The Accommodating GM and the Weird Sunday

"Do I give you guys too little treasure?"
Shrugs

Player 1: "Why don't we just fast forward through this section of space?"
Me: "You have plans I should be aware of?"
Player: "It'd just be a bunch of random encounters."
Me: "And possibly the resources, contacts, or other means to accomplish your goal (of paying off a 250,000 debt) once you reach Guild Space.
Player: "OK, good point."

Me: "You have to make  a decision where you are going to go.  The less populated area, the more populated area, or out into the wilds with damaging terrain."
Player: "Why not go through the most populated area?  What could go wrong?"
Player 2: "We would be noticed and if we got into a fight, we'd likely be destroyed [] their ships are twice as big as ours (and would do massive damage if they hit)."
Player 3: "Why don't you want to go through the less populated space?"
Player 1: "We'll meet bad guys there and they'll attack us.  Why do we think that the more populated area is less safe?'
Players 2 & 3: "There ships are bigger, there are more of them, and they have more sensors operating in that area.  We may face a few outcasts in the less populated area, but we will definitely face more if we go into the more populated space."
And on it went in contrary-land for a while.

Travelling through the less populated space, they detect a habitable planet almost perfectly textbook perfect.  Player number 1's other character receives a vision of a dragon who invites the party to meet and discuss the planet.  The dragon is described as a higher-reality creature who is projecting its presence into normal space.  It wants the party to send humans to populate its planet.  In exchange, it will give them their pick of treasure.  Player 3's PC finds a piece that will more than cover the 250,000 debt.  The other four PCs (between Players 1 & 2) will choose their loot next week.

Next bit of post-game conversation is about other players at the store I am known not to get on well with.  Feels like a bit of a wind-up.

Weird.

June 5th '16: Thursday and Sunday Gaming Updates

After a fun, highly abstract (card-based) game of W40k on Saturday night, Sunday's Encounter Critical UWoM game was fun of a different sort.

The PCs, having found that independent aimlessness wasn't as fun as they thought it could be, have found structure and drive in acting as a space exploration team for an Imperial-era AI.  Additionally, they are representatives of the Greater Yirinn Sphere / Dryvv, expanding both groups' influence as they travel.

A lot of the things that had happened in the (year?) of gaming had been undone, and now are being re-introduced to their current timeline.  The massive war against the Q'Lish and the loose federation of species that couldn't happen in the Humanosphere and Species Empires section of the former galaxy was possible in the galactic offshoot (cloud, etc.) -- but that all collapsed as that timeline was undone from the PCs' perspective when a critical character disappeared from time.

Now, the same group, and the replacement PC (and new addition), are finding that probabilities are clustering around the same lines and similar events are occurring, as well as 'memories' of the other timeline returning to them.

Presently, they are on a planet most of them had previously visited once or twice before, where the Imperial descendants were in a global prison state run by a minority of Hierophantic Church, Psionic College, and Imperial Nobles, suppressing a population of psionics.  I'll skip the previous encounters with these people, but, let's just say that it isn't a happy place.  Additionally, the planet itself is less than hospitable, but livable.

Psionic technology and Tauron the quasi-40k, Haelbean-Other Human character is playing a major role, while I'm trying to keep the other characters engaged.  I think magic will have a few things to add to the mix, but my main concern is integrating Sam Crow (former Guild Combine assassin) into the higher powered storyline.  Sam has pretty neat teleport capabilities, but without combat, he doesn't have a lot of face-time.

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My Thursday night Hangouts game is continuing to draw thew PCs into the exploration of my version of Ben Djarum's Yngarr setting.  The area the PCs are in now is like tribal Afghanistan if set in Iceland and populated by folks from the Beastmaster setting.  I'm taking some inspiration from Talislanta, and HPL's Dreamlands as depicted by Chaosium.