[X] My Assistant

[James McMurray]

There's been a change in ownership of the Highlander CCG. The printer has bought the game's license. Anyone who knows anything about the original owner knows this can only be a good thing for the game.

Another good thing this brings in the Highlander RPG. Margaret Weis is making the game, so it'll have decades of experience backing up the rule set.

Their new website is www.highlanderccg.com. They're offering a special deal right now that ends on Monday. You get everything they print for the next three years, which would be 12 boxes of cards and who knows how many RPG supplements. They're doing it to get a shot in the arm to jazz up advertising to make sure the game appeals to more than just the older players.

If you decide to buy it please let me know.

[Wounded Ronin]

Margaret Weis, huh? She could probably write decent stuff for Highlander.

[James McMurray]

I really liked Dragonlance's rules and setting. I haven't seen Serenity, but I've heard good things about it. Does anyone know much about it?

I think it would be really hard to mess us a game based on Firefly. :)

[fistandantilus4....]

Didn't know they mad a game of that. Anyone know if it's worth checking out?

I agree with WR, Margaret weis is one of the few people I have faith in for good writing.

I mostly blame Robert jordan for that. He made me happy by writing good books than made me mad by making it a chore to get through his last books.

[Adam]

Margaret Weis Productions released the Serenity RPG ... it's had some lackluster reviews, although I think a lot of the outrage early on was based on a few specific failings [lack of a character sheet, for example] that got blown out of proportion. I've heard good things about the game in actual play.

Note, however, that Margaret didn't actually write the Serenity RPG.

[fistandantilus4....]

I didn't think she'd been doing rules development. I assumed more back ground and development, fluff, things along those lines.

[James McMurray]

Anyone know of rules development she did? I only know about her AD&D and 3.x Dragonlance work, but don't know how much of her contribution was rules and how much setting.

[James McMurray]

I also kinda mispoke. It's Margaret Weis Productions that got contracted, not just Margaret Weis herself. I didn't realize she had others on her staff.

[the_dunner]

IIRC, the lead designer with MWP is Jamie Chambers. I've got a copy of Serenity RPG, and I was a little underwhelmed by it. The game engine was originally designed for another in-house system of theirs. It's also being used for the Battlestar Galactica game.

The dice mechanic is very similar to Earthdawn's. The rules themselves are pretty light and fast resolving. So, they probably won't get in the way over the course of a game session. However, I don't really think that it's well suited to emulate the Serenity genre.

I've only played around with it briefly, but these were my big concerns:
-There's very little game difference between a "Big Damn Hero" and a mook. In contrast, on the show Firefly, mooks died in gunfights regularly. If a BDH was even injured, it was a big deal.
-Skills are tied to attributes poorly. In order to make Kaylee a savant for repairing the ship, she's also statted out as a mathematical wizard. That really just didn't seem to jive with the character.
-Even if you were really good at something, you weren't consistently good. Improved skill means a larger die for your skill roll. So, somebody that was crappy at shooting a gun might roll a D2. Somebody that was average at it, might roll a D6. Somebody that was AMAZING would roll a D12. I think there was an attribute added in as well, so that there was a little bit of a bell curve. But, it was still pretty shallow. Essentially, somebody who became more skilled just ended up with a wider variance in their rolls.

I was kind of jazzed about them doing a BSG game as well, but when I saw they'd be using the same system, it turned me off.

I'd rather see a game company working on this that would attempt to include some genre emulation in their game mechanics. I don't think MWP is going to head in that direction.

[fistandantilus4....]

Sad to hear, but not at least I've been warned. Thanks.

[Wounded Ronin]

[James McMurray]

Originally posted at theRPGsite

[Garrowolf]

The "Cortex" system is bad. Some friends and I were excited when it came out. THey love Firefly and I love space RPGs. It sucked.

The core mechanic is a bad one. It was the main reason I was never able to get into Alternity or Earthdawn even though I liked those settings. It involves rolling dfferent dice TYPES in steps. So you start with a d2 and then go up a step to a d4 and on and on. They tried to make a big deal and say that this was revolutionary. It has been in those games I mentioned and we know that they are lying if they say that they don't know those systems because Weis has done some writing for Alternity at least.

I have heard that people who have played in games run by her say that she is wonderful with the descriptions but will kludge any kind of system together to run the game with. She doesn't care about the rules and barely uses them. It shows in the system. Since she is not prepackaged with the game then we get neither.

It has an interesting quality mechanic that I do like though and it seems to be the only thing slightly original in the game (they claim that it is very original but I have seen all this elsewhere). To put it into SR terms they have XP and they have Karma separately. Karma is used interestingly (called plot points). Each plot point gives you another dice to roll. You can spend a lot in one roll to get a high roll. There is a whole list of qualities that make this cheaper if it related to the quality.

For example: Allure - if you are dealing with someone of the opposite sex then you can spend less plot points for social rolls where this would apply.

The space combat is not that interesting. They try and make a big deal out of making the ship's attributes the same names as the character attributes and that the ship is a character. This is a limited metaphor which doesn't do so well this way. I've seen the concept done better. (strength is one of the attributes that doesn't make much sense).

Then we get to the setting. I like Joss. I really do, but this setting is so 2 dimensional is sucks. The show was great because of the characters but he obviously didn't think through his setting. It is too much based on post civil war west to the point that there is just very little to do. The Alliance is TOOO powerful. The wild west feel is okay on the ground but for some reason it doesn't apply in space. You have an outlaw feeling but no weapons on the ship that the characters have. Pirates abound as well as Reavers but this outlaw bunch doesn't arm their ship (except temporarily in the movie). The places to visit are dull and either one way or another completely.

The Reavers are another thing that annoys me. It is obvious he wanted a crazy Indian group but they are just silly. They are a bunch of mutants that eat people (you hope first) and then do nasty things to them. They are ridiculous bed time story monsters. How do they work together long enough to run a ship? They should be long dead from lack of supplies or stupidity. The show even showed what happened for want of one part!

The Movie made it worse by explaining that they were victums of behavioral modification. They are hyper aggressive. Then they should have torn each other apart. Instead they band together to live some sort of cannibal alternative lifestyle. And they hang out around this planet that did this to them for no reason. There doesn't seem to be any source of food for them there either.

Basically the show is good DISPITE the setting. You create a game with it and you have very little. They add in a BAD system and have a complete crappy package.

If anyone wants to play Firefly then play any other space game and wear a duster and six guns. You are going to have to replace everything else anyway.

[fistandantilus4....]

Thanks for the review Garrowolf. I have to say that I'm dissapointed, but the points you make are very good ones.

Thinking back on it, the show was very good because of the characters. It would be very hard to play an RPG in, as taken straight form the show. Kind of like playing a shadowrun based in corp controlled New York, without guns.

I do personally like the ED system, especially the Legend poitns for Exp, and the karma for that extra boost in tests. The setting is great as well. But I hate it when rules systems and settings don't mesh.

[Garrowolf]

Thanks.

BTW what are legend points? I never got to actually play ED. Nobody liked the dice system in my group.

[fistandantilus4....]

legend points are the exp system in the game. You have skill (talent) ranks jsut like in shadowrun, and they cost LP to raise. Littel difference is that instead of getting 5 karma, you get 500 or 5000, that sort of thing. You use Legend Points to bond items, raise skills and attributes, that sort of thing, just like in SR.

Then karma is like, well, sort of like edge. You can use it to give you that extra little bit when you need it. But it's only one dice (D6, D8,D4) depending on race. You have a max amount you can have at any time, usually around 30, depending on race. When you burn it, you can regain it in a ritual, by spending LP (6-8, again depending on race.).

I've found that once you get used to the step system, it's a really good game to play. It's the getting used to it that turns most people off in my experience.

My first encounter with Earthdawn was when a friend of mine brought the book over and said "I don't get this thing, you read it." I read it and loved it. He never liked it and gave me the book. That was about 8 years ago. The book is actually sitting on my desk next to me right now. I guess the moral of the story is, Fanpro should use whatever printer Fasa used for ED. :D

[Garrowolf]

That is how I got my copy of EarthDawn as well!

I also use the separation of XP and Karma.

I wish that they had published a version of Earthdawn with the SR rules. oh well.

I think that the Highlander game might be a good fit in my fantasy system I based somewhat on SR. The only thing is that I think you would have to go beyond the setting to make the quickening make more sense. Is it building up any advantages? What is the point except at the end. Is it just a bonus?

[fistandantilus4....]

Well as to the quickening question , I can't help you there as I haven't seen tht game yet. How is it off?

For Ed to SR converting, that's easy. Some of the talent convertions are a little tricky, but essentially they just become skills and adept powers. Spells beomce spells, weaving to thread items becomes foci bonding, etc. I've done that before, works just fine. I just happen to like the ED system as much as SR.

[James McMurray]

I've played a lot of Earthdawn and like that system. The dice steps can be annoying but once you get used to them it's not a problem, and the character sheet has the (very small) progression chart right on it so you don't have to memorize anything.

At one point you could get a bunch of Earthdawn books from the company on a CD for a buck. I don't know if that deal is still active.

[fistandantilus4....]

Never heard that off bur I doubt it. The company that put out Earthdawn orignally was Fasa, which has since gone away. It's now been re done in two different versions. The now defunct Earthdawn 2nd edition by Living Room games (which sucked IMO) and the newer Earthdawn Classic by RedBrick Games, which is essentially just clarifications and a few revisios of the original 1st edition, which looks much better.

Theyv'e taken a lot of the smaller books put out by Fasa, such as two books for the races, the BBB, and the magic books, and condensed them into a one big ass hard cover. SO instead of $100 something for a bunch of books, you spend $50 for one big ass one that'll alst, and has everything in one place for the player's needs. They've done the same sort of things for the GM materials, and are still going on other things.

Garrowolf: How's the quickening work?

[Grinder]

The two "Denizens of ED" books have been compiled into the "Name-givers Compendium" that also expands the original material and updates the racial discplines plus the shaman and horror stalker.

Next up (april) is "Nations of Barsaive 1", a compiled and overworked and expanded version of both Serpent River and Throal sourcebooks.

[Garrowolf]

Well in the Movies the quickening apparently turned the winner into Raiden with super telepathy. Seriously it made little sense.

In the show it was a vague sense that an Immortal who had taken more heads was more powerful but it wasn't that much of an advantage. Duncan was able to take on much older immortals because he had more "heart" then many of the others.

In the movies it also seemed to connect you to other living things. He connected with the Buck and felt it's drive. He was able to know when he was being followed. He seemed to have some knowledge of the recorder and the surveillance cops, but that could jut be from experience. He was able to feel other immortals, and possibly their age.

The whole thing was very vague.

There have been a few versions on the web for years, mostly in the storyteller system. Some versions convert them directly. Some make them ore powerful so that they can deal with other world of darkness races. One version made the quickening into a mild magic system which help you recover faster after getting killed. You could gain the ability to pull a sword out of nowhere, etc. Another version made them sort of a hunter type. They could absorb the energy types of other races from WoD to learn some of their powers so that when you fought another immortal you had lots of tricks up your sleeve but then everyone hated you.

It's really up to how you want them to be because the shows and the movie were a bit vague on the subject.

[fistandantilus4....]

[Grinder]

[Garrowolf]

It was poorly adapted.

About the only sort of interesting version I've seen worked as a sort of free XP bump. You compared a few skills from the character who's head you took and if they had a higher skill then you in it then you could go up 1 rank.