The Dream Pod 9 space opera game from a few years back that had such promise. Died on it's arse. What went wrong space cadets?

Answers that blame Xur and the Ko Dan armada will not be tolerated.

I was interested, but by that time, DP9 no longer edited their books well. They said it wasn't worth the time and money. So I passed on it.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;468597The Dream Pod 9 space opera game from a few years back that had such promise. Died on it's arse. What went wrong space cadets?

Answers that blame Xur and the Ko Dan armada will not be tolerated.

I recall liking the idea, then finding out IIRC it was to be two expensive for the time rulebooks. Not being a huge fan of their system buying two books for it, was offputting.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;468597The Dream Pod 9 space opera game from a few years back that had such promise. Died on it's arse. What went wrong space cadets?

Answers that blame Xur and the Ko Dan armada will not be tolerated.

Jovian Chronicles?

Died because mecha gaming (RPG and tabletop) largely went out of fashion.

I think it looked really cool but was tied to a less than stellar attempt at a unified core book.  The big problem I see is that the Silcore book had no weapon or equipment lists in the book.  Tools to build them yes, source books full of them yes.  But if you bought the core book to see if you liked it you didn't have enough material to make that decision.  It also was during the d20 boom which really hurt anything good that came out because too many of the customers were only looking for d20 product.

Yes, I found the core book years ago when the late (but not so great) Travelling Man rpg shop first opened locally (closed 3 years later). It was about £20 for a softback book. But it was woefully incomplete.

(Full disclosure: As much as I loved DP9's earlier work, I'll admit to not being the target audience for CC as I think the basic ideas animating it -- handguns that can blow up entire suns and kilometer-long single-seat starfighters -- aren't terribly compelling.  That probably colours my opinion of it to some degree.  Also, thedungeondelver, CC is not the same as Jovian Chronicles.)

The bad editing was certainly a big component (and having DP9 staffers and freelancers come onto forums like RPGnet and openly admit that editing wasn't worth the investment was one of the most breathtakingly stupid moves I've ever seen).  But really, CC was a victim of the general malaise that had seized DP9 by that time -- all of the original creative staff had either moved on to greener pastures or were actively in the process of doing so, having become seriously disenchanted with the general lack of financial reward in the industry in general and the shittiness of working "with" (i.e. for) Robert Dubois in particular.  CC is a reflection of the fact that many of the people working on it quite frankly no longer gave a fuck, and the end product is as half-assed as the attitudes of the creators.

The rules were not designed or intended for the scale of the setting, and as a result they creak at the seams.  Almost no thought or effort is given to reconciling different elements mechanically (e.g. synthetic characters, which are fairly prominent in the setting, use different chargen than "normal" organic characters and the two don't work well together at all).  There were huge gaps in the original corebook, such that they released a "deluxe" edition not long after (that still has glaring editorial gaffes -- not very deluxe, I guess).  It's basically a mix of half-thought-out space-opera tropes thrown together in a book with little mechanical development and next to no guidance for how to put it all together as a playable campaign.

Short answer, it's just crap.

KoOS

I don't know what "CC" is in this context.  Also thekingofoldschool note I put a "?" next to "Jovian Chronicles" because I wasn't sure if that's what was being discussed.

Core Command, an attempt by DP9 at a Lensman esque space opera game. It had nothing to do with Jovian Chronicles or heavy Gear. Twas it's own thing.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;468724Core Command, an attempt by DP9 at a Lensman esque space opera game. It had nothing to do with Jovian Chronicles or heavy Gear. Twas it's own thing.

Okay, I got it.  CC, Core Command.  Sorry, I'm a little zonked today.

CC had lots of cool gear, ships and aliens but very little in the way of "What the fuck do the PC do?" that is to my mind why it ultimately failed, too much tech but not enough fluff and setting detail.