Guided Campaign: Instructions v3.14 · 1 Nov 2026

1. Starting a campaign

• Your Star: Use the Character Generator's Star takes the one open in the Character Generator in this browser; Load a character file opens a name.5150.json save file. It must be a Star. No Star yet? Use the Guided Character Creator.
• Calendar (p.57): choose the starting month and year (the year starts at 5150; change it if you like). If your Star already has months in its campaign log, the calendar carries on from there.
• Home and kit (p.19, 25, 27): your Home Area (a Guided Character Creator Star brings its Home with it), whether you have a vehicle or a spaceship, and whether there's a Warrant out on you. These set your monthly upkeep. If the Ship Sheet has a ship using the 5150: Shipyard rules, choose My Ship Sheet ship to use it (see Shipyard ships).

2. A month, step by step

The bar under the title line shows the five parts of the month; the status line shows the date and how far into your ten-year career you are.

1. Start of the month (p.153): upkeep for your ship (1 per Hull point), vehicle (1) and Band (1 per member), added for you as Decreasing Rep d6.
2. Shopping (optional, p.22–27): buy gear with the same rules as the Gear Shop: what your Lifetime Rep d6 lets you get, its cost (added to the month for you) and whether it's legal where you are. Press Next to skip it.
3. Moving (p.57, 118): stay put, travel to another Area of New Hope City, or travel in space (land again when you're done). For city travel, choose where to, how many Areas you pass through on the City Transit Map (including the one you start in), the Day Part, and City Transit or your own vehicle. The tool rolls for a Travel Encounter and, if there is one, what happened (1d6 minus that Area's Law Level), including whether you're only a witness. A Travel Encounter, or Contact in Space for each Ring travelled, is your Involuntary Encounter that month.
4. Involuntary Encounter (p.75): rolled for you. In space, it's always Contact in Space. Burglarized is worked out completely: were you home (a Raid), and if not, the Burglarized roll against your Home's Law Level.
5. Voluntary Encounter (p.64, 76): choose one, roll one (planet bound or in space), stay Home, or do nothing. With a Shipyard ship you can dock it for a refit instead (see Shipyard ships).
6. End of the month (p.19–20, 153): see below.

3. Playing an Encounter

Each Encounter is walked through step by step, in the book's order, with the page for each step. (Press Skip: I'll play it from the book on its first step if you'd rather do it yourself.)

• Where and when: the Area (where you are, rolled, or chosen), the Day Part and its Law Level, and the building with its PEFs (p.65–68). Defend and a Raid on your Home happen at your Home.
• The Encounter's own rolls: what kind of Confrontation, the reason for a Defend, Robbery or Pickpocket, Lethal or not, who's hiring and what the Job is, and so on.
• Each PEF: press Resolve this PEF and the NPCs' side is rolled for you: How Many of Them (against your Band), Who Are They (made as real NPCs with Rep, People, Savvy, weapon and armour), the Leader, and Have You Met Before? (On an Escort, whether each PEF is an ambush; on a Find, Clues and whether you've found the target.) Then choose: Interact, Fight, Avoid (where the book lets you), and while Chillin', Gamble or Look for work. Someone worth remembering? Leader to Journal adds the group's Leader to the Cast in your Character Journal, with where and when you met.
• Other rules during any Encounter: Hack a computer runs the Net Runner's steps right there, and Enhancement / Psy test runs the Risks tests (Metal Madness, Going Hatter, Psy; "On the edge" and "A bit paranoid" are then charged at the start of each month, and a Menace to Society is written in your Notes), and Cases and Clues opens the Case Tracker's Cases with the place filled in, and Shipyard Broker (from the supplement 5150: Shipyard; finding a seller is a Chillin' Encounter) buys, leases, sells or salvages a ship, paid from your Lifetime Rep d6, and Police and Justice runs the full Police and Justice rules (Questioning with every modifier, the trial with offences and counsel, Escape, Pursuit; jail or prison time is written in your Notes); Add to this Encounter puts its Rep d6 into the Encounter (and a failed hack's Warrant and Confrontation into your campaign). The whole hack goes into the play log.
• Your rolls are yours: when it's your character rolling (Interacting, Challenges, Chance of Robbery…), press Roll for me, or roll your own dice and type them in (e.g. 3 5) and press Use my dice. Change the number of dice for Attributes, Sweet Talk and the like; the things that change a roll are listed with it. The NPCs' rolls are made behind the scenes and shown.
• Fights: walked through on the Battle Board (see Fights below). Space fights (Contact in Space) are played out with the Flying Tables, the same as Guided Ship Combat: your ship from the Ship Sheet or your Star's Vehicles against the ships the rolls turned up, with the damage written back afterwards (p.86–87, 245–247). A boarding can also be played deck by deck in the Boarding Action tool (Known Space): the ships are handed over, and you say who won when you're back. Fights can be in Zero-G or with no air (Known Space p.63–64) when you play them in the Guided Fight.
• Rep d6 add themselves: any result that says "gain 1 Increasing Rep d6" (or Decreasing) is added to the Encounter's tally, shown under each step.
• What comes next: when a result sends you to another Encounter (go to a Confrontation, Police Are Called, an Escort Encounter…), press Add … next and it comes straight after.
• Jobs: a Job Offer works out who's hiring, the Job, its story and pay. Take it and the Job's Encounters are added in order (e.g. Chillin' to find the person, then the Escort), ending with Payday: say whether it succeeded to be paid, then the After the Job roll, which can make next month's Involuntary Encounter a Confrontation.
• At the end, the Encounter's Rep d6 and a note are filled in for your campaign log. Change them if the book gave you anything else. If another Encounter followed from it, you can also choose it under Followed by.

Fights on the Battle Board

When a PEF turns into a fight (or an Encounter is one, like a Robbery, a Bar Fight or the Police), it's played out on the screen in the book's turn sequence (p.44). Prefer your own table and miniatures? Press I'll play it on my own table and just say how it went at the end.

• Setting up: your Star and Band come from your sheet; untick any Band members who aren't there. The opponents are the PEF's NPCs. The board shows both sides, with each figure's Rep, weapon, armour and state (Duck Back, Out of the Fight, Obviously Dead, Left).
• Each turn: the Advantage is rolled (1–3 you); your Leader rolls on the Action table (you roll) against theirs; the side passing more is Active (a tie goes to the Advantage). The Active side acts, both sides take Will to Fight, then the other side acts and Will to Fight again.
• Your figures: when one of yours is Active, choose: Shoot (pick its targets in order, up to its weapon's number), Charge, Reach a friend who's down (so you can carry them off), Leave the Battle Board, or Hold. A figure that Ducked Back just recovers.
• Your dice: every roll for one of your figures (Action, Shooting, Shooting Damage on a hit, Melee, Will to Fight, Recovery) asks you: Roll for me, or type the dice you rolled. The NPCs choose what to do and roll for themselves; it's all in the fight's log.
• The rules it follows: Cover (the Advantage side, night, and everyone once shots are fired); the Shooting table's misses on a pass 1 (Joes, Movers and Shakers; targets in Cover; 2nd and later targets) and Return Fire or Ducking Back; Shooting Damage with armour, Grath, Exotics, Hard as Nails, Resilient and energy weapons; Melee rounds with Rage, melee weapons, Physical Enhancements, doubles and the −1 Rep losses; Will to Fight by Class, with Cowards, Posers and Wussies leaving first, Tough and Born Leader; non-lethal fights (fists only) and bar fights (bottles, chairs and I'm Outta Here; nobody dies).
• Star Power: when your Star is hurt, you choose: roll your Star Power dice (each 1–3 lowers the damage one level and is used up for the Encounter; using any costs 3 Decreasing Rep d6), or take the hit. Free Will: at Will to Fight your Star can lead your side off without rolling.
• Afterwards: the book's Rep d6 are worked out from what happened: +1 Increasing per enemy Out of the Fight or Obviously Dead, −2 for leaving the Battle Board, −3 for Star Power, −3 for each Band member left behind. Roll Recovery (p.50) for each Band member who went down or left (update your Band in the Character Generator). If your Star is Obviously Dead, you can Cheat Death (p.22). Then the Police check.
• Where the book isn't clear, the tool decides: Shooting Damage's "6" is the die itself (before armour); a side of mixed Classes uses its Leader's Class for Will to Fight; and a melee is fought one against one.

4. The end of the month

• Home upkeep (Law Level − 2, using the daytime Law Level) and 1 Decreasing Rep d6 for each Band member you cut loose are added.
• Increasing and Decreasing Rep d6 cancel each other; only the difference is rolled. With Increasing left over, choose to raise Rep, People or Savvy (p.20): any die higher than that score, or any 6, raises it by 1. With Decreasing left over, any 1 lowers your Rep by 1.
• The month goes into your Star's campaign log (the same log the Character Generator shows on page 3), which also keeps your Lifetime Rep d6 and months played.
• The tool warns you if a Band member's Rep is now higher than yours (they leave, p.18). Roll your Band members' own Rep changes in the Character Generator.
• After 120 months (ten years) it's time to retire (p.20).

Shipyard ships

From the supplement 5150: Shipyard, when your ship on the Ship Sheet uses its rules:

• Upkeep (p.14): each month, 1 Decreasing Rep d6 per Hull point, per Risk Conversion and per crew member, +1 for a Military ship, +1 leased, +1 stolen. The crew counted are those on the Ship Sheet who aren't your Star or Band (the Band is paid as the Band).
• Skipping a payment (p.15): at the start of the month, Skip the ship payment keeps your Rep safe but puts out a Warrant on you, and the amount is owed. Pay it back later with Pay what I owe (the Warrant stays until you deal with the law). With a leased ship and payments owed, on a Law Level 1–2 world the leasing company's recovery team may come: a Defend mission, and if you lose, the ship is repossessed.
• Can't pay (p.15): if you pay and still end the month with more Decreasing than Increasing, each 1 rolled lowers your Rep, not just one. If your Rep falls below your ship's Hull, its quality drops to match.
• Ship events (p.14): at the end of the month, add Increasing Rep d6 for a trade run (+1), a high-risk contract (+2), a ship combat victory (+1), capturing a ship (+2), an exploration discovery (+2) or salvage (+1).
• Refits (p.12–13): on a planet, choose Dock for a refit instead of a Voluntary Encounter. Make one change (add or remove a module, Thrust or Firepower ±1, or remove a Risk Conversion), or a Major Refit of up to three at +1 Decreasing Rep d6 each; on a 1d6 roll of 1 it takes another month. The changes are saved to the Ship Sheet.
• Where the book isn't clear the tool makes a "for now" choice (listed for Ed Teixeira): a refit takes the place of the Voluntary Encounter, and only leased ships send recovery teams.

5. Checkpoints, Back and saving

• Every Next > is a checkpoint, kept in this browser. Close the page in the middle of a month and you carry on from the last checkpoint.
• < Back returns to the previous checkpoint, undoing that step (and its rolls). It remembers the last 15 steps.
• Save campaign downloads your last checkpoint as a file (name.guided-campaign.json). If you stop halfway through a step, the file starts that step again. Load campaign carries on from a file, on this or any other computer.
• New campaign starts again from the beginning. The months already finished stay in your Star's campaign log.

6. Working with the Character Generator

• Open in Character Generator opens your Star (with the campaign log filled in) in a new tab, to update Items and your Band, roll your Band's Rep, or print the sheet.
• Changes you make there are picked up here at the start of the next month, as long as it's the same Star.
• Download character file (on the month's summary) saves the Star as name.5150.json.

7. The play log (saving your game as text)

Every time you press Next, the screen you've just finished is written into a play log: the step, every roll and result on it, each Encounter step by step, and every fight in full, turn by turn. It's kept in this browser and goes into your campaign save files too.

• Save log (.txt) downloads it as one plain text file, sorted by month. Upload it or paste it anywhere to turn your session into a blog post or video notes.
• Clear log starts a fresh one; handy at the start of each play session, so each file is one session. Your campaign itself isn't changed.
• < Back takes the screens it undoes out of the log too.