Topic: Hiatus?

[GMLovlie]

So!

I've been away for far too long, life and other games have been a thorn in my side for far too long ... and there'll I stop the reference.

I need enthusiasm! 

Currently I play two games, non-ICE games. These are arguably simpler games, although you could just say the focus is different.

While fantasy (I GM Numenera) and space opera (I also GM Star Wars) are fun genres and the games are very good for their use, the need for a sci-fi game is present. I mean, I can't start another group (yet), but to have something ready at hand in case interest change or groups collapse is always nice.

While I can't say I'm well read in the sci-fi department (I don't count Star Wars as sci-fi), I have read some. I guess I've watched more.

My days of HARP are long since ... well, obviously not gone, but let's just say it's been a while. I haven't played any HARP worth mentioning since early 2007, for various reasons - amongst them moving country. Thrice. College days over, new players and so on. Long story. Yay.

Suffice to say, I find myself now having a steady group and a half. With people interested in RPGs as well investing time and effort into it. Also, I find myself being more and more inspired by sci-fi that differs from the space opera genre, be it the Mars series, Foundation series or the Ender series. Additionally I've been watching some stuff recently that got me into thinking of the story potential for less fantastic space opera space adventures. Like Dark Matter and the Expanse (I haven't read it, only watched).

Opening up the HARP SF rulebook again I realised this game is a ... bit more fiddly, than the games I play now, but there's a lot of merit to this "fiddliness" if I want to get a bit more "hard core." That is to say, while lots of broad skills, talents and "simpler" mechanics to solve risks, to focus on the narrative, is all well and good, it removes a sense of "realism" in the risks and from the narrative.

I miss this genre basically, the level of granularity and dependence on more than one or two skills, it ups the risk, it makes the checks and narrative tighter - if not freer.

So, even if I am ... or was ... familiar with this system, I do wonder if there exists a primer or something, fan-made or otherwise. So I can get up to speed a bit quicker (not so much spare time anymore ... dammit age!)

I remember the basics, but I mostly played HARP (Fantasy) and only participated in the early tests for SF. At the moment I'm more and more realising I'd like to set a kind of dystopian futuristic game in a not too distant future, where FTL is not yet invented (at least not outside secret government or corporate testing facilities), where there is political and social conflict, still a lot of exploration going on, maybe aliens (but again preferably not public knowledge, and not necessarily anthropomorphic at this time).

I know HARP SF can provide the framework for this. So after this lengthy post of unnecessary words, does anyone possess some advice on where to look (in the harp sf rulebook), what to exclude from such a game (I'm not sure about psionics yet), what to include, some ideas for how to set it up?

I am kind of thinking that excepting the FTL, lasers, blasters and a few of those technologies, most others would be mature to advanced. Based on my understanding of the phases of technological sophistication presented in the core rules - and based on the gear and equipment I've had a look at...

[RandalThor]

Well, because HARP SCIFI doesn't come with a technology scale like GURPS does it is hard to determine what you could have in a lower tech-level setting than the current one. (I don't think their current system of prototype, common and such does a good job of replacing a scale that says, "at Tech-Level X, you have such-and-such, but not this-and-this", though it is good for using within an existing tech-level.)

I think, the best thing for you to do is to pick out the media (book, TV show, movie, whatever) that best represents what you want in terms of technology and go through the equipment lists getting rid of the stuff that is outside of the tech-level. Of course, you can always get GURPS High-tech and Ultra-tech sourcebooks for excellent examples of different tech at the different TL.

[GMLovlie]

Yeah, I may have to pop into my Spacemaster: privateer books for some tech-level stuff... perhaps I should just try to use that instead ...? but then I won't have the character creation tool, which would be necessary for my invested (but ultimately lazy) players.

Hokay, back to the thinking tank. You just reminded me that I have Spacemaster ... and that I could use that instead. 

[bpowell]

Wow someone else that actually plays Spacemaster and uses the Privateers material.  I thought I was the only "Dinosaur" (hat my players call me)

-BP

[GMLovlie]

I wouldn't say I play (or ever played) SM:P, but I certainly do possess a lot of it. I'm a collector I guess. I wanted to play, but finding people wanting to get involved in a game with that level of complexity hasn't been easy.