lrojas

Re: anyone have a write up for a Firefly

may as weell be a single solar system, but there are 4, bunched toguether

Re: Why are robots always immortal?

Keith,

SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER

Select the text to read post.

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The character played by Robin Williams manages to die in the end, but only because he choosed to, there was a point where he began replacing standard machinery with cutting edge stuff that could simulate living organs, and so it decayed/grew old as a normal human...

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Re: anyone have a write up for a Firefly

sadly according to the star chart that came with the book that's not the case... you have 4 stars or so... and the moos that where terraformed are orbiting gas giants... a few planets are true earth like but not all.

so you have 4 planetary systems at least. and aprox 70 habitable worlds

Re: anyone have a write up for a Firefly

Power, thrust, the mechanics to move in atmo or space.

This is where it gets interesting in a "Oh god my brain is gonna explode" kind of way. I cannot copy/paste the pdf because i would be violating somelaw or another but i cant tell you guys how it works.

Energy is generated by fusion ( wich is cheap and easy to handle with almost no risk of engines exploding in nuclear fireworks ), so basically all ships have a fusion engine to provide energy to all the sub-systems. The ships sports two kinds of Propulsion, Propulsion and Pulse. Propulsion is basically the bread and butter of ships, is what is used in atmo, depending on your reaction turbines you have several ways of handling this, Air intake, closed turbine, chemical propellant, etc.

Serenity Turbines wich she uses in atmo, can implement several of this methods, Air intake while at low speed wich is very fuel efficient, Chemical Burn closed system when exicting atmo wich sucks fuel like a goozle, and a mix of the 2 when in need of speed while in atmo.

Pulse Drive works a bit differen, basically the ships takes advantage of the gravity drive wich has a quirck or something like that, bear with me while i try to explain this, when she is floating in The Black. ( The Black is slang for space in The 'Verse ). The pilot basically aims for a point in space and Kicks the Pulse Drive wich generates a huge amount of push for a very brief period of time. The ship then advances in the direction wich she was pointing. But due to some quirck of the Gravity Drive, if the pulse drive stops the ship also stops, it dosent coast mind you, it just do. Pulse drive generates speeds of up to 40 or 60 times faster than reaction thrusters so if you want to go anywhere you have to use pulse drive. The quirck has to do with the innertial dampening properties of the g-drive.

Ohh well, now for the crunching bits... let me see how can i put all this mumbo-jumbo in the coherent language of hero.

Re: anyone have a write up for a Firefly

Yet more notes i have written for the conversion :

Spaceships in The verse travel at sub-light speeds, much more slowly in fact. It is said that ships in the verse, travel at the speed of plot, thus we don' t have many parameters to infer propulsion or distance between the planets or the suns..

Travel times are measured in days and weeks, which given the astronomical distances involved just makes you wonder about the kind of cellestial mechanics in place..

The wonder of Spaceships is made possibly by the Grav-drive, the grav-drive allows for 3 techniques or uses for it, Screening which allows the reduction of the gravity pull one object exercise over another. Artificial gravity functions the reverse of screening, creating an artificial gravity field which allows people to stay in the ship at the astounding speeds it develops. The third technique is the Inertial Reduction that basically reduces to a negligible value the friction in one direction allowing the ship to consume less energy to move.

Re: anyone have a write up for a Firefly

Further details regading the serenity ship.

In the Serenity RPG ships are cosntructed as caracters and have traits just as players do. Here is the meaning resumed of Serenity Traits.

Loved : Allows crew menbers to spend their action points to improve actions/skill rolls relating to the ship skills ( piloting, repair, etc )

Everyone has One : The ship was part of abig production run, so is a very common design, Enemies attempting to explot flaws in it ( previos a rolls to determine exact model ) gain a +2 bonus.

Seen Better Days : The ship is old and showing obvious signs of wear. Is more than 20 years old. She’s been around the ‘Verse some, but is still basically sound. Purchase price is 25% of the original price. Maintenance costs are increased by +50%.

Healthy as a horse : Ships vitality bonus applies to maintenance rolls.

As a side note, All ships are designed to carry enough fuel ( this can be calculated ) to support 600 hours of operations.

Re: anyone have a write up for a Firefly

The conversion of the ship write up is going a bit slow.

the reason is that first all the stats seem to conform to a standardized factor designed for the sole purpose of allowing ships to travel at the speed of plot.

The Verse, apparently defies all Phisical Laws, a tight cluster of 3 or 4 star each with 7 to 9 planets with lots of moons ganimedes/earth's moon sized. this Cluster is so tightly packed that "to cross from one end of the verse to the other, on a speed class 10 ship, takes 25 days. Speed class range from 1 to 10.

Here is the official write-up of Serenity a moded Firefly class Transport :

Serenity

Fire Fly Class Transport

Dimensions ( LxBxH ) 191x 128 x 53

Tonnage : 2,400

Speed Class : 4 cruise / 6 Hard Burn

Crew Quarters : 2 Double / 3 Single

Fuel Capacity : 60 Tons ( 600 Hours )

Cargo Capacity / Maximum Deck Load : 400 /460 tons in hold #1

Passenger Capacity : 4 Double cabins aft of hold #2

Gear : two 20-tons shuttles, Infirmary in #2 Hold, Mule

Price : ~ 2,500 credits

Agi : d8

Str : d6

Vit : d6

Ale : d2

Int : d2

Wil : d4

Init d8+d2

Life : 8

Loved ( Major )

Healthy as a horse ( Major )

Everybody has One

Seen Better Days

Aerial Transport Operations/Firefly d2

Space Transport Operations/Firefly d2

Complexity : Very low

** Length x Bean x Height

*** Bean is width in ship parlance

Back to work on this... *sigh*

Re: Why are robots always immortal?

Crashlander series of books, Humans inmortals in it.

Re: Why are robots always immortal?

Sorry keith, perhaps i didnt express myself correctly...

what i meant to imply is, in the movie, we see the character of Robin Williams going from upgrade to upgrade across generations, allowing him to live indefinitely.

Re: Why are robots always immortal?

for a good example, Bycentenial Man starring Robin Williams paints a pretty good method by wich robots could live for ever.

Re: My thoughts on the Serenity RPG PDF

The floorplans for serenity are indeed there, very detailed. The floorplans are divided in 2 pages, each showing the upper and lower areas of the ship. The plans would help you visualize the ship but i consider them more an artistic resource. The write-up for the ship itself is pretty good giving details on diferent models and versions and even explaining what modifications Serenity has.

Re: anyone have a write up for a Firefly

I am trying to conver the writeup they have in the Official RPG, but i cant promise anything until saturday arrives. if i make it this weekend i will upload by monday

Re: My thoughts on the Serenity RPG PDF

Yes' date=' that cleared it up very well. And you're right that we are clearing talking about subjective likes and dislikes. With that being said, I disagree 100%. [/quote']

 

Well, you are allowed to disagree aint freedom of thought a wonder. Thanks for the coments.

Re: My thoughts on the Serenity RPG PDF

I might be wrong, and it might just be a peeve of mine, but to answer your question ( keeping in mind the subjectivity of likes and dislikes ), i feel that the fact a huge mega setting is around ( a'la Old World of Darkness) puts a subtle choke-hold in the setting books. The way that feels to me is the same way somebody could say "get your stinking sci-fi out of my fantasy" or Vice-versa. in this case the permeating feel is the Super Hero Flavor always in the background.

Maybe Turakian Age or Terran Empire wouldnt be too diferent had there not been a meta-plot, but we will never know, cause there is one. And how about alternate settings, lest think D&D for instance. They have the rule-set, a "default" setting and then the World books ( Forgotten Realms, Dragon Lance, Eberron, etc ) each one of those is separated in flavor with their own histories and unique feels, if there had been a whole encompasing Mega meta-plot, i think the diferent wolds would be poorer for it. I feel that uniqueness makes great fantasy, and i feel meta-plotting only gets in the way.

In the case of the Hero Setting Books, the more settings books come out the closer the gap betwen each other. In the TA book you ahve a whole time-line that eventually leads to Vadorian Age, wich would lead to the new one coming wich would lead probably to son middle ground setting betwen pulp and that one, wich in turns leads to Dark Champions setting wich leads or exists simultaniosly with Champion Setting... well you get my drift...

Hope that clears a bit my comentary

Re: My thoughts on the Serenity RPG PDF

Seeing as the movies, series and everythign else is in a deep mish-marsh of legalities i woudl think that even if the good people of DOJ where interested in licensing could actaully do it. Besides, Steve-o has stated in the past that he would not go the licensing route, prefering instead to spend that money in Custom Content.

Now, not everything is lost, Perhaps Solar Hero could capture the feel of serenity without actually being a copy of the setting.

PS: if i have one gripe with the Setting books, is that they tend to be all in the same universe only in diferent epochs. How could would it be if the Turakian age was not the Champion World in the Distant past? How cool would it be if there was no limitation on setting creativity and DOJ started pumping campaing/setting books that where contained/independant of the main back plot? I will not hold my breath. I know Solar hero is going to be both the past of Terran Empire and the Future of Champions/Turakian/Valdorian/Dark Champions/Pulp Hero.

Re: Star Hero PDF now in Online Store

on a scale from 1 to 10 is a 15, thats how cool is it

Re: My thoughts on the Serenity RPG PDF

Thanks all, i will indeed wait for the movie. Thanks for that bit of hope (DVD coming out Dec 20 )

i never ever review items i buy, i dont do it merely cause i usually understand people have diferent tastes and i am not sure my taste is any measure of good or bad. having said that, i feel angry. I read some reviews on RPG.net, and others regarding the Serenity RPG, based on them and seeing the book has been released on PDF i decided to buy it ( the pdf version ). What a mistake!

here is a copy of what i left in the review section of DrivethroughRPG:

I have bough several books on PDF, and this has to be one of the worst of the lot. Hard to read on screen, Hard to Print, Poor quality of Images, etc. Content wise, I just dont understand the good reviews this system has been getting. Mechanics are clunky, the rules are poorly organized, and most of the setting information you can find free online. Now dont get me wrong, i am a fan of firefly and althought i havent seen the movie, i bought the novelization and read it. This gorram book is nothing but a piece of go-se. I expected more from margaret weis since i am a devoted fan of the Dragon Lance setting of D&D fame. I wont recomend this PDF to anyone, the actual book might differ on presentation quality but the content is sure to be as bad.

I knew the system was crappy but i expected to mine the book for resources, there is a minuscule amount of worthwhile material. and most of the setting information in the book you can find on-line for free ( have to dig for it, but is fairly easy to find )

*sigh* sorry for the rant, is just that i was planning a conversion from that to hero and my work just got harder.

Re: Sci-Fi Game or Porno Flick?

I would like to timidly add, Blue Rose RPG, it has good rules, good content and great art.

Re: MetaCyber

As always great stuff KS, hoping to read more of that

Re: kind of fantasy

Batman is a superhero.

 

For fantasy to be fantasy it must have magic, even though he is good he is not magical.

Otherwise every movie where sombody is shot with a nine mm pistol flies backwards is fantasy too.

as a matter of fact... that is exactly the point

Re: Space Hero Out of Stock?

hehe, yes indeed you are right.. made a typo here...

on another post i addres the issue and explain i had to go and buy it somewhere else ( SJGames Store of all places, go figure )

Re: Hero System design considerations

cant beat the Killer! Killer is fast

Re: Hero System design considerations

i dont get it, what is the OP trying to say actually? i am infering that he is complainign about a perceived/real lack in the hero system. with that in mind, i have to ask, can you give a specifick example? i think the hero system ( 5th Edition Specially ) lends itself quiet graciously to be a generic system. True be told, the "genre" books do a wonderfull job of explaining the nuances of the diferent aspects of the flavours and styles of play in the diferent genres you can make yoru stories in. The campaign books could provide a more streamlined more concise enviroment ( instead of being an extention of the genre book ), they could perhaps take the toolkit philosophy a bit further and provide the whole setting fleshed out instead of letting it be open and up for player GM/Interpretation.

As am example, in Turakian age, instead of selling the rules all over again they should have put a simpler way of playing, something that could ease the players to the system. I mean, why put rules to build weapons instead of puttiong the weapons available in the world already stated. Magic? put the spells and magic systems in place and make it part of the game book ( after all this is a setting book not a genre book )..

*sigh* i ranted..

ok that was my 1 piece of nickel.

:s i could stand to be more coherent

Re: No Recovery in in Conbat

You guys are great, and if i wish there was some way for us to gather in a VLR ( Virtual living room ) and play some games

All the sugestions are great, my purpose for not taking recovery during combat is that is too much housekeeping for ppl new to the game. In short i am leaning more to a hybrid between "no REC during combat" and "Halve STUN Damage".

The characters are in the Firefly Universe, meaning lots of bullets flying around. Perhaps i just need to make all the guns with some limitation like "-1/4 Does Half of STUN Damage" or "-1/2 does only body" or some such.

One more question, i know is probably right there in my face but, is there a rule that hinders your ability to be efective in combat? like if i have been wounded i get a penalty to my DCV, OCV and perhaps skill rolls?

Liek you are at half body, you have -1 to all rolls.