To my knowledge, there is no properly hard sci fi military RPG out there that does travelling around in spacecraft. I think the difficulty is keeping everyone busy on things that aren't mundane and not "something a computer would do". It can very easily become all about the Captain.
Yes, I think that would solve it, Kyle. Would need to find some neat ways of reducing the amount of micromanagement: a player would care about their command crew but the huge number of engineers etc would be more of a pain.
At the local college I've been running a game of the Fallout tabletop game this year. We even just got a new player in January after I I met him at a local con thrown by the game shop in town.
So far as video games go - Lots of Doom with the Project Brutality Mod, lots of the free Zombie game Unturned, and I've finished Borderlands One and Two. My computer is probably a bit too old to run Fallout Four so I've been avoiding it.
I'm about ready to write an entire book for the game "Mecha"by Heroic Journey Publishing - but I don't think the game is still supported by its creators, which means I can't really sell the idea anywhere.
As to how you might run a game with everyone in their own ship and model large crews. Par of me wants to follow the path used in Mecha where a characters stats are linked to sub-systems of the robot to determine the final dice pool. However, since that is already done its my duty to find a fresh way.
The crew, or sub sets of it - are represented by die pools. Roll and allocate the successes to the various subsystems to activate them or improve their ability. Meanwhile the captain's skill set is represented by how they can modify the die pools or probabilities. So they might get extra dice allocated to speed, or re-roll failures in torpedo compartment.
A modern nuclear submarine would be about the right size to represent a space craft. So you have weapons maintenance, fire control, sensors, engine/power technicians, command, and habitat (chefs etc.) Our character sheet looks like a picture of the ship with boxes to place the dice as necessary.
Perhaps there s a morale/stress element where you can temporarily increase the pools but risk more failures or end up reducing effectiveness over the long term.
Games of imagination are never truly done. Yet tomorrow we shall start another one.
The first level of Fallout PnP is probably the hardest, since most skills - including combat ones, start in the 30-40% range. Two or three levels in, they can be pretty sure about the skills they specialized in and things can pick up. Combat can be a bit confusing to balance since there are quite a number of factors to look at. A pair of golden geckos was a decent challenge for three level three characters and their level one friend.
As to the actual couple of months we have been playing, well the story starts with three step brothers leaving their farm to make some money escorting caravans. They survive an encounter with raiders along the way, and get drafted for a major Brahmin drive up to shady sands. Once there, they learn that a recent influx of refugees has created a bit of a health crisis - the town needs more vaccines and serum to prevent outbreaks. There are two sources (The Brotherhood of Steel and the mysterious Abbey) and discussion of building a railway to one of them. Various political factions, as well as some tribal groups are holding up the process. My players don't feel quite ready to take on the entire meataplot, so they're doing some smaller jobs for the people of shady sands.
Notably, on a trip to recover leaf-springs for a blacksmith, they came across a Super-Mutant known as Plaid Beard the Pirate, and accidentally burned down a theater full of death-claws. There is also a bit of a mystery involving a large cracked cylinder that reads ""Ächtung GiftKreig. Currently they'are trying to resolve a four-way mining dispute between the owner of a powerplant, the miners, a gang with an alternate powerplant, and a mysterious faction that has been sabotaging the town. Also one of the players was falsely indited for murder.
If all goes well, the semester finally will be the PCs leading small squads using the Fallout Warfare tabletop set to assault the abbey.
Games of imagination are never truly done. Yet tomorrow we shall start another one.
At the moment, I'm most enjoying trying to implement complicated concepts in simple mechanics.
I've tried to remove myself from what's currently going on with RPGs. On the one hand, it seems like keeping abreast of current events would seem to be beneficial, it seems to distract more than inspire.
To that end, I've been keeping myself sequestered, trying to move some big design roadblocks that I have.
I'm torn on another RPG project I have. I have a concept of making an interaction platform via iPhone that would lend itself to playing an RPG over, more naturally than current things like PBF or video chat. On the one hand, I think it could work, but it would be a very different experiance than playing via tabletop. I'm so old that I question if I have the motivation to generate a whole new mode of play. The platform is relatively easily done compared to the effort of promoting and fostering the concept. In the end, I don't know if I want to do it, if I could sustain it. Why do the work of making something that I don't know if I would even want to champion?
In light of that, I've fallen back on some less intrusive concepts I've tinkered with.
@CA, are you building in any Dead...And Back mechanics into your Fallout game? Your scarcity mechanic is superb.
I love Unturned too. So simple and yet great fun. Sadly, lots of griefers on servers.
[quote=Onix]I'm so old that I question if I have the motivation to generate a whole new mode of play. [/quote] TISH AND PIFFLE.
I've recently been Roll20-ing and it scratches the itch, even if I do prefer meeting face to face. Would be great to hear about your simple mechanics. Oh, I see there is , well I'll go and read that then!
been fighting with lack of creative energy, I can think of ideas to write...just not when I am writing.
Besides that I'm stuck between 3 games I'm writing. 1) the blasted F.O.G. update, 2) a playing card based survival game (that's any type of survival) that focuses on resource management (personal) and strategic choice, 3) A skill base (rather then level based) dungeon crawl game with an Acronym for its stats....
other then that....been playing Diablo 3, and warframe.....
Time Fly's like an arrow! Fruit Fly's like a banana!
I've been playing a lot of boardgames and not so many rpgs with my group. Mainly because players don't need to be very consistent, they can arrive later and if someone doesn't come, nothing happens.
We've been playing the co-operative game (so far, we have lost every single game) and some heavy euros like . Also , wich is great.
When we role-play is my own one-page system. A pulp adventure in the center of the Earth. I want to play some old-school fantasy kind of game, dungeons and all. It can be done with the same system, but the basic rules of DnD 5e , so that is appealing.
The great news are that games are becoming more popular here in my city. I may be somewhat responsible for that. The two main universities now have boardgame clubs and some tournaments are organized (my mom won the past Catan tournaments and went to the national championship ).