Of Icke's World and Traveller-U

Icke's forthcoming book... a sourcebook?

Earlier this week I was in a really bad place with the hobby. It's amazing what a difference a few days, lots of effort, and a really successful playtest session can make to my mood.

Today, as I ponder what I want to focus on, I realise that there are two distractions in the way of my return to writing for the Tikhon fantasy game ready for Friday's game: Icke's World and Traveller-U.

Icke's World

Icke's World is a concept that I have for that conspiracy-horror-weirdshit setting I keep mentioning.

David Icke is one of my favourite "conspiracy theorists", to use the commonly bandied around phrase. As far as I am concerned he's either completely right or a very mistaken, if sincere, fool.

The premise of Icke's World is simple: what if David Icke is right? That makes for a fabulous conspiracy game. It also allows you to explore his writings as source material, testing out the practical upshot of his claims. For me, at least, that sounds like a lot of fun.

Think about this: Icke claims that the real world is an illusion (think: The Matrix) and that we have all, in fact, forgotten who we really are. We are Consciousness taking a trip through one viewpoint in our mind-body constructs. There is a conspiracy of power to delude us into believing that "we", as individuals, exist in a limited time-space holographic world.

Imagine the characters: you can take an Average-Joe type hero and allow them to have a series of Realisations. Each of those Realisations opens up new abilities to first "see through the illusion" and then, later, to learn to do cool things with "reality". Sort of Psi-powers mixed with Hindu-mysticism.

As for the stories, WOW! Icke has blended every conspiracy into one uber-Conspiracy. There is a whole world of possibility for investigations and counter-conspiracy action. For me, it's the characters as counter-insurgency "freedom fighters" that really appeals as a schtick.

Let me know what you think.

Traveller-U

Traveller is my favourite SF setting for gaming. It's rich and very expansive. Having recently obtained (after years playtesting) Traveller5, I have been dismayed to feel like that game is too clunky for me. Going back to Mongoose Traveller is an option... but another option is to run My Traveller Universe using UbiRPG.

It occurs to me that only a few things are needed to make a game conversion to UbiquitousRPG:

• Create some Role templates
• Create some Race/Species templates
• Create the equipment, such as weapons and armour

Other than that, most of the system is generic and you can easily make tweaks to support the specifics of your setting. 

That last point is an important realisation: you can tweak the rules to fit the setting. UbiRPG isn't a "generic" system, and it's not designed to be. What it is instead can be described as a homebrew baseline rules set; from this baseline all manner of specific tweaks can be implemented to emulate your chosen setting.

I can just imagine finally getting that adventure on the Solomani Rim because my regular players are already becoming familiar with the rules. It's just a step in setting. 

There... now I've said it, maybe I can get back to the Tikhon prep.

Game on!

Shadowrunning

This week has been an eye-opener in relation to a setting that I have, until now, never really got into: Shadowrun.

Harebrained Schemes have created a surprisingly entertaining game, Shadowrun Returns, which I got playing this week. Admittedly, I'm playing the iOS version (which only has one campaign and no editor)... but it has been cracking fun!

Sitting on my shelf for the last month or so has been the Shadowrun5 rulebook. This tome is beautiful and seems very complete, if a bit arcane in some ways. Using the Quickstart Rules (link above), however, you get to use some pre-generated Shadowrunners and push yourself through an example encounter.

These two elements, Shadowrun Returns and Shadowrun5, have me itching to investigate the game further. Although set in different period of the Sixth World history, each has drawn me deeper into the techno-fantasy that is Shadowrun. I know the teen players at the school would love it... and I'm pretty sure the home group guys would enjoy it too.

So... what to do about it?

As with all new games, I need to have a run-through. Quickstart characters, short mission, and some willing victims  friends. But I also need to consider what a break from the main action of our existing campaigns might mean.

How do you handle the desire to try something new? Do you break from a campaign... or set up a one-off game day... or do something else?

Right now, I'd appreciate some advice.
Game on?


P.S.: Have you seen the promo vid?

Dawning Serene

Last night I hopped online for a very productive video chat with +Scott Templeman, a long time friend and fellow gamer.

We've been chewing around some ideas for a cool SF setting, dubbed "Serene Dawn", for some months now. Our chat was all about how we are going to make it a reality.

Serene Dawn

To be honest, the name comes from a starship that was created for playing in a Traveller game set along the Solomani Rim, sometime around two years ago. The campaign I wanted to play never got launched so the name was shelved. Still, it kept nagging at me.

Last year, as I was fiddling around with the idea of creating my own RPG system, I began to chat online with two old friends - one of whom was Scott - and we concocted a plan to create an SF setting that was interesting. 

Things were ticking over fine, given the heavy schedules of everyone involved, until around 8 weeks ago when we came to an abrupt all-stop. In short, people simply weren't around.

Serene Dawn began as a near-future SF setting with a couple of interesting hooks. Firstly, the expansion of humanity was just about to be made possible by the invention of a slightly different style of Jump Gate; secondly, we decided that we wanted to increase the balkanisation of Earth through the continuation of current political trends towards micro-nations. Nothing overly exciting, but a start.

Interestingly, when we began to plot a first game, we ended up setting things off-world on Phobos. In my previous article, Phobian Nights, I mentioned some of the details we came up with. By now, however, the setting had evolved towards science-fantasy and was becoming... odd.

We also involved my home gaming group in a failed attempt to create a campaign in the setting using T5, getting as far as rolling up heroes. To be honest, in retrospect, I'm glad that tanked in favour of the current fantasy campaign we're playing.

But...

New Directions

Last night we had a frank chat about what we wanted to play. The consensus fell upon creating the first of a series of "modules" in the setting, initially focused on what interests both Scott and I: the exploration game.

Oddly, having spent the evening tossing around thoughts and ideas, I came away with the sense that not only did I want to develop the setting but that I wanted to custom-build the game engine to run it. As regular readers will be aware, I have been abortively developing the Beta RPG over the past couple of months... but that project had stalled because something wasn't quite right.

Over night, however, I dreamt the solution. Arising early this morning I typed up the beginnings of a new RPG system which blends elements from several places all into one reasonably light set of rules. With that thrumming in my head, I have found myself suddenly unblocked and imagining things in the Serene Dawn setting too.

It seems odd, perhaps... but, at least for me, the system is important to get out of the way before I create. I need to feel that the game I am writing is doable with the tools I have to hand. 

Scott's Requests

With the new game engine (dubbed the "UbiquitousRPG") in draft format, I have been able to turn my mind to the requests that co-creator +Scott Templeman has asked me for: Bruxx and Conveyors.

Bruxx are a genetically-engineered collection of rat-derived sentients that we postulated late last year. The idea seems to have really bitten Scott as he raised it as the No 1 thing he wanted me to develop. His argument is that, whether the whole setting works or not, this species is the kind of element that you can develop and slot into almost any other SF setting. And he reckons they are interesting too.

Conveyors came out of the discussions about the Jump Gates in the setting. In short, we have some very large starships which can leap to other star systems via the assistance of a Jump Gate. These large craft are called Conveyors because they tote either cargo or smaller, non-FTL capable ships from system to system. Imagine a kind of regular transport liner which jumps from system to system, picking up cargo and dropping off deliveries at each waypoint, and you've kind of got the idea. What makes them cool, though, is that they are controlled by one faction and used at the forefront of exploration too.

The suggestion is that we develop these elements of the setting, alongside some details on exploratory proving teams, to provide an introductory "module" ready to play. Ever ready to run an interesting new campaign, I'm up for that!

Why tell you this?

Well, partially because I'm excited about developing something new... but mostly because we also realised that this project is about something more than "just a cool new game idea". 

Scott and I really want to put our heads together and create something that "gives back" to the hobby we have played and loved for many years. Feeling like a kind of movie critic for RPGs, we both feel that we'd like to experience the joy and pain of trying to create something to share with other gamers.

It was a dear friend in 2004, while we were at Origins in Columbus, Ohio, who suggested that I ought to develop my own RPG system. He was right... but I've not been able to do it yet, despite at least six attempts. Along the way I have been told by several players and gaming friends that they have been surprised that I have not published a thing for the hobby, despite my foaming addiction for roleplaying. I guess, talking to Scott last night, that I realised just how much I really want to have a crack at this thing.

So... why tell you? Because I need support and encouragement. I need editors, illustrators, map-makers, layout artists, critics and supporters... but most of all, I need to know that someone might think it's not such a stupid idea either. And I need some players.

Gaming Online?

This is the project to try something else that's new for me too: online tabletop roleplaying. I've got an account with Roll20 but I've never used it. Now's the time.

Are you an avid roleplayer who fancies coming to play in the SF setting we're putting together? Fancy coming along with us to discover how the first exploration mission might pan out? If so, drop me a note or a comment and let me know. I'll be happy to try to include you in our first games.

Serene Dawn is born. Game on!

Of Traveller and Shadowrun

People who know me, or at least who read this blog, will realise that I consider myself to be first and foremost an SF roleplayer. Truth is, however, that the last time I played in or ran an SF session was several years ago. But I digress already...

As an SF roleplayer (at least in theory) I have been wondering why it is that I have always focused on hard-SF or serious-SF games, such as Traveller, and never played Shadowrun.

With a new edition of Shadowrun in production (see Catalyst Games' website: http://www.shadowruntabletop.com) and due in the Summer, I've been delving into the system a little more than I have previously.

Shadowrun 5

Yes, there's a new edition of the game coming out. There's also a tabletop skirmish game, a card game and a computer game coming - the Year of Shadowrun. With some curiousity, having bought the 4th Edition back in 2004/5, I have been reading the Preview Files - there are 3 out at present, and they are free to download.

Shadowrun 4 didn't resonate with me. At the time I wasn't interested in a fantasy-meets-cyberpunk setting. The art was too cartoon-like and seemed to not treat the idea of urban fantasy seriously enough for my taste. Nine years on my attitudes have obviously changed.

Shadowrun 5 seems to resonate. Why?

Fantasy versus Science-Fiction?

For me the two genres have been separate in my mind. I have used terms like "Star Fantasy" or "Urban Fantasy" to talk about the kinds of games that I want to play... and ignored Shadowrun's blend of SF. 

That seems odd, when I think about it.

Yet, when I read Traveller5 I felt disappointed by two things: 1) the dodgy nature of melee combat; 2) the lack of a decent Psi / Magic system. I never expected Marc Miller to include a magic system... but I was deeply offended by his dismissive and offhand treatment of Psi. Offended? YES! 

You see, in recent years I have come to regard the position of scientific supremacy as questionable. I have at the same time been having a lot of fun with fantasy elements in my gaming. When you bring together my doubt in the Scientific Priesthood with my love of a good fantastic yarn, you get something that isn't Traveller. It's something that looks more like Shadowrun.

A review, attributed (spuriously) to "Joe Chummer" on amazon.com, begins:

Shadowrun can be distilled into three important words: "Magic cyberpunk noir."

I like this description. It appeals to me... and it makes me want to grab a character sheet, a handgun and a spell book. Magic cyberpunk noir.

What do I want in my SF?

It's weird. I started writing Serene Dawn recently and I included magic, angels, demons and conspiracy in my top five elements... the fifth was an "alternate future".

I'm not so sure about Elves and Orcs with guns and cybertech... but, so Joe Chummer assures me, Shadowrun will suit my tastes:

If you're looking for a sci-fi RPG you can really sink your teeth into, this is the one. Shadowrun is quite possibly the richest, most detailed, and most beloved sci-fi RPG setting I have ever played. The way the rules and fiction are presented in this rulebook quickly dispels the "cyberpunk with namby-pamby elves" stigma (which usually originates from people who write off the game without really knowing anything about it). On the contrary, this book makes Shadowrun's world of magic and technology come alive.

What's odd to me is that this change has taken me around 30 years to notice. In fact, looking back, it's not really a change of taste... just of attitude.

When I was playing Star Frontiers back in the 1980s I was indulging in pulp SF. It's not too big a leap to my position today, really. It's just that my attitude to mixing fantasy with science-fiction has finally let me accept the concept without sneering.

This lends me to think about my intellectual snobbery once again: why have I, for so long, seen fantasy gaming as a secondary and less serious indulgence than playing SF games? They are both made up, imaginary... dare I say it, fantastic?!

Is the scientific illusion so ingrained? Not any longer, it seems.

Thank you, Shadowrun 5! You've opened up my eyes to something fun!

Traveller5: Anyone for Awesomesauce?

Arriving home last night, having dashed through the traffic to be back in time to greet my inlaws who are visiting this weekend, I was excited to find that the Postman had delivered something... large.

Upon opening the beautifully wrapped package I was confronted with the reality of something that I have waited a very long time to get my hands on: Traveller5 had arrived.

In the box were the items shown to the right: T5 Core Rules (656 pages), Core Rules CD-ROM, Jump Drive (Core Rules on USB stick), Traveller Dice set (10x Black, 1 Yellow, 1 Red, 1 White), extra Traveller Dice, 2x Cr25 Imperial coins, Membership card for Traveller's Aid Society, Patent of Nobility as a Knight (in my name, customed to my own world).

Beta Playtester

I don't remember the exact day that I received my Traveller5 Beta CD-ROM. But it was a very exciting day.

This was the original draft rules for the game I now hold in my hands, ready for playtest. On that day I signed into the Beta Playtest Group online and the rest, as they say, is history. Admittedly, it was was long, slow and sometimes frustrating wait... 

Last night I told friends that I'd been playtesting this thing for something like 8 years... and, thinking about it, that wasn't far off.

What amazes me most - and highlights the genius of Marc Miller - is that things haven't changed all that much... at least, in terms of the big things. It has just been a long period of tweaks and edits. The slow, long aggregation of small, incremental improvements. Today Marc refers to T5 as the "Ultimate Edition" of his long-loved SF RPG.

What's so special?

First of all, this is the most complete edition of Traveller ever written and put into one tome. It's massive. Actually, in truth, it's too big.

Here's the contents page:

Thankfully, following the massively successful Kickstarter campaign last year, Traveller5 is expecting the "Player's Edition" of the book: a shorter selection from the Core Rules designed to deliver just what the player needs, leaving the main book as a tool for the Referee. Nonetheless... this is an impressive tome.

It's beautifully simple in layout and design. Black two-column text which evokes the feel of Classic Traveller. Yet this is no "Little Black Book". It's one of the thickest books of any kind on my shelf.

Oddly, it's a book that I'll not need most of for the majority of the time. Design some characters for your group, learn the very easy to grasp Task rules and Combat rules... and you'll only use the rest if you are building something for your game.

In some ways the sheer size of the book belies the simplicity of the system.

Not just the Official Traveller Universe

I'd like to point out that this game is not just for the OTU. 

Certainly, T5 is optimised for the Traveller setting. Yet it's is written to be the "ultimate SF game", not just another edition of itself. Marc has designed the game completely ready to be used in Your Traveller Universe. 

I've been using this ruleset to prep my group to play in the Serene Dawn setting. We did characters some months back... and then got side-tracked into a fantasy campaign. Last night, when the T5 book arrived, the question was asked by one of the guys: "When are we going to play Traveller, then?" 

Soon, I hope. It's just too cool to leave on the shelf.

Final thoughts...

Yeah, I know. This is an exciting book to receive and yet, given my chaotic approach to gaming, it's also not necessarily going to get used as much as it should. 

Traveller5 is something of a dream come true. As a long-term fan of the game, having collected every book from every edition and having played since I was a pre-teen school boy, this is pant-wettingly cool. Geekdom come home, so to speak. But it is a flawed dream. It is a game that is ultimately Marc Miller's creation... and Marc doesn't, in my opinion, always get it right.

I'll be hacking my own Psi system, for example. I'll also be adding a Magick system to suit my own game (unsurprising as this is not a fantasy game: ultimate SF system, remember). And I'll not be using most of the design rules very much because, for a lot of my gaming, eye-balling and winging it is my style.

But the core of the game is sound. I love the d6-based game engine. I love the background building nature of character creation. 

You'll hack it and you'll mod it. But you'll play it... when it's finally on general release, at least.

If you like Traveller then you owe it to yourself to add this book to your collection. It'll be coming on both electronic and hard formats... and the electronic files are not only the whole book in one .PDF but also broken down by chapter and sub-section. There is so much to enjoy...

Just make sure you get past the first 50-odd pages and delve into playing it.

Game on!

Phobian Nights

As we continue to develop the Beta RPG materials, I've been toying with ideas for a campaign that the development team have kind of injected into my imagination.

Phobian Nights is a sub-setting for our Serene Dawn science-fantasy imaginings. Set under the surface of Mars' most notorious moon, the theme is one of urban despair, dark intrigue and gumshoe investigation.

Inspired by Scott and Jon's initial character ideas for playing a game on the Martian moon, the sub-setting has begun to morph in my mind into something slightly more sinister than I perhaps initially imagined.

Phobos Station

Phobos is a Special Economic Zone within the Chinese State. It has a status similar to that of Hong Kong in recent Earth history.

Phobos is, in the greater organisation of the Sol system, the most important way-station. It is said, with some truth, that everybody passes through Phobos on their way through or out of the Sol system. As a consequence there are Corporate offices, significant orbital and port facilities, and all the attendant commercial support infrastructure you might expect.

A Moon Divided

Phobos features two types of colonial structures: Starsides and Underdeeps.

Starside structures are either domes (rare) or towers (usually) which face the stars; in other words, these are surface structures with extensive solar-collective glascrete panels which allow citizens to see the stars or Mars, depending on which side of Phobos the structure faces.

Underdeep structures are the more traditional extra-terrestrial dwellings which are constructed underground. This is simpler and allows colonists to take refuge within the easier-to-heat and maintain subterranean caverns. Underdeeps tend to feature massive caverns, filled with highrise and other close-proximity housing, connected by wide tunnelled "boulevards".

Chinese Angst

What really got me interested, however, were the almost throw-away ideas that the players came up with over the course of a video chat some weeks ago. It was all about the crime.

Crime on Phobos is dominated by the Chinese organised crime syndicates, usually referred to as the Triads.

The dominant crime syndicate is the Sun Yee On Triad ("New Righteousness and Harmony"). 

Adding to this, the guys suggested a couple of characters who act as private investigators. They were into the idea that they might know some Triad members, even have to fend off their pressure, but that they would nonetheless pick up the odd-jobs that arise from a corrupt and thriving port-settlement.

For me, the feel has steadily become darker and darker until I realised that this is exactly right. It seems to me that the inhabitants of this "brave new colony" would be... less than excited about the reality. 

Grey, grimy and grim. Phobos as the waystation to the stars... and the ghetto of the lost.

I don't know whether the guys will mind but, in truth, I kinda fancy a gumshoe-meets-futurepunk setting.

Game on!

Rules Crunch: Dr Jekyll or Mr Hyde?

So here's the problem that keeps gnawing at me like a Targ: while I love the idea of rules-lite, highly narrative gaming I am also a big fan of the crunchy-detailed rules set too. 

My players mostly come from the crunchy style of play too, meaning that rules-lite is not as well-practised in my circles as I might have hoped. The added complication comes from two elements of game rules that, frankly, I like to see crunched up: magic and tech.

Yesterday I was the Mr Jekyll of rules-lite narrative play but today I am the Mr Hyde of crunchy rules. 

What's a poor, maddened GM to do?

Fate versus Traveller5... and other stuff...

Yes, I am prepping a campaign for our new SF universe and proposing to use the new Fate Core rules. 

Great, you say. So what's the problem?

Well... I'm also awaiting delivery of the Traveller5 rulebook. This tome of almost 700 pages contains rules for almost every conceivable detail that an SF GM might need... and quite a few that I am almost certain he won't. It's as much a trip of nostalgia and hubris to welcome this new edition of my favourite SF system into my home... but I also really rather fancy trying it out.

And then there is also the fact that Rick Priestley is proposing using a d10 based system for his forthcoming Gates of Antares tabletop wargame... and mentioned the decimalisation needed for his hoped-for RPG in the same setting. This got me thinking about the limitations of the humble d6 again, a matter that has haunted my love of Traveller for years! Frankly... he talks sense!

Ultimately, I am being torn apart by the temptations of multiple game systems... my mind wanders endlessly betwixt Fate, Traveller, HARP-SF, Hero, GURPS and myriad other games I own... and all the time the question in my mind is, "How can I make this SF campaign feel really cool?"

Do rules matter?

Some will accuse me of madness for asking this question... but, do they? 

What is really needed to model a really cool SF setting? 

Depends on what you want, I guess. 

Fate models literary and movie/TV reality... it's a system where what matters is what makes the story move. You don't need "stats" for anything until it becomes important to the plot. Then it's turned into an aspect. Simple.

Traveller5 seeks to model a kind of future realism. Over the past N-years of development time that I've been involved with the game I've witnessed countless discussions about the relative "realism" of a given sub-system of the game. Frankly, a lot of the time, I've not cared. 

And yet... sometimes, I do care. 

Many things in Traveller work for me. Character creation using a story-creating game engine is attractive to me; you know, the old Term of Service in a career to gain skills and rack up the mustering out benefits. The fact that everything is scaled. The fact that I can just roll up almost anything using some tables... if I really need to.

But what is it that prevents me from really letting go and embracing this new, narrative style? 

I really am not sure.

Perhaps it's the worries I have about magic over-powering the game. Or just that I really like to have a stat line for my Laser Carbine. 

What's a poor, crazed GM to do? 

Any suggestions?

No FATE But What We Make

Pledge to support FATE Core
(image used without permission)

No, this is not a Terminator homage. Actually it's a post about what is exciting me mightily about the FATE RPG system.

For those of you who don't know, FATE is a FUDGE-derivative RPG system which is currently in the throes of a Kickstarter campaign for the latest (and greatest!) edition: FATE Core (by Evil Hat's +Rob Donoghue and +Fred Hicks). BUT... that's not all!

Another FATE-based game, the excellent Nova Praxis (written by +Mike McConnell), has also recently been funded via Kickstarter. This is an awesome Trans-humanist setting and has been long gestating in the mind of the author.

It's the combination of the two releases that's particularly exciting me.

FATEd?

Those who know me best are aware that I am somewhat addicted to collecting and reading RPG systems. So it was that, several years back, I first came across FATE. To be honest, I wasn't impressed at the time: the "skill pyramid" and the narrative style of play didn't fit with my own approach to roleplaying back then.

Over time, however, I kept bumping into FATE. There was Spirit of the Century. Next was The Dresden Files. More recently there was Diaspora. And Strands of Fate. We even played that last one... used it to introduce my Dark Reich setting to the Friday Night Group.

A couple of months ago +Mike McConnell started the Nova Praxis Kickstarter and, frankly, he hooked me to FATE. When the funding was completed, Mike released the Beta Playtest to the supportive fans. Yesterday he released a second update. It's good stuff... very, very good.

But that's not all. Hot on the heels of McConnell's product has come Evil Hat's FATE Core. It's this last product that, as I began to collaborate on our new SF setting, got me thinking that I'm fated to play it.

What's so good?

I liked FUDGE way back when, before the turn of the century. I liked it because, at least for me, it was the first narrative game that made sense to me. Most of all I liked the use of descriptive terms to quantify things: your hero is a Good Fighter, not a fighter with Fighting 12 (or whatever).

FATE is narrative gaming all grown-up and mature. Descriptive play is to the fore and the FUDGE-dice are rolled. Yet... it adds the wondrous dynamics of "Aspects":

Aspects are phrases that describe some significant detail about a character. They are the reasons why your character matters, why we’re interested in seeing your character in the game. Aspects can cover a wide range of elements, such as personality or descriptive traits, beliefs, relationships, issues and problems, or anything else that helps us invest in the character as a person, rather than just a collection of stats. 

Aspects come into play in conjunction with fate points. When your aspects benefit you, you can spend fate points to invoke that aspect for a bonus. When your aspects complicate your character’s life, you can gain fate points back—this is called accepting a compel.

(FATE Core, Kickstarter Preview Dec 4th) 

Aspects define pretty much everything in the game, from heroes to terrain features. It's an immensely simple idea and a very powerful application of simplicity.

For me, I get the freedom of narrative writing and creating whatever I want, however I want it to be, while being able to connect to the game system in a quick and easy manner.

Blending FATE

Today I realised that I have lots of FATE tools in my box. 

We are building an SF setting, which in itself is exciting. To help, however, we have FATE Core to get us started. But that's not all... 

We have Diaspora to inspire the creation of a sector of space. We have Nova Praxis to inspire technology and the futuristic feel of humanity. And we have The Dresden Files to fuel our magick. 

We actually also have the excellent Strands of Fate (and Strands of Power) to help us model the various amazing powers and abilities that might be present in the future. 

In short, we are not short of tools. Just short of spare time to pick them up and use them. The future, it seems, is filled with FATE. All I need to do now is accept it.

Game on!

Collaboration 101

This week has seen some positive and clear progress on the SF setting that I've been posting about on and off over the last month or so. The setting is now under collaborative production with the first pair of players and, frankly, we're pretty excited about the basics we've thrashed out already. If you're new to this thread, check out the previous articles starting with Recurring Themes in SF.

Planning a new campaign, to be played online with friends all across the world, has thrown up a number of new challenges and exciting opportunities. 

This post is a way to help me organise my thoughts and propose a number of cool possibilities. So... here goes with the madness...

Collaboration

First of all, there is serious power in collaboration. 

This idea began to really surface a couple of years ago for me as a pushed-for-time GM running the regular home-based Friday Night Roleplay group. In short, I was hopeful that my players would be willing to join me in co-creating a setting and running games in it. 

There have been serious barriers to this aim, not least of which has been my reluctance to let go of the traditional GM control role. I always wants things to fit my own vision of things, even when players suggest cool innovations, and end up cherry-picking things rather than really listening to player wants.

That said, the other major barriers are two-fold: the players aren't used to collaboration and the systems don't always accommodate it either.

Players don't usually expect to be creatively involved, at least not my players. They are ok with thinking up a hero and, perhaps, tacking on a background slug. They just want to get on with playing, however, and don't want to spend precious session time chatting about setting design... and the rest of the time they are busy with work and life. This is a barrier to the collaborative idea.

Systems assume GM control. At least, the systems we prefer do... you know, the simulationist style games we prefer. In fact, even the narrative style games tend to assume a strong Narrator. I realised this fact only this week as I began to read the FATE Core .PDF (available from the Kickstarter campaign page). 

Why do systems place barriers to collaborative setting design? Well, imagine you want to build the setting I'm proposing using Traveller or GURPS or a similar system; you will be writing crunchy conversion rules for equipment pretty quickly, as well as adapting character traits for the players to choose from. Using Traveller I might need to adapt the Career tables; for GURPS I need to tell them which Advantages are available. Sure, they can help with this... except, who wants to spend games night working through lists of game traits?

No, collaboration has to be built into the game experience from the word go. That's why HeroQuest and FATE have been appealing strongly to me for this project.

Collaborative Approaches

The first step is to take a narrative approach. Ditch the system choice and start by engaging the players in the project. In this case, two guys have shown interest; one is seriously excited about collaborating on the setting, the other is (so far) wanting to show up and play.

Step One for me was to get email chatter bounced to a forum, so we could talk online and keep the thread clear and open. This has, in just a week, generated the basic assumptions and background for the setting - raw, rough and ready to use.

Step Two has been to find a wiki space so that we can record the "canon" of the setting as we create it. Wiki implies collaboration from the word go. It's private, so that we can mess around and not feel that we have an audience yet, but can be made open if we feel we have something to share.

Step Three has been to realise that we can use any system we choose... and that this depends on the style of game we want to play.

Trans-System Setting?

Some settings are hard-wired into the rules that support them. Or, put another way, game designers build a system to play in a particular setting. Examples are games like World of Darkness or Star Wars. With time and popularity these systems can be stripped out of the setting and made multi-genre, but they always taste the flavour of their original form.

Other settings are looser and fit the form. Mykenaea, for instance, has been built for use with Rolemaster. It is flavoured by the system now, most notably in the way that magic works. If I wanted to run Mykenaea with another system I'd need to either model the same magic system or accept a major shift in the setting. D&D does this to settings too. 

This new setting, however, can be trans-system in nature. In other words, it will demand that the system be adapted to suit the setting. Depending on the style of game I want to play then I will use a different style of system.

For loose and high-octane adventure I am tempted to play with FATE or HeroQuest. These model cinematic / narrative styles and suit heroes who are dealing with televisable stories. For more serious and simulationist tales, however, I might choose Traveller5. All of these systems, however, will need to be adapted to fit the setting... not the other way around.

What's My Point?

Well... my point is that the creative fun of the setting is the heart of the collaboration. It's vital to get the setting roughed-out and into play quickly. Thus, the players can be engaged in quick sketching of the setting and then moved towards active play, filling in details as we play, to maintain interest. 

The setting will evolve and grow in play. I'm not going to spend weeks writing alone and hoping that my players will like the outcome. That was how I worked on Mykovnia... and that way is hard work and might lead to a living campaign. Without ongoing interest, however, it is prone to running out of steam if I ever run out of steam.

This setting will evolve and grow to meet player needs. They know that they have a stake in everything the setting offers from Day 1. They will be encouraged to add details and suggestions to the setting as play progresses... and we'll simply record and organise the notes. 

If a player wants to take off on a side-track and detail something they are interested in, who am I to stop them? No, as Narrator, I'll just read and digest the ideas into the campaign as it evolves.

Overall, the setting is a group property. It exists for the entertainment of the group. It is created and maintained by the group for the duration of play. If play continues, it will grow and evolve. 

No matter what, however, the setting cannot become a slave to a system. It's the other way around: the system must deliver on the type of game the setting demands.

Game on!

HeroQuesting?

Continuing to read HeroQuest this week, I have become very enamoured of the idea of playing it. As a narrative RPG it seems very flexible and adaptable, fitting for any setting imaginable.

What is of particular interest, however, is how much the lack of complex detail in the rules spurs the mind towards creativity.

The very lack of a specific way of doing magick, for example, drives the creative juices to want to fill the void. With no set spells and powers to distract I have found myself intrigued to design my own way of doing things. And even then, it's only a few keywords and a framework to write up.

Even though I am actively running the Rolemaster playtest campaign with my regular group, and that is a very positive experience right now, this foray into the completely opposite style of play is intriguing.

What am I doing with it? In short, just what I suggested I would last week.

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Spaceships, Storytelling & Sandboxes

Elite: Dangerous (used without permission)

Over the past two weeks I've been reflecting heavily on the kind of SF gaming that I love. Admittedly this is an ongoing thing, a kind of perpetual itch that I've been scratching whenever I have a few spare moments.

Amazingly three things have occurred which, when clashed together, promise something I'd not thought about too much before.

Combining three ideas which have been kicking around my head for ages, I think I might have come up with a way to engage in a new type of SF RPG experience... at least for me.

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Recurring Themes in SF

Anyone who games with me for any length of time will eventually notice that there are recurring themes which seem to find their way into the stories. This is probably the case for most GMs, given that we are each of us human beings fascinated by certain aspects of the universe around us.

This has got me thinking, however, about how to blend these ideas into something more coherent.

Are the themes that arise within us signals for what could make our own settings unique?

Can we blend the themes that fascinate us into something fresh?

Let's take SF for an example.

What makes SF gaming interesting?

This question has different answers for different people. Whilst some like the wild and wholly Space Opera of Star Wars, others will prefer the hard and scientific stories of Isaac Asimov or Arthur C. Clarke.

Personally I have always like the idea of a blend. I enjoy the harder scientific feeling of Asimov's writing but I also like the high adventure of other, less scientifically-minded, authors. As a believer in a spiritual reality, as opposed to the commonly assumed atheist worldview of much SF writing, I also want to visit the social, religious and psychological future as much as the scientific and technical one.

My SF, like my modern-era gaming, frequently nips at the edges of the following elements and themes:

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Travelling Again

Inspired by the launch of the Traveller5 Kickstarter project last weekend, I found myself rather impetuously rocking up to the after-school gaming club clutching my copy of Mongoose Traveller and starting to run a game. In short, the guys loved it and there are a couple of really interesting reasons why...

Massive Setting

The players in the group are all between 12 and 14 years of age. They have grown up in a world in which ""Sci-Fi" (yes, I know... I had to tell them that it's "SF", but ho hum) means a combination of Games Workshop's 40K, Japanese anime, games like Halo, and recent SF movies. All of these provide rich settings with cool imagery which appeals to their creativity. 

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Inspiring a New Dawn

You'd imagine that running two fantasy campaigns, using the same rules system, would be enough to keep a GM focused on writing and creating stories for his players. If you're like me, however, you'd be wrong.

Alongside the really enjoyable experience of running a Pathfinder campaign in Golarion for the school group and a Mykovnia campaign for the Friday Roleplay group, I've been dreaming of New Haven... but in a new way.

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Dark Trek

Today I began to watch the one Star Trek series that I have, as yet, never really got my head around: Voyager.

Whilst viewing the spurious antics of Janeway's crew in the pilot twin-episode, Caretaker, I was once again reminded of the one-off idea we had a while ago for gaming Trek-style.

Dark Trek was born after the most recent Star Trek movie. The key inspiration was the idea that the Star Trek universe could contain multiple alternate realities... of which the latest movie is but one. From this humble idea sprang the one-off game played in 2009 within our own alternate Trek universe... and since then the idea has stuck.

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Last Contact

When humanity first engaged the prototype Gateway Drive they took their first steps into a wider galaxy, filled with possibility. Little did the fledgling star travellers suspect that, early on in their exploration and colonisation of other star systems, they would discover that they were not alone…

Inspired by both my run through with GURPS using Uglok and revisiting SF themes over the last week or so, I have begun to draft an introductory adventure entitled, 'Last Contact'.

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Talking SF

Science-fiction. Long have I been a fan of SF. As long as I have been roleplaying there have been SF RPGs: Traveller was the first and, as a hobby, we have never looked back since. It's natural, then, that as I ponder what roleplaying dreams I might have nestling away in my heart, that my mind turns to SF.

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