Official ICE Forums
Systems & Settings => HARP SF => Topic started by: Raf Blutaxt on June 20, 2007, 08:23:01 AM
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I'm just curious what setting you play in with Harp SF. Do you play in the Tintamar universe or in a homebrew setting?
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Hi,
Homebrew setting, which I call "Eden" (because humanity lives in the garden Eden, at least according to some scholars). It was originally inspired by Serenity, but has in the meantime lost most likely all similarities.
I always wanted to post what I have deloped, but between a challenging job, a young son, currently reviewing 4d and GMins, I absolutely do not find the time.
- The basic story is, that there is a 200000 year old conflict which impacts humanity still now in many ways, althoug humanity is not aware of it.
- Humans started interstellar travel in the 21st century, found out that travel can only be along hyperroutes (which are sometimes very difficult to find), founded colonies and discovered the Bermuda Barrier, which is an invisible line/ellipsoid with about 160ly diameter. Any spaceship that traveled beyond never returned. And only ruins were found of any alien society.
- There were 2 wars, one in the 22nd and one in the 23rd century, now called the "Genesis wars". The first was against any kind of mutation, the second against any kind of artificial intelligence.
- As a result, humanity was thrown in a cultural equivalent of the middle ages. Most computers were destroyed, religion and fanatism was advancing as education became difficult in a societies fighting for survival.
- The result is the complete ban of mutations and AIs by all churches, sects and religions - violation leads to being roasted on a big fire. Most former colonies have a feudal or religious government. For 200 years politics have been like Italy in the Renaissance (see Macchiavelli), i.e. intrigue and counterintrigue, wars back and forth,....
- So the characters live in a world shaped by religion, superstition and access to advanced technology on some worlds/areas (while the most have aliving standard only a little bit above a peasant in the middle ages).
- The characters all awake on planet which was recently conquered by the Chrismos (a blend of right wing protestantism and radical islam) and find out that they lost 7 years of their memory. They also find that they have abilities and skills they did not have 7 years ago. And several groups, including the local underworld, the local resistance, the society of concerned citicens and a small girl, want something from them...
It is the 25.7.2534 and things are not looking good.
BR
Juergen
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What you describe sounds quite similar to Fading Suns.
How many changes did you make to the rules to make them fit to the setting?
Do you use Harp rules for the more medieval parts of the setting like swordfighting and similar?
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Hi,
Never heard of fading suns, so I can't judge.
The setting did not force me to any change, so I did not do any changes because of that. I also do not use any part of HARP that is not part of HARP SF. What I did was to develop the 7 years on behalf of the characters, which is unusual. You can BTW download the characters from the download section and see that I followed the rules to the letter.
What I also do is that I use the SM2 combat system for personal combat (there is a post about how I do this), but this has also nothing to do with the setting.
BR
Juergen
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Well you should definitely check out Fading Suns! It's one of the best sci-fi settings that are not licensed from books or movies.
I'm currently working on my ideas for a setting to play Harp SF and I'll probably have to change parts of the rules. That's why I asked if you had to make changes.
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Do you play in the Tintamar universe or in a homebrew setting?
Yes :)
Best wishes,
Nicholas
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After reading the Tintamar chapter I thought about playing in the setting but at the moment I'm more into Cyberpunk and the Setting seemed to be to friendly and not dark and dirty enough.
Oh and my other setting idea is a bit more exotic and probably at leas a bit influenced by Dan Simmons' Ilium. But I still have to figure out how exactly the Universe will be and how the rules will fit in...
Oh and then I'll have to find players who are willing to suffer from my madness :D
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Hi,
Had a look at Fading Suns at rpgnow. What book would you start with if you are interested only in the setting but not in any rules? The d20 version because the rules are in the d20 rulebook from WotC?
BR
Juergen
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That sounds right, but I'll tell you what. PM me so I don't forget (I'll leave the notification in my inbox). When I get home in an hour or two I'll look. I MIGHT have some fading suns on PDF. I have many of the physical books, but only in their house system.
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Well there is some nice fiction for free on the old Holistic Design homepage.
I only know the main book for the victory point system but there aren't that many rules in there either.
Lords & Priests is another good book because it combines the old sourcebooks on nobles and the church. I just bought that one as pdf so if you send me a PM I can help you there.
Oh and the first edition was translated into german so you might stumble upon it in some rpg stores.
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I am yet to actually try HARP SF but Tintamar seems to be good enough starting point. After all the imperium of SM2 ended up pretty much different than it was described. Well, actually I only used parts of it and added some cool bits from fiction that I had read or seen. So that's what will probably happen to Tintamar as well :)
About Fading Suns, I have run it quite a lot in the past. I own all or almost all of the books (except Noble Armada). Though there might be one of the most recent book that I didn't buy. The setting is really nice if you are into Dune-like atmosphere. I won't go to system here because it will get too far off-topic. The basic book has a nice overview of the setting and various faction books add to that (plus there are fief books that give you quite detailed description of the Known Worlds, even planetary maps).
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Hi,
Tintamar (and Privateers) is lacking in my eyes the basic conflict. For me fighting for peace, a religion, democracy, more money and so is at the end ... pointless. Life is in cycles, so a dictator is followed by democracy and so on.
But fighting for the existance of everything is something entirely else. And I love root causes, i.e. a very basic and in its description simple conflict that influences everything, but that at its core is difficult to detect by the players (i.e. they only see consequences, like the shadow of an object when you can't perceive the light source itself).
So I love: Echoes of Heaven (Hell against Heaven), Ptolus (Galchutt), Midkemia (Nameless One), Alastair Reynolds (Wolves),...
In my world the area around Earth is an ancient battlefield, where 2 forces fought to a standstill, with the "evil" (from a human point of view) being encircled by the Galactic Alliance. The Galactic Alliance built fortresses to close all hyperroutes out of the area, locking the other side in. Now humans have emerged in this area, and both sides start their war again with humanity being the key to either utter defeat of the evil side or breaking down the walls of their prison. And all of this might easily result in the complete destruction of the human race as well.
BR
Juergen
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So you want something grand, even epic to fuel the story behind the game? Although I love Alastair Reynolds' books I like them for different reason than you. To me those "wolves" were even some sort of anticlimax, I liked all the other things about the setting. Nasty characters and high tech.
That's what I want from my games as well. Maybe I am too polluted by cyberpunk games that I prefer to think in shades of gray rather than absolute good vs. evil. I think it makes games fun when you really don't know who to trust etc.
Of course that's just matter of personal taste.
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Hi,
Yes, epic is the right word. Not necessarily good vs. evil. And I like "Onions", i.e. where the root cause has an effect on something which has another effect on something else -> like with an onion there are many layers the characters have to penetrate to get to the heart of it. And while the root cause might be evil vs good or something like that, the layers I have in mind are not. I.e. there are people who are neither good or evil, or serve the right side for the wrong reasons or the other way round and so on.
BR
Juergen
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I have a bit of a problem with campaigns that are epic from the beginning. If the smuggler trying to make his living on a backwater world ends up saving the universe that's fine with me provided he has a lot of adventures in between to explain for it. I often find that character play suffers in epic adventures whereas it is often very strong in games with a smaller scope.
But then it always depends on my mood and I might really enjoy an epic game tomorrow :)
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Hi,
I fully agree. Of course the players have no idea about what's going on. It might be that their village is attacked by Ogres and a girl kidnapped. The rescue here and find out, that the Ogres are actually nice people who believed the village was an enemy -> they help the Ogres. And so on. And each part of their journey gives them more and more the feeling that more is going on below the surface than they think.
So perhaps at the end they destroy perhaps a plot against the king of a kingdom. And the cycle repeats. Only this time they get the idea that behind their adventure there is something that was perhaps also behind the problem in the kingdom on a deeper level. And they start investigating that.
So no, no party of mine will ever ride out to save the universe.
And BTW: my last SF campaign (with SM:P) was insipred by Alastair Reynolds' "Revelation Space". So at the end the characters forced their way into this alien space station, solved all puzzles and combats just to be informed that their race has just passed the threshold for racial termination (clever, aggressive, determined). The characters died immediately and the assault on humanity began. It is still in their memories as the coolest campaign ending ever.
BR
Juergen
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Wheels within wheels, I like :)
Nothing wrong with epic games. Actually I have run couple of those myself. The first one with SpaceMaster, it was not planned to get that epic. Story just sort of got away with it.
The second was set to a modified version of Dark Space using Rolemaster and it was meant to be epic from the start. Although players didn't know it at first. But anyway, both were fun to run although I prefer more low key campaigns mostly. But maybe certain kind of epic feel is to be expected from games that use levels?
BTW Mungo, are you referring to the puzzles like those in a short story "Diamond Dogs"?
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BTW Mungo, are you referring to the puzzles like those in a short story "Diamond Dogs"?
Hi,
Hmm SnowDog, it was 4 years ago so I have difficulties to remember the details. Same with "Diamond dogs".
But I'd say no. The idea was that an alien intelligence lures other intelligences into a trap in which they reveal their capabilities and characteristics. If they pass a certain - very low - threshold, the extinction machinery starts. The defenses around this installation were from already extinct races trying to prevent later races to fall into the same trap. So they were purely militaristic on the outside (the characters had to enter the system by running with all energy consumers shut off and on a ballistic curve, otherwise they would have been shot down). There were only about 5 puzzles, one an attack, one about having the right (sensor) technology, one about being intelligent, the rest I have forgotten.
In Diamond Dogs there is only this tower (or?) with many chambers and the goal to prevent someone from reaching a the top and whatever it contains (I think that was revealed in another book, can't remember).
BTW, from where in Finland are you? As my company is now 50% Finnish, I got now some relationship with your country...
BR
Juergen
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Yes, you're right. It doesn't sound like Diamond Dogs after all. In that one there was just this one tower (it somehow reminded me of the movie Cubic). Anyway, sounds like a nice campaign!
I live in Vantaa, just north of Helsinki. The Helsinki airport is actually quite near where I live.
Do you happen to work for Siemens by any chance? I have friends working at Nokia...
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Hi,
Yes, Siemens until 1.4., now Nokia Siemens Networks. And that means I have now access to the best midsummer parties in Finland (at least that's what I have heard). Unfortunately I missed this one :-(
BR
Juergen
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If you have a chance, you should come up then :) Too bad you missed this year's party...
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Mungo, did you have a look at the Fading Suns stuff?
What do you think about it?
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Mungo, did you have a look at the Fading Suns stuff?
What do you think about it?
Hi,
Just the intro, which was quite nice. Otherwise it took me until yesterday evening to finish reading the HARP SF 4d manuscript.
I will start with the Fading Sun stuff tomorrow.
BR
Juergen
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Another setting that I have thought is Ghost In the Shell. There is quite nice fan based work already done at the net. Unfortunately it is done for d20 Modern with which I have no prior knowledge of. Can anyone help with conversion from d20 Modern to HARP SF?
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Avast and Ahoi!
Just got a great idea how to incorporate all my ideas into a coherrent setting for Harp SF.
It will be a mix of ancient Greece, Egypt, Rome and Mesopotamia with a dark cyberpunk athmosphere and at the end of the campaign all pc's still alive will probably be insane.
I'll try to write a blog or diary about how I adapt the rules and all that.
Anyway I just wanted to share my excitement about it. :)
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I'm currently working on a dark, urban fantasy setting in 1990's Boston. Think Charles de Lint, Neil Gaiman with the tiniest, subtle influence of Howard Phillips Lovecraft ...
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Hey guys - love HARP SF and play mostly in the Classic Traveller universe.
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Once I get a group up and running I have a feeling I?ll try to do a Star Warsesque type of setting.. its simply my favourite sci-fi/space opera setting, and one that I know perhaps too well.
Problem is, I?ve just recently moved back home from three years away, so getting players isn?t the most easy of tasks, at least not competent players, and I have to admit I?m demanding a bit more now than in the old days.
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I have some bad news. The GM of the HARP fantasy game has decided to change the system to World of Darkness. But my 7th level fusion warrior/psi, ESP/kinetics character was just comming into his own.
The changes in the PSI skills really affect my character but IMO are better for the game in the long run. In a high fantasy setting I did realise that I had to have some psi ranged attack skills and cryo-bolt came in very handy. We use a modified table with RMSS rules a tiny was an A-25, then an A ect as the size increased. Since we were fighting elementals it came in very handy and I was able to provide some needed support to the front line fighters.
The reason for the change was a GM decision that combat was taking too long and the GM wanted more than 1-2 combat scenes per night. Which is quite a few since we game for about 4-6 hours. But that is what his story needs to move so hence the chnage.
MDC
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I have some bad news. The GM of the HARP fantasy game has decided to change the system to World of Darkness.
These things happen.
But my 7th level fusion warrior/psi, ESP/kinetics character was just comming into his own.
The changes in the PSI skills really affect my character but IMO are better for the game in the long run. In a high fantasy setting I did realise that I had to have some psi ranged attack skills and cryo-bolt came in very handy. We use a modified table with RMSS rules a tiny was an A-25, then an A ect as the size increased. Since we were fighting elementals it came in very handy and I was able to provide some needed support to the front line fighters.
It's good to know that the telekinetic/esp fusion character was working out for you, particularly in the unusual context of a fantasy milieu. Thanks for the playtesting feedback.
Best wishes,
Nicholas
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Nicholas,
I am more of a RMSS player but I did not mind the HARP system. As I said I think the game was going well and most of the players were having a good time. After having moved I joined the group in progress liberaly using HARP. By that I mean very high adventure rules that seams to be focus of his setting.
On the flip side the WoD rules are going to have some problem representing the HARP char we were playing. IMO the pure fighter types are going to lose the most and the mage types are going to gain the most. Going from over 150 hits to 7-10 hits is a big change and going from HARP magic to WoD Mage is a huge shift in power.
All in all I would play HARP/HARP Sci FI again if I did not have RMSS and SM:P and the crossover seamed to work very well.
MDC