Archive for January, 2009

Bounty Hunter by Goro Fujita (www.area-56.de)

Dungeoncraft: Ad Astra #2

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January 16, 2009
by Stargazer in , ,

Bounty Hunter by Goro Fujita (www.area-56.de) In my last Dungeoncraft post I promised some details on the history of the “Ad Astra!” universe. My initial idea was to present my players with a world not much different from we have today. Most of the major nations were still there and each super power had its own space program with space stations in earth’s orbit, minor colonies on Moon and Mars and mining operations in the asteroid belt. But then I decided that I wanted to do things differently.

Omega Centauri
The globular cluster Omega Centauri is about 18,300 lightyears away from our solar system and contains several generations of stars, so that some scientist believe that Omega Centauri could be the core of a former dwarf galaxy that has been captured by the Milky Way. In “Ad Astra!” this is the home of a human civilization. Several hundred years ago a colony ship crashed on an habitable world in the Omega Centauri cluster. When the 10,000 colonists awoke from their cryogenic chambers they at once found out that something was terribly wrong. Nobody could remember anything from their past – not even their own names. All other memories were still intact. When they started salvaging the crashed colony ship, they found out that the ship’s main computer was still mostly intact but all historical databases were blank and the navigational subprocessor was broken beyond repair. They were stranded and didn’t even know where they initially came from. So they decided to start picking up the pieces, building a city from the remains of the ship. They called their new home “Citadel” after their crashed vessel.

Brave New World
This concept allows me to shape the civilization from the ground up. And since most of the original space ship is still salvageable it’s plausible that the colonist would be ready to return to the stars after only a few centuries. The reason how they crashed on Citadel and why they have no memories of their past lives shall remain a mystery. This could even be an interesting hook for an “Ad Astra!” campaign.
The fact that the Omega Centauri cluster is so far away from Earth has several advantages, too: not much is know about that region of space so that even an astronomy-geek wouldn’t know that much about it. If you run an SF campaign closer to Earth there’s always the problem that one of your players may for example notice when you turned Betelgeuse into a dwarf star by mistake. If you choose a far away region of space you can just use some solar system creation rules (like the ones in GURPS Space or Traveller) and create your own stars, worlds, nebulae, etc.
This shall be enough for today. As always I am interested in your thoughts, so feel free to leave your comments!

Doctor Who and Rose

Doctor Who RPG – Could this really work?

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January 13, 2009
by Stargazer in , ,

Doctor Who and RoseSome time ago I heard that Cubicle 7 Entertainment is working on a new Doctor Who RPG. Since I am a great fan of Doctor Who and Torchwood I was of course very excited. But at the same time I was a bit skeptical: Could this really work?

The Cubicle 7 website doesn’t give us any hints on what the focus of their roleplaying game may be. The most important question will be what the players will be. Will they be part of the Doctor’s companions? Some random guys who live in the “Whoniverse” or even Time Lords like the Doctor? Let’s speculate a bit…

Companions
The Doctor Who TV show is pretty much focussed on the adventures of Doctor Who and his various companions who are travelling through time and space, saving civilizations, correcting wrongs, solving mysteries and ensuring that London is visited by evil aliens at least every Christmas. One possible concept could be that the player characters are those companions that the Doctor has picked up in any place or any time (preferably on Earth) and now they are travelling with him in the TARDIS. Although this is my favorite idea of a Doctor Who game it has it’s flaws. At first the GM is faced with playing the Doctor all the time. What could be fun for a few sessions will probably turn into a problem fast. In fact the Doctor becomes the GM’s player character. And in the series it’s usually the Doctor and his favorite “plot device” aka his sonic screwdriver that saves the day. So the players move to the 2nd row.

Random guys
The  ”whouniverse” is a big place, so why not make it your playground? The Doctor (and his companions) could be recurring characters that you’ll help in one adventure and that will save your hide in another session. But how do you allow the players to travel time and space like the Doctor does? The only thing that comes to mind is make them agents of that mysterious time agency Jack Harkness had been working for. That would allow them access to 51st century technology and time travel. So it’s probably best if the players are not some random guys but “time agents”. Hmm, this could work.

Time Lords
The Doctor tells us at least in every other episode that he’s the last member of his race, that his homeworld was destroyed in the time war. But that didn’t prevent the Master to come back. And although the Doctor thought the Daleks were gone for good too, they reappeared several times. So, it’s totally possible that there are still some Time Lords around. I hope that’s not what Cubicle 7 is aiming for with their Doctor Who RPG. Having a lot of very powerful Time Lords running loose in the “whoniverse” would probably destroy the special atmosphere of the series. And the fact that the Doctor is the last one of his kind makes him something unique.

Perhaps the creative minds at Cubicle 7 have come up with a lot more ideas on how a Doctor Who campaign could work. What are your thoughts on the subject? Could a Doctor Who RPG really work and what kind of campaign would you like to see?

Spaceport by Goro Fujita

Dungeoncraft: Ad Astra!

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January 12, 2009
by Stargazer in ,

Spaceport by Goro Fujita (www.area-56.de)Although Asecia is still on hiatus, my Dungeoncraft column is back. And this time we venture into the great void aka outer space. I thought about changing the title of the column to make it more compatible with the SF genre, but in the end I decided to keep “Dungeoncraft”. Some people may also argue that alien planets are some kind of dungeons too…

As I posted before I am very interested in writing a Science Fiction setting. Over the holidays I started playing EVE Online again and since then my head is filled with images of strange new worlds and huge space ships and bold adventurers who boldly go where no one has gone before!

In order to create a believeable SF setting we have to make some basic assumptions that are extrapolated from current technologies, societies, et cetera. The farther we move away from the 21st century the more free you are in developing your world. If you want a galaxy-spanning human civilization in 2050 you really have to come up with some extraodinary ideas to make this plausible. If you place your setting in the 41st century, things become much easier to swallow

Ok, let’s give our new child a name. What about “Ad Astra!”? It’s short, simple and to the point. Now everyone knows it’s about travelling to the stars. I agree, the name might be a bit clichéd but I like it nevertheless. Since the focus is on space exploration “Ad Astra!” must have a few elements that are not strictly “Hard Science” like FTL (Faster Than Light) travel and everything that comes with it. Realistic space travel is not very fun, I tell you. And since everyone likes having some cool powers the setting will also allow some psionic abilities. To make it more science-y psionics will probably need some special equipment that enhances human psionic potential or genetic modification.

Next time I will give you some details on the the history of “Ad Astra!” universe. Stay tuned!
As always I am interested in your thoughts, comments and critique. So please use the comment section below or contact me via the contact form on the “About” page.

Solar eclipse

Goals for 2009

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January 9, 2009
by Stargazer in ,

I wish all my readers a (belated) happy new year 2009! Currently it’s pretty cold outside (around -9°C) and I am still fighting with a severe case of writer’s block. But I finally managed to think about my goals for this year:

Gaming:

  • Dark Heresy
    On New Year’s Eve we started playing the Warhammer 40,000 roleplaying game Dark Heresy and it was pretty nice. The character creation took much longer than I expected but things went pretty smoothly and we all had great fun. As soon as my group has some free time, I plan to bring our current adventure to an enjoyable end. We still have to discuss if we want to turn it into a fully-fledged campaign but I think the chances are not so bad.
  •  Call of Cthulhu
    Our CoC campaign (we were playing “Horror in the Orient Express”) came to a sudden hold as our beloved GM moved to Munich. But he will probably visit us on a regular basis (several times a year), so chances are good that we can continue the  fight against the minions  of the Mythos! If this doesn’t work out, we can always try out running the campaign over the internet, although I fear that a lot of the atmosphere will be lost.
  • Pirates of the Spanish Main
    This year we started playing PotSM and everyone had a blast. At the end of our first adventure I offered my players to turn it into a sandbox-type campaign and everyone was happy with the idea. But since the Pirates group consists of the same people I played Dark Heresy with, I am not sure which campaign we’ll focus on.
  • D&D 4th Edition
    A friend of mine had been running D&D4E during the second half of last year and we liked the new rules a lot although we had some problems with our characters. After two sessions I decided that I am not really a Warlock guy, so I tried out a genasi  swordmage which suits me better. And we found out that using a battlemat and miniatures makes playing a warlord much more enjoyable. I am pretty sure we’ll continue our campaign in the coming weeks.
  • Other Systems
    During the last year I have got my hands on a couple of interesting games like True20, FATE, Fudge, Monte Cook’s World of Darkness, just to name a few. I am not sure how I will fit them into my already tight schedule, but I want to try out at least two or three of them. 

Real life:

  • Weight reduction
    Last year I already managed to reduce my weight a bit, but at the end I also gained a few back, so that I am almost at the weight I started … bummer! This year I will try to do it right.  Wish me luck!
  • Turn my cave into a proper home
    My girlfriend usually calls my home a “cave”. And I have to agree that it sometimes looks a bit chaotic to the unprepared observer. So I’ve decided to finally put some time and effort into cleaning out and redecorating the place. And if everything goes as planned even my girlfriend will admit that even a techno-caveman like me can turn his domicile into a proper home. :)
  • Move together with my significant other
    As soon as the “cave” is refurbished, we plan to move together. And 2009 seems to be the right year to do so!

Blogging/Writing:

  • Overcoming the blogger’s/writer’s block
    Although there are hundreds of thousand ideas in my head I just can’t put anything to paper or post it in my blog. And usually I end up playing some MMO or watching Doctor Who or another great show. So I plan to return to a more regular blogging. Not necessarily on a daily basis, but at least two times a week would be fine in my book.
  • More advertisment
    Don’t worry! I don’t want to put more ads on the site, I want to advertise the blog itself. In the recent weeks I have noticed declining interest in the blog and I want to fight that by blogging more regularly and advertising my blog all over the place. If you have any ideas on how to do so (without paying for ads of course!) please let me know! 
  • Asecia
    My work on my steam-fanatasy setting Asecia stopped shortly after I decided a complete reboot was in order. I currently have a lot of small notes, fuzzy ideas, a couple of blog posts and even a short story set into the world of Asecia but I still haven’t started on writing down the setting in a proper form (like a wiki or book). Perhaps 2009 will give me another chance to finally finish my initial work on Asecia, so I can start running games using my own setting.
  • SF roleplaying setting
    For a long time I dreamt about writing my own SF setting. And by SF I mean Science Fiction and not Space Opera or something like that. I am still not sure if I should go the Hard SF route or if I should choose the more popular route that allows unscientific elements like reactionless RPG Blog Carnivaldrives, ESP and FTL travel. As soon as this setting starts to take shape, I will of course blog about it. 

These are my current goals for 2009. Probably I have forgotten a few and I am sure I won’t be able to meet every of them, but I am sure I will at least try! So stay tuned!

UPDATE: I just noticed that this post fits this month’s blog carnival hosted by Uncle Bear. So consider this my contribution!

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