Serenity Opinions [Firefly RPG]

[Scarey Nerd]

I recently watched the Firefly TV series (But have yet to watch Serenity ). I loved it with all my heart, and when I heard there was a Firefly RPG, I might have welled up a little.

Anyhoo, I was just wondering if anyone on these forums have played said game, and what their opinions were of the Cortex system, the gameplay elements, and generally if they had fun playing.

All opinions wanted, even constructively critical ones

[JaronK]

Honestly, it was never finished. They had a great idea for a game and stopped there. For example, one of the pages ends mid paragraph, and the next page is a new chapter. More egregiously, it's set up that having enough fuel to get from planet to planet is a major issue... but there's no rules for fuel cost or use. Nor are there any ship combat rules in a space game. It's got hilarious flaws, but the way it's set up you gain exp by causing drama in the group, so optimizing in this game means taking the most ridiculous flaws you can think of to make you as socially incompetent and crazed as possible. One group I know of had one person with a flaw that made it so they could never live down an insult or take a joke and had to take revenge on anyone who tried anything, and another person who was a chronic prankster. This was considered optimizing.

As a result, you just sit there on your ship yelling at each other and every once in a while the DM tells you you're out of gas. That's basically how the game plays out. You could do it differently, but to do other stuff you end up needing so many house rules just to have the basics covered that you might as well have invented your own game anyway.

JaronK

[Bakkan]

I played it with my regular group and we really enjoyed it. As JaronK mentions, the game has some holes, and the organization is not the best, but my friends and I really enjoyed it. It was a good break from D&D, with a new rolling mechanic, a new setting, and so forth. I think it likely depends on the group (more so than with other systems).

[FelixG]

As a result, you just sit there on your ship yelling at each other and every once in a while the DM tells you you're out of gas. That's basically how the game plays out. You could do it differently, but to do other stuff you end up needing so many house rules just to have the basics covered that you might as well have invented your own game anyway.

This is a really bad example of how the game plays out...Well if you have a horrible group it might play out like this, or a group who doesnt really know what they are doing..

It has a few holes sure, but its a great deal of fun, and one of my favorite RPGs. If you have a good game master and a fun group you will have a blast with it even if you need some small patches here and there to cover some of the issues.

[Totally Guy]

As a result, you just sit there on your ship yelling at each other and every once in a while the DM tells you you're out of gas. That's basically how the game plays out.

We struggled with Serenity at first. But we eventually got into this dynamic and the game became much more memorable!