Alright a crew listing has been made then.
During the couple weeks of sailing prior to this everyone gets the chance to get to know a few of the NPCs, for better or worse.
Right now for most of these guys all you get is a name and a job so you won't know if you'll like them or hate them or find them boring until after you pick but you know what? That's life.
So everyone gets to pick a certain number of crew NPCs to get to know based on the following criteria:
- GM's freebie
- Kalia gets Marcino Petresan as she is his steward-
- Rafe gets to pick one other midshipman to be his bunk bed mate
- Xao gets Ezekiel as the helmsman's steward is the one delivering orders to her
- Zug Zug gets Rosie Cusswell as the Bosun he reports to
- Pearl & Nenelethas get Yana Risad as the Ship's steward who is their primary point of contact
- Vander & Oivind get Shalla Hearthmoor as they primarily hang out in the kitchen area.
- +1 Same Category
However you are positioned (junior officer, crew, rigger, passenger etc.) you can pick one NPC in that same grouping as another free pick.
- +1 per Charisma Mod
Charismatic people attract friends and followers. You get +1 pick in any category for each point of charisma modifier you have
- +1 free choice
Everyone gets a final free choice just because.
Okay what does this mean?
Let's say you are a Rigger with a +2 charisma mod. You get (1) GM freebie as listed above, (1) other Rigger, (2) free picks from your charisma mod and (1) free pick so I will give you detailed information about a total of 5 NPCs.
Okay but what is the point of this?
The point is to jumpstart the game without me having to fill in 70 NPC bios that may never matter in the game. As you can see I did that the first time around and you can see by their postings that almost none of them mattered so instead to simulate that we're in the middle of a voyage, you may have been on this ship for awhile and you may have a background relationship with some of the crew or other passengers you will essentially draw names from a hat, I will tell you what they're like and you can decide if they are friends/rivals/enemies/whatever.
That way down the road when you're trying to decide on NPCs to have join your crew or take on officer positions etc. you each have some unique bits of background and unique relationships with said NPCs again without me spending days typing up information that will mostly be useless..
Who should I pick?
If you're asking this, you're thinking too hard. Just look at the list and pick some names and call it a day. There is zero advantage of picking a senior officer over a rank-and-file crewman or ordinary passenger. Instead if you really want to think about it, just think about what your character does on a daily basis and pick a few people that you think they might be bumping into on a regular basis. Passengers probably cluster together, junior officers complain about their postings, the crew drink and gamble in the holds of the deck at night etc.
How should I tell you?
If you want to post your picks here, that is fine. If you want to PM me the list, that is fine. If you want to try and coordinate with other players to spread your picks out...fine but you're thinking too hard at that point. I'll deliver you the information via PM.
What about other PCs?
This is only for NPCs. You are free to establish friendships/rivalries/drinking tournaments with other PCs as you see fit. I will not dictate who knows who before the game begins.
If this takes you longer than 10 minutes to give me a list of names, you're thinking way too hard
If I don't get a list by the time the game starts next week I'll just randomly pick some for you.
