Teens in Space Wins Best RPG Origins Award

The 2020 Origins Awards have been announced, and in the role-playing game category, the winning game was Renegade Game Studios' Teens in Space.

Teens in Space uses the same system as Kids on Bikes. Renegade Game Studios has a partnership with WotC owner Hasbro, and recently announced an official Power Rangers RPG (and hinted at GI Joe, Transformers, and My Little Pony).

The Origins Awards cover a range of tabletop gaming categories, including board games, card games, and more. You can see all of this year's winners here.

 

[aramis erak]

They came up with a new game system? I didn't know that. Otherwise, just another Saturday morning cartoon turned into a setting.

Teens in Space wasn't a new game system. It was an adaptation of another: Kids on Bikes.
Just like about 90% of current "indie" games...

There are massive numbers of PBTA games...
There are a handful of Kids on Bikes adaptations...
There are several adaptations of the GUMSHOE...

I don't know if the guys doing TIS were the guys who wrote KOB.
Never read either, but had heard of both.

The Origins awards have always been disconnected except for the ones done at the convention.
Looking at the best accessory - Citadel Paint. Really? WTF?

 

[Fenris-77]

You say 'adaptation' like it means something you want it to mean. Like, maybe that it's easy or facile. It Isn't. Or that it's somehow different than the proliferation of OSR or PBR games. It isn't.

 

[TrippyHippy]

Teens in Space wasn't a new game system. It was an adaptation of another: Kids on Bikes.
Just like about 90% of current "indie" games...

There are massive numbers of PBTA games...
There are a handful of Kids on Bikes adaptations...
There are several adaptations of the GUMSHOE...

I don't know if the guys doing TIS were the guys who wrote KOB.
Never read either, but had heard of both.

The Origins awards have always been disconnected except for the ones done at the convention.
Looking at the best accessory - Citadel Paint. Really? WTF?

Right?!

I dunno how controversial it is to say this, but I’ve had similar conversations in my own group. I think game design, as an art form has become stagnant recently. Apocalypse World and Gumshoe are games/systems that are more than a decade old, and simply copying then re-applying the same design format to different genres or settings isn’t being innovative (or ‘indie’). I am less aware of the Kids on Bike system, but if it has been done before, then what is actually new in this?

 

[Fenris-77]

You obviously aren't actually reading the games, that's the problem. You'd have people believe that a game like, for example, Swords of the Serpentine, is a cookie cutter Gumshoe game, when it's actually nothing of the sort. If you haven't actually read (or, gasp) played the games in question your opinion is pretty low on the totem pole. If you haven't played, or at least spent some quality time reading Kids on Bikes and Teenagers in Space why should anyone care what you have to say about them? That's an honest question btw, feel free to try and explain why anyone should should care about your hot take.

 

[TrippyHippy]

You obviously aren't actually reading the games, that's the problem. You'd have people believe that a game like, for example, Swords of the Serpentine, is a cookie cutter Gumshoe game, when it's actually nothing of the sort. If you haven't actually read (or, gasp) played the games in question your opinion is pretty low on the totem pole. If you haven't played, or at least spent some quality time reading Kids on Bikes and Teenagers in Space why should anyone care what you have to say about them? That's an honest question btw, feel free to try and explain why anyone should should care about you hot take.

Well, tell us what is innovative about it then?

And, frankly, most of the games that I’ve been offered to play in for this last year have been PbtA or Gumshoe games. I have played them, and come away with the entirely fair outlook about how innovative they all are.

They aren’t.

And whether or not you care about the opinions of others works both ways of course.

 

[Fenris-77]

I dont need to tell you a thing. You havent read the games and want to claim you know something. Sorry my friend, thats not going to fly.

 

[TrippyHippy]

I dont need to tell you a thing. You havent read the games and want to claim you know something. Sorry my friend, thats not going to fly.

And you can’t apparently elaborate on why they are innovative, so that is not going to fly either.

To reiterate, I have played in lots of PbtA and Gumshoe games. I even own a few, and yes I have read them. So with that straw man burnt to a crisp, how about answering the point made?

 

[Fenris-77]

Well, since the actual game in questions is Kids on Bikes, and not either of those two (not that you proved anything there anyway) I'd say your estimation of straw man crispiness is perhaps premature. The burden of proof here is on you my friend, so take it up or don't, your choice.

 

[TrippyHippy]

Well, since the actual game in questions is Kids on Bikes, and not either of those two (not that you proved anything there anyway) I'd say your estimation of straw man crispiness is perhaps premature. The burden of proof here is on you my friend, so take it up or don't, your choice.

No it isn’t.

The question is: what makes this game innovative? You conspicuously will not answer that question (I dunno - have you actually read it!?) and all you have done so far is use ad hominem against the questioner. The default position of not being able to elaborate on what makes it innovative, is that it isn’t. That is currently the position where this discussion is parked at.

 

[Fenris-77]

I don't have to answer it, that's the great thing. You're the one who intimated that it was copy-paste pap, so either back that opinion up or leave it,. It doesn't actually matter to me which. I have read them btw, KoB in some depth and TiS in a more cursory way, but that's really not what's at issue here. Why not just admit that you don't know either game and have nothing pertinent to say about how innovative or not they might be?