Breaking the Heart of the Universe

[Kedamono]

I want to play in 'Star Trek.' Not your Star Trek (which maybe is limited to smarmy command-deck officers who beam the ship's doctor down into unsecured zones with frightening regularity)--and not 'Roddenbery's' either. As has been pointed out, once I start making it my own I'm not really in his Star Trek anymore--I can't play there: he created a TV show, not an RPG.

But as an RPG designer you have the option to get down with me enough to understand that 'because I want to' really is a good enough reason that I should.

Yes, you, I, anyone in this discussion, could take the rules and do with them what they will. I'm an old "blue-booker" D&D rpger, been playing since, hmm, 1978. We're all on the upper edge of the bell curve for gaming experience. Trouble is if you write a game for the upper edge, you're not going to sell very many, and hardly any supplements either.

Let's be crassly commercial here. Unless you are writing a RPG as a labor of love, you want to sell the game and make money. So you want to aim at the middle of the bell curve and aim at those people who aren't top-notch GMs, who don't have 20 years worth of roleplaying experience behind them as both a GM and as a Player.

I'm working on a "Neo-Edwardian Alternate History Pulp Adventure" RPG and I've come to realize that I'm going to have to narrow focus on the types of characters that the PCs can play, primarily to cut down on the investment time for them and the GM. I will provide enough detail in the background so that an experienced GM can run what they want, but I hope the narrow focus will give him or her some clues on how to run a campaign in this world. But for the novice GM, I got training wheels.

For some reason Fantasy RPGs don't need the same kind of training wheels, probably because most FRPGs are self narrowing.

Modern Era, Future Era RPGs need to have narrow focus, lest you end up playing "Paychecks and Pocketbooks". While playing an average joe is OK, we all want to play the heroic character, and to be properly heroic, you need something to be heroic against.

Think about this, how engaging would a Modern Era RPG be if it only modeled reality, and did not provide anything for the characters to do other than their jobs. It would be boring, wouldn't it?

But that is what a lot of SFRPGs are: A Modern Era RPG without the heroics, set in the Future. So instead of doing your 9 to 5, eat dinner, watch the tube while drinking a beer, you  do your 10 to 4, replicate dinner, watch the holotank and suck down a bheer bulb.

A good SFRPG needs a theme, a set of conflicts, something to strive against or for. It need not be one theme or set of conflicts, that's fine as long as you as the game designer make sure they don't contradict each other. Besides, that's what supplement are for. :-)

[greyorm]

Marco,

I think you are strenuously arguing against a point I didn't even express my opinion on: Brian's essay in particular and whether it is correct, incorrect, good, bad, ugly, right, wrong, or whatever. I'm talking about something else entirely, so Point 1 on your list is just noise to me and I don't know why you are again detailing it (in response to me).

(a) Taking away my ability to play Harry Mudd, just because the game designer thinks it's missing the point is a lot like an author complaining that RPG'ers in his world are bound to miss the point by playing in it.

Ok, so go play a non-Sorcerer in Sorcerer. See my point? The GAME is wrong FOR YOU...the game for restricting you is not WRONG for restricting you, however.

(b) Being Harry Mudd is full of wonderful premise: faced with self-righteous but enlightened federation goons, being a rebel has deep potential, IMO.

I agree! But...it has nothing to do with Star Trek, per se. So while the story isn't invalid as a story, it isn't a Star Trek story, either. It might share elements of the setting, but you are playing a completely different game.

That is, you can't "explore Star Trek" by playing Harry Mudd. You especially can't do it when you play Harry Mudd and everyone else plays Federation Officers, because you are playing two very different games at the same table, even if the dice mechanics you are using are the same. Free-for-all wide-open creation is a problem in this respect.

This is true only to an extent. If we are exploring issues of emotion and intuition over logic, having tools like Data and Spock or Asimov's robots creates characters that would change in a modern setting.

Yes, but they ARE tools -- disguised as characters, you bet. What's their purpose? It isn't "to be an android". It is to highlight and comment upon the human condition -- and this is where SF games seem to utterly fail.

All the adherence in the world to real physics, all the cool gadgets available, is not going to produce this aspect of Science Fiction out of thin air. Thinking it will, just because you COULD do something like that sounds eerily similar to me to the mistaken belief that if you sit down and just play your characters, somehow it will all eventually be a story.

In my opinion, this is where the problem is with SF heartbreaker games: the "well, you can do/be ANYTHING" syndrome (often "because it is realistic, and SF is about realism, right?"). This IS the Harry Mudd problem from above. Sure, you CAN play Harry Mudd against the Federation, rife with premise and et al. But the chances that anything coherent is really going to develop out of the more-than-probable mess most groups are going to make of the free-for-all is slim.

I don't want to argue against this--but I do want to note that a great deal of SF gets its 'kick'

Yes. Color = Kick. We're in complete agreement here. However, technology is only meant to showcase the human aspect of the story, and as such, secondary. This is what SF games seem to miss: they try to be SF by being about the "General Products hull". This is what I believe "breaks the heart" about such SF games, because they are nothing like their source genre in a very noticable way in this fashion.

(A seperate issue from the Harry Mudd problem, above.)

Perhaps, but "really being in the future" is, IME, a legitimate way to get to the human-interest stuff that SF 'is about.' The virtualist-approach that those games give you is, IMO, every bit as valid as one that comes pre-packaged with a premise mechanic.

I disagree here, simply because I feel the nature of SF as literature and the nature of Fantasy as literature differ so broadly in this respect. This is simply not about Narrativism vs. Simulationism. It IS about "genre versimilitude", which is required by both Narrativist and Simulationist modes (and to a lesser extent, about "playability").

Also, just so you don't think I am being rude when I don't pipe in again, I'll be off-line for a week or so. Sorry. I will be reading any responses, though and will try to reply if the conversation has not moved past them by then.

[Marco]

Yes, you, I, anyone in this discussion, could take the rules and do with them what they will. I'm an old "blue-booker" D&D rpger, been playing since, hmm, 1978. We're all on the upper edge of the bell curve for gaming experience. Trouble is if you write a game for the upper edge, you're not going to sell very many, and hardly any supplements either.

It's a good point that this discussion is between people with a fair amount of experience under their belts.

Just to be clear: I'm not exactly talking about "taking the rules and doing with them what I will." I'm suggesting that for Star Trek, GURPS Prime Directive is about perfect for me (albeit sight-unseen, to date--so I'm guessing and baseing it on discussion with Mr. Cole).

The value of GPD is that it takes Star Trek, the TV show and does the following:

1. Applies an informed mathematical model to the fiction. It expands the fiction in some ways I find useful and it takes care of some of the inherent inconsistencies in the show (who is in charge when Kirk is asleep? Why does the command crew beam down, etc.)

2. At the same time, IMO, it doesn't remove the inherent literary value of the world presented. The Federation is still the Federation. The Klingons are still the Klingons. The Prime Directive, itself, is still in force.

3. With the rest of GURPS behind it, I can choose to play Mudd if I want to--and with Star Fleet Battles plugged in, I can even do his ship.

None of this may be implied in the book itself--or intended by the designers--but the design ethic applied both in terms of GURPS and SFB allows me to seamlessly move my story into the space that is logically promised by the world that I saw portrayed on the TV show.

Where that world breaks down (what do the Dilithium miners get paid in a world without money? How can a ship function 24/7 with only one command crew) the game designers have made some calls that while I may not agree with, I would need to make in some respect if I am not playing under a heavily dramatic ethic ("Who cares how they function 24/7--the STORY always begins when they're awake!").

Let's be crassly commercial here. Unless you are writing a RPG as a labor of love, you want to sell the game and make money. So you want to aim at the middle of the bell curve and aim at those people who aren't top-notch GMs, who don't have 20 years worth of roleplaying experience behind them as both a GM and as a Player.

Well, yes--it's true that I don't necessiarily want to cater to either 'elite' roleplayers or groganards--on the other hand, if I sell something promising 'the appeal of Star Trek' there are so many ways to interpert the statement that anything I do is likely to fail somehow.

Aso: I think that profit aside, RPG's are basically a labor of love. Yes, they can make a profit--but I wouldn't rely on that and I think you'd have a really hard time (here) selling the idea that the best and most accessible games are the ones that make the most money.

Modern Era, Future Era RPGs need to have narrow focus, lest you end up playing "Paychecks and Pocketbooks". While playing an average joe is OK, we all want to play the heroic character, and to be properly heroic, you need something to be heroic against.

Think about this, how engaging would a Modern Era RPG be if it only modeled reality, and did not provide anything for the characters to do other than their jobs. It would be boring, wouldn't it?

But that is what a lot of SFRPGs are: A Modern Era RPG without the heroics, set in the Future. So instead of doing your 9 to 5, eat dinner, watch the tube while drinking a beer, you  do your 10 to 4, replicate dinner, watch the holotank and suck down a bheer bulb.

A good SFRPG needs a theme, a set of conflicts, something to strive against or for. It need not be one theme or set of conflicts, that's fine as long as you as the game designer make sure they don't contradict each other. Besides, that's what supplement are for. :-)

I don't know that a lot of the SFRPG's are 'without heroics'--I think that while Traveler was not 'heroic' in model, it certainly created a world in which characters could and did lead interesting lives. I think most space games are like that, really and we do have games that are Papers and Paychecks to look at:

Danger International was a lot like Papers and Paychecks. There was some suggestion that you might be a spy or a mercenary or whatever but they didn't force you to be. I played a whole host of normal guys to whom, eventually, interesting things happened. GURPS was even better for this.

But I really wanted to be able to be that normal guy, at least for a time. That was key to my enjoyment. Papers and Paychecks is the first half a Stephen King novel. Papers and Paychecks is the begining of most horror movies and a lot of spy-stories.

In none of those games did the RPing experience devolve to a 9-to-5 where nothing ever happened. I think an SFRPG starts with a great deal more potential for characters to lead dramatic lives.

-Marco

[daMoose_Neo]

I think an SFRPG starts with a great deal more potential for characters to lead dramatic lives.

Actually, nothing has a better advantage over another.
A) You can kill Orcs in a high-fantasy world
B) You can kill Ogres in a more traditional fantasy world
C) You can kill Infidels in a historical recreation
D) In any of the above, you could farm mud and run from the kings men. Or BE the kings men.

A) You can hunt Vampires
B) You can fight Warewolves
C) You can BE a Vampire or Werewolf
D) You can hunt Criminals
E) You can fight natural calamities
F) In all of the above you can bag groceries downtown or run from drug dealers or BE drug dealers

A) You can kill bugs
B) You can kill empiric, domonating, technologically advanced aliens
C) You can BE any of the above
D) You can haul freight or file papers

All worlds or ideas have as much potential. Why is it any more interesting to file Shipping Papers for Tangerian Spice Wine in 2334 than filing Shipping Papers for French Wine in 2004? Its still filing papers for wine. Its still killing others, its still hunting others.
Take into account, according to the period 50 or 60 years ago, we were supposed to be in colonies on Mars in 2000. Hell, in the 70's, we were supposed to have space stations all over our own solar system in 1999. Our present is their "science fiction".
What is really more fun or interesting about filing shipping papers for wine 330 years from now? To the character, so what if the wine is from Tangeria. Just as many of us don't care how many of our cars come from Japan. Someone fresh from December of 1941 would care though.

Drama is everywhere. EVERYTHING is dramatic to the right person. A broken nail, a broken relationship, a broken spine, a broken nuclear reactor. To some they're ho hum, to others they're sources of high drama.
So, why exactly does Sci-Fi have more potential?

[Marco]

Marco,

I think you are strenuously arguing against a point I didn't even express my opinion on: Brian's essay in particular and whether it is correct, incorrect, good, bad, ugly, right, wrong, or whatever. I'm talking about something else entirely, so Point 1 on your list is just noise to me and I don't know why you are again detailing it (in response to me).

I had thought, based on your last paragraph, that you were suggesting a defense of what he'd written based on your interpertation of his applying the Heartbreaker theory to a mechanistic take on the fiction. My bad.

Ok, so go play a non-Sorcerer in Sorcerer. See my point? The GAME is wrong FOR YOU...the game for restricting you is not WRONG for restricting you, however.

Well, if Sorceror was claiming to be the world of Cast a Deadly Spell and I wanted to use it to explore the movie's main character: a non-magic using private eye and I couldn't--then, yes, I think I'd have a complaint.

I agree! But...it has nothing to do with Star Trek, per se. So while the story isn't invalid as a story, it isn't a Star Trek story, either. It might share elements of the setting, but you are playing a completely different game.

I disagree with your conclusion here--Harry Mudd does have 'something to do' with Star Trek and exists as legitimate commentary on the fictional work.

Considering that any RPG adaptation of a TV show is going to make some calls about what the point was or how this or that would work in the game I think saying 'objectively' that it 'isn't Star Trek' is claiming authority that neither of us has.

I could just as easily claim that NO RPG is Star Trek and any attempt to play in that universe in any way will ruin the concept of the show.

That is, you can't "explore Star Trek" by playing Harry Mudd. You especially can't do it when you play Harry Mudd and everyone else plays Federation Officers, because you are playing two very different games at the same table, even if the dice mechanics you are using are the same. Free-for-all wide-open creation is a problem in this respect.

Well, if everyone else plays Federation officers then the group will go in different directions--on a forum that has from time to time (in this thread, even) derided the idea of 'the party' and doesn't see a problem with SA's taking people in different directions, I don't see why that would be a big deal really--but that aside, I think not only can I "explore Star Trek" with Mudd--but I can, in fact, explore it in some ways that playing Federation officers just plain does not allow.

And who says everyone else will be an officer?

This is true only to an extent. If we are exploring issues of emotion and intuition over logic, having tools like Data and Spock or Asimov's robots creates characters that would change in a modern setting.

Yes, but they ARE tools -- disguised as characters, you bet. What's their purpose? It isn't "to be an android". It is to highlight and comment upon the human condition -- and this is where SF games seem to utterly fail.

All the adherence in the world to real physics, all the cool gadgets available, is not going to produce this aspect of Science Fiction out of thin air. Thinking it will, just because you COULD do something like that sounds eerily similar to me to the mistaken belief that if you sit down and just play your characters, somehow it will all eventually be a story.

I think I can if the situation and character is front-loaded. In fact, I think I do (we can argue about what 'a story' is--of course--but for the belief to actually be mistaken I think we'd have to both agree on your terms and I doubt we do).

In my opinion, this is where the problem is with SF heartbreaker games: the "well, you can do/be ANYTHING" syndrome (often "because it is realistic, and SF is about realism, right?"). This IS the Harry Mudd problem from above. Sure, you CAN play Harry Mudd against the Federation, rife with premise and et al. But the chances that anything coherent is really going to develop out of the more-than-probable mess most groups are going to make of the free-for-all is slim.

Well, I think you are engaging in fortune-telling there. I want to play Harry Mudd against the Federation because I think it'd be *great*--I think that a coherent narrative would evolve without much effort due to the intrinsic forces inherent in the world and characters. I think that it'd be gripping and wonderful and I know at least two GM's who could do it without any problem whatsoever.

Why a mess? Because we're going and making characters without talking to each other? Because the GM made the adventure and then didn't tell us anything about it and won't change it? I mean, if we're going to plan-ahead for failure, yes--it'll fail.

But that you think the 'why' of Mudd has to do with realism is beyond me. It's because Mudd is the counterpoint to the humans while still being one of them. That oughta be plenty of why.

Yes. Color = Kick. We're in complete agreement here. However, technology is only meant to showcase the human aspect of the story, and as such, secondary. This is what SF games seem to miss: they try to be SF by being about the "General Products hull". This is what I believe "breaks the heart" about such SF games, because they are nothing like their source genre in a very noticable way in this fashion.

You can call it 'color' but I think that means you don't see the other half of the heart of sicence fiction. Replacing the GP Hull with a "magical hull" isn't quite the same, IMO.

If we're going to call Kick 'Color' then SF is one of those movies that would really, really suffer in black and white. I think that in the best SF, the concepts that deal with physics are integral and exciting.

I disagree here, simply because I feel the nature of SF as literature and the nature of Fantasy as literature differ so broadly in this respect. This is simply not about Narrativism vs. Simulationism. It IS about "genre versimilitude", which is required by both Narrativist and Simulationist modes (and to a lesser extent, about "playability").

Just so I'm clear: I think it's obvious that 'really being in the future' is a technique, not (necessiarily) a focus. It's a way to get to the human interest stuff. Would you say that a game that lets you "really be a guy in ... 1960's New York" is "incapable of having a human interest focus"?

-Marco

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Everyone, play nice, please. Wandering as this thread might be, I'm gaining an immense amount of perspective and (I hope) insight from it.

Best,
Ron

[Marco]

So, why exactly does Sci-Fi have more potential?

That was, really, in response to the papers-and-paychecks-is-boring argument. I agree that any genre will be equally drama laden.

-Marco

[clehrich]

I'm sorry, but I really think there's a lot of misreading going on here.

Brian laid out a few points succinctly and clearly:

[*]SFHBs take their lead from Traveller (and a few other early games)
[*]SFHBs tend to have very crunchy combat systems, derived ultimately from miniatures
[*]SFHBs take very little advantage of the vast range and complexity of the literary and other SciFi genre
[*]SFHBs are very rarely innovative in mechanics, though they sometimes tout themselves so
[*]SFHBs generally lean on a narrow type of space opera genre which has in other media not actually survived very well—the Traveller computers look quaint, for example
[*]SFHBs commonly put a lot of time into creating aliens which are basically cheesy knockoffs of (a) the bug-eyed monster, (b) the human culture stereotype, or (c) the earth animal turned sentient species
[*]SFHBs emphasize combat as the sole form of important conflict[/list:u]Then Brian goes on and makes some suggestions for getting out of this narrow pattern.

As far as I can tell, Brian buys these games religiously in the hope that maybe this time things will be different.  They never turn out to be, so they break his heart.

These things are heartbreakers a la Ron's essay because

[*]They constantly recapitulate the structures of one small group of early games (Traveller, Star Frontiers, etc.)
[*]They keep touting themselves as doing something new, when they don't
[*]They are deeply naive about what buyers will actually want
[*]They are clearly worked out in a lot of depth because the designers love them[/list:u]So what's hard about this?

What I have not read, in four pages of discussion, is someone saying, "No, these games do not do this."  I have not heard someone say that there aren't a huge number of games that fit this description.  I have not heard someone claim that this description is not basically Traveller and Star Frontiers over again.

What I have heard is:

[*]No, Star Frontiers was different. – Not the point, as it's one of the founding games.
[*]No, what I like about SciFi is different.  – Totally irrelevant.
[*]No, I define SciFi differently. – Totally irrelevant.
[*]No, you're just trashing SciFi games. – On the contrary, Brian has I think made a pitch for why he continues to buy the things and how he just keeps hoping that one day they'll break out of their self-imposed shell.[/list:u]I realize this is going to be taken as a flame or something, but I don't mean it so.  I think we've wandered rather far afield.

One thing Brian does not discuss, and I am not at all sure he should have, is games that explicitly depend upon a specific work of sci-fi — Dune, Star Trek, etc.  I'm not sure such games could be heartbreakers by his definition or Ron's.  It's an interesting question, and worth discussion, but I think completely irrelevant here.

[Kedamono]

Brian laid out a few points succinctly and clearly:

[*]SFHBs take their lead from Traveller (and a few other early games)
[*]SFHBs tend to have very crunchy combat systems, derived ultimately from miniatures
[*]SFHBs take very little advantage of the vast range and complexity of the literary and other SciFi genre
[*]SFHBs are very rarely innovative in mechanics, though they sometimes tout themselves so
[*]SFHBs generally lean on a narrow type of space opera genre which has in other media not actually survived very well—the Traveller computers look quaint, for example
[*]SFHBs commonly put a lot of time into creating aliens which are basically cheesy knockoffs of (a) the bug-eyed monster, (b) the human culture stereotype, or (c) the earth animal turned sentient species
[*]SFHBs emphasize combat as the sole form of important conflict[/list:u]
Then Brian goes on and makes some suggestions for getting out of this narrow pattern.

As far as I can tell, Brian buys these games religiously in the hope that maybe this time things will be different. They never turn out to be, so they break his heart.

These things are heartbreakers a la Ron's essay because

[*]They constantly recapitulate the structures of one small group of early games (Traveller, Star Frontiers, etc.)
[*]They keep touting themselves as doing something new, when they don't
[*]They are deeply naive about what buyers will actually want
[*]They are clearly worked out in a lot of depth because the designers love them[/list:u]

Thanks Chris for summarizing this. I will debate one point above. One of the SFHBs Brian listed was one I playtested and did some design work for: FTL:2448

The combat system, one of the deadliest and most intricate in doing damage, was based in part on the combat system in The Morrow Project, and is not based on miniature combat, even though we would on occasion use miniatures.

Another is that Star Frontiers is not in the same caliber as Traveller. It was released 7-8 years after Traveller. I consider it a second generation SFRPG, wonderful production values, beautiful star map, and boring. I tried running campaign it failed in two sessions. My Traveller campaign lasted for years.

Everyone forgets about what almost was the first SFRPG: Starships and Spacemen, a thinly veiled Star Trek ripoff that was basically D&D in Spaaace with lasers instead of swords. It was so bad I didn't even try to run a game with it.

So in that sense it was Heartbreaker, and it invalidates some of the points Brian made:

[*]It was developed at the same time as Traveller, but due to production problems was second to the public.
[*]Had a very basic combat system as to be laughable.
[*]Had no innovative mechanics as far as I can remember.
[*]Leaned heavily on Star Trek in everything but name only.
[*]Almost no effort was put into aliens other than paragraph of description.[/list:u]

Looking at Ron's list, well, Starships and Spacemen hits two of his points. In fact S&S could be included in his first bullet point as one of the ur-games that spawned all the other SFRPGs. As for his last bullet point... Well if you have seen S&S, it was not worked out in detail at all. Interestingly enough, neither was Traveller 1st edition.

In fact Marc Miller pretty much said that the "backstory" for Traveller didn't matter, it could be set anywhere. Later on he included the playtest campaign world, but by the book 1st edition Traveller had only barest bones setting. That is what laid the framework for all this "be what want be" GMing style, Chargen style, and playing style we see in a lot of games. That is the legacy of Traveller.

[John Kim]

These things are heartbreakers a la Ron's essay because

[*]They constantly recapitulate the structures of one small group of early games (Traveller, Star Frontiers, etc.)
[*]They keep touting themselves as doing something new, when they don't
[*]They are deeply naive about what buyers will actually want
[*]They are clearly worked out in a lot of depth because the designers love them[/list:u]So what's hard about this?

What I have not read, in four pages of discussion, is someone saying, "No, these games do not do this."  I have not heard someone say that there aren't a huge number of games that fit this description.  I have not heard someone claim that this description is not basically Traveller and Star Frontiers over again.

As far as I can tell, no one is bothering to actually discuss the games in question.  I'm not familiar with most of the games on the list, so I can't say with certainly that Brian is wrong.  However, I can and did say that for the two I was familiar with (Shatterzone and Aurora), he was completely wrong about.  

Flat out -- how many of the games listed are you thoroughly familiar with?  How many have you played?  I know you (Chris) have played Aurora, for example.  I would guess that most people here are like me, and haven't read more than a quarter of the games on the list.  Despite this, there seems no lack of people willing to leap up and make generalizations.  

Ron suggested two more: Manhunter and Xro Dinn Chronicles.  I'm at least familiar with Manhunter.  In the interest of talking about the actual cases here, I'll put in my two cents about it as well.  

On the one hand, it is combat-focused and has semi-stereotypes aliens.  However, I'm doubtful about the "heartbreaker" label.  It explicitly bills itself as "escapist entertainment" and denies pretensions otherwise.  It has a very detailed and crunchy combat system, but not at all miniatures-based.  The reward system is for point value of combat opponents defeated, which is coherent with the combat system.  It doesn't have an introductory adventure or adventure template, but it does include stats on the ten "A.T.P.D.S. Most Wanted" criminals and, well, it is called "Manhunter".  From the back cover, it touts itself on variety of characters (Terran, robotic, or alien), the "active defense" combat system, and the ship design and robot design rules.  Active defense was around in BRP-based games, but at the time of publication in 1987, it was pretty uncommon.  GURPS had only just come out, and its not in any of Traveller, Star Frontiers, Space Opera, Champions, or any others.  So I think it's claim is fair.  

* Incidentally, there is a pet peeve of mine that some people seem to call any involved combat system "miniatures-based", which I suspect is based on a belief that the one true way of RPGs is to non-combat and any combat emphasis must be a blind holdover from miniatures play.  Pure miniatures combat systems tend to have exacting rules on positioning, terrain, and movement, but very simple rules for attacks and damage.  Crunchy rules like hit location, active defense, and detailed damage are the invention of RPGs.  Manhunter has almost no rules on positioning or movement, and explicitly suggests (p71-72) that movement be dramatically appropriate rather than calculated.  

Obviously, this isn't a game for everyone.  It doesn't particularly appeal to me, for example.  It's explicitly escapist entertainment focused on role-played combat action, sprucely illustrated with nubile female aliens.  On the other hand, I think that anyone whose heart is broken that this isn't a game about social interaction with realistic multicultural aliens is, well, stupid.  It is what it is.  It's mechanical innovations are pretty passe in today's market, but for 1987 I think it was fine.  

I don't deny the possibility of a trend of designers who slavishly follow Traveller and Star Frontiers out of ignorance.  However, it ain't here.  If it exists, I'd like to see some discussion of the games which demonstrate it.  

Perhaps, but "really being in the future" is, IME, a legitimate way to get to the human-interest stuff that SF 'is about.' The virtualist-approach that those games give you is, IMO, every bit as valid as one that comes pre-packaged with a premise mechanic.

I disagree here, simply because I feel the nature of SF as literature and the nature of Fantasy as literature differ so broadly in this respect. This is simply not about Narrativism vs. Simulationism. It IS about "genre versimilitude", which is required by both Narrativist and Simulationist modes (and to a lesser extent, about "playability").

I don't think genre verisimilitude is required by both Narrativist and Simulationist modes.  Or if it is, where does that leave me, who generally doesn't give a damn about it?  I have zero interest in doing something solely because "that's how it's done in SF books" or "that's how it's done in SF movies".  While I will do games which take many tropes from a genre, I will also intentionally break the genre on other points.

[HereticalFaction]

>>>>>>>Please ignore ill-advised rambling<<<<<<<

[clehrich]

As far as I can tell, no one is bothering to actually discuss the games in question.  I'm not familiar with most of the games on the list, so I can't say with certainly that Brian is wrong.  However, I can and did say that for the two I was familiar with (Shatterzone and Aurora), he was completely wrong about.

Although I've been involved quite heavily in Aurora, and have indeed played it, I would classify it as fitting quite well into the Heartbreaker mode.  This is odd, because you (John) say that the mechanic is relatively new, which I don't dispute (because I know nothing about the history of mechanics), and clearly one big point was to have aliens who are genuinely alien.

All that said, I'd say Aurora is a heartbreaker.  It broke mine, anyway.

Ultimately, Aurora is the same damn thing as everything else: a straight-up "now we get in our spaceships or go down on the planet" sort of thing.  The novelty of Aurora lies exclusively, so far as I can tell, in the alien designs (setting aside mechanics which I can't discuss because I'm really bad on the history of mechanics).  And are these really new?

Well, to be sure, the biology of these alien beings is well thought-out.  But look at their cultures.  What's really new here?  Aurora really made a serious stab at not creating monocultures, but when push comes to shove that's exactly what happened.  Jeotsu are Jeotsu, and they have a single culture that defines them.  Uhrmina are a little more complex, but when you dig a little you find that they're very narrow.  Xor are all different -- you can tell because they're all the same.  And the A'wach are all completely different and fighting with one another -- which is because they all think, because of biological imperatives, that internecine strife is a valuable thing.

Here and there, you find odd suggestions that all this may be misunderstanding, that these species are actually wildly complicated.  That stuff came from me, in the main, and was never followed up.  Taken as an aggregate, I found that playing Aurora ultimately fell down into "okay, so we encounter the Wagagag aliens, and they're new," or "okay, so we encounter the Knownknown aliens, and they're just the same."

What in the end seems to have happened is a failure of creativity.  When push came to shove, the first design constraint for working out what happened in some alien culture was their biology.  Everything else was structured around that.  But when you look at human cultures, you find wild variation that isn't particularly about biology, unless you're talking about sex-differentiation, which is such an underlying structure that it's not really the same as "A'wach are warlike."

In play, these aliens all turned out to be alike -- Jeotsu were Jeotsu, and when there was some complicated political issue, they all fell back on "well, Jeotsu think like this end of story."

When combat happened -- I'm sorry to tell you this and you may say it's not in the rules but it does hint at the designer's motives -- yup, the miniatures and the map came out.  The main designer (whom we both know) has in fact been working steadily on a big mass-combat system to enable miniatures in space combat.

There may have been novelties in Aurora, but by gum the designers didn't want them there.  Maybe there's still a lot of great potential there, but the designer sure as hell didn't capitalize on them.  All ideas, no story, and no game.

What I do think is interesting for a larger discussion, though, is that because Aurora is in some respects so rich in world construction, what happened in my experience was a kind of "welcome to my world" thing.  That is, the games set in that world were focused on exploring how cool the designer's world was, not being cool in themselves.  And if the players weren't entirely on-board with "yes, your design is indeed cool, tell us more," the whole thing collapsed.  I do wonder what other gaming groups made of the game, and whether it worked; unfortunately I have no information on that, and don't even know if anyone else ran it from the text without the designer kibitzing.

In any event, are you seeing something I don't?

[Marco]

Chris,
What you see as misreading, I think is just disagreement. Let's take a look at this:

Of your seven main points:
1 is that the games derive from Traveler.
3 are that the games are space-opera.
3 is that they are crunchy combat-focused.


For 1 (Traveler), concerning these games, let's ask:
.- Must you play ex-military in them?
.- Is the core mechanic for most of those games a 2d6 roll-low?
.- Do many of those games use Hexidecimal for stats?
.- Can you die during char-gen in many of those derived games?
.- Do most of those games have the same ballisitcs weapons focus that Traveler did?

I don't know the answers but if there's a bunch of 'yeses' then I think we have a solid point. If the answer is 'no' then what early SF games do these derrive from? The essay doesn't say.

For the next 3 (Space opera) let's ask:
.- Does space opera tend towards mono-culture aliens?
.- Does space opera tend towards laser-guns and space ships?
.- Does technology in space opera tend to look 'quaint' today?
.- Is space opera a narrow segment of fiction like, say, Private Investigator fiction?

If the answer is 'yes' (and it is, I'm pretty sure) then we have departed *strongly* from the Heartbreaker theme. This is where Star Trek comes into the picture.

If three of the points in your list can be applied to Star Trek and Star Wars then the essay is, IMO, really making negative commentary on the fictional genre and not on the execution of the games that translate it.

For the final 3 (combat) let's ask:
.- Did Traveler, which is clearly lumped right in there, make anything other than combat fun?

The answer is "its opinion" (and my answer is 'yes'). The idea that combat-system = combat-focus is in no way proven. The idea that given no direct guidance from the game as to who the players will be the focus will be shooting games is just one person's experience.

In Star Wars, you play a rebel soldier: that's a lot of shooting things.
In Star Trek, even given the role of a bridge crew member, there was still, IMO, a good deal of shooting things.
In Star Frontiers, where you play a space-agent, there is a lot of shooting things.

In roleplaying in general there is a lot of exciting combats.

What's 'so hard about this' is that I don't think the analysis (either in the original essay or as you laid out with your bullet points) has a lot of merrit.

It gigs games on adherence to source material one minute, traditional RPG design the next. If space-opera writers can't give us complex aliens (and Raven argues that those characters are just tools for exploring the human condition) why would our hearts be broken by RPG's that faithfully reproduce that.

-Marco

[Marco]

Ultimately, Aurora is the same damn thing as everything else: a straight-up "now we get in our spaceships or go down on the planet" sort of thing.  The novelty of Aurora lies exclusively, so far as I can tell, in the alien designs (setting aside mechanics which I can't discuss because I'm really bad on the history of mechanics).  And are these really new?

I want to note that right now I am reading the second book of Walter Jon William's Dread Empire's Fall. This is stock-standard space opera. There are space ships, lasers, funky aliens, a smattering of physics, and old-fashioned computers.

It isn't a solid 'genre piece' in that, while it fits the stereotype there are no, I think, conscious or glaring intentionally cheesey elements. As far as I can tell it's just doing it's thing in a 70's style sci-fi universe.

And it's good. I like it. There are good characters, good use of technology, a well enough laid out world that there's real tactical and strategic decisions for the characters to make, good political maneuvering, etc.

It, IMO, would make a good campaign.

And while I don't know Aurora, I do know that a game that doesn't give me combat options (mainly ship-to-ship but personal as well, there is some in the book), the ability to make some aliens that are more or less human but may have their quirks, and the ability to play 'anyone' (there are nobles, street kids, military commanders, rebels, etc.) will lock me out of that universe.

Furthermore, the game that does give me the ability to run a Dread Empire story wouldn't break-my-heart, I'd dig it.

This is an example of why I find the idea that something has to be 'new' to be good fairly suspect. And also: if there is no Dread Empire game on the market then I may have to look through several of those systems to find the exact match of mechanics and characters that fits my needs.

In that case the diversity of system-specifics will be a boon rather than a frustrating experience in having seen it all before.

-Marco

[Storn]

Hmmm.

No one has mentioned Metabarons.  Where the theme is Heroes rise up out of the galactic ennui that grips society (with lots of exciting space opera fights).  But while it does have that theme, the rule book does concentrate on a lot of combat stuff.  In fact, the theme is not well laid out... it takes reading the comics in the Metabarons universe (which there are several titles) to get a handle on it.  Its a Heartbreaker w/o the comics.  With the comics is much less a Heartbreaker, because there are several examples on how to run situations that aren't combat oriented (Jon DiFool, Moebius's creation, runs from most combats)

I dunno.  For me, I think that might be the problem with scifi rpging.  Scifi is much easier to absorb in literary (or tv/movie form) than it is in role playing.  Maybe because I've swung a sword, ridden a horse, farmed crops... I have a visceral understanding of those things.  I don't have a visceral understanding of zero gee, xeno contact or zipping ftl.


Of course, I have imagination.  I can imagine zero gee, aliens and ftl just fine.  But my point is that a lot of the elements in scifi rulebooks, the equipment, the long history of HOW HUMANITY GOT TO THIS POINT, the societal deviations from our own, is just NOT EASILY ABSORBED.  So game designers focus on what is easily absorbed, combat generated conflict.

In fantasy, a lot of that stuff can be glossed over, because I have a gamer's understanding of feudal society (after all, that is looking backwards), equipment lists aren't difficult (shovel, axe, sword... pretty basic stuff, and I've used all of them personally).  But Super-multi use scanners have to be defined in game mechanics so we know how to use them in play.  In a novel or tv or movie, the spaceship scanner works just so.  Firefly's (Serenity) scanners work at a different level than the Enterprises.  There are no mechanics, it was simply the creator's decisions that made it so.

That doesn't work for gaming.  It needs to be defined, so it can be used in play.  Often for purposes that push its design specs.  "Can I calibrate the scanner to search only for bio-organic robots?"

What breaks my heart about almost all scifi games is that I want the depth of exploration of that universe without ridiculous amounts of detail for details sake.  Traveller really started the ball.  Spaceship construction is horribly complex... yes, spaceships probably would be horribly complex to construct... but this is a game.  I want the gist of what is to be a spacefaring society more than I want the gist of spaceship engineering.

When you add all the booklets, I remember Traveller as being this immense, complicated mess of a unverse.  Cool in a lot of ways, but also a bit sterile and emotionless.

Which brings me back to Metabarons.  Because of the comic source as background, it is anything but emotionless... operatic and wacky weird french stuff... but not emotionless.  

I have not come across a scifi product that has described its geist succinctly except maybe Trinity.  And I have never successfully run a science fiction campaign, although I've tried several times.  It comes down to this.  I think scifi is simply harder to do.  There is more to define, more to think about and no one has done it to my knowledge with organization and brevity combined with the necessary detail.  I DO believe it can be done.  Especially now, with 25 years of role playing behind us to draw upon.