Starsailor: Port Reports and Domain Play

 Port Reports

Starsailor is a game based on exploration. The player characters spend much of their time hopping from one planet to the next, detouring at strange locales throughout the galaxy. Each location in Starsailor is modeled as a Port, and each Port is described in a standard format. Starsailors are encouraged to write their own Port Report for each location they visit. They can be useful for keeping track of previously-visited locations, planning trade routes and mapping resources, and discovering new adventure opportunities. Player-created Port Reports can also be sold or bartered to interested buyers.

When the Referee creates a new location, they can decide the Port’s attributes themselves, or roll randomly. Roll 2d4 for a normal Port, 1d6 for a crappy one, 1d10 for a really weird one.

Port Reports include the following information:

Basic Information: Port’s name, size, and how to get there. 

Trade: Imports, exports, and any other information relevant to conducting business in the area.

Identity (ranked on a scale from 0-10): How strongly the community identifies as a group with a shared culture. At 0, society is completely atomized, and the Port either splits up into multiple smaller communities, or factional conflicts devolve into widespread violence. At 10, the Port is a cultural bastion.

Prosperity (0-10): Whether the community is economically stable. A score of 0 represents a declining community in abject poverty, or one with truly horrific economic class divisions enforced through violence. A score of 10 represents a Port where every member of the community is able to get by comfortably without worrying about money. 

Safety (0-10): Whether it’s physically safe to be here. 0 means that just setting foot in this Port will probably result in grievous bodily harm. 10 represents a Port totally protected from unsafe conditions and outside threats, where even the smallest injuries are fixed immediately.

Governance (0-10): How well any local governing bodies respond to the Port’s requirements. 0 represents a dystopian Port where the government is actively working to undermine the community’s interests; 10 represents a perfect government that fulfills the community’s every need and never causes any problems (yeah, right). Ports governed by absolutely no-one do not have a Governance score. 

Legitimacy (0-10): Whether the government regarded as representative of the community's people. Some Ports that lack Governance will also lack Legitimacy. At 0, the governing bodies are absolutely despised and likely to be overthrown soon. At 10, local governing leaders are widely considered the absolute best form of leadership the community could possibly have.

Sustainability (0-10): Whether the community's usage of resources is sustainable in the long run, and whether support infrastructure is properly available for the residents. 0 means the Port will collapse due to nonexistent infrastructure and shortages of basic goods; 10 means that the Port could sustain itself at its current level of development- or even expand- indefinitely using the resources currently available.

Volatility (1-10): The overall measure of instability and rapid change in a Port. The world of Starsailor uses a standard calendar where each year consists of 10 ‘cycles’, roughly equivalent to a ‘month’ in contemporary terms. The Volatility score represents how many Port Events occur in a year, from one per year to a maximum of one per month.

Esotericism (1-10): How deeply the Port is affected by various aspects of the Weird, from local cults to anomalies in the fabric of the universe. This stat is mainly relevant when determining what kind of Port Events the Port will experience. No place in the world of Starsailor is completely untouched by the Weird. 

Misc.: Anything else the players feel like including in a Port Report, such as hand-drawn maps, lists of the best local restaurants, descriptions of the flora and fauna, etc.

Collecting a Port Report

Gathering information on a Port can consist of anything from a cursory glance around the main marketplace to an in-depth sociological study. A party of starsailors automatically learns a Port’s Basic Information upon arriving there (unless something truly weird is going on), and learns about its Trade characteristics upon doing business there or asking somebody in the know. The Misc. information is up to the players’ discretion. For the remaining attributes, starsailors can either learn about a Port as they attend to other business or seek out specific information.

Attending to business in a Port- adventuring, conducting trade, carousing, and generally spending time there- allows a party of Starsailors to learn the numerical value (and why it is valued that way) of one attribute through the course of their business, rolled randomly:

1. Identity

2. Prosperity

3. Safety

4. Governance

5. Legitimacy

6. Sustainability

7. Volatility

8. Esotericism

9. Prediction of the next Port Event

10. Some useful piece of local information classified as Misc.

Alternatively, a party may spend a period of downtime to specify one attribute and a method of investigation; as long as their methods are reasonable, they can automatically learn all about the chosen attribute.

Some Ports may be home to efforts to deceive the party’s investigations! For example, a government widely hated by the Port’s people may make an effort to ensure visitors interact only with agents spreading propaganda about how much the community loves its Glorious Dictator. In such cases, players should be given hints that they are not seeing the true situation. If they recognize such deceptions for what they are, they will learn correct information. Otherwise, they will learn false information about an attribute, but can later gather correct information by seeking out information on that same attribute again.

Selling Port Reports (and buying)

When selling Port Reports, starsailors will need to find a buyer and negotiate a price. More complete Port Reports are always more valuable, and those from harder-to-access Ports are the most valuable of all! Starsailors can make infinite copies of a Port Report, but are advised not to sell the same report to many buyers- their contracts often include exclusivity clauses. Starsailors may also choose to withhold or even falsify certain information when selling a Port report, but if their buyer discovers the deception, there could be consequences. Port Reports are often bartered- here are 10 forms of payment a scouting party might receive other than a chunk of money:

1. A small cut of all the buyer’s profits in that Port

2. Free transportation, spaceship repair, and lodging at the Port in the buyer’s facilities

3. Membership in a secret society

4. An expedition team provided by the buyer to assist with adventuring expeditions surrounding the Port

5. A mysterious and little-understood artifact

6. An equally valuable Port Report about another Port

7. A favor of pre-determined value, to be called in whenever needed

8. A commission as privateers

9. Instructions for the performance of a long-lost eldritch ritual

10. A total purging of the party’s criminal records

Port Events and Changing Scores

Every so often (according to the port’s Volatility), the Port undergoes a Port Event (which can be harmful or beneficial). This can change the score of various attributes, create new adventure opportunities, and more. Knowing about a Port Event allows the party to revise their Port Report. Significant player actions, non-randomized events occurring at a Port, and other forms of change are also likely to affect the veracity of Port Reports- outdated ones are worth less!

The Referee is advised to write each Port in their game on an index card and keep them all bundled together. When it’s time to roll Port Events, they should be sure to do so for all discovered Ports, not just the ones the players are currently interacting with. This is important because it means Ports will be very different when players return after a long period of time, and Ports where players do spend a lot of time will change and develop organically in a way that creates a lot of gameplay opportunities.

Domain Play

So now we understand how Ports work, and how a Port can change. It’s time to get to the really fun part.

Starsailor is a game of exploration, but that doesn’t exclude domain play. Providing the party shared stewardship of a Port (or each party member gets their own port!), then having them make decisions about the Port’s governance as a downtime activity, would be a fantastic campaign structure under the right narrative justification. Here are some simple domain play rules:

• Each of a year’s 10 cycles has an adventuring phase and a downtime phase. Adventuring takes place as normal, but for each cycle in which a Port’s leaders do not return there to spend their downtime governing it, Legitimacy decreases by 1 (remember, revolution will occur at 0!). A PC can also choose to skip the adventuring phase and take two downtime phases instead.

• During downtime, PCs may attempt one improvement and one Port action. 

• During an improvement, PCs place money and time into raising one of the attributes. They must describe how they are using their resources and time to combat problems or improve conditions for their community.

• The Referee assesses their plan, mentally considers counterarguments and forces that will operate to protect the status quo, and decides how effective this is at addressing the issue in question. They then roll a d10, modified by +1 for each convincing argument for why this course of action will be effective, and modified by -1 for each compelling reason why the plan won’t work.

• If the roll is above the attribute in question, the PCs' effort is successful. The attribute is raised by one, and the GM makes an explicit note of the method that the PCs have used to shape the community, to ensure that its effects continue to be remembered (and leveraged) as play continues.

• If the roll is equal to or under the attribute in question, then the PCs have failed to improve conditions. The attribute remains unchanged, but the GM should keep a tally of failed improvements; each one counts as a +1 to the next roll to increase that attribute (to a maximum roll of 10). Long-term campaigns may not succeed at first, but they continue to build the foundation for subsequent success.

• After an attribute has been increased successfully, the Referee determines another attribute to be tested against, and rolls d10 against it. (The attribute is either determined randomly, or emerges naturally from the nature of the improvement.) If the Referee rolls under, it decreases by 1, to a minimum of the lowest stat present (if the two lowest stats are both 5s, one cannot lower to a 4 through this method). Decreases represent additional challenges that have begun facing the community; the Referee should generate new adventure hooks from these.

• Some big improvements will take longer than a single cycle

• A downtime action can be one of many Port-based activities that aren’t covered under the scope of adventuring or improving the Port. What the PCs can do depends on exactly what kind of power they hold as leaders. Here are just a few options:

• Create a law or tax

• Diplomatically interact with another Port

• Host a local festival or cultural event

• Conduct an intrigue

• Ply a trade or pursue a hobby

• Train in a new skill

• Make friends, patch things up with enemies, woo a lover, or otherwise socialize

• Build or improve a new structure

• Establish a new Import (by creating demand) or Export (by establishing a supply)

• Muster soldiers, expedition teams, or rogues

• Create new scientific/technology research programs

Design Notes

• Compared to Legacy of the Bieth’s system, rolling a d10 +/- modifications to establish whether improvements succeed is a lot simpler and swingier than rolling a variable amount of d6s based on the strength of the players’ arguments. This aligns with the volatile, ever-changing sci-fi world of Starsailor, where shifts in a Port’s attributes happen more quickly and dramatically than in a low-fantasy pseudo-medieval setting.  

• Port Reports and domain play are totally decoupled from XP. Although class-based XP leveling does exist in Starsailor, it’s presented as just one character option- character advancement is just as likely to occur via diegetic improvements or encounters with the Weird.

• I was obviously very influenced by the Port Report system in Sunless Sea, an exploration-based literary RPG (and one of my favorite video games ever). The core gameplay loop in the early game consists of sailing to a new island, collecting a Port Report, and selling it to one of the factions back in London, the PC’s home base. Reports from islands further away from London are more valuable. Payment is rendered in the form of money, fuel and supplies, which are needed to keep the player’s ship afloat but can be expensive. Since early-game Sunless Sea is very difficult, players would otherwise be incentivized not to stray far from London (and, thus, avoid most of the game); Port Reports neatly solve the issue by forcing players to weigh the relative benefits of staying in home waters, where it’s hard to turn a profit, or venturing out into the lucrative, dangerous unknown.

Further Reading

• The random generators in the Mothership module A Pound of Flesh are fantastic for creating space station locations, which can be reworked into terrestrial Ports with a little extra effort as well.

• As mentioned, the game Sunless Sea (and, to a lesser extent, its sequel Sunless Skies, which muddles the core gameplay loop by being way less granular about resources and generally easier) provided the basis of my Port Report system. I highly recommend both games for their excellent synthesis of New Weird storytelling and RPG/exploration mechanics.

• Legacy of the Bieth provided the framework for improving Ports.

• Phlox’s yet-unpublished domain play rules filled in the rest of the gaps.

I’ll soon continue this line of thought in another post. Here’s what I’m currently planning to include- drop me a line if there’s anything else you’d like to see.

• Example Ports

• A more granular subsystem which confers certain domain-level benefits to Ports with highly-scored attributes, and drawbacks for low ones

• Random Port events, which are modified by Esotericism

• A Port generation toolkit

• Some semblance of an overall economy, including resource costs for improvements

• Rules for really big improvements which take more than one cycle

I haven’t forgotten about Buckets of Blood, so expect a post about that soon, too.