tunglashr Posted August 3, 2004 Report Share Posted August 3, 2004 You know, the oldie but a goodie from FGU? I am about to start a project to convert it to Star Hero. Anybody out there interested in taking part and or sharing resources? I have every book ever made for the system, and virtually every book ever made by FGU for that matter. I redid the whole thing once before with my ultra realistic and amazingly complex system of my own devising. Maybe this is a better idea. I think the main thing I know I wont be doing is converting all the equipment, I tend to do it as needed. I also would like a new starship combat system. Any fellow sanity optional people out there willing to help me out? People always think Im nuts when they see 8 Space Opera box sets on my shelf. Maybe I can seem less crazy if Im actually doing some conversion project or something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheImperialKhan Posted August 3, 2004 Report Share Posted August 3, 2004 Re: Anybody remember Space Opera? Actually I ran a Star Hero/Space Opera cross once upon a time. Here's the link to the part of my website with my old campaign info: http://www.geocities.com/blademaster01757/starhero.html The problem with Space Opera has always been its complexity. Far more so than the HERO System. A newbie could easily spend 5 or 6 hours generating just one character and it doesn't get much faster for an experienced player. There are just too many calculations. Still, it is a very complete system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadowcat1313 Posted August 3, 2004 Report Share Posted August 3, 2004 Re: Anybody remember Space Opera? I am in the process of running a campaign set in the merchantile league right now its mostly a merchant/trader game so far were using the trade and commerce tables from D20 traveller though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tunglashr Posted August 3, 2004 Author Report Share Posted August 3, 2004 Re: Anybody remember Space Opera? Actually I ran a Star Hero/Space Opera cross once upon a time. Here's the link to the part of my website with my old campaign info: http://www.geocities.com/blademaster01757/starhero.html The problem with Space Opera has always been its complexity. Far more so than the HERO System. A newbie could easily spend 5 or 6 hours generating just one character and it doesn't get much faster for an experienced player. There are just too many calculations. Still, it is a very complete system. The problem isnt the complexity, its that you get nothing from the complexity. The books are poorly edited and the conventions arent worth most of the time. I reorganized the character gen sections and wrote up a skill list with a whole bunch of symbols and such so you could tell what was required for this or a prereq for that, and it cut character gen time at least in half. I can now routinely make characters in less than an hour. But thats a digression. What I want to do with my conversion is play Star Hero in the Space Opera universe. I want to convert their equipment and races and such, especially their ships. I love the world and its feel, but Hero is the best system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadowcat1313 Posted August 3, 2004 Report Share Posted August 3, 2004 Re: Anybody remember Space Opera? ok, I will start the ball rolling with ship design SO volume 2 gives the volume of each ship hull size so its a simple matter of converting said volume to hexes and its the same formula I use for converting traveller stuff over you take your total volume in cubic meters and divide by 14 to get displacement tons 1 displacement ton is 2 Hero hexes SO hull Hero Size 100 12 250 14 500 15 1000 17 2500 18 5000 20 10000 22 15000 23 20000 23 25000 24 50000 25 100000 27 125000 27 150000 28 175000 28 200000 28 250000 29 300000 29 400000 30 500000 30 600000 30 750000 30 1000000 32 theres a copy of my full hull chart on the boards and over at Starhero fandom or I could repost it here if needed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bblackmoor Posted August 3, 2004 Report Share Posted August 3, 2004 Re: Anybody remember Space Opera? Anybody remember Space Opera? You know' date=' the oldie but a goodie from FGU?[/quote'] Sure. I even made up a character for it, once. Once. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toadmaster Posted August 3, 2004 Report Share Posted August 3, 2004 Re: Anybody remember Space Opera? Like all FGU games the complexity was there just for the sake of complexity, Aftermath was almost as difficult as Phoenix Command but PC at least had a pay off. I recently saw new singe book perfect bound copies of Space Opera, Bushido, and Aftermath. I used to have Space Opera and Bushido, but still have MERC, Year of the Phoenix, Freedom Fighters, PSI world, Aftermath and Daredevils. I've been thinking about getting the "new" (reprints) version of Space Opera and Bushido. I do remember having fun with Space Opera (and the other FGU games too) but don't remember much of the background, I'll be watching to see what you come up with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyrath Posted August 3, 2004 Report Share Posted August 3, 2004 Re: Anybody remember Space Opera? While reading Space Opera I found it most entertaining figuring out which novel a given piece of equipment was cribbed from. "P.A.P.A" was a direct steal from Keith Laumer's A PLAGUE OF DEMONS, as was the "punch-gun", and so forth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shikarr Posted August 4, 2004 Report Share Posted August 4, 2004 Re: Anybody remember Space Opera? I ran a hero based version of Space Opera for over a year about 3 yrs ago. I will try and find my notes for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dauntless Posted August 4, 2004 Report Share Posted August 4, 2004 Re: Anybody remember Space Opera? Totally OT Toadmaster, where'd you see those reprints of the FGU games? Man, talk about nostalgia. I was about 9 through 11 when I started playing most of those games...and learning them ( I don't think I fully got Aftermath until I was maybe 13 or 14). Believe it or not, FGU was my introduction to the roleplaying world, not that other fantasy game system. I got Space Opera around 82, Bushido in 83, Aftermath in 83, Villains & Vigilantes about 83 (right before I knew of the existence of Champions), Freedom Fighters around 85 or 86, and a friend of mine bought Year of the Phoenix which I wound up having to learn the rules. I only have Aftermath now, and I have to say, I think it was years ahead of its time crunchiness-wise (it and the original pre-Avalon Hill Runequest which I also wish I still had....NOT Hero Wars). The author of Space Opera still frequents The Forge from time to time. I'd love to see Space Opera again, mostly for nostalgia, but also just to check out its game design. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tunglashr Posted August 5, 2004 Author Report Share Posted August 5, 2004 Re: Anybody remember Space Opera? Well of the 3 authors of Space Opera I have spoken extensively with 2, not Mark Ratner. I was interested a while back in purchasing the rights to it so I could set a game of my own devising in their universe. I was told that they didnt mind if I did, but they knew Scott Bizar, who owned the company, would take anyone to court over it because he has some kind of tenuous claim to ownership of these rights. I let it drop because of that. Mechanics-wise the system is unweildy and clunky. It has some really good ideas and a ton of terrible ones. I just like the universe. I have multiple copies of virtually everything FGU ever made. I got this rush of megalomania about 1999 and decided I would win every FGU auction on ebay for the rest of my life. I gave up after about 6 months, and so for no particular reason I have a closet loaded to the brim with FGU games. A few are good, most are just a waste of time. I am meeting with some friends soon and I hope to hammer out some conversions. Ill post any progress I make. I plan on starting with racial and occupational package deals. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rayoman Posted August 8, 2004 Report Share Posted August 8, 2004 Re: Anybody remember Space Opera? More amazingly complex than Space Opera? I redid the whole thing once before with my ultra realistic and amazingly complex system of my own devising. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tunglashr Posted August 11, 2004 Author Report Share Posted August 11, 2004 Re: Anybody remember Space Opera? More amazingly complex than Space Opera? Yes, more amazingly complex than 300 level Physics. Well, maybe not that bad but it was taxing as hell for me to run. I only had one player with any idea what was going on when we playtested it. Worked pretty well, considering, but I think partially because the players just loved the game (campaign) so much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maci Posted August 14, 2004 Report Share Posted August 14, 2004 Re: Anybody remember Space Opera? I just found this message board by doing a search for "space opera" on google. I'm sitting here with the books open on my desk, toying with the idea of doing a D20 version for my benighted friends who won't play the GURPS conversion I did a couple years back (less a conversion and more a worldbook, really). That said I bought the boxed set circa 1980 and had a blast playing them with a couple friends despite the complexity, poor layout, and bad editing. I never knew they'd published other source books until a couple years ago. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tunglashr Posted August 16, 2004 Author Report Share Posted August 16, 2004 Re: Anybody remember Space Opera? I just found this message board by doing a search for "space opera" on google. I'm sitting here with the books open on my desk, toying with the idea of doing a D20 version for my benighted friends who won't play the GURPS conversion I did a couple years back (less a conversion and more a worldbook, really). That said I bought the boxed set circa 1980 and had a blast playing them with a couple friends despite the complexity, poor layout, and bad editing. I never knew they'd published other source books until a couple years ago. There used to be an awesome Space Opera website in French and English on fumble.org, it had almost all the books online and interviews with the authors as well as a ton of source material. Besides that, the online resources are slim. I looked high and low before I decided to get off my lazy butt and work on a conversion myself. Good luck with yours, its a great setting. Throw d20 out the window though, its an insult to the gaming world. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Markdoc Posted August 16, 2004 Report Share Posted August 16, 2004 Re: Anybody remember Space Opera? >>>Sure. I even made up a character for it, once. Once.<<< We did it twice But then we were already hardened, having cut our teeth on C&S and LotRS. I still have my much dog-eared, falling-apart-and-bound-with-duct-tape books. Recently I reread them and viewed without the haze of nostaligia, they were really terrible products (which is scary, considering how much better they were than most of the competition at the time). cheers, Mark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keithcurtis Posted August 16, 2004 Report Share Posted August 16, 2004 Re: Anybody remember Space Opera? Back in the day, I wrote a BASIC program to generate Space Opera characters. You could adjust your stats according to their funky two-value system, buys skills and have all the pre-req's automatically generated, and so forth. I learned the system pretty well by doing that. Brrr... They had a whole page just for tossing an item to another charcter. Not "how to use the rules to pass an item", but "here's a system for passing items." The entire game seemd to be a loose collection of vaguely related systems, contradictory rules and hidden mechanics. I loved it, actually, but mostly for the source material. Keith "Space Opera Buff" Curtis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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