tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12521750944035768542024-12-13T04:39:38.207-06:00Science Fiction Gaming, Art & SpeculationRocketDadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737339078433321350noreply@blogger.comBlogger437125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1252175094403576854.post-20106706062588359822022-03-09T00:00:00.087-06:002022-03-09T00:00:00.198-06:00

    The other day on Twitter the question was asked: "When world building, what do you start with?"  My answer was probably obvious to anyone who has read my blog.    I start with a spaceship. I am a spaceship nerd. Pictured: My Spirit animal    Then I start thinking about how it would work, the technology it'd need and what that implies for

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Faci-NOPE.    More than any other genre I'm aware of, Science Fiction is defined by it's technology.  For example, the difference between Clash of the Titans and Lord of the Rings is to my mind less than the difference between Star Trek and Star Wars.  And both of those have almost nothing in common with The Expanse.    This is relevant to game design

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   It can be said that most if not all classic TTPGs are based around resource management.    The OSR has codified this in the myriad of rules that govern how to die in explore a dungeon. Time, spells, food, arrows - light -  are all limited and requires careful tracking.  Even at individual tables that don't follow Encumbrance rules or and lack magic there are

RocketDadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737339078433321350noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1252175094403576854.post-38656873142152698352022-02-16T00:00:00.347-06:002022-02-16T00:00:00.191-06:00

 Improving page layout was a low bar.    So in mid-1999 my friends and I were talking about making a TTPRG of our own.  I don't know how common that was back then; I knew exactly two people with internet at the time and had never heard of PDFs.  This was to be a printed book and sold in brick and mortar stores.    I don't know if any of us thought it would

RocketDadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737339078433321350noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1252175094403576854.post-65138342533335643712022-02-09T00:00:00.192-06:002022-02-09T00:00:00.189-06:00

    My wife Debra is my favorite gamer.  Obvious and unapologetic bias aside, she makes the best characters.  Once she grasped the rules for multi-classing in D&D 3rd edition (much faster than I did) she never created the same kind of character twice.  She had one, a Bard/Rogue/Fighter/One-of-the-exotic-Prestige-Classes that looked like a half-elf David Bowie and

RocketDadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737339078433321350noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1252175094403576854.post-81378018015008942692022-02-02T00:00:00.433-06:002022-02-02T09:54:43.026-06:00

    Last week we started to address the problem with space travel and combat in RPGs by addressing the "tactical mini-game" sequence most TTPRGs seem to use.   The reasons for the mini-game approach as I see it are as follows: First you have the hobby’s wargame origins, which can be exacerbated by RPGs with board game tie-ins. SF games that are licensed from

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 Made with Daz 3d, Bryce and GIMP   As we said last week, space combat in RPGs is generally a pain. This is one of the reasons I started designing my own SF RPG as soon as I discovered my favorite rules system was now OGL.      Part of that effort, the Black Desert Project, led to my series of blog posts about Crew as Mission Control. The premise being that

RocketDadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737339078433321350noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1252175094403576854.post-31660340649574061032022-01-19T00:00:00.071-06:002022-01-22T12:44:05.736-06:00

Who else would hitch dolphins to a chariot?*This will definitely be a whole series of posts.     In the link to the right Ken Burnside articulates a problem I've struggled with since I first tried to run the West End Games classic Star Wars: The Role-Playing Game in 1992; to whit: "How can I put the spaceships I love into a game in a way that actually adds fun to the game?"&

RocketDadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737339078433321350noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1252175094403576854.post-61818680883333777122022-01-12T00:00:00.001-06:002022-01-12T00:00:00.192-06:00

         I've been spending less time thinking about the Murdering Empire project or writing a blog post than I have actually writing the game.    In fact, I have a completed version available of the one-page, Version 0.1 rules for Murdering Empire completed.    It is very bare bones, as a one-page game must be, but it also shows my

RocketDadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737339078433321350noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1252175094403576854.post-3938481859051647712022-01-05T08:38:00.002-06:002022-01-05T14:41:19.895-06:00

Yeah, that guy.    Despite having had the long weekend, I haven't spent any of that time work on this blog. I have spent some of it thinking about an actual product. It's all in a very early stage right now, but I've become enamored with an idea inspired by binge-watching Questing Beast's Zine reviews and the one-page RPGs like the 24XX family of games.    The idea

RocketDadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737339078433321350noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1252175094403576854.post-45906305291353012912021-12-29T00:00:00.004-06:002021-12-29T08:01:55.530-06:00

     Bonus points to those who recognize the quote.Yes, even the Skill Challenges.     I have a confession:  The 4th edition of D&D is the only set of rules - for any rpg - that i've run Rules As Written.  The system was, as far as it intentions went, perfect.  The XP notation, monster blocs, the unified leveling mechanic, the treasure

RocketDadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737339078433321350noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1252175094403576854.post-79515932132472824772021-12-22T00:00:00.037-06:002021-12-22T15:27:47.966-06:00

I swear this is what mine looked like when I got it in 1980Do you remember when Queen Amidala was supposed to be a clone!?    The Handmaidens that surrounded her weren’t dressed to be her body doubles - They are all the Queen, and one was dressed to sit on the throne.  Meanwhile, the servant girl gossiping with the cook belowstairs? The Queen.  The naive looking

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         Why did Rome fall?Did Rome actually fall, or just decline until noting but memories remain?When did Rome fall? With the city itself in 410? During the sack of Ravenna in 476?  Or the fall of Constantinople in 1453?  That’s a thousand-year span - can we not narrow it down better than that?And why did Rome fall?  Was it lead water pipes, the

RocketDadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737339078433321350noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1252175094403576854.post-56667524971304596882017-03-24T10:37:00.000-05:002017-03-24T10:37:53.493-05:00

     To the left is (hopefully) the solution to my dilemma.  Rather than wax lyrical about how I came to arrive at my current notion, I'm just gonna hash it out for you.      I'm ditching the FTL system in Starships & Spacemen and replacing it with my "Rabbithole" system.  If you don'l know what that is, I wrote a a whole article about it in LAUNCH

RocketDadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737339078433321350noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1252175094403576854.post-66565772799855549492017-03-22T08:10:00.000-05:002017-03-22T10:28:19.844-05:00

Ha!  Rhetorical question, Rocketfans - what else would I be doing?  It's not like I can leave anything alone...       The deal breaker came with my examination of the FTL system.  It's a variation of the classic Trek/Alcubierre warp drive - which is bad enough, as warp drive has problems.  What's even more difficult for me to deal with is the

RocketDadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737339078433321350noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1252175094403576854.post-10684810013026317592017-03-20T12:03:00.000-05:002017-03-20T12:03:34.999-05:00

     Working on some some for  the FTL post today...here are some notes for a new setting I've been working on: The path of an officer in the Patrol Fleet begins at the Academy.  We will only discuss officers because there are no enlisted ratings in the Astronaut Corp.  An Astro begins their career at a Patrol Base nearest their homeworld or system.  This is

RocketDadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737339078433321350noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1252175094403576854.post-66009214270666681752017-03-15T08:03:00.000-05:002017-03-15T08:03:15.603-05:00

   Author's Note: The rules mentioned below, unless otherwise specified, are the hard work of Daniel Proctol et al. at Goblinoid Games on the second edition of Starships & Spacemen.  Yes, I use this pic a lot.  I happen to like it.      Let's talk about the Power Pile Base.      I've read multiple reviews, and the general consensus

RocketDadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737339078433321350noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1252175094403576854.post-60635834613677317822017-03-13T11:03:00.001-05:002017-03-13T11:03:51.262-05:00

     Specifically, Rob Garitta, friend and sometime collaborator here at Blue Max Studios.  He mentioned our previous work on the Starships& Spacemen game and I rather woefully lamented not having completed any of the projects I wanted to for that game.   It was a rather lengthy list. I was going to make variants of all the major ship classes for the game,

RocketDadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737339078433321350noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1252175094403576854.post-50435024850613897832017-03-10T08:08:00.001-06:002017-03-10T08:17:10.103-06:00

     The River- class transports are big.      At four hundred and fifty meters in length, these colossal spacecraft can carry a lot of folks from here to Titan, some of which are actual passengers.  Most of the company and crew of a River, however, are part of the civilian or UN crew.  In order to make sense of what we needed in terms of staff and whatnot

RocketDadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737339078433321350noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1252175094403576854.post-74968149695938855852017-03-07T10:43:00.000-06:002017-03-08T07:52:21.821-06:00

     I described the type of centrifuge habitat used by the River-class transports as being a species of Winchell Chung's Ezekiel's Wheel.  I also described it as a maintenance nightmare, as anything that must hold pressure and spin is already a nightmare, and anything that spins on two axes is a nightmare squared.  Be that as it may, I also posited that when shaping an

RocketDadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737339078433321350noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1252175094403576854.post-69039675603687384112017-03-03T11:55:00.001-06:002017-03-06T07:34:15.205-06:00

      Good Monday, RocketFans!  By the time you're reading this, I'll have been through the first phase of getting tested for autism.  Yes, autism.  I was surprised too.  Until I studied up on autism - now it seems rather obvious in retrospect.       Anyway.      I want to work on the River-class interplanetary vehicles some more.

RocketDadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737339078433321350noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1252175094403576854.post-80846909084021431462017-01-16T19:41:00.001-06:002017-01-16T19:41:17.228-06:00

A NEW ERA IN SCIENCE FICTION GAMING! Now you can get new material for your science fiction game - no matter what game it is! Welcome to LAUNCH WINDOW: A monthly digest that features new material for Cepheus Engine, Diaspora, D20, Open D6, and OSR gaming.  Stories and articles every month feature new characters, starships, equipment and rules options for your favorite science fiction

RocketDadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737339078433321350noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1252175094403576854.post-69077025084334178742017-01-06T10:25:00.000-06:002017-01-06T10:25:34.372-06:00

Click da Pic Already!      Diesel 'bots and aero cars! What's it to you?      Zaonia was a backwater, a primitive agricultural planet of no importance. Everyone knew that except the Zaonians. Building robot wonders with salvaged brains and antigravity fliers with vacuum tubes was one thing, but bucking the system that kept some planets rich and most poor

RocketDadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737339078433321350noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1252175094403576854.post-6154140955893697012017-01-05T13:57:00.000-06:002017-01-05T13:57:33.459-06:00

     Happy New Year, RocketFans!  Work on Issue 02 of LAUNCH WINDOW is going along at a good pace, and so is the rules update for Issue 01.  It feels good to be on a sustainable schedule.  Part of that goodness is the ability to indulge in some blogging, and working on one of my favorite projects: Ship design!     Basic Assumptions      

RocketDadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737339078433321350noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1252175094403576854.post-55243868705118044242017-01-02T12:46:00.000-06:002017-01-02T12:46:47.699-06:00

   

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