Topic: "Generic" sci fi vs Setting specific

[jem]

Hi all,

I am really enjoying the mechanics of the game and have found that the system meets or exceeds all of our expectations.  The only issue that seems to be a serious barrier for us is that the setting is so consistently embedded in almost every section of the rules.  It is not that the setting is bad at all but we don't want a new setting for our sci fi games, we want to use the excellent HARP rules to play them. 

It would be great if the setting specific material could be placed more discretely in an appendix.  HARP manages to deliver a "generic" fantasy rpg that one feels comfortable using in a huge range of settings, it is a shame that HARPs sci fi seems to be so setting specific. 

I understand that technological assumptions are a big factor in defining a sci fi setting and that it is therefore necessary to narrow the focus from the outset (low tech ala Firefly vs high tech/science fantasy such as Star Wars let alone hard scifi vs space opera). But the setting could easily be an example at the back rather than embedded throughout the book.

Space Master is a fairly generic sci fi game - there is a setting but it is only sketchily present in the core rules and it is very easy to say things like "there are no transhumans in our setting".  Privateers introduced a more substantial core setting and because of that it took us much more effort to use it so we fell back on Traveller.

I feel like I would rather have a bigger range of weapons, ships and alternative ftl technologies - preferably with a simple starship construction guide (nothing like as complex as all of the Travellers since High Guard) than have a whole lot of stuff that I have to say "No, ignore all of those races" or "no this setting does not use jump gates", "skip over the first chapter of the book" etc..

If the setting was in an appendix which summarizes how it can be reflected by selecting the appropriate technologies (no blasters, jump gates etc..) and lists the species prevalent there, then the same information could be there for those that want it but it would be much easier to ignore it if you don't want it.

Please understand that I am really thrilled with the game and am eager to continue to use it but I can really see myself having to reedit a document that would be more relevant to the needs of our group.  This would, of course, prevent me from buying the hard copy as soon as it is available (as I have fully intended to) as the hard copy would be riddled with material that was essentially useless to me and is distracting for the players. 

HARP is a generic fantasy game - HARP sci fi should be as generic a sci fi game as possible.

Jem

[allenrmaher]

It is a bit of a no win.  One of the most common criticisms of HARP out there is the generic nature of it.  I think HARP really starts to show it self off once you see it in a setting like Cyradon that was built for it.  I like that TIntamar is there... that way all I have to do is plan an adventure rather than a full fledged campaign world.

[jem]

On the contrary - I know plenty of people who play HARP because it is generic and therefore a direct competitor for D&D (but with better rules of course!) - just check out the poll on the HARP forum for settings used. I have used HARP in Greyhawk, Titan, Harn and my own setting and had a great time with all of them.

I don't have a problem with the existence of the setting - I even quite like it, but it would be a shame if the impression players get is "this is the game of Tintamar" as it might well limit its appeal.  I accept what you say and I am happy with the setting material being in the book but would prefer it if it was separated out from the core game as a sample setting in an appendix - even if it is still a substantial section of the book. Perhaps another way to do it would be to have boxed "in Tintamar" examples in the relevant rules sections - i.e perhaps if there was a generic description of FTL travel with some ideas for how it might be handled but with a boxed and/or shaded section that descriped specifically how it was done in the sample setting.

Right now there is no real competition for the generic sci fi game and it would seem like the ideal time to pitch HARPSF as a challenger to the mantle of Traveller, Space Opera and Space Master rather than another Trinity or Futures Suns.  Lasting appeal does seem to go to games that give players and gms the maximum amount of creative space whilst supporting beginners with ample examples of how a setting could be set up.

Jem

[jem]

BTW One setting that is begging to be done in HARPSF is GW's 40k setting.  Thanks to HARP there are already racial stat mods for Eldar, Squats and Orks and converting weapons to HARP is very easy.  It is a dopey setting in many ways but it IS popular.  Now I know that there would be no way for ICE to officially support such a conversion but if the rules remain open to some kind of Fantasy / Sci Fi crossover in setting materials then anyone who likes the setting will immediately see the potential.

Jem

[buddha]

BTW One setting that is begging to be done in HARPSF is GW's 40k setting.  Thanks to HARP there are already racial stat mods for Eldar, Squats and Orks and converting weapons to HARP is very easy. 

Most 40K fans are already waiting for the Dark Heresy RPG due out in Febuary 2008. It's the first of three planned RPGs in the 40K setting.

I too love HARP for it's genericness. 
I've made my own setting for the fantasy campain I run, but for a SCI-FI RPG I want a setting I can modify to fit my own needs, not just a set of rules.

Layoutwise I agree with Jem, keep the rules in one part and make a clear distinction between the generic rules and the setting specific rules.

And if it is implied somewhere in the text that Cyradon might be a planet in some distant quadrant of the Tintamar universe so much the better. I liked that idea in Shadow World / Space Master, and I think it is written somewhere in 40K canon that the Warhammer Fantasy world is somwhere in the Eye of Chaos or whatever that chaosinfested part of the galaxy is called. No need to scatter laserweapons and other high tech stuff troughout Cyradon, just give the players that little link that tells them it is possibel to take your spaceship and go visit a backwards planet where they have yet to invent the steamengine.

[NicholasHMCaldwell]

With the exception of the FTL section, where exactly are the setting-specific rule details intermingled with the generic rules? As far as I am aware, all the setting-specific rule details are already marked out by Tintamar Knowledge Base headings.

Best wishes,
Nicholas

[wachinayn]

The problem here is that you need races other than human in the races chapter, and to have those races you need to introduce the setting first. I also would like to see the Tintamar setting as an appendix, but this is a SF game and doesn't have the "standard set" of races (orcs, elves, dwarves) that every fantasy setting has. That's why you can have a races chapter without a preceding setting one in HARP. But it's not possible in HARP SF, so I think is necessary to have such a Tintamar introduction so early in the book.

[Mungo]

With the exception of the FTL section, where exactly are the setting-specific rule details intermingled with the generic rules? As far as I am aware, all the setting-specific rule details are already marked out by Tintamar Knowledge Base headings.

Hi,

Yes, FTL is the only area where the rules are setting specific. But what I noticed is that there are rules "missing" because they are not required in this setting. E.g. Blasters, Ion Cannons, CIRS,...

Personally I only miss the generic FTL rules and Blasters, but other GMs might want to have more depending on the settings they have in mind.

Concerning the general topic of this thread:
Wherever Tintamar was mentioned as an option and not "hardcoded" (see FTL), I found these paragraphs extremely helpful. First of all they helped developing a better feel for the setting (and I think the book should include its own setting), second they showed on the spot how a GM can use and adapt the rules mentioned in the respective chapter. So I actually feel very positive about the way the setting and the rules parts of HARP SF interact with each other.

BR
Juergen

[jem]

Please don't think that I see this as a big deal - I am not unhappy with the book at all.  It was just an observation that was a gut feeling of my own but two of my players both commented on it as we made characters and so I thought it was worth mentioning.

The key elements that are setting specific are: The Tintamar Universe (well, obviously and it is mostly its location in the book - not the nature of the chapter that bothered me), 

The Species - plenty of sci fi settings only have humans and if we called the species "humanoid" or something, given the human flexibility in placing stat bonuses and the availability of talents most archetypical humanoid races from sci fi can be constructed pretty easily - Klingon, Wookie, Romulan, Rhodian, Elite, brute, whatever.  The culture rules are absolute gold (superb job btw) and these would also help differentiate characters without a stock of setting specific races in the core rules. It is probably worth noting that Traveller - without a doubt one of the most enduring sci fi rpgs in existence has only ever had humans in the core rules. Similarly, Space Master was based almost exclusively around humans and human variants.

The other section that has lots of setting references is the Equipment section although it is totally reasonable that you have to have default assumptions about technology just to get started but perhaps if they were referred to as the "default tech" in that chapter rather than the "Tintamar Knowledge Base."

Please believe me when I say that the game is great and I am loving it. I am also a big boy and if these issues are unique to me, I will happily get over it and just not print the bits that bother me in the next draft. You guys have done an amazing job and there are so many sections of the rules that are just clearly better than anything that has gone before that the excitement around this project is completely justified.

Jem

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

jem - as you point out there are a number of default assumptions made in the manuscript. That is a neccessity required by the VAST range of situations/settings/time frames/etc that are possible under the singular heading of Science Fiction.

Nick's first draft of HARP SF was actually a lot more generic in nature. ICE had him go back and ADD more material, to add in more setting elements specifically. The material was too dry and too bleh without the setting elements (sorry Nick, it was the nature of the material, not the author's writing that caused that feeling).

You mention Traveler as being humano-centric. The problem there is that Traveler was written specifically for the Traveler Universe. A specific setting at a specific time frame. Traveler is not a generic system.

In order to show off some of the flexibility of the system, we had to add in certain setting elements like alien races. And for the record, the races came separately from the setting. ICE worked with Nick regarding the races, offering suggestions and feedback. We had already given Nick the basic outline (extremely sketchy) of the setting that we wanted to be the core of HARP SF, and all we had for aliens there were the Silth (or is that Slith - I can never seem to remember) and some unidentified aliens.

If we only put humans in the book, then how would folks who wanted to use it with alien races know how to build aliens. By giving examples, we give a benchmark from which GMs can work.

FTL drive - only one system will be presented in the core rules and that is the LaGrange/Portal system. Yes, it is totally system dependent, but it is also fairly generic enough that it is easy to adapt it to other settings.

For example, the core is 1 LY per day via LaGrange Drive and 1 LY per minute via portal. If we consider them to be our upper and lower limits, you can then create a break down like the following:

Code: [Select]

Level Transit Time
1 24 hr/LY (1 day/LY)
2 18 hr/LY (.75 day/LY)
3 12 hr/LY (.5 day/LY)
4 6 hr/LY (.25 day/LY)
5 3 hr/LY (.125 day/LY)
6 1 hr/LY
7 30 min/ly
8 10 min/LY
9 5 min/LY
10 1 min/LY
You want to have space travel like in the Starfist books then use Level 4 and require ships to jump outside the system's gravity well (same for jumping back in). And throw in a d10 Light Minute Error to navigation for every 4 LY traveled in a jump for the exit points (if you have read Starfist, this approximates the Beam Constant, and the problems it causes).

You want Star Trek, then remove the Lagrange limitation and use each level as a specific Warp Factor.
You want Star Wars, then remove the limitations as above, and select one or more levels, whatever is appropriate.

See, it isn't hard to change the FTL rules to suit your setting.

But, putting multiple FTL guidelines into the book would only confuse things overall for others. Besides this book is huge enough as it is...

That goes for many things in the book. Some things are done because of the specific setting or just to give us a default (like the default is approximately 500 years in the future).

Now, ICE has barely had any time to go through the manuscript (due to working on other projects), so who knows, ICE may decide to remove the magic references, or it may not. But in either case, it is not really an issue as HARP's profession system inherently supports multi-genre games, as any categories not found in a given genre are automatically unfavored for other genre, and restricted to requiring specific training from a teacher of some sort in order to learn. That will not change here.

We may decide to change the Stun RR or not (side note: the Stun RR in HARP was set at 150 because of monsters - without it, there would have been no chance to ever stun a dragon or other high level monsters. Yes, it made it harder to low level characters, but even a 1st level character had a chance to resist - a tiny chance, but the chance was there).

It all boils down to this --

Science fiction is too broad in scope to be able to create a generic book for it without including some sort of setting material to set a standard. Without those internal standards, the book would be too direction-less overall. You may not use aliens in your game, that is quite alright, but we do have to supply some to show HOW they are done, and how divers they can be for those who do want them, even if they do not want the ones we show.

Fantasy games have a number of built in preconceptions about a standard fantasy world, pre-conceptions that did not need to be explained as fully as they need to be explained in a sci-fi setting.

Will the book please everybody in every way? No. However, I think that we can please enough folks in enough ways to make the game be popular.

[Acid_Crash]

I am glad there is a setting in the main rulebook, for GMs like me it helps begin playing the game with a focus rather than trying to struggle with the creation of my own setting, so it helps rather than hurts.  And for the people who don't want to use the setting in the book, then ignore it.  Having that additional information on the setting can, in the end, only help rather than hurt.

That's my take on it.

[jem]

I agree with almost everything you have said Rasyr - except that Traveller was not written with a specific setting in mind - the setting only started showing up in later books but to be fair the jump drive is their baseline assumption about FTL travel and in classic traveller at least there are no alternative technologies given. Traveller is generic sci fi, just generic "hard sci fi". Space Opera is, funnily enough, generic "space opera". Space Master bridges the two extremes and is not setting specific. It is possible. but I agree that the "sacred cows" of generic fantasy are easier to identify.
 
I think it would be easy enough to illustrate how to build a humanoid alien given the existing human rules but if you disagree, fair enough. The vast majority of aliens in sci fi are still "humans with bumpy heads".

I guess maybe just a little more "this is just the example setting NOT the only setting for this game" text would be good. I guess it would be nice to point players at that sort of stuff.

The real advantage of PDF publishing is that I can still edit my own campaign specific rulebook and we don't need to buy the hard copy with the setting stuff that we don't want.  So in a way, my needs are well served by you good people.

Jem

[chk]

I guess maybe just a little more "this is just the example setting NOT the only setting for this game" text would be good. I guess it would be nice to point players at that sort of stuff.

I would leave this for the forthcoming "SysOp's Guide", personally. Continuing the FTL example, I was already figuring out how to use 2300AD's stutterwarp technology in this setting as I was reading the rules...

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

jem, it is the default house setting for the game, not a sample setting in any way.

The game is meant to be presented in as generic a fashion as possible while still presenting it with a setting detailed enough to allow for immediate play in a variety of styles. You may not be happy with this result because you have a specific setting in mind for what you want to use the game for, and certain aspects won't fit/work with that.

The key point here is that the game MUST be ready to play immediately, and that means using the defaul house setting to set the basic tech levels and other aspects of the game. We are trying to be as flexible as possible within that framework, and I think that we have basically achieved that.

Many of your comments seem to be based more on what you like/want/need, and there is nothing wrong with that, however, we have to think beyond that. Not only what you want/need but also what Acid_Crash wants/needs. And he needs a setting available in order to begin play.

Traveler - my comments were based on your earlier comments as I have never actually seen the game.

Any game makes basic assumptions. If Traveler has no aliens, then that IS a basic assumption, and it makes it setting specific, not generic, as it is telling you no aliens.

The trick we are trying handle here is to balance setting with generic.

[jem]

Look, again - It was purely an opinion about what the players I know want and, as you say, other players want different things.  That is fine and indeed healthy  .

Traveller has aliens but they are not in the core rules - they are in the setting material, but you are right in that all sci fi games make setting assumptions in the core rules - in fact with the exception of cyberware (the rules of which are fantastic btw) and jump drives rather than jump gates, the technological assumptions are very similar in both T and H SF.

The rules are great,  I love HARP and I think HARP SF is going to be my favourite sf rpg.  As I said I may just avoid the hard copies and use a selectively printed PDF for my campaigns, which is fine. I'm sure that plenty of people will be happy with the setting and want to run with the Tintamar rpg and all power to them! It is a good setting.

I am happy to drop the subject now - as I said it was just an opinion about the structure of the book, not the content.

Jem

[Juicinator]

Most 40K fans are already waiting for the Dark Heresy RPG due out in Febuary 2008. It's the first of three planned RPGs in the 40K setting.

There has been a lot of grousing over at the game's forums about the way 40k is being presented.  I've looked over what they want to do (the first core rulebook assumes all players are part of an Inquisitor's retinue--very narrow intro to the game).  If you wanted to adapt HARP SF to a 40k setting where every race and class was immediately available, you could do that (and it would be more fun than three widely-spaced race-specific core rulebooks).  Setting-wise, though, some races just don't mix (you'd REALLY have some 'splaining to do if you wanted to have a party with an eldar, an ork, a tau, and a tyranid).  Not like in a fantasy world where adventuring parties look like a fantasy-themed Bennetton advert.