Serentity/Firefly 'verse using MGT

[GamerDude]

Well howdy all!

I'm currently trying to come up with a Serenity/Firefly setting that uses the MGT mechanics/equipment. I've had a couple of "Serenity Purists" give me a hard time for it but I've got folks in other places who are interested.

I don't know how many fans of Serenity/Firefly (just "Serenity" for now, my fingers hurt) there are out there, or how many folks are playing in a Serenity game of some time, but I would love to get feedback and ideas from our Traveller community here.

The core of the project is taking the feel and descriptions in the Serenity RPG and melting them into MGT, WITHOUTH hurting the flavor of the MGT system. I know this is a big project and all the more reason for me to get feedback on it.

Anyone interested can join browncoat-Traveller_RPG at yahoogroups. Here are the addresses:
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When you join you'll be auto-sent the welcome file that will give you the basics of what's being done, our game plan, etc.

Thanks!

 

[alex_greene]

Sounds cool. Good luck with that.

As for authenticity, just make sure the characters' weapons tech is no more than about TL 7. If you have a Jayne clone, give him a TL 9 gun - retroteched down to TL 7 or 8. Big and bulky, lots of shiny.

If you have the Central Supply Catalogue supplement (Supplement 4), that has a whole range of tech toys and weapons / armour tech for your Serenity setting.

Other than that, keep all aliens out of the game, restrict the animals to livestock and other recognisable Terran creatures - and have fun with the Companions' Guild stuff.

 

[Mithras]

And stick to a Traveller universe that is 1 subsector in size. I do, and there is a real Serenity feel to it. My TL9 desert world was full of ranchers on quad bikes, clunky ATVs, miners and ranchers, all wearing long leather dusters, wide-brimmed hats and oxygen compressors. Everyone carried pistols and a rifle lashed to their quad.

Now the PCs are off to the neighbouring asteroid belt with many very different habitats, conjuring up that 'many worlds' close together Serenity feeling.

And since my players have never seen FF/Serenity, they are travelling on a Far Trader called Serenity captained by Mal and crewed by the cast...

 

[BP]

Don't forget to add goram buffer panels as starship options...

 

[GamerDude]

Thanks Y'all...

I've got all the SRPG books, many supplemental Serenity books, and just about everything Traveller from Mongoose. Rule #1-NO PSIONS! The blue handed men can go hunt elsewhere.

One of the nice SRPG books out there is called "Six-Shooters & Spaceships" so there are great examples for names and what things look like. Those just have to be applied to specific weapons in the catalog (or fudge their stats).

All this reminds me of the guy who, when I tried to do a GURPS Serenity game, showed up in the TShirt claiming complete knowledge of the 'verse. Without spending the Char Points (CP) for anything he wrote a background that gave him like a 200 to 400 dton cargo vessel, and a 'force sword' both inherited from his day (starting money was 2x campaign start so 30,000 cr).

Then he wants his daughter to play and she gives him a complete rip-off of Inyuhasu (or something like that) that she was a half-demon, had to be from a planet orbiting a red sun, and her berzerker bloodlust that won't let her back down from a fight hadn't kicked in so she was running across the spaceport where the rest of the players had just landed and were to rescue her.

That game died fast because he wouldn't let up. :roll: :roll:

 

[alex_greene]

And don't forget the gorram Chinese cussin'!

If something ain't goin' smooth with your wave source box, start yellin' "Ai ya! Huai le!" and kick the "hun dan" broken machine in the reg couple while screaming "Ta ma de! Tian xia suo yo de ren!" at every passing crewmember till they start yelling "Chr ni de!" back at you, with teeth.

 

[GamerDude]

That was funny, seriously very in the flavor of Firefly

People have already started joining the list, and we're having a lively discussion on the nature of the culture in Firefly... it's supposed to be multicultural - Chinese and "American" but the only real influences that are Chinese are the curse words and some of the advertising seen in the show. There should be a great deal more that than.

 

[alex_greene]

That was funny, seriously very in the flavor of Firefly

People have already started joining the list, and we're having a lively discussion on the nature of the culture in Firefly... it's supposed to be multicultural - Chinese and "American" but the only real influences that are Chinese are the curse words and some of the advertising seen in the show. There should be a great deal more that than.

You need to distribute some sort of flyers to the characters with a few common expressions in Chinese, just to pepper things up, and once in a while have a NPC say something in Chinese to them as part of a normal conversation.

Common Chinese Phrases

Essentials

WikiTravel Chinese Phrases

Some example phrases from one of the above sites-

nǐ hǎo -Hello
zài jiàn -Goodbye
shì de -Yes
bù shì -No
qǐng -Please
xiè xiè -Thanks
wǒ de míng zì jiào ... -My name is ...
nǐ jiào shén me míng zì? -What is your name?
hěn gāo xīng rèn shí nǐ -Pleased to meet you
duō shǎo qián? -How much is it?
duì bù qǐ -Sorry
qǐng wèn -Excuse me
zǎo shàng hǎo -Good morning
wǎn shàng hǎo -Good evening
bù kè qì -Don't mention it
nǐ hǎo ma? -How are you?
hǎo, nǐ ne? -Fine, and you?
.. zài nǎr? -Where is ..?

You'll have to get used to the Chinese accent; duì bù qǐ is pronounced like "DWAY - boo - CHEE" and bù shì is pronounced Boo - SHIR, for instance. Otherwise, good luck.

 

[GamerDude]

Those sites are going to be very helpful when I get that moment to look them over.

I realized that, over all, it can be hard for people to speak something written in another language without any idea of how the phonetics work. So I'm going to provide the handout spelled out in Chinese and the English phonetic equivalents.

 

[evo]

Hi,

I just put myself in Traveller, but I plan to masterize in a custom Firefly / Serenity universe, not in 3rd Imperium (I have a strong allergy to 70's E.T. created under LSD, and Homo homini lupus). I bought the original Serenity RPG from Margaret Weiss, powered by Cortex system, but I prefer Traveller's 2D6 rules and creation process. And the T-rules seem adapted to the 'Verse.

There are a few times, I worked on a random choice to determine the character's homeworld (initially for Serenity RPG), based on the (wonderful) QMX 'Verse map and The Arc of the 'Verse. Actually, I work on a new (French) Traveller Character sheet and minor modifications to the original skill set. But I eventually convert these tables to D66 later, with worlds description, TL, goods, etc. (not alone, I need help if people are interested).

Here is the PDF (Google Docs).

And... Keep the signal !
:lol:

 

[alex_greene]

You can bring out other influences beyond American and Chinese.

The French, Germans and Russians would not have sat back, especially now that NASA looks to be scaling back and leaving ESA to take up the slack of pole position in the space race - perhaps the 'Verse should have had Chinese, Indian, Japanese and Russian with American English as the minority language used for cussin'!

Fancy a scenario where the Patron picks up the characters at a swanky French bar on Ariel, a pilot of Indian descent who uses Vedic mathematics to outperform the ship's own nav computer in plotting courses and a Companion on board who speaks Russian, Polish, German and Welsh because her grandparents came from people of those nationalities?

I forgot to mention something else.

Psionics.

Keep the Psionic Strength low - ranges 6-8, so no Psionic Strength DM. Readers have low level Telepathy, some Clairvoyance - so Life Detection, Telempathy, Read Surface Thoughts are allowed, as are Sense and Tactical Awareness ("Mustn't look! Mustn't look!" *bang* *bang* *bang* *dead* *dead* *dead*), and the Awareness Ability of Enhanced Awareness, but all the rest ... well, we never got to see them in operation, so assume not.

For the record, assume River Tam's natural Psionic Strength to be 12, giving her a Psi DM of +2; that, and high Telepathy, Clairvoyance and Awareness.

And don't forget "Two by two, hands of blue," and that really fancy high tech neural weapon of theirs - costs 1 Psionic Strength to activate, and unprotected people up to Medium range sustain 2d6 damage per combat turn, bleeding from fingernails and orifices and expiring horribly.

 

[barnest2]

I really don't think that weapon was neural. It could just as easily have been sonic or something...

 

[DFW]

it's supposed to be multicultural - Chinese and "American" but the only real influences that are Chinese are the curse words and some of the advertising seen in the show. There should be a great deal more that than.

Add lots of Chinese food.

 

[SSWarlock]

duplicate post

 

[evo]

duplicate post

Nope, I moved to a better place.


In the Alliance, the TL must be ±10, with upper TL on specialized domains, like Terraformation and Communications. Spaceship's prices must be reduced (/100 ?), it's a common good in the 'Verse.

There's elements to keep for a Firefly universe :
- an Alliance obsessed with control
- secret operative with blue hands
- duality Chinese / English
- chinese expressions
- the old farwest style on the rim, baby !
- girls, lot of them (like in the casting)
- all must be *shiny*, even if it's dirty

Otherwise, I don't know how to "think" the Reavers. I wonder if I'll use them in their original form (insane pseudo-zombies).

 

[SSWarlock]

Pity we'll never know the true story behind Shepard Book.

 

[alex_greene]

Otherwise, I don't know how to "think" the Reavers.

Sparingly.

Very, very sparingly.

Reaver baseline ... Average human stats, ignore Social Standing, then apply the following drug tweaks as permanent modifications:-

Slow Drug:- +8 to initiative total at start of combat; dodge up to twice each round without affecting initiative score.

Stim Drug:- Reavers never feel fatigue. They don't lie down. They never lie down.

Combat Drug: Initiative and dodge benefits rolled into Slow Drug benefits above. All damage they sustain reduced by 4 points.

Titan Drug: Strength +6.

The damage they suffer is horrific, but that's the thing about Reavers: they don't care.

Their aggressive instincts have been pushed to beyond madness, yet they retain full Intelligence and Education which means they have enough planning and intelligence to run Starships ...

Chosen ship's weapons: EMP beams - treat as particle barbettes, designed to short out electronics on vessels.

Grapplers: to hold onto the crippled hulks their EMP beams have fried, and reel them in.

Reavers prefer their prey alive when they begin to eat them ...

 

[evo]

I feel the browncoat in you !

Reavers never feel fatigue. They don't lie down. They never lie down.

River Tam, isn't it ?

 

[alex_greene]

I feel the browncoat in you !

Oh, so that's what your hand was doing.

Reavers never feel fatigue. They don't lie down. They never lie down.

River Tam, isn't it ?

The very same.

Reavers give chase when they see someone running.

When they see River Tam, they're the ones who do the running.

 

[evo]

Ok, I think I made ​​a mistake in the sentence (the "in you" was useless, right ?). I apologize for the hand (of blue ?).

When they see River Tam, they're the ones who do the running.

Miranda
8)

PS : Summer Glau comes from Texas, like Chuck Norris.