Better a Rat in the Drift... - Star Master Log: Assembling the Crew

This Star Master’s Log was originally a Patreon exclusive! To get these logs two weeks early, bonus world-building posts, and behind-the-scenes secrets, join the inner circle at: patreon.com/DarkStarAdventurecast

In this special bonus series, Star Master Jeff takes you behind the scenes of the campaign’s first episode, A Rat in the Drift, offering an inside look at his creative process and how the story is unfolding.

In this first debrief, Jeff discusses:

• The introductions of the main characters and their shadowy employer, OmniTech Holdings

• The mysterious role of Dr. Elara Voss

• How improvisation shaped key moments, including the creation of the Neon Fangs gang

• The surprising chaos brought by Robert Ross and how it helped set the campaign’s tone

• The overarching story arc involving alien artifacts and a strange signal that ties everything together

• His philosophy on collaborative storytelling and letting character choices guide the plot

New Star Master's Logs drop every other Tuesday, bridging the gap between our main adventure episodes.

• Show Transcript

  Description text goes here[00:00:00] Hey everyone, it's Star Master Jeff here. Back with my special bonus series where I talk about how I planned the campaign available exclusively only for our Patreon listeners. In this debrief, I'm pulling back the curtain on how I approached episode one, A Rat in the Drift, what I planned, what surprised me, and how it all connects to the bigger picture.

  If you're into GM ing world building, or you're just interested in how the sausage gets made, this one is for you. My goals, were very humble for this episode. As a star master, introduce the characters, introduce the corporation that hired them on the tech holdings. Mention the mysterious Dr. Elvas, and set the PCs on a path to get their ship.

  Pick up El Lavas from Afia. Head off to investigate the mysterious signal. Whenever I'm [00:01:00] writing an episode, I try to think of what my core themes are for the episode. Oftentimes, I'm trying to get like a message across, and sometimes that message is across many different episodes. But in this particular case, I wanted to set the tone and themes for the campaign as a whole.

  I wanted to get across that the universe is. Dangerous. It's lived in and it's chaotic, but it can also be fun. It's not a sector or universe that's like our own. It has a lot of ties to our universe, but things are just a little bit more interesting, a little bit weirder, and characters can be a little bit larger than life.

  So I wanted to set that early on so that it's not a surprise later when the zaniness truly comes out. We actually did see quite a bit of zany this, this episode though, uh, especially with Robert Ross. It actually really surprised me because, I mean, I know Robert Ross' backstory and [00:02:00] once you hear his focus episode, a lot of things are gonna come into focus for you.

  But Bob Ross with his Afro Robert Ross, with his Afro rubbing it all over the walls and the floor to get it all greased up to try to create a mohawk to make himself look like a neon fang. Because he assumed they would all have Mohawks because the Drift frats had interesting hairstyles, was completely outta left field.

  And I think that all the other characters distancing themselves a bit made perfect sense because many of them are meeting him for the first time and this is not the last time he's going to act crazy and no, no, no. He is a wild card. He is definitely chaos incarnate in a lot of different ways. So that was very surprising.

  I didn't know that sort of thing was gonna come out and when it did come out, it came out of nowhere. So, um, you know, we've recorded quite a few episodes after this as well, and things continue to get crazier and crazier with Robert Ross. So tune in for that. I think the main thing that surprised me [00:03:00] about this episode is how they treated the drift rats.

  I thought that they were gonna get up to the drift rat territory and they were gonna meet box and maybe meet the leader of the drift rats, and then they would back off congregate and say to themselves, okay, we have weapons. We have skills. Let's treat this like a heist. Let's go in there. Let's get our ship.

  We have the access card to get in, so let's go and get in. Maybe we can get in and fly away before they even know what hit them. Or maybe we go in guns blazing. Maybe we wait till it's nighttime and we sneak in and they're all sleeping. Maybe we tricked them into coming out, anything like that. But it became increasingly obvious through my conversation with them that that was not gonna happen.

  So I threw them another plot hook, completely improvising. We need you to go pull a prank on another gang nearby, uh, a gang by the name of Neon Fangs. And their logo was almost identical to ours. It's a wrap, but it has fangs instead. Pulling all of that outta my butt. [00:04:00] Improvising is part of the game when it comes to stars without numbers.

  So I buckled up and they headed off towards the neon fang's territory when I was conceiving of the neon fangs. Uh, there's actually a little spot there where they are role playing and I am frantically writing a few notes down about who the neon fangs are. I very quickly realized that I didn't want two rough and tumble gangs that were extremely childlike, that would want to play pranks on each other.

  I decided that one gang had to be the adult in their relationship. And since the drift rats are the children, the neon fangs are the adults. So when the group arrives at the neon fangs territory, they are put together. They are organized, they have an economy, they have businesses, they have a billiards hall.

  The neon fangs themselves have really organized as a type of police force to keep the, the dangerous drift rats and, and other. Gang members out and protect their own citizens. They even invite the characters to come and join their [00:05:00] collective. They truly ended up being a community of Paladins. In a lot of ways.

  They're just wholesome and protective, and they want to make the station safe for everyone. So of course that puts a little bit of a, a moral problem on them pulling a prank, which of course Felix thinks they're only humans and it's just a prank, who cares? But I think some of the other characters are starting to feel a little bit like maybe they allied with the wrong gang, but at the end of the day, the drift rats have their ship, so they press forward, but not before making a friend in Roger.

  So in episode two, of course, they're gonna go to Rogers Billiards Hall, all of that from receiving their orders to prank the neon fangs all the way up to the end of episode one was improv. A couple of interesting things to note about episode one is that although we're very comfortable with each other, we're all a bit shy on the microphone in episode one, and at the time [00:06:00] of this recording, we have several episodes that are gonna be releasing every other week.

  As you go through these further episodes, you'll hear us get more and more comfortable. We get looser and uh, we just allow our personalities to shine through a lot more. And it's also really fun to learn about the characters and the characters' personalities through that process as well. So I'm really excited to go on that journey with you.

  So this episode has a few connections to the big story arc. It's not just about introducing the characters and Omnitech, it's also about connecting to a few of the larger pieces of the story that are gonna come into play later. So, of course, mentioning Omnitech, very big player in this campaign. It's the entity behind hiring the group to explore this mysterious signal.

  Dr. Larvas, Zina Linguist is another name that you're gonna wanna watch out for, especially as they get closer to picking her up on Wolffia. And then the mention of Alien artifacts. Uh, I touched on this briefly in the campaign overview, which you can go to our Patreon and go back in the [00:07:00] posts and listen to that podcast episode.

  So the alien artifacts, the alien signal that they are exploring the fact that Dr. Larvas is a xeno linguist. Are all connected in the broader campaign and throughout the season, we're gonna start learning about the alien artifacts, the alien civilization that was here before humans got to the sector and much, much more.

  One thing I'd like to say is that I'm especially proud of the box voice box is that character that meets the PCs. Uh, he works for the drift rats. He's manning the wall, refusing the mentor entry. Yeah, it kind of sounds like this. I had so much fun doing that voice. It came out of nowhere and it ended up being just this perfect mix of annoying and punchable and it's really become sort of a meme with my friends and I to do that voice, especially the line where it's like.

  Glad I thought of it. So we'll say anything and someone else will try to like take the credit by saying, I'm glad I thought of it. That has permeated my real life in a very [00:08:00] real way that I cannot escape. And in a lot of ways I do wish I'd kind of saved that voice for a more major NBC. So insiders, I guess what I'm saying is listen for that voice.

  'cause I am going to reuse it one day because it's too good. To let it sit there and die on Kari four a space station the characters may never go back to. So that's it for this star Masters log. Thanks for listening in, and thanks so, so much for being a patron of our tiny little adventure cast. From the bottom of all of our space firing fuel deprived hearts.

  We truly, truly appreciate you. Love you all. Bye for now.