Serenity RPG - How is it?

[RFisher]

Firefly is almost surely influenced by Traveller. I love classic Traveller, but the rules as written are so broken as to be almost unplayable. They were fine 25 years ago when we just rolled dice and made stuff up, but its painful to read the rules now. There's more holes than rules...

() I guess that classic Traveller campaign I ran a couple years ago was just a dream. (^_^) I don't find them broken or unplayable. Heck, I'm even having a hard time coming up with anything I house ruled, which is pretty unusual for me in any game.

I mean, OK, it isn't for you. But it is hardly broken or unplayable.

This is also seen by some game designers as being the difference between a game based on the stakes, and a game based on winning and losing.

I think I agree. Let me try to say it my own way:

You can create a skill system in which each skill has a difficulty (that affects how much each rank costs) & that provides a lot of TN examples & strive towards some semblance of pure objectivity.

Or you can just create a simple skill system & leave it up to the judge to decide when auto-success is appropriate, when auto-failure is appropriate, & setting the TN based on the task, the skill, & any number other of factors when the outcome is uncertain.

After many years of trying to obtain the first option, I've come to prefer the second. Well, it's probably more correct to say that I prefer a mix that is weighted towards the second.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

The problem with Serenity isn't in whether or not a character has to make a skill check. The DM is just as free to hand-wave that in D20 or Rollmaster or GURPS or any other game as they are in Serenity. The problem is for those instances where you do want a skill check, the system is lacking in sufficient specificity to allow the DM to make consistent, fair, and situation-specific decisions. It also burdens players during character creation and level-up by making their allocation of points more of a crapshoot than it should be. Besides which, unless you expect to play super-competent heroes from the get go (and clearly Serenity doesn't assume that, else they'd not have had varying levels of character creation), the system needs to accomodate characters for whom the commonplace task is not always certain.

If they wanted a skills-(ultra)light system, they should have just stuck with the parent skills, ignored the subskills entirely, and adjusted the point-buy accordingly. If they wanted to permit specialization, then they should have enumerated the specific subskills, and given some guidance on when one would be used as opposed to another. As it is, the skill system is just kinda half-assed. Considering the rest of the system, they should have just taken the former option and been done.

 

[mhensley]

() I guess that classic Traveller campaign I ran a couple years ago was just a dream. (^_^) I don't find them broken or unplayable. Heck, I'm even having a hard time coming up with anything I house ruled, which is pretty unusual for me in any game.

I mean, OK, it isn't for you. But it is hardly broken or unplayable.

You don't think it's slightly broken when it's impossible to miss when shooting a shotgun? If you're playing combat by the book, you're a braver man than I. I imagine that most gm's who run classic traveller are using a lot of house rules to patch things like this.

Back to the topic though, I have the Serenity book and thought it a pretty good read and was impressed by the system. I haven't played it however and all of these complaints about it are giving me second thoughts about ever trying to. I would probably just run Traveller with a Firefly-like feel using either Unisystem or GURPS rules. Maybe even BESM.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Back to the topic though, I have the Serenity book and thought it a pretty good read and was impressed by the system. I haven't played it however and all of these complaints about it are giving me second thoughts about ever trying to. I would probably just run Traveller with a Firefly-like feel using either Unisystem or GURPS rules. Maybe even BESM.

Heh...we used to play 'Snapshot' which was basically Traveller pared down to just combat and a couple deckplans. It was brutal, though not as bad as Recon.

If you've got Serenity, you may as well play it, even if its just a one-shot, and see how it works for you. What were issues for me obviously are not issues for everyone. The gameday sessions I've run have worked well enough; it's just that its pointed out some areas I'd have to house-rule if I wanted to run it as a campaign. As I said before, the biggest issue with the book so far has been a lack of source material, and if they're not allowed to publish any more, it doesn't give me much incentive to stick with it.

 

[RFisher]

You don't think it's slightly broken when it's impossible to miss when shooting a shotgun?

That's the whole point of using a shotgun. ^_^

(I don't have the books handy to further debate the issue, & this isn't the place anyway. Yes, I ran it pretty much by the book. Although, my interpretation of the book & yours may be somewhat different.)