

Luxury rooms are outfitted beyond comparison with the richest fabrics, the sleekest designs, and the best taste. Luxury rooms cost ten times the basic price but grant a +5 circumstance bonus to all Charisma-based checks made within them, and command a certain amount of respect. Luxurious rooms also grant a +2 circumstance bonus to skills involved in the room's function. A luxurious medical bay, for example, will have the best equipment available and grant a +2 to any First Aid checks made within the room.

Stronghold Builder's Guidebook Components

When using the SBG components for futuristic buildings and ships, please keep the following in mind:

Room Type: Some rooms in the guidebook might not mesh with futuristic settings. With a little extrapolation, however, it’s easy to convert an older type of room into a new one. Thus, alchemical laboratories can be science labs and smithies can be small manufacturing areas. Libraries of the future might not hold bound paper volumes, but they probably hold digital terminals or devices. Most of the rooms in the Guide apply in any age and need only a little stretch of the imagination: a throne room in the future might have high tech art displays, but it’s still a throne room.

Size: All rooms are listed in stronghold spaces. Rooms can be bigger or smaller, however, depending on the needs of the building. Rooms aboard ships are often smaller than what is called for; the captain's commode can be quite luxurious without taking up the listed amount of space. Reducing a room's size also reduces the cost of the room by the same amount; bonuses are also reduced by the same amount, rounding down. So a luxurious bath, if reduced to one stronghold space instead of two, would be cut in half. It would cost half as much (5,000) but the bonus to Charisma would only be +2. The size of specific rooms should be recorded at the time of purchase.

Cost: The cost in gold pieces can easily be converted into other currency systems. For StarScape purposes, the price is directly converted into currency pledges: one gold piece equals one pledge.

Prerequisites: The personnel needed for a room are usually drawn from those employed to run it, such as a ship’s crew or a scientist hired to work in a laboratory. But buildings and ships have limits. If a ship can’t support another crew member at the moment, a room can be built without the required personnel; it will simply remain shut down until someone works in it and takes care of it.

Description: The descriptions given in the Guidebook might be too rustic or medieval for a futuristic setting, but they give the reader a good indication of how well furnished a room is. When in doubt, use Room Quality as a guide.

Method: The outer walls of a ship are never figured into room construction (and neither are windows). Interior walls are the major concern. Although walls in the future might not be made of bone, a player could use the statistics of bone walls for another material.
Farscape Space Ships

The Farscape core rulebook has a rather developed chapter on ships because they’re so important to game play. Truth be told, I feel that Farscape's ship information is far better than what I've seen of Stargate's. Rules are clearly written, ships are well detailed, and much is customizable. Combat takes into account many different aspects like where weapons are positioned, the maneuverability of the vessel, and the handling of the crew. For these reasons, I suggest using Farscape's system for space ships in a crossover game.

For the StarScape conversion, I’ve added two categories of information to all of the ship entries in the Farscape book: available stronghold spaces and general room quality. I’ve also estimated that 50% of a ship is dedicated to the necessities: engine rooms, energy sources, crew's quarters, storage space, cargo areas, kitchens, waste and bathing facilities, dining areas, and the command center of the ship. The remaining space can be outfitted to suit a wide variety of purposes, on a room-by-room basis.

Available Stronghold Spaces: The number of stronghold spaces (generally 20 x 20 x 10) that are available for owners to transform into new rooms. 50% of the space on most ships is taken up automatically by vital rooms: engine rooms, storage, cargo areas, crew quarters, waste facilities, and so forth. The spaces left over can thus be used for whatever else is desired. New rooms can be added when the proper amount of currency is amassed to pay others or to allow the ship's crew to make the changes themselves.

General Room Quality: The quality of most rooms on the ship. Some rooms might be fancier or worse off. Rooms can be renovated and upgraded. Ships that offer a general room quality of "Poor or Basic” can be bought with entirely poor rooms at half the listed price, but suffer a -5 penalty to all Charisma checks made regarding the ship. Also, poor ships require more routine maintenance and repairing (DM's discretion).