Serenity is what Firefly in the 'Verse should be

[Judaicdiablo]

Hi,

   If this thread isn't appropriate, please kill it or let me know.  Anyhow, I just want to encourage everyone out there to go to Serenity (like I really need to do that.)  Oh and I don't know if this thread will spawn spoilers (and I hope that it doesn't), but if you have already seen the movie, then stop even looking at this thread and go see the movie instead.

   That being said, watching Serenity was almost painfully beautiful for me to watch.  I can only dream that my FitV game could be a quarter and beautiful and poignant as many parts of this movie.  It is definately going to push me to push the bar for my players.  I suspect that I had gone into this game half hearted, wanting my players to win (or at least to not lose.)  Well, as I told my players the other day:  I am aim to win every conflict now and there will be no mercy.  I am the enemy, I am the verse.  If they want to keep flying then they better want it and they better want it bad.

    I am very happy that I passed up my chance to see a sneak preview of Serenity of Tuesday and chose to run my game instead.  I believe that it made the movie better for me and in turn it will make the better now that I know what needs to be done.

--Brandon

"Can't stop the signal"  Mr. Universe

[hix]

There's a scene in the temple that felt like a perfect example of escalation to me.

[John Harper]

Serenity is so much a Dogs movie, I could hardly believe it. Did Matt also send a copy of Dogs to Joss when he sent PTA? Sure seems that way.

"Do you know what your sin was, doctor? Pride."

I got chills. Serious, real, goosebumps. Man!

The Operative is a Dog. Just noodle on that one, folks. I mean... damn. Which of course makes Mal the biggest, baddest Sorcerer ever, with a flying armada of demonic influence at his back.

Shepherd Book? Is actually a Shepherd. Who (in the moral universe of the Operative) harbors a Sorcerer and allows demonic influence to spread. What's a Dog to do?

Wow. As if Serenity wasn't enjoyable enough on its own.

[Judaicdiablo]

I agree that the Operative is a Dog and if you want to play Dogs in the 'Verse, then there is your scenario.  However, I must point out that I want my game to be about the type of People who live on Serenity.  Thus, the game becomes Serenity in the Verse and you move to the Job centric POV, rather than the Sin centric POV.

Serenity is so much a Dogs movie, I could hardly believe it. Did Matt also send a copy of Dogs to Joss when he sent PTA? Sure seems that way.

I do think that we are looking at all of this backwards though.  We need to give Vincent credit for tapping into one of the most powerful themes in literature, but those themes are out there.  It should not be surprising that Joss has tapped into those self same themes and used them to create a powerful story.  He uses these themes throughout his storylines.  In many ways, Dogs is a very focused PTA game (with a different mechanic) where the premise of the show revolves around showing up in a sinful town and then dealing with it.  Creating a PTA Dogs game would take almost no time at all.  Each episode is a town.  Each Dog is a bad ass with issues.  Go!

--Brandon

[John Harper]

I do think that we are looking at all of this backwards though.  We need to give Vincent credit for tapping into one of the most powerful themes in literature, but those themes are out there.

Brandon it's because we're friends that I can say:
You're kidding! Vincent didn't make up justice and vengeance and mercy? I could have sworn he did. What about friendship and sacrifice? He did make those up, right?

[Judaicdiablo]

Ok, you got me.  He did make up sacrifice.  I hear, although I am not sure, that it was actually Matt who made up Friendship, but please don't quote me on that.

--Brandon

[ivan23]

Actually ... while I lurk most of the time, I do want to speak up here. I went to see the film with a few friends who have fallen in love with Dogs. When Serenity landed on Shepherd Book's ruined settlement and the Operative came across the screen, my friend leaned over and whispered, "There's a dog."

Five minutes later, when Mal's revealed his plan to "decorate" Serentity, I had to lean over to whisper, "No - that is."

In my opinion, it's the willingness to sacrifice something that means something to you that makes Dogs really work. Making a decision to kill hundreds of evildoers? Not a big deal (in character) for anyone who's been playing RPGs for any amount of time. Making the decision to defile your own home and the bodies of your friends in pursuit of what's right? That's a damnsight harder.

Just my two cents.

[lumpley]

Okay, you have to imagine me shoving awkwardly at my glasses and talking nasally to show that I really mean it, here.

The Firefly crew are obviously Dogs. The operative is obviously a sorcerer. And exorcised at the end!

-Vincent

[John Harper]

Bah... that's Vincent for ya... always wanting to cast the Dogs as the heroes.

When we all know that they're really just righteous thugs keeping the little guy in line. "Worship the right way, or you get a bullet in the brain!"

I mean... what's next? A game where we play a bunch of loser satan worshippers that hurt small animals?

[kanseg]

Hi all,

This is my first post in a couple of years (I think).  Anyway I just got a message from Vincent telling me KPFS had been revised.  Next thing I know I'm ordering Dogs in the Vineyard..  The reason why?  Because in the last two weeks I have seen Serenity and purchased the Firefly DVD boxset. 

Now I purchased the Serenity RPG because I thought it would have useful background material and it does.  However, to play the game as I see the Verse my first thought when I saw the advert for DITV several hours ago was "Wait a second - this is perfect for the Firefly verse!"

My current reading of this forum and the PDF (as I await my own print copy) is proving I made the right choice.

All praise to this most excellent of games.

Regards

Harry

[tonyd]

Alright, nobody's stepping in and doing the job, so I've got to be the one to do it.

Serenity ain't dogs. It's not. It just isn't.

Yeah, you're all watching Serenity and seeing dogs because Serenity is giving you what dogs gives you. You see sacrifice, friendship, all that stuff JudaicDiablo mentioned. You see sin and choice approached as things that can change the world and people, and you recognize that from Dogs too.

But we've also got to look at the ways Serenity isn't dogs. As we've seen in our Dogs-Firefly game, what the crew of Serenity do. Isn't what Dogs do. In fact, as was pointed out, the operative is more dog-like than the crew. The problem is that the crew of Serentiy haven't chosen to be tied to anyone but themselves. When you try to cast Serenity as a Dogs game, you run into difficulties in tying the crew to the setting.

OK, I may have overstated it. Serenity and Dogs are pretty compatible. But I think that if you were aiming at Serentiy as your gameplay experience, you'd need to tweak the rules a bit. I'm not sure I know exactly what that tweak is, though.

[lumpley]

Tony, spill! What's happening in your game?

What problems are you having tying your characters to your setting?

-Vincent

[tonyd]

Well, JudaicDiable expressed a desire to post on this topic, seeing as he's the GM. On the other hand, i know he just flew home for the holiday, so I don't know when he's going to get around to posting on the subject.

Firefly in The Vineyard has been realy top notch gaming, great stuff, loads of fun. It's not that FitV doesn't work, it's just that it works differently than Dogs, though it's hard to characterize exactly how. For me, it's that a town in Dogs has a well defined set of boundaries. In Firefly, however, the action doesn't always have that tight boundary. It can range all over the place geographically. I'm not sure the town creation rules work when the story can go anywhere in the 'verse. Probably with a bunch of gaming sessions you could come up with some job creation rules that would replace the town creation rules. I think it would be a worthy effort and might illuminate some interesitng issues.

[rafial]

Hmmm... for me the biggest disconnect has been that in Dogs, the PCs are assumed to be in authority, and while other may challenge that, it's something for the PCs to face as equals, whereas in firefly, the PCs are assumed to be picking their way among forces much greater than themselves.

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

There's a difference between moral authority and formal authority. In a Faithful town, the Dogs have both. In an Unfaithful town, they have exactly the authority that the people there allow them to have, given that the people are afraid of their guns.

Just like in the case of formal authority.

Tony,towns aren't really places. They could be huge, vast. They're collections of characters that have been put in a jar and shaken until they fight. It doesn't matter how far away they are from each other physically as long as they're acting on their increasingly tense relationships.