Firefly setting for Dogs in the Vineyard rules set

[Cooper]

I know this has been covered in other threads before, but I had an idea and was curious what people think about trying to use the whole Dogs rule set instead of just the die rolling convention (and leaving out the low prep scenario part).

The character creation and all of that is easy to modify, but when it comes to building towns (a.k.a. adventures), would it not be best to phrase the level of trouble by what kind of threats are posed to the ship (a.k.a. "the crews family and home")? To me, there was no episode that was not without that ship or without one or more of the crew being threaten, so it seems more natural to incorporate that into the level of "Something is wrong."

We recently played the Serenity rpg, and it is okay, but it's rules are not very inspiring. So, my players and I are talking about using other rules for the game. PTA, Spirit of the Century and Savage Worlds came to mind, but we have gotten quite a bit of mileage out of DiTV over the past year.

Any thoughts?

[lumpley]

Oh that's interesting. Creating probs for the ship instead of creating a problematic town. Huh.

Here's something pretty old that you might find useful: Neel Krishnaswami on Getting rid of the {TECH}

-Vincent

[Cooper]

Thanks for that link! I could have sworn someone put out something like that for Firefly on the Cortex site, but it might have been me wishing someone would have (the ship rules for Serenity are really dumb, because it tries to explain crap that needs no explanation).

I will be honest, I really don't feel the need to play Dogs in the Vineyard in any other way then it was written because I really, really like it. But, this was kind of a discussion with two of my players on using DiTV for other things and so that is when I thought of how you would modify the "Something is Wrong." I personally feel that PTA (and maybe Spirit of the Century or shadow of yesterday) might be better for this TV show. But for sake of creative thinking (and in case it might help someone else out there... if not me):

Threats could be either:
1. Well, our ship is falling apart and we need the money
and/or
2. The crew is in trouble

Maybe? Some sort of combination and then work you way up to more scary problems (the worst thing that could happen is the ship is totaled and the crew is in deadly trouble)?

I swear I have been thinking a while on this, but when I type it out, it sounds like this could not work that well with Firefly, at least the "Something is wrong" part. The main thing for us when wanting to play Firefly is to play the characters from the show (after all, that is why we love the show, right?).

Maybe I spoke too quickly on this idea....

[Falc]

It's important to keep a sequence of events going, ramping up.

"The ship needs repairs."
Leads to: "The crew needs to take on a shady mission."
Leads to: "A crewmember finds himself in danger."
Leads to: "The other members need to go even deeper in trouble to save him/her."
Leads to: "The entire crew is in danger."

Just a little brainstorm, maybe it'll help. But in a way, I think you are really on to something here. Firefly isn't about going 'round the 'verse and saving communities, it's always about the crew. It's certainly an interesting twist on the DitV concept (imagine Dogs in a setting where the demons won and now the Dogs need to save themselves first...) and I believe it could work.