Some surprisingly creative responses in here!

I am looking forward to playing Flashpoint. I definitely feel the firefighter theme is better for boardgames.

Quote from: tenbones;1028587Cyberpunk2020's Trauma Team is perfect for an intimate and intense game as first-responders. Ironically it uses all the tropes of the genre and the game's classes. Requires PR, medi-tech skills, solos and cops for security, fixers for "procurement" when certain things run low, technicians to keep all the gear running (especially the transports and their weapons/armor etc). Corporates for running the business and dealing with the inevitable intrigues from competitors etc.

This was my Shadowrun D6 minicampaign!!  No where near Christopher Brady's number of sessions, probably 1/10th, but incredibly fun.

We absolutely did firefighting too. AKA, the building is burning and people are shooting each other inside.

Quote from: JeremyR;1028504No. But I always thought a paramedic or rescue type RPG might have some appeal. Maybe mixed with Sci-Fi. One of my favorite SF series is Sector General by James White, which is largely about a hospital ship that responds to starship mishaps and the like.

However, I think it requires too much player knowledge of medicine and rescue.

+1

I don't see any point in doing a "firefighters RPG". Rather enlist as a real-life, part-time firefighter, and do the real thing. On the other hand, there might be some potential in making a supplement for a sci-fi game that would deal with firefighters, medics, etc., plus rules for disasters. Hence PCs could be something else than murder hobos in space, or at least such characters might be uselful in a traditional party of soldiers, rogues, etc.

I will keep this idea in mind for my next FH&W products...

Hah! I was betting one of my publishers would find the idea interesting, but turns out I was betting on the wrong publisher.

Quote from: Turanil;1029266+1

I don't see any point in doing a "firefighters RPG". Rather enlist as a real-life, part-time firefighter, and do the real thing. On the other hand, there might be some potential in making a supplement for a sci-fi game that would deal with firefighters, medics, etc., plus rules for disasters. Hence PCs could be something else than murder hobos in space, or at least such characters might be uselful in a traditional party of soldiers, rogues, etc.

I will keep this idea in mind for my next FH&W products...

Interesting. Friend of ours is a firefighter, and when he was studying for his captain's test I did a fire-fighting RPG for him; he had to roleplay being the on-scene commander, and some of my other players played the rest of the crew(s) sent to the scene. I used actual 'after-action' reports as the basis for the games, and it all played out quite well. He passed out at the top of his class, and some of his colleagues asked me to run games for them at the station.

So maybe it's a useful thing...

Quote from: Turanil;1029266+1

I don't see any point in doing a "firefighters RPG". Rather enlist as a real-life, part-time firefighter, and do the real thing.

I don't see any point in doing a military RPG.  Rather enlist as a real-life soldier, and do the real thing.

I don't see any point in doing a medieval style RPG.  Rather join one of the ARMA groups and do the real thing.

I don't see any point in doing a science fiction RPG.  Rather join NASA and do the real thing.

Et fucking cetera.

Quote from: Turanil;1029266+1

I don't see any point in doing a "firefighters RPG". Rather enlist as a real-life, part-time firefighter, and do the real thing.

The whole point of a RPG is to allow us grown 'men' and 'women' (read kids) to be something we're not.  This is not any different.

I think it could be done, but there are challenges.

Balancing reality would be a major issue as most players aren't going to know how to do things, but it's also not much fun to just boil everything down to a die roll. It also has to be accurate enough so that people who do know something about the subject don't just pick it apart.

Real firefighting is para-military (rank structure) and very team oriented. RPGs tend to focus on individuals, and players don't tend to like to follow the rules.

It is also generally fairly static, most crews work out of the same station in the same city, with the same group of people shift after shift. This makes it very hard not to have it just turn into a series of essentially random encounters with little player control (that is basically how the job works).  

A game would probably work best in an episodic style, and the best format would probably be similar to the TV series Emergency! The show featured the crew (2 firefighter / paramedics) of a paramedic rescue company. Because of the specialized nature of their unit it gave more plot freedom. Less rigid as they were two equally ranked individuals, and they covered a wide area and wide variety of emergencies. Of course this is very limiting to the number of players.

On the less realistic side something like House would be a possibility. In the real world the fire department shows up, stabilizes the situation (puts out the fire, takes the patient to the hospital etc) and goes back to the station. Allowing the players to follow up by tracking down the causes, taking on an additional mission to help resolve the situation etc might make for more interesting if less accurate game play.

I think it would be neat to see it done well, but probably a pretty limited interest.
Sci-fi or a board game would probably be more successful. An interesting take could be following members of the London Fire Brigade during WW2.  


There have been several computer games and a few board games. Most are not terribly representative of reality but some have been fun. Some have made a decent effort of at least having realistic physics  so using real world tactics results in success.

There's a hex and counter forest fire fighting game called "Fire Jumpers" that's been around for a long time.

I could see running it with Mutant Chronicles, inevitably, the Dark Legion would be behind the fires.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;1030186Interesting. Friend of ours is a firefighter, and when he was studying for his captain's test I did a fire-fighting RPG for him; he had to roleplay being the on-scene commander, and some of my other players played the rest of the crew(s) sent to the scene. I used actual 'after-action' reports as the basis for the games, and it all played out quite well. He passed out at the top of his class, and some of his colleagues asked me to run games for them at the station.

So maybe it's a useful thing...

It's so useful that it's part of the normal training course where I come from. If your are lucky you also get miniature scenery with houses and cars and people to move around.
And even when I made the lowest paramedic licences, a sizable part of the course was roleplaying different situations.

That's some pretty fascinating use of roleplaying for job-related stuff there.

Quote from: Krimson;1028514I'm not sure about an RPG. Maybe for a one shot or a few adventures but I couldn't really see a campaign, as it could get repetitive. Now if it was done like a war game, that might have some appeal, where one player is the fire fighters and the other the fire.

As an RPG, I would run it as "firefighters", but expand it to include arson investigation and things of that nature. That coverts it more into a trouble shooter aspect, so you don't have to do a burning building thing every session.

Quote from: Tod13;1046872As an RPG, I would run it as "firefighters", but expand it to include arson investigation and things of that nature. That coverts it more into a trouble shooter aspect, so you don't have to do a burning building thing every session.

You could certainly expand it to be a procedural. Though it wouldn't just be firefighters at that point.

I was a firefighter. I wrote a book for Traveller called Rescue Ops. It's firefighting in the future, but it's firefighting.

Quote from: DiscoSoup;1046876I was a firefighter. I wrote a book for Traveller called Rescue Ops. It's firefighting in the future, but it's firefighting.

Thank you, I hadn't noticed such a supplement exists:)! And I sure didn't know about the author's personal experience, which is always a bonus in my book!