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Lawless III
2010-02-06, 11:50 PM
I want to try running a campaign based on the 50's sci-fi comics and t.v. shows.
(Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Dan Daring etc.) Is there an already existing system for this sort of thing? If not, which do you think could be most easily adapted for this purpose?

Also if anyone has played a campaign like this, I'd love to hear your experience and any advice on it is welcome.

oxinabox
2010-02-06, 11:55 PM
Wushu might work.
I've never played it,
the power lvl maybe too high, it's designed to action movies.
It's also a very differnt system to dnd, which is great to look at.

Starscream
2010-02-06, 11:56 PM
Mutants and Masterminds is good for any sort of action campaign. Big Eyes Small Mouth is also good.

I'm pretty sure GURPS has a supplement or two specifically for this sort of setting, but they may not be for the current edition. But then, GURPS can usually be adapted to anything with ease, that's sort of the point.

onthetown
2010-02-06, 11:57 PM
Mutants and Masterminds is supposedly good for super hero comicky stuff. I think it's the Marvel universe or something.

You could homebrew d20 modern, as well.

Rappy
2010-02-07, 12:00 AM
I'd go with either d20 Modern + Thrilling Tales or Savage Worlds + Thrilling Tales 2E (the Savage Worlds version).

Lawless III
2010-02-07, 12:06 AM
Everyone I've talked too has said MnM and GURPS, but I thought I'd ask around the playground a bit. I've never heard of Wushu. I'll have to really look into all this stuff.
I just had the idea the other day listening to Rush's 2112 and I figured I haven't DM'd since last summer, may as well give it a go.

Darrin
2010-02-07, 12:29 AM
I want to try running a campaign based on the 50's sci-fi comics and t.v. shows.
(Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Dan Daring etc.) Is there an already existing system for this sort of thing? If not, which do you think could be most easily adapted for this purpose?


Feng Shui would work pretty well. Might take a little kit-bashing to get the right pulp flavor... tone down the martial arts stuff a bit, and refluff the arcanowave stuff as mad scientist raygunology.

Hmm... Godlike RPG maybe?

Dimers
2010-02-07, 01:13 AM
Everyone I've talked too has said MnM and GURPS ...

GURPS, for sure. Dunno about MnM, never having seen it, but from the descriptions I've seen here, it's more superhero than action-hero. GURPS points out explicitly what optional rules and abilities work well in which settings, as well as having supporting material for setting types and gameworlds, so it keeps your work to a minimum.

Lapak
2010-02-07, 01:25 AM
I haven't played it myself, but I've heard literally nothing but good things about Spirit of the Century. (http://www.evilhat.com/home/sotc/)

And as a bonus, it IS designed explicitly for emulating the pulp genre.

Knaight
2010-02-07, 01:26 AM
You want something light, fast, and sufficiently heroic. M&M and GURPS are both too slow for this, when the action comes. No, you want something else.

Spirit of the Century (http://www.crackmonkey.org/~nick/loyhargil/fate3/fate3.html). It works beautifully, and is free and available online, although the book form is easier to use. Note that I linked you to a mirror site, they keep several around. I find it easier to read than the main, due to coloration differences. It is built for exactly this level, intended for pulp, and while it can run lower or higher powered characters, it sounds like you want to use it where it works best.

If you really need a D&D like system, one step towards that is Savage Worlds.

Another step is Cortex.

Jacob Orlove
2010-02-07, 01:28 AM
I'll echo those recommendations for Spirit of the Century. It's good stuff.

Knaight
2010-02-07, 01:40 AM
Of course, if it isn't quite what you are looking for, there are other Fate and Fudge(what Fate was based off of) builds to begin with. Now Playing might be worth looking into for instance.

Satyr
2010-02-07, 02:33 AM
This would be one of the few setttings were Gurps might not be the ideal choice; Gurps is a great game, but perhaps a tad too much focused on realism for what you have in mind. That doesn't mean that it would be a bad choice - there is a Gurps sourcebook (http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/AtomicHorror/) dealing with stuff like this after all, and even where it is not a perfect match, Gurps is way better than the overhyped medicrity called Savage Worlds - but it is not what I would consider the greatest strength of Gurps. Gurps work better for hard SF, not necessarily Space Opera.

Mutants and Masterminds is a decent superhero game. It works very well for a superhero setting, but it is also limited to it. If you want to have your campaign to develop into this direction, it is a very good game, if you have something different in mind, than not.

I would probably suggest the old/new Space D6 rules. They were the original (and still best) rules for the Star Wars RPG, and work very well for space opera, is quite intuitive and fun to play.

Unisystem, perhaps in the cinematic flavour is another option. Perhaps all Flesh must be eaten + All Tomorow Zombies, and you have everything you need. Don't be fooled by the zombies - AFMBE is a solid generic system which is highly adaptable to many different genres and moods, is easy to understand and use in game without being too simple and thus limiting the game's options, and is usually quite fun. Cinematic Unisystem is a dumbed down simplified version of the same rules, which effectively reduces the number of skills on a neat little minimum and uses Dramapoints for players to do dramatic stuff.

Knaight
2010-02-07, 03:05 AM
I wouldn't call Savage Worlds mediocre. It is more like a fairly good game undergoing an identity crisis. There are lots of elements where things fit together beautifully and a consistent form appears that works very well, then said elements interact and consistency is shot. All the effort in fast and fun, and the system is remarkably closed, in that it is defined and doesn't need interpretation. Combat in particular. The skill system is fairly basic, but then they throw on a bunch of defined modifiers and such that would work in a rules heavy system, but only slow it down. Ultimately it isn't that good, but you can see the good elements in it, where a really mediocre system wouldn't have that.

It is far from my first choice on this, and comes significantly below Cortex, a similar system that works better in many ways, although it has the same problems, but mediocre is unnecessarily harsh. More a few good systems jumbled together, with parts removed, and an overtone of extreme arrogance thrown throughout the book. It is like a multi layered puzzle, first you discover the puzzle, then you piece things together, then you look for gaps and what fills them in in other systems, and each of the finished puzzles works decently at what it does.

Satyr
2010-02-07, 03:41 AM
It is probably a question of perspectives and expectations, but from what I have seen, Savage Worlds claims that it would be a generic system which can be adapted to several genres and settings - and this is plainly wrong. It is

There is nothing in the game, which I haven't seen in other games before and usually, the original was a better choice. Savage Worlds is a Frankenstein construct of a game, and while I can understand why they choose the elements it consists of, I never thought that they worked that well together or that the game could actually come up with the flexibility it promises (and I would consider flexibility and adaptability to be an important quality factor for RPGs - I like to adjust the rules to the game I want to play, and not to be shoehorned into one direction by a hidebound system. Savage Worlds is about as flexible as cast iron).
Besides, it is too simple for my taste, while it is not very well designed. Simple systems work well when they are unlimited in its options and work on the base of "here is a basic resolution mechanism, the rest is up to you". Savage Worlds is both overtly abstract and restrictive. Which is a truly bad combination, especially in combat (to be honest, D&D suffers from a very similar problem). This is a worst of both worlds solution - neither the liberty of a simple system nor the options of a complex one.
I prefer more complex systems in general, but that doesn't mean that I don't enjoy something more freeform from time to time and that I can't see the appeal in it. I dislike plagiarism though - and that is the main mood of Savage Worlds.

And you are dead right about the overtone of arrogance. I have usually little problems with this, as long as the pride is justified by the substance - and in the case of Savage Worlds it is a form of overcompensation. Claiming how "fast" (again, a faulse claim; the game doesn't work any quicker than any other overtly abstract resolution system, and is slowed down by the card drawing), "fun" (a term so subjective and indifferentiated that it is completely meaningless) and "furious" (seriously, why would I want an angry game? Or is this yet again an empty fill phrase for marketing purposes?). Seriously, the game sounds like a kid in puberty trying to talk about sex to cover his own insecurity.

Yes, I consider Savage Worlds to be not very good. It would be a solid average game, but the stench of plagiarism, and the constant overhyped tone and the fact that the game lies to your face from the very beginning on, spoil the existing qualities.

That doesn't mean it is all bad (than I would have written something a bit more drastic than 'mediocre') but it is far from being good and gets way more attention than it deserves.

GenPol
2010-02-07, 06:53 AM
I want to try running a campaign based on the 50's sci-fi comics and t.v. shows.
(Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Dan Daring etc.) Is there an already existing system for this sort of thing? If not, which do you think could be most easily adapted for this purpose?

Also if anyone has played a campaign like this, I'd love to hear your experience and any advice on it is welcome.

BESM 3e is a great system that was originally designed for anime games, but I imagine it would fit your idea quite well. So plus one to that.

EDIT: On second thought, GURPS would probably work as well.

The Rose Dragon
2010-02-07, 07:10 AM
Mutants and Masterminds is a decent superhero game. It works very well for a superhero setting, but it is also limited to it. If you want to have your campaign to develop into this direction, it is a very good game, if you have something different in mind, than not.

Actually, M&M works for nearly anything, except for three things:

1) Monty Haul campaigns, with Christmas-tree effect. There is no use for looting and treasure in M&M, unless you pay the points for it, at which point it is a part of you.

2) Real life. With Mecha & Manga, you can achieve a simulation of hyperreal life, like in manga, but real life itself is impossible. Then again, I still have no idea why you would play real life in a game, rather than go out and live it.

3) Growing low-power campaigns. M&M power levels grow rapidly, and low power works only between PL 4 and 7 inclusive. At PL 8, it truly becomes superpower level, and you can grow in power only so much in those power levels (flexibility is another matter). More or less static low power campaigns work wonderfully, though.

EDIT: Anyway, like others said, you need Spirit of the Century. Anything else just doesn't do it justice.

Satyr
2010-02-07, 07:27 AM
Actually, M&M works for nearly anything, except for three things:

it really doesn't help if you exclude everything that is not larger than life and then claim that it can do everthing. No it really can't. It completely lacks any relation to reality, which excludes many settings, it has no place for common people characters, which eliminates many settings as well, and it is so overtly abstract and lacks any grittyness, that many other settings or moods are excluded just as well.
You couldn't run hard or semi-hard SF with it, nor a historical fiction setting, nor a war story, nor low fantasy, nor horror. Excluding all the fun stuff leaves a game that is decent in its niche, but claiming it could do more is a giant step into the Savage Worlds trap: It's not a good idea to fail at something large when you can easily succeed in a smaller niche. Claiming any abilities the game doesn't have just creates a feeling of expectations that the substancial material cannot fulfil and is a good way to create frustration.

That doesn't mean that Mutants and Masterminds is a bad game. Not at all. It is good superhero game. But as a generic system it falls absolutely short when compared to a truly flexible game like Gurps of Hero, and even a somewhat less focused like Unisystem would do a better job.

The Rose Dragon
2010-02-07, 07:33 AM
You couldn't run hard or semi-hard SF with it, nor a historical fiction setting, nor a war story, nor low fantasy, nor horror.

Well, I have run all of those except for historical fiction and hard SF. So excuse me if I say your list of things it can't do is overly inclusive.

Satyr
2010-02-07, 07:42 AM
And penguins fly if you accelerate them to Mach 1. That doesn't mean they fly well, or that it is wrong to claim that they are usually flightless birds.
The absolute formulation might be a bit too harsh, but I really think that it is nigh impossible to take, for example, the Battle of the Somme, and turn it into a M&M scenario without massive houseruling or significantly changing the atmosphere and moot of the inspirational source.