Hey Teeg

Hey Teeg

My best friend and housemate has been a long time gaming partner of mine. We've played dozens of systems and made hundred of hours of fond memories between us. I'm a DM he's a DM and we're both very up and up on how rules/story/party dynamics work.
Recently, my friend was diagnosed with Stage 3 Tesitcular Cancer. Needless to say, we're all kinda devastated. He's had to move back with his mother, so as to stay in a most sterile environment thanks to the Chemo, but he doesn't have much to do besides play PlayStation and shitpost on Veeky Forums. Obviously, he's not doing so great, since Chemo and Surgery has him so weak he can barely walk around.

I've taken it on myself to organize a 1-on-1 Campaign for him for the days that I'm there to visit with him. My goal is to Wow him, to let him play the game he's always wanted to play, and give him the opportunity to do whatever he pleases.
He selected Starfinder as the system he'd like to play, and I've chosen a meta-plot to loosely follow, but I know that just one man's brain is limited in its creative capacity. Thusly, I'm reaching out to you, my fellow fa/tg/uys for any insight, advice, or ideas you might have to help me make this the best adventure my friend has ever had.

> Tl'Dr my Friend has Cancer, Help me make my 1-on-1 Camp JAWsome.

Thanks for your Time,
Dorude.

Let him drive the story. Focus on giving him great characters to interact with and let his desires lead the way. If he's the kind of player who likes more direction, then give him a story about being a Big Damn Hero, something positive with lots of successes to help him be positive in his life.

>Starfinder

No wonder he has cancer.

Thank you, Bro. If you'll allow, I'll drop the Plot I've given thus far:

The Character's father is an extremely rich and successful businessman who made his fortune nearly 40 Years ago by funding a discovery expo that uncovered lost alien tech which in turn led to advances in medical technology. Now that his Character has come of age, his father has decided to give his son/daughter a wonderous birthday gift by issuing him a private stipend and a state-of-the-art spacecraft on a 3 Year lease from the company. He can do whatever he wants, but there is strong pressure from his father and the company to follow in his dad's footsteps and explore uncharted areas of space, seeking fortunes and glory.

Time travel. Nothing's more impressive than properly done time travel.

If you can somehow carefully craft a scenario where all the initially opened time loops are closed by the end, you'll look like a goddamn god of GMing, especially if the player doesn't realize that he's been closing them until halfway through.

The trick is to set up a bunch of weird shit at first, and then carefully - very carefully - subtly arrange things so that the player, using the appropriate time shenanigans, sets them off in the future.

Your request is rather broad, and I'd ask you to give me some details to latch onto, but I don't know Starfinder at all, so I probably wouldn't be of much help in any case. Good luck though.

>No wonder he has cancer.

He hasn't ever played it before, By your shitpost, neither have you and wanted to try it out. He's a huge fan of Space Fantasy.

Thanks. I'll take it into consideration. He's a fan of Time Travel fiction as well. Do you have any good literature you could recommend that might help me draw some inspiration from?

Thanks for the Well Wishing, sorry my Post was so broad. I am not here to bore anybody with details, I just figured any tiny bit of aid/reference anyone could provide would be helpful.

Oh god, it's metastasizing. ABANDON THREAD.

Quality Post, Tovarish.
Happy to respond to trolls when they help bump my thread.

>Stage 3 Tesitcular Cancer
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
>inb4 some comment about me not having testicles

Both Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (the new TV series) and the film Timecrimes (Los cronocrímenes) do a really good job with the concept, and will give you lots of tools to work with.

Remember, with time travel stories, there are no coincidences. If your player chooses to see something as an intentional effect of a future or past decision, run with it.

Example. In session 2, you described the lights flickering. In session 5, the player is having a fight in the basement to protect his past-self upstairs.. You describe the bad guy's sword cutting through cables.

"My god!" your player exclaims. "That was why the lights flickered! You're a genius!"
And you just smile and nod. You didn't plan that - how could you - but it all worked out.

Also, ask the player for a recap each session, and try to focus on the things they clearly remember.

>Trials in Tainted Space

Thanks M8, I'll look it up. That sounds pretty easy to fuck up, but very rewarding to get right. I like the classic misdirection.

With less tentacles and goo-girls, but basically. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

>With less tentacles and goo-girls
fewer

I've had very little sleep, My apologies.
[Spoiler]Less, as in they're simply smaller, since he's into that[/spoiler]

cringe

/b/ must be having a slow night.
However cringe-y it at least bumps the thread.

Nu-Veeky Forums is kinda just like this now. I'm a big fan of your intent, sound like you two are good bros and you doing a 1 on 1 with him while he's ill is awesome, wish I had a friend like that.

As for helping you further:
This is a fine way to start things, but he needs people to interact with. How about a crew on the ship, pilot and scienceman and bodyguard, all this sorta thing. Definitely give him one or two NPCs to interact with.

I appreciate your kind words, everybody needs a bro out there.
As for NPC's I've actually got plans for the first couple session to involve him choosing a crew from available candidates. I'm trying to have 2 or 3 Sparsely statted NPC's as an option for each major role aboard the ship. Once he picks them for certain I'll stat them out completely but for now it's sort of a "Name, Apperance, Background, Personality, Role" sort of thing.

That's cool. What are you thinking for the NPCs? Give him a selection of like 5 guys or something to pick from, maybe he needs 2 of them (pilot, science guy?)?

It's a Larger vessel, capable of carrying quite a bit of shit. I think the roles I'm gonna make him pick for are:
Pilot.
Co-pilot/Drift Navigator.
Chief Engineer.
Chief Medical Officer.
Chief Science Officer.
Chief of Security.
Ship's Cook. (he's a Chef IRL)

What other roles seem Critcal on an Exploration vessel?

Pilot, navigator, Engineer, Medical, Science, Security, Operations (which would cover the cook), maybe a Counselor if its that kind of space opera, but that's about it.

Sounds good. I was going to give him 2 to 3 Potential candidates for each slot. Some of them that tie into each other's stories, all with diverse backgrounds etc etc.

That could be a lot to take in all at once. Maybe simplify it a little, give him choices about a few key guys like the pilot and the chief of operations, but on some the crew comes with the ship.