Well, I had a flight to London and back today which gave me plenty of time to read and make comments on Space Rangers. So, here we go...

Introductory fiction, all 13 pages of it. Whew! It was a lot of reading, I'll be honest it took me three sittings to get through it. It was pretty good and gave me a nice overview of the imaginary space you were creating, but it was so long! I think it would work better with a few changes:
- split the fiction up into smaller chunks, maybe 2 sections at a time as "chapter" starters through the text? They would bind the book together but not form this formidable wall of text at the start that I found it hard to get through.
- the fiction focused on one character, but the game is going to be played by a group I presumed. Could the fiction specifically describe a group? Say a pair of Space Rangers (or just one?) and associated non-Rangers that travel with them.

What about advancement and reward? Or do we just stay as these balanced characters from creation? How do you stop people advancing to have mechanically perfect characters while offering incentive for continued play?

Goals? Scenarios? What are the things Space Rangers do apart from stop Slavery? Maybe a top 10 of nefarious crimes they stop? And example scenarios. Or will the scenarios be generated by the players?

One I've been guilty of in both my games so far: needed an Example of Play I think. Example characters would have been good to, especially a party that tied in with the fiction.

Non-Rangers. Why should I play one? Well, I guess it's because there are non-Ranger abilities out there. I thought you could make it cool and fun to play a companion, and really sell it in the fiction/example of play.

Mechanics. Is there a danger that fights will end up as 6+ versus 6+ and everyone getting doubles? I just wondered about the numbers for "typical" combat skills and whether everyone would just crank those up so that everything ends up tied in fights? I think I'd explore this in a play test.

I'd like to have read about your influences and inspirations for the setting. I liked how you tipped the hat to TINS et al. (and maybe sold short the changes you actually made to the concepts from those games) for system influence, so I'd have loved to read more about the setting influences.

Dramatic complication. It seemed to me that the fiction had this really cool streak of dramatic complication at every turn. The only way this seems to be created in game is by the GM "pouring it on". I wondered if you could somehow mechanically mandate these complications: "you did this, so I can crank up another complication" kind of thing? How did the creature get on the branch? Who determined its level of ability? Can these complications be generated somehow?

Shadowy figures/Politics. I really liked the background politics, so more explanation please! Who calls the Space Rangers in? (It says "...somebody..." in the text. Who?) Is it a Mr Johnson thing? Or more Deep Throat? Or an Official in the Confederacy? So more about the Confederacy, Empire of Men, etc.

Should characters come up with motives, alliances, stresses, strains, etc.?

Religion. Touched on but not explored. Is this a hot topic? Or just flavour? I assumed that religion was like in today's world.

I thought the terms could have been strengthened more:
- Cosmos. Yes, it's SF but show me the vast wonder of the universe.
- Fight. Fighting what? Corruption? Monsters? Slavery? Crime? I didn't see the Space Rangers as Hercule Poirot, more like one part Jim Rockford to two parts Harry Callaghan.

Starting scenarios. I loved the in media res stuff. In fact, could all scenarios start that way? The GM drops the PCs in a situation and they have to explain how they got there and what the initial complications are? Get them to describe how they know all the other PCs too.

Anyway, I liked the game and this was just some questions and thought I reckoned I would throw into the ring. Thumbs up, good job.

Gregor nice work on 3:16!

- split the fiction up into smaller chunks, maybe 2 sections at a time as "chapter" starters through the text? They would bind the book together but not form this formidable wall of text at the start that I found it hard to get through.

- the fiction focused on one character, but the game is going to be played by a group I presumed. Could the fiction specifically describe a group? Say a pair of Space Rangers (or just one?) and associated non-Rangers that travel with them.

What about advancement and reward? Or do we just stay as these balanced characters from creation? How do you stop people advancing to have mechanically perfect characters while offering incentive for continued play?

Goals? Scenarios? What are the things Space Rangers do apart from stop Slavery? Maybe a top 10 of nefarious crimes they stop? And example scenarios. Or will the scenarios be generated by the players?

One I've been guilty of in both my games so far: needed an Example of Play I think. Example characters would have been good to, especially a party that tied in with the fiction.

Non-Rangers. Why should I play one? Well, I guess it's because there are non-Ranger abilities out there. I thought you could make it cool and fun to play a companion, and really sell it in the fiction/example of play.

Mechanics. Is there a danger that fights will end up as 6+ versus 6+ and everyone getting doubles? I just wondered about the numbers for "typical" combat skills and whether everyone would just crank those up so that everything ends up tied in fights? I think I'd explore this in a play test.

I'd like to have read about your influences and inspirations for the setting. I liked how you tipped the hat to TINS et al. (and maybe sold short the changes you actually made to the concepts from those games) for system influence, so I'd have loved to read more about the setting influences.

Dramatic complication. It seemed to me that the fiction had this really cool streak of dramatic complication at every turn. The only way this seems to be created in game is by the GM "pouring it on". I wondered if you could somehow mechanically mandate these complications: "you did this, so I can crank up another complication" kind of thing? How did the creature get on the branch? Who determined its level of ability? Can these complications be generated somehow?

Shadowy figures/Politics. I really liked the background politics, so more explanation please! Who calls the Space Rangers in? (It says "...somebody..." in the text. Who?) Is it a Mr Johnson thing? Or more Deep Throat? Or an Official in the Confederacy? So more about the Confederacy, Empire of Men, etc.

Should characters come up with motives, alliances, stresses, strains, etc.?

Religion. Touched on but not explored. Is this a hot topic? Or just flavour? I assumed that religion was like in today's world.

I thought the terms could have been strengthened more:
- Cosmos. Yes, it's SF but show me the vast wonder of the universe.
- Fight. Fighting what? Corruption? Monsters? Slavery? Crime? I didn't see the Space Rangers as Hercule Poirot, more like one part Jim Rockford to two parts Harry Callaghan.

Starting scenarios. I loved the in media res stuff. In fact, could all scenarios start that way? The GM drops the PCs in a situation and they have to explain how they got there and what the initial complications are? Get them to describe how they know all the other PCs too.

Anyway, I liked the game and this was just some questions and thought I reckoned I would throw into the ring. Thumbs up, good job.

Very cool. Thanks for the reply.

I liked the main character in the fiction, so you have to keep her in. :)

Maybe it could even be like Ars Magica's troupe in a way with only one player (or two at a push) playing the Space Ranger? I can't help but think of something like the Hercules and Xena TV Series. Sure Hercules and Xena were the "main" characters, but I'd rather have played Bruce Campbell's character Autolycus. Like you say the Rangers are the good guys, whereas non-Rangers could have greyer moralities (which naturally would create conflict and complication for the Ranger).

Maybe use some sort of chip mechanic, where a player can spend a chip for some effect but they then hand permission for a complication to the GM? I don't know, or maybe Rangers and their friends have inherent complication levels built in, as you say weird stuff always happens around them. As for scenario ideas for players, could they come from "kickers" and "bangs" in the style of Ron's Sorcerer? Get the group to mutually form the situation and then throw in their kickers and start using their bangs to get the scenario off and running. Like you say a non-stop rollercoaster once it's started. :)

Oh, and you have to give the possibility (even an incentive?) for someone to be a double agent or similar for the Empire of Men. That would be cool, especially when the villains are always one step ahead (like in the fiction).

And if you need illustrations, no problem. I'd be happy to help you out. :)

I spent all last night reading through everything I could find on the net on Kickers and Bangs and R-maps. What an amazing concept! I've been running games for years with a hacked disfunctional version of it without being able to explain what I was doing or why it worked. Many thanks. I've got to get a copy of Sorcerer so I can read how they are described in the original source.

That being said, I'm not sure how to implement them in Space Ranger as I don't quite concept Space Ranger as necessarily being Narrative.

Perhaps I need to go back to the beginning and define what I want Space Ranger to be.

So from the guidelines for presenting a game:

Premise: I want Space Ranger to be a screaming fast (read low handling time) sci fi pulp shoot-em-up with bigger than life heroes taking care of the baddies in the most hostile possible manner in a mindbogglingly infinite cosmos with an ever escalating level of conflict that is resolved at the end of a session (which may in fact be longer than a single sitting) with a cliffhanger or a big blowoff. Everybody take a breath, says to themselves, "Whoa," and then dives back in.

I want the play style to be: GM sets the scene, Players decide what they want to do, Players roll their dice and then narrate what they did with penache, style and big freaking balls. GM escalates, rinse, repeat.

Setting: 40 Trillion sapients spread out over a million worlds and a million more space stations divided between the highly balkanized Confederacy, the imperial/corporate feudal and highly Dickensian (in an a/state way) xenophobic Empire of Man and the independent worlds and stations stuck in the middle.  The setting is high tech, transhumanist, transalienist and hard sci fi from the word go. With guns. Lots and lots of guns. Who are the good guys is easy to figure out (That's you!) and the bad guys are BAD GUYS. The shades of grey I want are not in the whose right and whose wrong but in the how you, as the Characters, are going to make them pay (Do I just shoot them or do I show the rest of the universe just how much they suck and then step back and watch the fireworks?).

Character Creation: Should be fast with very low handling and near infinite possibilities. Coming up with your concept should take more time than generating the character...but you should be able to put up a playable concept in less than 15 minutes. If your Character ends up dead, everybody goes, "Bummer," you make another and jump right back in.

Reward mechanic: Haven't a clue, yet. The characters start, at the very least, competent and in most case these guys ARE the calvary. Getting better is ok to a certain point, but then what? Also with the graininess of conflict resolution (a feature I want to maintain) there simply isn't a lot of mechanical room to grow. If your character starts out +4/+3 (Expertise/Spark) and the best you can do is +5/+5 (I'm going to make it impossible to be perfect) what do you give them for a reward other than a banging game?

So if the goal is a kick-it-up, screaming, booming till you blow play experience it behooves me to build that experience into the game mechanics themselves.

I just don't yet have a clue how.

Rangers have a ready made Kicker in that they are Rangers but the question is: will Bangs based on that give you enough story and the escalation I want? Likewise how then do I write the universe itself to make the Bangs self evident to the GM. Also how do I present benchmarks to the GM that allow him or her to present the right level and type of conflict to keep the game screaming along without making it into a disfunctional linear illusionism?

I hate being railroaded. I want to make it neigh on impossible to railroad. Ultimately want the Players and their Characters to dictate the game, not the GM plot.

So, again, how do you do this?

Re: Bangs and Kickers; these are not necessarily Narrativist techniques. As a matter of fact, they're good techniques for basically any style of play.

From what I'm reading, what you do NOT want is a Shadowrun-type planplanplanplanplanMISSIONdowntimedowntimeplanplanplan... format. You're basically going for MISSION! and that's about it. So what you may want to look into is an episodic format in the same manner as Dogs. You set up a situation where Those Guys lay a problem at the Rangers' feet, and say Deal With It. For whatever reasons, using whatever methods, the Rangers go to it with a will. When they're done, they're done. That's all off-camera, unimportant to the point of play. Am I off-base?

If so then you're right.. advancement isn't particularly important. That isn't to say that you shouldn't worry about a reward system, far from it. Advancing characters is a time-honored way of rewarding players, and one I'm particularly fond of. But it's not the best for every game. So how do you reward the players? By rewarding the PLAYERS. This is one of those games where the payoff is in the kickass things their characters do, right? What you need then is a way to give them more of that. Hero Points or Narration Tokens or something similar, something that gives them what they're wanting out of the game.

A good way to prevent railroading is again to take a gander at Dogs. The GM sets up the situation, makes it really juicy. Then he plays the situation. He has no right to tell the PCs what is right or wrong, he doesn't get to make things up on the spot. His whole goal is to escalate, escalate, escalate. Push the players, push the characters, put the hard decisions in front of them, and lay out the consequences (NOT pass judgement! Consequences are what happen, right or wrong. This is the hardest part)

In a Space Rangers game, the GM's goal and power needs to be similar. His is not to decide how the PCs should deal with the situation laid before them. His is to push the situation at them, hard, fast and with big freaking balls. He should be prepared to be surprised, he should WANT to be surprised, and he should make it totally clear to the players that he wants to be surprised. Once they get that, the rest is easy enough.

Hey Lance,

Sorry it took so long to get back to you but following your post I searched everything I could find on Dogs in the Vineyard and, quite frankly, was overwhelmed.

After reading everything, it seems to me you could run a pretty rocking game of DitV in the Space Ranger universe…I’m just not sure if you can run the kind of game I want to play using DitV.

I was, however, so impressed I bought a copy last night and I can’t wait until it gets here so I can see what kind of a game I COULD run with it.

All that being said, your comments were spot on:

From what I'm reading, what you do NOT want is a Shadowrun-type planplanplanplanplanMISSIONdowntimedowntimeplanplanplan... format. You're basically going for MISSION! and that's about it. So what you may want to look into is an episodic format in the same manner as Dogs. You set up a situation where Those Guys lay a problem at the Rangers' feet, and say Deal With It. For whatever reasons, using whatever methods, the Rangers go to it with a will. When they're done, they're done. That's all off-camera, unimportant to the point of play. Am I off-base?

If so then you're right.. advancement isn't particularly important. That isn't to say that you shouldn't worry about a reward system, far from it. Advancing characters is a time-honored way of rewarding players, and one I'm particularly fond of. But it's not the best for every game. So how do you reward the players? By rewarding the PLAYERS. This is one of those games where the payoff is in the kickass things their characters do, right? What you need then is a way to give them more of that. Hero Points or Narration Tokens or something similar, something that gives them what they're wanting out of the game.

A good way to prevent railroading is again to take a gander at Dogs. The GM sets up the situation, makes it really juicy. Then he plays the situation. He has no right to tell the PCs what is right or wrong, he doesn't get to make things up on the spot. His whole goal is to escalate, escalate, escalate. Push the players, push the characters, put the hard decisions in front of them, and lay out the consequences (NOT pass judgement! Consequences are what happen, right or wrong. This is the hardest part)

In a Space Rangers game, the GM's goal and power needs to be similar. His is not to decide how the PCs should deal with the situation laid before them. His is to push the situation at them, hard, fast and with big freaking balls. He should be prepared to be surprised, he should WANT to be surprised, and he should make it totally clear to the players that he wants to be surprised. Once they get that, the rest is easy enough.

Hey Guys,

I'm going to start another thread on Space Ranger because having read all of your comments I realised I needed to rethink the paradygm I was working with.

I really need to restate the Premise, and Reward System and then ask a bunch of questions and start on rewrite 0.1.

Thanks for kicking the tires. Time to start the overhaul, Monster Garage style.

C. S. Bone