in 1998, TSR/Wizards published the "Star*Drive Campaign Setting" for their short-lived science-fiction RPG Alternity.  It was, as someone once phrased it, "Forgotten Realms in Spaaaace!" and I hated it for years.  It was generic, forgettable, implausible, and generally tasteless.  Imagine my surprise to discover, after reading Ron's "Narrativism Essay," that there's gold in them thar hills.  My contention is that Trollbabe could be tweaked to play in this setting.  I hope any Trollbabe experts will step in and provide feedback.

Setting - It's the future.  After the discovery of faster-than-light travel, humanity has colonized hundreds of worlds, and has established several interstellar governments.  And with governments comes warfare.  During the cataclysmic Great War, the frontier worlds of the Verge lost contact with the Core; they were on their own.  Over the next 150 years, some of these worlds prospered; others declined; one vanished without a trace. 

Now, however, the War is ostensibly over, and the Core governments have reestablished contact with the Verge.  Their fleets have arrived, looking to rebuild political ties, provide humanitarian assistance, and exert control over resources.

Premise - What's it worth to have a government?  Some of the Verge worlds are doing great on their own.  But others are falling apart.  And there's a mysterious army of Bug Eyed Monsters who want to destroy everything.  The Core and the Verge must reach some accomodation, but how, and at what cost?

Character - Trollbabes are recast as "Concord Administrators," (the name is taken from canon material--and yes, it sucks, so you're welcome to suggest something else), and are sort of like Dogs of the Space United Nations.  A Concord Administrator roams around, solving problems.  In theory their goal is to advance human rights.  In practice, especially in the Verge, this involves carefully balancing the conflicted interests of the locals and the new arrivals.

Situation - I see something like this.  Here's a planet known for (powerful star-ship building industry).  Now here rolls up one of the Stellar Nations, which wants to change the status quo by (nationalizing the star-ship building industry).  These plans have thrown people into confusion, and potentially drastic action (insert, let's say, three examples that tickle your fancy).  The Concord Administrator shows up, probably in pursuit of something else, and everyone reads the C.A. like a Rorschach blot, and reacts to his/her presence.

System - Trollbabe, using Technology as a conflict type instead of Magic.  (A ship-to-ship battle would be a combination of Fighting + Technology, obviously.)  The progression of Stakes would be tweaked to do Space Opera.  I'm thinking that instead of asking how the character arrives in town, but rather which criminal he or she is chasing down.

Color - to be provided later.  I've had some thoughts about streamlining the canon material, and this would be handled with lots of color for the seven solar systems of the Verge, the four Stellar Governments, and five Alien Species.  My worry here is that if I go too overboard with color, it might strip away that glorious sense of "player authorship" that appears to happen in Trollbabe games where the setting is kept pretty loose.

Any thoughts on this?  Am I missing any essential features of Trollbabe?  Am I barking up the wrong tree?

Hiya,

If you wanna, then I won't stop you. But ...

I think you'd be better off 'porting Dogs than Trollbabe.

Best,
Ron

Yay! I was wondering what you were going with your Star*Drive musings.

'stack wrote: Am I missing any essential features of Trollbabe?

Larry wrote: ]There seems to be a shortage of... oh... trollbabes?  Really. I'm not clear how a Concord Administrator is in a situation in life similar to that of a trollbabe.

Reading through the setup a couple more times, that does look an awful lot like Dogs.

Larry wrote:
I was wondering what you were going with your Star*Drive musings.

Um, dunno what to tell you, James.

You rightly describe the key features of a trollbabe protagonist, let's call them 1, 2, 3, and 4. Then you say, "well, 1 isn't going to apply, and uh, 2 is gone by it's replaced by this thing that's supposed to function like 2."

And I say, it's not 1, 2, 3, and 4, so it's not trollbabe, and the game Trollbabe is intended for trollbabes, period. You can go ahead and change it, but you take your own chances, I wash my hands of you if you do.

Successes in doing so have resulted in either new games or in appealing to a completely different audience than I'm interested in reaching with the game. And, I might add, easier and less significant audiences.

To put it most bluntly, Trollbabe without trollbabes is a cop-out. Dogs, on the other hand, is very very well-suited to the parameters you've described, and it also both utilizes and extends the scenario-building concepts in Trollbabe. It's worth the bucks for your goals, I really think they'll be well spent.

Best, Ron

James,

Now, when I saw the subject line, I actually envisioned something different. I imagined vanilla Trollbabe, but with the traditional fantasy elements replaced with a lightweight space fantasy. Like, maybe the trollbabe shows up on a planet, and she's wearing futuristic composite armors or something. Just a color change, but one that seemed appealing and exotic to me. That might be cool.

Running this in Trollbabe is not unlike just running it in Alternity. You're not doing that, because that system doesn't attempt in any way to address your premise, so why shoehorn it in?

Hiya,

My understanding of Trollbabe is that the protagonists have the following features:
* women
* can kick ass
* are the subject of people's projected feelings simply by being born.
* become the flashpoint of conflict, simply by showing up on the scene.

Larry wrote:
Running this in Trollbabe is not unlike just running it in Alternity. You're not doing that, because that system doesn't attempt in any way to address your premise, so why shoehorn it in?

Ron Edwards wrote: Successes in doing so have resulted in either new games or in appealing to a completely different audience than I'm interested in reaching with the game. And, I might add, easier and less significant audiences.  To put it most bluntly, Trollbabe without trollbabes is a cop-out.

Chris wrote:
There's also the fact that Trollbabes have a foot in both the key cultures of the game, and yet belong to neither. I think that sense of between-ness, duality, and other-ness is very important to it. It's certainly been a big thing in our game. Partly, it means when there is conflict between humans and trolls, the trollbabes aren't, by default, on one side or the other, but they're involved in both. I'm having trouble seeing how you could get this effect using the Core and the Verge.

it's already pretty far removed from Trollbabe, so, at this point, we're starting to move towards designing a whole new Trollbabe-based game

would you say that Brand Robbins' recent thread, which didn't involve trollbabes, is a cop-out?  If so, a cop-out in regard to what?  My opinion is that at the end of the day, awesome play is awesome play, regardless of a certified pedigree.

(Out of curiosity - what percentage of Trollbabe play reaches the intended audience?  And, for the record, who is the intended audience?  I have speculations about both of these, but I wonder if I'm right.)

Hi Ron, you'd written that your thoughts about Trollbabe's intended audience and the percentage of play involving that audience "are not fit for internet consumption."  I was wondering if they were fit for PM consumption instead; I'm curious, discreet, and difficult to offend.  It's clear that the game is very special to you, and I'd be interested in hearing more about it if you don't mind.

Incidentally, I hope my comments in that thread aren't taken as disparaging the game: it's quite kick-ass as written.

best,
James

Ack, that was meant to be a PM, not that I mind especially.

James_Nostack wrote:
Hi Larry, somewhere I got lost in those double-negatives.  Could you clarify?

Ron wrote:
My answer is not suitable for internet consumption. It would make the brain-damage thing look like a brief squeal of static.

Best, Ron

This thread needed to end after the third post. C'mon guys, find something else to talk about.

Best, Ron