What game is most likely to capture the Firefly show 'feel'? by TheWhiteHand

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

What game is most likely to capture the Firefly show 'feel'?

POSTED BY: THEWHITEHAND
UPDATED: Tuesday, February 10, 2004 07:05
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Sunday, February 8, 2004 5:21 AM

Greetings!

I really enjoyed the "Firefly" TV show. I mean, REALLY enjoyed! It was just a great show that I was sorry to see end. What I was wondering was, if there was ANY game out there that could capture some of the key aspects of the game: loyalty, humor, shootouts, a western flare, and all that good stuff. I am not partial one way or another, and so RPG, board game, strategy game, or computer game all would be great! I am not looking to create my own game, but rather play a game as close to "out of box" as possible (so I can utilize all it's source material) and catch the core of Firefly... the things that made it great.

I had some ideas, listed below. I would love to hear your comments on the ideas, as well as any NEW ideas you had. Thanks for your time and assistance! Here's the list:

MECHWARRIOR: A figured a small Mercenary company might have the same close, but not so close attitude as exemplified on Firefly. The setting isn't really close, although maybe you could do something on the Periphery that had the backwater western flare. My only issue is that there isn't really a good set of 'bad guys' in the Battletech universe for the anti-heroes to be compared against. On the upside the game has a board/strategy game associated with it, which is always lots of fun.

TRAVELLER: Traveller was the first game that came to mind. Small crew in a ship. Very nice character design where some characters could be in the 'military' for awhile, where as others may only know a trade. Easily could be smugglers or some other sort of illegals, and the game was flexible enough that you could probably make it human centric (remove all the aliens) and other such small tweaks. The only trick is that I can't find Traveller anywhere. If a bunch of people thought it would be a great fit, I could search it out. Also, no board or strategy game associated with it that I know of (that's not a requirement by far, but it's a nice plus). Finally, it's a 'dead' game, and so there is no new material coming out for it.

SHADOWRUN: Shadowrun jumped out at me at first as a great fit. It is a game innately about a group of criminals, just like Firefly. It wouldn't be hard to tweak it to have similar group dynamics. However, the magic and the meta-humans would be hard elements to pull out of the Shadowrun universe. I am not sure the effect that would have on the game. It also it pretty 'gritty', which I am unsure is accurate to the game or not. The crew of Firefly was hardly living in slums or the like!

CYBERPUNK: Like Shadowrun, but without the magic and meta-humans. However, a LOT 'grittier' in feel in my opinion. The constant glum and sense of hopelessness seems a little counter to the core of the show.

RIFTS: Rifts can be like... well, anything. I thought that the New West setting MAY be a good fit. It has a little sci-fi, a little magic. Not too bad. As always the case with Rifts, the reason WHY a group stays together and wanders around together seems a little harder than a space-based game where they are 'trapped' in the ship so to speak. It may be a good fit though.

That's about all I came up with. What are your thoughts? Are any of these good fits? Bad fits? Do you have any other suggestions? Which one (or ones) do you think are suited to most capture the feel of the show? Or maybe I am doomed and should just keep watching my DVDs! ;-)

Thanks again for your time and assistance. I hope to hear from you soon...

Sincerely,
Rob Harris

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Sunday, February 8, 2004 7:41 AM

CHEAPJOE

First thing that came to my mind for a game would be GURPS space.

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Sunday, February 8, 2004 10:17 AM

GUNRUNNER

After I first time saw Firefly I immediately thought of Escape Velocity and me and my buddies playing it together. I swear the show could have been based on us playing, we had a bad ass captain, a funny tuff guy, a genius navigator (Me) and most of us were from the backwater towns around the city.

For those who haven't played EV (or its two sequels Override and Nova) your a spaceship captain in the smallest ship in the game. Your job is to make money shipping cargo, talking jobs, some illegal then buy a better ship, weapons and such. In two of the EV games there is even a group of rebels fighting the big bad government.

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Sunday, February 8, 2004 10:28 AM

FORTUNATUS

Hmmm... Off the top of my head, I'd say GURPS Space, Space HERO, Cyberpunk, or maybe Twilight 2000 (though some of it would have to be fiddled with). The key would be to get a game in which people aren't superhuman, so things like Nobilis and Amber are right out (though I could see a diceless system working well, if tailored correctly).

Note that the tone of the core game will have to be defined by you and your players--hence the generic nature of the two games that came to my mind first. If you like the core Cyberpunk rules, then ditch the whole hopeless future baggage and set your own tone.

_______________
"Yep. That's a cow fetus."

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Sunday, February 8, 2004 3:28 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Actually, what drew me into watching Firefly was it's resemblence to an on PC game I adore.

Origin Systems: "Privateer and Righteous Fire" mission pack.

Privateer II was, maybe a little bit less shiny on the story end, tho nice on the graphics and mechanics.

But the original privateer was VERY fireflyish, and allowed you to do anything you damnwell pleased as long as you had the cojones and the firepower to back it up.

-frem
diefuxdie

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Sunday, February 8, 2004 3:53 PM

RANGER

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Actually, what drew me into watching Firefly was it's resemblence to an on PC game I adore.

Origin Systems: "Privateer and Righteous Fire" mission pack.

Privateer II was, maybe a little bit less shiny on the story end, tho nice on the graphics and mechanics.

But the original privateer was VERY fireflyish, and allowed you to do anything you damnwell pleased as long as you had the cojones and the firepower to back it up.

-frem
diefuxdie

Ah yes... There was a game. But I loved Privateer because it was very Travelleresqu...

Traveller, if you go to Sparta, tell them you have seen us lying here as the Law commands.

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Sunday, February 8, 2004 4:05 PM

RANGER

Quote:
TRAVELLER: Traveller was the first game that came to mind. Small crew in a ship. Very nice character design where some characters could be in the 'military' for awhile, where as others may only know a trade. Easily could be smugglers or some other sort of illegals, and the game was flexible enough that you could probably make it human centric (remove all the aliens) and other such small tweaks. The only trick is that I can't find Traveller anywhere. If a bunch of people thought it would be a great fit, I could search it out. Also, no board or strategy game associated with it that I know of (that's not a requirement by far, but it's a nice plus). Finally, it's a 'dead' game, and so there is no new material coming out for it.

Well, I guess I'll be the Traveller advocate here. I think Traveller is the answer for all the reasons you stated, and Classic Traveller didn't even have all the Aliens in the begining.

As to finding Traveller, it is back in print in three versions!

Classic Traveller is being reprinted (slowly) by Marc W. Miller, the original designer.

http://www.farfuture.net/

(it's not a great web site)

T20 is the current D20 incarnation. They also sell the CT reprints and CT books 1,2, and 3 in one volume.

You can get copies of both from:

http://www.travellerrpg.com/

There is also GURPS Traveller:

http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/traveller/

There are also a few very active discussion groups on line.

Far from being a dead product line, some argue it is too active, with too many versions in print fragmenting the market base.

Traveller, if you go to Sparta, tell them you have seen us lying here as the Law commands.

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Monday, February 9, 2004 3:51 AM

LINDLEY

Quote:
Originally posted by GunRunner:
After I first time saw Firefly I immediately thought of Escape Velocity and me and my buddies playing it together. I swear the show could have been based on us playing, we had a bad ass captain, a funny tuff guy, a genius navigator (Me) and most of us were from the backwater towns around the city.

For those who haven't played EV (or its two sequels Override and Nova) your a spaceship captain in the smallest ship in the game. Your job is to make money shipping cargo, talking jobs, some illegal then buy a better ship, weapons and such. In two of the EV games there is even a group of rebels fighting the big bad government.

Yes, that would be my choice as well.

For any who haven't played it, download it immediately, now that EV: Nova has been ported from Mac to Windows:

www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn

Even the unregistered version should give you enough to get a feel for it.

Oh, and lest I forget, I'm working on a Firefly total-conversion plug for EV: Nova. When its done----which might not be for a while----you'll need the registered version of EVN to play it.

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Monday, February 9, 2004 4:12 AM

KINGOFKOINS

What kind of games are these? RPGs?

--------------------------------
It's sickening how comforting the privacy of the mind can be.
"Bible's broken; contradictions, false logistics. Doesn't make sense." - River
http://stripe.filetap.com

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Monday, February 9, 2004 4:37 AM

LINDLEY

Dunno about the others, but the EV series is kind of RPG-ish, except that combat isn't determined through stats---at least, not on the user level.

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Monday, February 9, 2004 5:15 AM

THALOS

I am currently writing a RPG based on Firefly using a hybrid of Cyberpunk and Fuzion.
The system is somewhat detail oriented, yet free flowing enough to avoid an overabundance of dice rolling. It is a game that should work well for the Firefly Universe.
There are alot of people doing the same thing on the web and even on this web site. See the board game thread for detail on that.

For those interested, I will be running a few games of Firefly at GenCon Indy this year, so stop by if you get the chance.

"Whoa, good Bible."

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Monday, February 9, 2004 5:32 AM

SPACEANGLER

I'd recommend a recent game called Freelancer.
Prettly linear, but the multiplayer is really open. You can smuggle, pirate, or frieght cargo for fun and profit.

--------------------------------------------
Spike: We all have addictions, Angel. I believe yours is called 'Slutty the Vampire Slayer.'

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Tuesday, February 10, 2004 2:02 AM

URIAH

Do any of you remember Boothill? Wild west theme...skill based and more suited to quick and deadly combats. If I can find a copy (it's loooong out of print) I think it would be easy enough to integrate transport and other technology.

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Tuesday, February 10, 2004 4:30 AM

SAFFY

Has everyone seen this one?

http://www.hexgames.com/previews/QagsFirefly.pdf

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Tuesday, February 10, 2004 4:42 AM

KINGOFKOINS

Interesting little g.d.d., although it mostly boils down to Firefly info.

--------------------------------
It's sickening how comforting the privacy of the mind can be.
"Bible's broken; contradictions, false logistics. Doesn't make sense." - River
http://stripe.filetap.com

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Tuesday, February 10, 2004 4:43 AM

PUMAMANREDUX

deep7.com has a Red Dwarf game .. yep a lisenced property based on the BBC program. The feel of the game is very cinematic ... with some tinkering this could be used for a Firefly game

just my 3 cents

deep7 has a website at http://www.deep7.com/

the basics about the Red Dwarf gsme are here http://www.deep7.com/games/reddwarf/

a pdf of a couple of sample pages of rules for the game can be access here ... http://www.deep7.com/games/reddwarf/quickstart.pdf

a FAQ page for the game is here http://www.deep7.com/games/reddwarf/faq.html

Drama is life with the dull bits cut out. (Alfred Hitchcock)

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Tuesday, February 10, 2004 4:51 AM

KNIBBLET

Quote:
Originally posted by TheWhiteHand:
...What I was wondering was, if there was ANY game out there that could capture some of the key aspects of the game: loyalty, humor, shootouts, a western flare, and all that good stuff.

It isn't a board game or an RP. It's hockey. Ice hockey.

It has shoot outs. Dramatic shoot outs with the lone rider coming (skating) into town (net) facing the sherriff (goalie) and firing off a bullet.

Loyalty? It's a team game where fisticuffs have been known to erupt and no one gets away with pushing your buddies around.

Humor? Look at Patrick Roy's face the next time a puck gets by him and you'll laugh your butt off.

Wings. Serenity has wings. Hockey has wings.

yeah, it's hockey. It all comes back to hockey.

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Tuesday, February 10, 2004 7:05 AM

STORMTWB

I know ya'll are talking about these games that are mostly pen and paper type stuff. But has anyone thought of modding a M.U.D. into the firefly universe? If this has been mentioned and I somehow missed it sorry hehe.

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