While I’ve been loving the shift of our roleplaying to D&D recently, I’ve also been hankering to return to the realms of SF gaming.
Of course, when I think about it, the last time we actually played some SF was several years ago. Arguably, the last sessions were with the GURPS Infinite Worlds setting; before that, I can’t actually remember much beyond a one-off session of Traveller.
This week, I’ve been considering three systems for the development of an SF project. This article is about the journey I’ve been considering… and how stuck I’ve been feeling.
Artwork courtesy of Dave Revoy
BRP
First on my list has been the Basic RolePlaying (BRP) system, published by Chaosium. This hit my radar (again) when reading the excellent “Designers & Dragons” books.
I started roleplaying with d100 in the guise of RuneQuest. There is something basically intuitive about d100 gaming, despite the often fiddly modifiers in most systems. d100 is good.
Alongside reading “Designers & Dragons“, this week the 7th Edition Call of Cthulhu backer proofs also hit my radar – a revision of BRP-inspired rules that simplifies many systems and further makes the rules attractive. Thus it was that, in a few spare moments last week, I began to tinker with the question of blending SF with magick and miracles. I’m weird like that.
Alternity
Second came Alternity. This game gave birth to the longest-running campaign ever with my regular group. We even saw this system through two GMs vision of the Dark*Matter setting, not to mention some flirtation with the Star*Drive setting.
It was TSR’s last hurrah in SF gaming before they switched to d20 and fell into the “d20 Modern/Future” trap. Alternity was a very innovative and solid system. If a little clunky at times.
Re-visiting the rule book reminds me of good times and many great ideas from the various supplements published (and I own them all). Why hesitate? Am I not long over the temptation to abandon out-of-print games?
Traveller
And then, this morning, the launch for Traveller: Liftoff had me circling right back home.
Let’s be honest: Traveller was the classic (if not, it turns out, original) SF game. The Mongoose effort is the current standard (given the somewhat user-unfriendly flavouring of T5) and, in a multiverse of choices, why wouldn’t I return home?
Hmm.
Ponderings…
What’s the barrier?
Putting aside the issue of “my group is happily playing in a campaign”, my problem with SF is that I can never decide what sort of SF I want to play.
In truth, I am more into a kind of hard-edged science-fantasy than I am into hard-SF or space opera. It’s a weird blend of hard-SF and very fantastic magick that I want to emulate. And, frankly, I am not quite sure how to do that.
BRP makes the blend easy; Alternity also offers the required FX for a hard-edged SF system; and Traveller does “easy-to-play”…
So why do I feel so stuck?
Hmm.
