science-fiction version of Tunnels & Trolls?

[apeloverage]

This is something I've been thinking about recently.

Adventures would be pretty easy: 'dungeons' just replaced with bases, mysterious pieces of alien technology, ships etc.

Alien races are easy to do, just different multipliers.

Wizardry -> ESP or something.

One big difference is that in most space opera the 'standard weapons' are guns ie ranged weapons rather than hand-to-hand ones, and armour isn't a big factor.

How to stop Strength being fairly useless then? Really big pieces of hardware that require high Strength to lift?

[Fenris]

apeloverage said:

How to stop Strength being fairly useless then? Really big pieces of hardware that require high Strength to lift?

Umm, how about use Strength not only as brute musculature but also as Willpower/Fatigue, and use it as the power behind your Psi-force? ;D

[apeloverage]

Good idea.

I think you'd still need a 'Wiz' attribute though, because using Int and Dex as requirements doesn't make as much sense.

[order99]

Actually, i'd use:

ST to fuel the Ability, and
IQ and CH requirements (insight and force of ego).

Sounds like you're talking about Jedi Force Powers here, or the Lensmen Psionics-so it definitely fits the Science Fantasy category. In the aforementioned genres, most of the PCs would likely need to be Warrior Types unless all of Humanity/Kin has evolved Psi-abilities...sounds like your Types would be Explorer(Warrior, no Psi) Wild Talent(Rogue, little training) and Adept(full-bore Psi, Psi-crystal Foci use, creating new Disciplines and the like).

For a 'harder' Science Fiction (Babylon 5, Stargate, Farscape, Serenity) i'd most likely use the MS&PE Rules, particularly the Skills and Psychic Abilities from that book.

[Fenris]

apeloverage said:

Good idea.

Alas, I cannot take the credit... the idea comes from Ken St. Andre.

I must admit, T&T and S&P have always proven a good fit for me... only recently have I been interested in running a more "straight" S&S game set in a medieval Dark Ages style universe. For the last, umm, gee, forever, I've been using the same campaign world, and it has a very strong sci-fi bias. Or, at least, it used to... nowdays I guess it has more of a science-fantasy bias, but back in the day, we trampled over some pretty heavy material.


Order99, using CHR instead of DEX is something I've done in the past, and I really like it. Another option I used to use that I like was using CHR as the power; i.e., instead of an additional POWER attribute, the Charisma rating served as the power rating. Magic Power reduced by spellcasting does not affect Charisma rating, of course. (This is not used in conjunction with Charisma replacing Dex, but instead of).

The benefit to that idea was that: It felt like a lot of the source material (Gandalf, Merlin, Circe, Hitler, etc., all the fantastical and historical people with the greatest magickal power all seem to have crazy-high charismas), it didn't require the addition of a new attribute (although I did modify the level increase bonus from .5 to x2), and low-charisma beings had less power than high charisma beings (think Dwarves vs. Elves).

Of course, I had to limit armor and combat adds when using this idea, for reasons indicated elsewhere. Generally, I like it, and when using a POWER attribute that's how I do it.

OPTIONAL NOTE: I haven't done this in over a decade, so I kinda forgot about it, but I just remembered that when using the CHR as POWER idea, a spell could not normally be cast that cost more CHR than the character's current CON attribute. Points of power higher than CON burned off Strength. This kept Faeries from casting high-power spells, among other benefits.

EDIT: Oops, threadjack. If anyone wants to continue the second part of this post, please PM me and I'll start a new thread. I'm very interested in a sci-fi T&T thread and don't wish to get it off-track.

[apeloverage]

How do you deal with dashing swordsman type characters?

[Fenris]

apeloverage said:

How do you deal with dashing swordsman type characters?

Do you want them armored? I know that in Sci-fi styled adventures you don't see too much heavy armor on your heroes, and yet they always seem to be able to out-fight their opponents and not take a scratch.

If you are interested in taking off armor, 6e has a great rule (6e has lots of great rules):

Someone who has practiced combat all of their lives should have some knowledge of dodging and parrying beyond the average man. In effect, Warriors have a "natural" armor rating equal to their level, +1. The bonus is added to any armor or shield worn. For example, a 3rd level Warrior would have a basic armor rating of 4 even when completely unarmored!

As an alternative to that, and especially for a science-fantasy styled campaign, I'd suggest that the bonus given above only be allowed to Lightly Armored (i.e. leather) or Unarmored Warriors. The idea here is that the heavily armored Warrior cannot move as easily, but is better protected against damage; the Dashing Swordsman is less protected, but can dodge and parry much easier.

Note that if using the 6e idea in conjunction with my suggestion, Warriors might choose to wear heavier armor at the start of their career (when at low level), and then change to lighter armors as they progress in level (and don't need it as much). Thus, a low level fighter might wear the best armor available, but a high level fighter eschews armor, saying that it "just gets in the way" and still out-fights the heavily armored lower-level fighter. This strikes me as being totally appropriate to the genre! (Also, of course, most sci-fi worlds don't have armor of the type normally seen in fantasy and S&S).

Actually, this strikes me as appropriate to all genres, but yeah, also to science-fantasy.

[apeloverage]

Sorry - I meant, if Charisma is magic power, how do you have characters who are charismatic but definitely not magical (like Lando Calrissian for example).

[Fenris]

apeloverage said:

Sorry - I meant, if Charisma is magic power, how do you have characters who are charismatic but definitely not magical (like Lando Calrissian for example).

Sorry, my bad... I'm still trying to avoid thread-jacking, but if the OP wants to know....

I've never used Charisma as magic power in sci-fi/sci-fantasy, so the question has never come up. I did this a long time ago in a specific High Fantasy/Mythological game.

To answer the question: Charisma as Magic Power (MP) simply means that character types with Magic Power have an MP rating equal to their base Charisma. Warriors, who have no magic power, have an MP of 0 regardless of their Charisma rating.

So, a Rogue with a Charisma 16 also has MP 16. If he casts a TTYF for 6 points, he now has 10 MP left for spellcasting, but his Charisma is still 16.

If he raises his Charisma when he goes up a level, and now has a Charisma 20, he also has an MP of 20.

A Warrior with the same Charisma stat (16) has an MP of 0, because he can't cast magic. If he raises his Charisma to 20 at a level break, he still has an MP of 0.

One bone of contention was how often and how much MP was regained. If I remember correctly, we required the Caster to meditate to regain MP, and got back 2d6 per hour, but we playtested several different ways. Since MP wasn't Strength, however, the 1 point per 10 minute rule didn't seem particularly appropriate.

[castiglione]

There was actually a sci-fi variant of T&T/MSPE in the works by Michael Stackpole wayyy back in the day (there were references to it in Sorcerer's Apprentice before it went under.

It was to be called WEB, use the MSPE skill system and was based on the setting of STARWEB, the PBM game moderated by Flying Buffalo.

I always thought this would have made a very interesting setting to game in.

[order99]

Another great opportunity missed...

If anyone should run into Mr. Stackpole at the Conventions, perhaps WEB could be mentioned on conversation?

[warlord476]

This thread is pretty necro but fully relevant so I'll keep using it. Hope no-one minds.

A few years ago one of my group was GMing his campaign, but needed a break. I whipped up a Far-Future scifi game based on classic T&T and named it Eskatos, a name based on the classic Greek for end-times. It's basically a game of guarding a frontier and killing anything that tries to get through to earth. The game was set at the end of times, specifically shortly before the sun died. I'd been thinking about using psychometrics in RPGs and added some stats to help characters go stir-crazy in their deep-space guard duties, as they justified killing whatever they found and added it to the protein vats. So, it's pretty dark. There are no "scenarios" as such since as a filler mini-campaign I ran it by pulling out starship plans or small "dungeons in space" and having the characters hunt through them, plus a few puzzles. I think the hardware and software gadgets were the most fun and added a whole new dimension to the basic T&T game. Obviously a far-future scifi game isn't just about swords and armour, so I created a raft of servitor types from the fragile but helpful Monkey (rides on the back) to the hulking servo-boosted Ape (exoskeleton but can function autonomously) to the patient Mule (tractor unit). Players got a lot of fun upgrading and buying more hardware and software (well, wetware, i.e. brain rebuilds).

That was all written in Word but I suspect the files may be buried in the C:drive of a scrapped PC. Still, I can scan the pages and probably get decent quality out of them. Is this something anyone thinks is worth adding to the resources? If so is there a particular section of them I should add them?

cheers!

[derv]

warlord, I think people are always interested in others take on things. I'm not sure why there isn't more talk about a Sci-fi twist to T&T? "Eskatos"- that's pretty good, where we get our word "eschatology"- I like that.

[mahrundl]

Necromancy is fine, warlord476.

By all means, if you want to unearth and upload the material here, please do so.

[zanshin]

Sounds very interesting. Go for it.