ZAON | Sci-Fi RPG

[Paul Czege]

Hey Justin,

First, the game is shaping up pretty well in terms of being a great generic setting, with some parallels to Bab5, SW, and some Trek, but I'm having trouble finding something truly and uniquely 'ZAON' in the setting.

I think Christoffer nailed it on this issue with, "What you need to decide is what type of myth suits you the best." But I want to follow up his suggestion with a recommendation that you challenge your assumptions about what this myth might be like, and how it might be delivered to potential players through your game and its text. The solution employed by most games is to write an elaborate treatise on the game world's history and social structure. My suggestion is to read very carefully Fang Langford's http://indie-rpgs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2973">theory about metaphor, and decide how it applies to ZAON. What meaningful conflict do the trappings of your setting represent? I think that's what Christoffer is calling "myth." And I think the game text you write once you've answered that question will be much leaner and effective than the world-building efforts you find in other games, simply because the stuff that doesn't support your core "myth" will naturally be painted with a much lighter brush.

Paul

[Walt Freitag]

Hi Justin, and welcome to the Forge!

My question is, how much of this material is already set in stone? With your Web page rumbling at me in the background and after a quick look through your 256-page rulebook PDF, it appears that the work is largely complete. And that's an unfortunate time to be asking, in so many words, "what should this game be about?"

The same issue might apply to the discussion of initiative as well. Mike's comments and the examples he points to are pure gold. But are such issues really in play here, or has it already come down to the question (openly discussed in the rule book) of whether or not to add a die roll to the current stat-based precedence?

Here are some first impressions on the potential unique Zaon-ness of the setting.

One, you have an extraordinarly crowded galaxy here. There's little in the way of a "great frontier" or a sense of the vastness of space; instead, it comes across more like a built-out continent. If you choose to bring this more into the foreground, you could have a strong parallel with the modern world, in which the doctrine of "go forth and multiply" held over from earlier eras in which it was necessary for survivial has become counterproductive. (You'd have to work out what the crucial scarce or threatening-to-become-scarce commodity is. Since you have starships, it cannot plausibly be energy, or anything that can usually be fabricated given sufficient energy and access to space gasses, such as food or water. Perhaps just simple living space.)

Another striking characteristic of your setting is the lack of religion as a major force in history or in current politics or species relations. Especially in the Zaon Empire, which inevitably evokes the Roman Empire. Surely some of the backwater-refugee-colonies-turned-militarist-states would see their wars as jihad rather than conquest or territory disputes. Such a large and heterogeneous setting should be an extremely fertile growth medium for species-crossing memes and cultural upheavals sweeping in waves across the hinterlands and Imperial capitals alike. So much so, that the setting might not feel right unless you explain their lack.

The interesting thing about the Trek and B5 settings is the interaction and collision of cultures. The best of those adventures got the main characters involved in those interactions at a fairly high, sometimes world-history-altering, level. You appear to be following in the path of many other generic SF settings, and squeezing the player-characters' scope of involvement into too small a scale to get involved in that (except perhaps at the trivial level of "how does the Klingon crewman get along with the half-Romulan crewman"). It's always about my ship, my crew, my trader-family; the little guy trying to survive while being squeezed and threatened by large forces; the Imperial Navy lieutenant or captain being sent on missions of a sensitive nature. There's nothing wrong with that, but you can do it in any generic SF setting. "I piloted my freighter/smuggler/exploration ship to ZabbaDabba to pick up some replacement fittings. I had to fight off some pirates along the way, then ran afould of a corrupt Customs official who was threatening to impound my ship. I saved the day by exposing him, proving he was in league with the pirates." Quick, which setting am I playing in? Star Wars? Star Trek? Traveller? Alien? Firefly? The Spanish Main? Does it matter?

If you want the sweep and diversity of your setting to be important in play, rather than fodder for endless sourcebooks and occasional trivia contests at gaming cons, Zaon needs to do three things. One, get culture right into the core of the system. Cultural Attributes that work like TROS's Spiritual Attributes would be one way to bring the elements of cross-culture interaction into the fighting and into other areas. This could bring together in one mechanism a wide variety of character elements including alien abilities, unusual backgrounds or training, cultural habits and characteristics, personal relationships, causes that inspire (including religious and political belief systems), and mental powers.

Two, make those cultures interesting, in their own rights as well as in their interactions with each other. What do they hate? What have they suffered in their distant and recent pasts? What ideas unite them and divide them? What are their plans for their own futures? Whom do they eat?

Three, get the players directly involved in situations where unfamiliar cultures interact. One possibility is presented in the more recent of the Miles Vorkosigan novels by Lois McMaster Bujold, in the form of Miles' "imperial auditor" role. Or look into the old Retief stories by Laumer. If the 300 alien races are going to be something more than 300 different sets of stat adjustments, then the game has to get the players to where their homeworlds or colony worlds or space fleets are.

Some originality might be called for in ships and their missions. You want a ship and crew with a scope of mission close to that of the Enterprise, but without the annoying military hierarchy (which inclides the inconvenient fact of everyone except the captain automatically being in a secondary role.) Think of the adventure potential, for example, of a ship whose mission is interspecies art acquisition for the Zaon Imperial Museum. Or an independent contractor ship with the capacity to carry four million (human-sized) passengers or refugees from planet to planet, for any of the many reasons that might become necessary. (I especially like this last one; it lets you combine many of the starship and space station adventure tropes, as well as plenty of opportunity to get involved in high-level events involving cultural interactions and upheavals.)

- Walt

PS Weren't "Zaons" the persecuted pseudo-Jews in the Star Trek episode with the Nazi planet? (The similarity of the word to "Zion" was probably not coincidental.)

[mahoux]

Walt-
Beautiful.  You said so elegantly what I had stored up in my tiny, little brain and tried to put down.

Oh, and I had that Zaon/Zion Star Trek thing going through my head too.

Aaron Houx

[ZaonDude]

@PaleFire - A Myth is exactly what ZAON needs. See below.

@Matt - Yes, I'm the 'ZAON Netrep' guy from rpg.net :-)  Also, if you have looked at ZAON a while ago, it is recently vastly improved—such that you may want to take another look now. Also, I'm not sure I'd call it 'simulationist', because by far our foremost goal is playability and speed. But, we have endeavored to include as much simulation as possible where that simulation in no way harms the playability or entertainment aspects of the game.

@Demonspahn - A mathematic mythos works great for movies like Contact (which I loved up until the end), but I'm not sure it's "cool" enough for mainstream players to grasp and enjoy. It would appeal almost exclusively to intellectuals.

@MikeHolmes - I haven't considered no initiative at all. But, perhaps my use of the term 'initiative' isn't exactly correct. Though the system is turn-based, all action is simultaneous within that turn from both/all sides of a conflict. The main point in addition to seeing if one PC can injure or incapacitate another before the other can return fire is valid, but other issues surrounding 'initiative' are also important to me such as being able to determine exactly how far a PC can run and by when during that turn so players know whether they can reach cover at various distances before or after an enemy gets to fire at them. Also, surprise needs to be dealt with in its various levels. The rules already handle all of this, but I'm hearing the rules are too complex in this one area of the game. Perhaps you could take a look and see if they appear overly complex to you?

@mahoux - Thanks for the compliments. Actually, our game's GM section on adventures notes that common sense should apply insofar as not having players regularly 'saving the universe' as seems unfortunately common in many sci-fi television shows and movies. So, in a way, we're suggesting that a lot of fun can be had at the more trivial 'small scale' level than impacting the whole galaxy.

@silkworm - Our current initiative system already works that way. PCs have an 'initiative stat' of Slow, Average, Fast, Very Fast, etc., that is calculated based on a combination of physical and mental speed traits. Then, if the GM wishes, a random dice element can be used to vary those PCs up or down a 'speed' category. Various types of surprise can also cause initiative to be slowed a category or two, or even a complete loss of turn (our turns are about 1 second in length). But, I'm hearing from select players that the system is too complex. Is it?


@Waltfreitag - Regarding how much is set in stone, yes, the entire game is very near press time save a final pro editing pass. However, because this is the core game, I feel it imperitive to get this core book right. That means I'm not above reworking anything I need to. In fact, I just introduced an idea that came to me recently in our game-specific discussion forums at zaon.org (zaon.com for the game, dot-org for forums) dealing with moving a highly intelligent 'imperious' type race from the sidelines and into a role of very old beings who are 'behind' the main ZAON Empire via political mastery and also shared technological secrets. We're now exploring all of the possible intrigue behind this race. Some members have suggested that perhaps this race originated from another galaxy and traveled here and was subsequently 'cut-off' from getting home? Perhaps they were part of an original invading force with a hidden agenda of reestablishing a 'gate' home in order to bring the rest of their invasion to our galaxy? Lots of ideas right now, but they seem better than what is currently positioned in the book pdf and hence why I'm ready to integrate those ideas once fully fleshed out.

What I want in the game now is myth and intrigue. In addition to the very old race, I have always wanted to introduce later more information about the 'ancients'. The idea here is that the entire galaxy was/is full of life, but none of that life was sentient. The ancients, billions of years old, have meddled with that life on many worlds in this galaxy and in others for some untold purpose. The result is countless sentient species.

I like your idea of a scarce element/resource, and actually posted on our .org forums that idea some time ago but was never able to figure out what exactly was scarce or needed to be scarce.

ZAON definitely needs much more flavor in its cultures. I believe I need a lot of help in this area. And you're right, why ZAON? Why not any other sci-fi setting? I can answer that only insofar as the details go—the technology, the ships, the species, and other details all behaving in ability according to my values of common sense. That is, I don't want time travel, nor transporters, nor magic, and many other items I feel 'spoil' sci-fi. I've got that down. A plausible, semi-realistic setting. It needs intrigue, that's for sure.

BTW, great examples for adventures in such a setting.


Finally, the term "ZAON". A friend of mine came up with the term first I had heard it, but I did later see that TOS Trek espisode. The spelling is a bit different, for in Trek it was "Zeons" even though it is pronounced the same as my term "zay+on". The true Biblical/Jewish term is of course "Zion" (zi+on), and was also mentioned in films such as the Matrix.

[ZaonDude]

Also, FYI: a couple of you have tried to email me. Please note that our email alias router went down this morning... we're working on it.

'netrep' at zaon.com does work, however, for email.

[Christoffer Lernö]

With a big empire but not necessarily an evil one, I'm starting to think abou the galactic empire of Asimov's Foundation series. But even that had mysteries hidden at the core of it, even though it wasn't full of myth. And the reason for the latter I think was primarily because there were no alien race in those books.

Anyway. I think there are plenty of myths to inspire out there. Running low on inspiration?

[Jonathan Walton]

Especially in the Zaon Empire, which inevitably evokes the Roman Empire.

I really think this kind of parallel could be the myth you want.

Think about the Roman Empire at it's height, where everything seemed like it would last forever.  However, under the surface of that society was a dynamic hurricane tearing at the edges, getting ready to bring the entire thing down.  If you can get that kind of dynamism under the surface of your game, I really think you'd have something.

As in the Roman Empire, the clash of peoples and cultures in a giant melting pot would both be what strengthens and ultimately destroys everything.  And the intrigue of the Roman Empire was almost unparalleled, with senators trying to outmanuver each other and various lords, merchants, and generals fighting for economic and political power.

Just a suggestion.

Later.
Jonathan

[ZaonDude]

Actually, there should be parallels to both the Roman Empire and also especially the Japanese Empire (around WWII time) insofar as that fanatical patriotism among the people and military.

One of the real challenges ahead is determining exactly how this old race of Darcanan are integrated with the Empire and the dynamic relationship between them. The Darcanan, having brought much of the advanced technology the Empire now uses, also occupy many leading positions in the military, including the honary position of 'emperor' as well as most warships being 'captained' (a ship's lord) by a Darcanan lord.

[ADGBoss]

Actually, there should be parallels to both the Roman Empire and also especially the Japanese Empire (around WWII time) insofar as that fanatical patriotism among the people and military.

One of the real challenges ahead is determining exactly how this old race of Darcanan are integrated with the Empire and the dynamic relationship between them. The Darcanan, having brought much of the advanced technology the Empire now uses, also occupy many leading positions in the military, including the honary position of 'emperor' as well as most warships being 'captained' (a ship's lord) by a Darcanan lord.

`I just wanted to jump in and say that what I have seen of Zaon so far is very nice.  One recommendation if I could, you may want to consider the current Empire more of a Byzantine model, a power established on the inheritance of earlier Dominions with a more mature view: Not necassarily good or evil but with the idea that it is politically and militarily under siege from time to time but never in any real danger.

For an air of mystery, an Emerald court of srts, an Imperial China model of empire.

SMH
ADGBoss

[Jonathan Walton]

For an air of mystery, an Emerald court of srts, an Imperial China model of empire.

This is slightly off-topic, but...

Besides the general sterotypical "exoticness" of Asia, what about Imperial China has an air of mystery?  At least, any more of one than the Byzantines?

Later.
Jonathan