Buy | Submit | TRMGS1 | TRMGS2 | TRMGS3 | TRMGS4 |TRMGS Main | Heliograph Main

WHAT'S NEW? The Complete Canal Priests Of Mars is now available! The original publication of Canal Priests Of Mars cut slightly over a third of author Marcus L. Rowland's manuscript to fit GDW's adventure format. The Complete Canal Priests Of Mars restores the cut material, features all new artwork by Paul Daly, and adds many useful player handouts. Enjoy the "author's cut" of a classic Space 1889 adventure, or experience it for the first time! See our Buy It! page for more information! Old news is still available on the News Page.

Integrating Space: 1889 and Sky Galleons of Mars

by Mark Clark

As a simple, fast paced game, Sky Galleons of Mars can be easily integrated into a Space: 1889 roleplaying session. My players enjoy handling their own aerial flyer in combat rather than being subject to my arbitrary rulings as a referee, and after a few games they started to design their own ships, making my job easier. This article is intended to bridge the gap between the two games, allowing the use of player characters in Sky Galleons without slowing things down by using the detailed rules of the roleplaying game to resolve combat. The following rules have been playtested by our gaming group, and they seem to work fairly well, allowing the heroic stature of the player characters to show through.

Crew Quality

If a player character is filling a crew position, rate his or her handling of that position according to the following table:

1889 Skill	Game Rating
0 or 1	Green (-1)
2 or 3	Trained (0)
4 or 5	Crack (+1)
6 or 7	Legendary (+2)

Note: the rating of "Legendary" is not included in the standard Sky Galleons rules; it is included here to reflect the superior performance of highly skilled individuals. When using this rule, remember that a die roll of "1" is always a failure.

The relevant Space: 1889 skill for each crew position is given below:

Captain: Leadership

Engineer: Steam

Trimsman: Trimsman

Officer: Leadership

Signalman: Observation

Gunner: Gunnery

Helm: Aerial Flyer or Cloudship

*Captain must have a Piloting skill of at least "1" for the type of ship being commanded.

The to-hit roll for each gun is found by using the gunnery skill of the most skilled gunner crewing it. If no member of the gun crew has gunnery skill, rate of fire is half normal and to hit modifier is -2.

Small Arms Fire

Player characters with a Rifle skill of at least "1" who are not serving in another crew position may participate in small arms fire. Roll one die per character and apply the modifiers given above under crew quality, based on the character's rifle marksmanship skill. Note: resist the temptation to use the Space: 1889 combat rules (which would allow the characters to target specific individuals) as it seriously unbalances the game.

Boarding

Treat player characters with a close combat skill of at least "1" as officers for boarding actions.

Damage

Crew hits that affect a player character are resolved depending on the nature of the firing weapon. In all cases, the character takes exactly as many points as are necessary to render him or her unconscious, plus an additional number of points according to the list below.

Weapon	Damage (round fractions down)
Small Arms	0
Grape	d6/3
Shrapnel	d6/3
Gun (P)*	d6/3
Gun	(DV) x (d6)/6
Other**	d6

*Gun with a penetration of P

**Tether Mine, Torpedo, Magazine Explosion, Liquid Fire, etc.

Initiative (optional)

When determining initiative, use the quality of the ship's captains to modify the initiative die roll. For a group of ships, use the initiative of the best captain if all the signalmen in the group are still alive; if any are dead use the initiative of the worst captain.

Posted Monday, 04-May-2009 19:49:06 EDT