Building the Cosmos
Nov. 10th, 2009 03:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluegargantuaHi,
So I recently recieved a copy of Diaspora, a hard sci-fi RPG that uses FATE as the engine. It looks pretty slick. It's got a system of mini games for starship combat, mass ground warfare and social interactions. The group that put it together played a lot of old-skool Traveller and it shows through.
I'm still digging into this but it seems like they really slimmed down the stunt system from Spirit of the Century and their new mechanics borrow a lot of good stuff from Burning Empires and it all gels together. I need to do some more reading, but I'm already pretty jazzed about it.
So jazzed that I built a star cluster:
Right, so the game posits that FTL travel between worlds happens via "slipstreams" with "slipknots" (i.e. jump points) located high above the ecliptic of each system. Apparently something went wrong with the slipstreams and now only small clusters of systems are linked together. The yellow lines on the map show how the systems in this cluster are connected.
The names are alphabetical and probably should be changed, but they'll do for now. The letter number pairs after each name give the system's basic stats.
In classic FATE/FUDGE fashion, the values for these three stats run from 4 (unbelievable) to -4 (oh my god awful). So you can see that Apex is the most technically advanced system, but is desperate for raw materials. Eigen Inc. is probably a close rival of theirs and has a pretty good lock on the resource-heavy systems (itself and Fairhaven). Bellweather is a bit of a hole and Concordia has a lot of habitable space. Darmini's Rest is the most comparable to our Solar System.
I might flesh these out over the next few days. A bit of flash fiction since I'm not doing NaNo. Then I might build out a character or two.
later
Tom
So I recently recieved a copy of Diaspora, a hard sci-fi RPG that uses FATE as the engine. It looks pretty slick. It's got a system of mini games for starship combat, mass ground warfare and social interactions. The group that put it together played a lot of old-skool Traveller and it shows through.
I'm still digging into this but it seems like they really slimmed down the stunt system from Spirit of the Century and their new mechanics borrow a lot of good stuff from Burning Empires and it all gels together. I need to do some more reading, but I'm already pretty jazzed about it.
So jazzed that I built a star cluster:
Right, so the game posits that FTL travel between worlds happens via "slipstreams" with "slipknots" (i.e. jump points) located high above the ecliptic of each system. Apparently something went wrong with the slipstreams and now only small clusters of systems are linked together. The yellow lines on the map show how the systems in this cluster are connected.
The names are alphabetical and probably should be changed, but they'll do for now. The letter number pairs after each name give the system's basic stats.
- T = Technology
- E = Environment (how easy it is for humans to survive there)
- R = Resources
In classic FATE/FUDGE fashion, the values for these three stats run from 4 (unbelievable) to -4 (oh my god awful). So you can see that Apex is the most technically advanced system, but is desperate for raw materials. Eigen Inc. is probably a close rival of theirs and has a pretty good lock on the resource-heavy systems (itself and Fairhaven). Bellweather is a bit of a hole and Concordia has a lot of habitable space. Darmini's Rest is the most comparable to our Solar System.
I might flesh these out over the next few days. A bit of flash fiction since I'm not doing NaNo. Then I might build out a character or two.
later
Tom
