Serenity/Firefly True20?

[REG]

Just curious, but anyone doing something now that the film is now showing.

[urizen]

There's already a Serenity rpg out.

I'm sure that licensing for Serenity is extremely expensive.

[skywalker]

RPG is out though website has been caught up in licensing issues. Check out here: http://www.margaretweis.com/.

The RPG is quite pretty and IMO nicely done, reminiscient of Buffy.

[REG]

There's already a Serenity rpg out.

I'm sure that licensing for Serenity is extremely expensive.

So?

If someone can convert their favorite show to True20 -- unofficial they may be -- you would play, right?

[urizen]

I would DEFINATELY play a True20 Serenity game, but licensing costs for such a game make it unlikely that it will happen in an official capacity.

that's all I was trying to say.

[REG]

I would DEFINATELY play a True20 Serenity game, but licensing costs for such a game make it unlikely that it will happen in an official capacity.

that's all I was trying to say.

And again, forget about the licensing. Take what you know from the film and TV series and inject it into your favorite rules system.

[skywalker]

Ah, I misread you original post. I am not using True 20 for Serenity as the Serenity RPG is shiny. Still True 20 would be a good fit with a few new feats. I would be tempted to add some kind of complication system given how "shady" the characters' backgrounds are and how often things go wrong

[The Shadow]

Presumably psionics are just bought as Powers by adepts... but the problem is that we've only got one data point, and she's pretty messed up. :) (Not to mention the fact that she is heavily multiroled as Warrior... and quite possibly the highest-level person on the ship.)

[Seeker of Truth]

Presumably psionics are just bought as Powers by adepts...

A friend of mine and I were actually talking about doing this, and I personally that, in a Firefly campaign and in other non-supernatural settings, the Adept role could and should be eliminated. River is a special case, and I having the adept role around for the EXCEEDINGLY rare person like her is unreasonable.

As for what to do with the other two roles, I came up with two approaches: one if you don't mind nearly every PC being multiclassed, and one if you do.

The setting itself requires a bunch of extra feats to handle piloting, gunslinging, mechanic skills, and medicine. Gunfighting obviously goes to warriors. The other three can be done as their own feat sets, with accessor feats (Medical Training, Mechanic Training, Pilot Training) used to get the rest of the feats. This will keep most PCs to a single role. On the other hand, those other three sets of feats can be made Expert feats, in which case nearly every character will have a few levels of Expert and Warrior.

I don't see a real difference between the two approaches, though I'm sure someone sees a game balance problem with this. I'm bad at seeing those. As for what the feats for each of these would be, I'm not entirely sure, but I'll post more if I get ideas.

Please proceed to rip holes -- I mean comment.

[Michael Tree]

Why would you need to create new feats for those? Sure some characters are better pilots/ doctors/ etc, but that's more a matter of being trained in the skill and/or having feats like Skill Focus. I might want to create a Surgery feat, to make up for the lack of the Heal arcana.

I do think that the "Skill Familiarity" house rule would be a good match for Serenity. After all, several characters are passable pilors, or passable at bandaging wounds, but not good enough to have full ranks in the skill.

The Serenity crew all fit into the two roles too, sortof.

Mal, Zoe, and Jayne: Warriors
Everyone else except River: Experts
River: freaky plot device.

[Seeker of Truth]

Its not that theres a need for the feats to use them. Any character with the appropriate skills would be able to pilot, fix things, etc. The feats would allow you to do stunts of a sort, akin to combat and metamagic feats. They would either make it easier to do a stunt, or allow you to do it.

Ex: Piloting - Have a certain higher degree of maneuverability while still being able to use the ships weapons. Weaving through an asteroid field while still having the concentration to fire at the two fed gunships on your tail takes A LOT of skill. A feat would lower the penalties you take to Piloting skill and Attack rolls.

See what I mean?

EDIT: I mainly thought these additions would prevent characters from all looking the same on paper, just with slightly different skill levels.

[Warbringer]

I like the feat idea vs just skills.

Feats are a good way of simply controlling and saying "Nope, you can't do that", as opposed to "No you can't try and remove his cranium to perform a frontal labotomy to remove her paranoid delusions, and I don't care if you do have 1 skill point in ...."

I also have an ulterior motive. I am currently writing a set of rules "True Worlds" that allows a narrator to pick a time periold, say Victorian, and begin to add genres, dark fantasy, pulp fiction, lurking horror to create a specif campaign style.

By using feats to allow access to certain eras of knowledge and abilities, I can allow skills to perform multiple functions in differing peroiods.