Diaspora Review

Posted on July 25, 2012 by Nenad

I have finally had a chance to read through my review copy of Diaspora for the Kindle, and I have to say that I am really impressed.

I have always been a fan of hard science fiction, and Diaspora fits the bill. There is a very light setting, with no faster-than-light travel, although there are slip-points connecting the various system in a cluster.

A big part of the game allows the players to define their own cluster, giving a nicely built structure to do so, allowing them to define the setting for the game.

The system itself is fairly standard FATE, as found in Spirit of the Century and Dresden Files, with some minor variations. The characters are designed to be created cooperatively, and the character design process ensures that they are all well-connected to each other.

There are four detailed combat systems (or mini-games, since each one is actually playable as a wargame on its own). They include personal, platoon, starship and social combat.

The first three are fairly standard, and well executed. I was really surprised by the quality of the social combat chapter, and I honestly feel it is the best implementation of social combat that I have seen in any system, since it uses zones not to model the physical space, but rather levels of intimacy and points of view. Even if you use nothing else in the book, the social combat is worth the price of admission.

The book is then rounded out with an equipment generation chapter, allowing the players to create the various technologies to round out the setting.

Overall, Diaspora is a brilliant game, and perfect for lovers of science fiction and FATE. Diaspora is an excellent hard-science space opera game.

The Kindle edition itself suffers from some problems, and the tables in the book are a bit hard to read on a Kindle, so I would recommend getting the PDF version if you really want the game. Diaspora is available from RPGNow.

The Stars are not right

Posted on July 10, 2012 by Nenad

This idea is for a far future setting, and would work well with some Lovercraftian overtones.

Stellar Engines are theoretical ways to move a star around… So that got me thinking to how we could use them in a game, other than as a cool piece of scenery. Of course, entire campaigns could be run on one (perhaps as an alternative to a Dyson sphere setting)

In a first contact style-game, the first hint we have that we are not alone in the galaxy is when one of the nearby stars starts moving closer. Do we try and get somebody there, to say hi, or do we broadcast to them, hoping for a response?

For a more Lovercraftian twist, in a space opera setting, perhaps a group of well-funded cultists are tired of waiting for the stars to become right, and have decided to shuffle them into place, ensuring the rise of the old ones? The campaign could revolve about a group of workers working on building the Stellar Engine, who discover that the company doing the funding is actually trying to awaken the Great Old Ones.

In a similar vein, the game can take place once the star has already started moving. Or perhaps the characters are building a stellar engine in order to prevent the stars from ever aligning?

RPG Idea – Price of Beauty

Posted on July 3, 2012 by Nenad

This is one of those ideas that prove that you can get ideas anywhere, in this case it is a monster inspired by contemplating beauty treatments.

The Beautifier looks like a giant worm. big enough to swallow a person whole. Its digestive system is not actually strong enough to wholly digest a person, instead its gut enzymes cleanse and rejuvinate the skin.

Since the trip through the digestive tract takes about an hour, a person needs to have some sort of oxygen supply while undergoing the treatment.

There are several ways to use such a creature, it could be a background detail in a SciFi Setting, or a focus of a mystery, as a person is found suffocated with extremely soft and clear skin (somebody whose air supply failed during the treatment, disposed of in order to avoid lawsuits)

In a more post-apocalyptic setting, some of the beautifiers have escaped, and now roam the cities, still trying to beautify people…

Finally, perhaps they are a naturally occurring organism, and the players are hired by a spa in order to catch a couple of them.

RPG Idea: What Happened to Humanity?

Posted on March 27, 2012 by Nenad

Like a lot of my other ideas, this one could either be truly awesome, or fail miserably when tried in practice.

The characters are all intelligent robots, dong something far away from Earth, perhaps setting the ground work for a colony on Titan, with no direct human supervision, and no little or no contact with Earth.

After a while, they realize that they have not had any updates, or requests for information from Earth for a long time, and their queries go unanswered.

Being independent AIs, they decide to investigate, and use some of the construction machinery to build a way to get back to Earth. There they find that humanity has disappeared.

The players are playing the robots, trying to figure out what happened to their human masters, as they slowly piece together the puzzle, the players will play through brief vignettes of the humans in the days leading to whatever happened to them.

RPG Inspiration: The Adjustment Bureau

Posted on March 22, 2012 by Nenad

The Adjustment Bureau is based on the Story ”Adjustment Team” by Phillip K. Dick. Like pretty much all of the movie versions of his stories, it is entertaining, but does not do justice to the original.

The Adjustment Bureau is a 2011 movie, directed by George Nolfi and starring Matt Damon, Emily Blunt and Michael Kelly. (IMDB page)

Small things matter

The entire movie happens because the main character does not spill coffee on himself at a correct time.

Perhaps the characters are playing the adjustment bureau? and their job is to implement the small changes necessary to maintain the plan.

Unclear goals

I find it interesting that the Adjustment Bureau never lets its operative know of the full plan. When the coffee plan does not work, if Harry had known that the point of it was to make the main character 10 minutes late, it would have been very easy for him to engineer something.

I am not really sure of what the application to games of this is, but I did find it very interesting.

Seeing things you are not supposed to

I like the idea of the characters getting to see things that they are not really supposed to. Perhaps the characters in a fantasy game get an artifact allowing them to see the machinations of the Gods. How will the characters react when they find out that the war which killed thousands of people, including their loved ones, was just to settle a bet?

Doors

I love the running through doors idea… I really need to add that into an RPG one day… Not a 1005 sure how to best handle it, though.

Adjustment Bureau Fate book

Railroading

The whole movie is an example of how players deal with a railroading GM… Trying anything possible to get out of the railroad… Really, most of the time, just give the characters somebody trying to force them to follow any kind of plan, and you can watch them struggle against it, by any mean possible.

Trust no one with a hat

I just really like the idea that some innocuous characteristic suddenly becomes threatening. Perhaps the characters in a fantasy setting are told not to trust anyone with clean hands? Or perhaps, no-one wearing gloves.?

Not really bad guys

Finally, I like the fact that the antagonists in this movie are not bad guys… They do not really want to make the main character suffer, they are just sticking to their plan, which is never explained in the movie (if memory serves me, in the original story their purpose was to prevent a nuclear war). In a sense, the plan called for the characters to reach their full potential.

I have always like having morally grey antagonists, who oppose the characters for a good reason.

RPG Inspiration: Skyline

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Nenad

This time I am going to talk about Skyline. It is one of those movies that I wanted to like, since it had so much potential, but the script should have been a lot tighter.

Skyline is a 2010 movie, directed by Colin Strause and Greg Strause starring Eric Balfour, Donald Faison and Scottie Thompson (IMDB page)

Use tricks wisely

The movie starts off in media res, then flashes back to 15 hours earlier. I have seen this technique used numerous times, and I normally like it, but here it fell flat for me, and I have figured out why., there are two reasons.

The times I have seen it work has normally been in a series, normally once I have already gotten to know the characters, which makes me actually care about their plight.
The other thing is, the events preceding the event should somehow explain it, show how the characters have gotten themselves into that situation. In this case, the alien invasion had nothing to do with the characters actions during the preceding fifteen hours, so why show them to me?

Party

You could let the players to get to know the other characters at a party. Just a time to roleplay what the characters do in their down time, without it necessarily tying into a deeper plot.

In a fantasy or historical setting, you could play through a couple of quick scenes from a spring festival at the village.

Know when to end a scene

This is more a what not to do example from the movie. It spends a lot of time setting up conflicts which turn out to be completely irrelevant to the main story. A couple of short scenes to get an idea of the characters are really useful, but don’t over do it.

Of course, in an RPG situation, if the characters are really having a blast at the party, then let them, but most of the time, you can just move on.

Don’t look at it!

I really like the idea of a weapon that will do harm when you just look at it. Something about it also brings the idea of Lovercraftian horrors to mind, where just seeing something may be enough to drive a character insane. How do you fight something that you cannot even look at?

Redshirt

This is the traditional trope of having somebody die horribly early on to show how dangerous the situation/villain is.

In order to do this, you need to have some NPCs hanging around with the characters, preferably ones that the players are not too attached to, but that they will still react when they meet a horrible end.

Other people are doing things too

At times it seems like the characters seem to be the only ones doing anything in the whole world. Sometimes, just for variety, make sure that they see other people trying to act as well. Perhaps they are not the only adventurers going to slay the dragon?

Of course, those other characters will fail, possibly in a way that will highlight the danger, or give the characters a clue how to defeat the evil.

Put the characters at the centre

For most of the movie, the main characters are hiding, while the battles are being fought by others.

Most of the time, you want to avoid this in an RPG… Put the PCs in the center of the action. Don’t let them be just observers, unless it is as a change of pace.

Waiting

Sometimes the characters have nothing to do, perhaps they are waiting for a contact, hiding out, or are on a long ship voyage. It is easy to gloss over these times “After four days, you think it is safe to come out”. There is nothing wrong with this, but you can also use those times to highlight the characters, and let them do just short snippets of roleplaying.

Coming back to life

This is a classic trope, which I have not seen often enough in RPGs. The players have just killed the Big Bad, when he suddenly pulls himself back together. I think it could be really effective during the final battle, or perhaps during what the players think is the final battle, until the dragon gets back up, forcing them to rethink their tactics.

Acquired Immunity

It seems as if surviving the initial exposure to the light gave the character some sort of immunity later on. I have always liked the idea that surviving an attack gives you some sort of immunity, or perhaps some type of additional ability.

You can use this in a fantasy game, the classical werewolf would be a good example of gaining extra power by surviving the initial attack… Perhaps surviving a dragon’s breath would give you immunity to it?

Alien Aliens

I really liked the aliens in this movie, they did not explain what they were doing, and just collected people for reasons which are not entirely clear.

I think that aliens should be alien, both in how they look and in the outlook they have on life.

RPG Idea: Singularity Recruiters

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Nenad

Fairly recently, the singularity happened. The vast majority of humanity got uploaded into huge arrays of computronium, there to live out eternity in pleasure and abundance.

Alas, some people were left behind, either those that distrust the AIs that run the birtual realities, or those living very far from civilisation when the singularity happened.

The survivors now live in a world where the infrastructure has began to break down due to the lack of people and resources, barely managing to survive in a decaying world.

The AIs are actually keeping the survivors alive, sometimes overtly, for those that were simply left out due to being far from civilization, or covertly, for those that would refuse the help if they knew the it came from the machines.

The characters are working to upload the last remnants of humanity. They have downloaded themselves into new bodies, and they are travelling the Earth trying to convince the remaining people to agree to an upload. The AIs sense of ethics prevents them from uploading an unwilling human, or using violence to convince somebody to get uploaded.

This would be a campaign with the emphasis on social interaction, with each story dealing with the characters trying to recruit a settlement, here are a couple of ideas:

A survivalist encampment, convinced that all the uploaded humans have been sentenced to hell, and that the day of reckoning has come and gone.
A stone age-tribe, lost in the depths of what is left of the Amazon rain-forest
A lone survivor, driven insane by isolation

RPG Idea: Alien Robot Conspiracy

Posted on March 2, 2012 by Nenad

The core of this idea is that a species has access to some sort of gate technology, which allows them to cross vast distances, but that need to have a receiver on the other side. The receivers in question are not trivial to build, and require a fairly advanced civilization to build them.

So, the species in question sends out probes to planets likely to have or develop life. Each probe contains a factory. Once it arrives on a planet, it waits until it detects a civilization has started developing around it. The vast majority of the probes just sit there waiting, until even their rugged systems wear out completely, but a couple of them have managed to find life.

Once a civilization develops, the probe begins manufacturing units that resemble the natives, and using them to infiltrate. It will also start manipulating radio and other wireless broadcasts to further its agenda.

So, in this game, one of these probes has been waiting on Earth for a long time, and awakened with the discovery of radio. It has since then been subtly guiding humanity into building the gates.

Variant ideas

Perhaps the probe works differently, seeding planets with the potential for life, hoping that they will develop the gates? This would work for a more Lovercraftian feel, with humanity just being a construction system.

Also, there is no reason why the aliens would have to be invaders, perhaps this is the only way that they can establish contact?

For a twist, in a different setting (perhaps fantasy), the characters discover a similar conspiracy, with the descendants of modern day humanity on the other side of it?

Just Nenad

My contemplations and Meanderings

Tag Archives: SciFi