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t's a good question. That was a long time ago (and it seems like in a
galaxy far-far away). I'd guess Traveller in 1981. But it might have
been: Traveller, Gamma World (1st ed), Star Frontiers, Aftermath, Morrow
Poject, S3: Expidition to the Barrier Peaks, some Blackmoor stuff or????
(there are some other vague memories so vague I can't even latch onto the game
system)
The only one that had much traction was Traveller. Gamma World was silly.
Aftermath was rules heavy (but had an excellent feeling to the setting).
Morrow Project likewise. Star Frontiers was just plain playable and fun
-
before minis, having the map and chits made for a fun game (that whole range
- Gangbusters, Boot hill, Star Frontiers... all of them were fun).
Barrier Peaks was a guilty pleasure, but wrecked D&D campaigns. I was young
too and that helped in the enjoyment.
Since then, others have come and gone: Traveller versions (MT, TNE, T4,
Mongoose, T20, T5), Serenity, Stargate SG-1, Star Wars (D6, D20, Saga),
Cyberpunk and Cyberpunk 2020, Traveller 2300 (before it was 2300 AD, punks!),
2320 AD, High Colonies, Babylon 5, The Star Trek RPG, others I can't even
recall.
I like the settings of many games and (like Allan) have become less fond of
their rules - D20 for SW, Stargate, Modern are all kinda gross. D&D...
gross, but at least sorta works (until mid to high level). Traveller has had
several okay rules cuts (MegaTrav rules - skill system - especially).
White Wolf had a good basic engine (Storyteller) and so do some other games,
but they lack the licenses or resources (or interest) to produce some of the
most interesting settings. Serenity is a good setting, but I don't like the
rules and think BSG must use similar rules. Similarly, Spycraft - nice
idea, less messy that Top Secret, but still not as easy to run as it should
be.
I never did get to play Empire of the Petal Throne, Metamorphisis Alpha, etc.
I wish I had. For some reason the name Tekumel comes to mind too (but it may
have been Fantasy, not Sci Fi).
In the long run, hard sci games will be boring. No FTL = years of time in
transit = not a lot of dramatic tension just character aging. Other similar
realities will signifcantly distract from fun (try to do the math to put your
ship into orbit... or to intercept another ship in space....). Attack Vector
might be more realistic than most and can be fun, but my lord does it have
some complexity.
So I think I'll stick with Traveller and maybe 2320 AD or Traveller 2300. They
have compelling settings and tolerable rules. Star Wars will get played at
times, because it has sentimental value. Most of the others are just studies
in old game design now...
TomB
> On Friday 24 April 2009 21:07:44 Tom B wrote:
Not necessarily. SF!= star travel. Transhuman space is limited to just the
solar system, and looks like quite an interesting setting (I have all the
books, but I've never played it).
Cyberpunk style can also be done as Hard SF, and that doesn't even require
getting into orbit.
On the other hand, something like the Revelation Space setting by Alistair
Reynolds has star travel, but no FTL. The light hugger crews spend their time
in sleep, and relatively short periods of time pass for them due to time
dilation. Running a campaign where a trip to the next star system requires
working out how society has changed over 100 years is left as an exercise for
the reader.
In such a campaign, you concentrate on what happens at destinations, and
ignore the travel periods. No reason it couldn't be done in a way similar to
Ars Magica, with downtime used for politics, study and research.
On the gripping hand, traversable wormholes could fall into the
no-FTL category (for a loose enough definition of no-FTL), and
would allow a large empire spanning time and space.
> On Fri, Apr 24, 2009 at 4:07 PM, Tom B <kaladorn@gmail.com> wrote:
The closest I came to a non-FTL scifi RPG that was fun was with a
campaign I ran during college using Cyberpunk 1.0. A great set of rules.
Cruising to the moon in a battered system ship that smelled of burnt
insulation (as well as additional random foul smells) certainly added to the
player's tension...
Transhuman Space looked to be a rather fun setting to game in but being tied
to Gurps sort of deflated the desire to actually give it a go.
Damo
I haven't read Transhuman Space but I've got a buddy who swears that as a
Sourcebook it's better than any SF novel ever written.
-Mark K.
> Damond Walker wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 24, 2009 at 3:15 PM, Mark Kinsey <Kinseym@ptd.net> wrote:
I've skimmed several of the GURPS Transhuman Space books, and really liked
some of what I saw. I played GURPS a bit in high school & after, and "buy a
bunch of GURPS books" has always lurked somewhere on the big list of things I
haven't the cash for...
Is the Transhuman Space universe based on a series of novels I've missed, or
was it created specially as a gaming universe?
I played "Classic" Traveller (though we just called it Traveller then) a lot
in the late '70s and early '80s, but then pretty much dropped out of RPGing
for years. I always especially liked the
character-generation system, though my characters did occasionally
perish before the game even started, and I even wrote a spreadsheet
to support it using SuperCalc circa 1980-1.
The GURPS Transhuman Space sourcebooks are excellent for anyone
interested in non-FTL, our-solar-system-only gaming. I've looted them
for ideas for expanding "Belt Wars" into a wider campaign world.
As regards Tom B's remark, I think that is strictly "Your mileage may
vary" territory. For me at least, the sheer ass-pull-ery of "science"
fiction that ignores our present understanding of science is boring.
Your character pulls his trusty gauss-pistol on the space pirate. The
pirate flexes her midiclorians and turns your weapon into a bunch of petunias.
Because as we all know "Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic", right? Yawn...
> On Fri, Apr 24, 2009 at 04:20:04PM -0700, Brian Burger wrote:
> Is the Transhuman Space universe based on a series of novels I've
It was created specifically for gaming - some novels are mentioned in
the bibliographies, but the putting it all together is all down to David
Pulver and the other game authors. There are some leakages, but it does its
best to be SF consistent with physical law as we now know it.
I'm a big fan of the setting - I think of it as "cyberpunk, all grown
up" - and have run a campaign in it (see the tekeli.li site).
R
> Robert N Bryett wrote:
And we *liked* it that way by-gum-it! <slaps knee for effect>
Wow first Sci Fi game hey, Battletech, lost one very beat up lance looking for
spare parts, worst was the parts were for a assult lance not my medium, limped
away with 1 thunder bolt mech.
But my first Sci Fi fleet type game was a boardgame where you had X-wing
and Tie fighters and you had too do the death star run, remenber thinking be
great if they did these a mimi's, it was
1980 -81 I thinkwish i still had the figures.
Its Anzac Day over here in OZ, may break out battle tech and force all the
rellies to give me a game.
Still painting a heap of ACW figures 28mm, need to touch up my fleets, {dont
be rude} 1400km move has not been kind to them. But have found enough of my
GZG 25mm stuff that I didnt know I had that it may be next on the troops to
finnish block.
James
Never much into RPGs, and I had an original D&D in a brown box and the Palace
of the Vampire Queen; either StarWeb or Empire I by Third Millenium
first Sci Fi game, other than some home brew Risk/Chess (don't ask)
variants. Zocchi's Alien Space was in there...
Empire of the Petal Throne was Fantasy, and the world was called
'Tekumel'. ;->=
The_Beast
Tom B wrote on 04/24/2009 03:07:44 PM:
> I never did get to play Empire of the Petal Throne, Metamorphisis
> On Fri, Apr 24, 2009 at 3:07 PM, Tom B <kaladorn@gmail.com> wrote:
(there are
> some other vague memories so vague I can't even latch onto the game
I believe I had all of those. I also had Ringworld. Ringworld kind of
inspired me, in an odd way, when writing _This Favored Land_. I
included a chapter on campaign ideas simply because Ringworld was the
quintessential "Okay, cool setting, but what do I _do_ with it?" game.
Even the authors couldn't get past the idea of mirroring the first Ringworld
book, as that was essentially what they did in the included adventure.
> The only one that had much traction was Traveller. Gamma World was
I remember the page long rules on firing a bow, and the combat flowchart, and
never got past character creation. On the other hand, book three, the campaign
book, was the sort of thing that Ringworld needed.
> Serenity is a good setting, but I don't like the
I'd be interested in hearing, off list, what you didn't like about the rules.
I received both Serenity and BSG as gifts. I'm probably going to play Serenity
(with the rule mods from BSG) with Alana.
An interesting game is Eden's Unisystem. It comes in two flavours, cinematic
and classic. Buffy, Angel and Army of Darkness are all in the cinematic line.
Conspiracy X, Armageddon, Witchcraft and All Flesh Must Be Eaten are classic.
AFMBE is pretty close to a generic system. Strip out the zombies and you have
a pretty cool generic system. All
Tomorrows Zombies includes not-Star Wars, not-The Matrix, and
not-Aliens deadworlds, and their house "magazine" has rules for
not-Serenity.
My go to game for years has been Chaosium's BRP. As the BRP book is now out,
it finally has all the rules in one big location. It would be very easy to use
it for any kind of science fiction game.
Of course these days I'm pretty enamoured with One Roll Engine, as seen in
Godlike, Wild Talents, and my own WT supplement. I have an
idea for a sci-fi game in the system that I'm going to pitch when I
finally finish the other three books I'm working on.
> In the long run, hard sci games will be boring. No FTL = years of time
You need to read Transhuman Space. Even if you don't care for GURPS, it's a
pretty nifty setting book. Hard science fiction set in our solar system. You
don't need FTL to be interesting, you just need to have cool stuff happening
locally.
I'm trying to think of a science fiction RPG that's really grabbed people's
attention in the last couple of years, and I can't think of any that aren't
licensed properties or a redux of a prior version.
Maybe Slipstream for Savage Worlds (and that's sci-fi pulp). Maybe
Burning Empires (more as an intellectual exercise than a game). I guess it
would be Transhuman Space, and that's, what, five years old now?
In roleplaying, science fiction has taken a back seat to fantasy since
the beginning and horror since the late 80s/early 90s.
On Fri, Apr 24, 2009 at 3:39 PM, Samuel Penn <sam@glendale.org.uk> wrote:
> Not necessarily. SF != star travel. Transhuman space is limited to
Grrr, I was scooped. (Guess I should have read the rest of the thread before
posting...)
On Fri, Apr 24, 2009 at 6:20 PM, Brian Burger <blurdesign@gmail.com> wrote:
> Is the Transhuman Space universe based on a series of novels I've
I believe they were created as a stand-alone gaming universe, but with
elements plucked from several post-cyberpunk sources.
I haven't read it but from the blurbs I'm reading it looks alot like a
fancied up Shaper/Mechanist universe (the Schizmatrix Plus collection
has the whole series in one volume). Which would be great for a RPG, a
dream for hard sci fi, but terrible for GZG-style military gaming as
conventional warfare is non-existent.
Ship to ship combat is forbidden by common convention, so it's mostly
intrigue, agitprop, claim-jumping, state-sponsored terrorism,
industrial espianoge and economic sabotage. Earth has been ruined by
economic/political/ecological collapse as is under Interdict.
Virtually the whole setting is in free-fall. FTL only appears late in
the series as (actually several) technologies used by aliens, yet to
be reverse-engineered and forbiddingly expensive. So nearly the whole
series takes place in the solar system, disputed by two alliances of
transhuman (here called "post-human") factions. The mechanists
(hypercorporate proponents of cybernetics, computers and robotics) dominate
the Asteroid Belt, while the shapers (fascist bioengineers) control the rings
of saturn. The rest of the solar system is "disputed".
I could potentially see a star grunt game in shaper/mechanist, but
full thrust and dirtside would be out of the question. Like I said, though, an
ideal hard sci fi RPG setting. Since Bruce Sterling is from Austin, I wouldn't
be surprised at all if Transhuman space borrows
heavily from Shaper/Mechanist.
Rob
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ef reply to Damo:
Yeah. I have a lot of GURPS (for GT and associated things) but once I realized
it was 'nice to read, argh! to game', I just put it on the shelf to be admired
and mined for setting stuff for other systems.
Brief reply to Allan:
I had Ringworld too. Neat setting, neat game system. The way they did the
Flashlight laser was very cool because it was a 4 in 1: Cutter, light, fastest
sword ever, and a deep penetrating beam if focused. If you wanted, you could
use the beam to slash a bunch of targets shallowly or hit one deeply. Neat.
Brief reply to Robert:
Robert, if people are gonna nit pick about FTL - which may end up being
possible - due to what we think we know now (notice some things we think
we know come and go pretty quickly), then you should apply the same standard
all over. That destroys almost all SF technology not already at least partly
in production or in research today. Everything else ends up being essentially
a form of magic because we don't have the theory to explain it
and can't prove it is do-able. Yes, you can come up with a setting here
that
might work, but it will have a very limited sci-fi potential and the
adventures will be constrained in many regards (whereas 'somewhat hard'
sci-fi is easier to do and space opera requires little or no
justification other than occasional sops to internal consistency). That's why
I say boring
- you seriously limit your options.
> Sam wrote:
"Not necessarily. SF!= star travel. Transhuman space is limited to just the
solar system, and looks like quite an interesting setting (I have all the
books, but I've never played it).
Cyberpunk style can also be done as Hard SF, and that doesn't even require
getting into orbit."
TomB: I don't disagree, I was only singling out FTL as one example of a
sci-fi trope that goes away when you bring out the 'hard ass science'
limit. I'm pretty sure a goodly portion of Cyberpunk goes out that same
window.
Nerve acceleration by myelin sheathing is in fact one such example - if
you did it like the earlier cyberpunk material said it could be done, you
actually screw up the way the nerves work, rather than enhance them. Any many
of the other cyber mods are about as unlikely. Monofilament wire as a viable
weapon... have fun with that. And of course, the genetic mods aren't
any better - we've only now begun to understand how our early concept of
DNA was pretty far off and we seem to be moving along towards good things with
that science, but we're a far cry from '+1 INT for my baby!' or 'Eyes
like a
cat!'.
Sam continued:
"On the other hand, something like the Revelation Space setting by Alistair
Reynolds has star travel, but no FTL. The light hugger crews spend their time
in sleep, and relatively short periods of time pass for them due to time
dilation. Running a campaign where a trip to the next star system requires
working out how society has changed over 100 years is left as an exercise for
the reader."
TomB: Interesting, and Alistair has some good work (I like Pushing Ice, even
though parts of it were not so hard sci-fi). But as you say, there
becomes a significant projective effort on how lengthy travel will change
societies and the more you travel, the harder it will get to produce a
believable result. And your crew runs a serious risk of suffering
psychological issues related to the vast change in societies while they were
gone (for weeks or
days in their terms). Fun mateiral for a novel examining the effects -
maybe not so much for an RPG. Depends on your group I guess.
Sam continued:
"On the gripping hand, traversable wormholes could fall into the
no-FTL category (for a loose enough definition of no-FTL), and
would allow a large empire spanning time and space."
TomB: And they don't strain credibility more than FTL? My point about the
hard-ass sci fi games is that so much is rules out or suspect that it
leaves you very little to work with. You can choose ONE thing and throw it out
and keep the rest, but that's not applying the same standard. If you're going
to gripe about plasma guns, about FTL drives, and about the starmap not being
3D or being 3D and being wrong (2300, I'm looking at you!), then you also have
to get out the same lens to fry: Wormholes that are passable by humans,
Hyperspace, human genetic modifications beyond the most basic, practicality of
colonizing or trying to run a polity across interstellar space with no FTL,
cyber modification of humans, etc.
I prefer less space-opera games (than say Star Wars or Gamma World) but
I realize my games will include several things that are marginally possible or
the PSB just sounds good if you don't look to hard at it. Things that *seem*
harder sci-fi are just fine with me, even though when I really crank up
the skepticism, it wipes them out too. So I don't crank up that skepticism.
But the point was that if you go full skeptic, you're really left with a small
toolbox.
> On Sat, Apr 25, 2009 at 4:46 PM, Tom B <kaladorn@gmail.com> wrote:
I enjoy each of these things (okay, not plasma guns, because since I found out
they're just silly, my willing suspension of disbelief was dispelled). They
result in interesting stories and fun "what ifs".
Besides, Spec Fic was never intended to _predict_ the future, but to
ask, "What if..." and answer that specific question.
A lot of time in scifi circles is spent arguing over what is "better" science
fiction, with "better" often being equated to "more realistic" or "more
plausible". My point is that a lot of "hard" science fiction isn't any more
realistic than "lesser" space fantasy.
To my mind, if you enjoy the setting and the game, and so do your
players/GM, there's no such thing as badwrongfun, it's all just fun.
Hell, if someone would run Traveller I'd even happily wield a plasma gun,
silliness not withstanding.
Well, it's a matter of taste of course, but I don't buy the "If you're going
to include anything you can't patent tomorrow, you might as well ignore
science" argument. To me at least there's a difference between, for example,
including fusion rockets (we know fusion is possible, we understand the
nuclear mechanisms involved, and we can even make it happen when we want, but
we're nowhere near the technology to use it for spacecraft propulsion) and
throwing in "reactionless drives" (which would shatter the structure of
physics all the way back to Galileo).
I find story worlds that *don't* limit their options boring. If the
characters regularly escape life-threatening situations by pulling
super-powers out of their backsides (Yes, Dune prequel novels, I'm
looking at you), or "reversing the polarity of the tachyon emitters" (Hi
there, Star Trek), I believe that suspense and dramatic tension are completely
vitiated. For me, all story worlds *need* serious constraints. They need hard,
sharp corners for the characters to bang their shins on, whether they're
detective stories, Napoleonic
naval sagas, or science-fiction.
Best regards, Robert Bryett
> On 26/04/2009, at 07:46 , Tom B wrote:
> Robert, if people are gonna nit pick about FTL - which may end up
> On Saturday 25 April 2009 05:01:04 Allan Goodall wrote:
wrote:
> > Not necessarily. SF != star travel. Transhuman space is limited to
Actually, it's been interesting seeing other people's comments on
Transhuman Space - it seems to have a good reputation. However,
several members of our gaming group have a pathological hatred of GURPS, so
I'm unlikely to get a chance to play or run it.
> I haven't read it but from the blurbs I'm reading it looks alot like a
Transhuman Space certainly takes some themes from the Shaper/Mechanist
universe, but conventional warfare still exists. Earth hasn't been
ruined and has enough nation-states and rival power blocs for the
occasional war.
In space there aren't enough warships for GZG style major fleet actions, but
there's certainly potential for half a dozen a side battles between any of the
major fleets.
And to repeat what others have said, it's a well worked out setting that's an
interesting read even if you don't like GURPS.
cheers,
On Sun, Apr 26, 2009 at 4:28 AM, Samuel Penn <sam@glendale.org.uk> wrote:
> Actually, it's been interesting seeing other people's comments on
There are Transhuman Space conversions to other game systems floating around
out there.
Or, you could wait until Eclipse Phase comes out and see what that's like. It
has a similar feeling background, from what little I've read of it, but with
an entirely different game system. It is supposed to go to print Real Soon
Now, so it might actually make it to GenCon.
> On Fri, Apr 24, 2009 at 10:59:34PM -0500, Allan Goodall wrote:
[...]
> I
The first THS book came out in 2002.
The first set of SF ground combat rules I ever bought was a little duplicated
booklet called SMASH (which IIRC stood for "Skirmish, Melee and Surface
Happenings!") designed for use with things like the
Airfix astronaut figures and any other small-scale toys you could
find in those days - I think that was around 1972 or 73. I never
played them as written, but they did inspire me to start designing my own
rules to use with the Minifigs 25mm SciFi figures that became available around
that time. The first really "commercially" produced set I bought was probably
FGU's original Space Marines, closely followed by a copy of the first edition
of Starguard.
My first Starship combat ones were Dave Rotor's "Galactic Warfare",
printed by Skytrex around 1973/4 for use with their very first
resin-cast spaceships - both the minis and the rules were very
simplistic but they caught my interest and led me to write what eventually
became FT!
My introduction to SF gaming was the pocket edition of 4000AD. My
first SF RPG was Gamma World (I read Traveller books 0 - 5, but did
not play). I later branched out into the product lines of Metagaming and Task
Force Games, because they were affordable. My brother and a friend actually
played the Starfire scenario: Second Battle of Ophiuchi Junction, which proved
that Starfire really was playable with large fleets.
I thought that the various incarnations of SFB were the bee's knee's of
starship combat, until I left the company of people that had been
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> Fri, Apr 24, 2009 at 9:29 PM, <tagalong@chariot.net.au> wrote:
> Wow first Sci Fi game hey, Battletech , lost one very beat up lance
I thought the question was for SF RPG. ;-)
But that's okay. If we want to expand out to first SF game ever, mine was
Chitin:I. Purely by accident on Metagaming's part, since I had ordered
Ogre. :-D
Mk
I have to add myself to list of people for whom it was Traveller - heck,
I used to have a set of the little black books autographed by Marc Miller
(long gone now unfortunately). I still have all my Traveller stuff and
collected more over the years - though I didn't bother with much at all
of the TNE and I haven't picked up any of recent (last couple of years)
releases. It was actually the second RPG I bought (after the Blue Box of D&D
along with the Player's Handbook)
> From there I did Gamma World, Star Frontiers, Mechanoids, Space Opera,
I have yet to pick up anything in the d20 engine, and probably won't. Not sure
why, just a principle that I refuse to give anything d20 related any more
money after years of the money sink that AD&D was. I converted over to a house
engine a number of years ago for fantasy games as well.
And I gave up on the Traveller space combat and design stuff and converted
over to Full Thrust almost as soon as I bought my original set of the rules
(something like twelve years ago?). It really makes things much, much
easier...
> On Sun, Apr 26, 2009 at 2:51 PM, Indy <indy.kochte@gmail.com> wrote:
I can't remember my first science fiction game. I think it might have been a
couple of games from a Canadian company called Gamma Two Games (which was
later rolled into Columbia Games). I know I had 4000 AD fairly early on, plus
some mainstream games like The Bermuda Triangle game (you had to sale ships
around a board, but each turn a "cloud" moved around and "ate" ships; there
were magnets on the ships and on the plastic cloud).
The first science fiction wargame was Ogre and GEV, which I mail ordered from
Metagaming back in the day. My first miniatures game was Striker, but I never
played it. I bought the rules, bought the minis, but never got around to
playing it. The first science fiction miniatures game I actually got to play
was 40K, but I abandoned it when I bought SG2.
> On Fri, Apr 24, 2009 at 6:06 PM, Mark Kinsey <Kinseym@ptd.net> wrote:
If I could somehow, magically, get any SF author (living or dead) to sit at
the head of a table and GM an RPG campaign, I would get Alexei Panshin to run
Traveller. His trilogy of books featuring Anthony Villiers, a viscount of the
Nashuan Interstellar Empire, published in 1968 and 1969, describe just the
sort of place the Traveller Universe
must be (the books are out of print, but an e-copy that includes all
three came out).
The interesting aspect of the Traveller system was that it was a
sci-fi skin over a playable, generic roleplaying game. You could use
it for roleplaying The High Crusade, as it included rules for weapons running
the entire gamut of clubs to edged weapons to slug throwers to
energy weapons. All it lacked was a magic system-- forgivable, given
the offered setting.
> On Fri, Apr 24, 2009 at 9:29 PM,
Ah, OK, well in that case it was definitely Traveller for me, if you don't
count various attempts to shoehorn SF bits into early D&D
games.... ;-)
Jon (GZG)
> But that's okay. If we want to expand out to first SF game ever,
> I thought the question was for SF RPG. ;-)
If you read some of the item posts on eBay, you get the impression that
every even slightly non-abstract game is an 'RPG'. ;->=
Wait, I haven't seen a standard Monopoly posted as an 'RPG, not that it'd be a
surprise.
The_Beast
I think where a game starts having roleplaying is when you can
creatively re-shape the rules to fit a situation. When your rules
model the story rather than simply being constraints that are given, you have
an RPG. Which means an RPG is how you play rather than what you play.
Chess is a game right up to the point where my bishop decides to try to seduce
your queen, or where one of my pawns sneaks across the board and tries to
poison your knights one foggy evening, then it becomes an RPG.
On Mon, Apr 27, 2009 at 10:07 AM, Doug Evans <devans@nebraska.edu> wrote:
> I thought the question was for SF RPG. Â ;-)
Robert Mayberry wrote on 04/27/2009 09:13:07 AM:
***
> Chess is a game right up to the point where my bishop decides to try
And you still call it Chess?
Sorry, this HAS gone a bit astray.
My last word, promise! THE game is not how you play it, but how it is
designed/composed to be played. MY game is what I make of it.
The_Beast
Probably Star Frontiers, though it may have been Traveller.
Much as I loved Traveller, none of my friends wanted to play it.
And I'm still a huge fan of the LBBs*. I like a lot less randomizing (NONE) in
my character creation for actual playing, but I probably
spent days making/killing characters when I first picked it up, so it
was a feature then.
On Sun, Apr 26, 2009 at 8:38 PM, Richard Bell <rlbell.nsuid@gmail.com> wrote:
> The interesting aspect of the Traveller system was that it was a
I always thought the Psionics system was the magic system.
I thought it was interesting that the Thieves World generic expansion included
a conversion to Traveller, which included magic.
> Eden was always a small company, but they lost their big money maker
> when Fox pulled the Buffy and Angel licenses.
> [quoted text omitted]
> They have people pop online on RPG.net every now and again. Apparently
> the next book will be pirates ("Arrr, There Be Zombies" or something
> like that) and after that is their World War II book ("Band of
> Zombies").
> [quoted text omitted]
> But you're right. It's hard to take them seriously these days. I
> bought "Conspiracy X 2.0" (in Unisystem) during my big AFMBE phase and
> it's a really good game system. I then bought a raft of the old ConX
> books for ideas (mostly for "Delta Green"). The books are good, but
> for the older (not Unisystem) system. They were intending to release
> new source books that took the old material and convert it to
> Unisystem, but that still hasn't happened.
I know they're a small company... but if you don't tell your customers what
you're doing and when it'll be available for sale, you just loose business.
No website is better than the mess they have at the moment, they should take
it down and have a single blog on the front page. Yes they were big, they fell
hard... time to go back to basics.
Conspiracy X 2.0 is one of their hidden gems, the new source book is
available for pre-order from Paizo - no mention of it on their own
website, or a release estimate.
> It should be noted that while AFMBE is a zombie game and all the
> supplements have zombie themes, it's really easy to remove the zombie
> stuff. "All Tomorrow's Zombies" has cool spaceship and alien
> construction rules. One of the best Western games out there is AFMBE
> with "Fistful O' Zombies". About the only supplement I wasn't crazy
> about was "Zombie Smackdown".
Totally agree, the Unisystem is one of the better generic systems, in either
the Classic or Cinematic flavour. Witchcraft plus supplements is also a great
game. Abandoned in favour of other games... such a shame.
Small companies need to give us constant updates... if not, we lose interest
and miss the release and don't buy the stuff. Did you know ESP Volume 3 was
out? Stealth release equals no sales.
(Sorry for rant, just annoys me)
Simon
On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 8:58 AM, Simon White
> <mintroll-gzg-ft@2-72.co.uk> wrote:
Their web site is truly awful.
> Conspiracy X 2.0 is one of their hidden gems, the new source book is
They did say that it's supposed to be their next release, but as you mention
they don't give any indication as to when.
Eden is so well established that if it was a question of money, they could use
the ransom model to get the funds.
> Small companies need to give us constant updates... if not, we lose
I only found out about Eden Studio Presents 3 from the YouTube video review by
Kurt Wiegel.