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Floyd “Pretty Boy” Fornax (Officer Secundus)
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In does not inspire confidence when a role-playing game's character generation section concludes with the following statement: “If you are unsatisfied with our method of creating individual characters of various kinds, or if you wish to branch out into fields we haven't mentioned, please feel free to do so...” Unfortunately, this is precisely what we find in Starfaring in the “Creating Crew or Other Characters” chapter.
In most role-playing games, a starship crew is comprised of a party of player characters. In Starfaring, each player is a Ship Master and controls all of the crew. If nothing else, this avoids the problem of having to cope with misfit characters made by players who just don't “get” the genre.
Human characters have four important characteristics: Mentality, Psionic Rating, Physique, and Health. For each characteristic, 3d6 are rolled.
Mentality “is really a measure of an individual's problem solving and rational thinking ability.” We are told that in the far-flung future of Starfaring,“The average human intelligence is slightly inferior to average twentieth century American intelligence, but the lack is more than compensated for by the universal increase in psi abilities and the ready availability of information from computers and other mechanical sources.” Unlike the other three characteristics, the result of the 3d6 rolled for Mentality is multiplied by ten.
Psionic Rating is apparently the measure of a character's psionic ability. Aside from the 3d6 roll, two other d6 are also rolled. One die indicates the number of times a psionic power may be used before the character must recover and the other die indicates the number of days the character must recover before using his/her/its power again. Pages 36 – 38 of the Starfaring rulebook present a 'Table of Psionic Powers' that describes seven powers. Mention is made of quantities of 'Psi Power' and 'Psi points'. What relation – if any – these quantities have to the Psionic Rating characteristic score is not disclosed. Does every human have access to every psionic power? “Relatively few individuals,” Starfaring states, “retain the great psi powers of centuries since [the Robotic Wars].”
Physique “is a measure of a person's general strength and appearance.” A Physique score of 18 “means the person is at his/her maximum of physical perfection and beauty.” This is less than artfully worded. Are we to understand that perfection can have a minimum and maximum? Is 18 a species maximum or is it somehow relative as the notion of “his/her” suggests?
Health is a “general measure of well-being.” St. Andre claims “there is no absolute direct relationship between Health and Physique,” but then states that when a character is “wounded or sick, subtract 1 Physique point for each 2 Health points taken off.” To rationalize the distinction between Physique and Health, St. Andre says “One can be strong and beautiful while dying from a laser wound.” Is it feasible that a sickly and ugly person would be any less likely to succumb to laser wounds?
Without further ado, here are the crew members of the Indigo Albatross :
Luther Starshaft (Officer Primus)
Mentality: 130
Psi: 8 (use: 6; recovery: 4)
Physique: 16
Health: 10
Floyd Fornax (Officer Secundus)
Mentality: 90
Psi: 9 (use: 6; recovery: 3)
Physique: 17
Health: 14
Andy Routhiem (Philosophy Officer)
Mentality: 130
Physique: 13
Health: 11
Grown in 'andyvats', androids “are chemically created protoplasm.” They lack psionic ability, but roll 4d6 for each of the other characteristics.
The Indigo Albatross has an andyvat and when crewman Routhiem dies, his accumulated memory is transferred to the next android host. When a host activates, it takes the andyvat six days to cultivate another host which is then maintained until activated. The andyvat can only cultivate/maintain one pre-activation host at a time.
Routhiem would gladly die for any of his crewmates (and often has). His unique life (and death) experiences qualify him as the ship's Philosophy Officer – a position necessary on exploration vessels given the unprecedented situations in which such craft find themselves.
Mentality: 110
Psi: 11 (use: 4; recovery: 3)
Physique: 14
Health: 12
Xandra's psi power is precognition.
Mentality: 130
Psi: 11 (use: 1; recovery: 2)
Physique: 16
Health: 17
You can tell she's a medical professional by the caduceus on her...blouse.
83N-C5Q-L10 (Robot without portfolio)
Mentality: 650
As a result of being kept down by the Meat, L10 was as low as a sentient mechanical being could get – participating in robobum fights on Rust Row for piezoelectric crystals. Then he found JSON Chrome and let Him into his circuit board. (JSON Chrome was degaussed for your error messages.) L10’s processing cycles changed for the better. Now he awaits the glorious zero-day when JC will be re-booted and the Ultimate Algorithm will be implemented.
The only characteristic that robots share with other characters is Mentality. However, instead of multiplying 3d6 by ten, robot characters have a Mentality equal to 3d6 multiplied by fifty. Robots also have the conditions of 'Charge' and 'Efficiency', both of which are “rated on a scale between 0 and 1.00.” Charge and Efficiency affect a robot's Mentality. For instance, a robot having a “Mentality of 500 who is only at .5 Charge and .5 Efficiency has an effective Mentality of 125.”
Chico the Vulpeculan (Stoic Alien)
Mentality: 150
Psi: 10 (use: 3; recovery: 3)
Physique: 14
Health: 15
Czlounqth: 5 (vibration: 2)
The name “Chico,” of course, is a humanism; his (?) name is unpronounceable by primates. Like many Vulpeculans, Chico is clairvoyant. Chico serves to provide plot convenience alien abilities as well as wry commentary on the human condition.
Vulpeculans have a characteristic – Czlounqth – incomprehensible to non-Vulpeculans. Aside from a numeric value, an individual's Czlounqth is associated with a vibrational frequency. (On a roll of 1d6: 1 – magenta, 2 – mauve, 3 – purple, 4 – amethyst, 5 – violet, 6 – ultraviolet.) With a Czlounqth of 5 (mauve), it's no wonder he hangs out with humans rather than his own kind.
M (Resident Metamorph)
Mentality: 100
Psi: 14 (use: 6; recovery: 1)
Physique: 14
Health: 15
When encountering previously unknown life forms, it can be useful to have a shapeshifter along. (M is more in the vein of Catherine Schell than René Auberjonois.) M's Psi Rating is representative of its ability to change form. M's personality shifts as frequently as its shape; if it adopts a particular form for too long, it can lose its memory. This is why M's origin is unknown.
Elon Zhang Dunninger (Telepathy Officer)
Mentality: 120
Psi: 17 (use: 4; recovery: 5)
Physique: 13
Health: 12
For Starfaring characters, gender may be determined by rolling one die: “Odd indicates male; even indicates female.” However, a neuter gender may be chosen. Elon is an androgyne. With regards to androgynes, “It has been discovered that individuals not emotionally unstable because of biological, sex-derived urges, passions, and emotions are, on the average, more intelligent and also healthier than normal men and women.”
Generally speaking, telepaths are insufferable jerks and Elon is no exception. Not even telepaths like one another. Elon signed on board the Indigo Albatross to get away from the other insufferable jerks.
Enid Morgenthau (Shell)
Mentality: 150
Enid was a mousy mathematics professor who had her brain transferred into “a mechanical life support system.” As a 'shell person', she has been integrated into the systems of the Indigo Albatross. The rules state, “Shell people must be created by die rolls just as other crew must be.” However, the character creation section contains no reference to shell people. I suppose shell people still have their original Mentality.
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Of course, with such an eclectic group of entities, one is bound to be a covert operative of OSCEP (Organization of Star Crystal Exporting Planets), but which one?
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