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Concepts I'd love to do!

Started by flyingmice, March 28, 2008, 11:15:10 AM

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flyingmice

Quote from: JohnnyWannabeI agree. Especially since Clash has flogged the hard sci-fi horse to death, re-animated it, and then flogged it to death again.;)

It looks like what I was interested in doing won't interest folks. If I do this, it'll be yet another Pulp game. I suggest using Shades of Earth or Two Fisted Tales with Rocketship Empires. That would pretty much nail what you want. I couldn't touch those excellent games.

-clash
clash bowley * Flying Mice Games - an Imprint of Better Mousetrap Games
Flying Mice home page: http://jalan.flyingmice.com/flyingmice.html
Currently Designing: StarCluster 4 - Wavefront Empire
Last Releases: SC4 - Dark Orbital, SC4 - Out of the Ruins,  SC4 - Sabre & World
Blog: I FLY BY NIGHT

David R

You should try the "erotic thriller" genre next, clash. I figure troupe play would come in handy in this one.

Regards,
David R

Kyle Aaron

Hard scifi is not incompatible with cheese.

The world can be real, while the characters can be over the top. Like when Arnie goes to the real world in Last Action Hero :cool:

But hang on, that's every game I've ever run - the players always seem surprised when they try crazy stuff and it doesn't work perfectly every time.

You do what you want to do, Clash. I still like my alternate history, though. Just add one magic tech and see how everything else changes ;)
The Viking Hat GM
Conflict, the adventure game of modern warfare
Wastrel Wednesdays, livestream with Dungeondelver

JohnnyWannabe

Quote from: flyingmiceIt looks like what I was interested in doing won't interest folks.

Hey! Do whatever you want, man. Cold Space, for me, always had a sci-fi schtick vibe. I played it over-the-top Cold War style.
Timeless Games/Better Mousetrap Games - The Creep Chronicle, The Fifth Wheel - the book of West Marque, Shebang. Just released: The Boomtown Planet - Saturday Edition. Also available in hard copy.

flyingmice

Cheesiness is not a problem, gentlemen. Pundit rightly called the cheese on me for hitting the New York with a comet on 9/11 in FTL Now, and I'd do the same again. The problem I had was with "camp."  Campiness sets my teeth on edge. It's snide, superior, pseudo hip, post-modern intellectual bullshit, and it makes me want to vomit. I despise camp with a passion. If I do something, you can rest assured that you bring your camp with you because it wasn't written into the game. I'll do it straight, or not at all. I treat my subjects with love and respect, and laugh with them, not at them.

-clash
clash bowley * Flying Mice Games - an Imprint of Better Mousetrap Games
Flying Mice home page: http://jalan.flyingmice.com/flyingmice.html
Currently Designing: StarCluster 4 - Wavefront Empire
Last Releases: SC4 - Dark Orbital, SC4 - Out of the Ruins,  SC4 - Sabre & World
Blog: I FLY BY NIGHT

HinterWelt

Quote from: flyingmiceCheesiness is not a problem, gentlemen. Pundit rightly called the cheese on me for hitting the New York with a comet on 9/11 in FTL Now, and I'd do the same again. The problem I had was with "camp."  Campiness sets my teeth on edge. It's snide, superior, pseudo hip, post-modern intellectual bullshit, and it makes me want to vomit. I despise camp with a passion. If I do something, you can rest assured that you bring your camp with you because it wasn't written into the game. I'll do it straight, or not at all. I treat my subjects with love and respect, and laugh with them, not at them.

-clash
Hmm, let's see if I can reassure you. Shades of Earth for me, was what I wished pulp would be. However, it is not pulp and anyone who reads it knows this. Usually, they like it but it is hard to get them to understand what I mean by alt-history-pulp. Shades is seriously steeped in history of the period which is way cool all by itself. I add magic because I like the idea of Nazi-zombies and magical monsters in the wings. I had awesome adventures with red army supporters in a lost dwarven city in the Urals. Linda has always wanted a modern version of Shades. I think this project could be close...without the magic...although I would be tempted to give the Venusians psi powers. ;)

So, if you want to make an alt-history livable Mars and Venus setting, I see a lot of possibilities. You sound like you want a solid sci-fi game. I would then ask where you want the conflict to come from? I don't ask this for lack of my ideas but because I have so many. I think a number of interesting ideas would be Martians helping Earthlings against a truly alien Venusian Empire. The Venusians would be looking to expand to earth as a means of acquiring much needed resources including slave labor but primarily because they are even more aggressive than humans. I would include Venusians as a form very different than humans, Martians close to humans in form and have the Venusian technology rival if not exceed Earthling tech. Martians would be far behind us in some ways but they had risen millennia ago and now have fallen. Left over from that time are incredible Astronomy and a space bases super telescope that is now crusted over and called Phoebe.

All this off the top of my head. I could go on about the Martians as they seem best formed in my mind but the Venusian concepts are clear. Add to the above that the Martians are not all on our side. There are several factions and a strong religious element. The Venusians are highly non-religious almost atheists but very long lived. Thus you get a patient enemy that is willing to hatch long thoughtout plans.

It is pretty easy. I just went with the pulpy stuff because it was the first thing that popped to mind when you mentioned it.

Bill
The RPG Haven - Talking about RPGs
My Site
Oh...the HinterBlog
Lord Protector of the Cult of Clash was Right
When you look around you have to wonder,
Do you play to win or are you just a bad loser?

flyingmice

Bill - Shades has plenty of cheese, but no camp I can find. You plainly love and respect your subject matter and play it straight. That's what I want to do. Pulp is best when done straight, without camp.

Maybe we can split the difference? Venus has advanced tech but they are - like humans - descendants of the Martians? :D

-clash
clash bowley * Flying Mice Games - an Imprint of Better Mousetrap Games
Flying Mice home page: http://jalan.flyingmice.com/flyingmice.html
Currently Designing: StarCluster 4 - Wavefront Empire
Last Releases: SC4 - Dark Orbital, SC4 - Out of the Ruins,  SC4 - Sabre & World
Blog: I FLY BY NIGHT

Kyle Aaron

Will Timmins has a couple of LJ posts about his experiments with making maps of Mars here and here. Presumably as a gamer he'll be keen to help out. He presents us with the map,


He writes,   "The white is permanent snowline, dark green is high cold evergreen forest, pale green is more temperate (deciduous forests, grassland), dark brown is high ranges, light tan is lower elevation but still rocky. During the (long) Martian winter, the snowline will drop to cover almost everything except pale green areas; and the pale green will frequently be snowed under (particularly the southern lowlands, which are constantly buffeted by polar fronts)."
On his LJ we discussed the images and physics of it a bit. He said,   "If Mars gets enough atmosphere such that the sea level pressure is the same as Earth's, the atmosphere is 3x as 'tall.' Because pressure drop-off is inversely related to gravity.

"On the down side, this means you'll need a LOT more gas to fill up the atmosphere. One of the upsides, however, is that you have a much greater atmosphere to absorb UV. It also allows for greater heat transfer through the atmosphere, though I'm not completely sure of all the effects of that.

"As for flight, at first I was thinking 'yay, you could have balloon animals!' But no... turns out balloon lift is entirely based on air pressure. On the other hand, wing surface area only has to be about 1/3 as much, so I'm thinking it's possible a lot of animals have adapted to (or been altered to) fly. If nothing else, leaping predators have a big bonus.

"It also allows for rather large animals. One of the curious things about animals on Earth is that bones are not stronger in big animals than in small animals. So large animals have to adapt in various ways to keep from shattering their own skeletons. With 1/3 the gravity, and 1/3 the stress, you could have astoundingly massive animals. And given the cold in certain regions, this might confer a huge survival advantage.

"Hmmmmmm."
Maybe mammoths?

There's also a guy at Adelaide Uni who's done images of terraformed Mars and Venus both, which you can see here.

An interesting point about Venus is that it has little in the way of a magnetic field. This means no Van Allen belts, and less shielding from radiation, so that genetic mutations would happen more quickly on Venus than Earth, if they didn't kill everything off.
The Viking Hat GM
Conflict, the adventure game of modern warfare
Wastrel Wednesdays, livestream with Dungeondelver

HinterWelt

Quote from: flyingmiceBill - Shades has plenty of cheese, but no camp I can find. You plainly love and respect your subject matter and play it straight. That's what I want to do. Pulp is best when done straight, without camp.

Maybe we can split the difference? Venus has advanced tech but they are - like humans - descendants of the Martians? :D

-clash
I was only making them alien to make them, well, alien. ;) What I mean is that an alien threat can often produce a more urgent sense of suspense and drama. Not always and not required, but as a tool it can be useful.

So, let's run with what you laid out before. How about four races? The first would be the original "human" colonists. They either have died off or are no longer commonly known. Martians, Humans and Venusians are the three known and active. I would say, Humans and Martians are very much convinced they are home grown, evolved on their own planets and in some cases willing to fight over it. Martians are the heretics and have the Common Ancestor Theory and even this takes different forms with different sects of their religions.

Sound reasonable?

I don't know that it will play a big part in the setting yet but it would be a wealth of alien tech and even plot hooks of several kinds. This would allow for ancient ruins, space stations or interesting theological battles to occur. Whole campaigns could be based on finding the "Truth". Humans believe we evolved on Earth. Venusians believe all three evolved on Venus during the First Epoch which led to a Diaspora (eh, nudge nudge, wink wink), then the Great Darkness. Now, it is time for the Children Of Venus to join back with the flock.

What?! You do not wish to submit yourself to your parents?! You defy your ancestors, the Pure, unpolluted members of your race. You need to be punished.

I would also suggest that Venusions still be long lives. Not immortal but more like 200 years. The source should be unknown but the Venusians use it as "proof" of their Purity and humans believe it is some secret herb, mineral or water on Venus that does so. Endless treasure hunters flock to the Venusian Jungles every year to try and find it, convinced the secret is there.

Does this sound like the kind of thing you are looking for? Less pulpy, more realworldy.

Bill
The RPG Haven - Talking about RPGs
My Site
Oh...the HinterBlog
Lord Protector of the Cult of Clash was Right
When you look around you have to wonder,
Do you play to win or are you just a bad loser?

Kyle Aaron

Also, terraforming the Moon has been seriously looked at by HW Renn.

What do the Loonies want? :)
The Viking Hat GM
Conflict, the adventure game of modern warfare
Wastrel Wednesdays, livestream with Dungeondelver

JohnnyWannabe

The way I envisioned it from your original post was that it would be an old-school sci-fi, like the sci-fi my dad raved about. I even dialed it back a bit further.
   I thought, how would H.G. Wells write a sci-fi role-playing game? He's the grandfather of the genre with The Invisible Man, War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, etc.  
   Today, we see his setting, themes, and approach as campy. Big mistake. I love his stuff, just as I  love John Wyndham's stuff. The Day of the Triffids and the Chrysalids are fantastic reads. But, if I said to you, I want to write an RPG where the PCs are trying to survive in a world full of man-eating plants. You'd cry camp.
   Think of Jules Verne. He also wrote some great sci-fi stories, but we see them as somewhat campy.

   When I read your idea, I thought, how would Wells see it? I thought of the sci-themes:
   Man vs. man, man vs. himself, man vs. nature.  
   How would you incorporate them into a sci-fi like Wells?
   Wells would have an understanding of how important the sun was to life. So, you have these three worlds - Mars, Earth, and Venus - that rely on the sun for life. Essentially, you have three classes of citizens.
   Venutians, who are like the upper crust, living close to the orb of life, in a tropical paradise. Rich metals, like silver, are plentiful. Every day is like a summer holiday.They are a grasping bunch and slowly they are harnassing more and more of the sun's warmth and power for themselves.
   Terrans are the middle class. We have to take the bad with the good. We are experiencing subtle climate shifts. The earth is getting cooler. Scientists discover that there is life on Venus and its the Venutians who are stealing the power of the sun.
   Martians are the lower class, toiling away in a grim environment, building machines of war, preparing for a revoltuion to steal the power and heat of the sun or, at least, get closer to it by invading Earth.
   That's how I came up with the title, Fight For the Sun.
Timeless Games/Better Mousetrap Games - The Creep Chronicle, The Fifth Wheel - the book of West Marque, Shebang. Just released: The Boomtown Planet - Saturday Edition. Also available in hard copy.

flyingmice

Quote from: JohnnyWannabeThe way I envisioned it from your original post was that it would be an old-school sci-fi, like the sci-fi my dad raved about. I even dialed it back a bit further.
   I thought, how would H.G. Wells write a sci-fi role-playing game? He's the grandfather of the genre with The Invisible Man, War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, etc.  
   Today, we see his setting, themes, and approach as campy. Big mistake. I love his stuff, just as I  love John Wyndham's stuff. The Day of the Triffids and the Chrysalids are fantastic reads. But, if I said to you, I want to write an RPG where the PCs are trying to survive in a world full of man-eating plants. You'd cry camp.

No, I wouldn't, Rich. Campiness is not inherent in the subject, but in the approach to the subject. The thing that froze me out was this post from Kyle (emphasis mine):

QuoteHowever, even if it is "hard scifi", I must insist it has a good dose of cheesiness and camp. That stuff's good for games.

And this one from you immediately following, quoting that very line in Kyle's post.

QuoteI agree.

The only problem I see in approaching it as Pulp - Christ, I love Pulp! - is that there has been an explosion of quality Pulp games recently. Cheesy Pulp is fine - that's no problem either. But Campy is an attitude that I think is vile, and will have no truck with.

-clash
clash bowley * Flying Mice Games - an Imprint of Better Mousetrap Games
Flying Mice home page: http://jalan.flyingmice.com/flyingmice.html
Currently Designing: StarCluster 4 - Wavefront Empire
Last Releases: SC4 - Dark Orbital, SC4 - Out of the Ruins,  SC4 - Sabre & World
Blog: I FLY BY NIGHT

flyingmice

Here's the maps I mentioned.

MARS



and VENUS.



-clash
clash bowley * Flying Mice Games - an Imprint of Better Mousetrap Games
Flying Mice home page: http://jalan.flyingmice.com/flyingmice.html
Currently Designing: StarCluster 4 - Wavefront Empire
Last Releases: SC4 - Dark Orbital, SC4 - Out of the Ruins,  SC4 - Sabre & World
Blog: I FLY BY NIGHT

JohnnyWannabe

I think the thing that gave me the idea you were shooting for "camp" is your original post in which you state:

"Mars is a cool, dry world, with canals. Venus is a steamy tropical paradise. Both teem with life! I could do this one of two ways - totally hard science, or rayguns and rockets. Either one would be fun! Entirely in-system stuff."

That, could be perceived as camp.

Camp is not necessarily a bad thing. Hell, most RPGs are, by their very nature, campy, especially when they take themselves too seriously. Maybe your definition of camp varies from mine. *shrugs*

As you state, it's the approach that determines the end product.:)
Timeless Games/Better Mousetrap Games - The Creep Chronicle, The Fifth Wheel - the book of West Marque, Shebang. Just released: The Boomtown Planet - Saturday Edition. Also available in hard copy.

JohnnyWannabe

Quote from: flyingmiceThe only problem I see in approaching it as Pulp - Christ, I love Pulp! - is that there has been an explosion of quality Pulp games recently. Cheesy Pulp is fine - that's no problem either. But Campy is an attitude that I think is vile, and will have no truck with.

In retrospect, I wouldn't even approach it as Pulp. I'd approach it as old, classic sci-fi with the warning that reality goes out the window when you make Mars and Venus living worlds. But, anyways, I don't care. It's your project and I'm sure it will be awesome in the end.
Timeless Games/Better Mousetrap Games - The Creep Chronicle, The Fifth Wheel - the book of West Marque, Shebang. Just released: The Boomtown Planet - Saturday Edition. Also available in hard copy.