Topic: SPAM Classic ?

[David Johansen]

I ran a campaign with it for a while.  It just seemed to run out of stuff to do really quickly.  Sure you can do capers and trading and all that stuff but it's not really fleshed out.  The war is.

I still think it would make a great miniatures wargame line.  The intro game, Defiance would be a 28mm skirmish game set on Defiance where brave Tulgar insurgents fight against the might of the Jeronian war machine.

I think there are a number of positive aspects of the setting that deserve some respect.

1 - With all the races existing in both stellar nations it's easy to do spy stuff.  None of this "there's evil humans but the elf will be killed on sight" stuff.  Though the Tulgar are certainly a persecuted minority in Jeronian space.

2 - The privateers set up gives PCs a great deal of lee way in the warzones.  They don't have to always be looking over their shoulders for the police and can always run away home to the ISC when things get too hot.

3 - The races are very iconic and recognizable and thus easy to pick up and play.  You wouldn't hand a new player a Trilopter or Snee lightly.  If ICE had liscenced Startrek would we be complaining about the 9 000000000 species of face puttied humanoids? 

[Ynglaur]

3 - The races are very iconic and recognizable and thus easy to pick up and play.  You wouldn't hand a new player a Trilopter or Snee lightly.  If ICE had liscenced Startrek would we be complaining about the 9 000000000 species of face puttied humanoids?

Yes.  I like my aliens to be alien. 

[GrumpyOldFart]

I think there are a number of positive aspects of the setting that deserve some respect.

1 - With all the races existing in both stellar nations it's easy to do spy stuff.  None of this "there's evil humans but the elf will be killed on sight" stuff.

I agree, a certain amount of homogeneity within opposing cultures creates a lot of cool scenario hooks.

2 - The privateers set up gives PCs a great deal of lee way in the warzones.  They don't have to always be looking over their shoulders for the police and can always run away home to the ISC when things get too hot.

Again I agree, the privateers setup provides lots of options in scenario creation. Another good call IMO.

3 - The races are very iconic and recognizable and thus easy to pick up and play.  You wouldn't hand a new player a Trilopter or Snee lightly.

Here's where you and I disagree. I wouldn't hand a new player an alien of any kind unless he convinced me that he was ready to learn how to think like an alien, instead of just a human in a funny suit. Think about the pressures on the species and consider your psychology and worldview in light of them. Act accordingly, but be prepared to have to explain it to your bewildered fellow players (and perhaps your bewildered GM... although if you're so alien you bewildered the GM, and were able to justify it, he owes you MAJOR BONUS POINTS, and make sure he realizes it.)

 

The example I normally use is actually much closer to home. The cute little aquatic elf girl, who happens to be "on the beach" (meaning anywhere not actually in the water, to her way of thinking), traveling for a bit with some land-bound acquaintances. If you stop to think about how little use her species would have for fire, and how alien the concept of "cooking" would be to her, it really shouldn't shock you if you guys are out hunting, she spears something and immediately slits its throat and starts drinking its blood while it's still alive... or being careful of what bits she cuts off and eats so it doesn't die before she's finished. If you're going to play the cute little aquatic elf chick, be ready to be misunderstood and hurt when you offer your love interest the still beating heart of something and say,

"Brought you a present, baby. Eat it quick, before it dies, it'll go stale."   

And the cute little aquatic elf chick is your own sister compared to a Trilopter or a Snee, so be up for that or wait until you are before you play one. Sheesh, a bombardier beetle, a sea urchin or a velociraptor is a close cousin of yours compared to a trilopter or a snee.

If you don't expect players to accept the challenge of at least trying to roleplay, why try to interest them in a roleplaying game?

If ICE had liscenced Startrek would we be complaining about the 9 000000000 species of face puttied humanoids?

Maybe not you, but me? Ayup, you bet I would. But then I'm spoiled that way. I complained about it back when people could use "William Shatner" and "good looking" in the same sentence and keep a straight face.

 

[David Johansen]

I realize 3 is controversial but it's also a good example of how SPAM's setting design goals were at times good design goals that resulted in a bad design.

To counter your point 3 criticisms I'll hold up all the people I've met over the years who wouldn't play a human because "that wouldn't be roleplaying" and all the people who couldn't play an alignment without rationalizing a violation every thirty seconds and all the people who named their elf Legolas.

It would be nice if we all had players who loved to be immersed in character and setting, showed up on time every session, bought and read the rules without looking for loopholes, and shared all our tastes and opinions.

But in the real world we don't have that and expecting it would mean sitting around talking about rpgs on the internet and not playing them.  Most of us play rpgs to have a good time with our friends even when they name their fourth elven ranger in a row Legolas and start playing games on their cell phone if your exposition goes over thirty seconds.

I'm all for accessible, cool races as a design goal.  I'm not bothered with animal races as reflections of our own race (or people in fuzzy suits if you must).  Because I can get people to play that game.  The place where SPAM fails -3 for me is in restricting the setting to those races and not even allowing the possibility of more alien races and other civilizations.

I guess that's where I see the grand flaw.  It's a small setting with rigid boundaries.  That works better in a novel or short story than an rpg designed around long term campaign play.

[dutch206]

How are Defendi's aliens any different from the Aslan and the Vargr of Marc Miller's "Traveller"?  I don't see as how he did anything all that bad there.

 What turned me off on SM: P was the lack of guidance on loot, incomes, and selling stuff from raids.  I also wasn't that keen on the idea of Earth being under alien control.  (Not a huge fan of the WW2 French Resistance genre.)

[GrumpyOldFart]

To counter your point 3 criticisms I'll hold up all the people I've met over the years who wouldn't play a human because "that wouldn't be roleplaying" and all the people who couldn't play an alignment without rationalizing a violation every thirty seconds and all the people who named their elf Legolas.

It would be nice if we all had players who loved to be immersed in character and setting, showed up on time every session, bought and read the rules without looking for loopholes, and shared all our tastes and opinions.

Well, I did tell you up front that I'm spoiled. Sure, my players have been late or missing, and I've had some interesting sessions with rules lawyers but

...players who loved to be immersed in character and setting...

...I actually had those, consistently. Because of that,

Most of us play rpgs to have a good time with our friends even when they name their fourth elven ranger in a row Legolas and start playing games on their cell phone if your exposition goes over thirty seconds.

...that guy makes me shudder, and I try to find other entertaining things to do with him besides play RPGs. Spending the day down on the river with him won't give me the "fingernails on the blackboard" feeling that watching him attempt to "roleplay" Legolas will. Even then I'm willing to put up with it, if he shows me he's actually hoping to outgrow Legolas someday soon. I'll be only too happy to help him discover how.

I'm all for accessible, cool races as a design goal.  I'm not bothered with animal races as reflections of our own race (or people in fuzzy suits if you must).  Because I can get people to play that game.  The place where SPAM fails -3 for me is in restricting the setting to those races and not even allowing the possibility of more alien races and other civilizations.

I have a lot of respect for Mr. Defendi, and in fairness I must admit the races in SM:P were very impressive to me in their own way, as an example of how to make unacceptable but necessary choices as an author less reekingly amateurish. While I don't personally know the man, if I assume he came to much the same conclusions you did for much the same reasons, I find it impressive that he was able to do so well in coming up with an underlying setting logic that allowed "humans in funny suits" style aliens to rationally integrate into the game world as well as they did. Kudos to him for that. But while I can honestly praise his ability to put makeup on a pig to the point where it's the prettiest, least pig-looking pig ever, and sympathize with the reasons he may have felt like he had to.... nonetheless, it's still a pig.

That said,

...all the people I've met over the years who wouldn't play a human because "that wouldn't be roleplaying"...

Of the SM:P races, I would never play anything else, because I would feel like playing a human in a funny suit "wouldn't be roleplaying", it'd just be dressing up in a costume.

[GrumpyOldFart]

Yes, to deal with the "Legolas issue" I'd want the setting logic to allow for at least one or two alien races that are obviously closely related to humanity enough that there must be a common microbial ancestor. They could probably survive on the same rations even, although it might be less palatable than a human surviving on nothing but live insects.

But at the same time, I think there should also be at least one or two races so alien that having one aboard your ship absolutely requires the life support techs to recalibrate everything for the sections that creature inhabits, too.

[David Johansen]

Not so much my logic as Defendi's own from the many long debates on the subject back when ICE was bankrupt.

Personally they should have just gone with anime style artwork and nobody would have thought twice about why that wolf was wearing boots.

As for Traveller, the aliens got full book treatments and really only the Vargr are uplifted animals.  Even the Privateers Races and Cultures book made the SPAM races far better than they appeared in the core books.  The thing is that SPAM takes an allegorical approach to the races rather than a hard scientific approach.  We're looking at the big bad wolf or the serpent of eden here.  I think it works and would love to run a big campaign if the setting was more fleshed out and open ended.

On the other hand I was a real sf snob right out of high school.  I'd read too many essays by Niven and Asimov.  The problem is that in hind sight they were wrong.  The problem is that sf needed to embrace Star Wars and Star Trek rather than endlessly criticising them.  In our pursuit of respect as an adult genre we basically threw a wall beteen us and many of the fans of those movies and TV shows that could have become sf readers.  And I would argue that Fantasy is the dominant genre today as a result.

[GrumpyOldFart]

I can buy that. I guess when all is said and done, the reason I have a gripe with "humans in funny suits" is because I'm a Niven and Asimov fan myself. Sheesh, I even get caught up in making science and magic work together. Personally I feel like if your players couldn't honestly imagine themselves seeing an entry for "Thaumatology 131" in a university course catalog, you don't have your magic right yet.

You want extra fantasy in combat, hygiene, sanitation and healthcare, those all need the help in order to be fun. With magic it's the opposite problem, "fantastic", "cinematic", "fun" are all easy compared to "it's believable, I could visualize this happening."

And of course, "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic", so the same caveat applies in SF, for pretty much the same reasons.

[David Johansen]

I very much ascribe to the theory that it's less fun to break the laws of physics if you never had to follow them in the first place.  For exceptional things to feel exceptional they have to be exceptional in the context of everything around them.

Over the top isn't my thing.

That'd be another failing of SPAM it's a bit too over the top.  In particular the races are too specialized and powerful for my liking.

I also like technological consistency.  As Niven observed, before you introduce a new technology you need to look at all your other technology and make sure it couldn't do the job cheaper, faster, and better.  On the other hand, inconsistancy and irrationality in proper doses can really make magic feel magical.  I always think that's something D&D manages to do that other games often miss.

[GrumpyOldFart]

Well that's the point, getting that consistency.

I dunno, I always figured that SF RPG aliens weren't for the guys who always play Legolas. They're for the guy who always wants to be a partial monster breed, or a lycanthrope, etc. The guys that 'over the top' is what they're here for.

Think of it as evolution in action. 

[JimiSue]

Aside from a bit on creating stellar systems, the GM book in SM2 is almost entirely dedicated to outlining the Imperium setting and the factions within it.

[David Johansen]

The thing about over the top is it gets ever increasingly difficult to top it.  This would be why Warhammer hasn't had a balanced army book in 20 years.  Every book has to be the newest bestest and the game engine groans under the weight of it.

I see sf races as serving a number of roles.  Firstly they add variety and well, alieness to the setting.  Second they provide plot devices in the form of racial quirks on which the GM can hang a story.  They also provide alternatives for the will not play a human crowd.  Lastly, though I'm probably missing some, they provide build strategy alternatives.

The last one isn't the most important but it is valid.  Particularly in that the designers must consider the negative impact of said build strategies.

[Marc R]

What is the Official "Canon" list for SM then?

[Ynglaur]

What is the Official "Canon" list for SM then?

1ed/2ed, or Privateers?

[GrumpyOldFart]

The thing about over the top is it gets ever increasingly difficult to top it.

Exactly. Alien races are the GM's chance to give something to that guy that's easily perceived as 'over the top', at least enough to satisfy that kind of player's apparent fetish for such things... and yet presumably it was tested for play balance. It's a way to provide "different" without having to worry about hidden game-breakers in what you allowed him to do.

I see sf races as serving a number of roles.

Sure, and all those are valid, and doubtless there are some neither of us are spotting. But if we're talking about alien character races, we're specifying their purpose as a player resource, as distinct from a GM resource.

[David Johansen]

What is the Official "Canon" list for SM then?

I'm not quite clear if you are asking for a list of products, or races.

Race wise, SPAM has only seven races and wrote the setting to preclude the addition of other races as the races are only found within a certain area into which they were seeded on worlds that were customized to their use and there is no evidence of other races beyond that.  (worst feature of the setting IMO)

SM2 mainly had the various transhumans and a few very alien aliens in the core.  But I suspect there were other races added in adventures and companions.

[Marc R]

I mean, what's the official "all other official products need to mesh" list?

[JimiSue]

I think what a lot of developers fail to realise is that the kind of player that likes the 'over the top' will move just as much heaven and earth to be 5% better than before as he will 50% than before. You see this kind of thing in long-runner MMORPGs like Everquest - the game is now so broken (the critters naturally needing to progress in tandem with the gear) that unless you've kept at the head of the curve you have no chance to catch up. Less of an issue in pen and paper, but it's still there.

There's any number of new ways to introduve new races - even a brief glance at the SF canon of literature will provide you with opportunities. Off the top of my head:

Creatures that look human but aren't (like in V - at least the original series, not seen the new one so don't know if they are still reptiles with human skin

Sentient life found somewhere so unexpected that people simply have not looked too hard there before (e.g. a race of whale-like creatures that swim in the 'seas' of a gas giant's atmosphere)

A hostile force from elsewhere in the galaxy (the setting only covering a small portion of that potentually massive volume) bent on humanity's destruction (e.g. the Chigs from (the best SF series ever made) Space, Above and Beyond).

A hive mind whose component parts are microscopic - sentient viruses anyone?

Against which the simplest explanation of a previously unsurveyed world seems really quite mundane.

This is sci-fi - more than any other genre, you can let your imagination really run riot!

[David Johansen]

No, this is sf and more than any other genre you must be guided by reason, research, and hard data.

Or so the argument goes anyhow.