Comparing Potential Systems for a "Serenity"/"Firefly"-based Campaign

[ValhallaGH]

But having picked up a copy of Savage Worlds: Explorer Edition a while back (how can you resist for only $10?), and now having read through 6-8 times, I am totally enthralled with the potential of the ruleset, even though I have yet to actually play it.

After our Pathfinder campaign winds down sometime in January, I would love, love, LOVE to start a Serenity/Firefly campaign using a ruleset that will really work.
...
So my question is, can the Savage Worlds rules "handle" a good Serenity/Firefly campaign better than either of the other two options, and has anyone actually tried it?

First, I've been there. Savage Worlds is an odd system (coming from d20) but it really pulls you in when you start thinking about a particular oddball setting. It feels rules light but is actually very crunchy (with rules for most gaming situations). If you want some more food for thought, take a look at the Whispers From the Pit archives on Savagepedia.

Yes, SWEX can handle Firefly. It can handle it very well and elegantly.

Well, the Serenity rules pretty much play like Savage Worlds, except that dice don't explode, players have a bit more plot control using plot points, and the game uses hit points.

So, not much like Savage Worlds at all.
The Acing dice, lack of hit points, and massive qualitative difference between Extras and Wild Cards are central to the feel and mechanics of Savage Worlds, and give it a very different play style than the Serenity RPG (which has some great ideas, awesome flavor text, and interesting builds for the iconic characters).

I ran a Serenity game for a while using the Spirit of the Century rules (which are the FATE system). It worked marvelously. I had to do some adaption, but I found a nice hack for it on the web.

I like unisystem for TV show campaigns. It works really well and is a ruleset found in numerous pop-culture turned rpgs.

However, I second both Savage Worlds and FATE for firefly.

FATE is a great system for people who like their mechanics lighter and more narrative. Descriptions matter, not mechanics. When coming from d20 and other mechanic-centered systems, though, it's a difficult transition that a lot of players have trouble with. The rewards are worth it, but the transition can be more than you and yours are will to overcome.



Best of luck.

 

[PulpCruciFiction]

I ran a Serenity game for a while using the Spirit of the Century rules (which are the FATE system). It worked marvelously. I had to do some adaption, but I found a nice hack for it on the web.

If I would do it again, I'd use Strands of Fate, which has just come out as a PDF, and will be available in print from LULU shortly. Here's a link.

I like FATE because its uses aspects, which seemed to work out exceptionally well to simulate the characters and their stories from the show/movie. If you haven't ever used aspects before, they're basically a snippet about the character, that when it's relevant, can be invoked to give you a bonus or compelled to get you into trouble.

I'm a big fan of the FATE system as well - if you're interested in going that way, I might try Diaspora, which is a hard sci-fi FATE system described as a cross between Traveller and Spirit of the Century. A lot of the conversion work would be done for you already. There's also Starblazer Adventures, which is more of a pulp high sci-fi system like Star Wars or Flash Gordon, but I think Diaspora is probably closer to Serenity in genre feel.

 

[Hackmaster]

Savage Worlds would work fine.

I'd avoid the actual Serenity game. It's far and away the worst iteration of the Cortex system.

My personal recomendation would be to use Traveller. Any edition from the old classic books to the new Mongoose version or pick up a used copy of T20.

 

[Pbartender]

...but I think Diaspora is probably closer to Serenity in genre feel.

Actually, I'd contend the opposite. Watch the show... The show happens to take place in space, with spaceships and faster-than-light travel and all that entails, but there's really not a whole of of the pseudo-scientific techno-speak that you get with harder sci-fi settings.

The show is more about the characters and the action, rather than the technical aspects of futuristic gadgetry. It's an action-adventure Western with science fiction trappings, rather than the other way around.

If you try to shoehorn it into hard sci-fi, you run the risk of doing what happened to Star Wars... All the hard sci-fi details and pedantry end up fouling up everything that made the show and the movie fascinating.

 

[SteveC]

I'd just like to echo what Pbartender said. I think Diaspora is a bit too dry and hard sci-fi for Serenity, as is Traveller... even though I'd admit that the show was pretty clearly influenced by Traveller.

I think the key is that Firefly/Serenity are really about characters and telling a story, and not much at all about the technology involved. There's the famous line where, when asked how fast ships move in Firefly, Whedon says they move at "the speed of plot."

FATE is not a game that some gamers will like very much, because it can be very free-form. I think it's worth taking a look at to see if it will work for your group (that's to the OP) because I think it tells the kind of stories that Whedon does very well.

I'm trying to think of a game that would do Firefly well and be more mainstream, and I'm having a bit of trouble doing so. Perhaps a generic system like GURPS or HERO would work, but then you have the opposite problem than with FATE: there are too many rules!

--Steve

 

[ValhallaGH]

Actually, I'd contend the opposite. Watch the show... The show happens to take place in space, with spaceships and faster-than-light travel and all that entails...

FTL? In Firefly? Where? No, seriously, where?

The setting is a single solar system, one with a few habitable planets and several gas giants that all have dozens of habitable moons (post terra-forming).

Sorry, felt that needed to be cleared up.

 

[jonesy]

...but there's really not a whole of of the pseudo-scientific techno-speak that you get with harder sci-fi settings...

Hard science fiction equals pseudotech? I think you've got some definition wrong somewhere in there.

The setting is a single solar system, one with a few habitable planets and several gas giants that all have dozens of habitable moons (post terra-forming).

Yeah.

Here's a pretty neat fan made map:
FIREFLYFANS.NET
FIREFLYFANS.NET

 

[Orius]

I'd say anything that can handle a Western themed game and something with spaceships at the same time should (theoretically) work alright.

 

[Shades of Green]

I think that the default Traveller game type is supposed to play exactly like Firefly: a small tramp trader with a bunch of varied characters onboard hopping from world to world, dealing in speculative trade, evading the law and getting into trouble (i.e. adventure) on a regular basis. Traveller also belongs to the "shotguns in space" genre, which is perfectly fitting to Firefly.

 

[Pbartender]

Hard science fiction equals pseudotech?

To a certain degree, yes... A lot of hard sci-fi has a lot of pseudo-science in it. Primarily because it's trying to predict fictional future science based on current science. Often, because most sci-fi authors aren't professional scientists, the predicted science is purposefully or unintentionally based on details that are scientifically and logically wrong, but are plausible enough from the view point of a entertaining fictional plot.

"Hard sci-fi" is sci-fi heavily founded in the "hard sciences", most notably physics, astronomy and their derivatives, whereas soft sci is primarily concerned with the social sciences, anthropology and sociology and the like. Of course, it's never been a perfectly fine line between the two...

The thing to remember is that Hard sci-fi makes no contentions about how true to the source it sticks. Sure, it's SCIENCE fiction, but it's also science FICTION. A lot of hard sci-fi starts out with a perfectly reasonable science-based premise in general, and then mucks it up when they try to fill in the details.

Star Trek and Star Wars are two very good examples of what started out as Soft Sci-Fi with just enough Hard Sci-Fi to excuse the gimmicks, but then later got all goofy when fans and authors tried to make them Harder than they should have ever been.

What I'm saying is, Firefly is one of those sci-fi settings where it's probably better off to not worry about the hard science too much. Delving into those details too far ruins the setting, because it reveals all the little scientifically inconsistent details that you then have to go out of your way to find a not-quite-entirely plausible explanation for.

We don't need to know how or why there are dozens of habitable planets floating around a single star system... Only that there are, and that most of them are habitable but not necessary hospitable.

We don't really need to know exactly how or why Firefly's interplanetary drive works, or even how fast it goes... Only that it works until the irreplaceable doohickey breaks down or it runs out of go-juice, and it either gets you there in the nick of time or maybe not quite.