Failed promises

[TheAuldGrump]

The Babylon Project. It was everything a licensed RPG shouldn't be: no rules for playing during the actual time of the show (in fact the book says you must play before Babylon 5 is actually built), no pictures from the show other than an exterior shot of the station on the cover (mediocre drawings for all the illustrations, of about the quality of a talented amateur), no stats for the main characters (and a tiny disclaimer that the book in no way depicted any characters from the show, what kind of strange licensing deal did they have?), a game about warring stellar powers and no starship combat system in any way.

Then there was the actual writing of the book, the system was a strange blend of rules-light and ultra complicated. Very simple task resolution, but hit-location charts that were daunting to say the least. The system was poorly explained, and you couldn't learn a dang thing from just picking it up and looking through it, I owned that book for well over a year before I even understood how the system worked, and that was only when I decided I was going to sit down and read the entire thing cover-to-cover (which just drove the lameness home). I realized how the game was supposed to run, but I also realized it had huge holes and gaps in it that made it practically unplayable for anything other than a one-shot that was tightly scripted to work around the gaps, and that if I ever ran a Babylon 5 RPG, it would never, ever be with this system.

The game was practically unplayable with just the core book, they made one suppliment, which I didn't even bother to pick up. I hear it had an attempt at a starship combat system, but you had to buy a suppliment to have space battles in a space game? What is this, Star Wars Galaxies?.

Hmmm, I ran a campaign of BP for 3 years, and never had a problem. I rather liked the to hit system, in play it went very quickly indeed. But it was one of those games that you actually had to play in order to 'get' the system.

Bacground wise it was a bit thin, getting the okays from the studio was much slower than they had hoped for, six months passing between them sending the studio a copy and getting even a 'this needs changing' response. The Earthforce supplement did help with the lack of background, and had a much better space combat system than that included with B5 D20.

As for RPGs with separate space combat systems - I can think of 6.5 off hand. Star Warriors for the Star Wars RPG, Brilliant Lances for Traveler the New Era (and Battle Rider the massed space combat game, my .5), Delta V for Space Opera, Mayday for the original Traveller, Star Cruiser for 2300AD, and the one that went with Star Frontiers that I can never remember the name of... Knight Hawks? I have no doubt that there were others.

The Auld Grump

 

[Particle_Man]

I'm gonna toss in my own opinion here and go with Lords of Darkness, Races of the Wild, and Complete Divine.

I was slightly disappointed with Complete Divine. It seemed like they didn't bother at all to update it to a 3.5 version, even though it was released AFTER Complete Warrior. I once joked that I was eagerly awaiting the 3.5 version of Complete Divine.

That said, I like the Spirit Shaman and Favored Soul as classes, and might try to run a campaign where they replace the cleric and druid.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

The Babylon Project. It was everything a licensed RPG shouldn't be: no rules for playing during the actual time of the show (in fact the book says you must play before Babylon 5 is actually built), no pictures from the show other than an exterior shot of the station on the cover (mediocre drawings for all the illustrations, of about the quality of a talented amateur), no stats for the main characters (and a tiny disclaimer that the book in no way depicted any characters from the show, what kind of strange licensing deal did they have?)

What system did that use? I know that there is a d20 Version of Babylon 5, and unless I'm mistaken it has stats for the heroes, lots of photos, and full storyline coverage.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I'm most disappointed of the above with LoD.

Personally, I liked Champions of Ruin,

We must be the complete opposite of each other. Are you perchance lawful neutral with good tendencies and love dwarves?

 

[TheAuldGrump]

What system did that use? I know that there is a d20 Version of Babylon 5, and unless I'm mistaken it has stats for the heroes, lots of photos, and full storyline coverage.

It used its own system, rolling 1 green D6 and 1 red D6, and keeping whichever was lower. Doubles equaled 0. I played it as subtracting the red from the green, which gives the same average. The system was unusual in that negative rolls were common, and the average was 0.

The combat system had a silhouette superimposed with a hex grid - how much you failed the roll by determined where the shot went, with a hit striking the hex you were aiming at. So if you aimed at the center of mass missing the shot could end up hitting the arm or head instead, as well as going into one of the hexes that was not over the silhouette.

Combat was even more lethal than in B5D20 - the average PPG shot, hitting the chest of the target, killed him dead. And you could die slowly as well, or suffer long term damage that takes months to heal (if ever).

As for space combat Rule number 1 was in place - Don't Piss Off the Minbari.

The Auld Grump

 

[wingsandsword]

What system did that use? I know that there is a d20 Version of Babylon 5, and unless I'm mistaken it has stats for the heroes, lots of photos, and full storyline coverage.

The Babylon Project by Chameleon Eclectic Games, copyright 1997. The main author credit is to Joseph Cochran, although Charles Ryan worked on the book as well (he's listed inside as having an "additional material by" and editing & graphic design credits).

So it came long before d20, and came out at about the time the series was finishing its run.

It had it's own proprietary system, which TheAuldGrump summarized, the system was fairly poorly explained in the book (most of the mechanics seemed to revolve around hit location/damage determiniation tables), and as was said, space combat wasn't even in the main book at all. There was also no way to have a PC telepath over P5 rating, end of story, and that was so expensive in terms of game mechanics, if you were a P5 telepath you began with virtually no skills. There was even a sidebar on Page 80 saying that Ranger PC's were not allowed in the game (even though it admits that they are "one obvious idea for a team of player characters") and the game Shall Not be played in any time period other than the construction of the Babylon stations.

It had a disclaimer on the inside credits page "Original illustrations in this book are not intended to represent specific characters from BABYLON 5", and it had no information whatsoever on the characters from the series, the only character stats in the entire book (or even any illustrations from the series in any way) were a few NPC's and PreGen PC's for the sample adventure in the back where you investigate the destruction of Babylon Station (a.k.a. Babylon 1).

At the time, it was an epic let-down since it came out when I was first getting into RPG's and the only othe RPG I knew was the d6 Star Wars game (an excellent game, with fans to this day), so I expected as much quality from The Babylon Project.

In retrospect, the entire book had the feeling that it was made under a very restrictive licensing agreement, and that it was a small company getting in way over its head to make it.

The d20 Babylon 5 was an excellent game that fixed all these problems and excelled and the best thing that Mongoose has produced, IMO, any complaints about TBP do not apply to The d20 Babylon 5 RPG.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

Alot of books. Most books I realize about a week after buying them aren't all they're cracked up to be.

 

[jeff37923]

d20 Future

No index, that was bad enough. Then it got worse as the self-proclaimed science fiction add-on to d20 Modern disembowelled the majority of science fiction conventions. No star system generation or planet generation rules. A spacecraft creation system that does not work. A spacecraft combat system that does not work. Campaign suggestions that are forced rehashes of Polyhedron articles and old TSR games. The only good thing about the book was the art, IMHO. Best part of the book was left out and that was the cyberspace/netrunning section that became a free download from WotC. I bought the book for half price at a used book store and felt ripped off.

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d20 Star Wars

I hated this monstrosity so much that I just sold all of my books, all of my copies of Star Wars Gamer magazine, and spent the money on purchasing the out of print WEG d6 Star Wars. The rules didn't simulate the action in the movies well enough for me. The space combat system was atrocious in the first edition and didn't improve much in the revised. The community rules in the revised edition do not tell you anything about creating worlds and are just a cheap rehash of the community creation rules from the DMG. I hate the commoner rules, you might have just called them cardboard stand-ins. It just didn't work for me at all.

The main detraction for me was how WotC transitioned from the original to the revised edition. I had purchased every book and all of the Star Wars gamer magazines and had to use just about every one to run a game. Then the d20 Star Wars Revised Edition came out and the books & magazines that I had invested in became moot with the new rules - most were incorporated into the new revised rulebook, I felt that I had blown all that money. I gave the revised edition a try and it still had rule problems that were set up in the first edition, unchanged.

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I know that many people do like these books, more power to you. For me, they both gave me more headache in gaming then they were worth.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

The d20 Babylon 5 was an excellent game that fixed all these problems and excelled and the best thing that Mongoose has produced, IMO, any complaints about TBP do not apply to The d20 Babylon 5 RPG.

B5D20 is very good, aside from the space combat. On the Mongoose boards I started a 'What Don't You Like About B5 D20' thread, and space combat is the top so far. (These are people who like the game, but have some issues with some elements of it, not folks flaming the game. The thread was even made official. Mongoose does listen to the complaints. )

Oh, another bomb that I had forgotten - Twin Crowns...

The Auld Grump

 

[Kanegrundar]

Personally, I agree with your opinion of Gamma World, I think if you're going to do a new version of a classic setting, you try to replicate that setting as much as possible.....but I do think that I needed to splash a bit of cold water on your "listen and accomodate the fans" statement.

That was actually listen and _try_ to accomodate the fans. Sure, the most vocal segment is also the smallest. However, if their (our) opinions are worthwhile to listen to then why to so many publishers read message board posts? Are they just curious? I've got to think they want to know what even a small segment of the gaming populace is looking for in a game. I could be wrong, but it seems silly that the small group of vocal gamers have no or should have any sway over a products direction. After all, it's the vocal minority that tends to find most of the errors that publishers either miss or outright ignore that leads to updated copies and errata in many products. It's seems silly that they don't listen at all.

Kane