Now that I’m in #Houston I am tempted to run ALL the #TTRPG campaigns, but realism says pick one or two.
Top contenders:
1) #PBTA #ShadowRun year-by-year through its history
2) #Traveller mixed with other sci-fi, with jump keys as hereditary
3) #Torg blended setting dimension-hopping through mirrors (with a lighter system)
4) West Marches drop-in case files with #NightsBlackAgents & #DeltaGreen
I may need to hire a life coach just to help me choose! Input is welcome!
@erich Traveller sounds nice, would it be about space merchants? Spaceship battles? Exploration of long-forgotten xeno ruins? A band going on a galactic tour to spread a new genre of music? Gravity racers competing in the black hole run in hopes to win the grand prize? Milky way tourists recruited as spies by mistake and now unwillingly in charge of a critical diplomatic mission? All of that at once?
@Whidou Probably more the first two than the band... unless I get players who really want to go that route.
I tend to run games like #Traveller as a sandbox with a custom kicker based on what the players want to do (as discussed in a Session 0).
In this case, the universe I have in mind is heavy on questions of autonomy and a bit of transhumanism. Some espionage and defiance of authority tend to fit well inside those themes.
@erich To what end? This is the important question to ask.
What kind of game experience do you want? Remember, other people have to be involved too, theoretically. It needs to be something as much from them as you.
Of those four, Traveller probably has the highest likelihood of success.
Torg is all over the place. The SR pitch only works if the crowd knows and loves SR already. Supernatural investigators/spies can work but investigation is inherently a PITA at the table.
@lextenebris Fair points.
I've had some luck with the SR game in the past with SR newbies, and using #Gumshoe really eases the investigative pains.
Experiences I want (pending collaborative consensus):
1) nice balance of episodic + continuous, 90s retro nostalgia + explaining the ridiculous
2) sandbox sci-fi with a sociology twist
3) see how genres and settings play off each other
4) casual & newbie friendly in a hard genre
@erich Gumshoe is extremely nice for doing investigation. Not perfect but a lot closer than most other things.
Here's an important question: How attached are you to the traditional RPG architecture of the GM/player dichotomy, separation of player/character knowledge, and top-down information flow?
@erich If you want to stay relatively in that traditional space, a hack of the Gumshoe-variant Mutant City Blues might not be a bad choice.
https://pelgranepress.com/product/mutant-city-blues-2nd-edition/
Plenty of sci-fi and sci-fi-adjacent mechanics to help you out but not so straitjacket that you can't essentially do Traveller + Sherlock Holmes. Not trivially but not with too much sweat, either.
@erich I say this a lot but if it were me still trying to stick to a mostly GM/player architecture, I'd probably use Wushu.
Really, really rules light. Very much fiction forward. A lot of any investigation would really be players asserting something is true and that instantaneously being true – but maybe not in the way they intended.
It's not for everybody.
@erich The other alternative would be 5150: New Beginnings and 5150: Known Space, which I would provide a link to but the store is currently in transition between providers. It leans somewhere between RPG and "adventure wargame," but the Traveller DNA in inspiration is pretty clear in KS.
(The overall feel is more like Blade Runner, a sort of cyberpunk multi-planet dystopia. Though there is a book specifically on being a PI.)
@lextenebris re top down flow:
I’m unattached to it as a GM, but experience says my players need to ease into it.
Thus, at least at the start, I usually provide concrete setting & narrative. In early games, I tend to ask “How does this look?” questions.
Early on, I try to establish players as the authority on some element of the setting, usually one added through their backstory.
as they get comfortable, I flip the script by asking them PBTA style questions (“What isn’t obvious here?”).
@erich I'd like to provide a counterargument.
If your players don't have a lot of experience in RPGs they don't have expectations set yet. If that's the case, you can go balls deep into alternative architectures on Day Zero and while they may notice it differs from what they may have expected by consuming media – they don't have any bad habits built up that will get in the way of them engaging.
It's almost ideal, really.
@erich I'm totally there with you on, for convention games and pickup games and the like, starting with a set setting in which everybody's on the same page roughly from the beginning. It saves a lot of time. Hooking people into caring because you deliberately attached to their back story is a great move.
I've actually found really good luck with just dumping people into the deep end the pool when it comes to narrativism.
@erich Even when they have a ton of learned baggage, the further away you are from things that they have done over and over, the easier it is to teach them the new way.
Wushu is about my "I'll meet you halfway" point. Anything else I'm interested in playing is going to be even further on this side. That is generally by design and intent.
@erich Anyway, if you're looking to start up some long-term play in Houston – I say be as unusual as you can. There is undoubtedly a billion D&D games. There's probably a couple of hundred ShadowRun games. 50 or more RAW Traveller games. Almost no Torg, I feel comfortable saying. Slightly more DG than NBA and Torg, I feel secure in saying.
@erich If you're looking to start up some new, long-term playgroups that get traction, go with things that are unusual. Lean on the narrativism. Lean on GMless. Lean on storytelling. Lean on mechanics which are self modifying, if you like. Universalis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universalis) is great for that.
Start with something that you've never tried before and tell people your learning with them.
That's a good pitch.