Twilight Imerium-inspired RPG

[Laurefindel]

I intend to propose a Twilight Imperium-inspired RPG to our group this fall. I know there was one published a few years back but from what I heard, it wasn't that good nor really well written. I'm not sure what system to use yet (suggestions would be appreciated) but I'm considering de-Star Wars-ing Edge of the Empire

I'm aiming for a certain amount of meta-gaming, having elements of the TI3 board game transpire through the (RPG) games, and I would appreciate suggestions.

Players are going to start as an independent party in a fragile galaxy (a mercenary and its crew perhaps?). The galaxy is not in all-out war yet, but everyone has an eye for the throne. The 10 races included in the basic box are the big players, the Great Races, while the races of Shattered Empire will play a lesser role. Races of Shards of the Throne are unlikely to come up at all. The main plot revolves around the return of the L1Z1X as the main antagonists.

I intend to make it a mini-campaign played in 8 chapters, one for each (you guessed it) Strategy Card roughly divided as such:

Chapter 1 - Initiative / Leadership: Introduction of players and introduction adventure. The Great Races skirmish in border systems as they have for centuries.
Chapter 2 - Diplomacy: The L1Z1X are introduced, tension rises in the galaxy and truces are being made. Players may side with one of the Great Races.
Chapter 3 - Political / Assembly: L1Z1X proclaim their right to the throne at the galactic council, old enmity among the great races are declared. The Winnu are voted out of Mecatol's custody and the galaxy is officially at war.
Chapter 4 - Logistics / Production: The Great Races are producing and dispatching their fleets; tension is at its peak.
Chapter 5 - Trade: The Great Races renew their alliances through commerce to fund their production. Implication of Mercenaries as allies/villains.
Chapter 6 - Warfare: The Great Races clash against each other throughout the galaxy. The L1Z1X are advancing on Mecatol Rex.
Chapter 7 - Technology: This chapter is about the War Sun; potential implication of Muat here. Undecided if the War Sun is in the hand of the L1Z1X or the secret weapon to defeat them. Possibly both.
Chapter 8 - Imperial / Bureaucracy: Epic showdown at Mecatol Rex and coronation of the new Emperor (potential alliance of the 6 original races that originally rebelled against the Lazax?).

I have a significant amount of material prepared, especially for Chapter 1, 2 and 3 (the rest depends too much the previous actions of the players), but I'm looking for bits of the board game to drop in the RPG game, either as cameo, easter eggs, main characters, action cards that could influence the game somehow, artifacts and prophecies mentioned on political cards, known friendship or enmity among the races according to the game's lore etc. I have some, but suggestions would be welcomed!

'findel

[golentan]

Uh... not having personally played it, didn't twilight imperium stealborrow heavily from traveller for its setting and technology? I remember a friend showing me "Look, this major race is just straight up the Aslan, this ship is a Tigress Class Dreadnought, movement is in Parsecs just like with a jump drive, and you can use the rules to simulate what happened when the Solomani ate the Vilani Imperium and declared the Empire of Man."

Anyway, yeah. Take a look at traveller. Mongoose Edition is great, even though some supplements vary widely in quality everything you need is in the core book, and the pocket edition is 15 bucks and unabridged.

[Anonymouswizard]

Uh... not having personally played it, didn't twilight imperium stealborrow heavily from traveller for its setting and technology? I remember a friend showing me "Look, this major race is just straight up the Aslan, this ship is a Tigress Class Dreadnought, movement is in Parsecs just like with a jump drive, and you can use the rules to simulate what happened when the Solomani ate the Vilani Imperium and declared the Empire of Man."

Anyway, yeah. Take a look at traveller. Mongoose Edition is great, even though some supplements vary widely in quality everything you need is in the core book, and the pocket edition is 15 bucks and unabridged.

I have Mongoose Traveller 1e and it's an amazing 'generic low space opera*' game. While It's certainly optimised for the Third Imperium technology-wise, if you're willing to write up your own ships it can do anything (the next campaign I'm going to run uses a similar 'hyperdrive' to the Commonwealth Saga by Peter F. Hamilton, and no artificial gravity. To avoid the possibility of stable wormholes on planets I've ruled that EM radiation destabilises wormholes, which has the nice side effect of requiring ships to drop into real space to radiate heat). Heck, for an easy change to a more connected Imperium just have Jump Drives move instantly but require hours to days between jumps.

I will note that MgT2e leaves ship building out of the corebook, which is why I'm using 1e. Depending on how much you want to customise the ships available in your setting this might be a deal breaker.

* By which I mean no super-tech, biotech is relatively low, and the characters are just 'dudes'.

[Laurefindel]

Great to know! Will certainly have a look!

[Anonymouswizard]

Great to know! Will certainly have a look!

Oh, some notes:
-Character creation is 'roll a bunch of stats and then go through a lifepath, beginning aging in your mid thirties'. It's interesting but characters could wind up unbalanced. Either ban Anagathics or give players a maximum number of terms, otherwise you might end up characters in their late sixties with no aging penalties, having hit Rank 6 in both the Navy and Noble careers.
-The default method of interstellar travel is the Jump Drive, which takes a lot of fuel and a week to get anywhere. While removing the week in Jumpspace won't affect game balance at all (players can either take more downtime or complete more jobs, bump up repair fees a tad to squeeze out the excess catch) it has major setting effects, as does switching to another drive type (my setting uses the MgT1e 'Warp Drive' rules for hyperspace, although I'm creating a second one which uses instantaneous jumps).
-Aliens are weird, and you pretty much need to balance when their aging begins. I decided that instead of going through any difficulties the term length just varies for species and everyone rolls for aging after the fourth, so a long lived species might have terms of 4-8 years, or 2 years for a short lived species. It's not realistic, but it's balanced.
-Skill totals will be rather low. I managed to roll a character through 12 terms and come out with no skills above a 2. They also cap at 4 in character creation, but don't expect to be hitting that when rolling randomly.

[golentan]

Oh, some notes:
-Character creation is 'roll a bunch of stats and then go through a lifepath, beginning aging in your mid thirties'. It's interesting but characters could wind up unbalanced. Either ban Anagathics or give players a maximum number of terms, otherwise you might end up characters in their late sixties with no aging penalties, having hit Rank 6 in both the Navy and Noble careers.
-The default method of interstellar travel is the Jump Drive, which takes a lot of fuel and a week to get anywhere. While removing the week in Jumpspace won't affect game balance at all (players can either take more downtime or complete more jobs, bump up repair fees a tad to squeeze out the excess catch) it has major setting effects, as does switching to another drive type (my setting uses the MgT1e 'Warp Drive' rules for hyperspace, although I'm creating a second one which uses instantaneous jumps).
-Aliens are weird, and you pretty much need to balance when their aging begins. I decided that instead of going through any difficulties the term length just varies for species and everyone rolls for aging after the fourth, so a long lived species might have terms of 4-8 years, or 2 years for a short lived species. It's not realistic, but it's balanced.
-Skill totals will be rather low. I managed to roll a character through 12 terms and come out with no skills above a 2. They also cap at 4 in character creation, but don't expect to be hitting that when rolling randomly.

Yeah, don't allow Anagathics in character creation. Just... don't. Ever.

In addition to the life path chargen, I'd recommend you always talk with players and give them a skill package (go around the table selecting skills out of the package until you run out of skills).

[Thrudd]

It's been a long time since I played/owned the game, but I used to love it, I had all the editions.
I would think you'd want Hope's End in there somewhere, the Sardaukar-equivalent shock troops it produces as an element.

I remember a political card where you debate about who will host the galactic olympics.

Use a supernova, nebula or asteroid field or all as an obstacle that will affect someone's choice of target or strategy - maybe an important planet has a narrow or difficult approach with easy ambushes unless someone takes a dangerous alternate route.

PDS's and planetary bombardment

Maybe some hostile natives, an irradiated planet, or both, that is in the process of being colonized or explored.

I can't remember a lot of the other cards. Wasn't there a race that was basically pirates, and would steal credits when they won a space battle? Space pirates are fun.

[Laurefindel]

If anyone is still listening, I ended-up hacking Cubicle 7's The One Ring's system for my TI RPG.

Although it sounds a bit counter-intuitive, going from Lord of the Ring to Twilight Imperium worked relatively well. Other than changing the medieval-themed skills to sci-fi skills, I downplayed a few aspects and developed on some others, but the crux of the TOR game mechanics remains the same.

For those who know the system, I moved the character's abilities (Virtues and Rewards) focus from race to Calling, which I based on the five Leader roles in TI (Admiral, Agent, Diplomat, General and Scientist). This basically give five "classes"; one "ship pilot/captain", one "rogue/spy", one "social guy/support", one "fighter/warlord" and one "gadget/tech guy".

Each have 6 Talents (kind of a mix between virtues and rewards) that characters can acquire from a TI technology-like talent tree (some this and that prerequisites etc). Most of these talents take root in the Leader's abilities or Action Cards in Twilight Imperium (The Admiral can fire an extra attack with it's ship, the Agent has a In the Silent of Space analogue, the Diplomat can turn a combat into a social encounter thus "stalling" an invasion/combat, the General can reroll missed attack rolls, the scientist has a Recheck analogue, etc.)

The talent-trees are interconnected at places allowing for a "multiclassing" mechanics. For example, an Admiral unlocking Flanking Tactics can now merge into the Agent tree from In the Silent of Space etc. In addition, each race has a starting ability and two racial talents, echoing the racial technologies of the board game.

Instead of using Hope, this game uses Command Counters as the in-game ability currency. Players start with three counters and gain two more each game session (except for humans who get three).

Anyways, like most of my RPG projects, chances are this RPG will never get to be played, but making it is a lot of fun!

[Grumm]

Uh... I thought Twilight Imperium was a spin-off of Traveller. In which case, Twilight Imperium already has an RPG!

Otherwise, this is kind of like saying "Oh man I love playing X-Wing. You know what would be great? If they made a movie!"

[Laurefindel]

Uh... I thought Twilight Imperium was a spin-off of Traveller. In which case, Twilight Imperium already has an RPG!

Otherwise, this is kind of like saying "Oh man I love playing X-Wing. You know what would be great? If they made a movie!"

Yeah, i don't deny it. This is like the movies that inspire a musical and then they make a movie out of the musical. Each iteration gives its own flavour for the next to copy/incorporate. It's not that uncommon for things to come full circle.

[Thrudd]

Uh... I thought Twilight Imperium was a spin-off of Traveller. In which case, Twilight Imperium already has an RPG!

Otherwise, this is kind of like saying "Oh man I love playing X-Wing. You know what would be great? If they made a movie!"

Twilight Imperium is made of elements from many sci fi properties. Traveller would only be a fraction of it. Star Wars, Star Trek, Dune, Foundation, are all specifically called out (or the creators of those settings). Traveller, I don't think I remember being mentioned in 1e, though that doesn't mean the game designer didn't play it.