Was Firefly Inspired by a RPG?

Joss Whedon is an American producer, director, screenwriter, comic book writer, and composer. He's had a hand in bringing to life a wide variety of geek-friendly franchises, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., from Toy Story to the Avengers. But in gaming circles Whedon is known for one of his smaller television series, Firefly, because rumor has it he was influenced by a tabletop role-playing game he played in college.

Firefly and Serenity

Firefly is an American space Western drama television series that ran for just one season in 2002, executive produced by Whedon. The series is set in the year 2517, after the arrival of humans in a new star system and follows the adventures of the renegade crew of Serenity, a "Firefly-class" spaceship. Firefly's blend of Western tropes in a sci-fi setting is noteworthy in how it differentiated the series from other sci-fi shows. The series did well enough to launch a 2005 film, Serenity, which continued the story of the series and wrapped up some of the storylines. Wikipedia described the inspiration for the show:

Whedon developed the concept for the show after reading The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara chronicling the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. He wanted to follow people who had fought on the losing side of a war, their experiences afterwards as pioneers and immigrants on the outskirts of civilization, much like the post-American Civil War era of Reconstruction and the American Old West.

But if rumors are true, that wasn't the only inspiration.

The Rumor

In an interview that is no longer online, Whedon allegedly stated that the Firefly universe was inspired by a campaign of a "major sci-fi RPG" -- a campaign he quit playing after college. But which game?

Much of the detective work in determining what game Whedon might have played is explicated on Scifi Stack Exchange, using Whedon's college years (1982-1986) as a reference point. It's also worth noting that Whedon was in the U.K. at the time, so the mystery game would likely be distributed worldwide.

The verdict? Traveller. Traveller was one of the few sci-fi games featuring projectile weapons (slugthrowers), ship creation rules, and a focus on the mercantile lifestyle. ak_aramis lists the similarities:

• Tech level range
• Lack of inexpensive energy weapons (Tho' the setting does have laser weapons)
• nature of the intended adventures
• travel times
• engaging the long-distance drive in atmosphere is a bad idea
• highly variable local goverment and law
• locals expected to protect their own interests (see The Train Job)
• unreasonably small bodies with breathable atmospheres. Down to a couple hundred KM
• Size range of ships
• nature of the carried cargos
• Presence and nature of psionics. (River's about PSR12)
• Many names in common. Over a dozen from Sup 3... plus several more from other sources. This is, however, the weakest of the lot evidentiarily.
• The dynamics of the group are much like those of most RPG groups - there's little reason they should be so loyal to each other, but they are. Even, after a while, Jayne.
• Shuttles lack interplanetary range
• Many episodes are "patron" driven adventures.

Clave Jones sees more parallels:

• Traveller features “slugthrowers” as weapons, as does Firefly.
• Traveller has a mercantile focus, just like the Firefly verse does. In fact, the game itself is about living hand-to-mouth, trying to pay off debts by trading, smuggling, or whatever else it takes to survive.
• Traveller has a big, bad government. Classic Traveller adventures often have PCs living outside the law to do good deeds in the end, and/or to make enough money to keep flying. The central government is often the enemy in those adventures.
• The Firefly class is very much feature-for-feature comparable to the specifications for the Type R Subsidized Merchant in Traveller.
• In the opening episode Wash shouts, “Hang on, Travellers!” during some sharp maneuvers.
• Regina is a major world in both settings. Bellerophon is a water world in both settings. Ariel appears in both. Persephone is a low-population world in the Spinward Marches. In Traveller, it’s an Imperial Way Station, with a thin but breathable atmosphere, close to Earth size.
• In War Games Wash reconfigured the launch controls on the shuttle in a manner eerily similar to an “in character” Traveller write up for space pilots. Meanwhile, Mal, Zoe, and Book all seem like textbook Traveller characters.
• In 1984 the Traveller release A Pilots guide to the Drexilthar Subsector by J. Andrew Keith described “Reavers Deep” being laden with pirates.

There are several worlds in common too:

Regina is a major world in both settings. In CT, it's a subsector capital, and important trade center. Bellerophon is a water world in both settings; See CT Adventure 9: Nomads of the World Ocean. Ariel (Ley Sector, Ikhnaton subsector, hex 0103) is a significant world in the Judges' Guild produced Ley Sector - on a major route, but not actually core. Persephone is a low-population world in the Spinward Marches. In Traveller, it's an Imperial Way Station, with a thin but breathable atmosphere, close to earth size.

Finally, there's the ship itself, as per ak_aramis:

Of the possibles, the number of coincidences is high if it's not based upon Traveller - the Serenity can be seen as a variant of either the type A or type R. My money's on a Type R - especially with the forward opening cargo bay. A lot depends on just what the dimensions of the cargo bay are. I make her externals to be roughly a 400-600 ton ship... a type R with 2 launches and a 30'x60' x30' cargo bay puts her with the right amount of cargo. (The Serenity RPG, however, would put her with a much smaller bay - 30'x40'x30' - commensurate with a variant type A - but the Type A carries an air raft, not launches. Come to think of it, Serenity does carry both a small ATV (the mule) and an air-raft (in the movie).

For further evidence, we can look to the scripts themselves.

Traveler vs. Traveller

"Traveller" as a title is distinct from the American spelling of "traveler." It doesn't necessarily mean it's an endorsement of the RPG, but the phrasing and the spelling together seem like a curious coincidence. Wash shouts, "Hang on, Travellers!" during some sharp maneuvers while trying to evade the Dortmunder in the pilot. And from a leaked shooting script (Bushwacked, Act 1):

Zoe: Travellers pick 'em up cheap at government auction. A few modifications and they serve well enough for a one-way push to the outer planets.

Also from the pilot script:

We see a sparse but none-the-less inviting spread - Book and Kaylee have made a salad of tomatoes, and grilled up some root vegetables along with the pasta and protein/starch mush that is the usual diet of space travellers. To us, not much. To this crowd, a banquet.

And then there's the man himself.

What Does Whedon Have to Say About It?

Whedon's geek cred is well-known, but he has surprisingly little to say about gaming in general. In reference to a possible Firefly-themed massive multi-player online game, he said:

I always felt this universe absolutely lends itself to gaming, and the kind of really immersive multiplayer gaming where there are so many planets, so many agendas, and so many things to do besides shoot at things. I think it’s absolutely a perfect fit.

And of course, things have come full circle with a Serenity tabletop role-playing game.

Was Firefly inspired by Traveller? Until Whedon weighs in we may never know. If the setting was inspired by a tabletop role-playing game, Traveller seems like the most likely fit.

 

[Stefan Huddleston]

I totally Buy Traveller for this it was far and away the most popular Sci Fi RPG when I was growing up in LA in the later 70s and early 80s. Metamorphosis Alpha was rare and while we played some Star Frontiers the folks in the groups and clubs I frequented back then did Traveller far more. Heck, I still have all my books on the shelf.

This is also not unprecedented since I have heard The Expanse was based on an original RPG setting.

 

[Morrus]

This is also not unprecedented since I have heard The Expanse was based on an original RPG setting.

We’ve all heard that.

 

[Todd Roybark]

I'm pretty sure Firefly wasn't inspired by the RPG based on it!

Time Paradox, Yo!

Also slug throwers are more relatable than laser weapons, and cheaper SFX wise at the time in question.

 

[Umbran]

Also slug throwers are more relatable than laser weapons, and cheaper SFX wise at the time in question.

Maybe, but.. if the only thing between you and hard vacuum is a tin can.. slugthrowers are kinda dumb.

 

[Todd Roybark]

Sure, but TV networks do not make budget decisions on sci-fi shows based off hard science.

It also depends on material science advances, perhaps Serenity is bulletproof on the inside.

In Battletech/Mechwarrior, I always thought it silly that people put down the full auto machine gun for the monomolecular vibroblade for boarding actions. If the dropship can survive a PPC blast, then that battle rifle is quite a bit safer than that vibroblade vis vis creating a vacuum.

As an aside we on this board most likely not really know what the future of human involved boarding actions in space do and will actually look like. I’m sure most people do not envision lockers full of sabers by airlocks, ala Traveller, when you ask them to speculate on the new USA Space Farce for example.

 

[Litzen Tallister]

One random fact that I wondered about relating to the Firefly-Traveller connection: In the Traveller: The New Era novel, The Death of Wisdom, there is mention of a "River Tam," that is a stream of flowing water named Tam.

 

[Mookus]

One random fact that I wondered about relating to the Firefly-Traveller connection: In the Traveller: The New Era novel, The Death of Wisdom, there is mention of a "River Tam," that is a stream of flowing water named Tam.

Huh! Thanks for posting, I'd never heard this before but that pretty much moves the question well beyond my "coincidence horizon."

 

[Tom B1]

If you've ever seen early Traveller (the LBBs - Little Black Books), there were a lot of patron driven adventures and a surprising number of those were either criminal (my group was never too interested in being criminals, but it must have been popular as there were plenty of examples in the Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society and in the book of 1001 Patrons (or was it 101?)).

And a mechanical step in most patron adventures was a small D6 table that gave a variety of possible outcomes/twists:

1d6
1-3 all is as represented
4 the patron is a corporate spy trying to obtain the information the player's are to get and will have a handful of gunmen waiting to dispose of the team once the patron has the information (no loose ends)
5 the patron is part of an organized criminal syndicate trying to obtain the information for the purposes of blackmail and if the players succeed, they may be offered further work from the syndicate
6 the patron is planning to use the distraction caused by the intrusion (he knows there are alarms that the characters are not aware of) which will draw the attention of all nearby law enforcers, he will break into a nearby warehouse and steal several pallets of auto rifles

The way most of the jobs in the TV series went, they were either criminal or had additional complications and betrayals... very few genuine honest bits of work and those mostly not paying much.

That's a lot like Classic Traveller's early skeletal patron adventures.

Also, no aliens - early Classic Traveller if I recall had rules for animal encounters, but not much of anything for alien encounters - the universe of Traveller from the LBBs (which significantly preceded the Official Traveller Universe aka the Third Imperium) didn't really give you rules to create or describe sentient aliens, just alien fauna.

Many Traveller adventuring groups have played in Free Traders kicking around the margins of larger polities and in areas with low tech, varied planets and governments, and not a lot of central authority (unless you went to the Imperium). That reminds me an awful lot of how they treat the central government and the outer worlds in Firefly & Serenity.

One thing though: Even if JW played Traveller and it gave him some interesting notions to massage, change, expand, alter and to add his own ideas to, that's not quite like basing Firefly on Traveller, at least not in a very close-coupled sense. There's enough variation and enough differences that you'd have to at best say 'Loosely based on' or 'Inspired by' instead.

Traveller is my favourite game. We always played small groups of retired military and other sorts knocking about the universe with only themselves to depend on. Recently, a Kickstarter finally brought us adventures in active service and a campaign system to support those sorts of adventures, but before that, it was all retirees and folk with some money or a ship-share or maybe a Traveller's Aid membership which gave you a ship ticket every month or so.

Traveller was always about travel. It was about seeing the variety of the universe and having exciting adventures in fantastic sci-fi locations. In that respect, it's also spiritually akin to Firefly - they just want to keep flying because none of them seem the type to settle down and they've a home with their shipmates.

 

[pemerton]

the book of 1001 Patrons (or was it 101?)).

It was Supplement 6: 76 Patrons (I've got a copy of that). 1001 was Supplement 1: 1001 Characters (I don't have that).

 

[Tom B1]

It was Supplement 6: 76 Patrons (I've got a copy of that). 1001 was Supplement 1: 1001 Characters (I don't have that).

Yes, although someone in a newer version may have done 101 or 1001 Patrons - I seem to recall something along that line either out of one of the official producers or a 3rd party sometime in the last decade.

I was a completist for many years (I have a lot of the small press stuff from early days as well as some of the rarer boxed sets). My first box was Deluxe Traveller (Books 0 to 3 and a map of the spinward marches if I recall). I bought into CT, MT, TNE, T20, Gurps Traveller, Mongoose Traveller 1.0 (I really didn't like T4 mechanics and T5 is just too monstrous a product for my liking). I've even found passable miniatures for Imperial Marines and Zhodani Marines to do tactical skirmish.

But, the hobby has kind of moved beyond me price wise. The cost of the new rules volumes for MgT & T5 and a lot of the new kickstartered campaigns are just so expensive I've had to give it up, much like I've given up most WoTC products until they are on clearance. I remember when I could get an LBB for $8 and a D&D module for the same and the DMG I think I played $18 for. Now books are $60-100 and that's insane.

And as it turns out, once I had the MT skill system and char gen, didn't need much else. Not much has improved on it and after all these years, still not a good player-centric small space ship miniatures combat game for Traveller. Lot's of fleet stuff and some RP-focused. They never have managed to produce a great small ship supplement for RP (like Star Warriors was from West End or original FASA Star Trek had where every player could man a bridge station). Mayday wasn't bad and Brilliant Lances could have been if it didn't lack the classic ships and systems (incompatible to the point it wasn't easy to fix).

Anyway, still one of my favourite game systems and the 3rd Imperium was a great setting (but the ability to make ones own was magical too).