I'm planning my next game (which will probably start this summer) and I'm considering running a game set in the Firefly/Serenity universe.

I have heard that the published Serenity game is so-so (particularly in its match up for system and setting). I'm not terribly informed about this, so I'd like to hear if I'm wrong, and generally whether the Serenity game is good for games in the Firefly universe.

I have also heard that there are close enough similarities between Firefly and Traveler that one could use Traveler's system (one of the many... in this case I'm talking about MongTrav for reasons I'll get to later) for a Firefly game.

That said, would MongTrav work for a Firefly games? What mods might I need to make? How are the ship rules and how easy/hard would it be to write up custom ships if I needed to. I've heard that MongTrav is OGL and has a freely available SRD, which is why I'm considering it. Is this true? Is it any good? Gameable?

Further, what's the best gameable source for setting material on Firefly/Serenity (and the comics)? Does the published game have a good overview of the setting? Or should I look elsewhere? Bonus points if it's free and online where my players can see it.

I may come up with more questions later. Thanks in advance.

EDIT: I knew there was something I was forgetting! Are there published adventures and are they any good?

The rules of Serenity rpg are very similar to Savage Worlds. I have not played it but they seemed pretty solid and a good match to for the Firefly series  in the sense it is more of more of a character-driven system than a tactical one. The book has a fair bit of reference material on "The Black".
 
 The reason I have not run Serenity rpg isn't the system. It was the sad realisation that what made Firefly great was Joss Whedon's dialogue and story telling and no rulebook is going to give that to me. On it's own, the setting is actually rather bland. It's like "take Star Wars and remove all the cool stuff like aliens, Jedi, space dog-fights, simple one-climate planets and annoying robot sidekicks". And as TV series that was a good thing. However I figured if I were to try run it, without weird aliens and awe-inspiring Death Stars to distract the players, I'd have to rely entirely on old fashion storytelling skills and that I found intimidating.

There are ship stats for both CT and T20 (probably MGT by now too) as well as deckplans for Serenity floating around on the net. The chargen rules for MGT should be flexable enough for you to create characters with the required flavor. Ship combat rules are not in the core book, but are probably in High Guard.

You guys are forgetting something - The Serenity RPG book and GM's screen has some realy cool maps of the ships!!!

Especially the GM's screen package - it has a map big enough to use with miniatures on it if someone were to board a Firefly-class freighter.


- Ed C.

Quote from: Koltar;283721You guys are forgetting something - The Serenity RPG book and GM's screen has some realy cool maps of the ships!!!

Especially the GM's screen package - it has a map big enough to use with miniatures on it if someone were to board a Firefly-class freighter.


- Ed C.

Like that far trader behind you in your picture?

there are ship combat rules in the rulebook, they may not be awesome rules but they'll do in a pinch.

I have yet to purchase MongTrav, on account of it's hideously overpriced for what's basically just a Classic Traveller variant ruleset.  

But Classic Traveller itself would be pretty damn perfect for Firefly, and I might point out, is a lot cheaper to acquire than Mongooses' 40 fucking dollars for a rather slim B&W hardback.  TravellerRPG.com sells the core book for $12 in handy little digest form.

Hey, J Arcane's back!

I agree with him on the price of the corebook; $40 is a bit much.  I'd go to farfuture.net and get the Complete CT CD-ROM for $35 and shipping instead.  You'll have everything you need and more to run a Firefly game.

The combat system for Mongoose Traveller is far superior to the one in Classic Traveller, IMHO.

Plus, lets face it, how often have interweb noodniks like ourselves paid full cover price for anything thanks to ebay and Amazon and their clones.

You could always get the Traveller SRD for the MGT combat system details if CT, AHL or Striker (all on the CD-ROM!) don't float your boat.

The Pocket Edition of Mongoose Traveller is supposed to have all of the rules, less of the errors, and at a fraction of the price of the hardcover. I think it's like $13.

Quote from: Soylent GreenThe reason I have not run Serenity rpg isn't the system. It was the sad realisation that what made Firefly great was Joss Whedon's dialogue and story telling and no rulebook is going to give that to me.

The dialogue was witty, yes, but I don't think it was the main draw for me. The characters were more interesting to me than the humor (awesome though that may have been). And the stories for each episode were themselves pretty awesome, sometimes for reasons having nothing to do with the dialogue. My favorite was Out of Gas.

Anyway, the main reason I'm thinking Traveller is because what I've heard of the character generation sounds right for this sort of thing. Just making a character gives you a backstory by default. So players get characters with some kind of history, plenty of room to adventure, and a general focus on mundane or relatable plot elements (like reavers, psychics, and being drop kicked into the cold vaccum of space).

Quote from: Rock ViperShip combat rules are not in the core book, but are probably in High Guard.

Not in the core rule book for Mongoose Traveller? That's kind of disappointing. Not that there's much ship-to-ship combat in the show anyway, but it would still be handy to have rules for.

Quote from: Broken-Serenitythere are ship combat rules in the rulebook, they may not be awesome rules but they'll do in a pinch.

And now I'm confused.

Quote from: KoltarYou guys are forgetting something - The Serenity RPG book and GM's screen has some realy cool maps of the ships!!!

Especially the GM's screen package - it has a map big enough to use with miniatures on it if someone were to board a Firefly-class freighter.

I was thinking MongTrav for the SRD (so my players could have easy access to the rules), but I'm not against getting the Serenity RPG for myself if it has good setting info and deckplans and such. And because I wants it.

RE: J Arcane, KenHR, and Jeff:
Hmm... the Classic Traveller CD and MongTrav SRD sounds like a good way to go. How do the rules compare? How compatible are they with one another? What are the ship combat and regular combat rules like in comparison?

And in terms of the pocket edition, what does it have? How much does it cut?

MongTrav and Classic Trav are virtually interchangeable from what I've read.  I've actually adopted a lot of MongTrav stuff for my game already, like the "Hard Science" option for planet creation.  There are some interesting options for starship design that might replace some clunky houserules I've developed over the last year or so of sporadic play.

I haven't looked at the MongTrav space combat rules myself as I like my houseruled system adopted from the range band space combat from Starter Traveller (again, available on the CD-ROM).  Basic CT uses a vector movement system with miniatures that requires a lot of floorspace.  The original High Guard has a more abstract space combat system for large capital ship engagements, which I severely dislike (but I'm apparently in a minority with that opinion).

CT's original combat system (not talking starships now) uses an abstract system of range bands.  I like it for quick combats, but you can run into some conceptual issues if you're not going to play fast and loose with issues like positioning, etc.  However, the system can be easily converted to a grid (this was done in the Snapshot rules; Azhanti High Lightning/Striker use a more detailed system - all on the CD-ROM!).  I like what I've read of the MongTrav combat, as it keeps a lot of what I like about CT's basic combat system (especially damage to attributes), but I'm undecided about using it, as I've grown comfortable with the original combat system.

One problem with CT's combat system had to do with modifiers.  Weapons could have their to-hit numbers modified by range and target's armor type.  Certain weapons could accrue enough positive modifiers to make it impossible to miss a target; this was solved by a bit of house ruling in my game (I basically halved any positive armor modifiers; some like to make armor absorb damage instead).  MongTrav doesn't appear to have this issue, at least on a cursory reading of combat.

I have played Serenity / Firefly games with the Serenity RPG, Classic Traveller, Savage Worlds and Buffy/Unisystem.    

The Serenity game is okay - a tad wonky for my taste and feels like a Savage World ripoff, but the chargen was quite fun.  The characters felt perfect for the game world.

Classic Traveller and Savage Worlds both worked fine and both have very good, very flexible systems and CT can be houseruled fabulously to do whatever you want.   I have heard MongTrav is similiar in this respect.

The best of the bunch as Unisystem, though I did play in a game run by a great GM who really knows the system so that does bias me.   He pulled stuff from Buffy / Angel and some Unisystem sourcebooks to hack together his Firefly game.  It made playing the Supporting Characters much more fun than in the other games.

Quote from: Spinachcat;283981The Serenity game is okay - a tad wonky for my taste and feels like a Savage World ripoff, but the chargen was quite fun.  The characters felt perfect for the game world.
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Actually, the Serenity system was the old Soveriegn Stone system that came out the year before 3E, much before Savage Worlds came out.

Of course, it is younger than Deadlands, so there is a possible line of transmission there, but honestly there are few ways to use multiple sizes of dice in a game system that make sense...