Galactic!

[Matt Wilson]

They can have whatever kind of ship they want. There's no "space combat" section in the rules, and there won't be one. Your ship can hold three people or a hundred. It can be totally unarmed or it can be a mega warship.

[John Harper]

Hmmm. The "whatever kind of ship you want" system seems pretty odd to me, for a sci-fi game that bothers to discuss its technology. Isn't "ship coolness" at least a part of what makes the game fun? I know it's not the focus (and full-on space combat rules would be too much) but a blank slate strikes me as the wrong thing.

It's a sci-fi game about spaceship captains, after all. A cyberpunk game that just said "you're a cyborg, have whatever cyborg stuff you want" would ring a little hollow.

Maybe you could get to build your ship from a little list of traits, which would provide the basis for the color (kind of what Doyce suggested). Or maybe your factions determine a few things about the type of vessel you command. I dunno. Something.

[Matt Wilson]

That sounds like speculation. Where's my big stick?

[Hans]

If there is anyone who is planning on putting together a playtest session of this game at GenCon, may I suggest the Games On Demand sessions?  In fact, the one on Saturday morning would be perfect, because that is one of the ones I am running, and I would get to see it in action!  As a friend of mine said, after reading the playtest rules, "This is what Traveller SHOULD have been!"

[Doyce]

I do have to echo one of John's comments, even with the big stick looming.  I think I can dodge it a bit, however, as this was a comment made by one of the players in my game tonight.

"There's stuff on the sheet for our crew. Where do we right the ship stuff, or is that another sheet?"  I'm just pointing out that there's an obvious expectation that the ship will be represented in some way.

I think John's comment is a fair one: the heroes aren't 'crew captains', they're 'starship captains.'  One of the examples used in the Archetype section and one of the example for the GM spending Hazard involve space battles (or at least an impending fight in space) with the ships.  I think the reason for that is obvious: it's space-based sci-fi.

I'm certainly not arguing that people aren't the most important thing in this situation -- they absolutely are.  However, this is the kind of thing that matters in the genre -- there's isn't one bit of source material (Firefly, Farscape, Battlestar, Star Trek, etc etc) for a game like this where the ship doesn't some up at least some of the time.  I don't think that a seperate, designated-as-the-ship pool of dice (like the Gear rules) would be difficult to write in or unbalancing, because it's much less likely to have impact on a given scene, but would be there if the scene was appropriate.

Again, it's just a thought -- get the big stick ready.

That all said, I'm certainly presenting the rules exactly as written tonight, without judgment, comment or house ruling anything, so that any feedback speaks directly to them.

[Doyce]

And honestly?  One line in the Gear section (maybe with one of those awesome little examples of play to suggest ways to narrate it) about bringing your Ship in with just Gear dice during spacey-stuff would shut me totally up.

[Michael McAleese]

Since the only game mechanic is the dice, introducing the ship as a separate element would seem to require giving the player extra dice they could use in, say "space situations". But what are space situations? If I'm on the surface of the planet I could justify using my ship dice for an orbital bombardment, a message relay or interception, all sorts of things. So the ship dice become generally added gear dice really.

It seems to me the ship could be simply represented by the gear dice, when it's appropriate to describe them that way. In story terms your exact ship doesn't matter, it's just how you describe its use. Thus a small Firefly class vessel can be gear dice vs a giant Alliance battlecruiser by describing how its small size and low ELINT profile allows it to hide behind the hulk of the ship you're looting, or when you spend 3 fortune and bring in your Scoundrel archetype the gear dice now represent the decoy distress signal you're sending.

Another way would be to describe the ship as a crewmember. I can think of one anime (Lost Universe) that does this by having the ship holographically present itself as an avatar with a personality and emotions, but you could equally just use the crewmember dice in any situation in which the ship's superior capabilities would be an issue.

[Matt Wilson]

One line in the Gear section (maybe with one of those awesome little examples of play to suggest ways to narrate it) about bringing your Ship in with just Gear dice during spacey-stuff would shut me totally up.

It seems to me the ship could be simply represented by the gear dice, when it's appropriate to describe them that way.

*Ahem*  See page 12.

"A character's Gear Pool represents his or her trademark possessions, items, garments, tools and sometimes weapons that will give a character that extra boost to get out of a jam. It can even represent the systems on a character's ship or a handy vehicle."

[Sydney Freedberg]

Conversely, it strikes me as highly in-genre to depict the ship's systems in terms of people, i.e. crew -- your engines are Scotty or Kaylee, your medical bay is Bones McCoy or Simon Tam, etc.

[Matt Wilson]

Conversely, it strikes me as highly in-genre to depict the ship's systems in terms of people, i.e. crew -- your engines are Scotty or Kaylee, your medical bay is Bones McCoy or Simon Tam, etc.

Since people are playing crewmembers and are able to contribute to conflicts via their crewmembers, that's a perfectly fine way to do it.

[Doyce]

It seems to me the ship could be simply represented by the gear dice, when it's appropriate to describe them that way.

*Ahem*  See page 12.

Yeah, yeah... I realized that on Friday night...

Which I should FINALLY be able to post an actual play report for today.  I got about 5% of my thoughts/notes down on the wiki, but got interrupted by a cling-monkey that looked suspiciously like my daughter.

[Matt Wilson]

A playtest at Gen Con and some discussion over lunch today with Meredith made for a crazy audible click in my head.

Expect a revision soon that will be seriously awesome.

[Georgios Panagiotidis]

Hey Matt, I got to play Galactic last Friday and it was a blast. Great work! I just downloaded the current version and will try it out with my regular group. I hope Tim will do an AP report here.

I love the way the supporting cast is there to make the Captain look good, and by extension the player have the kind of adventure he's looking for. :) One thing I noticed was the lack of one-shot guidelines. Something like a simplified version of the game, if you're not sure whether you want to commit to an entire campaign. I think we dropped (or at least heavily simplified) the Impairment rules, thus allowing for some simple straight-forward fun. This had a lot to do with why this game got me so fired up. The struggle against the Scrouge is fun, if you're looking for a campaign. But occasionally you just want some old-fashioned Kirk-style adventuring, and Galactic seems perfect for that.

We had 4 players in the game, which was great for character interaction and throwing ideas back and forth between players, but it also meant we had to run 4 adventures at once. It made the game seem much longer and harder to run, than is really necessary. During the post-game talks, I suggested a switching mode: allowing for only two captains to be active during a game session. With the other two players getting to play their captains next time. I really wouldn't want to miss out on the breadth of characters available with 4 players, but I'm not sure I can play a 4-in-1 game each week.

Looking forward to your revision. The game we played rocked so hard, I'm still grinning like a madman four days later. If you're taking pre-orders, sign me up. :)

[Doyce]

A playtest at Gen Con and some discussion over lunch today with Meredith made for a crazy audible click in my head.

Expect a revision soon that will be seriously awesome.

Not to noodge, but how soon's soon?  I'm likely to be running sessions this weekend. (*glee*)

[Matt Wilson]

Ack. I'll put together a special Doyce thingy for you ASAP.