Another day, another spaceship post.
This is much more about tabletop RPGs. On a spaceship.
Known Assumptions and preliminaries:
1) The characters chosen determine really important details about the spaceship.
2) This is something like apocalypse world.
3) This spaceship needs to make money somehow: maybe there's a mortgage that needs to be paid, or corporate overlords. Either way, there's continuous economic pressure.
I'm interested in exploring what the addition or removal of playbooks as player characters does to the setting.
Some obvious examples:
Hardhholder: If there's something like a hardhholder, then the ship will have a large gang and a group of people who are in need of protection.
Gunlugger: With a gunlugger or similar, guns and crap are an important way for this ship to solve problems.
Maestro D: If Guinan or Quark is onboard, then talking through issues is important and there is a sufficient crowd and sufficient wealth to justify a bar.
Firefly has something like a mechanic, a battlebabe, a skinner, and a brainer. And the show is about the ship braking, being on the losing side of fights, sex and privilege to solve problems, and using your brain to melt eyeballs.
Here's a different set:
Waterbearer, The News, Hocus, Driver
What sort of spaceship centers around these four? What type of story gets told?
What type of story are you interested in onboard a spaceship?
Playbooks here:
http://apocalypse-world.com/AW2ndEdPlaybooksPreview.pdf
http://apocalypse-world.com/AW2ndEdPlaybooksPreview.pdf
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My initial thought, you'd up with a really excellent game. The ship'd be a safe space that's actually worth bring on, the news'd keep things interesting by convincing the driver to go to areas of unrest, while the hocus would collect refugees as their cult.
ReplyDeleteIt'd be fascinating and have almost nothing to do with guns and violence.
Hmm... that makes me think of the Scum barges in Eclipse Phase - huge ships in a meandering orbit of the solar system, packed with cults, artists, revolutionaries, bio-engineers and all sorts of other weirdos that wouldn't fit in on the stations and planets of normal transhuman society.
ReplyDeleteCustomising the kind of spaceship and story according to the playbooks chosen is a really nice setup for a game :D How solid is assumption 3? Is there any chance for a ship to be self-sufficient by mining resources here and there, or would they need to pay protection money and border-crossing dues even in that case?
In that case, it sounds like there's still the economic pressure of needing to convert mined resources into food, water, etc -- so, you'll need to barter, at the very least. Could be cool.
ReplyDeleteI do like the idea of a spaceship filled with folk who don't quite fit. Like the queer enclave from dream askew.
I think there's a pbta space game, name currently escaping me, where character choices determine a lot about the ship. And I've got something similar in my own pirate space game, but both of these are clunkier than what I really want.
Getting this to be quick and elegant sounds reasonably hard, and quite likely worth doing.
Have you seen Levi Kornelsen 's Role Playing Game where everyone is an important person on a sailing ship? It might make a good frame to start with, although I think you want a more "complete" game to start with -- his has things like "you are the quartermaster. Tell the other people what goods and supplies are needed to make the ship run. Track and determine these with tokens, dice, cards as you see fit."
ReplyDeleteI have! It is good, and not quite where I'm at with this. I want a wider net than sailing ships.
ReplyDeleteHas anyone made a light pbta hack that puts everyone on a spaceship? In my mind, this is about as close to AW as is Fallen Empires.
ReplyDeleteDoes it actually need to make money, or can it be a derelict colony ship that's missed its destination and is now lost in deep space due to some accident or other?
ReplyDeleteOr is this more a representation of the universe as the Apocalypse and the ship is the hold for the PCs? It sounds like fun, either way.
ReplyDeleteYou could make the Waterbearer more about resources in general, or the self-regenerating food supply on the ship that they found and got working. The News could be a communications officer getting news from outside as well as in. The Driver, obviously, the ship's pilot. The Hocus could be ANY kind of cult. The possibilities are literally almost limitless.
ReplyDeleteWhat rule changes do you think we need, Edward Hickcox?
ReplyDeleteI'm not super familiar with the Waterbearer or the News. I'll think about it.
ReplyDeleteI really like the idea of a world ship with lots of people and multiple factions. If you don't have a Hardholder you don't have control of the majority of the ship. Don't have a Driver? You don't get to decide where the ship goes.
Playbooks I think would work well
ReplyDeleteWaterbearer -- yeah, essentially controls (or is controlled by) a component essential to life and happiness.
The News -- think Hunter S. Thompson. The News tells everyone what's going on, and hates all the bullshit.
Hocus -- Cults are great, either as part of the people of the waterbearer's place or the Hardhholder's. Or, of course, none.
Driver -- either drive's the ship, or auxillary craft.
Maestro D -- Guinan or Quark, right.
Several of these imply lots of people; there could easily be several hundred. Some in the hardhhold, for sure, but others occasionally going to the Maestro, or in the cult, or obeying the waterbearer's law. Or listening to The News.
Edward Hickcox Wanna try this with vanilla AW fairly soon, and see what happens?
ReplyDeleteWilliam Nichols Yes. Yes I do. But I'm not sure if/when I'm going to be able to make it to Thursdays over the next few months.
ReplyDeleteI'd be up for trying some other day to see if we can do some quick prototyping. If you got a day?
ReplyDeleteEvenings (I get off work at six) during the week are okay, except Wednesday, and that's subject to the same limitation as gaming. My dog is very sick and I want to spend as much time as possible with her while she's still around. But if you wanted to come here to play that would be fine.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the best way to do this is a short run game on tavern keeper.
ReplyDeleteI've never used Tavern Keeper, but I'm game (see what I did there).
ReplyDelete