Blue Planet was a cool RPG from the 90s that never became popular, but had a dedicated fanbase...who rarely ran the game at conventions or public play.
Did anyone ever run Blue Planet? I played a few times, but never ran the game and I don't remember a thing about the mechanics. Were they good? bad? meh?
I do remember our GM described the setting as "Cyberpunk Waterworld" and I really enjoyed the underwater concept and the various social tensions. A few years later, I ran a Traveller Aliens mini-campaign on a waterworld. Not just because of Blue Planet, and probably because of this scene from Alien 4: Resurrection:
There's a KS for a new edition of Blue Planet called Recontact. I haven't delved into it because if the woke vomit on KS has reached new levels of nausea and its like treading a minefield of dumb. Hopefully, Blue Planet Recontact will be an amazing exception to the idiotic trend.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1875712273/blue-planet-recontact? (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1875712273/blue-planet-recontact?)
So let's talk Blue Planet...or derail the thread to talk about water adventures in D&D, or your pet peeves with waterworlds in general, or to complain about Alien 4 or Costner's Waterworld because sticking on topic ain't our strong suit (me especially).
I ran a few sessions of the game, but so long ago (1998 or '99, I think) I don't remember a thing about it, except one of my players could do a really good imitation of a dolphin. I later played in one of the Red Brick scenarios at Gencon, and had a pretty good time, but the GM's politics (Denver-left) bothered some of my buddies who were playing too.
It's my favorite sci-fi setting bar none, however, so I'm in with this KS, hoping it's not more woke than it has to be. If nothing else the cartography from the free demo is enough to take me back.
The KS smells like Woke shit
Quote
The Recontact project does not include
• Fundamental changes to the core sociopolitical tensions - the themes will remain staunchly pro-environmental and anti-colonial.
• Timeline advancements - the setting was originally - and intentionally - poised on a sociopolitical precipice, rife with plot and storytelling potential, and we want to maintain that same narrative tension.
• Global rewrites of the setting material - though updates, sensitivity edits and additions are being made throughout, we believe Blue Planet's deep setting is why the game has endured, and so we are not making major alterations to that essential content.
Bolding mine.
Even minus any changes I'm not sure why I'd want to get this. Blue Planet was one of my favourite RPGs when v2 was out and I bought every book. At the time there was no more modern-feeling Cyberpunk game; Cyberpunk 2020 was looking more and more dated with every year in both technology and setting. Blue Planet had what amounts to Drones and Smartphones, and a way to integrate emerging tech into a setting that felt new and cutting-edge.
Now?
It's just a setting which I already have that I don't want just for prettier books. GURPS Transhuman Space came out later and went even further for me than Blue Planet did; and then Eclipse Phase arrived and that's my new gold standard for Cyberpunk-ish games.
I'll always have fond memories of Blue Planet, but nostalgia alone isn't enough to make me buy a third edition these days.
Quote from: Spinachcat on April 06, 2021, 06:30:47 PM
Blue Planet was a cool RPG from the 90s that never became popular, but had a dedicated fanbase...who rarely ran the game at conventions or public play.
Did anyone ever run Blue Planet? I played a few times, but never ran the game and I don't remember a thing about the mechanics. Were they good? bad? meh?
I do remember our GM described the setting as "Cyberpunk Waterworld" and I really enjoyed the underwater concept and the various social tensions. A few years later, I ran a Traveller Aliens mini-campaign on a waterworld. Not just because of Blue Planet, and probably because of this scene from Alien 4: Resurrection:
There's a KS for a new edition of Blue Planet called Recontact. I haven't delved into it because if the woke vomit on KS has reached new levels of nausea and its like treading a minefield of dumb. Hopefully, Blue Planet Recontact will be an amazing exception to the idiotic trend.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1875712273/blue-planet-recontact? (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1875712273/blue-planet-recontact?)
So let's talk Blue Planet...or derail the thread to talk about water adventures in D&D, or your pet peeves with waterworlds in general, or to complain about Alien 4 or Costner's Waterworld because sticking on topic ain't our strong suit (me especially).
I stay away from Kickstarters because of all the wokeness gatekeeping there.
I have the v2 books, and they were an awfully good read even though I never got to play the game. The bit quoted above about continuing ecological and anti-colonial themes is a bit hokey. I just glanced at my Moderator's Guide, and it listed 9 typical premises for a Blue Planet campaign, only one of which was anticolonial and one of which was ecological. And since the role of the PC's for the two premises were listed as "insurgents" and "eco-terrorists," it's hardly an endorsement of those points of view.
Bought it, loved it, never got around to playing it beyond concept & character phase. :'( It's too high concept for far too many people. Also they needed more mystery for the natives to play off of... which I easily filled in with Mythos ideas, but still.
Speaking of high concept, I've been trying to wrangle up you cats to fight gloriously to your death or disco boogie in Talislanta. >:(
I've always been interested in the game and might back this. Especially since you get all the old pdfs right after the campaign ends. I'm curious though, how do you incorporate dolphin and whale PCs into sessions? I mean, unless you are always in/next to the water aren't these PC types excluded from doing much.
The impression that I got back in 2e days was that the writers were really, really enthusiastic about the idea of uplifted cetaceans and assumed that everyone else would be too and therefore the GM and players would somehow arrange for things to work out. Personally I never really saw the appeal and ran the sessions I GMed as what in retrospect could be described as "Cyberpunk 2020 meets Black Lagoon".
The setting makes extensive use of drones and telepresence, which Cetacean PCs would be using if things moved to dry land. So in practice any Cetaceans would be like Cyberpunk 2020 Netrunners and be sitting somewhere else interacting remotely with the rest of the party for a chunk of most adventures.
Do you think Subnautica is somewhat inspired by this game?
Quote from: Tantavalist on April 08, 2021, 03:54:40 PM
The impression that I got back in 2e days was that the writers were really, really enthusiastic about the idea of uplifted cetaceans and assumed that everyone else would be too and therefore the GM and players would somehow arrange for things to work out. Personally I never really saw the appeal and ran the sessions I GMed as what in retrospect could be described as "Cyberpunk 2020 meets Black Lagoon".
The setting makes extensive use of drones and telepresence, which Cetacean PCs would be using if things moved to dry land. So in practice any Cetaceans would be like Cyberpunk 2020 Netrunners and be sitting somewhere else interacting remotely with the rest of the party for a chunk of most adventures.
If they are using telepresence, what difference does it make if they are cetaceans or humans?
Quote from: jan paparazzi on April 08, 2021, 04:16:21 PM
Do you think Subnautica is somewhat inspired by this game?
Subnautica does indeed strike me as being a lot like what the oceans of Poseidon would look like. Though I have no idea if the creators of Subnautica were inspired by it or it's just a case of Great Minds Think Alike.
Could I run a scenario that emulates something more like the movie Underwater?
The movie was about a crew of oceanic researchers working in a deep sea drilling facility. An earthquake devastates the location and they have to survive the collapsing structure. The twist is that the facility had drilled down and hit R'lyeh, stirring Cthulhu, causing the earthquake and unleashing Deep Ones.
I was originally thinking of using Mothership, but with the underwater focus of BP maybe it's a better choice?
I don't have a lot of experience with Blue Planet. I own the 2e core book and it looks like a really interesting setting and a usable rules system.
I took a look at the Recontact playtest. Memory is a bit hazy but I seem to recall it made a big deal of "bringing the system up to date" by introducing a Trait-style mechanic that players could use to influence events. I wasn't too interested after that.
Blue Planet, the game i loved reading about but never played.. one of many.
Well, World of Hurt is possibly gonna come out of this. It may be just another dystopia(ecological flavor) but im interested. I also would like to see Black Crusade(the book on Incorporates) but thats probbaly not gonna happen.
There is a french bandee designee thats very similar to this game. Its called Aquablue, and it recently got made into a jdr(french name for tabletop rpg). Its more humorous but close to Blue Planet. I wonder if one could use them to augment each other.. who knows.
When the kickstarter finishes there will be a bit more to talk about, depending how many streach goals end up beeing reached. The more setting material expansion the better.
I played Blue Planet 1e BITD before it was published, and helped to write parts of the main rulebook and Archipelago, but never got the chance to run it. I'm looking forward to a simpler, more streamlined system in the new Recontact edition (the 1e system was too heavy for my overall tastes, and I never bothered figuring out the 2e one from FFG).
If I don't like the new rules, I'd consider using the ones from Upwind in a pinch, which are much more streamlined in comparison (and also from Jeff Barber ;) ).
Allan.