Hey all,
I've gone back to an article I'd started writing many months ago about adapting HARP Sci-Fi to modern and near future settings. I've gotten it about 80% ready to submit, but I have realized that due to the varied nature of these settings all I have is a bunch of guidelines and nothing concrete.
So I have been thinking about writing some example conversion sets. Not really settings but rough mechanics to use in a setting. For example A Modern Supernatural setting would be lacking the Astrogation skill, probably not have a vacuum tolerance trait, and add many of the mystical skill from HARP fantasy (probably using the Ritual Magic rules from CoM). The actual writeups would be much longer and more involved, but I hope you get the idea. I would ideally include a few training packages as well.
So my question is what kinds of modern or near future settings would people be most interested in seeing example settings for? So far I've got seven categories of these kinds of games, and would like to eventually create an example for each. I may not be able to do that, or at least not all at once, so I may just do the biggest ones and create additional ones for later submissions.
Here are the categories I've come up with so far:
Sample HARP Modern settings
Standard Modern: Used for Police, Spies, Military, and other games that lack any super science or supernatural influences. Could be used as a base for settings that are only slightly different than the real world. The Merchant Princes setting I am working on for example would use this but add World Walking talents, Low-Tech(minor, major) negative talents, and a few high tech equipment items for world walking.
Supernatural Modern: Used for Modern spellcasting campaigns. Settings such as Butcher’s Dresden Files or Stross’ The Laundry would fit this category.
Psychic Modern: Used for Modern psychic games, and possibly modern Wuxia games. Settings such as Steven King’s Firestarter, Kimagori Orange Road, Big Trouble in Little China (although that could also fit well in the next category) fit well in this category.
Weird World Modern: Basically this category covers a mix of supernatural, psychic and superscience elements in a setting. Possible examples of this kind of setting would be the Extraordinary Affairs campaign from a previous Guild Companion article, and many low powered super-power like settings.
Sample HARP Near Future settings
Standard Near Future: This is a category for settings that lack any supernatural or rediculously advanced technology elements and simply resemble a higher tech modern world. Many Trans-human games could fit in this category as could games inspired by the Alien(s) movies.
Superscience Near Future: This category has a lot of cross over with both the Standard Near Future category and standard HARP Sci-Fi settings. What differentiates it is a few limited super-science technologies more advanced than the rest of the setting. A good example would be a Ghost in the Shell or Cyber-punk like setting with very advanced cybernetics and robotics but few other radically advanced technologies.
Supernatural Near Future: This category covers near future games that include supernatural elements but not many superscience elements. This category is very good for the haunted space style of game or games inspired by movies such as Event Horizon.
Psychic Near Future: This category is very similar to the Supernatural Near Future category, but substitutes psionics for magic and other more traditional supernatural elements. Firefly could be argued to roughly fit this category (mostly due to River’s uncanny abilities).
Weird World Near Future: This is again a combination of superscience, supernatural, and psychic elements in a near future setting. Settings inspired by the Shadowrun game may fit well in this category, due to the advanced cybernetics and robotics.
Any preferences or feedback?
Thanks,