The Firefly License

TristramEvans · February 26, 2013, 09:18:38 PM

You know what sci-fi license would make for a great RPG?

The Last Starfighter.

Just call it The Last Starfighters, and have it so any number of teenagers from earth are recruited via beating special video games to pilot ships for the space army of the confederation of free worlds thats been all but devastated.

Its a solid concept, got a great 80s vibe going on thats still applicable to pop culture today, and the premise is an easy buy-in for new players.

arminius · February 26, 2013, 10:07:41 PM

Quote from: J Arcane;632236It just strikes me as an awful lot more words than necessary to say you didn't like a show, especially one you yourself admit to having seen all of three episodes of.

People asked, I answered, and besides, that's more than 20%.

J Arcane · February 26, 2013, 10:12:19 PM

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;632270People asked, I answered, and besides, that's more than 20%.

And yet, you criticize it for static characterization despite the show displaying more genuine character growth in 13 episodes than most series ever bother with at all.

Caesar Slaad · February 26, 2013, 10:22:30 PM

Quote from: Piestrio;632219It's an altogether normal, serviceable system that has suffered from idiots hyping it until the end of time as the one system to rule them all and save role-playing.*

Really? I don't see that many people pimping it, except a few people involved in it. Of which I actually know a few, oddly enough.

I'm honestly not a big fan of Cortex+ (at least in the marvel incarnation; I've never tried leverage, but would be willing to give it a shot), but confess that's because I'm a bit of a self-convinced snob about the way powers are handled in games, and the Cortex Marvel "tell me how your power applies" approach is just a bit too loosey-goosey for me.

J Arcane · February 26, 2013, 10:30:19 PM

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;632283Really? I don't see that many people pimping it, except a few people involved in it. Of which I actually know a few, oddly enough.

I'm honestly not a big fan of Cortex+ (at least in the marvel incarnation; I've never tried leverage, but would be willing to give it a shot), but confess that's because I'm a bit of a self-convinced snob about the way powers are handled in games, and the Cortex Marvel "tell me how your power applies" approach is just a bit too loosey-goosey for me.

Honestly, the thing that bugs the shit out of me is that it's loosely defined AND convoluted at the same time. It does in a fist full of dice and 10 minutes of shuffling and resolution and shit what Powergame did in 40 pages in a few minutes almost 20 years ago.

It is such an overdesigned piece of sloppily explained shit that I'm still kind of mad about even wasting my time reading it.

arminius · February 26, 2013, 10:36:49 PM

Quote from: J Arcane;632276And yet, you criticize it for static characterization despite the show displaying more genuine character growth in 13 episodes than most series ever bother with at all.

You know, I have no idea about that. I picked up on other cues (clunky dialogue, heavy-handed characterization) to lump it with recent shows I'm more familiar with, as "geek opera." I didn't see enough episodes to talk about character development in the specific, but I was talking about the general case. Maybe my instincts were wrong on that particular point.

gleichman · February 26, 2013, 10:40:19 PM

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;632287You know, I have no idea about that. I picked up on other cues (clunky dialogue, heavy-handed characterization) to lump it with recent shows I'm more familiar with, as "geek opera." I didn't see enough episodes to talk about character development in the specific, but I was talking about the general case. Maybe my instincts were wrong on that particular point.

They weren't.

Character development was mostly hint, bait and switch. That would have likely changed some as the series went on as Whedon had the habit of deconstructing his characters and setting (judging from Buffy and Angel). If there's any appeal there, I leave it up to you.

I say this as someone who liked the show in general and brought the DVD set, but not enough to be blind to its faults.

J Arcane · February 26, 2013, 10:48:37 PM

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;632287You know, I have no idea about that. I picked up on other cues (clunky dialogue, heavy-handed characterization) to lump it with recent shows I'm more familiar with, as "geek opera." I didn't see enough episodes to talk about character development in the specific, but I was talking about the general case. Maybe my instincts were wrong on that particular point.

Whedon has his quirks, but a static status quo is rarely an element of his shows, IME. Buffy and Angel were practically different shows by the end of the series.

Firefly didn't get very far with the time it had, but it did seem to be going somewhere, just slow enough it never quite got there before the show got the axe.

Spinachcat · February 26, 2013, 11:29:37 PM

Quote from: TristramEvans;632239Just call it The Last Starfighters, and have it so any number of teenagers from earth are recruited via beating special video games to pilot ships for the space army of the confederation of free worlds thats been all but devastated.

HELL YEAH!!!!

My friends and I were hardcore Last Starfighter fans and I owned multiple copies of the modular tunnel chase boardgame.

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3881/last-starfighter-tunnel-chase

I used the ship info from the games, from many viewings and Starlog photos and built out Traveller stats and we ran a Last Starfighters campaign and it was crazy fun. One of our dudes even redid the stats for Star Frontiers Knight Hawks and that was fun too.

Why? All because of this scene with one of the most badass lines ever spoken by a vanquished villain...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLN36pgwS5o

TristramEvans · February 26, 2013, 11:35:44 PM

Quote from: Spinachcat;632300Why? All because of this scene with one of the most badass lines ever spoken by a vanquished villain...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLN36pgwS5o

For a movie from '84, the effects surprisingly stood the test of time rather well.

Novastar · February 26, 2013, 11:48:00 PM

Quote from: TristramEvans;632239You know what sci-fi license would make for a great RPG?

The Last Starfighter.

Just call it The Last Starfighters, and have it so any number of teenagers from earth are recruited via beating special video games to pilot ships for the space army of the confederation of free worlds thats been all but devastated.

Its a solid concept, got a great 80s vibe going on thats still applicable to pop culture today, and the premise is an easy buy-in for new players.

I'm amazed with the number of 80's movie remakes that have been coming out lately, this one hasn't been floated yet!

I'm curious as hell who has the license though; I looked a few years ago into the Space: Above and Beyond series, and was floored by how much they were asking for. Wonder if The Last Starfighter's license holder would be more reasonable?

EDIT: Apparently, back in 1984 FASA did make a "Last Starfighter" game.
There was also an off-Broadway play done, of The Last Starfighter, in 2004.
And according to Wikipedia:

QuoteIn February 2008, production company GPA Entertainment added "Starfighter – The sequel to the classic motion picture Last Starfighter" to its list of projects and two months later the project was reported to be "stuck in the pre-production phase".[13] It was still there as of January 2012.[14]

Ghost Whistler · February 27, 2013, 04:09:03 AM

Quote from: Spinachcat;632158That's my thought as well, but RPGPundit would disagree. For me, I do not have any idea where "storygame" begins and where "trad" ends and the various forum wars have led me to believe it's all personal taste and opinion.

Unfortunately, neither does he. It just amounts to slagging off things he dislikes, even solely on instinct.

Quote from: Piestrio;632219I agree.

To me it's just kind of "meh".

It's an altogether normal, serviceable system that has suffered from idiots hyping it until the end of time as the one system to rule them all and save role-playing.*

*see also; Savage Worlds, Unisystem, FATE, Adventure!, etc...

I would agree. Not that it's meh, though I haven't run it yet. I think it looks quite promising. It certainly has been hyped, but whose purple fault is that?

Quote from: TristramEvans;632239You know what sci-fi license would make for a great RPG?

The Last Starfighter.

Just call it The Last Starfighters, and have it so any number of teenagers from earth are recruited via beating special video games to pilot ships for the space army of the confederation of free worlds thats been all but devastated.

Its a solid concept, got a great 80s vibe going on thats still applicable to pop culture today, and the premise is an easy buy-in for new players.

Only if the rulebook itself was Project Excalibur.

JeremyR · February 27, 2013, 04:59:03 AM

Quote from: J Arcane;632276And yet, you criticize it for static characterization despite the show displaying more genuine character growth in 13 episodes than most series ever bother with at all.

This may sound crazy, but I simply could not get into the show because I couldn't tell the characters apart.

Every one of them had brown hair, except for the guy from Barney Miller. And the hairstyles were similar, all the women had curly brown hair, all the men short brown hair, like a video game protagonist. And they all wore brown.

I'm not great with faces. Especially when it was such a large cast.

J Arcane · February 27, 2013, 05:02:03 AM

Quote from: JeremyR;632372This may sound crazy, but I simply could not get into the show because I couldn't tell the characters apart.

Every one of them had brown hair, except for the guy from Barney Miller. And the hairstyles were similar, all the women had curly brown hair, all the men short brown hair, like a video game protagonist. And they all wore brown.

I'm not great with faces. Especially when it was such a large cast.

I think you watched a different show than I did.

Of the male cast members there's black, brown, blonde, shaved-black, and grey. The female characters are dark brown, black, and red. It's true there's a lot of earth tones in some of the characters' wardrobe, but that's just part of the western thing I think.

I think your eyes are getting old.

jibbajibba · February 27, 2013, 05:20:10 AM

Quote from: J Arcane;632373I think you watched a different show than I did.

Of the male cast members there's black, brown, blonde, shaved-black, and grey. The female characters are dark brown, black, and red. It's true there's a lot of earth tones in some of the characters' wardrobe, but that's just part of the western thing I think.

I think your eyes are getting old.

No he is spot on look ....

Well apart from the black guy and the short one and the blonde one ...