All that being said, today's blog is about something new we tried at the weekend- a sci-fi tabletop roleplaying game. Firstly, the original plan was to play Traveller, a very old game that's supposed to be 'D&D... in space!' but I fail to see the similarities (though I should point out this info is about the GURPS version, not the original so some things may be different). We were given the race books to look at, as we already weren't convinced with some of what we had heard, and after looking at the books we were even less convinced. We were told that the race you play is a tiny insignificant detail, which may well be the case but it's still what your character's going to look like and you need to be at least slightly willing to act as your character for probably weeks if not months on end. I'm not sure where to begin with what's wrong with the races... But I'll start at the beginning of what I looked at: the Aslan. I first heard the name and thought 'that's a lion', and turns out I wasn't far off. They're actually Thundercats. Basically, a feline species (that definitely aren't related to cats at all, the book was emphatic about that), and their main gimmick is their laws and customs- men get offended if they are offered money, as that's a 'womans' role, and if they get offended then they're obligated to fight for their honour. The book also stated that they definitely aren't japanese samurai with a cat skin, but if you want information on how to play them then look at japanese movies and feudal history. Also their hands/paws have a dew claw at the base of their thumb, which is located at the bottom centre of their hand. At this point, I figured that I didn't like that race but they're just one race- I'll move on to the next one and see if that's any better. It wasn't. The K'kree, or 'centaurs' (a gross misunderstanding of the term), are intelligent herbivores evolved from herd animals. I could go with that, but I made the mistake of reading further. They evolved by raising their heads for higher plants and foliage, and developed front arms. OK. Because they were higher, they had a better vantage point to see predators, and to improve their sight further their eyes moved to the front of their heads... wait, what? The reason predators have front located eyes is so they can lock onto their prey... prey have side facing eyes so they have a larger field of vision to see predators at any angle around them. They have 2 spines... right. Their hands are relatively normal, except they have hooves instead of thumbs- again, what? The whole point of a hoof is that it's several fingers fused together. The book says the lack of a thumb makes them more dexterous but also gives less of a grip, but also more dexterous and a tighter grip... And when their natural predators got bored of hunting lesser species, they used their newfound intelligence to hunt their hunters using their own methods despite the fact they were using tools when their hunters weren't. They then took that a stage further by vowing to rid the universe of any meat-eating species, despite the fact they readily acknowledge that they are technically eating meat if there's a fly in their food, explained away as 'anything to small to be an animal is not an animal'. Maybe if I read a little more then they'll redeem themselves? Scent is a powerful thing for K'kree, they communicate by involuntarily producing gas from orifices and they judge each other based on the potency of the smell.... Yeah that's enough of them. I'll just flick through the other races... a dog that's been awakened by druids or something... space nazi humans... some abomination thing... the hell is that? Some sea creature that looks like a deformed jellyfish- I may as well read. So, they're a parasitic species that feed off of whales, and for some reason they developed intelligence and are now a strict bureaucracy. OK so the races are pants, but I can always be a human that hates every creature in the universe- I'll look for stories about the game instead, see if there's anything interesting. Quick search online... well images comes up with no fan art at all. That's not a good sign. Hundreds of ship plans- well I couldn't care less for ship designs. And as for actual stories... every single one of them is a story by a DM/GM about cool stuff they implemented- I couldn't find a single story written by a player- that says to me that the DM might as well be writing a story than having people play. So Traveller is definitely off the list. (I should point out that these are just my views, and yours may very well differ. Hell, mine might as well if I actually played the game but I still haven't been told any redeemable features other than the GURPS system, which can be used for any setting.)
So instead, we settled for Star Wars RPG as a compromise- it's still in space (not ideal as I'm not in to point-and-click weapons like blasters), and it's a different system from D20 but it's at least a setting I know a fair bit about, and the races are somewhat believable. And I must say, I enjoyed it. My character didn't turn out exactly how I hoped, a Trandoshan Smuggler, but I didn't find the classes particularly appealing. Plus within the first 5 minutes I was running from an insane drunk jedi who was cutting down the imperial stormtroopers in the cantina, causing me to get reflexively shot at by said stormtroopers, but I turned out ok. I didn't intend to literally run like a headless chicken, but I thought I may as well go with it, turning me into the group's Zoidberg. So far we've got a good bit of intrigue regarding a mysterious statue that gives force sensitives headaches, my companion is getting advice from the aforementioned drunken jedi, and I'm being stalked by spider droids, and although I'm still not entirely convinced by the system- seems a bit too much 'this happens because the dm says so' compared to d&d- but it's still good fun and simple to pick up. I'm sure I'll update people on how it progresses, as I won't be transcribing this game like I have in the past, what with my other two blogs on the go.
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