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There's a ton of cool games out there, and sci fi ones are...well, not quite as common or, often, as well known as the big name fantasy ones. Sure, there's Star Wars and 40k games out there, or Eclipse Phase, and they all have their own threads...but there's plenty of cool sci fi games out there, and I believe we should talk more about them! If you think there's something I missed that should be here in the OP, tell me and give me a capsule summary and I'll add it. (Design Ministries) Fragged Empire is a post-post-apocalyptic game about rebuilding at the end of a post-apocalyptic period. There are no humans left in the setting - only the client species made by their extinct creations, the Archons, and other creatures descended from them. The game has robust rules for miniatures combat, both personal and ship-level, as you try and help rebuild society and work with the many species left over after the long war and the long dark age - species from both sides of the war. Recently released the Protagonist Archive, upping the number of PC races to 8 (the capitalist Corporation, the Kaltorans who draw on genetic memories, the warrior Legion, the monstrous Nephilim, the robotic Palantor, the deeply religious Remnant, the spacefaring Twi-Far and the ever-hungry Zhou). Uses a 3d6-based resolution system.  (Khepera Publishing) Hellas is a game about science fiction mythic Greece. The focus is on the coalition of various Greek myth-inspired species (the Hellenes, the Myrmidons, the Nymphas, the Amazorans, the Zintar and so on) against the invading Atlantean menace, long thought defeated. The game is designed to be generational, with PC heroes dying and passing on the torch to friends or relatives over the course of years. PCs are chosen by the gods or destiny to be great and powerful, earning fame and glory and gaining even more power with it as they serve to be the movers and shakers of the galaxy. Uses a d20-based system derived from Talislanta.  (Galileo Games) Bulldogs! is a FATE game, recently released as Fate Core edition. I don't know a ton about it, but... quote:All new! Bulldogs! has been updated to Fate Core, with a more streamlined advancement system, improved gear rules, and faster combat to make your battles in space even more interesting. Check out the new improved Bulldogs! and get on the job!  (Steve Jackson Games) Transhuman Space is a GURPS line that, again, I don't know a ton about and would love to learn more. quote:It's the year 2100. Humans have colonized the solar system. China and America struggle for control of Mars. The Royal Navy patrols the asteroid belt. Nanotechnology has transformed life on Earth forever, and gene-enhanced humans share the world with artificial intelligences and robotic cybershells. Our solar system has become a setting as exciting and alien as any interstellar empire. Pirate spaceships hijacking black holes . . . sentient computers and artificial "bioroids" demanding human rights . . . nanotechnology and mind control . . . Transhuman Space is cutting-edge science fiction adventure that begins where cyberpunk ends.  (Pelgrane Press) Ashen Stars is a GUMSHOE-based game by Robin Laws about being freelance investigators and detectives...in space! It has a ton of neat aliens and is all about solving mysteries, both to make money and to keep up the reputation you have as a problem solver. It adds space combat rules to the GUMSHOE investigative base as you explore the area of space known as the Bleed, dealing with problems and crimes in the aftermath of a massive interstellar war as you serve as Licensed Autonomous Zone Effectuators, or Lasers.  (Sine Nomine Publishing) Stars Without Number is an OSR sci fi game, based on the old Moldvay and Mentzer rules. You can get the Free edition via the link there, or the expanded Core Edition, which has additional rules for AIs, mechs and random world generation. quote:While Stars Without Number can be fitted to a wide range of settings, the backdrop provided is a vast canvas of scattered stars awaiting exploration by intrepid spacefarers and bold explorers. Tramp starships flit from world to world, trading the treasures of distant suns as reckless wanderers find adventure beneath alien stars. Elite mercenary bands launch surgical strikes from orbit, grav-tank dropcraft crashing down on the heads of native kings while guerilla fighters plot to draw knives in the dark of two moons. Alien eyes watch human interlopers from the acidic mists of forbidden worlds, their shining, poisonous relics plundered by daring hands. All the classic elements of sci-fi adventure have room to shine in Stars Without Number. Come make them your own!  (Mongoose Publishing, among others) Traveller is your old-school sci fi RPG. Traveller's got a deep and complex backstory that I know relatively little about, and has many editions, which I'd love for people experienced with them to tell us about so people know which are good or bad or weird. quote:A brand new edition of Traveller is now available - based on the original but tweaked, finessed and updated through a massive months-long beta playtest by you, the players! Every Traveller book is now printed in full colour and all core rulebooks and supplements are gorgeous hardbacks, fully updating this beloved game for the 21st Century. Here's some details, courtesy of Sex Cop.  (Sanguine Productions) Myriad Song is from the makers of Ironclaw, and it's apparently based on New Wave sci fi and stuff like Fifth Element or Guardians of the Galaxy. That sounds neat to me. It runs on the Cardinal system, also used by Ironclaw, Noggle Stones and Usagi Yojimbo. quote:In the darkness of ages past, our universe was visited by aliens strange and unknowable. They enslaved hundreds of people and they conquered thousands of worlds. For untold generations, the Myriad people served them, and worlds were stripped of all resources, and left barren and dead. And then, a century ago, the Syndics were gone. Did they retreat to another universe? Are they hiding on undiscovered worlds, in radio silence? Interplanetary factions spread their philosophy from place to place. The Solar Creed offers the people free energy . . . at the price of their freedom and liberty. The technologists of the Concord push forward with their new science, for better or for ill. What mysterious dangers lurk in the unknown voids of space? Sex Cop also did a write-up on Sanguine's other sci fi RPG, Albedo.  (Onyx Path) Aeon is part of the Trinity Continuum series of games, and is the one that is sci fi space stuff. A second edition is currently in production but is not out yet. A rough overview, thanks to MollyMetroid.  (One Seven Design) Lasers and Feelings is free! It is also a really focused narrative-style game. quote:You are the crew of the interstellar scout ship Raptor. Your mission is to explore uncharted regions of space, deal with aliens both friendly and deadly, and defend the Consortium worlds against space dangers. Captain Darcy has been overcome by the strange psychic entity known as Something Else, leaving you to fend for yourselves while he recovers in a medical pod.  (Mongoose, West End Games, etc.) Thanks to Sex Cop for the description! Paranoia! Another old school game which has also had multiple editions and publishers. Humorous RPGs aren't common, good ones even less so. But Paranoia nails it. The theater of the game is this: the world as you know it (a massive, domed environment known as Alpha Complex) is controlled by an all-seeing, all-powerful and insanely megalomaniacal computer. The Computer is your friend. The Computer wants you to be happy. Are you happy? Good. Because being unhappy is an act of treason. The Computer hates treason. But, you know what the Computer really hates? Mutants and Commies. The bad news is, your character, or troubleshooter (your job is to find trouble, and shoot it), starts the game with a mutant power and a secret society affiliation. The good news is that you start as one of a "six pack" of clones, which will come in handy, as you are likely to be killed a couple of times per gaming session. Most adventures start with a trip to R&D, where the most technologically advanced, cutting edge equipment will be made available to you. In reality, this equipment is probably faulty and/or dangerous to use. But equally real is the fact that questioning the work of R&D (and, by extension, The Computer) os an act of treason. In fact, nearly everything in Paranoia is an act of treason. Most adventures involve lots of sneaking, hiding, informing on your friends, trying to keep them from informing on you, trying to keep your reputation clean (but not too clean, because that's a dead giveaway that you have something to hide...), engaging in treason (intentionally or not). All on top of whatever the stated goal of your current mission is. One of the character stats is "Chutzpah". The character naming system is a first name, the first letter of your color-coded security clearance, and the area of Alpha Complex you live in. Scatological puns and double entendres are the usual result. One NPC name that made me chuckle was ED-R-MRO. Great concept, solid mechanics, and a whole lot of humor and fun. Mors Rattus fucked around with this message at 22:31 on Sep 1, 2016 |
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Aug 26, 2016 21:04
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Sci Fi Games Fragged Empire: Eternal Sunshine, run by Mors Rattus (Contact me to get a game put on this list if you want it there.) Mors Rattus fucked around with this message at 02:27 on Aug 30, 2016 |
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Aug 26, 2016 21:04
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Anyway, I just got ahold of the Protagonist Archive and it fuckin' owns. There's a robot who wears cool jackets and you can be a space nomad who can shoot laser blasts out of your palm, or a psychic jedi lion. And the art? The art is loving gorgeous. LOOK AT IT
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Aug 26, 2016 21:24
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Mors Rattus posted:
Hey, I recognize that locust! There was a neat F&F on Ashen Stars a while back if y'all want to check it out. The fine insect above is a Kch-Thk, part of a rationalist, food-obsessed warrior folk who ate entire planets before they chilled out and made allies. They're basically the best: Hunger Tourism of the Kch-Thk posted:You probably keep a journal of your gustatory adventures, which you periodically beam to kch-thk communications network. These are enthusiastically devoured by envious readers, who yearn for news of unfamiliar ingredients. Kch-Thk Literature posted:[they] can recite the chittering proverbs of the great texts of rational materialist poetry, such as Krktl’s The Errors Of Sentimentality and Trk-chk’s Sublime Hierarchy of Foodstuffs
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Aug 26, 2016 21:42
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Ashen Stars has a real cool setting. I'm not a huge fan of GUMSHOE, personally, but it seems like a neat take on it. How much does it focus on the sleuthing side of stuff?
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Aug 27, 2016 00:49
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Trinity? Trinity. Back in the 90s White Wolf was branching out from World of Darkness into other genres. They did a trilogy of games, beginning with Aeon, that were all supposed to have names beginning with A, and went backwards from space opera (Aeon), to comic book superheroes (Aberrant) to pulp action heroes (Adventure!). And then after they released Aeon, they got slapped with a lawsuit by the Aeon Fluxx folks, and they issued Trinity stickers to slap over the existing covers and further printings of Aeon were labelled Trinity instead. Trinity was cool. It had space exploration (early in the game line this was done using jump ships piloted by clairsentients, because of metaplot, later on the teleporter psions returned and it used that instead.) It had aliens--a weird, creepy borglike assimilate-this Coalition, the friendly, biotech using Qin, the uplifted and aggressive Chromatics, and the sinister and barely mentioned manipulators the Doyen. It had conspiracies, secrets, organizations, metaplots, and cool psionic powers. You could do Blade Runner, Starship Troopers, or Dune. You could do Event Horizon, Alien, or any number of other things. For all that there was a 90s metaplot, in the reprinted version of the core rules they outlined the entire thing so you didn't have to buy every book to get the secrets to what was ACTUALLY going on. (There were still other reasons you might want the books, like getting info on the Upeo wa Macho, the vanished teleporters, for players, but the core idea of the metaplot-as-sales-driver was a bit undercut.) I could ramble on about it all day, but I really shouldn't.
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Aug 27, 2016 04:15
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What is the Upeo wa Macho, besides something I imagine Genji shouting when he goes to the Man Festival?
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Aug 27, 2016 04:18
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OK so the idea is that mankind was given a psionic uplift by the Doyen, the sinister aliens I mentioned, that locked down their psionic potential into one particular discipline (there was a metaplot reason but that's not relevant to this question.) Each discipline was run by a Proxy (the term was a mystery because the Doyen were mysterious metaplot secrets) and that Proxy shaped the nature of their Order. The Legion, the telekinetics (also pyrokinetics and cryokinetics as subtypes), were based in Australia. The Order of Aesclepius--the vitakinetics--was based in Europe. Telepaths folded into China's government and became The Ministry. The electrokinetics formed a company called Orgotek in North America. The clairsentients (clairvoyance, and a bit of future sight) formed a semi-religious group, ISRA, based on Luna (and I forget what ISRA stands for) The biokinetics (shapeshifters, basically) were called Norça and were involved in South American organized crime. The quantakinetics were wiped out (for metaplot reasons) for turning against the other orders/humanity, but were called the Chitra Banu and based in India. Finally, and the answer to the initial question, the Upeo wa Macho was the name of the order of teleporters, and they were originally based out of Africa. For metaplot reasons, at the time of the corebook's release the Upeo weren't playable, because they had all vanished--it was one of the setting mysteries what had happened to them. They'd gone into hiding! Because sinister aliens the Doyen were sinister.
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Aug 27, 2016 04:35
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They're coming out with a new edition for it, incidentally.
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Aug 27, 2016 21:57
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Mors Rattus posted:Ashen Stars has a real cool setting. I'm not a huge fan of GUMSHOE, personally, but it seems like a neat take on it. How much does it focus on the sleuthing side of stuff? There's a strong focus. You might get into a lot of fights (are encouraged to, honestly) but combat alone won't sustain the game. Ashen Stars is still GUMSHOE: investigation is the primary mechanic, it remains a guaranteed success, there's a tad too many skills. The sleuthing is improved however! Mostly by the mountains of flavor you can find in the gear. You (and your suspects) get abilities like the memory wiping from Men in Black, stunning a la Star Trek, literal eyes in the back of your head, etc. There's even a cheap one that lets you soften your bones at will, allowing you to squeeze through small ducts like you're a Pillar Man or something. Anyways, this gives you a lot more flexibility in how you can approach/interpret a given situation. Which is sorta the point of GUMSHOE's mystery resolution to begin with. As an example: even if you've established that someone isn't who they seem, the results can run the gamut from "is shape-shifting alien" to "cyborg programmed with false identity", to "garden-variety holo disguise" and "was a collective figment of your imaginations". There's mechanics for all of these, or at the very least setting support. The game's toolbox is extensive to say the least. Barring the ship combat mini-game, AS is ultimately focused on capturing the feeling of its cyber-space opera in lieu of complex additional mechanics. This is a good thing in my opinion.
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Aug 28, 2016 03:30
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Forgot to mention one thing: "the 30s Gangster planet", "the Wild West planet", etc. are an explicit part of the setting. They're known as synthcultures, first created to escape the overbearing hegemony of the Combine space government. Their isolation has since resulted in deep identification with their gimmick. Have I mentioned that Ashen Stars is wonderful yet?
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Aug 28, 2016 03:56
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Traveller is pretty cool. But the publication history/number of versions is nuts. It was originally published in 1977. Since then, there have been 7 or so editions, maybe more. And most are set in a different portion of the "official" timeline, or in some variant history, which may or may not be canonical as new editions are released. There is really too much to be adequately described here. https://www.wiki.travellerrpg.com is probably your best source of info. It is impressive, though like any wiki, it is a work in progress. Still, it's got everything you could want to know about Traveller. And it's well organized. Most of the Traveller rulesets use some variant of 2d6 +/- modifiers, 8 or over = success. IIRC, this mechanic, or a variant, has been used in the first, second(I think), fourth, "Mongoose", and now fifth edition. But they're really not numbered that way, and in between there have been editions or rulesets that used the Twilight:2000 rules, GURPS, D20 or the HERO System. The most popular versions seem to be "Classic", or first edition, and "Mongoose", so called because of the publishing company who has the license. The newest version("T5"), put together by the game's original creator Marc Miller, is said to be a 700+ page mess of charts that is nearly unplayable. I guess it was supposed to be "the version to end all versions", and tie all previous versions together. Traveller is notable for being the first RPG in which your character could die during their creation. Creation is a "life path" type of flowchart, with players deciding general areas of skill/knowledge, then rolling randomly for more detail. Early on, all players were assumed to be ex-military, but later supplements allowed for greater variance in character background. Different skills may have different effects or even resolution systems (almost like spells in OD&D). There are Psionics, but they are rare and not easy to develop. Traveller itself was originally supposed to be a setting-neutral "sandbox" game that players could drop their own universe into. But they published some background that became very popular and grew. Basically, the setup is this: A vast and far reaching government, The Imperium, rules the galaxy. Travel is faster-than-light, but communication is not. Therefore, it may take a year or more for info to travel from one end of charted space to the other. The end result of this is that most planets or systems enjoy a great deal of autonomy, as long as they don't interfere with the interests of the Imperium. Commerce is the driving force of the Imperium. Energy weapons exist, but are expensive and rare in civilian hands. Slug-throwers are far more common. Combat is a pretty deadly affair, and many players will avoid it, or fight from behind cover. There are playable alien races and robots. Rules for starship combat and hostile environments. Later editions were set during a rebellion against the Imperium(MegaTraveller, I think), after a computer virus had eliminated most space travel(Traveller: The New Era), or earlier, during man's colonization of the stars(2300AD, using the aforementioned Twilight:2000 rules). I could go on (and on), but really, the wiki is your best bet if you want to explore the game and its background. I have played "classic" Traveller, but not any of the other versions(read some of them, but they didn't hold the same interest for me), although "Mongoose" is said to be similar enough to be interchangeable with minimal effort. Joss Whedon's "Firefly" is rumored to be based on a Traveller campaign he played in college. He has not confirmed this(only that it was based on an RPG campaign), but there is a fair amount of circumstantial evidence that points to Traveller as a major inspiration (Google it), though the game seems to lack the show's trademark humor. Early Traveller adventures often involved the characters living hand to mouth, taking odd jobs, or if they were lucky, trying to make the payments and upkeep on a spacecraft so it didn't get repo'd. As the various gaming companies' licenses for Traveller have expired, or they have gone out of business, Ownership has reverted back to Marc Miller. He has his own website, Far Future Enterprises, where most versions of Traveller can be purchased on CD-ROMs, along with the supplements produced for them(even third-party stuff in some cases). So, whichever version of Traveller you dig, you can still get it. That's kind of cool. Simple but somewhat quirky mechanics(clssic, anyway). Not necessarily a "hyper-realistic" game(except for the very number crunch-y 2300AD iteration). But fun. And a cool background. Traveller fandom persists to this day, I guess that's something. Mongoose has published other licensed games using their Traveller rules, like Judge Dredd and Hammer's Slammers. tl;dr Traveller is the D&D of sci-fi RPGs. Anyway, if you have any questions about Traveller, shoot. Sex Cop fucked around with this message at 15:47 on Aug 28, 2016 |
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Aug 28, 2016 04:14
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Sex Cop posted:Anyway, if you have any questions about Traveller, shoot. I've heard that spending entire sessions generating characters was common, since that was one of the most fun aspects of the game. Confirm/Deny. 
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Aug 28, 2016 04:52
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Bendigeidfran posted:I've heard that spending entire sessions generating characters was common, since that was one of the most fun aspects of the game. Confirm/Deny. Confirm. It's really a hoot. Until you are building up a good head of steam on a bad rear end character with cool stats and all the right skills, but who doesn't survive their third term of enlistment. Or they survive so many that your physical characteristics begin to deteriorate due to advanced age. Despite this, everyone I've ever played with LOVES rolling characters. Traveller stats(Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, Intelligence, Education, Social Standing) are represented by hexadecimal. With character stats ranging from 2-15, and the numbers 10 through 15 being represented by the letters A-F. It's pretty handy, because you can look at any character or NPC and know what B75AC9 meakes them in game terms. The stories you've heard of people using index cards as character sheets? They're true. Of course, there are actual character sheets with more detail, but 3x5 is space enough to get you playing. Sex Cop fucked around with this message at 05:03 on Aug 28, 2016 |
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Aug 28, 2016 04:55
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Bendigeidfran posted:I've heard that spending entire sessions generating characters was common, since that was one of the most fun aspects of the game. Confirm/Deny. Confirm, but it genuinely is pretty fun. It's the same kind of appeal as a blind box prize or playing the lottery, so your mileage may vary. It's very much a hex crawl otherwise. That said, I wish more gritty games had similar chargen, because getting your character popped because they touched the cursed dias or whatever without an identify check first would be pretty okay if you had a quick little minigame like this every time you croaked. Someone more qualified should write up Eclipse Phase, so I can complain about how it's almost a great game.
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Aug 28, 2016 15:40
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I love Traveller to death. Here's a cool online character generator that I spend way too much time with at work: http://traveller.chromeblack.com/files/mtpcgen.html EDIT: I had to mess around with that a little. Here's probably the best Scout I've ever made: UPP: 667BA5 HomeWorld: StarPort=A, Size=Large, Atmos=Standard, Hydro=Wet Population=Med, Law=Moderate, Tech=Average Stellar Age: 46 Terms: 7 Career: Scout Rank: None Skills: Electronics-4, Jack-of-all-Trades-2, Medical-2, Admin-1, Artisan-1, Computer-1, Leader-1, Mechanical-1, Navigation-1, Pilot-1, Streetwise-1, Vacc Suit-1, Grav Vehicle-0, Rifleman-0 Cash: 30000 Cr Pension: 14000 Cr/Year Skills/Experience: 17 / 17 Benefits: Low Passage, Assault Rifle, Blade, Scout Ship EdsTeioh fucked around with this message at 16:04 on Aug 28, 2016 |
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Aug 28, 2016 15:52
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EdsTeioh posted:I love Traveller to death. Here's a cool online character generator that I spend way too much time with at work: http://traveller.chromeblack.com/files/mtpcgen.html There is an old Apple II character generator that uses the six original careers from the basic set, and adds the dozen from the Citizens of the Imperium supplement. Faithful to the game, and a real time saver. You can download it here, and run it on a PC using AppleWin or a similar emulator: http://www.freelancetraveller.com/infocenter/swlist/appleprogs.html
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Aug 28, 2016 16:20
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Sex Cop posted:There is an old Apple II character generator that uses the six original careers from the basic set, and adds the dozen from the Citizens of the Imperium supplement. Faithful to the game, and a real time saver. You can download it here, and run it on a PC using AppleWin or a similar emulator: Rad! I had that saved on an old computer but lost it. Thanks!
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Aug 28, 2016 16:34
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grassy gnoll posted:Confirm, but it genuinely is pretty fun. It's the same kind of appeal as a blind box prize or playing the lottery, so your mileage may vary. It's very much a hex crawl otherwise. Do you mean to say Traveller is a "hex crawl?" How so? Are you thinking of a particular version? Because classic Traveller is known for being somewhat rules-lite. It used a kind of abstract "range band" system to determine diatance between combatants. And many of the officially published adventures were infamous for being basically "adventure seeds" without extensive maps and the like.
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Aug 28, 2016 17:28
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EdsTeioh posted:Jack-of-all-Trades-2, Isn't "1" the maximum possible for the Jack-of-all-Trades skill?
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Aug 28, 2016 18:07
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I had no idea Myriad Song existed but a game for stuff like Guardians of the Galaxy by Sanguine is definitely a game I'd be interested in. Their mechanics are always actually pretty well done.
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Aug 28, 2016 18:37
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Sex Cop posted:Isn't "1" the maximum possible for the Jack-of-all-Trades skill? Dunno! Script let me do it. I didn't even notice that and I don't have my MT book on hand. Edit: Yes, you can. JTAS #18; basically it lets you use related skill at a lower penalty. EdsTeioh fucked around with this message at 19:07 on Aug 28, 2016 |
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Aug 28, 2016 18:41
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Myriad Song's been on my radar for a couple years now. I haven't grabbed a copy because of priorities, but if I thought I would get to actually play it I'd have snagged it in a heartbeat. If anyone else knows more about it, I'd love to hear.
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Aug 28, 2016 18:58
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EdsTeioh posted:Dunno! Script let me do it. I didn't even notice that and I don't have my MT book on hand. Weird. I thought JoT just eleiminated non-proficiency penalties. But, I'm not familiar with MegaTraveller, just classic.
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Aug 28, 2016 20:00
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Sex Cop posted:Do you mean to say Traveller is a "hex crawl?" How so? Are you thinking of a particular version? Because classic Traveller is known for being somewhat rules-lite. It used a kind of abstract "range band" system to determine diatance between combatants. And many of the officially published adventures were infamous for being basically "adventure seeds" without extensive maps and the like. Yeah. I all the Traveller I've played has been out of the little black book. Our campaigns were definitely of the space trucker variety. We'd use that giant sector map and pick some place to go based on the system classification, and the GM would throw stuff in our way to make it interesting (space virus, pirates, jump drive broke, etc). I don't think our GM used any of the published adventures, but then we were college students and broke as hell, so that may be a factor.
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Aug 28, 2016 20:29
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Oh, the sector maps, yeah.
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Aug 28, 2016 20:52
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Can anyone explain skyrealms of jorune to me? I remember looking at it as a kid and thinking it looked cool; or at least more complicated than the D&D I was playing.
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Aug 28, 2016 21:41
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It's like a space fantasy Barsoom-y sort of thing, isn't it?
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Aug 28, 2016 22:50
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xutech posted:Can anyone explain skyrealms of jorune to me? I remember looking at it as a kid and thinking it looked cool; or at least more complicated than the D&D I was playing. https://systemmasterypodcast.com/2013/11/20/system-mastery-8-skyrealms-of-jorune/ These guys can. How compatible is the second edition of Mongoose Traveller to the first edition Mongoose stuff, specifically the alien race books?
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Aug 29, 2016 00:07
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Sex Cop posted:Joss Whedon's "Firefly" is rumored to be based on a Traveller campaign he played in college. He has not confirmed this(only that it was based on an RPG campaign), but there is a fair amount of circumstantial evidence that points to Traveller as a major inspiration (Google it), though the game seems to lack the show's trademark humor. On the subject, the Firefly RPG is probably worth mentioning in this thread. The Firefly RPG is a relatively standard take on the basic Cortex+ Action system. You make a dice pool by taking a relevant stat, skill, distinction and any other relevant dice, you roll all those dice and pick one as an effect die and two for the roll's final total. Total determines if you can do it, and the effect die determines how effective the action was. Any 1s are complications and go to the GM, but they earn you plot points you can spend to make your dice pool better when it counts. It's all standard fare for Cortex+ with a very standard set of stats and skills, with only two real differences to make it unique. The first is distinctions. In standard Cortex+ Action, distinctions are either useful to your action and you add a d8 to your pool, or it makes things more complicated and it adds a d4 but earns you a plot point. In Firefly, each distinction also has two dice tricks you can earn through advancement that help enforce the distinction's flavor and three skills that you can advance for cheap. For an example, here's one from Mal's sheet. quote:Things Don't Go Smooth - d8 The second unique thing about Firefly is the ship rules. A ship in Firefly is essentially just a set of three distinctions that the whole party decides on together. They work the same as regular distinctions, with any party member able to use them when relevant, but distinctions are enough of a selling point that I'm going to quote a few more here too. quote:Kintsugi Class Salvage Ship - d8 quote:Held Together With Duct Tape And Chewing Gum - d8 Anyway, Firefly isn't a very creative or ambitious game and reading it made me realize that I actually kind of hate the Firefly universe, but if you want a game where you play a bunch of assholes doing odd jobs in space and getting into bad situations you can do worse than this game. (As a side note, don't confuse the Firefly and Serenity RPGs. Firefly is good if unambitious, Serenity is a lazy reskinning of the generic Cortex system and it has no actual selling points.)
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Aug 29, 2016 00:52
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Mors Rattus posted:Fragged Empire is a post-post-apocalyptic game about rebuilding at the end of a post-apocalyptic period. There are no humans left in the setting - only the client species made by their extinct creations, the Archons, and other creatures descended from them. The game has robust rules for miniatures combat, both personal and ship-level, as you try and help rebuild society and work with the many species left over after the long war and the long dark age - species from both sides of the war. Recently released the Protagonist Archive, upping the number of PC races to 8 (the capitalist Corporation, the Kaltorans who draw on genetic memories, the warrior Legion, the monstrous Nephilim, the robotic Palantor, the deeply religious Remnant, the spacefaring Twi-Far and the ever-hungry Zhou). Uses a 3d6-based resolution system. I saw the core book for Fragged Empire months ago--not knowing anything about the game, I passed it up, but haven't seen it for sale since. Do hardcopies of Fragged Empire still exist anywhere, or is it pdf only now?
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Aug 29, 2016 01:10
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I believe you can get Print-on-Demand hard copies from Drivethru? E: http://fraggedempire.com/store.html - 90% sure this is hardcover stuff, given the shipping cost bit.
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Aug 29, 2016 01:12
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Mors you haven't mentioned Lasers and Feelings, this is a travesty I tell you!
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Aug 29, 2016 16:30
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I don't actually know anything about Lasers and Feelings except that it exists and has a name. E: and apparently it's free!
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Aug 29, 2016 23:54
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there, i added it
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Aug 29, 2016 23:57
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Mors Rattus posted:there, i added it excellent, thanks Mors Rattus posted:I don't actually know anything about Lasers and Feelings except that it exists and has a name. Lasers & Feelings is a game of thrilling space adventure. And to cut down on the "reading" and "monetary cost" that always get in the way of adventure, its rules fit on only one page. Your player characters are X+Y within cheesy sci-fi archetypes: Hot-Shot Pilots, Dangerous Doctors, Android Envoys, etc. The story itself can be randomly generated through the provided mad-libs (i.e Zorgon the Conqueror wants to empower the Space Pirate Queen, encouraging her latent abilities to turn back time). You don't strictly need to do this, but it does fit the spirit of the game. All of your player stats are condensed into just one number between 2->5. This is your spot on the Lasers/Feelings scale. Higher numbers make you more of a Spock: a roll succeeds if you get under your number whenever you're working with science, logical deduction, and careful planning. Lower numbers peg you as more like Kirk: if you want to get in a brawl, charm a room, or otherwise act emotionally, you want to roll over your number. You get one more d6 to roll if you're prepared, an expert in the field, and/or being helped by the upstanding crew-members around you. When you roll your number exactly you get LASER FEELINGS; this allows you to ask the GM any question about the situation and get an honest answer. Laser Feelings are an easy and frequent way to maintain pace. In summary: L&F is a simple game that wins out on tone and focus. Not for everyone, perhaps, but definitely for someone.
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Aug 30, 2016 01:26
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I'm running a game of Fragged Empire.
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Aug 30, 2016 02:27
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MollyMetroid posted:Myriad Song's been on my radar for a couple years now. I haven't grabbed a copy because of priorities, but if I thought I would get to actually play it I'd have snagged it in a heartbeat. If anyone else knows more about it, I'd love to hear. There's a review of it here, by me and a friend of mine: https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/16/16075.phtml
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Aug 30, 2016 03:36
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Mors was asking me about the Trinity metaplot, which I've kind of not gone into much detail on outside of the occasional nod to it where needed to explain other stuff. I could technically go fact check a wiki or the books for this, but it's late and I'm just doing a rough summary here. So, in Adventure!, there's a sort of event that happens that triggers some of humanity to awaken into a few different possible combinations, mutually exclusive with each other. The terms Adventure! uses for these categories are Stalwarts (who are proto-Novas, more on that later), Mesmerists (proto-Psions, also more on this later) and Daredevils, whose primary powers were being really lucky and really skillful. One of the most powerful Stalwarts, Divis Mal (not his real name) is actually strong enough to be considered an outright Nova (which isn't a term till later), and it is he who later engineers the Galatea Incident, an explosion of a space station which in turn triggers the eruption of hundreds of other Novas across the globe. This begins an era of prosperity and superheroic silliness, but soon the madness and mutation of some of the Novas into terrifying monsters, plus Divis Mal's growing megalomania, leads humanity to finally issue an ultimatum: China pointed nuclear strike satellites at the planet and told all the novas they had 24 hours to get the gently caress out. After torching the UN, Divis Mal and most every nova still on Earth complied. Now, a word about Novas and Psions. Humanity had the innate potential to awaken to use either quantum energy (novas), or psionic energy (psions), and each and every potential subject for these awakenings could go either way--but once awakened to one type of energy, could never use the other, and in fact, psionic energy disrupts quantum, and vice versa. This becomes relevant for Trinity because the Nova exodus from Earth brought humanity to the attention of the alien Doyen, a species made entirely of psionic energy. Remember what I said about quantum disrupting psionics and vice versa? The ability to manipulate quantum could be literally fatal to the Doyen as a species. So the Doyen decide to intervene...sort of. There's a couple of different factions among the Doyen and they disagree on how the human problem should be handled. One faction secretly contacts a group of exceptional individuals and invites them to the Moon, where they are awakened as supremely powerful psions, one for each discipline, and tells them basically that they are their allies in fighting against the Aberrants. One order, the Chitra Bhanu, are an experiment by the Doyen in seeing if they can safely use psionic energy to manipulate quantum, which they determine is too dangerous and purge the entire order, branding them traitors. But that's...later. So the Doyen's plan is to move slowly and gather as many psions as possible, which they will awaken using Prometheus Chambers, a biotech device gifted to the Proxies (they are the Proxies of the Doyen, see?) which allows them to awaken possible psions to the appropriate discipline of psionics. Remember, each potential psion is also a potential Nova, so awakening them to psionics serves the dual purpose of creating soldiers to fight back against the Aberrant menace, and removes a potential Nova candidate from humanity. (Novas and Aberrants are...soooort of the same thing but the Novas are the non-insane ones.) A side benefit to this for the Doyen is that they also control the degree to which humanity will develop psionic talents--the Chambers will allow a psion to be awakened to only one psionic discipline, rarely two--but left to nature, human psions who awaken in the wild don't have that limitation. Anyway--soon enough the impulsive leader of the Legion (the flashiest psions, with fire, ice, and telekinetic powers, and a military structure) blows the Doyen's plan by actively intervening before they were fully ready to reveal psions to the world, stopping an aberrant attack dead with astonishing ease. This pisses off the Doyen but the damage is already done--the world knows about the psions, if not the Doyen themselves, and they can't put that back in the bottle. Meanwhile, the other faction of Doyen decide that humanity is too great a risk to allow to continue to exist in the universe at all, so they steal some weapons and ship designs from Earth, and basically uplift a primitive species with a high degree of natural psionic talent, the Chromatics. The Chromatics get sent to act as aggressors by proxy against Earth, because the Doyen don't like getting their hands dirty. (A lot of this stuff can be found out about or played through in adventures they published, too. You can help liberate the Chromatics and end the war!) The other big mystery, the vanishing Upeo wa Macho? The porters had found a colony of peaceful Novas, and amidst suspicion that they were colluding with the enemy, they abandoned Earth as a whole rather than face a purge like the Chitra Bhanu had, setting up shop near the friendly Nova world. Eventually they came back, with the revelation that not all Novas were evil monsters after all, and that the majority of those who'd been asked to leave Earth weren't actually still trying to invade, and were in fact willing to help out against the mutant Aberrants--like the Coalition, an "alien" race that was actually a hive mind controlled by the aberrant known as The Colony back when he was still somewhat human, but by the time his forces made contact with humanity again were so unrecognizable that humanity believed them to be an unknown species or group of species.
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Aug 30, 2016 05:38
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Anyone here ever play Burning Empires? I ran it for a little while back when it came out and have wanted to revisit it lately. can I do a writeup?
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Aug 30, 2016 17:03
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