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itmeJP Community

New Stars Without Number campaign

RollPlay®: Far Verona
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#1

Guys, I know it’s way too early and we know next to nothing about the new campaign yet, but I love Rollplay and speculation, so here we are. Who’s gonna be on the show? What will its tone be like? What are possible easter eggs from Swan Song? I know it’s a different universe, but a fan can dream!

JP mentioned one cast member is confirmed, and we obviously know that Adam is GMing. Also, they said that none of the original crew will be part of this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some wiggle room in that statement. So my speculation as to possible cast members would be:

  • Adam (duh)
  • Zeke (as the one who’s already confirmed—he talks about how roleplaying is his favorite thing in the world all the time and how he wants to do it every day so it wouldn’t surprise me if he hops on the new show)
  • Kaitlyn (loves Rollplay, hasn’t been on for a while, has played SWN before in Swan Song stories, is an audience favorite, however might not have time due to her becoming a doctor)
  • Geoff (was in Swan Song, so might not be part of this, however he loves Rollplay, he loooved Swan Song, hasn’t been on for a while and has repeatedly said that he would jump on a show if JP offered it)
  • Anne (I think she mentioned that Blades made roleplaying click for her and that show ended prematurely, maybe she’s interested in exploring and developing a new character on a new show that runs longer than her CoS appearences)
  • Nebula Jazz crew (on the one hand, we just had a long running show with them, so that might rule them out—on the other hand, if they’re craving the Rollplays, who knows)
  • Rollplay novices (might very well be that there’ll be one or more persons on the show that won’t have prior appearences on Rollplay, however I would be surprised if the cast will consist of more than two Rollplay novices)

I might of course be way off but, you know, that’s part of the fun :smiley:

As for the tone, I don’t imagine it to be too different from Swan Song, in part because of Adam’s GMing style. Which is a big plus in my book! Depending on the cast there will be differences in the level and nature of humour and seriousness of course, but regarding the narrative I see parallels in all the games Adam runs and I can’t imagine a 180° turnaround for the new show.
I assume there will be noticable differences in the setting however, some custom modifications to it like we see in CoS (no warlock PCs, no elves etc). Somewhere Adam mentioned he wanted to have big mech-like robot suits in the game, which would be a thing we haven’t seen before. I’m also not sure what SWN 2.0 brings to the table in terms of new toys and so on, so like he did before with AI and Pi, he might pick some new element from the updated version and make it a central part of the campaign (reminds me to get my hands on a copy).
So yeah, all speculation is welcome, maybe Adam will get inspired by some of our ideas aswell. That has happened in the past, so why not throw him some bones? :slight_smile:

#2

I’m still waiting for Jesse and Felicia Day to meet for the first time (again), but that might be a cast for a one-shot.

That aside, I’d like to see some more of Cohh!

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#3

Out of the ones you mentioned I feel Anne is the most likely for some reason. I think the Nebula Jazz crew is most likely to appear on Jesse’s show if anywhere.

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#4

Oh, right! I blanked on him for some reason. Maybe we’ll see the comeback of the Zeke/Cohh combo, that would be something :smiley:

That’s probably true, they make a good team.

What do you think will the big bad be in this? Will it be something like out-of-sector (drillspace?) aliens this time? I’m just gonna say this now, the Warmind will be hard to top :smiley:

Edit: Also, I just checked the SWN Revised Edition on drivethrurpg. This is part of the rules:

I can see Adam picking up (maybe hacking) those rules to have something foreign and strange in the game that contests the power of psychics. Probably not fireballs tho. (Of course he may also opt for the opposite and make psychics even rarer, making the world almost completely mundane.)

#5

When it comes to the tone, I think Adam at some point mentioned the author John Scalzi as a good primer for us viewers. I got one of his books on my to read-list but I haven’t gotten around to checking it out yet so I’m not sure what that exactly would mean. But I’m hype for the setting either way, SWN lends itself well to do a lot of different styles of tone so it can be everything between classic space adventures and The Horrors That Lurk in the Dark Between the Stars -style of weird alien horror.

As for the casting, maybe some people from Adam’s Burning Wheel/Tomb of Annihilation-crew? Check out those campaigns if you haven’t already watched it, because it’s pretty dope (For example: Distracted Elf’s kobold fighter Ishi is a goddamn delight).

But yeah, I’d really dig seeing how Anne would tackle a sci-fi setting.

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#6

I believe Adam also mentioned he wants Gundams. I also want Gundams. I need em.

#7

I think Anne is probably the only one that may be on this of all the people listed so far.

#8

Actually, I don’t think we’re gonna get much of Dodger and Strippin in Rollplay for the rest of the year. Their baby is due in a few months and the baby’s schedule takes priority over anything and everything else (for good reason), and that’s absolutely something JP would be thinking about for crew and scheduling purposes since that’s one of his biggest stressors running Rollplay.

I can see Pokket joining one of the new shows, and possibly one or more of Jesse’s friends (Alex, Davis, Jirard), though the latter would probably be on Jesse’s show.

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#9

Indeed, giant mechs/vehicles ala Brigador would be totally awesome, especially the spacers would be kinda cool.

#10

I just glanced over the revised rules and there are a ton of changes, at least in terms of character creation and character abilities. This will be really intersting, there are a lot of feats characters can take that will spice things up for sure. The psychic/psionic mechanics also changed somewhat, allowing for more options and specializations. The skill system appears to have been trimmed down though. So it seems character creation and advancement got a little more complex while speeding up the flow of standard play. Haven’t had a look at ship combat and other system yet though.

#11

Yup, I’m with the general consensus here that Anne is probably the most likely person to be part of the cast, from the ones mentioned.

Zeke would be a close second for the exact reason mentioned, he loves it and would probably be eager to jump in, though I feel, or vaguely remember him mentioning at some point, he prefers the magical and feudal-like settings of D&D and alike.

Cohh is not going to be one of the cast members to these shows for the exact same reason Dodger and Strippin will probably not be on Rollplay for a long while. Just today I caught Cohh saying he is not going to be on any Rollplay in the near future, the time needed to take care of Roen being the reason, though he really enjoyed his time in West Marches and Balance of Power.

And lets not forget that JP has stated a couple of times that Jesse’s show will probably have a cast made up of mostly, if not entirely, new faces to the Rollplay circle. That emphasis on pointing out Jesse’s show as being the one to have new players makes me think the SWN show will probably have a cast made up of people that already have been on Rollplay. But with all those one shots this summer there’s a larger pool than ever to pick from. I wouldn’t be surprised with a Blujay or a DistractedElf in the cast. Pokket also doesn’t sound at all far fetched even though Nebula Jazz just ended.

As for the tone of the show I would imagine Adam will not go the outside alien threat or the threat being the rise of magic in opposition to psychic power simply because that’s basically the plot that is going on right now in CoS. I’d much prefer it to be a more mundane sci-fi, with even less psychic manifestations than we had in Swan Song, and to be honest I hope the mech stuff isn’t all that prevalent either, specially if we are talking about giant ten stories high mechs, but that’s just personal preference and Adam can make anything cool and organic to the story he is telling so I’m not worried at all in that regard.

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#12

You raise a lot of good points! I didn’t follow the one shots closely so I don’t know most of the people who took part in them, but recruiting from that pool seems not at all unlikely. And yes, I have the same vague memory regarding Zeke’s stated preference for classic D&D settings so maybe he’s out the window :smiley:

That’d indeed be hard to reconcile with a more mundane, hard scifi setting I guess. Giant mechs just seem impractical :smiley: Well, who knows if it’ll even be that kind of setting.

I’m also reeeally looking forward to how the community will be integrated into the faction turn. Imagine the community members form closed groups representing factions, plotting against each other and sharing their intentions and goals with Adam (who obviously has the last word on everything). Like a miniature EVE online with corporations and alliances. Though maybe handling all of that would be too much work.

#13

I think it would be quite nifty if (not necessarily for this show), there was an opportunity put out to the Patrons to audition for a spot on a show. Except for the massive time investment, you could have “auditions” by a series of offscreen (or Patron-only) one shots with the eligible contestants / lottery winners until it gets narrowed down.

Once it’s to two or three that Adam / JP think could be good, they’d then do a one shot with an established cast member, and the best fit would be invited in a probational capacity. Since the contestant wouldn’t be bringing a fan base with them at all, they’d have to 100% gel with the game and cast while also having a good persona to be on stream, so there’s a lot of risk to it. Ultimately, it’d be exciting to see, but would be a lot of work on their end and may fall flat.

Nevertheless, it’d be pretty sweet if it could be made to happen!

#14

Although that would indeed be exciting and works for other roleplaying shows, I don’t think JP will ever go for something like that. There is just too much of a risk of the person acting or saying something unexpectedly, intentionally trolling or not. It wouldn’t take a lot of words or actions to be in serious trouble with Twitch TOS or even just to ruin the show for everyone. That’s why I’m so excited for the faction turn, where we as a community will have a chance to get directly involved in the game, with no risk for JP :slight_smile:

#15

A lot of the mechanics have been overhauled, including ship combat.

I read through almost the entire book the other week, and I think the only thing that stands out as “the same” is the faction turn stuff? I think he even redid combat to fit the modern base 10 armor system of D&D, iirc.

There’s also lots of great rules for AI characters, cyborgs, aliens, and so on.

#16

Expanding on your guesses: from what JP’s said before, I think he’ll be looking for people with sizable audiences. From that criteria, I’d be totally onboard with Anne, Pokket, and Zeke (especially since Zeke even said during the announcement stream in chat that he’d be into doing another show…), and it’d be nice to have one newish person.

A bit spoilery about what Adam’s said of the “plot” so far in some streams and stuff: [spoiler]he still wants to keep the game humanocentric so-to-speak, and has vague ideas about the players being a mech merc team going around working for the various Houses of the new sector. I’d expect it to just be one mech pilot in the crew, though, as something of a parallel to how everyone in Swan Song was just support/logistics for Sicarian when it came to actual combat. Also, the game rules for the mechs actually have them as fairly small compared to what we’re used to in pop culture - somewhere in the range of 10-40 feet tall.

Anyway, who knows for sure, and I imagine if the players aren’t into mechs in the first place, then there won’t be mechs.[/spoiler]

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#17

So Battletech ala Mech Warrior Mercenaries :smiley:

Im down with that, but in all seriousness my predictions for the cast in order of my most likely/hopefully:

JP- He loved Swan Song and being Higgins, and he needs to be on more than one production :stuck_out_tongue:

Kaitlyn- I used to not be a fan of hers, but he performance as Nightsass was probably the most true to character out of the whole cast. I was thoroughly impressed, been following her twitch ever since.

Anne- Her time on Blades was cut short, yet was able to provide a really great performance with Zeke in the sister reveal throguh Rune. I think her in a more “shooty” high tech environemnt can open her up to being even more of a badass.

Last but not least, Zeke: Though unlikely as he is def a traditional sword and board RPer, his enthusiasm and love for all things RP, real life or not, makes me think he hungers for more. And his past chemistry with Anne, together with his desire to truly immerse himself into the world, makes him a fine fit in i think ANY role play.

Together i think they present a balanced cast of people, each providing a different personality and role play style. From Badass to lighthearted, from silly to serious. Couldn’t ask for better.

Not maknig the cut:
Geoff- This one was obvious, the man loves his grim dark future and his performance as Sicarian as well as Brumpo Tungus (His real name need not matter) is hallmark. But his involvement with the first whole SWN campgain doesnt make me believe he will take part again, treading old ground.

DJ Wheat- practically the same reasons as above, though his notable performance as being the mother and soul of the crew will never be forgotten. I think we have not seen DJ in much aside from a one shot as i think his normal life keeps him busy.

Strip/Doogs/Cohh- New Babies, and a heavy schedule to boot already. As much as i would love it, doesn’t seem likely to me.

Jesse- The man is getting his whole own dam show filled with goofiness. Thats alot of work already, its like asking Adam to play while running his own campaign.

Pokket- This one is still a possiblity, though her involvement with another two season of a high tech fantasy RP in Nebula jazz seems to similar for her. but who knows, now that she is off that show as it has ended, it possible.

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#18

I would prefer seeing some more new faces or people we haven’t seen much of.

Bikeman was a lot of fun and I could see him and Zeke having fun interactions.

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#19

Fairlight was great in Mouse Guard. He’d be cool to have on.

#20

I miss the West Marches. Small batches of new people every now and then, in the same setting, effecting each other. A try-out show, much like the month when Adam flew the country and we had a ton of one-shots with everyone! I wouldn’t mind to see some of them in the new show!