Fire Fly Table Top RPG (d12) by arcbeatle

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Fire Fly Table Top RPG (d12)

POSTED BY: ARCBEATLE
UPDATED: Wednesday, February 11, 2004 16:33
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Monday, February 9, 2004 4:24 PM

ARCBEATLE

People only beleive somehting if it's in a movie

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Monday, February 9, 2004 4:25 PM

ARCBEATLE

oh shit- the thread posted before I typed any hting

People only beleive somehting if it's in a movie

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Monday, February 9, 2004 4:51 PM

ARCBEATLE

okay, lets type somehting then....

I've been looking back at idead for how to make a table top RPG, and Ive heard alot about gurps, and traveller, and many more RPG's Im sure have alot of fans here of, so I wont say ny thing about them... The porblem is that these games, though "close" to firefly, arnt Firefly. Thats really the problem with D20, it was made for a game, but they reuse the system... over... and over.. and.... It doesnt even matter what it is any more. The problem is, what D20 is to corprate RPG's, gurps is to fan RPG's. No offense. Using a system that was predeveloped for other games makes the game you have now made seem second rate, it makes it look like your just rolling somthing out for other fans to use, Ive seen it so many times before.
I should know.

Probably non of you will recognise me as the kid who forwarded the production of a Legend of Zelda RPG, the problem was every other person I was involved with wouldnt give me time to fine tune the game mechanics id made, since I was constantly readjustign them. I tell you that game took three years of my time. And I gave up, why? becouse no one cared. While I was mid way through the project, some jerks finished a stuipid D20 Legend of Zelda RPG adeptation. I had worked myself long and hard on that game, and only one person (kudos to her, Lysia) a Zelda webmaster encouraged me to finsish. But no one cared, they had their RPG, they didnt care if it was Drekk. The problem was the Zelda fanbase is made of video gamers, they dont care if the game gets the moral subtlty of each species, and how they must all be balenced or unbalenced in acordence with the game. They jsut wanted to see soem heads roll.

This is my new plan. With any one who wants to, we desighn a firefly RPG. We dont use a previosu system. We dont see "whats close enough" we make a game tht IS firefly. No substitutes. I know that there are actually people here who care enough about this to want a very carefully made game, not D20 drekk. If were going to do this, well do this right.

Sorry if I ranted abit, Im just still fed up about the Zelda RPG, (anger!!!)

So, any one with Me?
becouse I may be out of my mind, but thats just between me and it.
-James Wylder

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Monday, February 9, 2004 6:13 PM

RADICALEDEWARD

Hmm... I know what you mean about d20 garbage. I myself have nver been too fond of the exponential power increase thing in DnD. And it makes even less sense for some of the other games they have slapped onto it. Developing your own RPG is an ambitious project, as I take it you know. You either have to come up with a whole new system of game mechanics or hijack someone else's. While I do not have the time to commit to help you, I wish you the best of luck. Some ideas that I think are an integral part of of any new RPG system:

ONE dice type. Pick a die and use it for all rolls ever. Period. Nothing is more tedious than fishing through the dicebag looking for that one die you need for one roll every blue moon.

Lethal combat. If you get into a fight, you should probably get killed. A bullet kills most of the time and it is not that hard to aim a firearm (or swing a sword, or whatever).

Slow, gradual progression. There should be no instant huge jumps in power like gaining a level in D20. You should have a variety of areas to gain experience in with gradual, incremental gains. Also, a high level character should not be unstoppably powerful as compared to a less experienced one. No "my hit points make me invulnerable and my spells are infinintely better than yours" garbage.

As for firefly in particular, a lot of people have mentioned Traveller as Firefly-ish enough to maybe work, but I don't like the pseudoscientific technical aspects. I see firefly as being more cinematic, with less attention to the minor details. You might actually want to ignore the Lethal Combat rule above. I think people who will play a Firefly RPG want tounge-in-cheek dialogue,narrow but heroic victories, and gritty survivalism, not infinite scifi technojargon.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do!

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Tuesday, February 10, 2004 12:00 PM

ANJIN

Because I just love flogging my site, check out Risus Firefly at:

http://webpages.charter.net/anjinm/g_risus.htm

---
Raven's Prayer
http://webpages.charter.net/anjinm

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Tuesday, February 10, 2004 12:25 PM

LTNOWIS

Quote:

ONE dice type. Pick a die and use it for all rolls ever. Period. Nothing is more tedious than fishing through the dicebag looking for that one die you need for one roll every blue moon.

Lethal combat. If you get into a fight, you should probably get killed. A bullet kills most of the time and it is not that hard to aim a firearm (or swing a sword, or whatever).

Slow, gradual progression. There should be no instant huge jumps in power like gaining a level in D20. You should have a variety of areas to gain experience in with gradual, incremental gains. Also, a high level character should not be unstoppably powerful as compared to a less experienced one. No "my hit points make me invulnerable and my spells are infinintely better than yours" garbage.

No offense, but that goes against everything I was taught to believe in. For the 2nd and 3rd complaints, I'd have to say that D & D's a FANTASY role playing game, which means it doesn't have to be like reality in the least. Besides, if you want to take out high level characters, there's always ambushes, backstabbing, etc.
And about the dice. It's not that hard to recognize the shapes if they're all in front of you. I keep my dice in a flat box. Plus, they're all so pretty

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Tuesday, February 10, 2004 1:08 PM

TPOPE

There are all manner of game styles out there, and deciding what to use for the game is a discussion in itself.

For example, I could see a rules lite, cinematic game being used by some people and a gritty rules heavy system used by others, each of whom had valid reasons why that system in particular captures the feel of the series.

Based on recent posts to this and other forums, d20, GURPS, Traveller (any incarnation) and Risus have all been used to model different aspects of the universe, and presumably all liked well enough by their proponents. Those games have vastly different ideas when it comes to lethality, character advancement and even the nature of a game.

Heck, I was going to make a conversion from Runebearer (a fantasy RPG written by a friend of mine) into the Firefly universe, since a modern/SciFi retalling of the rules was on my schedule anyway.

I'd certainly be interested in the project to make a Firefly RPG, but we'd have to chat a bit offline to see if our ideas about what makes a good simulation of Firefly are in line, mutual dislike of d20 notwithstanding.

Tom

--
Thomas Pope
Runebearer Webmaster ( http://www.runebearer.com)

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Tuesday, February 10, 2004 6:10 PM

SHADESIREN

Well, I have two things to say re: Table Top Firefly RPGs.

1) We tried it using the new D20 Star Wars rules, and it worked just fine. There were some minor changes - mostly just the "skinning" of the game, making it Firefly and NOT Star Wars.

2) the Angel and Buffy RPG has a system that just needs the details on the Firefly Verse. It's a SUPER simple system, and since it's already been Buffy and Angel, I see it as the most Logical choice for Firefly. Best part? It's an EXCELLENT game system. You use 1d10. That's it.

So, yeah, that's all I got at the moment

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Tuesday, February 10, 2004 7:53 PM

SAFFY

I never saw the rules system as the challenge here. There can't be a solid Firefly RPG for the same reason there can't be a solid Harry Potter RPG -- no one knows enough about the universe yet to write one. You can't touch it without taking crazy liberties and making up an entire backstory, which to my mind defeats the purpose.

My boyfriend works in the gaming industry, and I would LOVE for his company to take this on, but how can anyone?

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Wednesday, February 11, 2004 1:58 AM

ARCBEATLE

Hi every one! Thanks for all the feed-back,

first of I would like to adress the system type I was thinking of, being that I've been desighning it. It hasnt been used before is the point, and I'll explain how I think it fits FireFly as I go, please tell me whatcha think. Before I continue though, I have to agree that Combat will be the main issue to be fought over here. Mainly becouse the combat in firefly is rather spuradic, at times its holding someone down and choking them to death, while at other times its "I was aiming for his head...." and kneecap shooting and the like. I personaly like quirky fighting myself, but I know I'll be making this for the peoples, so I might have to make it severly grit filled.

here goes:

For the Firefly RPG I hoped to use a system I worked up called D12 (creative... I know) Its been in the works for a while, and now gets its chance to be judged. The first thing I knew about this game, was that It was not going to use 1 die for every thing like in D20, and then 5 other die types for all other things. So I made a multiple Die system, using two types of dice, six and twelve. I love those twoo kinds, and Six sided are very easy to get, and you dotn need ery many 12 sided in the rules. How the game works is you have a certain # of abilaties (duh) whos number directly aplies to the number of dice in your die pool. For each point, you roll a six sided die. But with every roll, you roll one twelve sided die also. This is where alot of people get confused, I aint sure why, probably jsut becouse every one is soo used to rolling one type of die by itself to do somehting... (sigh). You add up the total between the six sided dice and the twelve sided die to get your roll.

Okay, heres time to answer your first major question: what in hell is the twelve sided die doing there? Here tis. When any one makes a character, that character in most games begins with minimal skill, but baisic talent. The Twelve side die off sets any huge advantage higher level characters would have over these starting people, for two reasons. First off, it gives yu the equivelent of two 6 sided dice (almost, since you can roll a one) added to your roll. This helps alot. A problem with doing firefly with multiple dice (like D6) is that it ends up that a character can start with something liek 2D strength, while another can start with four, so on average will have twice their roll. In relaity, or in FireFly for that matter, that doesnt happen much. People are stronger by only a slight amount if oyu think about it, in fact any thing where someone is being called short, or somthing really isnt as far back as you think, "short" people can be any where from 3-5.7 feet tall, tall people from 6-7, what makes people better is a slight edge, not having twice the body mass of.
Second, the d12 adds a second rule in, luck. On a auto matic twelve, you succeed. If you get a one, you fail. some of my freinds really hate this rule, but it gives the little guy more of a chance.
Seems I still have some time before school, so heres an idea i came up with after rewatching war stories and object in space:
Psycic rules: or rules of Sanity.
Okay, the whole thing with river being Psycic, we dont know "how" she is, or the extent of her powers, so Im going to play it down to a minimum. When River shoots the three men in war stories or as we supose, beats Kaylee in Jacks, that would be done by spending "sanity points" dont go! its better than it sounds. How it works is a psycicly insane character can spend the points at the begining of a turn to increse an abilaty for that turn, or can spend a lesser amount of points for a skill. There would also be three or four abilaties she could use, like "foretell (see future a turn ahead), recall (remember some fact the GM said you all forgot) and Kill you with my brain (doy)" But how does it fit in with river being insane/psycic? lets just for some reason say you have 10/10 Sanity points, and you spend 10 of them. Instead of being "out of points" you would get 11/11 points imideatly after. Okay, now your wodnering how this is fair. Every time you spend points and increse how insane you are, you loose a point in a sensorary abilaty. This accounts for Rivers seeming loss of her surroundings, becouse thats the kind of insane thats in firefly.

Now obviously this is jsut all my ideas at the moment, its not set in stone and Im just waiting for feedback, if you guys dont like it, ill scrap it and start over. (no, really, im serious) My opinions on the show are different than other peoples, so I might have interpreted somthing you thought should be totally different.

to answer some other points though:
-The point of this is to develop a new system that fits how firefly works and is, even if it works, I dont want to use another system that was made for something else, even if it was for another sci fi thing, or Joss show.
-You dont think a Harry Potter RPG would work? I can mail you some photo copies of one my ppl were working on, we stopped making it after we got annoyed at some J.A players who for soemreasonwanted to be demons, but the game worked pretty well. And we really only took one minor libality with the world, it aitn fully done, but the point is it is possable, you just work around what you dont know, which is only a mojor thing if oyu dont know something like, oh, what the name of hogworts is. Minor details can be eisallly over looked and you can produce a solid game.

Okay I have to go now!

But really, ANY comments, please write them. Dont much care what their like

James Wylder

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Wednesday, February 11, 2004 7:51 AM

BROWNCOAT1

May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.

I am of the same mind as Saffy. To me the RPG system used in not terribly important at this point. What is important is the lack of solid information for background and filling in the universe to make it "real" for players.

"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."

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Wednesday, February 11, 2004 4:33 PM

ARCBEATLE

What "source material" do you think were missing just to ask, that Is so vitaly important?

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