Of all the genres of roleplaying games out there I admit that science fiction is probably my least favorite. Especially so called "hard sci-fi". It just isn't my thing. Having said that, I do have a special place in my gaming heart for Traveller. It was one of the only sci-fi themed games I ever latched onto. This was mainly due to the fact that I enjoyed the rules so much. I have often commented that Traveller as a generic ruleset could handle just about any style of game... with a little work of course. Traveller is that solid and well-rounded in its design. This goes for Sword & Sanity fueled Lovecraftian dream-quest adventures. Anyone else agree? Would there be enough interest for me to pursue such a project?
21 comments:
I don't know about dream-quest adventures, but Event Horizon-esque science fiction horror would be interesting.
Imagine every jump through warpspace is like a trip through the bowels of hell itself.
I'd be all over this like white on rice. If u decide to give it a go let me know... I'll help where I can (not that I know what to offer... Heh)
What Paladin said. Event Horizon was the first thing to pop into my head too. That and Alien.
I'm with you, SF is my least favorite genre. I remember that we played Traveller, but I can't remember it being especially appealing... However, you should do it! It'll be worth it for the Wally Woodesque illustrations alone!
One of the best parts of old school Traveller was the character creation mini-game, and I can see all kinds of entertainment value in giving that a Lovecraftian spin.
Beyond that, I always suspected the Droyne were suspiciously similar to Byakhee in appearance. Maybe Grandfather's real motivation for the Ancient War was eradicating heretics that had rejected Hastur.
I confess to not being familiar with the Traveller ruleset until its GURPs implementation, but I'm always interested in seeing how people adapt systems to other genres.
While Sci-Fi isn't my favourite genre either, I do love Traveller and I think it would be the perfect rule system for a science-horror game. I love movies like Alien and Pitch Black and I think Traveller would do this well. It's a pretty short jump from there to cosmic horror so I think a Lovecraftian Traveller campaign would be great.
I'm not sure about Dream-quest adventures; I'd probably be inclined to use Chaosium rules for something like that, but I could be convinced.
This was a bit of a thought experiment really. I have been looking over a lot of Traveller stuff lately, including the Wanderer threads, and the thought of Dreamer occurred to me, so I threw it out there. I am not sure if I will ever pursue this or not, but it was fun doing the mock-up for the cover.
@Prop - I love that line of thinking. Someone should run with that and release a source book.
@Tenkar - something may come of this idea one day. If and when it does I am sure I will need some help.
@Paladin, Red, Trey, Sean - see today's post...
I'm going to say something I never thought would come from my mouth: I am sick of Mythos. Seems Hastur has been poking their head into every RPG I play. I really don't need another Mythos game.
BUT... a game based on the Dreamlands cycle could be pretty awesome. I'd run a Dreamlands Traveler game in a split second.
Personally, I'd very much like to see this concept become real! Please let me know if I can help (even if it's just proofing / playtesting).
I was unaware of Wanderer until reading this blog post. Thanks for putting that on my radar as well! Looks amazing...
The LBBs were nice at presenting the elegant system while allowing your mind to fill in lots of details. Wonderful format to emulate!
Keep us in the loop re: Dreamer!
A couple of days late to the party (sorry, getting ready for a minor surgery in the am), but yes, I would like to see this happen.
Any Dreamlands inspired adventuring sounds great to me.
@BlUsKrEEm - yes, I agree that the Lovecraft's Mythos have been bastardized and mined so often I find myself rolling my eyes sometimes when I see that yet another game, novel, comic or movie is throwing in a tentacled horror. But many miss the point in that a tentacled horror does NOT make something Lovecraftian!
@GerallK - I have been waiting to see if Wanderer will become more than just the concept image of the mocked-up boxset that was posted on the 'net so long ago.
@Bat - hey, man! Good luck with your surgery!
@All - the Dreamlands project is go, whether it will be powered by Traveller or not remains to be seen. I will look over the Traveller rules and try to compare them to other rulesets that I have, and try to see which would fit the project the best. This will be tough. Too many games and a lot of them would be a decent choice... which would be the perfect choice? Have an opinion, please share...
Hey, thank you Shane! I will say "Hello" to the gugs for you while I am shambling about in the Dreamlands.
I am glad that this project is a go and look forward to it!
Well, you know you had ME at Traveller, so I say TOGL for the win, lol. I also remember what we were working on when they posted the first stuff about Wanderer... Still think we could get that off the ground sometime. The Traveller system would have definitely lended its self to that game as well... The really funny part of this post to me, I am just about finished with The Atrocity Archives, and it's got me hankering to kill some Old Ones in cyberspace...
@Heffe - yes, we have had some fun with Traveller over the years. Thanks to you I had a copy of the rules way back in 1983 or so. Atrocity Archives is a great book. Cubicle 7 is working on the RPG and they will be using the Basic RolePlaying rules. More here:
http://cubicle7.livejournal.com/14900.html
So glad to hear the Dreamlands project will get some love!! These wonderful takes on using the original Traveller ruleset from GDW have really captured my imagination. I've dusted off my copy of the rules (circa 1982) in their LBB format and am absorbing them.
My opinion; using the original rules would be very cool. (I'm thinking of working on my own implementation of Wanderer, for the record.) I've also got an idea about representing the mysterious Dreamlands using these rules.
Just re-read the combat system and am thinking the Fantasy RPG potential is awesome. Limited number of "full-strength" swings in an engagement, the interaction between armor and weapons, and the damage system are all interesting points to drape game-stuff over. Magical weapons that increase the number of swings a character can perform in a given fight. Talismans and amulets that negate the DMs for being injured or terrain / conditional DMs.
All of this is potentially usable in the enigmatic Dreamlands as well... Please, drop me an email at my Gmail account and I'll gladly share with you these ideas rolling around in my head!
My vote: the original Traveller rules. (For what that's worth.)
~pax~
@Gerall - these are many of the same thoughts I had. Traveller at its core is a great ruleset, and it seems to be very flexible to me. Flexible enough to handle more archaic fantasy settings. I would very much like to bounce some ideas back and forth. Feel free to email me at psmangus at gmail dot com.
Well, to start, bully for you for this great idea. The great thing about the Mythos is its epic enough to leave whatever Imperium you like looking kind of frail and insignificant alongside lurking cosmic elder beings...
I can't help thinking of Ashton Smith collections like Other Dimensions (Marooned in Andromeda etc) at the suggestion of joining Traveller with the pulps. I'll be watching. :)
I can see at least three settings you could have:
i) Fantasy in the Dreamlands.
ii) A Traveller-like setting but with Lovecraftian creatures, for example as aliens and/or as Paladin said above living in warpspace)
iii) A straight Cthulhu Mythos setting that uses the Traveller rules (but would that end up being too similar to the Call of Cthulhu game?)
Traveller's distinctive possibility of dying during character creation could easily be made more Lovecraftian, with (for example) occult-oriented careers that tend to dish out a lot of sanity loss.
A while ago I did a search on www.imdb.com for Science Fiction movies for someone on http://forum.rpg.net/ who wanted ideas for Science Fiction adventures. I got a bit carried away and ended up posting the top 500 Science Fiction movies in their own thread: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=512851 . After that I looked through the list and posted this:
It is interesting how many of them are also horror movies. So often science was used as the reason to create something scary. I almost want to do Call of Cthulhu in space (not Cthulhutech!). Or a really bleak Traveller campaign.
Post a Comment