I'm still on a starship kick. After creating ships for Scum and Villainy and Star Trek Adventures, I want to try making one to help solidify an idea I have for a story. This time around, I'll use the Firefly RPG. I've done this before, using two ships from the Traveller RPG, the Type S Scout/Courier and the TANSTAAFL-class subsidized liner.
The ship involved here is a courier, normal crew of five but can be run by two without effort or one with a lot of effort. The main idea is to follow the two crewmembers of the ship, but the ship is going to be important. Hard to get through space without one providing life support. The ship is going to be an important part of the setting, so it helps to nail down details now instead of handwaving it as I go. Things get messy when I do that.
Showing posts with label Firefly. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Firefly. Show all posts
26 Feb 2019
4 Aug 2016
Cortext+ BattleTech - ComStar Technician - Commentary
Gasp! A second commentary in as many weeks? Sure! Why not?
First, the past three characters show one of my approaches to creating them for both gaming and writing. With ensemble casts, I need to keep in mind the roles I need filled. With the BattleTech concept test, the first two characters I needed were MechWarriors. I then had to find a way to distinguish the two. The third character, Frankie, needed to be different from both but still needed to be useful. Thus, a ComStar technician. The Cortex+ rules as seen in the Firefly RPG have broad skills. Fix covers everything from toasters to BattleMechs. Neither Victor nor Rahela have that skill; they're better at breaking 'Mechs, not repairing them. Frankie, thus, gets that role.
However, role doesn't lead to personality. So, knowing I need a technician, I still have to figure out who Frankie is. The use of distinctions in Cortex+ helps define Frankie, not just in her role but in her personality and outlook on life. Technologist reflects her affinity towards technology. Know It All shows she's smart but has problems not lording her intellect over others. Wet Behind the Ears means she's relatively inexperienced; she's going to make mistakes. Broad strokes, but the more I work with her, the more I'll get to know her.
I went through a similar process with By the Numbers. I had a ensemble cast, with certain roles that needed to be filled. Numbers was an idea I had already was playing with as a player character, so placing her into the hacker role was easy enough. Charles was another idea that kept coming to mind, the troll wall of muscle. Treehugger, though, came from the rigger archetype in the Fourth Edition Shadowrun rules, with me interpreting the character sheet's list of qualities. Oswald started as a generic mage, then slowly morphed into being a former law enforcement detective as planning began. Know what roles I needed meant I could begin filling in details about the plot without having to worry too much about who was filling the position. Once writing begins, I can see how the character behaves relative to the others.
The process is different when there is just one central character. Usually, the plot depends heavily on that character to the point where I need to know who that person is before I can figure out key scenes, including the ending. This may have been the biggest problem with Digital Magic. I just didn't know enough about Jackie when I started writing that the story couldn't continue because it didn't suit her.
With an ensemble or just one main character, what I do find helps is substituting my characters in the place of another in a work similar to what I'm writing. The change of character lets me work out what that person would do in the situation. This comes from my RPG experience more than anything else. It's easy to say that a different character would fare better, but would the dice agree? Take Caitlin from Unruly. Replacing John McClane from either of the first two Die Hard movies with her changes the tone of the movie. Caitlin doesn't have the training John does; instead, she'd be organizing her own resistance force. Or, maybe, trying to take over Hans' gang and make it her own personal army.
Second, I am taking some liberties with the BattleTech setting. While I am trying to keep to the source books as much as possible, my interpretation may not be the same as anyone else's despite referring to the same books. Traveller players have two acronyms for this - OTU, or Original Traveller Universe, and IMTU, In My Traveller Universe. The OTU is the Third Imperium as seen in the various books released over five editions and at least three licensed spin-offs of the RPG. Due to the sheer size of the Third Imperium, there are a number of valid interpretations of the setting. The Universal World Profiles are shorthand descriptions of the planets, encompassing a wide variety into an eight character string. How a world looks in play depends very much on the GM, and two worlds with Government Code 4, Representative Democracy, could have vastly different ways of electing a representative, from a parliamentary system to a tiered system where each level elects a rep to go up to the next level. Similarily, the culture of a planet also depends on the GM and players; while there are details about Regina in the Spinward Marches Sector, the details about Sorel in the same sector aren't as defined.
Thus, I have a Lyran pilot on a world that is, in 3067, held by the Federated Suns with a Capellan peacekeeping force made up of a Canopian unit. My interpretation placed a Lyran force on the world at the end of the FedCom Civil War, still evacuating the planet because space travel isn't easy to coordinate. The Capellans have the peacekeeping force there because the nation's Chancellor not only is the First Lord of the revived Star League but is also looking to reclaim the world, using the Trinity Alliance with the Canopians and the Taurans to hide his ambition. I may be pushing the interpretation, but I can point out each element if needed.
Finally, all this is an exercise to see if Cortex+ can be hacked for another setting. Originally, I was adapting the Firefly RPG for Traveller. The catch there is that there may not be enough of a difference to be a proper test. It's been said that Firefly was based on a campaign Joss Whedon ran in university, and speculation is that the game was Traveller*. It's easy enough to find the links. In terms of prior careers, Mal and Zoe were in the Army, Wash was a Scout, complete with faded Hawaiian shirt, Kayleigh was a Merchant, Simon was a Doctor, either from Classic Traveller Supplement 4: Citizens of the Imperium or from the core MegaTraveller rules, Inara was either a Noble, from the same books as Simon, or from the Other career in the original rules, Book was either an Agent from Supplement 4 or the Other career, and Jayne used the Mercenary character generation. If true, than testing a hack for Traveller wouldn't be as robust as possible. Adding giant death machines, treating them as ships? That does test the system, and the system can handle it. The 'Mech battle featuring Rahela and Victor showed that it is possible, though placing a d12 into any attribute may be too much.
For what was meant to be a simple test, the result became far more involved than expected. I wasn't planning on having micro-fiction, but the characters insisted. There's no guarantee that the story will continue, but now that I've started it, it's going to be something that I return to.
Tomorrow, introducing the third character for this extended example.
Also tomorrow, over at Psycho Drive-In, Transformers.
Saturday, over at The Seventh Sanctum, The Good...
* The other possible game is /Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game/ from West End Games, modified for a custom setting with River using modification of the Force rules. The archetypes in the game cover the same range of characters as /Firefly/ has.
First, the past three characters show one of my approaches to creating them for both gaming and writing. With ensemble casts, I need to keep in mind the roles I need filled. With the BattleTech concept test, the first two characters I needed were MechWarriors. I then had to find a way to distinguish the two. The third character, Frankie, needed to be different from both but still needed to be useful. Thus, a ComStar technician. The Cortex+ rules as seen in the Firefly RPG have broad skills. Fix covers everything from toasters to BattleMechs. Neither Victor nor Rahela have that skill; they're better at breaking 'Mechs, not repairing them. Frankie, thus, gets that role.
However, role doesn't lead to personality. So, knowing I need a technician, I still have to figure out who Frankie is. The use of distinctions in Cortex+ helps define Frankie, not just in her role but in her personality and outlook on life. Technologist reflects her affinity towards technology. Know It All shows she's smart but has problems not lording her intellect over others. Wet Behind the Ears means she's relatively inexperienced; she's going to make mistakes. Broad strokes, but the more I work with her, the more I'll get to know her.
I went through a similar process with By the Numbers. I had a ensemble cast, with certain roles that needed to be filled. Numbers was an idea I had already was playing with as a player character, so placing her into the hacker role was easy enough. Charles was another idea that kept coming to mind, the troll wall of muscle. Treehugger, though, came from the rigger archetype in the Fourth Edition Shadowrun rules, with me interpreting the character sheet's list of qualities. Oswald started as a generic mage, then slowly morphed into being a former law enforcement detective as planning began. Know what roles I needed meant I could begin filling in details about the plot without having to worry too much about who was filling the position. Once writing begins, I can see how the character behaves relative to the others.
The process is different when there is just one central character. Usually, the plot depends heavily on that character to the point where I need to know who that person is before I can figure out key scenes, including the ending. This may have been the biggest problem with Digital Magic. I just didn't know enough about Jackie when I started writing that the story couldn't continue because it didn't suit her.
With an ensemble or just one main character, what I do find helps is substituting my characters in the place of another in a work similar to what I'm writing. The change of character lets me work out what that person would do in the situation. This comes from my RPG experience more than anything else. It's easy to say that a different character would fare better, but would the dice agree? Take Caitlin from Unruly. Replacing John McClane from either of the first two Die Hard movies with her changes the tone of the movie. Caitlin doesn't have the training John does; instead, she'd be organizing her own resistance force. Or, maybe, trying to take over Hans' gang and make it her own personal army.
Second, I am taking some liberties with the BattleTech setting. While I am trying to keep to the source books as much as possible, my interpretation may not be the same as anyone else's despite referring to the same books. Traveller players have two acronyms for this - OTU, or Original Traveller Universe, and IMTU, In My Traveller Universe. The OTU is the Third Imperium as seen in the various books released over five editions and at least three licensed spin-offs of the RPG. Due to the sheer size of the Third Imperium, there are a number of valid interpretations of the setting. The Universal World Profiles are shorthand descriptions of the planets, encompassing a wide variety into an eight character string. How a world looks in play depends very much on the GM, and two worlds with Government Code 4, Representative Democracy, could have vastly different ways of electing a representative, from a parliamentary system to a tiered system where each level elects a rep to go up to the next level. Similarily, the culture of a planet also depends on the GM and players; while there are details about Regina in the Spinward Marches Sector, the details about Sorel in the same sector aren't as defined.
Thus, I have a Lyran pilot on a world that is, in 3067, held by the Federated Suns with a Capellan peacekeeping force made up of a Canopian unit. My interpretation placed a Lyran force on the world at the end of the FedCom Civil War, still evacuating the planet because space travel isn't easy to coordinate. The Capellans have the peacekeeping force there because the nation's Chancellor not only is the First Lord of the revived Star League but is also looking to reclaim the world, using the Trinity Alliance with the Canopians and the Taurans to hide his ambition. I may be pushing the interpretation, but I can point out each element if needed.
Finally, all this is an exercise to see if Cortex+ can be hacked for another setting. Originally, I was adapting the Firefly RPG for Traveller. The catch there is that there may not be enough of a difference to be a proper test. It's been said that Firefly was based on a campaign Joss Whedon ran in university, and speculation is that the game was Traveller*. It's easy enough to find the links. In terms of prior careers, Mal and Zoe were in the Army, Wash was a Scout, complete with faded Hawaiian shirt, Kayleigh was a Merchant, Simon was a Doctor, either from Classic Traveller Supplement 4: Citizens of the Imperium or from the core MegaTraveller rules, Inara was either a Noble, from the same books as Simon, or from the Other career in the original rules, Book was either an Agent from Supplement 4 or the Other career, and Jayne used the Mercenary character generation. If true, than testing a hack for Traveller wouldn't be as robust as possible. Adding giant death machines, treating them as ships? That does test the system, and the system can handle it. The 'Mech battle featuring Rahela and Victor showed that it is possible, though placing a d12 into any attribute may be too much.
For what was meant to be a simple test, the result became far more involved than expected. I wasn't planning on having micro-fiction, but the characters insisted. There's no guarantee that the story will continue, but now that I've started it, it's going to be something that I return to.
Tomorrow, introducing the third character for this extended example.
Also tomorrow, over at Psycho Drive-In, Transformers.
Saturday, over at The Seventh Sanctum, The Good...
* The other possible game is /Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game/ from West End Games, modified for a custom setting with River using modification of the Force rules. The archetypes in the game cover the same range of characters as /Firefly/ has.
28 Jul 2016
Commentary Returns! Rahela and Victor!
Last week, I staged an encounter between two characters created to try hacking the Firefly RPG for the BattleTech setting. It went turn by turn, but there was a hint of a plot there. In fact, I have a rough idea of where I'm going.
Most of the background comes out of BattleTech canon, though the various sourcebooks published by FASA and Catalyst Game Labs. The specific books I referenced are A Time of War, the official BattleTech RPG; Handbook House Liao, covering the Capellan Confederation; Handbook Major Periphery States, for the Magistracy of Canopus info; 1st Somerset Strikers for the Axman's stats, Technical Readout 2750 for the Hussar's, and Technical Readout 3025 for the Hunchback's. When I write fanfic, I do my research*.
The example battle serves as the teaser for the unnamed series. Two MechWarriors from different backgrounds, one a noble from a Periphery state, the other a career soldier from a major House, must now team up to deal with a bigger threat than each other. Both are professionals and don't have a reason to dislike each other. The Word of Blake invasion throws things into disarray.
The fight, which took paragraphs to resolve, doesn't really cover that much time. There are liberties taken. Rahela's laser can't really penetrate armour that well, but Cortex+, Firefly's core mechanics, run more on narrative than numbers. The Blakist mooks in their Hunchbacks were expendables. The scene is the pre-credits teaser, a burst of action to introduce two of the main characters and set up the story to follow. BattleMechs made of explodium works for the narrative, though I did try to make the destruction believable. Head shots in BattleTech are dangerous, especially with the heavier weapons.
I have discovered a small problem with my setup. Zurich, which was a Capellan world in 3025, wound up in the hands of the Federated Suns after the Federated Commonwealth Civil War. I could do some handwaving - the Lyran forces are just waiting for a JumpShip to arrive to take them back home while Sun Tsu Liao, Chancellor of the Capellan Confederation and First Lord of the Second Star League, could have suggested a Canopian unit to act as peacekeepers during the transition. The Chancellor may also be looking at regaining the world; Zurich had a weapons factory, at least in 3025. The problems of playing in someone else's extensive sandbox.
Mechically, the battle could have been more interesting. I could have had Rahela and Victor go for more plot points, breaking up the handfuls of eight-sided dice used in some rolls. However, I let things go organically. Choices were made on the situation, not for demonstration. I did try to use the different distinctions and brought in some of the triggers. However, as proof of concept, the 'Mech battle worked, at least when treating the opposition as just extras. I should try another battle later with at least one opponent being a major NPC, built like Rahela and Victor.
Tomorrow, introducing the third character for this extended example.
Also tomorrow, over at Psycho Drive-In, the problems with adapting toys.
Saturday, over at Seventh Sanctum, Transformers.
* More research than I did for last year's NaNoWriMo project.
Most of the background comes out of BattleTech canon, though the various sourcebooks published by FASA and Catalyst Game Labs. The specific books I referenced are A Time of War, the official BattleTech RPG; Handbook House Liao, covering the Capellan Confederation; Handbook Major Periphery States, for the Magistracy of Canopus info; 1st Somerset Strikers for the Axman's stats, Technical Readout 2750 for the Hussar's, and Technical Readout 3025 for the Hunchback's. When I write fanfic, I do my research*.
The example battle serves as the teaser for the unnamed series. Two MechWarriors from different backgrounds, one a noble from a Periphery state, the other a career soldier from a major House, must now team up to deal with a bigger threat than each other. Both are professionals and don't have a reason to dislike each other. The Word of Blake invasion throws things into disarray.
The fight, which took paragraphs to resolve, doesn't really cover that much time. There are liberties taken. Rahela's laser can't really penetrate armour that well, but Cortex+, Firefly's core mechanics, run more on narrative than numbers. The Blakist mooks in their Hunchbacks were expendables. The scene is the pre-credits teaser, a burst of action to introduce two of the main characters and set up the story to follow. BattleMechs made of explodium works for the narrative, though I did try to make the destruction believable. Head shots in BattleTech are dangerous, especially with the heavier weapons.
I have discovered a small problem with my setup. Zurich, which was a Capellan world in 3025, wound up in the hands of the Federated Suns after the Federated Commonwealth Civil War. I could do some handwaving - the Lyran forces are just waiting for a JumpShip to arrive to take them back home while Sun Tsu Liao, Chancellor of the Capellan Confederation and First Lord of the Second Star League, could have suggested a Canopian unit to act as peacekeepers during the transition. The Chancellor may also be looking at regaining the world; Zurich had a weapons factory, at least in 3025. The problems of playing in someone else's extensive sandbox.
Mechically, the battle could have been more interesting. I could have had Rahela and Victor go for more plot points, breaking up the handfuls of eight-sided dice used in some rolls. However, I let things go organically. Choices were made on the situation, not for demonstration. I did try to use the different distinctions and brought in some of the triggers. However, as proof of concept, the 'Mech battle worked, at least when treating the opposition as just extras. I should try another battle later with at least one opponent being a major NPC, built like Rahela and Victor.
Tomorrow, introducing the third character for this extended example.
Also tomorrow, over at Psycho Drive-In, the problems with adapting toys.
Saturday, over at Seventh Sanctum, Transformers.
* More research than I did for last year's NaNoWriMo project.
15 Jun 2015
Traveller to Firefly - A Retired Imperial Naval Officer
I'm back to playing around with MWP's Firefly RPG, seeing how much work is needed to use it for Traveller's Third Imperium. So far, I've looked at converting a character, Maera, to Cortex+ and rebuilt the IMS TANSTAAFL for the system. In both cases, the results felt about right. I'm almost comfortable with the proof of concept. The next step is to create a character that will fit into the Imperium without going through any of the previous Traveller character creation methods.
31 May 2015
Traveller to Firefly - The TANSTAAFL-Class Liner
Previously, I tried converting a character from Mongoose's Traveller to MWP's Firefly. With that success behind me, though with questions, let's see how ships transfer over. For this, I need a ship I know, the TANSTAAFL-class* Type M Subsidized Liner.
The Type M first appeared in Classic Traveller's Book 2. The liner carries about twenty passengers, a couple hundred displacement tons of cargo, and a launch for passenger transfer. The range of the vessel is good, capable of Jump-3, though only of 1G acceleration in real space. That's the base model. The Imperial Merchant Ship (IMS) TANSTAAFL I have in mind was converted from the version I just described to become a Q-ship, a pirate hunter far better armed than she appears, with two triple turrets with beam lasers and a miniaturized particle accelerator spinal mount for that extra surprise. With this in mind, let's get going.
The Type M first appeared in Classic Traveller's Book 2. The liner carries about twenty passengers, a couple hundred displacement tons of cargo, and a launch for passenger transfer. The range of the vessel is good, capable of Jump-3, though only of 1G acceleration in real space. That's the base model. The Imperial Merchant Ship (IMS) TANSTAAFL I have in mind was converted from the version I just described to become a Q-ship, a pirate hunter far better armed than she appears, with two triple turrets with beam lasers and a miniaturized particle accelerator spinal mount for that extra surprise. With this in mind, let's get going.
28 Oct 2014
Test Drive - Firefly - Ships
Still poking around with the Firefly RPG from Margaret Weis Productions. Last time, it was to create Frankie, a former Browncoat pilot who lost her nerve. This time, though, I want to see if I can hack the system for the Third Imperium setting for Traveller.
27 Oct 2014
Test Drive - Firefly - Frankie Jones
Bit of a cheat here. I've already created a character - Tanya - using the Firefly RPG. This time around, I want to try creating a character that comes out of the setting instead of being one imposed upon it. Best way to do that is to create a veteran of the Unification War. Presenting Francesca "Frankie" Jones, former Browncoat gunship pilot. She was a hotshot during the war, but lost her nerve somewhere along the way.
Name: Francesca "Frankie" Jones
Background: Hot shot pilot turned cold
20 Aug 2014
Test Run - Firefly RPG Revisited
The full Firefly RPG from Margaret Weis Productions is now out. The system has been greatly expanded from the preview, adding more Distinctions and expanding the ship creation rules. Last time I looked at the game was with the preview. Let's see what Tanya, the test character from last time, would look like under the full ruleset.
8 Oct 2013
Test Run - Firefly RPG
Recently, I picked up the Firefly RPG preview by Margaret Weis Productions. I've read through it, and it's a nice little system so far, even if incomplete. I figured I'd try create a character or two in it.
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