I read a bunch of stuff on here say a year and a half ago about playing DitV in the Firefly universe.  Thought it sounded cool and that I'd get the game and do that someday.  It's someday now - we made characters Sunday.  (After having the game less than a week and convincing my once a month gaming group to forego our regular D&D session and try it on the spur of the moment; now it's less than clear that we'll ever go back to D&D.)

So I'm going through all the Firefly-related posts again, and wanted to throw out something that I've thought about and see if anyone is still playing in the Firefly 'verse and has any response.

In DitV, the characters have absolute moral authority, at least over the Faithful.  In Firefly ... not so much.  I decided that I couldn't really run the game until I had figured out how to get past that.  So my solution is this: The moral authority of the crew derives from the values of the Independents - because Independents had(/have) it right: free will, self-determination, freedom, individuality - those are the values they hold close.  The Alliance is against those things inasmuch as they are prone to methodologies that tear those values down - like what happened on Miranda.  Like what happened to River and others like her.  So if the Independents were right,  the moral authority the characters get in this game is - *generally* - derived from being on the side of the preservation of humanity as a species.  Because the Alliance is obviously not as concerned with that as they are with other goals that may work at cross-purposes.  (Though the philosophy of the Alliance would, I'm sure, hold that they are *all about*  the preservation of the species.)

However, that doesn't *always* mean the Alliance gets cast in the role of the bad guys.  Both of the major factions have people who are morally upstanding and both have people who are morally corrupt.  That's how you find enough morally compelling situations to keep people's interest.

Also, I gave each character an extra 1d10 trait with the instruction to state their personal moral code as a trait.  We got some good ones: "A deal's a deal." "I like to believe that people are basically good."  ("like to" gives her a way to admit that sometimes they're not.)  "You mind your business, I'll mind mine."  Hoping to see those in action when we start playing.

--Ian
I play D&D 1d6.
I play DitV 5d10.