Two thoughts:

1. Is it just me, or has Mongoose steadily been pulling further and further away from the d20 system and investing more and more into both Runequest and, now, Traveller?

2. I know that Mongoose holds the 2000 AD licenses, and apparently intends to begin adapting them to Traveller. And they may do a fine job. But ... well, if I was to run a game using the worlds of 2000 AD, or using a world similar in feel and tone, it seems to me that Starblazer Adventures would be the obvious and better fit, seeing as that's the kind of stuff SA was written to emulate in the first place.

Quote from: Roman;2415292. I know that Mongoose holds the 2000 AD licenses, and apparently intends to begin adapting them to Traveller. And they may do a fine job. But ... well, if I was to run a game using the worlds of 2000 AD, or using a world similar in feel and tone, it seems to me that Starblazer Adventures would be the obvious and better fit, seeing as that's the kind of stuff SA was written to emulate in the first place.

My knowledge of 2000AD is it was sort of a cynical, darker, SF magazine.

Rogue Trooper was one of my favorites.


From what people have said Starblazer is more, ahem, pulp SF/big empires SF?

Which doesn't seem to connect to me to 2000AD so much, but maybe there is a link?

Please enlighten me.

Quote from: Silverlion;241543My knowledge of 2000AD is it was sort of a cynical, darker, SF magazine.

Rogue Trooper was one of my favorites.


From what people have said Starblazer is more, ahem, pulp SF/big empires SF?

Which doesn't seem to connect to me to 2000AD so much, but maybe there is a link?

Please enlighten me.

2000 AD manages all of that, and like the pulps blends all of the above you mentioned freely. It blends the cynical with the farcical, as evidenced by several Judge Dredd stories, as well as the dark with the pulp (again, Judge Dredd, as well as Nikolai Dante, ABC Warriors, Strontium Dog, etc.), and big empires SF, as well as plenty of bizarre pulpy military SF.

I'm not sure which stories you're familiar with, but the stories and characters I've read - Judge Dredd, Nemesis, Strontium Dog, Durham Red, ABC Warriors, Robusters, the VCs, Nikolai Dante, Bad Company, etc. - freely blend several of the elements you've mentioned above. Clearly, however, 2000 AD was hardly cynical and dark across the board, nor uniform in its tone.

While Starblazer Adventures clearly does pulp and space opera well, it also handles things like cyborg cops, mutant adventures in ruined apocalypse-doomed worlds, and planetary romance / sword & planet stories. Starblazer and 2000 AD targeted the same audiences with stories that were similar in style and tone.

Thus, the 2000 AD properties are perfect for Starblazer Adventures.

Enlightened?

Its interesting that Mongoose started out life solely as a D20 merchant, but has now spread its wings to what are essential niche games (Traveller and RuneQuest - whilst powerful and popular, they face stiff competition in this day and age).

I would guess the D20 and OGL license no longer suits their business model or allows them to operate.

They're still going to do D&D stuff.
RuneQuest is actually a better fit for a lot of 2000AD stuff than Traveller. I know no one is going to agree with me on that. But RuneQuest has a grim sense of humor built into its rules. And the sense of humor of the source material is what's difficult to translate. Stories in those comics are contrived for effect, like the pulps were. It makes it tough to game them because players don't like to feel like they're being pulled through a contrived story.
Yet without the contrivance, it doesn't feel like you're playing what you set out to play.
I'm sure Starblazers is great, but it's not the rules that make those comics tricky to game.

Quote from: Roman;241529Two thoughts:

1. Is it just me, or has Mongoose steadily been pulling further and further away from the d20 system and investing more and more into both Runequest and, now, Traveller?

The way God intended!!!  Seriously though, no offense to d20 but Mongoose pulled off a bit of a coup by grabbing RQ since they are able to adapt the core system to other products pretty easily which IMO was always the strength of the system and what Chaosium did back in the day.

Although they seem to have slowed somewhat, Mongoose followed relatively swiftly on their RQ release with d100 versions of Stormbringer, Slaine, Lankhmar, Hawkmoon, etc.

I don't think they will ever give up on D20 entirely though because there are plenty of fans there.

Quote from: Grimjack;241773The way God intended!!!  Seriously though, no offense to d20 but Mongoose pulled off a bit of a coup by grabbing RQ since they are able to adapt the core system to other products pretty easily which IMO was always the strength of the system and what Chaosium did back in the day.

Although they seem to have slowed somewhat, Mongoose followed relatively swiftly on their RQ release with d100 versions of Stormbringer, Slaine, Lankhmar, Hawkmoon, etc.

I don't think they will ever give up on D20 entirely though because there are plenty of fans there.

Which is fine with me. While, apart from Mutants and Masterminds and, for a brief time, True20, I was never much of a d20 fan, I have always liked the BRP / d100 system that Call of Cthulhu, Runequest, Stormbringer, Corum, Hawkmoon (old and new), Lankhmar, Elric, and Basic Roleplaying 3rd ed. share.

(Though, for some unknown embarrassing reason, I still sometimes get Runequest and Rolemaster switched in my head. I wish I knew why ...)

yeah, 2000AD should be run with Starblazer.. Except that really, its a moot point.  Those two magazines were so similar to each other, the concept is so similar, that if you had two games using the same system, there wouldn't be any effective difference at all between the two games (except in those few sections that detail specific setting material from the magazines- but otherwise they'd be identical games).


RPGPundit

I don't know anything about the Starblazer comics, but I'm not sure if Starblazer Adventures is, well, black enough to run 2000AD.  Though I guess you could very easily just interpret "taken out" as dead.

I'd be inclined to use Warhammer.

Quote from: stu2000;241580RuneQuest is actually a better fit for a lot of 2000AD stuff than Traveller. I know no one is going to agree with me on that.

Well, now, looks like there are three of us in this thread alone who agree on that. :scorpion:

What I'm concerned about is the possibility that folks would look at some of the more science-fictiony comics and think they would be more appropriate for Traveller due to the sci-fi trappings, rather than RuneQuest, regardless of how well RQ might support a style of play more appropriate to the comics.

Well, for those who think RuneQuest would be a good fit, isn't BRP 3e. an option?

Quote from: C.Jay;242261I don't know anything about the Starblazer comics, but I'm not sure if Starblazer Adventures is, well, black enough to run 2000AD.  Though I guess you could very easily just interpret "taken out" as dead.

I'd be inclined to use Warhammer.

Fair enough. Though, in the decades I've been reading 2000AD, I haven't seen too many stories that I'd call truly dark. Cynical and satirical, yes, even masterfully so, but truly dark, no.

Though as I read through it the main rulebook, I don't doubt that Starblazer Adventures could handle this tone as well, as such a tone would be primarily established by the GM and players rather than the system.

Quote from: Roman;242432Well, for those who think RuneQuest would be a good fit, isn't BRP 3e. an option?

If the point of the thread it to divorce 2000AD from Mongoose, then that would be a fine option. Or some fudge/fate derivative, like SA, or D6, or something really flexible and unexpected like a simplified MetaScape. If I want to play Judge Dredd specifically, I still have the old GW one. That worked great, in my opinion.

Is that the point? I don't care if it is, but why would you want to?

Quote from: stu2000;242438If the point of the thread it to divorce 2000AD from Mongoose, then that would be a fine option. Or some fudge/fate derivative, like SA, or D6, or something really flexible and unexpected like a simplified MetaScape. If I want to play Judge Dredd specifically, I still have the old GW one. That worked great, in my opinion.

Is that the point? I don't care if it is, but why would you want to?

Why would I want to divorce 2000AD from Mongoose? I'm not sure I do, so much as I was musing which system might fit the comic's source material better.

It's all one as far as I'm concerned - people choose the systems and games they want to play and that fit their style best. I'm currently psyched about Starblazer Adventures.