Battlestar Galactica d20 Future

[wingsandsword]

Okay, so the good news is that a license has been granted to make a Battlestar Galactica roleplaying game. The bad news is that it's not going to be d20.

Well, I'll almost certainly buy the book anyway, for background and setting information, but I already had lots of ideas on how to run games set in the Twelve Colonies in d20, especially d20 Future. So, here are my thoughts on a d20 Future Battlestar Galactica game.

First, the Twelve Colonies of Kobol is almost a textbook Progress Level 6 civilization. They invented sentient robots about 40 years ago (but then that went bad and they pretty much banned AI technology). As for genetic engineering, cloning and biotech, the Colonies don't have much of that, but the Cylons which they created do, so presumably the Colonies had it at least a lab/theoretical level which the Cylons implemented. They have artificial gravity, but a few bits of background material (like the official description of the Space Park ship in the fleet) implies that this technology is not too old. They still rely on chemically powered firearms as primary weapons, nuclear arms are still the big guns. Heck, the "Anti Radiation Meds" of the series is actually a stock PL6 piece of equipment.

The only place where it really doesn't fit square with the book-standard definition is that they have FTL drives and interstellar travel capacity. They don't have FTL communication, and apparently their civilization was limited to either one large star system, or several very close ones, and it was possible for ships to go for many years without using their FTL drives before the holocaust.

In a lot of the AdC's of d20 Modern and d20 Future I see examples from the show:

Dogfighter: Starbuck, Apollo, Kat (there are lots of other pilots, but I think these are the ones with the best claim on having the actual class)
Engineer: Chief Laird, Chief Tyrol
Field Officer: Adm. Adama
Field Scientist: Dr. Baltar (and Personality)
Personality: Tom Zarek
Soldier: Sgt. Hadrian
Field Medic: Dr. Cottle
Swindler: Ellen Tigh

I see opportunities for Prestige Classes, like Oracle (especially since it's pretty clear they actually do have some precognative abilities).

Anybody else have any ideas in this direction?

 

[Diggus Rex]

This guy Waylan Wolf has covered the game pretty well and can send ya a pdf for your perusal: http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=492021

 

[Stormborn]

I think that the FTL tech of the Colonies is simply representitive of the fluid nature of Progress Levels. It seems that in Applied Theoretical Physics they are a little ahead of the curve, but some of the other aspects may be a little behind. I wouldnt worry about it. Or, FTL might be an artifact, a product of their ancient past and the colonization but only recently (last 50 years) rediscovered and made practical.

The one down side I would anticipate in game play is the feel of dogfights, which just dont seem like they would come across well in combat.

Another issue is what would PCs be? It would be a bit difficult to be actually in the Fleet what with the named characters (NPCs in a game I would guess) stealling all the glory and making all the decisions. Better, perhaps, to play a game set in the BSG universe but not with Galactica and the fleet. Pegasus had a fleet at one point, maybe there are others. You could have a game with a diff BS (or other millitary ships) and then let then have the PCs play ensemble style, with one command level character (like Adama or the President), one Viper or Raptor pilot PC, one marine, and maybe one low level military or civilian PC.

The other alternative would be some kind of squad based game, where PCs are long range scouts in advance of Galactica, all roughly of the same level, and operating on missions where the primaries aren't in the picture and are unavailable to dictate PC actions.

 

[wingsandsword]

As for the type of campaign, I can see three ways of doing it:

1. The Cylon Wars. Set back 40 years before the series, when the new Caprica spin-off show is going to be set.

2. Another Battlestar. Maybe something that would be a lower priority target, like a training ship (also an excuse for the PC's to be low level at the start, since it could be a training ship and the PC's be cadets and/or junior officers aboard, the Cylons strike and the senior officers are killed and when the dust settles, they've escaped with a handful of support ships and civilian stragglers. Maybe have them be "one step behind" sometimes, like getting Roslin's call to rendevous too late, and by the time they show up the fleet has departed, or arriving at Kobol to the wreckage of a Cylon ship in orbit destroyed by a colonial nuke, and signs of recent landings on the planet. Some additional adventures and a separate plot twist so that it's not just a gimmick of being right behind the Galactica, like finding the path to the Cylon homeworld instead of Earth and trying to somehow take on the Cylons by attacking their homeworld in a retalliatory strike.

3. Parallell story. It's the Galactica as the last known battlestar, but the PC's are the crew instead. PC's playing the parts of Apollo, Starbuck, Adama, ect. and see how they'd do in similar circumstances.

As for the PL thing, I was just noting it's pretty close to the book description of PL6, with one exception. For rules purposes in things in d20F that use PL's, to consider Colonial and Cylon tech PL6 (with Cylons a little more advanced with FTL and Biotech, but not a full PL).

 

[qstor]

I think a campaign with the guerilla fighters would be neat. Or maybe a merchant ship that escaped. As a DM you wouldn't be bound by the strict canon of the TV series.

Mike

 

[smootrk]

Great idea, and reasonable views on their tech level.

I would allow the players to create PC's of whatever type they have in mind, be it soldiers, pilots (one should be a pilot if possible), civilian types of any kind, etc. Then have the players all be aboard some ship that mis-jumps or is somehow left behind somewhere ... for a time anyway. Let them get some experience on their own, leveling them to about equivalent to your main NPC leader types, then allow them to rejoin the fleet on the heels of a big battle where many losses (including certain NPCs of notoriety) - and the players can somehow be drafted (civilian) or ordered to take up some of these important roles.

While they are isolated they can adventure like guerrillas, explorers, or maybe they stumble onto a isolated colony (not actually earth, but a similar fragment of the old colonies - and you can put this colony at whatever tech level seems good for the game).

 

[Graf]

There is a pretty decent precident for a small group of core individuals doing a lot of the big stuff on a ship.

Like the time that Starbuck played sniper.

 

[wolff96]

Then have the players all be aboard some ship that mis-jumps or is somehow left behind somewhere ... for a time anyway. Let them get some experience on their own, leveling them to about equivalent to your main NPC leader types, then allow them to rejoin the fleet on the heels of a big battle where many losses (including certain NPCs of notoriety) - and the players can somehow be drafted (civilian) or ordered to take up some of these important roles.

There were three ships lost during the trip through the star cluster in an episode just before the season end.

Perhaps they realized that they got lost and their raptor wasn't going to find them and jumped out blindly before they all fried from the radiation.

That gives you a civilian ship -- maybe throw in some kind of military or near-military level fighter -- with a very small crew. (They were deliberately stripped down to skeleton crews to ensure as little loss of life as possible.)

Any inconvenient crew die off from extreme radiation poisoning. Or you can have the actual PCs just be part of a very small crew that runs the ship while the actual party completes missions.

Just a thought.

 

[Verec]

There were 12 colonies, and we only saw the resistance forces on Caprica. I'd bet that organized resistances might have existed on the other eleven worlds, although Picon might have been a radioactive post-apocalyptic hell from the cylon destruction of the fleet HQ. We know that at least one world had a reputation for lawlessness, another had a reputation as a world of religious devotees, and so on. Play that up, and have NPCs sterotype the characters. Accuse someone of being a cylon. Whatever it takes, keep in mind that your players are members of a hunted race. Try and capture that feel of play in whatever setting you choose.

Rather than a part of the fluid nature of PL progression, it is much more likely that the FTL drive is a holdover reminant technology from the era of Kobol. We are talking about a civilization that could sculpt 12 habitable worlds out of one solar system here. Some of them might have been harsh, but they were all able to support human life. A teleport FTL is not inconsistant with that technology level. When Kobol fell, pices of its technology and knowledge base survived intact.

Cylon Battlestars have no exaust, did anyone else notice that? They must be using a gravity or pure Reactionless drive to propell them through space. This could be based of the Artificial Gravity tech the colonials already had durring the Cylon war. I wonder why they don't have laser Point Defense, except that the power generation and transfer arrays for such a system would need large radiators to keep the heat buildup tolerable.

 

[Master of the Game]

I'm currently running a Battlestar Galactica using Spycraft 2.0, and we're liking it a lot.

Basically I had the players build characters that could exist in a futuristic society with a tech level much like our own, but with interstellar travel. I didn't tell anyone it was a BSG game. I ended up with:

A wheelman who was basically a "car thief".
A soldier who chose to play using the Test Subject Specialty (little does he know that he's a Cylon sleeper).
A professional basketball (pyramid) player.
A teenaged hacker.

I told them all that they were out in a forest in the middle of no where and then had them tell me why.

Turns out that the wheelman stole an experimental aircraft and the soldier was sent to bring him in. The hacker was laying low after getting caught trying to hack a government database. The professional athlete had his off-season house out here to stay away from the paparazzi.

Then, half way through the first session, the power went out, and those that went outside to see what was going on saw a mushroom cloud in the distance. Begin the invasion.

The group met each other while gathering supplies in a nearby town and started a resistance cell. They recently discovered a "birthing clinic", and realized that this thing was too much for them. Next session they plan to try and steal a ship from a local starport and try to get off the planet. After that they'll be on their own for a while, searching for survivors, gathering supplies, and helping where they can. When that gets boring they'll catch a transmission from the Gallactica, and chase them down for a while. Eventually joining the crew and putting their anti-cylon expertise to use as a strike team.

Anywho, that's the basic plan anyways...