Galactic Encounters Role-Playing Game
Posted: Mon Nov 25, 2019 10:23 pm
EDIT: Uploaded first release. Not rules yet, just a sketch of sorts.
Excited?
This is one of the perennial questions that comes up regularly. I've always said that the main reason there is no such thing as "Basic Scifi Role-Playing Game" is that, unlike Basic Fantasy RPG, there is no commonly-accepted setting to build it around. Humans, elves, dwarves, and maybe halflings; fighters, wizards, thieves, and clerics; dragons and giants and undead, oh my!
In the sci-fi arena we have copyright-protected, trademarked worlds like Star Trek and Star Wars. Universes where, no matter how you play it, you will never be the heroes because the heroes have already been written. And besides, because each has a well-known flavor and style, the GM is constrained in many ways. It's hard to put your own stamp on it without some player or players calling foul.
What I overlooked is that there is, in fact, one "common" sci-fi universe... the humanocentric galactic civilization as described by Jack Vance (the Demon Princes, the Cadwal series, the Alastor series, etc.), Isaac Asimov in the Foundation series, and so on. The kind of universe in which the classic Traveller game takes place.
Traveller is interesting. I have played it, not extensively though. But the galaxy is huge (seriously), and there is surely room for another take on this kind of universe.
Here's my vision, and the problems I see:
BSF would mirror, mechanically, BFRPG as much as possible. There are some things that I don't think would work well, though; I think skills are needed, maybe not deeply crunchy skills, but some kind of skill system. There is a mechanic from another game I've played where you "spend" XP to buy new skills (and spent XPs don't add to your level of ability). I'd also want to change the hit point calculation, raising the starting XP and flattening the progression so characters don't start quite so fragile but also don't become godlike at high levels. Rather than AC we'd use "Defense Rating" aka DR, which would be keyed to your attack bonus (kind of like the Defending rule from Combat Options). There are a couple other mechanics I'd import as well, but as I say, the mechanical/numerical basis would stay parallel to BFRPG so we could easily import monsters.
I can imagine, for example, a planet full of Nazgoreans... wow.
Thing is, I can build all of this. Probably in a few hours; I have most of the text already, scattered around several projects. But there's more, as they say... we'd need robust yet simple spacecraft/space travel/space combat systems, along with some kind of tables or methods for creating planets. And we'd about have to create a starter adventure, presenting a map of a few stars, some with inhabited planets, at least one of which is detailed enough to place an adventure on. Out of all of this part, I have a sketch in my mind of how the space combat should work... and that's about it.
And THIS is why we don't have Basic Scifi (or Basic Sci-Fi, whatever). Too much is needed that I honestly don't know how to create.
Sorry if I got you all excited.
Excited?
This is one of the perennial questions that comes up regularly. I've always said that the main reason there is no such thing as "Basic Scifi Role-Playing Game" is that, unlike Basic Fantasy RPG, there is no commonly-accepted setting to build it around. Humans, elves, dwarves, and maybe halflings; fighters, wizards, thieves, and clerics; dragons and giants and undead, oh my!
In the sci-fi arena we have copyright-protected, trademarked worlds like Star Trek and Star Wars. Universes where, no matter how you play it, you will never be the heroes because the heroes have already been written. And besides, because each has a well-known flavor and style, the GM is constrained in many ways. It's hard to put your own stamp on it without some player or players calling foul.
What I overlooked is that there is, in fact, one "common" sci-fi universe... the humanocentric galactic civilization as described by Jack Vance (the Demon Princes, the Cadwal series, the Alastor series, etc.), Isaac Asimov in the Foundation series, and so on. The kind of universe in which the classic Traveller game takes place.
Traveller is interesting. I have played it, not extensively though. But the galaxy is huge (seriously), and there is surely room for another take on this kind of universe.
Here's my vision, and the problems I see:
BSF would mirror, mechanically, BFRPG as much as possible. There are some things that I don't think would work well, though; I think skills are needed, maybe not deeply crunchy skills, but some kind of skill system. There is a mechanic from another game I've played where you "spend" XP to buy new skills (and spent XPs don't add to your level of ability). I'd also want to change the hit point calculation, raising the starting XP and flattening the progression so characters don't start quite so fragile but also don't become godlike at high levels. Rather than AC we'd use "Defense Rating" aka DR, which would be keyed to your attack bonus (kind of like the Defending rule from Combat Options). There are a couple other mechanics I'd import as well, but as I say, the mechanical/numerical basis would stay parallel to BFRPG so we could easily import monsters.
I can imagine, for example, a planet full of Nazgoreans... wow.
Thing is, I can build all of this. Probably in a few hours; I have most of the text already, scattered around several projects. But there's more, as they say... we'd need robust yet simple spacecraft/space travel/space combat systems, along with some kind of tables or methods for creating planets. And we'd about have to create a starter adventure, presenting a map of a few stars, some with inhabited planets, at least one of which is detailed enough to place an adventure on. Out of all of this part, I have a sketch in my mind of how the space combat should work... and that's about it.
And THIS is why we don't have Basic Scifi (or Basic Sci-Fi, whatever). Too much is needed that I honestly don't know how to create.
Sorry if I got you all excited.
