Topic: HARP SF...Discuss.

[Uriel]

WooHoo!  Finally, I can be a big, carnivorous Space Lizard! Go team Silth!

I actually converted an ancient Rafm Troglodyte for a Star Wars game years back, using bits from my 40K stuff (It was 91 or so). Gwargo, Bounty Hunter Extraordinaire shall live again!

So, I am going to dust off (When I can find it) my old Cyberspace book, dig up my Mutant Chronicles RPG stuff, and maybe start looking at converting my old Spacemaster Micronauts game...

What are folks looking forward to playing most, now that HARP SF is out?


-Uriel

PS: I haven't had a chance to look at it fully yet, but the default setting looks good. I could create stats for Yazarians, Drasalites and Vrusk, and it would make quite a fun Star Frontiers conversion as well.

[Thom @ ICE]

I'm currently bouncing around 3 general campaign ideas that are under consideration.

All three will use the included setting to some extent...
* Starship Troopers Concept - Players are members of a military organization and going from boot camp to military missions.  Characters will all be human, and enemies will be bugs, and maybe some Silth added in later in the campaign.

* Farscape Concept - Players are escaped prisoners with the Silth chasing them. Players are from multiple races and traveling in their own spaceship (though it won't be a living creature). Separate adventures on different planets - sometimes with Silth, sometimes without...

* Space Business - Players are partners in owning/operating a trading company.  It's a small operation which they run themselves.  They move from planet to planet and need to conduct trade operations.... the catch is that these trade operations will all be smuggler oriented.  The local governments are after them, as are other smuggler operations, and they need to make deals and survive.... all in the name of profit.

[GrumpyOldFart]

I already had a game going before the "official" version came out. The setting is near future, a station at the top of a space elevator. The base of the elevator had an emergency launch system built into it, so that in the event of a threat to the cable the entire system could be launched into a recoverable orbit, rather than have the broken cable wrapping itself around Earth at a thousand miles an hour.

Everything worked as designed, too. But it turned out the threat to the cable that caused the base to launch was an asteroid strike. The vapor plume of the strike below it, mere seconds after launch, gave the station/base/cable system a lot more velocity than anyone had bargained for, and now they're kind of doing a "Gilligan's Island in Space" thing. In theory they could be rescued.... but the only planet that really had the resources to rescue them just got an asteroid strike. They're... busy.

 

[ironmaul]

Never really been a big fan of aliens but have to say after illustrating the Silth, I'm somewhat partial to them now. I think they'll make a good adversary in the Tintimar/or any setting. Thom, I like all your ideas above, they would make for good adventuring!

[GrumpyOldFart]

I've also considered having the people on the space station be the discoverers of both magneto-gravitic drive and FTL, and from there going into something reminiscent of Blish's Cities in Flight.

[GMLovlie]

Well, being a silly star wars buff I have been considering to apply it for star wars obviously…

Now that WotC has so conveniently dropped the star wars license, why don’t GCP pick it up? hehehe... I mean, if we all scrape together enough cash I’m sure GCP could get it, we would need writers, and WHAM! GCP would have lots and lots of players just waiting to pick the game up! of course, that would also mean that LF would let GCP make it only a setting for HARP SF, rather than its own game… I guess… but I digress.

Anywho, for making the game fit the star wars bill there is something I think is missing… first off a sort of Dark Side point mechanism (I know its static and silliness abstracted and quantified again, but I like it, especially the old WEG version) and critical charts for the lightsaber... while I can do DSPs without problem, that’s just like the insanity thing made for harp with a little tweak (is in the vault somewhere, don’t remember who wrote it, but its a good addition for those who want their players to potentially go mad and loose it). The critical chart for a lightsaber on the other hand, while it exists possibilities for Spacemaster Privateers, there is no good one, as far as I’ve read and looked, in the HARP SF book.

Any suggestions?

That being said, I’d love to test out the tintamar setting, farscape is mentioned above and of course there is the Mass Effect trail of thought… its gooie fun this is!   

[GrumpyOldFart]

that’s just like the insanity thing made for harp with a little tweak (is in the vault somewhere, don’t remember who wrote it, but its a good addition for those who want their players to potentially go mad and loose it).

Hmmm... I tried a search term "insanity and got nothing. If you get the time, I'd love for you to see if you can find it again. I've been trying to do something along those lines here

http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?topic=10653

...but I can't call it a rousing success, either.

[GMLovlie]

This is what I’m talking, erm... writing about. It might not be what you’re looking for, I never actually used it, but that was mainly because my players was afraid of it and we were in the middle of a campaign at the time, so would’ve been bad timing, considering what sort of encounters they had, and of course their own self-esteem as players (and the character for sure).

So I’ve never actually tested it. Although I was seriously considering it at the time. Since then I’ve been cursed with d20 gamers and players who didn’t have what it took to play in my campaign world, nor the interest I guess... hehehe

[GrumpyOldFart]

Thanks, I'll look into it. 

[Uriel]

I'm also going to dig up my old Dark Space book...That Monty Cook sure did write some good stuff.
Insanity rules were there as well, since it was Cthulhu in Space.


-Uriel

[Wōdwulf Seaxaning]

Can anybody post a in depth review of HARP SF? I'd like to know a bit more before shelling out $$ on a new system.

[ob1knorrb]

I had run an online "Metamorphosis Alpha" type adventure for awhile in beta testing, which worked quite well.

I've also been kicking around a sort of "Blake's 7" / "Firefly" type campaign idea, maybe with a few Star Wars elements thrown in, but I suspect that one probably won't come together.

[Maelstrom]

I had run an online "Metamorphosis Alpha" type adventure for awhile in beta testing, which worked quite well.

Was that the Stranded in Space game on Real Roleplaying?  Based on that name it's a shame that game didn't go any further.  Sounds like that big honkin' ship was changing into a living creature.

[ironmaul]

I had run an online "Metamorphosis Alpha" type adventure for awhile in beta testing, which worked quite well.

Was that the Stranded in Space game on Real Roleplaying?  Based on that name it's a shame that game didn't go any further.  Sounds like that big honkin' ship was changing into a living creature.

"Dutch to the rescue!!! Now where did I put those grenades?"

[ob1knorrb]

I had run an online "Metamorphosis Alpha" type adventure for awhile in beta testing, which worked quite well.

Was that the Stranded in Space game on Real Roleplaying?  Based on that name it's a shame that game didn't go any further.  Sounds like that big honkin' ship was changing into a living creature.

"Dutch to the rescue!!! Now where did I put those grenades?"

That would be the one

[Maelstrom]

I had run an online "Metamorphosis Alpha" type adventure for awhile in beta testing, which worked quite well.

Was that the Stranded in Space game on Real Roleplaying?  Based on that name it's a shame that game didn't go any further.  Sounds like that big honkin' ship was changing into a living creature.

"Dutch to the rescue!!! Now where did I put those grenades?"

That would be the one

And was the ship metamorphisizing into a living creature?

[ob1knorrb]

I had run an online "Metamorphosis Alpha" type adventure for awhile in beta testing, which worked quite well.

Was that the Stranded in Space game on Real Roleplaying?  Based on that name it's a shame that game didn't go any further.  Sounds like that big honkin' ship was changing into a living creature.

"Dutch to the rescue!!! Now where did I put those grenades?"

That would be the one

And was the ship metamorphisizing into a living creature?

No, but that would have been a really cool idea   They were actually on the Starship Warden, the version from  Metamorphosis Alpha to Omega that TSR put out for the Amazing Engine System

[Thos]

HARP SF was so worth the wait! It looks great all polished up and finished! Now I look very much forward to buying a physical copy! 

[Akai]

It's looking pretty good so far, a solid collection of skills and a decent looking combat system. I rather like the system for profiling planets, it allows a lot of room for customization. The rules for psionics are just a sci-fi dressing on magic....but that has always been the case. Not bad though. Looking forward to seeing more.

[Thom @ ICE]

And the winner is....

* Starship Troopers Concept - Players are members of a military organization and going from boot camp to military missions.  Characters will all be human, and enemies will be bugs, and maybe some Silth added in later in the campaign.

I've got some prep work to do - but when I'm ready I'll be posting a game announcement here and over at realroleplaying.com for anyone who might be interested.