Serenity for d20?

[Psion]

Adding in hyperspace or FTL cheapens the feeling of the series which is about beating around the 'verse in an aging transport ship and dodging the law. The setting is a gritty wild west kind of solar system. With podunk towns and isolated people making due on the rough fringes. Add FTL or other super-high tech stuff and you lose that.

Funny. Firefly is so Traveller it hurts. Traveller where the GM's default model for low tech worlds is the wild west. And Traveller seems to do fine with FTL.

Honestly, the idea that dozens of terraformed worlds can exist in the same solar system sans the everpresent massive industrialization that would be needed to compensate for major differences in the blackbody temperatures of the bodies at different distances from the sun bugggers with my SOD far more than the presence of FTL would.

Fortunately, Firefly is generally mute on the topic of where they go or how they get there, I think precisely for the reason of nitpicky little web topics like this one. You can simply insert the explanation that suits you.

 

[Rhun]

I'm suprised the one solar system thing is being debated. The movie makes it pretty clear it is just one solar system, just as Mal makes it clear that there is less and less room to maneuver on the edge as time goes by and the strength of the Alliance grows. I think this whole 'vanishing frontier' theme is a pretty big part of the backdrop of Serenity.

This is absolutely true. The beginning of Serenity even shows a map of the system. And the narrative states "a new solar system with dozens of planets and hundreds of moons" or something close to that. Also, Mal implies in his "come a day when there won't be room for naughty men like us to slip about at all" comment that the Alliance is expanding further and further, and the frontier is indeed shrinking.

 

[KaosDevice]

This is absolutely true. The beginning of Serenity even shows a map of the system.

Right, just before the class room scene (being taught by Walt's mother from 'Lost', but I digress.) And also in Firefly, Mal makes a comment about how the reavers are moving closer in every day, suggesting they are burning through the out moon/worlds towards the core planets.

 

[Ghoti]

Right, just before the class room scene (being taught by Walt's mother from 'Lost', but I digress.) And also in Firefly, Mal makes a comment about how the reavers are moving closer in every day, suggesting they are burning through the out moon/worlds towards the core planets.

Don't want to keep the argument going but there is no offical statement.

The maps from the movie show at least 5 bodies that are glowing. They could be gas giants but then the "planets" orbiting them would be called moons yet there are not many moons named.

Also the habitable zone surrounding a star is very limited in size. Yes if the star is larger than Sol, our star, then it would be larger but to be as large as it is for this star system the star would need to be very, very, very big.

This system could be one star that has other stars orbiting it, there are binary and trinary, so why not more? Or it could be an area were there are a group of stars within very close proximity. We just do not know as it has never been spelt out in any way, just alluded to.

It could be that the central star system is the core worlds, the next stars our are the rim worlds, and the farthest out are the border worlds.

 

[Psion]

Also the habitable zone surrounding a star is very limited in size. Yes if the star is larger than Sol, our star, then it would be larger but to be as large as it is for this star system the star would need to be very, very, very big.

And very very large stars have smaller planetary systems, making the scenario all the more unlikely.

 

[Seeten]

You could do what I do and let my eyes glaze over as soon as talk of planets and terraforming starts, and say, "Hey, lets play in this cool cinematic setting, and who gives a flying .... about whether it has FTL or not."

In fact, this might be the best time to use "In Media Res" and skip the travel entirely.

 

[MavrickWeirdo]

You could do what I do and let my eyes glaze over as soon as talk of planets and terraforming starts, and say, "Hey, lets play in this cool cinematic setting, and who gives a flying .... about whether it has FTL or not."

In fact, this might be the best time to use "In Media Res" and skip the travel entirely.

Apparently your eyes were so glazed over, you missed the fact that this is a 5 month old conversation

 

[Seeten]

Nah, I noticed, but Firefly is such a good show, I decided to throw my input in.

 

[drothgery]

There is no faster-than-light travel in the Serenity 'verse. Travel between planets can literally take weeks.

Travel between planets can take months in the Niven/Pournell Empire of Man universe, and they've got FTL (via an instantaneous point-to-point jump "Alderson Drive"). It doesn't take any time to go from one jump point to another, but they don't have much other super-science, and jump points aren't laid out all that conveniently (if you've got really bad luck -- or good luck, depending on what's on the other side -- they're inside a red supergiant).

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

I'm actually working on a Serenity/Firefly "inspired" setting ... my group wants to eventually play something sci-fi and I wanted something a little more country, so I suggested it.

I HATE mucking about in other people's IP, though. The good stories are usually taken and then there's the whole "Howzit supposed to work?!" issue.

Personally, "it just couldn't be like that". I.E. either the technology exists to terraform even wildly inappropriate stellar bodies and make them utterly Earthlike ... where-upon the whole wild-west "Ain't got nunthat fancy Tech No Lo Gee here, ayup." doesn't fly. (You don't spend seventy-bazillion dollars to add gravity and an atmo to a moon then toss people with sheep and some hatchets on there. And if tech is so advanced it's cheap to do, then there's no REASON people should be so tech poor. Building hatchets would probably be MORE expensive than graviton lasers and insta-housing.)

Or you've got quick and easy FTL. But nothing really suggests FTL in Serenity.

What closes it for me is all the times in the show where they've been "traveling" from one place to the next and something goes wrong. Our Mrs. Reynolds, when there's the net and they're traveling slow enough for Jayne to shoot. Mmm. The ep with the bounty hunter. The ep where the engine breaks and they have to abandon ship. All of these "between the planets" things take place at what appear to be "normal" speeds.

But it doesn't MATTER ... it was a good show.

But if I'm going to play a game in it, some different things have to be known. For a TV show, how long it takes to get from A to B can be set once, because that's the only time it'll ever come up. And stuff can just "happen" because it's good TV. But in a game, the players want to know all the distances between places, and they don't want their ship to "throw a space rod" and get boarded by pirates for no reason other than I thought lack of oxygen and a firefight would be cool this week.

In a TV show, guns go bang. The main characters never get hit until the plotline says they get hit, and then they survive based on whether or not the actor was dumb enough to ask for a raise too close to the season finale. In a game, the characters get shot at and should face danger every fight, and they should survive based on the skill and luck of themselves and the guy with the medkit. Players want to know what "stats" each gun has, not just what looks the coolest on the screen. And, usually, what looks cool doesn't apply to the PCs as much as what kills the other guy. (I.E. are the PCs really going to walk around with revolvers and sawed-off six-shot rifles when there are obviously automatic rifles and autoloaders available? They're even available to "civilians", based on the Wall-o-Guns that Jayne has, including Vera the assault rifle and a few autoloader pistols. So why does everybody else walk around all Old West?)

And, biggest ... when have you EVER known Player Characters to ride around in a spaceship without any guns? It may be more realistic, but my players would throw a fit. Especially with "monsters" out there in space. I can hear it now: "There are RULES for guns on ships, though, right? Right? So ... how much to put a hidden gun on the ship?" And from there it's a quest to strap a flak gun on the ship. (ooo ... darn, beat me to it).

It's a great show ... I don't think it would be that great a game.

--fje