I really enjoyed the "Firefly" TV show. I mean, REALLY enjoyed! It was just a great show that I was sorry to see end. What I was wondering was, if there was ANY game out there that could capture some of the key aspects of the game: loyalty, humor, shootouts, a western flare, and all that good stuff. I am not partial one way or another, and so RPG, board game, strategy game, or computer game all would be great! I am not looking to create my own game, but rather play a game as close to "out of box" as possible (so I can utilize all it's source material) and catch the core of Firefly... the things that made it great.
I had some ideas, listed below. I would love to hear your comments on the ideas, as well as any NEW ideas you had. Thanks for your time and assistance! Here's the list:
MECHWARRIOR: A figured a small Mercenary company might have the same close, but not so close attitude as exemplified on Firefly. The setting isn't really close, although maybe you could do something on the Periphery that had the backwater western flare. My only issue is that there isn't really a good set of 'bad guys' in the Battletech universe for the anti-heroes to be compared against. On the upside the game has a board/strategy game associated with it, which is always lots of fun.
TRAVELLER: Traveller was the first game that came to mind. Small crew in a ship. Very nice character design where some characters could be in the 'military' for awhile, where as others may only know a trade. Easily could be smugglers or some other sort of illegals, and the game was flexible enough that you could probably make it human centric (remove all the aliens) and other such small tweaks. The only trick is that I can't find Traveller anywhere. If a bunch of people thought it would be a great fit, I could search it out. Also, no board or strategy game associated with it that I know of (that's not a requirement by far, but it's a nice plus). Finally, it's a 'dead' game, and so there is no new material coming out for it.
SHADOWRUN: Shadowrun jumped out at me at first as a great fit. It is a game innately about a group of criminals, just like Firefly. It wouldn't be hard to tweak it to have similar group dynamics. However, the magic and the meta-humans would be hard elements to pull out of the Shadowrun universe. I am not sure the effect that would have on the game. It also it pretty 'gritty', which I am unsure is accurate to the game or not. The crew of Firefly was hardly living in slums or the like!
CYBERPUNK: Like Shadowrun, but without the magic and meta-humans. However, a LOT 'grittier' in feel in my opinion. The constant glum and sense of hopelessness seems a little counter to the core of the show.
RIFTS: Rifts can be like... well, anything. I thought that the New West setting MAY be a good fit. It has a little sci-fi, a little magic. Not too bad. As always the case with Rifts, the reason WHY a group stays together and wanders around together seems a little harder than a space-based game where they are 'trapped' in the ship so to speak. It may be a good fit though.
That's about all I came up with. What are your thoughts? Are any of these good fits? Bad fits? Do you have any other suggestions? Which one (or ones) do you think are suited to most capture the feel of the show? Or maybe I am doomed and should just keep watching my DVDs!
Thanks again for your time and assistance. I hope to hear from you soon...
Sincerely,
Rob Harris