Blue Shift (aubrey's sci-fi project)

[Caleb]

What is Aubrey naming her space game project?

Just wondering.

[Maugh]

Yeah. THe concept for this is somewhere in the deep space sci-fi realm, (star trek, star wars, firefly, treasure planet, etc.) where the gaming party is not so much an adventuring party, but a complete starship crew. THe game would be divided into two main segments, in a ship-based combat system and an off-world exploration/adventuring sort of set up to complement it.

We've done the most work on the space-combat segment. In this scenario, each individual has a responsibility for the ship, out of a longish list. The crew of a ship all act together, on the same action, but control different actions of the ship. This makes the ship itself a sort of conglomerated character.

Some examples of ship-based roles include:

Captain: Provides commands, strategy, and maybe leadership bonuses for others?
Gunner: Controls weapons. (multiple guns incur penalties, encouraging multiple gunners for heavily armed ships.)
Pilot: Controls movement.
Chief Engineer: Re-routes power, providing bonuses to other systems.
Repair Engineer: Repairs damaged parts.
Shield Technician: Controls placement and power of shields.
Fighter Pilot: Pilots small one-manned craft. (for those pesky trenches and for shooting womprats.)

More later.

[Caleb]

Maybe I just think this way because I'm a programmer and I modularize as a principle but wouldn't it make sense to make it so you can just use any land fighting system that you wanted to? I could be missing something, especially if you have an idea for how land should be. But it seems that there are a number of D20 systems that are already sci-fi and we could even have a sci-fi mod for mayhem.

[Matt']

Most D20 systems kind of suck. The D20 rule-set becomes a skeleton that people hang all sorts of weird crap on, most of which does not turn out the be particularly balanced. Biscuits father in law argued pretty effectively D20 makes no sense for fire-arms, because guns either hit your or they don't. Non-disabling hits may be a movie staple, but apart from the Terminator, nobody ever takes 2+ hits to kill. (One blast of semi-auto counts as a hit).

[Maugh]

I'm with matt here, with some caveats. The Mayhem game combat system was built with melee combat in mind, as a sort of fencing routine. Wait, attack, counter-attack, pull back. It makes timing and range very important, to successfully simulate combat between various melee weapons, which it accomplishes very well, I think.

REally, since this is fiction, it all boils down to image. You want a fantasy game to play like a fantasy game, and highlight the ebb and flow of that kind of combat.

I think the sci-fi combat is a very different image, with rays and stray bullets flying past all the time. A solid hit is a big deal, and combat will be a lot more about cover and the use of tech than before.

The mechanic that I was kicking around, at this point, was really similar to what I was working with for the mecha game, and actually similar to what we are using for the ship-based combat. This is rough, so it's up for discussion.

Attacking character has an accuracy, based on their gun, and a bonus, based on their skill level. (skill being defined differently than Mayhem, but never mind. THe offensive weapon has a bunch of stats, such as range increments, a static damage, explosive spread for some weapons, damage type, etc. like I said. Rough.

THe defending character has a dodge, (really just a defensive die,) plus any bonuses that they might get to that.

They may also have an over-shield, which acts as the character's 'hit points,' so to speak. THe overshield soaks damage until it fails, at which point all attacks hit the target.

When an attack hits, a random body part is rolled, 1d6. 1-2 legs 3-4 arms 5 torso 6 headshot. Torso shots are lethal without immediate medical response. (medical officer on hand!) Headshots are lethal period.

In addition to the overshield, I was considering a concept of ballistic armor, which would give each body part a few extra 'shots,' that would soak a few hits.

This system direclty reflects the ship-based combat, where a weapon has accuracy, a ship has a maneuverability as defense, and hits go to the shields first, and then roll randomly to hit parts of the ship, disabling components as they go.


Since some weapons do fire at faster rates than others, We were considering just doing an attacks per round mechanic, and using that to balance the weapons. An SMG, for example, might have a lot of attacks per round, but weak accuracy and low damage. A full-on sniper rifle, however, would have a high accuracy, good damage, and one attack per round.

Anyway, that's the thought.

[Caleb]

You may have misunderstood something about my post, Modularity deals with separation of concerns. I don't want to sound like I'm fighting against a ground system, and I definitely agree that Mayhem isn't the right choice, that wasn't the point. It was more of a point of how tied are the systems to each other??? Will the space system work without the ground system? could someone plug the space system into their game without major modifications? or does it depend too much on the ground system.

I'm unaware of how well made D20 systems are and I yes even mentioning Mayhem was not thought out. I just think it would be neat to be able to market the game to others without forcing them to quit their game. If they are meant to be tightly bound, I could understand that.

[Maugh]

James asked a similar question, actually. He wanted to know if he could tweak the ship-based rules for sailing-ship combat.

*shrug*

No reason why not. It's just generally my preference to work with building a whole system, rather than partially modding someone else's.

[Caleb]

There wouldn't be any modding someone elses involved. The question was is it tied to the ground system, or could it exist on it's own but in your case could 2 things be bundled in one package.