I am pondering constructing a PDQ# hack for Truth & Justice, along the lines of the Space Opera Hack.

There's a lot of lessons learned since T&J came out -- two whole books from me, and whatnot.

Hm. I wonder if I should build this as the "Hyperworld" hack, and test it a couple times as a pick-up game at upcoming cons.

If I could make that work, it would kinda rock.

(more pondering)

Since I'm home sick today (coughhackwheeze), I figured I'd spend some time talking about the PDQ# Space Opera Hack (which I'm using for pick-up games at cons) I ran for animadversio and ladylyonesse at DC Gameday this past weekend, while I wait for the Q to kick in. (Guys, if you wanna post your character write-ups in comments, I won't complain.)

Part of the fun of PDQ# SpOp is the creation of the list of "Facts" about the setting that develops through Setting the Dials and Character Creation (both of which only take about 30 to 45 minutes tops per three players) and the course of play.

Let's step through it...

SETTING THE DIALS
This phase is for laying down the basics of the setting, so that folks can make up characters for that setting.

Thumbnail: Firefly-esque galactic exploration.
Aliens/Robots?: Aliens.
Psi?: Weak and rare.
Ships?: Group ship -- 2-person scout.
Travel?: FTL via Star Wars-style hyperspace.
Raygun Power?: Normal weapon (use MOD as usual), with a 1-shot kill (drains battery).
Why Together?: Odd-couple scout team, randomly assigned (unresolved sexual tension).
Liz's One Thing?: "Uninhabited" inhabited world.
Tom's One Thing?: Running against the Doom Clock.
Givens?: Free Good [+2] Galactic Scout Forte.

CHARACTER GENERATION
Most starting Facts come form here, especially from the Planet (at least 3 Facts per) and Past Fortes of each character. (See below.)

PLAY
Subsequent Facts come from actions in play and table-talk. (See below.)

FACTS
This is what the setting is like, what's there, who's there, that sort of jazz. The first two Facts
are givens (and have held true in all PDQ# SpOp game I've run so far).

(character generation)

1. Swords & Rayguns.
2. Planets are named after elements.
3. TELLURIUM (Tellarites):
* Gas Giant.
* Cloud cities (suspended from below on repulsor platforms).
* Smuggler's haven.
4. RHODIUM (Rodians):
* High-powered business.
* Corporate aristocracy.
* Xenophobic (other human planets inclusive).
5. Gas can, apparently, be "mined." (Extraction of fractional layers.)
6. GOLD/AURUM (Aurites):
* Jungle planet.
* Huge cave networks.
* Money means nothing.
7. Division between plant and animal on Aurum is fuzzy.
8. Aurite "cave people" are a mysterious threat.
9. Jungle folk go into the caves for 24 hrs as a rite of passage; some do not return. There is a Guardian of the Light and Dark to help them enter the caves, turn those back before the day is up, and repel cave people.
10. Guardians of the Light and Dark are Amazonian and have vague telepathic powers.
11. Aurites can be exiled by "forcible volunteerism" into the Galactic Scouts.
12. Mining concerns have their own "peace forces" (akin to Military Police) somehwere between unionized labor and management.
13. A Rhodian corporation took over a Tellarite mining concern... and started to do bad things.
14. Meteorball is the most popular sport in the galaxy. (Zero-G football.)
15. Most common retirement-injury for meteorball is "blowing out your pancreas."

(play begins)

16. INDIUM (Indites):
* New planet on long-range scans.
* Far away.
* Plenty of radioactives (used for FTL drives) and -- regular structures?
(*) Structures have regular/sharp-edged Superman Fortress of Solitude exterior and irregular/gem-studded cave system interior.
17. Galactic Patrol only have bi-corders -- the tri-corders don't come out until next year.
18. Apparently, sexual innuendo is a galactic constant.
19. "What can I say, it's a sexist galaxy.."
20. "...but Amazonians don't even notice!"
21. Indites eat metal (especially gold, yum; alloys, plastics, and organics, yuck!) and poo uranium.
22. "Successful negotiating with the Indites to trade metals for their poo will DEFINITELY make us Tier B Scouts, now!"
23. "What, we made it up to Tier C already? Go us!"
24. Indites have a hive-mind.
25. There are Gorilla-men (alternately, "Gorillalilla-mens")from... some other planet in the galaxy.
26. The primary melee weapon of Tellurium is the "skimatar."

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RULESY THOUGHTS FROM SESSION

A. Liz took "Fearless" as her SpaceOperatic Forte (in S7S, Swashbuckling Forte). I thought that was neat, so I did something similar with the antagonist character I was creating alongside of them (Judson Dok,Rhodian Corporate Aristocrat), taking "Relentless."

This was neat. It kind of made the SpOpForte into a bigass unchained Technique (with MOD bonuses) applicable to other Fortes. It also made the selection of actual Techniques under it slightly easier/quicker, at the expense of really needing to identify what you wanted this sort of SpOp Forte to really enhance.

The benefit-stacking (MODs, +1/re-rolls) for particular Forte and situation combos got interesting. For Dok, he was Relentless (bought up to Expert [+4]), Technique of Foe: Tom's PC, Technique of Situation: Chasing, and had a separate Expert [+4] Pilot skill: all of which meant that he was constantly on Tom's PC's tail, chasing him through space... and often shooting him down. WHICH MATCHED PERFECTLY with Tom's character's Foible of "On the Run.")

B. PDQ# states that adding a Minor Fact to the game costs no Style Dice. As I've been running PDQ# SpOp, I've found myself AWARDING Style Dice for generation of Minor Facts that make it onto the Fact list. No one has as yet tried to create anything I've considered a Significant or Major Fact -- and that could be a function of these being pick-up, one-shot games -- makes me wonder if I should codify this.

C. PDQ# SpOp has thus far always generated humor, often silly -- but it's mostly played straight. This is very nice. The best media examples I can think of are Big Trouble in Little China, Firefly, and Buckaroo Banzai. (Flash Gordon and Star Wars are within the scope, but on the straighter-faced end of the spectrum; Ice Pirates is probably the far end of the silly spectrum.)

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So, yeah: that was fun!

After some discussion in the comments on the previous post on Space Opera Dogfighting, and some discussion on the S7S Yahoogroup, I am in the middle of rethinkery on SpOp Dogfighting.

Your comments desired; genre/media analysis and game design behind the cut...

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Space Opera Space Combat

This post is mostly to help me go back to square one on rethinking SpOp combat. It's me thinking out loud, which I choose to do on this LJ rather than junk up the S7S yahoogroup any further.

From my reading and especially viewing (since PDQ# is a cinematic game), space combat in the Space Opera breaks down into common categories across three scales.

The three scales are: Fighter, Corvette, and Capital Ship.


The obvious common categories are:
1. Fighter vs. Fighter: *-wings vs. TIEs (SW), Starfuries vs. Raiders/*-Fighters (B5), Vipers vs. Cylon Raiders (BG). (Capital Ships are mostly background.)

2. Capital Ship vs. Capital Ship: Constellation/Galaxy Class vs. other Ships of the Line (ST), Ships of the Line vs. Shadow Battlecrabs (B5), Battlestar vs. Basestar (BG). (Fighters are mostly background.)

3. Fighters vs. Capital Ship: The snarl around the second Death Star in RotJ (SW), Vipers vs. Basestar and Raiders vs. Battlestar (BG), several examples (B5).


The obvious but more uncommon categories:
A. Corvette vs. Fighters: Millenium Falcon vs. TIEs (SW), possibly War Rocket Ajax vs. Hawkmen (FG).

B. Corvette vs. Capital Ship: Possibly the Defiant from DS9 (BG), White Stars vs. Battlecrabs (B5).

C. Corvette vs. Corvette: I'm lacking an example here. Possibly something from B5?

D. Major Battle (All Scales at Once): B5 is the exemplar here, I think.


I think that surrounds most of the popular match-ups. In general, I think it's safe to say that in the majority of SpOp combat, ships stay within their scale -- it's either Fighter vs. Fighter (FvF; SW model) or Capital Ship vs. Capital Ship (CSvCS; ST model). Some thought, however, will have to be paid to the FvCS option -- but that's down the road. (Ideas below on how to mechanize these two basic interactions under PDQ#.)


Outstanding Questions to Ponder

Again, your thoughts are welcome in the comments -- I'm especially looking for illustrations of resolutions for the below questions in SF&F media, if you can think of any.

* Combat between different scales (especially FvCS).

* Combat involving all 3 scales at once.

* How to integrate Corvettes? (How do they work in interacting with the higher and lower scales? Are they more big Fighters, small Capital Ships, or something else? This question is especially problematic, since Corvettes are mostly likely to be the right size for a bunch of PCs to work together in.)

* Examples of CVvCV combat in the source genre? (All I'm coming up with is White Star vs. Drakh ships from B5.)

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PDQ# SpOp Space Combat Rules Thots

Determining the "basic" scale (F, CV, CS) for a PDQ# SpOp game should absolutely be part of Setting the Dials. Once that's done, many of the other tributary concerns should be easy to resolve, since the majority of space combat will happen in that basic scale.

I think that common cases #1 and #2, from above, are pretty clear-cut under PDQ# -- #1 is a slightly modified Duel [1] and #2 is a slightly reskinned-to-fit-the-genre version of Vehicle Combat from S7S. (#3 will require thought on combat across scales before anything can be done on that; once #3 is figured out, the CV question can be broached.)

[1] In the discussions thus far on SpOp Dogfighting, I have been reminded of the importance of position/advantage (p/a). So, I went back and looked at GURPS Lensmen for its Space Opera Combat System (SOCS) simply for inspiration -- because even it (light by GURPS standards) is way too complicated for the abstraction of PDQ#. However, this review did bear fruit.

The slight modification of the Duel rules for Dogfighting is this: before every Turn, the opposing Pilots have a Flashy Challenge, which represents gaining p/a over their foe. Per the FC rules, the loser takes a Failure Rank and the winner gains a Style Die -- but here's the modification: the winner also gains initiative for the Turn. Duels play out as usual (including the Volte-Face).

I think that this helps give the flavor of the value of p/a without making the benefits of winning or the penalties for losing it overwhelming, or making the system overly complex.

Here are two further ideas to beef up the benefits of p/a, but they might be too crippling, and do not look like they can be used together:

* No Volte-Face: The defender does not get any chance to attack during the Turn. This means that a defender will essentially always be All-Out Defending (3d), and has a good chance at evading damage... but even given that, the Failure Ranks accrued from the FCs for p/a at the top of each Turn will grind down on both fighters.

* Limited Combat Options: After position/advantage is determined, attackers can only All-Out Attack or Strongly Attack; defenders can only Strongly Defend or All-Out Defend.

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Thoughts, questions, comments, examples?

Some continuing thoughts on tweaks and adjustments for PDQ# Space Opera (which, as noted previously) will probably be my go-to concept for convention and pick-up games)...

While most of Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies can easily be reskinned from swashbuckling to space opera (Nationality to Planet, Mystical Gifts to Psychic Powers, mild adjustments to Setting the Dials, etc.), there is one element that is very different between these related genres: Vehicle Combat.

In a word: Dogfighting.

Here's a first assay -- in outline/bullet point format -- at handling that issue; I'd love your thoughts on the topic.

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PDQ# SpOp Dogfighting

Ship Size
* Fighter (Starfury): A single pilot.
* Corvette (Millenium Falcon): A pilot and a couple gunners. [1]
* Capital Ship (the Enterprise): A crew of officers.

PC Ships vs. NPC Ships
(PC vs. NPC is intentionally assymetrical; these options will preferably be laid-out in a matrix/table; the idea is to preserve both the feel of space opera ship combat and value of PC actions in such.)

Page Refs: The Duel (S7S, p. 209*) and Vehicular Duels (S7S, p. 229*).

* PC Fighter vs. NPC Fighter: The Duel (Pilot vs. Pilot).
* PC Fighter vs. NPC Corvette: The Duel; NPC Ship has 5 dice to divvy and keep; PCs get +2 to attack and defense rolls per additional ship in their squadron.
* PC Fighter vs. NPC Capital Ship: The Duel; NPC Ship has 7 dice to divvy and keep; PCs get +4 to attack and defense rolls per additional ship in their squadron.

* PC Corvette vs. NPC Fighter: The Duel (each Gunner vs. NPC Pilot); NPC Fighters = Minions.
* PC Corvette vs. NPC Corvette: The Duel.
* PC Corvette vs. NPC Capital Ship: The Duel; NPC Ship has 5 dice to divvy and keep; PCs get +2 to attack and defense rolls per additional ship in their squadron. [2]

* PC Capital Ship vs. NPC Fighter: S7S Vehicular Duel, with Fighter Squadrons = Minion Squads.
* PC Capital Ship vs. NPC Corvette: S7S Vehicular Duel, with Duel damage (reducing Wound Ranks) rather than Vehicular Duel Damage (targeted Wound Ranks). [3]
* PC Capital Ship vs. NPC Capital Ship: S7S Vehicular Duels as normal.

NOTES
[1] Non-pilot/non-gunner crewmembers use the "PCs Ganging Up" rules (S7S, p. 214) to directly aid the pilot or gunners, or can perform non-combat actions (damage control, scanning, etc.; see S7S, p. 227*, for ideas based on Vehicle Challenges).

[2] Or should this be a Vehicular Duel, with the NPC Ship having some bonuses?

[3] This may be a bit fiddly. Will definitely have to test it in play.

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These rules might even be back-portable into S7S. Hmmm.

Thoughts?

(Additional info on the PDQ# SpOp game played at Camp Nerdly 3 in this thread on Story-Games.)

This past weekend was Camp Nerdly 3.

Short form: Had great conversations, played fun games, drank regional sodas (Cheerwine and Dr. Enuf FTW!), and made silly faces at well-behaved babies. An all-around win.

Also, for the vid-inclined, Jason Morningstar's One Cool Thing I Saw At Camp Nerdly 3 on YouTube.

Otherwise, the long day-by-day breakdown behind the cut...

(Apologies ahead of time, I'm not going to try and get everyone's LJ username... but feel free to chime in with comments!)

WEDNESDAY
macklinr flew into BWI in the evening; I picked him up; we swung by drivingblind's place -- it's on the way back -- to chew the fat a bit.

Much talk regarding games, girls, the gaming industry, and keeping your head on straight.

Good times.


THURSDAY
Purchasing final bits of gear, packing, and puttering.


FRIDAY
Drove down in the early afternoon. Freaking hot and humid. Registered, found my cabin, unpacked, said hellos, checked the schedule, explored the campsite.

Played my first game of 1000 Blank White Cards -- I really dug it. Then, later, a game of Misspent Youth, where our Youthful Offenders (YOs) ended up, uh, kinda worse than the Authority. Good times. (See my Overview of MS.)

Oh, and also kept Ryan awake all night with my snoring -- with an able ripsaw-assist from Buddha.

I need a new sleeping bag: my mummy bag only fits up to mid-torso: my chest and shoulders don't fit into the damned thing. Luckily, I had a blanket. And despite the heat of the days, the nights were cold and damp, even in the cabins. Note for next time!

SATURDAY
Chatting in the morning, then playstormed nikotesla's game Xenon.

After lunch, took a long, solitary walk up to the deserted Camp A. Lots of solo thinkery on issues of current concern, while communing with nature in the Big Blue Room. Went back to my bunk and nap-crashed for an hour or two.

Learned how to play Jungle Speed, which I will be purchasing soon. Played JS until it was time for me to go and be an Oven Master (cook) for dinner.

Ran the stove for dinner: cooking soup, pasta, sauce, and a balsamic glazed chicken for around 55 people with Emily Care Boss, Epidiah Ravachol, and Joshua Riley.

Played MythEnder, and helped End the Migard Serpent! Boo-yeah! Gotta say, some of the other players' characters had some full-octane insanity that I was envious of... like "The Tongueless Last Emperor of Rome" as a Companion Weapon or the Drowned Pirate Captain who wants to "kill the ocean" demanding a terrified farmer tell her a children's story as a was to regain Mortality. Awesome. (See my Overview of ME.)

Late (around midnight), I ran a game of PDQ# Space Opera. We started with two facts:

#1. This is all Flash Gordon/Buck Rogers: swords and rayguns.
#2. All of the planets have the names of elements from the Periodic Table.

As we worked through "setting the dials" and character creation, and then later in play, we added more facts to the setting. In almost exactly two hours, we went from nada to a setting described by 20 or so facts, four fully-statted PCs and 2 NPCs (a villain and an archvillain; the latter, alas, didn't show up in play), and three action-filled, entertaining, hilarious scenes -- complete with immediate adventure resolution and a cliffhanger!

I think PDQ# SpOp ("spop!") is going to be my minimal prep game to run at conventions. I'll type up my notes tonight and try to bash together some simple handouts and forms to fill out to facilitate even speedier play. Then I'll print out a bunch and slap them in a folder to put in my game bag.


SUNDAY
Played a version of the game Fred describes as "the Grateful Dead concert of Indie Gaming" (I'll let him chime in on that when he gets a chance), Ganakagok in the morning, and it was great! Nine of us played the newish "jeepforged" version of the game. The best way I can describe it is that it's a structured, freeform, one-room LARP.

Ryan and I packed up, loaded the car, came back to the Deluxe Apartment in the Sky-y-y to eat something, take showers, and do laundry. Then I drove Ryan back up to Fred's so he could crash there before flying out today. Had a nice long discussion covering much ground, and also got the 411 on the "end of Season 1" D&D4e game I missed on Saturday.

Got home, ordered a pizza for the first time in two weeks, ate, watched Batman: Brave & the Bold (with Bat-Mite! How cool is that?), then did freelance editing into the wee hours. Then I crashed like the Hindenberg.


SUMMARY: Had oodles of fun. Will try to go again next year!