I've been looking through my D20 Future book and am getting a hankering to run one of the mini-games there as a play by post here. I thought it would be a blast, but am wondering what the interest level would be.
I'm pretty sure I'd run it as a Prestige campaign, with the Prestige Classes in the D20 Future book as the classes. Mostly I just hate the Strong/Smart/Fast Hero thing--it's duller than dirt--but also because the D20 Future offerings are so good. Not sure which setting I'd use though. Haven't gotten that far and I like most of them.
It's pretty early into things, and I'll probably post an actual campaign post once I've finalized what I want to do. Right now I'm just curious what everyone would think about a cool campaign set in one of the D20 Future minisettings, who would be interested in being in on it, and what minisettings people are most jazzed about.
hhe this is all Greek to me; I ran a future game using Space Master; sigh; I did a lot of work to get the game ready and the character who rolled up the Pilot turned into a real butthead and killed the game for everybody. PC had other skills to round out a party and I didnt want an npc pilot so we just played something else; was planning a near future epic of first contact whereas humans knew only of humanity and had conquered the solar system and colonized many of the planets and moons and had artificial satelite's but had not yet developed FTL or Warp or such and had not yet had a successful venture out of the solar system.
The premise was that the pc's were a quasi military group working under Privateer rules having judicial authority to attack and capture pirate vessels; have a ship armed with lower class military weapons and such. They would be be nearby in the fastest ship in the quadrant when a commercial liner sends out a distress call when they are taken over by terrorists and the drive system is kicked on full headed for some distant star. They are traveling at immense speed when suddenly tracking station report that the drive system is shut down and the ship is slowing dead in space; then it begins to tumble and the ship dissappears on all tracking stations; pc's are asked to investigate as the military proper is to busy clipping their toenails or something to do with rights and authority and paperwork and procedure and having such a high profile case go south an leaving mud on thier faces; better to send the expendable pcs....
I thought it sounded fun and like a start of a good sci premise.
uhm, i mean that I don't know anything about the d20 future stuff, but would like to be in some game; any pbp game to see how it works and I love to play.
uhm, i mean that I don't know anything about the d20 future stuff, but would like to be in some game; any pbp game to see how it works and I love to play.
Well the book is divided into a huge number of really good sections. The Prestige Classes alone are great. The book then gives some minisettings and fleshes them each out a bit. Some of them are built from old Polyhedron minigames, some are taken from old proprietary games from back in the day, and some are just cool ideas based on sci-fi greats.
Bughunters
Based on an old game that came out at the same time as Aliens. Imagine a combo of Aliens with The Island. Clones of paid donors stripped of rights and forced to cleanse worlds where native superpredators challenge colonization.
Dimension-X (formerly Tangents)
Like a more adult version of Sliders. People have learned how to travel between alternate realities--but now must handle those who would abuse the power and a universe eating Apocalypse threatening to devour all realities. Distilled from the much better IMO game published for Alternity.
From the Dark Heart of Space
A Cthuhlu-esque game wherein humans travel far enough into space to encounter elemental evil and the monsters that spawn from it. Imagine something between Event Horizon and Shadowchasers with a gritty Blade Runner noir feel.
Genetech
Originally a Polyhedron minigame, a spy versus spy game in the mid to near future pitting genetically modified supersoldiers against the government that made them in a shadow civil war to gain human rights in a world that only wants to destroy them.
Mecha Crusade
Also a Polyhedron minigame, set in a planetary civil war between Earth and the outer planets. A lot of the politics has a very Gundam feel, but the action is much more like Robotech with flashy dogfighting robots.
Star*Drive
Distilled from an Alternity setting, a truly massive space opera filled with different races, cultures and mysterious happenings. Very deep. Very rich. A huge undertaking.
Star Law (formerly Star Frontiers)
Interplanetary police antics similar in a lot of ways to a more futuristic version of Cowboy Bebop, based on a really really old and dated TSR product.
The Wasteland
A western flavored post apocalypse game, sortova' Mad Max meets Firefly. Rust and melee weapons predominate against apocalypse cults and hyperviolent street gangs.
So yeah. Thems the basics.
You know. I wonder if I could get away with running the game diceless or if that would freak people out too much. Certainly that way the lack of book ownership would be less of a deterrant. I could just post the flavor text for the "classes" in the game and people could make their characters just based on things like background and personality and agendas.
I've done games like that before and they've always been a blast. Basically the DM just makes judgement calls based on how likely a given character would be to succeed or fail and what would be most fun. Very little numbers, very little stats, just a lot of imagination and creativity.
I wonder how that would go over.
By the way, if you haven't gotten the chance to see Children of Men. See it! It's a great (if really dark) movie. Also it captures the feel of a game of Genetech perfectly--a civil war going on. No one really sees it, but everyone feels it. Substitute the Fugees for the genetically augmented and you're set.
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The last time I played a diceless, largely character-sheetless game was many years ago, playing Call of Cthulu. That actually worked really well, but as we were playing fairly “real-life” characters it was quite easy to figure out what your character may or may not be capable of. This might be more difficult in a sci-fi game (particularly an elaberate space opera setting) – maybe? But could work fairly well perhaps in a “bug hunters” type scenario, where everyone is essentially a variant of the archetypal space marine type character. Or really a lot of the settings you mentioned where the character choices are probably either more limited or very archetypal or just “familiar”. But what do I know, might work for a space opera too.
I’d be up for it.
I think I could have a decent go at creating an almost passable “d20 modern / future” character with a sci-fi flavour using various polyhedron mini games and any info you could post from the Future book, if you wanted to run such a game, and others were interested.
I haven’t seen Children of Men, but hoping to. I just don’t seem to find time to see movies much anymore… even when theyre on DVD.
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uhm, i mean that I don't know anything about the d20 future stuff, but would like to be in some game; any pbp game to see how it works and I love to play.Well the book is divided into a huge number of really good sections. The Prestige Classes alone are great. The book then gives some minisettings and fleshes them each out a bit. Some of them are built from old Polyhedron minigames, some are taken from old proprietary games from back in the day, and some are just cool ideas based on sci-fi greats.
Bughunters
Based on an old game that came out at the same time as Aliens. Imagine a combo of Aliens with The Island. Clones of paid donors stripped of rights and forced to cleanse worlds where native superpredators challenge colonization.Dimension-X (formerly Tangents)
Like a more adult version of Sliders. People have learned how to travel between alternate realities--but now must handle those who would abuse the power and a universe eating Apocalypse threatening to devour all realities. Distilled from the much better IMO game published for Alternity.From the Dark Heart of Space
A Cthuhlu-esque game wherein humans travel far enough into space to encounter elemental evil and the monsters that spawn from it. Imagine something between Event Horizon and Shadowchasers with a gritty Blade Runner noir feel.Genetech
Originally a Polyhedron minigame, a spy versus spy game in the mid to near future pitting genetically modified supersoldiers against the government that made them in a shadow civil war to gain human rights in a world that only wants to destroy them.Mecha Crusade
Also a Polyhedron minigame, set in a planetary civil war between Earth and the outer planets. A lot of the politics has a very Gundam feel, but the action is much more like Robotech with flashy dogfighting robots.Star*Drive
Distilled from an Alternity setting, a truly massive space opera filled with different races, cultures and mysterious happenings. Very...
I'd be very interested in playing in such a game. My picks for setting would be Genetech, Star*Drive, and The Wasteland, though any could work really well. I own a copy of the book, so playing with or without dice would both work for me.
As a side note, I'd just like to applaud your efforts to run so much on these boards, Grimcleaver. It's a big help for those of us who can't game as much as we'd like in the real world.
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Oh yeah, amen to that Grim - thanks for this.
If it turns out that a lot of people who DO own the books want to play, and you prefer to run a "proper" game, don't let me stand in the way, but if you decide to run a "diceless" game let me know.
By the way, do you need the d20 Modern book to use d20 Future, or is it stand alone?
I've gotta' say, the ones I'm most looking forward to running are Bughunters, Dark Heart of Space, and Mechacrusade. The benefit of Mechacrusade is that the rules and classes are in the Polyhedron and I love to give play to the old Polyhedron stuff. You know another D20 Future-esque thing I'd love to do is Iron Lords of Jupiter. It was another of the Polyhedron minigames that came out.
The more I think Mechacrusade though, the more I like it. If nothing else it's something completely different from the usual D&D campaign with the background of space and giant robots and the stylized anime feel. I think it could be really cool. Plus as I recall the prestige classes from the magazine were pretty sweet. I'll have to drag that out and take another look at it.
As for me running these games, I'm just glad people are interested in playing them. We've got a good group of people on these boards and its a pleasure telling stories with you all. It's just a shame I can't fit you all in my house or I'd at least be able to spring for drinkage...
By the way, do you need the d20 Modern book to use d20 Future, or is it stand alone?
If there's anything I learned from my years at college it's that there's a lot of wiggle room when it comes to a book being "needed" or just helpful. It's all how you use it I guess. I've never been too keen on the Modern classes, and most of what's in the book is in the SRD anyway. There's plenty in the book that goes with any other modern D20 product so it's practically standalone. I use it with Spycraft and patch the holes with SRD stuff.
They say you need Modern to use it, but you really really don't.
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I've gotta' say, the ones I'm most looking forward to running are Bughunters, Dark Heart of Space, and Mechacrusade. The benefit of Mechacrusade is that the rules and classes are in the Polyhedron and I love to give play to the old Polyhedron stuff. You know another D20 Future-esque thing I'd love to do is Iron Lords of Jupiter. It was another of the Polyhedron minigames that came out.
The more I think Mechacrusade though, the more I like it. If nothing else it's something completely different from the usual D&D campaign with the background of space and giant robots and the stylized anime feel. I think it could be really cool. Plus as I recall the prestige classes from the magazine were pretty sweet. I'll have to drag that out and take another look at it.
Any of those three games sound pretty cool with me. I'm fairly certain I have the Mechacrusade issue of Poly too, so I could probably play that almost "by the books" ?
I wouldnt mind a diceless game or if the gm rolled all the dice or whatever; once played in a game where the only time I ever saw my character sheet was when I rolled the guy up and that game was a blast.
I have played Star Frontiers a bit in the old days; am good for anything and love the scifi genre if you want me.
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I dug out my Polyhedron with the Mecha Crusade mini-game (and what do you know - its on the flipside of one of my favourite Dungeon issues!) and took a flip though. Looks pretty cool. Mecha Ace for me! However, the mecha creation thing seems to be a fairly big aspect of the game ... what are your thoughts on that for a play by post (and possibly diceless) game? Any issues?
I'm thinking of giving characters one of the prebuilt mecha designs--a choice between maybe four different models, and then some points to sink into tweaking it. Probably not enough points for anything fundamental, but enough to swap weapons or to trade armor. That sort of thing. I'm hoping to have a lot of the rewards take the part of vanity upgrades like different head configurations or paintjobs--like in Robotech. I'm hoping to keep the flavor of the mechanics. Even though the game will hopefully be a LOT less dice heavy and focused more on description I still want the feel to stay the same.
EDIT: Urgh! Now of all times, is of course when I misplace my Mecha Crusade issue...
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Darn. Well, its attached To Dungeon 95 if that helps you. I brought my copy along to work today (where I am now) so if you needed to know somehting quick I might be able to look it up for you.
So you're tending towards Mecha Crusade atm? Well, like I said, I'd be in! And am probably tending towards Mecha Ace type character at this stage.
I would also still be up for a Mecha Crusade game. I haven't gone back to look through d20 Future, though - is there enough information in that book if you don't have the Polyhedron issue?
I think all the info in D20 Future is same. I'll have to page through it but I think they keep all the same mecha, weapons and mechanics. My copy is in the hands of one of the guys from our group, so I'll have to get it back before I can say for sure--but yeah I think D20 future is just a condensed form of the main article. The one thing you won't have access too is the Prestige Classes we'll be using, but I'll post those if somebody else doesn't first.
By the way, I've got the actual post up for the game invite--so you can head over there and take a look.