It's been a while since my last blog entry, things have been busy.
Worse, my wife tempted me with Maine Coon kittens (just before she jets off to Paris for a week's business trip). This about a year after we lost our cat of 17 years. These days there are websites such evil wives can use, they have 'kitten cams'. Most unfair.
And this has pushed out thoughts of RPGs for a bit. In the contest of Maine Coon kitten vs. RPG, the kittens win.
For those not in the know, Maine Coons aren't just cats. They're rather different and special cats, sometimes called dog-cats or the man's cat. They are large (males can reach 25 lbs), playful their entire lives and can be trained to the leash or taught to fetch if desired. They still maintain the cat's independent air, but are highly people-centric while doing so. If you've never known one, you'd find them quite the surprise.
I use them as a model for a fey breed in my fantasy games where they are something like advisors to a familyof white witches down through the generations. Because they are that cool.
Switching gears...
I've never much cared for most Sci-fi settings. Star Wars leaves me cold with its endless cycle of Jedi falling to the darkside and almost destroying everything. Star Trek was ruined for me over the years (as my last series of articles likely shows). Ringworld just didn't give me a reason to care. And so on.
On the RPG side things are even worse. Traveller bored me with it's nobles and empires (I'd rather play fantasy, with its nobles and empires) and low tech jump drive ships. The background of 40K bored me even more, with no good guys there's nothing to fight for- your era of endless war is thus pointless. Faded Suns, yawn.
I had thought that I'd be left with a re-imagined original show Star Trek as my only option.
Then I found the Federation of the Hub series by James H. Schmitz.
Think Space Opera. Think high end Psi Abilities. Think a series where things just happen without explaining everything in huge detail (thus leaving many mysteries for GM and players to fill in).
Think of a Federation that appears to be a true Federation, i.e. individual worlds can govern as they like- but may be better said to be a tyrannical librarian government. And yes, that is possible and it's oh so cool as an adventuring setting.
Just pure fun, and a mindset that I love for sci-fi campaigns. After Morrow Project runs its course, I think I know the next place we'll visit.
Schmitz wrote most of his works during the 60s and 70s, at the time his name will just about as well known as Heinlein or Asimov. But he was mostly a short story author whose works were published in the magazines like Analog. And thus he was almost forgotten as the era of the huge novel came to be.
The whole Federation of the Hub story can be had in four books. I seriously recommend them.
Telzey Amberdon
TNT: Telzey Amberdon & Trigger Argee Together
Trigger & Friends
The Hub: Dangerous Territory
The last contains the short novel The Demon Breed, which is perhaps my favorite written sci-fi story of all time.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
9 comments:
Hmm...those books sound interesting. I'll give them a whirl!
I dig Traveller. I shy away from the Nobles stuff, for the most part. I prefer military or ex-military campaigns. Then again, I like a relatively low-tech, "Age of Sail In Space" feel. I'm a big fan of the works of authors such as Piper and Tubb, so it sort of fits.
Well, I do not like very much sci-fi stories or RPG, with the huge exception of Star Wars.
From my point of view, what ruins the saga is the uncontrolled expanded universe: if we accept as canon only the films, we have a good story with epic flavor and evocation from the greatest works of epic poetry.
One of my teachers at the university, a great expert of epic and Latin literature, studied the first trilogy with the eyes of the scholar founding it very, very well written from the "epic feeling" point of view.
However, SW is screwed as all the epic was; Vergil was emulated by many uncapable writers, and we have only the two greatest poems of the ancient Greek production. Perhaps, if lesser works have reached us, we will not think so high of the ancient epic. And so enters the Expanded Universe, or "the clone universe". -.-
In fact, SW's RPGs are too much based on the EU to carry the original epic feeling, and this "helps" making the whole story appear as an endless repetition of itself to most gamers.
It is for this reason that I am currently writing a fanmade SW RPG (Star Dices, English name but Italian game ^^), created in order to represent better the "G-canon" SW continuity rather than the too chaotic EU.
PS: speaking of cats, what about half-wild ones?
Zachary: I never got an age of sail feeling from Traveller (I did from original Star Trek).
Nor did it resemble any of the sources it's often credited as using (see its wiki entry). Even when things like the Langston Field appeared in the game- they felt like a detached bit of theft rather than a setting.
The thing was, they stole the tech to some degree- but they didn't take any of the themes either mechanically, in background, or in their few adventures.
Soulless.
I must have played a handful of games using the original released rules. No one in our groups wanted to continue.
Federico "Angelo" Pilleri: I would tend to agree with you for the most part. My one exception is that I can't really consider even the originals 'epic'. The first however was fun.
'Re-imagined' or 'corrected' versions of settings are quite possible. You have to end up explaining the differences and that can cause expectation problems- but with more long term groups that can be handled.
I've done this with Marvel Comics successfully. And was considering doing it with original Star Trek.
But it's cool to see a setting that I only need add to- and not take away from.
As to half-wild cats...
The only one that I know anything about is the Savannah. There are others that I haven't dug into.
Savannahs said to have many of the behaviors of Maine Coons but are on average smaller and as a very new hybrid not very stable in their characteristics yet. If you move away from the F1 and F2 cats you lose some of the neat behaviors and features.
Even so they sound wounderful and would be worth considering...
...except they are also like more expensive than God can afford.
In contrast, the Coons are stable, nearly always gentle and friendly and come with all the really neat behaviors. And I like their long hair compared to the short hair of the Savannah.
Besides, I've had three Coons in my life (taking me across almost 5 decades). All three were amazing cats, not going to break the run.
Actually, a RPG based on "Star Wars according to George Lucas" will be ok without taking away anything: just consider only the films (and something from the cartoon), treating what's left as a simple "what if".
In this way you do not have all the later and pointless conflicts (with the death of Palpatine, the Empire is over), nor do you have the "I just discovered to be a jedi" or "what a pitiful balance that you brought to the Force, dear Chosen One/bartender, one more Darth at the table, please" syndromes.
A big problem of SW is that if something happens in the films, in the EU it will happen so many times to make it pretty annoying: for example, the Force Lighting was created as a vile trick known only to the strongest Sith Lord. In the EU, every sith can use it; even a jedi could use it.
By not considering the Expanded Universe, you remove all those problems. ^^
Regarding cats, I was speaking of "natural" half wild cats. I had two of them, two kittens looking and acting exactly as Sardinian wild cats, but breed by a housecat (breed in our garage when whe left its windows open, actually).One of them died a year ago at the age of 2, but he was amazing: a great hunter and a faithful pet with me and my family, but still suspicious as a wild beas with everybody else. I called him my "sawed-off caliber 4,5 cat" because his tail was very short (a strange fact, indeed) and his weight was 4,5 kg (at the age of 1, and consider that being native of an island Sardinian animals tend to be smaller).
Truly, a great cat. Consider taking a pet like him. Yes, he was a bit wild (as his brother still is), but really clever and capable.
I was thinking of getting a Norwegian Forest Cat or Russian Blue. My daughter is just mildly allergic, so I heard a Blue, Rex, or Abyssinian might (allegedly) be a little better, but I don't know how much I believe that.
I guess we'll have to disagree on Traveller. I feel it models Imperial Sci-Fi pretty well--not perfect, but I'm not looking for perfect. And character generation is still about the most fun I've had doing chargen in gaming.
I think Traveller's Age of Sail comes through in the distances involved: something can happen on the fringes of the Imperium, and word not get back to Core until the shooting's just about over with. The captain of a task force or single vessel can be *the* representative of the Imperium, in that case. Communication is slow, commerce susceptible to privateers, pirates, and local disruption. You've got the capability for huge waves of human migration, and a sense and practice of colonialism in many places.
Traveller can read as dry (depending on what books you're reading), but there's also a sense of legacy, space, and exploration I find irresistable. I don't know that the system is set up to model the comparitively more cinematic and deus ex machina feel of ST, but I don't know--I've never tried to run ST with Traveller.
Zachary The First:
Yep, we're just not on the same page with Traveller. Likely because I tend towards a bit of space opera.
Cats and allergies. I got my last cat due to a guy getting married and the girl was allergic. His loss, my wonderful gain.
May I suggest a Turkish Van?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_Van
Their fur is rather different. The article calls them hyo-allergenic and I've had it confirmed by one buddy of mine.
However I imagine it may or may not be effective depending upon the individual.
Federico "Angelo" Pilleri:
I'm afraid even 'just the movies' doesn't work for me. I really hated the second Trilogy. To be honest, I only like the first movie.
As to natural 'half wild cats', one can't easily arrange for a chance breeding like that. Nor would I really want to, the result would be Savannah like (as that's basically what they are- just that the F1 is an arranged hybrid), thus somewhat unpredictable.
Although I'm glad yours turned out so well.
Thanks for the tip! I love cats, and since our last one passed, it’s been tough not having one around.
Post a Comment