At last, we’re getting to the starship skills, in order of
importance. Pilot, Navigator, Gunner…and Steward? Um…shouldn’t the Engineer get
higher billing? Oh, well. These skills are pretty straightforward, and Gunnery
was already covered, anyway.
Basically, Pilot is different from Ship’s Boat, because
Ship’s Boat is for things like the Space Shuttle, interplanetary stuff at best.
Pilots get to go to different star systems. And, as usual, higher levels of
expertise makes the DMs better when dealing with stressful piloting situations.
Navigation actually works on land as well, assuming the
night sky is visible when standing on the planet. That’s an interesting
question, though: How does the navigator know what the stars in the sky are on
different worlds? It’s not like they’re going to see the Big Dipper. Do they
memorize different planetary constellation patterns in Navigation training school?
Because that would be cool, if not really hard. But what if it’s a brand-new
world that no one has ever walked on before? No constellation map would be
handy. An interesting point to ponder…
Gunnery was, as mentioned, already covered previously under
weapons. Not all ships will have guns, of course, but for those that do, these
are the guys you want.
And now, the Ship’s Steward, whose
job is to take care of passengers. That’s a pretty specific skill for a
situation that isn’t likely to come up too often in a science fiction
action-adventure situation, unless of course you’re doing “Die Hard on the
Space Titanic” or something. But still, if I’m rolling up a character in the
Merchants, and I get this instead of Gun Combat or Electronics, I’m going to feel
pretty gypped.
No comments:
Post a Comment