D20 system to play Firefly?

[Morte]

On a conceptual level, I have to disagree; if we're talking one-shot, it might be different, but the TV show was pretty "gritty" and as low-sci-fi as you can get, outside of something like Asprin's Cold Cash War.

He may not die, but Mal for one gets shot, stabbed, poisoned, and humiliated more times in 13 episodes than most "high-sci-fi" characters do in three seasons; Jayne almost got spaced by Mal (and I have a theory that had the series run longer, either he or Simon would have died for dramatic effect) and the number of people the Firefly crew lost to war and general inhumanity was quite large.

And yet somehow none of them die. Well, except for 30 seconds in a torture chamber with a resuscitator on standby. However many drop, they get back up. Handy, having a scripwriter between you and any lethal wounds... It's synthetic grit, like buying pre-faded jeans with pre-sown patches.

[So, for Firefly you don't use any D20 engine with "Fortitude save vs damage or die". You'll be wanting to take "bleed to -10" and extend it to -20 or -30 for Firefly. Then PCs will "drop" instead of dying, and Simon will have something to do.]

Nor do I see much in the way of PCs getting shot/injured at random (i.e. dice driven) moments. It always happens at some crucial point in a story. A game that reproduces Firefly should build these screen-writing conventions into the mechanics.

In the climax of my first T20 campaign, the PCs flew a grav bike through a window into the executive offices at the top of a tower block. They took out seven guard robots and the mad BBEG in a desprate battle to save a city of 60,000 from asphyxiation. They finished bloody, but standing. Cinematic? Sort of, but they earned it the hard way. Would this have brought injuries in Firefly? Sure. Would anyone have died here in Firefly? Well, if it was going to happen at all it would be at an event like this. Maybe in the last episode of the season. A few minutes later one of them investigated some looters in a warehouse and got killed by a crit from an NPC with no name or character sheet. That would never, ever, happen in an episode of Firefly. But it will happen if you use wargame-derived bottom-up-simulationist rules in the style of Traveller or GURPS and the Firefly setting, instead of getting rules that emulate the Firefly genre.

 

[Morte]

Speaking of script immunity remember this is Joss Whedon we are talking about, he kills and maims main characters at the drop of a hat...don't kid yourself.

Hmm.

I seem to remember Buffy, Giles, Willow and Xander finishing the series as alive as they started it. I seem to remeber an interview with Joss Whedon afterwards where he said something to the effect of "Of course, we couldn't kill off any of the core characters in the finale because that would be a downbeat, but killing Anya and Spike gave it some emotional bite."

I remember quite a few secondary friendlies (NPCs) dying, and Buffy was dead temporarily, and loads of villains. But of the PCs in the scooby gang Buffy, Giles, Willow, Xander, Oz, Angel, Cordelia, ?Riley?, and Dawn survived. Tera (sp?) is the only scoob I remember dying permanently outside the finale. Maybe I missed one or two.

Haven't seen Angel, I'm afraid. Maybe that's different.

From what I've seen, I'd say JW is extremely good at giving the illusion of danger for major characters without actually killing PCs. But perhaps I misremember, or I've watched exactly the wrong episodes.

 

[John Morrow]

Handy, having a scripwriter between you and any lethal wounds... It's synthetic grit, like buying pre-faded jeans with pre-sown patches.

In reality, I think many GMs take on this role, too, and protect their players from meaningless deaths. I've played with such GMs to varying degrees. Many don't but many also do.

Nor do I see much in the way of PCs getting shot/injured at random (i.e. dice driven) moments. It always happens at some crucial point in a story. A game that reproduces Firefly should build these screen-writing conventions into the mechanics.

As you mention later, a lot depends on whether the GM is trying to run a game about other character in the Firefly setting or run adventures that play like Firefly stories.

A few minutes later one of them investigated some looters in a warehouse and got killed by a crit from an NPC with no name or character sheet. That would never, ever, happen in an episode of Firefly.

That sort of thing can and does happen when an author wants to make their story more gritty and realistic. For example, I could imagine your speculated death of Jayne happening at the hands of a nameless goon in meaningless firefight, though the author needs to be willing to expend a main protagonist on the theme that people die for stupid reasons rather than use their death to illustrate some more emotionally uplifting theme such as death out of self-sacrifice or demonstrating how really evil the Bad Guy really is. This sort of thing does happen in American television (sometimes for actor-related reasons like Henry Blake in M*A*S*H or Tasha Yar on Star Trek:TNG), but not often. And when it does happen well (like the quick high-profile death at the beginning of the movie Executive Decision), it's often notable because it is unusual.

Would an event produced by a random role be scripted like the "random" death of a character on a television show? Of course not. But if you want a scripted game, I'm not sure why you are rolling dice or using rules that generate unscripted events in the first place. But the story implications of a scripted "random" death or a real random death are close enough.

I have watched plenty of Japanese TV dramas (the 12 one-hour episode dramas) that had a character die a senseless death, ended on a down note, and even one that had the main point-of-view character die before the last episode. I really enjoyed them because they were so unpredictable for me (alas, Fujisankei no longer shows them with subtitles in the US). It's a very different experience watching a story unfold when you don't assume that anyone is going to make it to the final episode and don't assume that everything will all work out well in the end.

 

[Morte]

Would an event produced by a random role be scripted like the "random" death of a character on a television show? Of course not. But if you want a scripted game, I'm not sure why you are rolling dice or using rules that generate unscripted events in the first place.

I agree, that's a large part of what I've been driving at. Traditional RPGs on the wargame model (D20, GURPS, Traveller) are not especially good at creating events like the ones TV shows create. You need a different approach if you want to truly recreate the TV show. A collaborative story-telling game like Universalis (which may or may not be "an RPG") might do the trick.

[Which, of course, is not what everybody wants. Maybe KidC actually wants to do wargaming in the Firefly setting, rather than recreating Firefly, and D20M/F is ideal for her needs.]

Anyhow, thanks for the considered reply.

 

[KidCthulhu]

Klaus, that's AWESOME. If you could post the rest of the crew, I'll be your slave forever. You'll have spared me hours of work. Tweaking is much easier than creating.

Henry & Morte, I'm biting my tongue so hard about whether Joss will kill core characters. Henry, will you come to Boston to see Serenity when it comes out? I want to see your face during so many scenes!

 

[Henry]

Would that I could, but you'll just have to settle for me taking pictures of my reactions and mailing 'em to ya. Sounds like Joss really will deliver in this one, from what you and others have been saying.

 

[John Morrow]

[Which, of course, is not what everybody wants. Maybe KidC actually wants to do wargaming in the Firefly setting, rather than recreating Firefly, and D20M/F is ideal for her needs.]

I don't think that "wargaming in the Firefly setting" is a fair characterization of the alternative to recreating Firefly stories. Both approaches are interpretations of Firefly that simply focus on different elements of what the show has to offer. In quasi-Forge terms, one is interested in exploring the Firefly universe while the other is interested in exploring the themes. The characters in Firefly are not aware that they have script immunity or have things happen to them to illustrate a certain theme or produce a certain emotion. And to get the experience of being a character in the Firefly setting, as opposed to the experience of being the audience on a couch watching them, it's sometimes important that the player also not be aware of those things. In some cases, that may mean a GM keeping the player in the dark and in others, it may mean playing without them and hoping everyone likes how things turn out.

Also bear in mind that not everyone enjoys television shows (or movies, but this is more common for television shows) for the story or theme, either. There are plenty of ensemble television shows that toss realistic problems at characters and don't always work out neatly and there are plenty of movies that succeed based not only on quirky characters that are interesting to watch bu also on action and special effects rather than plot. I personally watch Smallville and Stargate SG-1 for the characters and little side stuff and not the plots. I really don't enjoy many of the main storyarc SG-1 episodes and really don't like the fact that the rails keep showing so strongly in Smallville. In fact, I often enjoy ensemble shows and movies the most when it feels like the characters are independent free agents rather than plot devices because they feel the most like what you are referring to as "wargaming".

 

[Morte]

Henry & Morte, I'm biting my tongue so hard about whether Joss will kill core characters.

I'd figure it's on the table.

Movies are a different form from TV series, he doesn't have to worry about who's in his next 15 episodes (or the following three seasons if things work out). In his kind of TV series, "gets lots of screen time without dying" is not far off the definition of "major character". But in movies it can all happen.

I wonder how many extra months it will take for that movie to come out in Britain. There is absolutely no chance of me not hearing the entire story unless I quit all RPG forums as soon as it comes out...

 

[Morte]

I don't think that "wargaming in the Firefly setting" is a fair characterization of the alternative to recreating Firefly stories.

You're right, mea culpa, it was a poor choice of words.

And I agree with the rest of your post, except that I've not watched Stargate or Smallville.

 

[John Morrow]

Movies are a different form from TV series, he doesn't have to worry about who's in his next 15 episodes (or the following three seasons if things work out). In his kind of TV series, "gets lots of screen time without dying" is not far off the definition of "major character". But in movies it can all happen.

According to Jewel Staite at I-Con and other source, there might be a trilogy of movies if all goes well, then they're done. The gutsy thing to do would be to kill Mal off early (and alone, of course) in the third movie and make it about how the crew works things out with their proverbial head chopped off.