I'm just wondering if there's anyone out there in EN World-dom who knows about the RPG I ran last week: SPI's Universe.
This is a game I bought back in the early 80s, shortly after I became interested in D&D. (I'm guessing most likely I bought it in 1983). Of course, by the time I bought it, SPI was no longer in existence, but I didn't know that at the time. I was very, very young, and a science-fiction RPG seemed like a good idea.
Universe has an unusual skill system. Each task has a base percentage chance of success. If you are possess ranks in the skill, you add the matching attribute and the square of your skill rank to determine the chance of success. As skill levels rarely go about 8, it's a somewhat clunky way of doing it but not all that difficult.
A bit more difficult is working out awareness (surprise) and initiative, which have a multitude of factors having to be calculated, including the Environ skill level of each character. Honestly, at the beginning of each encounter, you need to sit down for five minutes to work out exactly who is best equipped to deal with the encounter and will thus be the "leader" and rolling for initiative. Because someone who was brought up in Barren Peaks isn't so great at seeing what's going on in Jungle Flats. (And there's gravity to consider as well).
Despite that, I've got a great fondness for Universe and what exists of its setting in the main rulebook: which isn't all that much, admittedly. It's the 24th Century. Earth is still in the early stages of colonizing the planets around it. The planet design system is detailed, and it's not one planet per star system. Only the rocky worlds are considered, but you can create four or more for a star system. Where they can exist depend on the star's spectral class - the game certainly evokes the core of "hard" sci-fi. Each planet has a mean temperature, important resources, a hydrograph percentage (how much surface water is on the planet), and details on the major terrain in a number of environs. This hard sci-fi setting is helped by the included star map: every star (along with its spectral class) within 30 light years of Earth.
The game - as presented - is very much about exploring new world, finding new creatures, and perhaps, some day, finding intelligent life. The basic book doesn't have any (really) intelligent aliens, but a supplement in Ares magazine back in the day gave one such race.
Anyway, I had an aborted attempt at running a session back when I was a teenager, but it didn't go well. And so, nearly twenty years later, I was able to convince four of my friends to give the game a go.
The session - using the provided adventure in the rulebook, "Lost on Laidley" - was not one that will go down in the annals of roleplayings as one of the Best Sessions Ever. Indeed, it was fairly mediocre, but it was still enjoyable and provided an interesting glimpse into the possibilities given by this system. What worked well was how the characters needed to come up with a plan for where they were to land on the planet a missing expedition was stranded, and where they would go to find the survivors. All of that worked well, and there were a couple of interesting encounters with alien life along the way...
What do you do when you come against a mobile rock that wants to be friends? Well, according to what my group did, you trap it in a force cage to be shipped back to the nearest civilized planet to be (a) studied and (b) sold for profit. Heh. Human nature doesn't change much through a few centuries.
Giant vehicle-eating slug thing? Panic, drive it off with weapons! It's amusing to see one of the PCs trying to scare it off with a bow... no, not perhaps the most appropriate of weapons. Don't you have a laser somewhere?
Anyway, we finished the adventure in about 3 hours, and next week we'll have another go of the system - with likely an adventure I design myself. Taking a leaf from some of Jack McDevitt's work, I'm going to start with the media being really interested in the characters... and then move on from there.
The "campaign" might only go for two sessions, but it is certainly a change from the D&D and Cthulhu I've been running recently. I'm quite interested in seeing if I can have it last a little longer, and see what I can do in a science-fiction Universe...
Cheers!
This is a game I bought back in the early 80s, shortly after I became interested in D&D. (I'm guessing most likely I bought it in 1983). Of course, by the time I bought it, SPI was no longer in existence, but I didn't know that at the time. I was very, very young, and a science-fiction RPG seemed like a good idea.
Universe has an unusual skill system. Each task has a base percentage chance of success. If you are possess ranks in the skill, you add the matching attribute and the square of your skill rank to determine the chance of success. As skill levels rarely go about 8, it's a somewhat clunky way of doing it but not all that difficult.
A bit more difficult is working out awareness (surprise) and initiative, which have a multitude of factors having to be calculated, including the Environ skill level of each character. Honestly, at the beginning of each encounter, you need to sit down for five minutes to work out exactly who is best equipped to deal with the encounter and will thus be the "leader" and rolling for initiative. Because someone who was brought up in Barren Peaks isn't so great at seeing what's going on in Jungle Flats. (And there's gravity to consider as well).
Despite that, I've got a great fondness for Universe and what exists of its setting in the main rulebook: which isn't all that much, admittedly. It's the 24th Century. Earth is still in the early stages of colonizing the planets around it. The planet design system is detailed, and it's not one planet per star system. Only the rocky worlds are considered, but you can create four or more for a star system. Where they can exist depend on the star's spectral class - the game certainly evokes the core of "hard" sci-fi. Each planet has a mean temperature, important resources, a hydrograph percentage (how much surface water is on the planet), and details on the major terrain in a number of environs. This hard sci-fi setting is helped by the included star map: every star (along with its spectral class) within 30 light years of Earth.
The game - as presented - is very much about exploring new world, finding new creatures, and perhaps, some day, finding intelligent life. The basic book doesn't have any (really) intelligent aliens, but a supplement in Ares magazine back in the day gave one such race.
Anyway, I had an aborted attempt at running a session back when I was a teenager, but it didn't go well. And so, nearly twenty years later, I was able to convince four of my friends to give the game a go.
The session - using the provided adventure in the rulebook, "Lost on Laidley" - was not one that will go down in the annals of roleplayings as one of the Best Sessions Ever. Indeed, it was fairly mediocre, but it was still enjoyable and provided an interesting glimpse into the possibilities given by this system. What worked well was how the characters needed to come up with a plan for where they were to land on the planet a missing expedition was stranded, and where they would go to find the survivors. All of that worked well, and there were a couple of interesting encounters with alien life along the way...
What do you do when you come against a mobile rock that wants to be friends? Well, according to what my group did, you trap it in a force cage to be shipped back to the nearest civilized planet to be (a) studied and (b) sold for profit. Heh. Human nature doesn't change much through a few centuries.
Giant vehicle-eating slug thing? Panic, drive it off with weapons! It's amusing to see one of the PCs trying to scare it off with a bow... no, not perhaps the most appropriate of weapons. Don't you have a laser somewhere?
Anyway, we finished the adventure in about 3 hours, and next week we'll have another go of the system - with likely an adventure I design myself. Taking a leaf from some of Jack McDevitt's work, I'm going to start with the media being really interested in the characters... and then move on from there.
The "campaign" might only go for two sessions, but it is certainly a change from the D&D and Cthulhu I've been running recently. I'm quite interested in seeing if I can have it last a little longer, and see what I can do in a science-fiction Universe...
Cheers!
