Ideas on a Cowboy Bebop campaign?

[Veloric]

I've recently gotten myself involved in a few campaigns (3.5, 4E, and AFMBE) and I thought I might try my luck at DMing again.

The first and last I attempted was 3 years ago and it was horrendous. I've read a bunch of tips on world building and of all that so I should be set on that.

My questions are: If I'm running a Bebop campaign what system should I use? I've been recommended d20 Future with some home brew and alterations but I'm not too familiar with that system. Also, without saying "You are a cohesive party" how am I supposed to go about getting the campaign rolling? Ideally the PCs would have their own back stories lead to them becoming part of the crew but I'm a bit at a loss.

Thanks for any help you all can offer and if you have any materials or tips I would be happy to read through them.

[Xyk]

I don't know about the system so much, I rarely play sci-fi campaigns, but for the story, I'd just start them the same way Cowboy Bebop does. On a ship, watching that cowboy show that shows bounties whose name I forget. Much like the show, they would find themselves somewhat less than cohesive at times. You could borrow some more from the show and have the first adventure be running into the rest of the party like Bebop did with Faye and Ed. Due to the medium of pen and paper RPGs, you'll have to introduce all the characters pretty early in the first adventure, but I often do that in D&D campaigns.

Off the top of my head, I'd probably have like two of the PCs be cowboys and have one of the bounties be one or more of the other PCs and then introduce a truly evil rival bounty hunter for them to rally together against, and also maybe give the bounty PCs some information or other bargaining tool that would encourage the bounty hunters to not just turn them in.

[Honest Tiefling]

For the system, that depends wildly. Start off with telling us what you look for in a system, and what systems you have enjoyed. What works for one person won't work for another.

As for the party thing...Yes. They should actually OoCly know they need to be a cohesive group. It is one of the cases where you need to build your character to work with the party, else you get personalities and backstories that don't mesh and someone is unhappy but doesn't want to kill off their character.

However...If you tell your players your idea of them recruiting a few bounties, perhaps start in the situation where the bounties and the cowboys are chasing one another. They describe how they got there. Suddenly something happens...And the big baddie reveals themselves and the players get to decide if they cooperate or not. It needs a bit of meta game finagling, but all games do.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

I can't believe this hasn't been mentioned yet.

[Forrestfire]

I feel like FATE is probably one of the best systems you could use for this.

[Vitruviansquid]

What do you mean by a "Cowboy Bebop campaign?" Like, a campaign that takes place within the Cowboy Bebop setting, or a campaign in a different setting that follows the same narrative rules as Cowboy Bebop, like well meaning interventions often end in blood, there being mystery and tragedy behind every mundane seeming job, and the protagonists never win, even when they win?

[Arbane]

Traveller, GURPS Space, and Feng Shui all spring to mind as potentially good systems for this, with different levels of 'realism'....

What do you mean by a "Cowboy Bebop campaign?" Like, a campaign that takes place within the Cowboy Bebop setting, or a campaign in a different setting that follows the same narrative rules as Cowboy Bebop, like well meaning interventions often end in blood, there being mystery and tragedy behind every mundane seeming job, and the protagonists never win, even when they win?

... Or you could use Fiasco.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

No really, this is the only system that will do.

[Red Fel]

What do you mean by a "Cowboy Bebop campaign?" Like, a campaign that takes place within the Cowboy Bebop setting, or a campaign in a different setting that follows the same narrative rules as Cowboy Bebop, like well meaning interventions often end in blood, there being mystery and tragedy behind every mundane seeming job, and the protagonists never win, even when they win?

First off, very much this. Cowboy Bebop is a beautiful tragedy; so either you mean a Cowboy Bebop-themed campaign about a bunch of bounty hunters who realize over time just how much they've lost their dreams, or a generic space bounty hunter campaign. It would kind of help to know which.

As an aside, in CB, the party didn't really have cohesion. Spike and Jet did, because they had a past, but everyone else was effectively just hitchhiking and engaging in separate plots. There was no cohesion because, frankly, there was no party. If anything, the only time they really came together was in cases of collectively-faced destruction. If that's your model of party cohesion, it's... Well, it has merit in a narrative, but not so much when one of the PCs can vent the others out of the airlock.

[A_Man]

No really, this is the only system that will do.

Yeah, seriously. The system is fantastic, and the creator is active to answer questions about it.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Bounty Head Bebop is a pretty snappy system with some cool spins on the d20 mechanic. I'd also recommend Traveller or the new Firefly RPG as potential systems for it. All three cover that ground pretty well.

Personally, I think the Firefly RPG works out the best, but that's mostly because I really like the style of the game and think it's super-slick.

[Veloric]

I appreciate everyone's answers and I'll still going through all the material. I should be set on systems now, there's quite a lot to choose from.

As far as the narrative goes I'm a huge fan of the tragic storyline the Bebop follows but it does seem like it wouldn't carry over too well into party cohesion. I figured I'd run the first few encounters a bit closer to the plot of the show (probably do the Bloody Eye story on Mars and throw them together in a ragtag sort of way, perhaps one PC is a member of the drug ring or a dealer, another could be investigating or another could just be there for the reward) and see where it went from there. Ideally catering to whatever playstyle the PCs wanted. If they want psychological and sorrowful I could do that. If they wanted guns out rope 'em up cowboy bounty hunters I could do that.

Honestly it would essentially be a "Here's a ship, here's space, do what you want" campaign that would run either like Firefly or Bebop, depending on what the party would like. The cohesion issue is a big one, since while I really enjoy the way the characters interact in the show, I'm not sure how I could get that ported over into a game. I like banter, I like creativity, and I like for the PCs to have some sorrowful or colorful past that I can employ in whatever way I can.

Is there anything any of you would recommend for forming cohesion and avoiding the whole Good vs Evil "I want to kill you because you're an outlaw and I'm a good guy" kind of thing? I don't want a campaign that starts out "You're all friends because reasons." I want to start with "This is who you are, this is who they are, this is what's happening, what do you do?" I feel that's asking for too much though.

[Eisenheim]

Fate sounds like a great fit for what you want to do, especially if you use some of the collaborative game building mechanics suggested in fate core. Fate will definitely give the chance for characters who are strongly defined right from the start.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Is there anything any of you would recommend for forming cohesion and avoiding the whole Good vs Evil "I want to kill you because you're an outlaw and I'm a good guy" kind of thing? I don't want a campaign that starts out "You're all friends because reasons." I want to start with "This is who you are, this is who they are, this is what's happening, what do you do?" I feel that's asking for too much though.

The game Dungeon World has something called "Bonds", which are quick bits of character history. Each character class has a few, and you fill them in with the names of the other characters. They're stuff like..."Me and _________ are running a long con." or "________ is going to help me find a new identity".

So you could do up a bunch of them, maybe 15-20, and have each player pick three and fill them in with other characters.

[Veloric]

Fate looks like what I'm leaning towards so far but I still need to go through it all. I do want the campaign to be more about relationships between the PCs than just hack and slash and all that so that sounds perfect.

The bond system is something I've seen before but yeah that would help to avoid PC vs PC and promote alliances even if they're just for mutual gain or short term. Thanks everyone.

[Red Fel]

Is there anything any of you would recommend for forming cohesion and avoiding the whole Good vs Evil "I want to kill you because you're an outlaw and I'm a good guy" kind of thing? I don't want a campaign that starts out "You're all friends because reasons." I want to start with "This is who you are, this is who they are, this is what's happening, what do you do?" I feel that's asking for too much though.

I agree with the idea of the bonds system. As a rule, I've tried to have players collaborate on their PCs in advance. They don't all have to be one big, happy family, but I encourage each player to have a PC connected to at least one other PC (with the other player's consent, of course). As an example, in one campaign, we had a minotaur who owed a life-debt to a swordsman; the swordsman, druid, and wizard grew up together in one town; and there was the eccentric gnome they knew growing up, who had recently adopted a divine construct of the gnomish deity. Each had a connection to at least one other PC.

That said, if you don't want to ask them to collaborate on backgrounds in advance, you can always ask them at the beginning of the session what kind of character concept they were thinking of using. If they all fit together (for example, this one is "bounty hunter," that one is "pilot," that one is "navigator,") then it's great; if one of them stands out (for example, this one is "criminal on the run," this one is "heiress in hiding," that one is "ex-soldier with a dark past and debts," and this one is "upstanding law enforcer,") you may have to ask the odd man out if he would be willing to pick something more in line with everyone else.

The thing to remember is that the party in CB really didn't act like a party. Unless they were on the ship, they were mostly independent. Same thing in Firefly; someone was always staying behind on the ship, somebody was busy being the party face while someone else was being a Big D**n Hero, and so forth. Heck, even in Star Trek, there was always the away team and the bridge team, engine room and transporter room. Parties were functioning fairly independently. In a tabletop game, you want to avoid splitting the party, not only due to challenges and shenanigans, but also due to the fact that non-active players get bored.

Of course, if you want to do a cheap and dirty railroad method - which I don't generally recommend, but might be appropriate in a space bounty hunter kind of game - you have all of the PCs wind up on the bad side of a major figure in fairly short order. They could be wrongly accused, they could be legitimately guilty; they could be openly antagonistic, accidentally provoking, or simply in the wrong place at the wrong time; but now, for whatever reason, there's a Big Bad out for their blood, and if they don't work together he's going to catch up with them. It's a contrived plot device, but it's a fair staple of the genre.