August 10, 2003

Role Call 27: Verboten!

James Kosub opens his blog to ask:

If you were somehow forbidden from playing with your favorite system, genre or setting, what would you substitute?

Like James, I tend to use d20 most of the time. There are a few reasons for this, its flexibility, its simplicity, and my relationship with Mongoose Publishing -- if you play in a group made up mainly of people who work at a d20 publisher the choice is system is fairly obvious.

Forced to give it up I wouldn't find a second choice very hard to come by, I like the old West End Games d6 system. If anything, it has all the benefits of d20 but is even simpler.

Genre is also an easy choice, while I have a great love of science-fiction, I also have a soft spot for sword & sorcery. Trading in a PPG for a +2 longsword wouldn't cause much pain at all -- at least until I stuck it into someone!

Did I say easy? Looks like I just picked the obvious one. Glancing around other blogs, I see that Ginger likes Pulp and Supers. A superhero campaign doesn't interest me in the least, but that is possibly because didn't have a very good experience the first (and only) time I tried it. On the other hand, Pulp does sound fun, I've never played in a Pulp campaign, but I do like Indiana Jones and The Shadow. Possibly the second best science fiction series of all time (only Babylon 5 is greater) has taken more than a couple of trips in to Pulpishness, including Invaders from Mars and The Maltese Penguin. Pulp is certainly a possibility.

From Pulp its only a couple of short hops to Steampunk. A few days ago I mentioned that Mongoose were releasing a d20 system for Steampunk, so its quite possible I'll be able to give the genre a go in the playtesting phase. Again, Steampunk isn't something I've tried, but its been recommended on several occasions... although always by the same person -- I think she might be a little obsessed. Somewhere I think I've even got some notes I put together for a Steampunk scenario I was planning to GM, one day I might get a chance to run it. Suitable inspiration for the genre that I've found includes more Doctor Who and a certain Will Smith film. These probably aren't the best inspirations, but I do have a reasonable grasp of the more serious side of the genre -- honest!

That gives me three genres to choose from, I think I'd like to try Steampunk before anything else.

Setting is harder. I'm very attached to the Babylon 5 universe and have only just begun to explore its roleplaying possibilities so that longsword might get some use sooner then expected if it was denied to me for some reason.

What else is there? Star Trek perhaps, although in a DS9 type setting. I prefer games which take place in a limited sphere so that it feels like a campaign rather then a series of loosely related adventures. By having a game take place mainly in a small set of locations with regular NPCs there is a greater sense of continuity.

Plenty of people have complained that DS9 is just a little too similar to B5, so lets see what happens if we don't allow DS9 either. I think we drop down to either Star Wars, which has nicely epic, or Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, which is enjoyably silly.

  • West End Games d6
  • Steampunk
  • Star Wars

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