Episode: 2927
Title: HPR2927: Stardrifter RPG Playtest Part 09
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2927/hpr2927.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-24 13:24:13

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This is HPR Episode 2927 entitled, Tardriff to RPG playtest part ne'er-9, and in part
of the series, tabletop gaming, it is hosted by Lost in Bronx, and in about 26 minutes long,
and carry an explicit flag.
The summary is Lost in Bronx, and friends playtest a new, original RPG system.
Today's show is licensed under a CC ne'er-0 license.
This episode of HBR is brought to you by AnanasThost.com.
Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code HPR15, that's HPR15.
Better web hosting that's honest and fair at AnanasThost.com.
Hello, this is Lost in Bronx, also known as David Collins Rivera.
Welcome to Part 9 of the Star Drifter role-playing game playtest.
Today we have Taj, Brynn, and X1101.
Last time, the player characters rested up and healed up from their earlier encounter
in the ship.
They listened on the calm channels of the people inside the ship, and they determined
they were looking for something.
The player characters spoke with the leader of the other group, and struck up a tense
agreement to help them do their job, so the player characters could do theirs.
Let's get into it.
A couple of hours have passed.
You will get the description and finally an image of something that's not quite fist-sized.
Maybe she's got small fists, it would fit in the palm of your hand, it may not be able
to close your hand entirely.
Looks like it's got several different types of access, ports like for different types
of computer systems, and supposedly this thing has a wireless connection capability, but
you would need to either activate it like there's a physical switch on it or something
like that.
This is a very secure device.
If you got a hold of this, you would not, and it was encrypted, and no one buys one
of these without encrypting them, you would not be able to crack this with the computers
you have on this machine.
Certainly not with your comm, and not with what's on the boat.
It's not military grade, well it's military grade, but it's not military issue, it is
a civilian thing.
Okay.
Very expensive.
Ultimately, we don't need to see what's in it.
We're just finding it and handing it off.
You seem to have modified this woman a bit.
She's still screaming at her people, but she's not snapping at you anymore.
So you said that in order to activate the Wi-Fi, it would be a physical switch on the device
correct?
It says there is one on the ads for it.
Does it give anything like frequency, anything like that?
It doesn't, but there are standards that are often used.
Then again, this is a highly encrypted device, so maybe none of those standards are standard.
Is there like a dark web in this side?
Yeah, there's plenty of things like that.
Space tour.
Yeah, but we're going to need computer roles for that, my friend.
Oh, that's fine.
I will make the attempt then.
Let's do.
Really?
Oh, I rolled a 16, I have a 17.
Okay.
You get the impression there is a, quote unquote, dark web.
You know, there are these little hidden communities, let's put it that way.
You get the sense that they're there, but you can't figure out how to get into them.
Someone calls just script Kitty, and that's as close as you get.
Want, want.
But you suspect they're there.
Well, do we want to agree to help her out and at least start that process?
All of this research that you guys have done and you're talking, it's taken up five hours.
Much of this day is gone by now.
So we have no other contacts here, huh?
You're, you guys, you know how, you know, you don't know anybody here.
You got dropped off.
Yeah, in the middle of nowhere.
You got kicked off the bus, man.
Alright, they went with the limited information that we have.
I don't know if I, I guess I could do just a wide spectrum scan as we go over visually.
And at the same time have, you know, just Wi-Fi, just going up and down the frequency scale while we search.
And we'll start at the, at that hook thing.
Okay, upfront at the bottom.
Basically, I'm going to need you to roll a piloting just to make sure you're controlling this thing.
To get close enough to really get a good look at this because you don't have really good optics on this bow.
You'd have to, you have to get fairly close to it.
This would be considered unsafe by most legal standards.
But, you know, you guys don't go by the rules.
Okay, yeah, I will need a piloting role.
I rolled an eight and I have a 17.
Oh, no problem at all.
You keep good control of this thing.
Basically, your boat goes around this thing with a little thruster points slowly with a spotlight over the exterior of this vessel.
You may roll versus your intelligence.
Everybody who's watching and I assume everybody is to see if you see anything.
If it's there, I found it because I rolled a one.
Okay, succeed.
Okay.
Also succeed.
There's nothing there, but you're very sure of it.
Outstanding.
Well, it's better than not knowing.
In other words, you can put this part of the ship behind you because you're positive.
It's nothing like that visible exterior of this vessel, this part.
Okay, so this was the, this would be outside deck 2A and I'm assuming, you know,
important starboard and you're going along the dorsal and the ventral part of this part of the ship.
Okay, make sense.
You know, I can make you roll a hundred times, but, you know, from a realistic standpoint for simplicity's sake.
We'll say that the entire area of deck 2A, the exterior, you've gotten a real good sense that this thing is out there.
It's very well disguised.
Okay.
That took a long time.
That took six hours and I would think that you're pretty tired by now.
Yeah, time to rest.
We don't want our pilot to slam us into the side of this thing.
Yeah, are you sure?
Okay, so the cargo ship guys have checked out the front section.
What would be deck 2A?
You can then proceed somewhere else if you'd like.
We're assuming we're going to take some time to rest in there so that Bryn can have had some sleep and
we're going to assume that you've had a shift off and, you know, he got some sleep and things are seeming a little less spooky than they were.
Guys, at least have a ceasefire of some sort in place or so it seems.
Oh, Bryn's flying.
I'm going to go make the strongest coffee possible for him.
Instant powdered coffee, the best.
All right, he's got his coffee or coffee, whichever he preferred.
And you guys can proceed to continue doing this or what do you want to to be going to to be okay.
Now to be understand part of deck 3C is on the bottom of that and that's all one piece.
I mean, it's the not separate pieces, but you can see how that slats in right there.
So you'll be looking at at least part of 3C as well when you're down there.
Please everybody who's looking, please roll intelligence rolls and I assume we're all looking for a change.
Margot would see something there.
We'll see if anyone else has seen something succeed succeed.
I apparently am still making coffee or something because critical critical failure.
Okay, you do not see it, but you're positive.
It's not there.
You're positive, you know, isn't there?
The consensus is that it's not you.
That's the consensus.
Don't see anything that looks like it anyway.
How long did that take?
That will have taken you guys.
That took you four hours.
So that's like half the ship you guys have covered leaving the biggest part.
Well, true, but I'm assuming you guys take a brief break to you know, eat your rations and eat up your frozen meals.
I'm gonna go next.
I guess the big 2C 3C.
Okay, well, we'll take these as separate sections and you'll have to roll one.
1C, 2C and 3C, the majority of 3C.
These will have to be taken as separate sections.
So which one do you want to do?
1C.
1C.
All right, and you know what I didn't do last time, but I'm going to have you do now is roll for piloting.
Okay, so you don't slam into the ship or scattering off into space.
I did not scatter.
I rolled a 12 and I have a 17.
Okay.
There are bonuses on this because this is actually not that difficult.
You're more or less just inching along little tiny puffs of the thrusters.
That's it.
Just inching, inching and I assume you're all looking and if you're all crowded there,
you're probably saying everybody get a good look.
Anybody see anything?
Let's move on.
That sort of thing because otherwise, I don't know how you would do it.
Right now everybody roll intelligence to see if you see succeed succeed succeed.
Consensus is that you don't see anything here.
I took you guys both the rest of the day that took six hours to do carefully.
There's a lot of little dicks and crannies and crap.
It looks like there were lock ports on the exterior where at least part of the fuel tanks would have gone
and there's a lot of shadows and craggly little spots and it's very hard to see in an
odd.
This took you a long time right here.
Okay.
Rest for the day.
I guess.
This lady, she gets on the horn and she kind of asks, what's up?
What's happening?
Just talking to her?
It's ties, right?
Yeah.
I don't see.
There's a lot.
Let's just tell her kind of where we're at that, you know, we went over a little more
than I have to ship and we feel like we got a pretty good look at it.
So, you know, another day, another two days, we'll probably have a little thing sweet
from the outside.
All right.
Well, just so you understand, if you don't find it, we're not leaving.
You got that?
I understand.
I understand.
Because we're still looking in here.
I have my boys.
They're even the guy you've shot up.
I have him back to work right now.
They're all doing it.
And you've been monitoring those channels and you can hear she's been screaming at these
guys.
It's like this woman doesn't sleep.
I explain why she's so cranky.
Yeah.
Well, she's under the gun and need to make a profit and blah, blah, blah, you know, we're
blocking.
We don't fail.
You know, all of that crap.
So, all right.
So, she does not seem to be getting any more testy with you.
All right.
What section the next day will assume you guys sleep it is now the next day.
What's our countdown on days now?
You guys have been out here.
I believe you were on the sixth day.
That's not right.
I believe that's what it is.
Yeah, fair enough.
I'm just kind of.
Yeah.
That sounds right.
I believe you're starting the sixth day.
Okay.
So, what section are you checking this time?
2C.
2C.
Now, that is a big section.
I think I'm going to have to have a.
I letting roll this guy.
Okay.
Roll the 10.
So, easily made it.
Easily made it.
No problem at all.
And everybody please roll intelligence.
Success.
Successful.
Successful.
Wait, wait.
Is that a ship?
He was busy cleaning his pistols.
The frozen male did not agree with him.
And he was busy elsewhere if you get my meaning.
You see something.
It is by the port.
Aft.
Emergency airlock in engineering.
This would be.
If you're looking into see it would be to the left of the.
Okay.
That's.
06 and 05.
Any exterior.
They all there.
Do we know.
It's right next to a spiral staircase.
Yep.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's on the outside.
There's something that you haven't seen on.
Any of the other.
It's a.
It's about the right size.
And you haven't seen things stuck.
Near one of these places.
Any of these.
Erlocks.
That looks like that.
Right size.
Based on what you looked at.
So you guys think we should call Jillian until her and because if we get out and we start
looking at this thing, she's going to get real testy real fast.
That's as she knows we're out there looking.
You know, we don't we don't need to be making any enemies here guys.
Yeah, I'm just saying I didn't say we had to do it.
I'm just saying, how would you know considering she's probably paying attention?
No, it doesn't sound like they had any sensors because otherwise they would have seen us
when we came in.
You still haven't seen any sign of sensors?
Haven't I wouldn't let it go either way.
I just think it would probably be a good will thing to say, hey, this is out here.
We could check it out or if you want to sense somebody, that's cool too.
Okay, let's do that.
I won't start trouble this time.
Is that what you're doing?
Bargo is going to go with the group.
So guys decide.
I am absolutely down for not starting trouble.
Yes.
Josh, what do you say?
I tell her, you know, we found something.
They kind of match just the description.
We can't get a good look at it visually.
And it would tell her right where it's at and be like, we have suits.
We can go look at it.
But I didn't.
We said we weren't coming aboard.
And that seems a little close to that barrier that we set.
So I wanted to ask you if you wanted to have your people do it or you want us to do it.
I mean, where is it?
Just where is it?
Where is it?
So I tell her it's right back where we were on the what side to set.
Port side.
She curses.
Yeah.
They told us there was nothing out there.
Right.
Do not go near it.
Back off now.
You guys back off.
You go out 100 meters at least.
You back off.
I'm going to send one of my people out.
All right, no problem.
We'll back out far enough.
We'll keep our lights on so they get a little light.
And then we'll just stay hands off.
It actually, you know, like you're out there and I assume you're watching.
Yep.
It actually takes two hours before anything happens.
But finally, the exterior air lock door does open.
Whatever the delay was, you don't know.
They probably welded it.
They welded it.
Yeah, they did.
And it was torn up just like all the other.
So they had to repair everything.
But a guy goes out and he looks around and looks around.
Smart enough to see.
That's a good question.
And see it.
All right, shit.
I rolled a 17.
He don't see it.
Can we call Jillian and say, hey, she calls you and says,
my man's out there.
He don't see nothing.
You better not have grabbed this thing.
No, we didn't grab it.
And I'm not trying to like talk about your hiring practices,
but your voice pretty dumb.
Because it's like three foot to his left.
To his left, she calls back.
The guy looks again.
Now he found it.
Now he found his, yeah.
Messes with a little bit.
And he takes it a little hand tool.
Messes with a little bit.
And he finally gets it back inside.
Or nothing for a while.
And finally, Jillian says,
you guys, you stay where you are.
You've called in our guy.
They are leaving.
You guys have any problem with me just saying, okay, no.
No, no problem at all.
All right, I call it back.
Say, Roger that.
We're going to back off even further just to kind of
be out of your way.
And so you guys get it back down here.
In fact, I'm going to move so that
we're behind another ship just in case.
And you know, on the opposite side,
someone would come in on.
So let go.
Yeah.
Just in case they are not that friendly.
Yeah.
Is there somewhere for us to do that?
It looks like we have either eight or 11
as docking ports.
We don't know which one they're coming from.
No, no, wait.
I mean, out into space behind some debris.
You can go way out if you wish.
Yeah, that's that's entirely.
Yeah, we want to we want to see them come in and leave.
But we don't want it to be obvious out there and be shot at.
Yeah.
Hey, can you can you make sure?
No, they're not leaving us any surprises.
Usually of the bomb variety.
Not from your boat.
You'll have to maybe go in and get blown up to find that out.
No, no, I meant.
Margo goes first.
I meant, can we can.
Can we maybe, you know, remind them that we found this for them and ask them to please,
you know, honor the, I don't know.
You're good with the words and the people.
Try to give us some assurance that they're not just going to blow us up for the spite, despite us.
Are you going to say anything?
Okay, I didn't.
Gosh, that's you.
I'm trying to, I'm trying to, I'm trying to ask you to get to.
I didn't know if we were RP in this or if he was just going to roll words.
I made a die roll, but that's got nothing to do with you.
Oh, gosh.
That's never a good sign.
Hi, you never know.
Yeah, so I call her back and just, you know, kind of what we keep us saying, you know, hey,
we want, we want to be able to take the ship and get what we need and, you know,
we helped you on your plan.
I hope you're willing to see the same way for us.
We want, we want, I'm telling you, you're not getting a piece of this job.
We have worked really, really hard.
She's all pissed off at you immediately.
I just want you to go ahead and, you know, you got to what you came for.
Just clear off the ship.
We just don't want any surprises when we get on the ship.
That's all we're looking for.
I don't want your guy to get all-headed and decide he's going to stay back and plug us
because we had interaction earlier.
Oh, you don't have to worry about that.
I've had my, you know, I've had everything I've had to do to stop these guys from,
I'm, uh, booking out on me.
This is, uh, no, no.
We got what we came for.
You helped us.
Thank you.
Now, stay out of it.
Work on this entire thing is yours.
You did your job.
Good job.
She's, doesn't sound angry, but she doesn't sound like she's grateful either.
I don't, I don't think we made her Christmas card list.
I think I'm just going to passively aggressively like Star Trek.
Just close the channel.
Yeah, while she's ranting or whatever.
They have just closed the channel.
Okay.
A couple of hours go by and finally you get the transponder signal of an approaching boat.
You see it on sensors like on radar, but you do not,
you're, I assume you're far enough away.
You may not be able to see it visually.
You may not even be able to see the Tottenberg visually either,
depending on how well you've hidden yourself behind some junk.
But you do get confirmation that this thing matches Orbits with the Tottenberg.
In other words, you know, the radar signal becomes a single radar signature.
Stays that way for roughly an hour and it detaches and heads back.
And it is not going to jump out the station that you guys were going to.
It's going to another one high dot in this star system.
Doesn't seem like you're even going to run into them again.
That is that you see on your sensors.
So I guess we go in and make sure everything's kosher before we call.
No, we send Margot to see if everything's kosher.
She's like, I'm an empty see, but I'm not, you know, not stupid.
You guys, it got to back me up from the airlock.
Yeah, yeah.
So what do you guys do?
You head back.
Yeah, I guess we got to check it out.
We have to confirm that it's empty.
I mean, do we have to, I mean, I guess we do because we have to confirm that it's empty.
Yeah.
Okay.
Can we check the comms before we go in to make sure that there's no like chatter still?
No chatter local chatter.
Anyway, you know, you do get long range signals.
So as we close with the Tottenberg,
want to see if there's any type of radio,
Wi-Fi signal whatsoever.
Getting nothing.
Okay.
Come link.
Right.
Of course, last time the only thing you got was the comm network.
That appears to be either off or out of range at least.
So where are you going to dock or are you going to?
Yeah, we're going to dock at 11, I guess.
At 11, okay.
All right, that goes without problem.
11 seems to be in good shape.
Fact.
Hang on a sec.
That is in fact the one that they used.
Based on the sensor readings you had, they came from that side.
So it's very likely when they they used.
And it is indeed in good shape.
Cycle it without a problem.
So I guess we need to clear.
It's clear.
It appears to be.
11 is in fact an airlock.
It's just a large one.
It's to 10, which is a locker room,
like spacesuits and such.
Aren't any here now a lot of empty like lockers and things
that they would keep these things in.
That is all.
That is all.
Looks like this room was not destroyed or torn apart.
As a door that goes to the center causeway.
And there is another door that leads to seven.
Okay, we'll check seven.
Okay, that opens.
There's, you know, that's without a problem.
Seven is an elevator.
Door is open.
And you can see the top of the elevator on the floor below.
Okay.
The decking in this area is all torn up.
So are only other way to get to different levels or back in the
engineering room, correct?
Yeah, it looks that way.
Yeah, unless you want to jump down the elevator.
Because there this elevator does have a hatch on the top.
And that's open.
It looks like they were working down there.
Taren things are good jump down there if you wanted to.
Well, let's check this whole level out first, I think.
Tell like plan.
Okay.
Yeah, that's the problem.
Yeah, that's what I was saying.
Like maybe hard lock one of the doors to engineering.
That way nobody can sneak up behind us and check out everything
on this floor first.
And then unlock it and go there and go to different levels.
You can do that.
You have the command code.
Okay, so assuming you do that,
you can check out all of deck 2b and it's all empty.
Some of these areas, the decking here outside of that
aft causeway, only the bulkheads in some areas like in 9 and 8.
The bulkheads have been opened up, but not enough to let air through.
It was just, I don't know, somebody's idea that,
oh, let's look inside here.
So in other words, the airlock in 8 still does seem like it would function.
Little spooky because the bulkhead has been torn open.
It's like it'll work.
Are there any pressure suits in 9?
No, I'm sure suits in 9 and 10.
And 2b is clear.
Now guys, I will fast forward because this ship is clear.
Guys can have a lot of fun digging through everything,
but in the end you're going to find a ship that was really torn to pieces.
But you guys found what they were looking for,
and you found a way to solve the problem.
Not a lot of gunplay, all things considered.
It took some time and experience, you know?
Well, yeah, well, you should have known that to begin with.
Enough to know it sucks.
And you know, just a little.
Just a little.
I'm not used to the other people having guns.
Okay, well, let's assume you take at least a day,
a full day to go through this whole place.
You will find that it is completely empty now.
You've gotten rid of these people,
and I would assume that part of the
procedures for all of this you would have been told to let the dealership know that it is clear.
And the procedure is that they will then go in and verify it for themselves,
and then let your, I guess, your client, the guy that hired you,
he will let that person know, and then your money gets released.
Part of your contract requires that you leave as soon as you get your money.
Leave the system.
I don't think that'll be a problem.
Okay, unless someone else has something else that they want to do,
and you decide that this is a fraction you want to go.
What I just described,
all of that will play out exactly as you expect.
You'll get paid the balance, which is 13,000 Q.
And I believe he provided a part of the deal you made is that he gave you passage off.
So you do, in fact, you don't even need to buy cold passage to leave.
You actually have a ticket waiting for you.
Guys, next ship out succeeded.
I would like to purchase some additional supplies if we're going to do anything else.
You can do that.
There's no reason to.
You're never going to play these characters again.
I was going to say we need to go somewhere and set off his bomb report before we leave.
Yeah, yeah.
I want to try to set it off.
Let's see if it actually would work.
You could have set it off in the ship.
They don't care if the ship gets any more damage.
Yeah, so what I want to set it off in 20 in 20.
Okay, go for it.
What do you want me to roll for it?
I want you to roll your engineering now to see if it actually goes off.
All right, my engineering is an 18.
Okay, you should do pretty well with this, right?
Of course, there is a minus because you were attempting to do something weird.
How much of my, how much is my minus?
Your minus is minus three.
Yeah, well, I still blew it out of the one.
I rolled four.
Okay, you've got it.
This thing, boop, boop, and the airlock door.
The interior airlock door just goes off.
It's not on hinges.
It slides, but but I own this thing is broken open.
That was a pretty good bomb that you made.
Well, guys, I guess I know I can make a bomb.
Mission accomplished.
Mission accomplished.
So that was the adventure.
You guys would have gotten paid and I can figure out the experience points if you want,
but it doesn't matter.
That is the game.
Now comes the part I really would like your assessment, not just of the rules,
but of the game itself.
And then finally of my game mastering skills, because that comes,
you know, that is the determining factor.
Next time in part 10, which is the last part of this miniseries,
the players give me feedback on the game system, the adventure,
and pond my work as a game master.
See you then.
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