Roleplaying Firefly Help by Thalos

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Roleplaying Firefly Help

POSTED BY: THALOS
UPDATED: Tuesday, January 20, 2004 13:48
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Monday, January 19, 2004 5:33 AM

My friends and I are looking to roleplay a face to face version of Firefly. And if the system works, we plan on running a few campaigns during GenCon in August.

In order to make the best game possible I am looking for as much technical information and detail as possible. Things like the statistics on "Vera" and the such.

Call me lazy but I think it would be faster to get input from everyone as opposed to spending hours and hours looking through all the old threads.

Thanks in advance for any/all the help.

PS- My ulterior motive is to help spread Firefly amongst many uninformed others and if this game goes well at GenCon, the word of mouth publicity at the Con should follow nicely and grow our fan base.

"Whoa, good Bible."

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Monday, January 19, 2004 6:01 AM

WERZBOWSKI

I just sent you a message through the link in your profile...check it when you get a chance and get back to me through my email.

I might have something useful for you if you want it.

"We will rise again!"

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Monday, January 19, 2004 6:13 AM

SAINT JAYNE

Quote:
Originally posted by Thalos:
My friends and I are looking to roleplay a face to face version of Firefly.

You're not talking about a pencil-and-paper RPG, are you? I've seen one based on ERP. I will unearth the URL if you are interested.

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Monday, January 19, 2004 7:05 AM

THALOS

@ Saint Jayne: Yes, I am looking to construct a "paper and pencil" RPG of Firefly. I have a system I think will work well for the game, just need statistics and the like. I would not mind checking out the site4 though if it's not too much trouble finding the URL.

@ Werzbowski: I sent you an email, I think the message you sent from my link is lost in cyberspace, as it has not appeared anywhere yet.

I think the toughest characters to quantify are Book and River. Since we were not told their whole stories it will be hard to assign a numerical value to some of their skills and attributes.

For example, on a scale from 1-10, 10 being the best does River have an 11 intellegence? After what was done to her brain and being pyscic and all who can be sure.

"Whoa, good Bible."

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Monday, January 19, 2004 7:41 AM

SAINT JAYNE

Well, Thalos, here is the link. I don't know if it'll help much, but at least it'll give you another perspective.

http://members.ispwest.com/radiojoe/game/

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Monday, January 19, 2004 7:46 AM

SAINT JAYNE

Quote:
Originally posted by Thalos:
For example, on a scale from 1-10, 10 being the best does River have an 11 intellegence?

Since the typical range is for human scores, I don't think it would be unreasonable to give scores of 11 or 12 for impossibly high stats. River is a good example because of surgical enhancements. Jayne, however, no matter how crude he is, will not have a negative charisma. Unless maybe his abnoxiousness is alcohol-enhanced?

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Monday, January 19, 2004 7:47 AM

BARNEYT

Quote:
Originally posted by Thalos:
[BFor example, on a scale from 1-10, 10 being the best does River have an 11 intellegence? After what was done to her brain and being pyscic and all who can be sure.

Going by Simon's comments in Serenity about him being the top 3% and River being so much smarter than he was, I reckon 11 might be understating it a little...

---
"I think the right place to start is to say, fair is fair. This is who we are. These are our numbers." Mr Willis of Ohio - The West Wing

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Monday, January 19, 2004 8:09 AM

SHADOWKATE

Have you thought about just adapting a universal roleplaying system? Something like dX (made by the same people who did Tri-Stat) which you can get for free at http://www.guardiansorder.com/ or even d20 which could be adapted from either the Farscape setting or d20 Modern (or something similar). I'd even suggest GURPS except that the system is highly broken.

Anyway, I suggest at least looking for a system that is well develeped and fairly flexable.

Also have you thought about making River (or even Book) an NPC? That way its less of an issue about whats known and what isn't...plus River always makes a good plot device.

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Monday, January 19, 2004 9:34 AM

THALOS

I will be using an existing RP system. It is a d10 system from Cyberpunk 2020, and now Fuzion I believe. I like this system best. D20 I think borrowed this idea for their 3.0 rules.

Basic idea is to take skills and attributes and a die roll to determine accomplishments. To me the details of the system are less important then the actual role-playing.

"Whoa, good Bible."

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Monday, January 19, 2004 10:07 AM

THALOS

Thanks Saint Jayne, some good information on that site. In, fact they are even using a form of Fuzion in one of their roleplaying examples.

"Whoa, good Bible."

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Monday, January 19, 2004 11:38 AM

HOWLRUNNER

Very interesting idea. One word of advice, however... Use the D20 system. I really hate to say that since I despise it, but in today's RPG market it's much easier to get a game published using the Open Game Liscense than it is to use another system. I despise the system, but it does offer a couple of advantages in terms of support and notoriety.

As I said... I relly hate giving this advice and it only really applies if you're seriously thinking of trying to get the game published.

"Memory is an imortallity of a sort. In the night when the wind dies... I remember. And they all live again. Soldiers live and wonder why.

Soldiers Live by Glenn Gook

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Tuesday, January 20, 2004 4:27 AM

THALOS

Thanks for the input. True enough that D20 is the "norm" and if this game is successful then I will be easy enough to convert to D20. Also, I do not know if this is going to be publishable, especially since the URL towards the beginning of this thread is a prety good source for a RPG of Firefly.

"Whoa, good Bible."

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Tuesday, January 20, 2004 7:02 AM

PUMAMANREDUX

As an alternative to d10 and d20 pen and paper RPG systems may I offer this suggestion:

Deep7 Games at http://deep7.com/ offers a line of reasonably priced downloadable games (as well as pen and paper verions of some of their game lines) based on their 1PG and XPG systems (these are the same thing but XPG is a lil more complex .. both lines are made for quick cinematic action and fun over the dullness of rolling 300 d10s to do a single action, for example) ... the 1PG and XPG system(s) use 2 six sided dice for randomization ... the rules to think of using as a basis for Firefly
are Red Dwarf (an XPG) and Star Legion

one of the best looks as to how the system(s) work(s)is on this pdf file for their pen and paper Red Dwarf RPG (yep the BBC series) http://www.deep7.com/games/reddwarf/quickstart.pdf
[this download contains 2 sample pages from said game]

.. pay special attention to the rules overview section ...

the rules made by deep7 should be easily adaptable to a Firefly campaign.

----------------------------------------

Hope this rambling post helps

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Tuesday, January 20, 2004 12:25 PM

HOWLRUNNER

You're very welcome. As to it's publishability... That would depend on several factors. Number one would be a business license, which in most of the US costs less than 100 bucks. After the license is purchased it's a matter of talking to Fox and/or Mr. Whedon and Mr. Minear. You'd have to lease the rights to produce the game from whoever holds the copyright. Once you've got all that it's a simple matter of writing the RPG itself.

That, of course, is the short version of the process for getting it published on yor own and leaves out the lawyers, scheduleing time to talk to Mr. Whedon for background information and clarification, and has little to do if you try to get it published through an existing company. It also leaves out whatever hoops you might have to jump through to use the D20 Open Game License (to produce it under the D20 system if that's the route you chose to go). I don't know how involved that would be since it was long before D20 came into existence when I last tried to publish a franchise RPG.

You are going about things in the right order, however. You definately want to design the game and playtest it thouroughly before you actually pursue publication. If you plan on going after publication, design the game using whatever system you want it published as. It just makes it easier to playtest without the headaches that can arise from even relatively simple conversions.

Hope that helps some.

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Tuesday, January 20, 2004 1:48 PM

PUMAMANREDUX

What it sounded like was Thalos wanted to make a version of Firefly so they could run a game at a RPG convention that is based on the series which uses the canon characters ... as opposed to make their game into a professional RPG ..

as for Howlrunner's words on getting the rights to produce an official RPG that sounds correct from what I've learned on the net. If anyone wants know whats involved I have a net contact who also has been through a (successful) licensing of a property for a RPG and I could ask for an email on the subject to add to what Howlrunner could give us.

most of the time at conventions the gamers pretty much have no probs (with rights issues and such) with doing games featuring the characters in an established universe ... at least this was the case many moons ago.

Another way to go with the game at the convention, Thalos, might be to design new characters based in the Firefly 'verse. This might be easier to get by any committee who decide what games they want to allow to be run at their con.

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