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Author Topic: Favorite Science Fantasy?  (Read 2934 times)

Marchand

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Favorite Science Fantasy?
« Reply #30 on: April 05, 2020, 08:05:51 AM »
Quote from: Nobby-W;1125681
I thought ICE's Space Master was a sort of near miss in this regard.  It did a fairly good job of being not-Traveller, and almost made it as an interesting world.  The major influences seemed to be Dune (especially the David Lynch movie), Star Wars and Blade Runner - which kind of made sense given when it was produced.  

Agree, although Blade Runner has got very limited relevance to the other 2, not sure how you synthesise.

I could see the Jedi as a Dune-style Ancient School, with toned-down powers and no lightsabers, and the Sith as an offshoot of corrupt mercenaries.

Quote from: S'mon;1125710
Modiphius is really weird.

Great IPs, licenced & homegrown.
Great art.
Great presentation.
Bland content.
Terrible home system.

My thoughts exactly. Loving the look of the new skyrim minis though.

Anyway having recently said I couldn't see myself making the investment to get into Tekumel, I went ahead and bought 3 Tekumel books off drivethru - the 70s ones, Empire of the Petal Throne and 2 vols of Swords and Glory, which arrived on Friday. Welcome to 1970s production values - wall of text - but it's kind of endearing. I got as far as realising you need to roll a lot of d100 and cross-reference to make a character, but that is probably another thread.
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nightlamp

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Favorite Science Fantasy?
« Reply #31 on: April 05, 2020, 09:26:00 AM »
The Wilderlands of High Fantasy -- both the original JG version and, more explicitly, the Necromancer Games reboot -- has some science-fantasy elements that can be completely ignored or dialed up to full gonzo as desired (mine is set to "medium.")  

The early (proto-?)OSR blog scene ca. 2009-12 was a treasure trove of science-fantasy.  Savage Swords of Athanor, Carcosa, Planet Algol, Anomalous Subsurface Environment, Black Ziggurats, more I can't recall...

Nobby-W

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Favorite Science Fantasy?
« Reply #32 on: April 05, 2020, 11:07:55 AM »
Quote from: Marchand;1125714
Agree, although Blade Runner has got very limited relevance to the other 2, not sure how you synthesise.

I could see the Jedi as a Dune-style Ancient School, with toned-down powers and no lightsabers, and the Sith as an offshoot of corrupt mercenaries.
It definitely had light sabres under a different name and did telepathy using much the same spell-lists system as Rolemaster, although there wasn't a direct knock-off of the force.  You could do a pure telepath or hybridise it with other classes for something analogous to a semi-spell caster class in Rolemaster.  

You could see Blade Runner's influence in the eugenics and replicant species, of which there were about half a dozen of each but not so much in the setting.  There wasn't much of the cyberpunk or blade runner vibe in the setting, that was mostly a knockoff of the great houses of the Dune 'verse.  Really it came out a few years before cyberpunk really started trending in sci-fi literature.  It does give the distinct impression of being written by serious Dune fanboys.

There were a few odd traveller-ism's here and there; the authors had obviously read if not played it at some point.  Looking back at it, I get the impression that it was designed to be not-Traveller.  Many of the OTU conceits like tech levels, short jump ranges and travel-as-communication were obviously rejected.

I'd rate it about a B or B+ in the grand scheme of things.  It wasn't crap, and it almost made it as having some atmosphere (if more than a little derivative of Dune) but it wasn't great either.  Sort of a near miss.
« Last Edit: April 05, 2020, 11:14:35 AM by Nobby-W »
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oggsmash

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Favorite Science Fantasy?
« Reply #33 on: April 05, 2020, 03:47:30 PM »
Quote from: HappyDaze;1125712
I just received my kickstarter pack of Savage Rifts Adventurer's Edition last week. If you don't mind Savage Worlds, it's 6.5 beautiful books (the last 0.5 is a thin softcover book with bonus content) that only require you to add the SW core rules to have a complete line. Does it have everything that Palladium Rifts had? No, but whether that's a bug or a feature is up to you to decide. For me, it was < $200 (including a core rule book and S&H) for a complete game that I'm hoping to play as soon as the Stay@Home2020 plague ends.


Did that include the world books?  Or the adventure base books and the savage rifts books?  I have the explorer edition savage rifts set and we were about to kick off a rifts campaign before Sharona Cyrus showed up.  I think Savage Worlds is almost the perfect rules to make rifts work.  Juicer I did change, i think they should, by lore, have quickness as a power/ trait.  But have not played that out yet.  Have you run any games with the older version?  I thought KS made the best move of his life lending out his ip to different rules.

HappyDaze

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Favorite Science Fantasy?
« Reply #34 on: April 05, 2020, 04:30:14 PM »
Quote from: oggsmash;1125753
Did that include the world books?  Or the adventure base books and the savage rifts books?  I have the explorer edition savage rifts set and we were about to kick off a rifts campaign before Sharona Cyrus showed up.  I think Savage Worlds is almost the perfect rules to make rifts work.  Juicer I did change, i think they should, by lore, have quickness as a power/ trait.  But have not played that out yet.  Have you run any games with the older version?  I thought KS made the best move of his life lending out his ip to different rules.

It's the three Savage Rifts books redone along with four new ones (one of which is a thin softcover). I did not play the previous version despite having it on pdf. I was going to buy hard copies, then saw the new kickstarter and decided to jump in on it. The whole thing looks very shiney.

Votan

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Favorite Science Fantasy?
« Reply #35 on: April 05, 2020, 04:32:52 PM »
I very much enjoy the Star Wars universe, in general. I am not 100% sure how easy it would be to balance the force-using and non-force-using classes in a roleplaying game. I have tried d20 versions of Star Wars and it worked . . . ok-ish. I am also not a huge fan of the vagueness of the Jedi and Sith ethical codes. Looking at the source material, it is possible for a fictional universe but hard for an RPG where players need to have a sense of what is the light and dark side.

I did browse a copy of the WEG d6 star wars and thought it had a ton of potential. Never owned a copy.

The FFG system actually moves away from coherence, as they seem to have a separate game for each archetype. What I really want is a game where Han Solo, Princess Leia, and Luke Skywalker are all viable and interesting characters. Bonus points if Chewbecca and R2D2 work well.

VisionStorm

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Favorite Science Fantasy?
« Reply #36 on: April 05, 2020, 06:17:57 PM »
Quote from: HappyDaze;1125712
I just received my kickstarter pack of Savage Rifts Adventurer's Edition last week. If you don't mind Savage Worlds, it's 6.5 beautiful books (the last 0.5 is a thin softcover book with bonus content) that only require you to add the SW core rules to have a complete line. Does it have everything that Palladium Rifts had? No, but whether that's a bug or a feature is up to you to decide. For me, it was < $200 (including a core rule book and S&H) for a complete game that I'm hoping to play as soon as the Stay@Home2020 plague ends.

I never got into Savage Worlds but I might check out a PDF eventually just to see what they did with it. I might even try to convert the setting to my own system if I ever get the itch to play RIFTS again. Hell, if I still had my old books I might be tempted to play using the Palladium system with some modifications (like maybe lowering MDC to being equivalent to x10 SDC rather than a whopping x100), but I don't know WTF happened to those books. I might have lost them to a termite infestation years ago, but I don't remember seeing them in the pile of damaged stuff. I know a friend of mine loved them, so maybe I lent them to him and they still live. Not holding out hope, though.
« Last Edit: April 05, 2020, 06:19:45 PM by VisionStorm »

HappyDaze

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Favorite Science Fantasy?
« Reply #37 on: April 05, 2020, 06:56:20 PM »
Quote from: VisionStorm;1125767
I never got into Savage Worlds but I might check out a PDF eventually just to see what they did with it. I might even try to convert the setting to my own system if I ever get the itch to play RIFTS again. Hell, if I still had my old books I might be tempted to play using the Palladium system with some modifications (like maybe lowering MDC to being equivalent to x10 SDC rather than a whopping x100), but I don't know WTF happened to those books. I might have lost them to a termite infestation years ago, but I don't remember seeing them in the pile of damaged stuff. I know a friend of mine loved them, so maybe I lent them to him and they still live. Not holding out hope, though.

The Savage Worlds conversion for Rifts really did an amazing job of capturing much of the flavor of Rifts without the annoying rules of Palladium. It has its own version of Mega-Damage (Heavy Armor and Heavy Weapons) that are much better balanced than in the original source, while the use of Iconic Frameworks (where you get things like Juicer, Burster, Ley Line Walker, Cyber-Knight, and Glitter Boy Pilot) does a great job of removing the "sameness" that often existed among starting Savage Worlds characters. Keep in mind that, if you decide to give it a go, you'll need at least a SW core and the three original titles. For SWADE versions in pdf, that's about $45. I think it's worth it, but I paid about 4x that for pdf and hard copy plus box and doodads, so I'm admittedly biased.

RPGPundit

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Favorite Science Fantasy?
« Reply #38 on: April 11, 2020, 11:15:15 AM »
Well, my favorite Science Fantasy game as of now has turned out to be DCC, based on the sci-fantasy setting I created for my Last Sun campaign (which you can look into in various issues of RPGPundit Presents!).
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