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

[ValhallaGH]

Sorry, I missed this post earlier...

It's cool. I actually agree with you on just about every front (ignoring a few piddly details). But I did think it was important (for conceptual space) to mention that there is only one system and that the ships are not FTL.


As for game system ... most systems will work. Whether they'll work as desired depends on the players and their desires.

 

[Thanee]

Savage Worlds was built especially for Western games (Deadlands, to be specific).

I wouldn't say that.

Savage Worlds is effectively the third incarnation of the Deadlands ruleset. The first two ("Deadlands: Classic" 1st and revised edition) were an integral part of the setting, while Savage Worlds was specifically made to untie the mechanics from the setting and make it a generic RPG (with Deadlands: Reloaded as one of the primary settings, of course).

So while it is not completely untrue, it's a bit of the other way around (its roots lie in the Western/Horror genre).

Bye
Thanee

 

[Siberys]

So while it is not completely untrue, it's a bit of the other way around (its roots lie in the Western/Horror genre).

Six of this, half a dozen of that.

It doesn't invalidate the point, though; despite being untied from Deadlands, the system is still very good at western-type games, which happens to cover Firefly, IMO.

 

[deinol]

Having it be a single star system with many worlds actually makes that more complicated, rather than less. If you're travelling between star systems, you do not have to worry much about those stars moving - you can have fixed travel times (or distances) between Star A and Star B. With the number of worlds in the 'Verse, all in one system, if you wanted to be picky the orbits would matter a lot - Going from planet A to planet B might take days or months, depending on their positions in their orbits.

This all depends on speeds. Say Mars is 90 degrees off from the Sun compared to the Earth, putting it roughly 1.8 AU away. If your ship can do 2Gs of constant thrust you can cover that distance in just over 65 hours. (Assuming I did my math right.) Sure, Mars will have moved a bit in that time, but close enough for RPG work. Classic Traveller has the formula to figure this out, and a nice chart to show travel times at a variety of distances at speeds of 1-6 Gs. Does anyone know what sort of thrust rating a Firefly has?

What I like most about Traveller is that it does try to think about the realities of space travel. Not everyone will be interested in this level of science, and you can easily hand wave it if you want.

And genre style. Honestly, did you ever see Mal talking about exact cargo mass, and details of delta-V?

Yes, Firefly is a sci-fi show, with spaceships. But it is also a Western - and in a Western your cargo is either non-existent, a full wagon, or Just Too Damn Big. Simple, elegant, and enough for purposes of supporting the drama.

It's true, but there will always be changes to a genre when moving mediums. Players will want to buy as much cargo as they can, so even if you don't get really picky with the math, it still helps to have some baselines to know how many cattle will fit in the hold, and how much that is worth compared to other cargo. Which parts of the genre the GM wants to highlight and bring to his game will depend a lot more on his style than the original source material.

As I've said, I know what I would use, Traveller. I don't think other systems are a bad choice for other GMs, I just know which is right for me. As long as the GM and players are getting what they want out of the game it is all good. If the players want to crunch numbers about their space ship, Traveller is a good choice. If not, a light system like Savage Worlds is probably better.

 

[deinol]

For those of you who want to play with math at home, the formula for a constant thrust trip (where you continue to accelerate until the midpoint of the trip, and then flip around and decelerate back to zero by the end of the trip) is:

T=2*√(D/A)

T is the time in seconds
D is the distance in meters (1 Astronomical Unit = 149,598,000,000 meters)
A is acceleration in m/s/s (1 G = 9.8 m/s/s)

I recommend Excel or Open Office Calc for assistance.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Spaceships move as fast and have as much cargo space as horses do: however much is needed for the plot.

If you want hard science super detailed space combat, Firefly probably isn't the game you want. It's like playing Deadlands because you want a realistic interpretation of the drama and emotion in the Civil War.

 

[innerdude]

Massive thanks to everyone for your comments and suggestions.

At this point, it looks like we're going to go with Savage Worlds for our Firefly "test run," using the PDF fan conversion that Amerigo linked to (thanks again!!).

As a GM I'm discovering that I'm pretty good at putting together plot hooks and structuring story arc with fairly small amounts of prep, but I like the thought of having some "crunch" in combat for the players that Savage Worlds provides, even though I personally lean much more to narrativist styles.

Plus, the structure of Savage Worlds makes it seem very easy to create fast encounters, and other than the technology, there's not much to have to directly convert over--no monsters or alternate races, no "spells" (though if someone wanted to play a wacked-out River Tam psychic type, Savage Worlds can account for that too).

All that being said, I'm absolutely intrigued by both Traveller and FATE.

As soon as I can get a little bit more budget behind me, I'll definitely be checking them out.

Thanks again, everyone.

 

[deinol]

Glad we could help and good luck with the game. Come back in a few months and tell us how it went!

 

[Korgoth]

I know I'm a bit late to this, but my top suggestions would be:

Classic Traveller
Diaspora

I guess you could run it with Savage Worlds... it's the system that's OK for just about anything. But Firefly always screamed "Traveller!" to me, and Diaspora is Traveller as an arty game.

 

[MerricB]

Oh well. Next year, I plan to run Serenity using Mongoose Traveller, so I'll report back then as to how it goes.

Cheers!