Quote from: flyingmice;731030SunBoy hasn't been seen around here for years. Why are you answering his question with recommendations? He isn't going to see them.

Yes, most generalist SF games can handle it, but all would require some retooling. This is the only real answer. Anything else is just individual tastes.

-clash

I'm sorry, I should have been more obvious. I'm asking the question now. It's good form to use older existing threads when possible to avoid repetition, right?

Anyway, yes I realize it's all individual tastes, but I like to see people's pitches and ideas because my own tastes are open to nudging and improvement.

Savage Worlds's math is too peculiar for my tolerance though.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;731037I'm sorry, I should have been more obvious. I'm asking the question now. It's good form to use older existing threads when possible to avoid repetition, right?

Anyway, yes I realize it's all individual tastes, but I like to see people's pitches and ideas because my own tastes are open to nudging and improvement.

Savage Worlds's math is too peculiar for my tolerance though.

Ok, Shipyard - I didn't get that. Not knowing your tastes, I won't make a recommendation.

-clash

Quote from: RPGPundit;285757Savage Worlds is just Deadland's retarded brother.

RPGPundit

Savage Worlds is the best game I've played out of the box, period.  Overall, it is complete, comprehensive, balanced, and polished.

This flame is what, four years old? Don't bother; Pundit doesn't know what he's missing.

Always nice to see some SW love, though. I might start a SW PbP here one of these days.

Quote from: flyingmice;731054Ok, Shipyard - I didn't get that. Not knowing your tastes, I won't make a recommendation.

-clash

Hmm, I should lay those out:
- Should feel like the video game to a reasonable extent, but "zoomed in"
- Streamlined (100 pages or less, leaning on abstraction where feasible)
- Noob friendly
- Quick-ish character gen
- Optional: potentially able to handle zerg and protoss PCs, within limits.

Again, I go with Savage Worlds because my StarCraft RPG events have been about a mix of heroes, troops and vehicles in battles. Lots of toys on the table.  I want that feel of a Hero being as badass as a Tank. SW does that well.

I could see FATE working well for FATE fans.

SWN or Mutant Future would do the job as well. I have tooled out Gamma World for when I've run a StarCraft event that I wanted in the mind's eye instead of table toys and for me that worked great. AKA, the alien abilities and psi powers and powered armor powers were easily mimicked by renaming mutations.

Quote from: Spinachcat;731117Again, I go with Savage Worlds because my StarCraft RPG events have been about a mix of heroes, troops and vehicles in battles. Lots of toys on the table.  I want that feel of a Hero being as badass as a Tank. SW does that well.

I appreciate that, but Savage Worlds still has wonky math issues I simply cannot accept. They would gnaw at me like a permanent stain on a beautiful sweater.

I thought that those "math issues" only came up in one very particular circumstance (d4 & d6 vs TN6), no? I don't play the game, but there was a thread around here that covered this recently.

I'm not going to read this entire thing so please forgive me if this has been posted.

There's an extensive D6 conversion, free online here.
http://starcraftd6.tripod.com/index.html

The guy does other great conversions for D6 as well.

Quote from: Archangel Fascist;731062Savage Worlds is the best game I've played out of the box, period.  Overall, it is complete, comprehensive, balanced, and polished.

Have you ever seen any other RPG than deadEarth before SW?

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;731067Hmm, I should lay those out:
- Should feel like the video game to a reasonable extent, but "zoomed in"
- Streamlined (100 pages or less, leaning on abstraction where feasible)
- Noob friendly
- Quick-ish character gen
- Optional: potentially able to handle zerg and protoss PCs, within limits.

Warhammer 40k RPGs, there was some official Star Craft RPG (I...think? Or maybe it was just a Polish fan project?), perhaps some generic sci - fi system. 40k Tyranids'd be an obvious fit for zergs, unsure about Eldar being Protoss.

So, how do BRP and 40k compare? I'm only familiar with the latter.

Quote from: flyingmice;731030SunBoy hasn't been seen around here for years. Why are you answering his question with recommendations? He isn't going to see them.

He's a player in my gaming group; I'm pretty sure he still occasionally lurks here even if he hasn't posted in a long time.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;731666He's a player in my gaming group; I'm pretty sure he still occasionally lurks here even if he hasn't posted in a long time.

RPGPundit

Yeah - I know who Sunboy is, and that he's part of your group, Pundit. I was just remarking on how long it's been since he posted. His option is looking pretty good to me lately. Say hi to him from me! I miss him!

-clash

Well if I were gonna do a StarCraft RPG I'd use Savage Worlds if only because its the RPG game that handles large numbers of characters the best that I have seen.

I would definitely grab the SciFi Companion before attempting that though to check out newer starship/vehicle rules.

As for the complaints about the math in Savage Worlds, I can agree. I had a D10+D6 spellcast against a DN 10 (4+2 darkness +4 heavy cover forest) last night. Cost 2 bennies to pull it off. One was a blue chip (Deadliands = +D6 extra effort die). Then I rerolled the whole thing with a white chip to finally pull it off. All those bennies just to deal 3d6 bolt damage for 10 for a shaken result (Using the Shaintar rule of rerolling the whole thing + extra effort die co-opted to Deadlands, is how that was possible).

At the end of the day, the system starts breaking down when the bennies stop flowing because the rerolling is what makes the math work. With enough rerolls, the ace possibility goes up enough to make success possible, even when penalties accrue at a high rate. And they are also your extra HP, as you need them to soak too.

A bennie stingy GM can make Savage Worlds a miserable experience.

But the thing about SW that makes it our game of choice is that its incredibly fast. Like three battles in a four hour session fast (like my first two Shaintar sessions). And can handle massive combats relatively well (but the final battle of 50 Fathoms with our 160+ crew, 160+ octopons was a bit much. System seems to work best in skirmish level of extras in the 25-50 range for decent battle speed).

The only other game I might think about would be old Shatterzone, which already has a lot of elements that could be used to create a rich StarCraft universe with some modifications. The Reavers/Armagon destroying the universe could easily be changed to the hybrids/Amon. Humanity is afraid of the zerg/protoss and extremely xenophobic, causing other alien races to be thrown to the fringe worlds as fringers with bolters fleeing both the zerg and hybrids from outer worlds. The psionic rules are decent too for using for ghosts/templars. The weird 2d10 TORG system analog though is still odd though.  It just doesn't handle large skirmishes very well.

A copy of the board game might be useful too, my friend JP got it at a yard sale for 0.35 cents, so mad jealous there.  Useful authentic plastic pieces you could use for units.

StarCraft does have the same problem that the Star Wars RPG genre has though, a lot of named characters doing things in the saga and where does the character's roles come in? Background fights and adventures filling in the details between some of the scenarios?

Quote from: slayride35;731736StarCraft does have the same problem that the Star Wars RPG genre has though, a lot of named characters doing things in the saga and where does the character's roles come in? Background fights and adventures filling in the details between some of the scenarios?

Perhaps. Starcraft has the advantage of being much less popular and fleshed out. Also, I think if you're running sandbox style on fringe planets where important shit could be going down in the shadows (dangerous new inventions for instance) this problem is mitigated.

Aside from that, I realize now that a Starcraft RPG needs to be able to handle vehicles and remote control easily and quickly. Getting to use siege tanks and thors is part of that universe's appeal.