Well, d20 Future just got released this month. I haven't seen it yet but I've heard good things about it. Including ship building rules and mech rules, yay!
-Amber
Contributor
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Well, d20 Future just got released this month. I haven't seen it yet but I've heard good things about it. Including ship building rules and mech rules, yay!
-Amber
Yeah, those are all there. It's really quite good, I thought, although I was somewhat disappointed with the options available in starship building. That's what expansions are for, of course (I bugged Chris Perkins about letting me write for them on any future d20 Future supplements, so if they materialize hopefully I'll be able to contribute). :)
I'll keep you posted. HA HA HA! :D
I'll keep you posted. HA HA HA! :D
*groan*
Hey, there's a DOOM board game coming out soon-ish, and with the AvP movie, I bet some sort of miniatures game will see daylight in a year or so.
Take care,
Rick
"some sort of [sci-fi] miniatures game" did indeed see daylight recently.
Haven't seen them yet, but I've heard the minis look awesome, with paint jobs superior to the D&D minis. Personally, I wouldn't mind inserting some wookies into my campaign world. : )
Woh dude it is old. I am pretty sure I was not posting when this one was posted. {In fact I didn get here till o6 or 07)
Neither had I. But you know thats what thread necromancy is for.
Starr's words were as true in his time as they are today. There simply isn't a good pen & paper scifi RPG. Star Wars is good if you like Star Wars, and GURPS / d20 Future are still languishing unsupported out there, and every so often you see some indy rpg pop up like Star Blazers, but there's nothing really mainstream for those of us who like a good space opera.
I for one would love to see Pathfinder release a sourcebook and set of adventure paths for modern or future campaigns.
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Neither had I. But you know thats what thread necromancy is for.Starr's words were as true in his time as they are today. There simply isn't a good pen & paper scifi RPG. Star Wars is good if you like Star Wars, and GURPS / d20 Future are still languishing unsupported out there, and every so often you see some indy rpg pop up like Star Blazers, but there's nothing really mainstream for those of us who like a good space opera.
I for one would love to see Pathfinder release a sourcebook and set of adventure paths for modern or future campaigns.
I would love to see a good sci fi rpg. Travelers was ok but not good.
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The problem is basically the market doesn't exist for a generic scifi rpg. (Actually there's not much of a market for new RPGs at all, but Pathfinder, White Wolf, and D&D have established inertia from the boom times of the gaming industry.) Since the near demise of Traveller, the only expressed interest in SciFi games has been in licensed properties, Farscape, Star Wars, Babylon 5, etc. The licenses for the properties represent a huge chunk of money that' not available for development and it shows.
The other problem is that most SciFi fans aren't paper and dice gamers. They may buy the items for fan appeal, but soon lose interest in the games themselves.
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I would love to see a good sci fi rpg. Travelers was ok but not good.Neither had I. But you know thats what thread necromancy is for.Starr's words were as true in his time as they are today. There simply isn't a good pen & paper scifi RPG. Star Wars is good if you like Star Wars, and GURPS / d20 Future are still languishing unsupported out there, and every so often you see some indy rpg pop up like Star Blazers, but there's nothing really mainstream for those of us who like a good space opera.
I for one would love to see Pathfinder release a sourcebook and set of adventure paths for modern or future campaigns.
In your opinion maybe. In mine, Travelers still is the benchmark for a non-licensed Hard SF rpg. None of the other games in it's niche had anything like the level of development and support the classic Traveler did. And this game wasn't easy. I mean, what other game had the chance of killing you off while generating your character? :)
The problem is basically the market doesn't exist for a generic scifi rpg.
I disagree. Look at the sci-fi RPG Alternity, which has a very active fanbase, despite the fact that the game went out of print over a decade ago.
I'm no expert, but it seems to me that the problem is that RPG publishers don't want to risk putting a ton of marketing into a sci-fi RPG when fantasy RPGs have been much more successful (thanks in part to the ton of marketing put into them). It's like a chicken-and-egg problem.
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In your opinion maybe. In mine, Travelers still is the benchmark for a non-licensed Hard SF rpg. None of the other games in it's niche had anything like the level of development and support the classic Traveler did. And this game wasn't easy. I mean, what other game had the chance of killing you off while generating your character? :)I would love to see a good sci fi rpg. Travelers was ok but not good.Neither had I. But you know thats what thread necromancy is for.Starr's words were as true in his time as they are today. There simply isn't a good pen & paper scifi RPG. Star Wars is good if you like Star Wars, and GURPS / d20 Future are still languishing unsupported out there, and every so often you see some indy rpg pop up like Star Blazers, but there's nothing really mainstream for those of us who like a good space opera.
I for one would love to see Pathfinder release a sourcebook and set of adventure paths for modern or future campaigns.
Not many, I remember going through 6 characters once and not yet playing, damn dice rolls. :)
It's a deeper issue than that. The media offerings are very sensitive to the spirit of the times. Most tellingly, this can be seen with pirate escapism - it comes in distinct waves, and disappears in between.
Science fiction is at its heart a positive view of the future. The corresponding negative offerings are cyberpunk and post-apocalypse. Now, science fiction as published in books has become a thing dealing mainly with human society rather than "classic" hard/idea science fiction.
The current science fiction offering that's making a splash is the primitivist Barsoom setting with Warlord of Mars. It means, most likely, that people feel society is growing too restrictive and wish for more freedom. Remember that classic SF was a child of a rather imperialistic America that had just won WWII.
This also goes for roleplaying games. Take a look at the current roster: The most clear example is the Warhammer games, which most certainly do not paint a pretty picture of the future.
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The problem is basically the market doesn't exist for a generic scifi rpg.I disagree. Look at the sci-fi RPG Alternity, which has a very active fanbase, despite the fact that the game went out of print over a decade ago.
I'm no expert, but it seems to me that the problem is that RPG publishers don't want to risk putting a ton of marketing into a sci-fi RPG when fantasy RPGs have been much more successful (thanks in part to the ton of marketing put into them). It's like a chicken-and-egg problem.
Thing is Alternity may have a fan base, but that same fan base wasn't enough to support the game when it WAS in print. I'd say the fact that it's out of print pretty much argues for my point.
Fantasy RPG's aren't doing that much better. Pretty much now the only games in town are WOTC, PAIZO, White Wolf, and GURPS, with Palladium trying to maintain a niche and GURPS on the decline compared to it's heydey, that and a few stubborn fans ponying up for yet another version of HERO. (the last three being multi-genre, perhaps the only representatives now for the non-fantasy genres.)
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The problem is basically the market doesn't exist for a generic scifi rpg.I disagree. Look at the sci-fi RPG Alternity, which has a very active fanbase, despite the fact that the game went out of print over a decade ago.
I'm no expert, but it seems to me that the problem is that RPG publishers don't want to risk putting a ton of marketing into a sci-fi RPG when fantasy RPGs have been much more successful (thanks in part to the ton of marketing put into them). It's like a chicken-and-egg problem.
So somebody needs a specific enough system, that can be easily converted to various sci fi settings and then be able to jump on an IP as soon as it is viable for a short bit of press and interest. Hoping that this will transfer to long term interest and allow for the main game to sell well.
Sounds like a lot of money put into ifs.
Thing is Alternity may have a fan base, but that same fan base wasn't enough to support the game when it WAS in print. I'd say the fact that it's out of print pretty much argues for my point.
Alternity went out of print because WOTC bought TSR to pull D&D fans toward their Magic: The Gathering product line (the same reason they bought Heroscape from Hasbro, by the way). Since Alternity was not helpful to that strategy, they ended it along with all of the rest of TSR's lines.
This argues my point, which is that the publishing industry is not perfect competition. For example, there are plenty of good novels out there that never get published, not for lack of demand, but because the publishers don't believe there is sufficient demand. There's a similar dynamic in the recording industry. It's not about true demand; it's about the publishers' *perception* of demand.
Right now publishers are reading the tea leaves and have decided that there's not a market for sci-fi. My personal opinion is that they are wrong. Perhaps the Internet and print-on-demand will someday change that, but for now the only way Paizo, WOTC, or anyone else will launch a sci-fi RPG is if something happens to change their perception of market demand.
My $0.02. :)