Babylon 5 Roleplaying Discussion.

[Mauron]

The Narn didn't kill off the Narn telepaths, the Shadows did that. I just checked my Babylon 5 Encyclopedia for reference.

Marcus was a fun character. "Would you like me to sing? I am the very model of a modern major general."

Good to know he's a nice person.

Babylon 5 has lost a fair number of actors for a 15 year old show. Jerry Doyle, Richard Biggs, Andreas Katsulas, Michael O’Hare, Stephen Furst, and Jeff Conaway, may they rest in peace.

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

Babylon 5 has lost a fair number of actors for a 15 year old show. Jerry Doyle, Richard Biggs, Andreas Katsulas, Michael O’Hare, Stephen Furst, and Jeff Conaway, may they rest in peace.

Right? The B5 curse.

Tim Choate, who played Zathras, Zathras, and Zathras also passed. It's sad.

I always wondered why Michael O'Hair left after S1. Even though they addressed his eventual ascension to become Valen, it's clear that was probably intended for end-of-series conclusion. It's sad to find out years later that it was all due to O'Hare's mental illness. I have a lot of respect for JMS for helping him out and being so gracious about his struggles.

[Mauron]

Poor Zathras.

One thing I remember about learning the truth about Michael O'Hare's passing was that J. Michael Straczynski originally promised to "take it to the grave" in regards to his mental illness, but O'Hare insisted "take it to my grave" instead.

Also JMS had offered to put the show on hiatus for him.

[Mauron]

Just watched this comment about the B5/DS9 situation

Tonight's game had the players negotiating with an important Narn on the isolated colony of Ardun, to remove some remaining Centuari artifacts. He was more than happy to have the players act as trash collectors, and convinced them to investigate the project charting a new hyperspace route to better connect this colony to the rest of Narn space.

The Narn had reached a stumbling block in their scouting due to an unknown, undiscovered jump gate that wasn't found through sensors outside of hyperspace. It turns out it was in a system located in a spacial distortion the prevented detection from outside.

There was a small Narn colony inside the distortion, from a ship that had been intended as a colony ship, and ended up crashing here when passing out of hyperspace.

The players helped a few of the Narns make it back to Ardun, the first colony, and hauled the  Centuari garbage back to contact of Londo's, who paid for a couple larger items, and left the smaller things with the party. After checking the items, the players determined one had a connection to House Mollari, which the players gave to Londo, and closed out the night drinking.

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

Just watched this comment about the B5/DS9 situation

I love both B5 and DS9... but it's quite clear that DS9 took the high level concept of B5 and twisted it on its head. I firmly believe that they stole it and made it there own. The end results are very different, but it still stands. Sort of makes me sad because B5 could have been bigger had it not been for DS9, but I do still love both. I can't help it.

As for the events of the game...

So what comes next? It sounds like a lot of gameplay could come out of the previously undiscovered Narn colony. Lots of adventure to be had, caverns to explore, loot to be had, money to be made, political shenanigans, the whole shebang!

[Mauron]

I missed a lot of DS9 because it was part of an early Saturday afternoon block of Sci-Fi programming, at least in my area. I never remembered to watch it. Earth Final Conflict, Andromeda, and some others got mixed in there too.

The campaign has become trade focused, so they wouldn't be likely to poke around the colony at the moment. I'm trying to come up with a good larger plot for the players, but I'm not sure what yet. I know at one point I'll have to ask the players "What do you want?"

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

I missed a lot of DS9 because it was part of an early Saturday afternoon block of Sci-Fi programming, at least in my area. I never remembered to watch it. Earth Final Conflict, Andromeda, and some others got mixed in there too.

Me too. I didn't really watch it from front to back until two years ago in a several month-long Netflix binge. I am actually hoping to rewatch EFC and Andromeda here soon; I haven't seen it since it originally aired!

The campaign has become trade focused, so they wouldn't be likely to poke around the colony at the moment. I'm trying to come up with a good larger plot for the players, but I'm not sure what yet. I know at one point I'll have to ask the players "What do you want?"

OOOOoooh!!! Good question. If the story is going with a more mercantile/trade focus, what will they do with financial goals? Like, what will they save up for? Do they have to expense travel/food/apartments/etc?

Our first campaigns for D&D did not take those into consideration; we just ran fast and loose with immersion. We started a new campaign a month or two ago and are having to really plan and watch our finances; room rentals (or the free camping out in nature, but with a dice roll that could result in unforeseen complications), food and beer, travel rations, etc. I'm loving the immersion and currently being super frugal and saving up my gold so I can buy a folding boat (and turn it into a mobile pop-up tavern).

Any sort of that immersion/goal setting from your characters? I would assume the B5 universe is a bit more grounded in reality than D&D, so opportunities to really get rich would likely be less grandiose and based more on real world equivalent opportunities.

[Mauron]

Me too. I didn't really watch it from front to back until two years ago in a several month-long Netflix binge. I am actually hoping to rewatch EFC and Andromeda here soon; I haven't seen it since it originally aired!

I saw all of Andromeda a few years ago. I like to ignore most of season 5 from the plot.

OOOOoooh!!! Good question. If the story is going with a more mercantile/trade focus, what will they do with financial goals? Like, what will they save up for? Do they have to expense travel/food/apartments/etc?

Our first campaigns for D&D did not take those into consideration; we just ran fast and loose with immersion. We started a new campaign a month or two ago and are having to really plan and watch our finances; room rentals (or the free camping out in nature, but with a dice roll that could result in unforeseen complications), food and beer, travel rations, etc. I'm loving the immersion and currently being super frugal and saving up my gold so I can buy a folding boat (and turn it into a mobile pop-up tavern).

Any sort of that immersion/goal setting from your characters? I would assume the B5 universe is a bit more grounded in reality than D&D, so opportunities to really get rich would likely be less grandiose and based more on real world equivalent opportunities.

I'm definitely going to have to do some more bookkeeping details. I'm not a big fan of that, but it's campaign appropriate.

I'm going to have to toy with some further ideas before I settle on something.

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

I saw all of Andromeda a few years ago. I like to ignore most of season 5 from the plot.

I think I tapered off around season 3 or 4. The last season was when they were trapped in that binary solar system, wasn't it? I was like you and caught it all on the weekend blocks -- Hercules and Xena, Stargate, Star Trek, Andromeda, Earth Final Conflict. There were a few other scifi shows I liked as part of UPN around the time Star Trek Voyager was airing. Seven Days being the only one I can remember off the top of my head.

I'm going to have to toy with some further ideas before I settle on something.

If you ever want to throw ideas around, you know where to find me.

[Mauron]

I think I tapered off around season 3 or 4. The last season was when they were trapped in that binary solar system, wasn't it?

Yeah, that was the one. I ignore the part where they got caught there, and all the Paradine crap, which is wildly inconsistent anyway.

I was like you and caught it all on the weekend blocks -- Hercules and Xena, Stargate, Star Trek, Andromeda, Earth Final Conflict. There were a few other scifi shows I liked as part of UPN around the time Star Trek Voyager was airing. Seven Days being the only one I can remember off the top of my head.

Cleopatra 2525 was in there, but I saw almost nothing of that. I have an episode from it that was stuck on a random DVD I have, possibly Sliders.

If you ever want to throw ideas around, you know where to find me.

I'm going to read through my Merchants, Traders, and Raiders book, and see what that can do for me. I'll probably tie Londo into it somehow, since the party has been in his good graces lately. Ooh, I bet I can do a tie-in to Born Into the Purple if the party is on station at the time.

I'll probably toss some more ideas here later.

Edit: No ideas thus far. Darn.

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

A few ideas:

Day of the Dead and shenanigans. Drazi color wars. Purple files like you mentioned with Londo. What about making somebody head to that one sealed/lost grey deck to retrieve something or another?

What year is this campaign in? I think it's while Londo is still on B5. That could also change opportunities.

[Mauron]

The campaign is currently in 2258, between the Soul Hunter and Purple files episodes. I'll definitely tie into Drazi politics and and Brakiri Day of the Dead when we get there.

The purple files will happen in about two weeks in universe. Based on my one book, it's unclear who hired Trakis to find the files, or how he knew about them. I'll have to double check the episode again, but it seems like even G'Kar didn't know until Sinclair mentioned them.

I think there's some Centauri intrigue to be had there. This doesn't settle my ideas for this week, but starting next week I can do this alongside some of the existing trade stuff.

I think I'll need to create a race for Golians too.

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

You know, you could have some mercantile quests involving pick up and transportation of precious cargo, only to find out they are Golian/Narn slaves. I had to look up Golians (and Trakis) to jog my memory, but secret Centauri slavers and human cargo seem fitting.

[Mauron]

I think I can work on the dual agent/trader multiclass stuff for the new idea. Trading as an excuse to do some intrigue.

Trakis was just a one off character, and the only Golian shown. My Babylon 5 encyclopedia missed them! It even has a Kosh knock-knock joke.

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Kosh.
Kosh who?
Gesundheit.

Edit: No game yesterday due to half the players being absent.

[Mauron]

The game has been on hiatus for a while because it's been too much stress for me. I'm either going to have some downtime while working out the latest plot idea, switch to a different Babylon 5 based campaign, switch to a Farscape campaign, or stop GMing for a while.