Did Anybody Ever Play "Space Opera?"

[Inferno!]

Yep, ran about a half dozen games with it. I still have a soft spot for it. In fact I had it pulled out of the closet last week to use some of the races and equipment for reference material. Looking at the character creation rules, they make much more sense now than they did back when I was in 8th/9th grade. It also has some detailed planet generation rules I liked.

 

[The_Gneech]

'twas too expensive for my budget at the time, alas. Never played SpaceMaster either, but that was another one I would have liked to give a try. By the time I could afford either, I was doing everything with HERO anyway.

-The Gneech

 

[sckeener]

I've seen it, but never played it.

 

[SteveC]

Both owned and played it.

It was an interesting game: a mix of Star Wars, Star Trek and the Lensmen series by E.E. Doc Smith.

It was a mish-mash of game concepts that were popular at the time, with no central game mechanic, but it all sort of worked in some strange way.

The spaceship building system and combat mechanics were less than stellar, but the ship deckplans were excellent.

It also had a miniature based combat system that was EXTREMELY complicated. I enjoyed playing it back in the day, but nowdays, I don't know.

So yes, I'm familiar with it ... heck I even have most of the supplements! Anything you'd like to know, feel free to ask.

--Steve

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Played a sort of Space Opera/Traveller hybrid. I couldn't tell you HOW it was mixed because only the GM ever had the SO rules. Actually, at the time only the DM and two of the 8 or so players had the Traveller rules either - and none of them were me.

I know I enjoyed it because I wound up playing one of a pair of car-jacking spree-killers named Boo-boo who died when Snailhead (the other one) lost control and drove the station wagon into the side of a building during one of our getaways. But I digress.

 

[Hstio]

I stumbled through a few games over 20 years ago. I never liked the rules but LOVED the setting material. I still have all the space atlases on my shelf and pull them out once a year or so to reread them. The game really lived up to it's name, with all sorts of kitchen sink items in it. I would have loved to see more setting material.

 

[The Red Priest]

I did and still have my original boxed set.

As for complexity? Anyone who can't handle math shouldn't be a part of space travel.

 

[Khairn]

Ooh, that's nasty. Somehow, my Traveller games always seemed to end up like Star Wars anyway.

For Plane Sailing and Devyn, what do you remember about the starship creation process? Massively involved (say like Fire, Fusion and Steel)? Or more like High Guard in its level of detail?

Did you use 3d trig to calculate distances between stars?

I know it had zoomorphic PC races. Were they lame or cool?

I enjoyed the races even though they were zoomorphic. They weren't that lame (Blaard were clearly wookies, the MekkPurr were cyber / robotic centric felines) per se, as they gave each race an actual identity and background in the setting material.

To calculate interstellar distances all you needed was a ruler (with mm), a calculator and you had to know Pythagoreans theory of A squared + B squared = C squared. Its really quite easy to calculate once you do it the first time, and it helped seperate SO from other sci-games like Traveller where distances were plotted in 2D "Jumps" instead of 3D Light Year's. I know that's kind of silly, but at the time I thought it was a cool difference.

The starship construction was less "scientific" than Traveller FF&S, but required as much, if not more, number crunching. I remember that I found a few holes in the starship construction section once I "mastered" ship combat. I ended up tweaking the rules and making an excel spreadsheet to help fill in the gaps. My players liked it, but I don't have the foggiest idea where it ended up.


Since The Gneech brought up SpaceMaster, I'll just mention that Star Strike and Armored Assault were 2 very good expansions to the Space Master Line. They provided extensive Starship, Grav Tank, Submairine, Drop Ship, Mecha and other vehicle construction rules.

If I had to rate the various Starship combat games I've played, I would list them as
1- Silent Death (ICE)
2- Star Trek Combat Sim ? (FASA)
3- Space Master (ICE)
4- Space Opera (FGU)
5- D20 Future / Blood & Space
6- Traveller and Alternety

If I had to rate the various Starship Construction systems I've played I would list them as
1- Space Master
2- Space Opera
3- Traveller
4- D20 Future / Blood & Space

I know I rambled a bit, but I have a soft spot for many of these older Sci-Fi games.

 

[Armadillo]

Basically, SO screamed "you're in Star Wars!"

Which is why I had so much trouble with the psi rules until I realized they were modeled on the Lensmen stories.

SO character generation was lengthy and complex, but not as bad as many other games from the early 80s. One of the more complex calculations was the table to modify your attributes based on your home planet. Although, this did make a Bear species PC from a heavy gravity planets truly frightening in melee.

 

[wsclark]

Still have the game and a number of supplements for it. Played it for 2 to 3 years. At the time it was written, it was designed specifically to be Traveller on steriods. That's a quote from the designer since several of my friends and I were involved in playtesting it.

They tried to throw everything they could think of into the game. It is complex in comparison to Classic Traveller and they wanted to see how far they could take it.