Wednesday, May 8, 2013

a Science Fiction RPG

I'm working on a science fiction role-playing game heavily influenced by Classic Traveller that uses the Apocalypse World engine. I spent one week writing ideas furiously but now my work has tapered off and I need to organize all of my notes into a single document. This hasn't been going well because as I transfer the notes into a pdf I re-read them and start to worry that the way I've written some things becomes hard to pull off for a character sheet. Consequently my work has slowed. My working title for this game is Tales of Imperial Space, but I would like to go with something simpler (as soon as I think of it). Originally it started as an idea for doing a hard science fiction setting, but now I'm gravitating toward a more pulpy space fantasy kind of game.
Things that are different from Apocalypse World:
• characters are slightly weaker, the moves are less comprehensive than the playbook moves of AW (like Monsterhearts)
• progression is different, I wrote out experience tracks that fill and then reset, I'm thinking that failing a roll will garner experience instead of highlighting stats (like Dungeon World)
• slight randomization during character creation, since a character can try to go for as long as possible in a service and reenlistment is random (like Classic Traveller)
• countdown clocks use different "times," I made a countdown clock with 6 equal-in-size segments which leaves the times at 2,4,6,8,10, and 12 instead of 3,6,9,10,11, and 12
• there is no Weird or psychic maelstrom, instead there is Psi, and it always starts at -2, another reason characters are weaker

1 comment:

  1. I like the pulp sci-fi idea. I'm going to go read some Doc Savage right now in preparation

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