Planetfall (Alpha Centauri, again)

silva · Post by **silva** » Sat Oct 31, 2015 3:02 am

Ok, its that time of the year where I finish another playthrough of Sid Meier Alpha Centauri and get all excited wondering how a proper tabletop rpg for it would turn out. This time though, I think I've got a better framwork for such an adaptation. So "Bear" with me.

Main premises:

1. Game starts at planetfall.

2. Each player picks a class and a faction (between default ones from SMAC)

3. Each faction has its own sheet, which brings with it ads, disads, surpluses and needs. Also, the faction sheet also "levels up"

4. Play is semi-competitive (GM stablishes common challenges for the group, while each player seeks to further its own agendas and evolve its faction)

5. Play is generational

6. Between each generation: techs are researched, facilities built, colonies founded.

7. Within one´s generation: Secret Project / Wonders are built.

8. Each player acumulates a currency for evolving the aspects cited above. The more his objectives one accomplishes, more pts one earns. At the "end of the turn"/end of a generation, player chooses what "improvement" he wishes to enact. The improvement (tech, facilities, etc) will have an effect on its child sheet, faction sheet, both, or neither, depending on the specific improv.

9. Game should rely on 4 main types of "scenes": social, diplomatic, exploration, military.

10. Each player may "frame" a number of scenes, which have explicit objectives and rewards in the form of the aforementioned currency and/or fixed changes on the faction sheet. Each scene requires the presence of a number of other players to work. Eg: One player may use its turn to frame a Diplomatic scene between him and its neighbour with the objective of making an alliance between them.

11. Each generation has a set number of "rounds". In each "round" a player may frame a scene. So, for example, if the first generation has 3 "rounds", it means each player in the table will be able to frame 3 scenes each.

12. The GM may also frame scenes, related to overarching plots/threats.

13. After the number of set rounds for a generation is over, all current player characters die (except those which bought specific techs/projects that allow them to keep living).

14. The faction with the most "currency" at the end of a generation may imprint its ideology on the upcoming generation in some way. ( ? )

15. To reflect the game dark themes, each faction will portray a "dark side".

So, thoughts ? Ideas ?

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Sat Oct 31, 2015 5:14 am

You have not a single premise for the game. You just have a scatter shot of ideas.

pragma · Post by **pragma** » Sat Oct 31, 2015 5:44 am

This really sounds like a board game and not a roleplaying game. I think Cataan checks all of these boxes if you interpret trading negotiations as a diplomatic scene.

TiaC · Post by **TiaC** » Sat Oct 31, 2015 7:09 am

Ok, I also think that what Silva has doesn't sound like an RPG. However, I think it is worth it to try to figure out what part of SMAC makes people interested in the idea, because this is at least the fifth time I've seen it suggested.

First, there are the factions. The original 7 are all unique yet plausible. They each have a different take on survival and how to run a society, but each of them could work. (The expansion factions are a little too gimmicky, it makes them less believable.) I think this is one of the big draws. One possibility to allow characters of different factions would be to keep the factions "officially" unified, or a least less openly hostile.

Second, there is the technology. SMAC didn't shy away from world-changing technologies. Many of the techs and projects have transhumanist, dystopian or utopian implications. This means that life on Planet could range from a cyberpunk police state to a harmonious culture of empaths.

Third, there are legs to the basic conceit of feuding humans on a hostile world, before you even get into the whole Planetmind thing or the aliens.

Edit: Also, Silva, put that giant image in a spoiler.

silva · Post by **silva** » Sat Oct 31, 2015 3:11 pm

pragma wrote:This really sounds like a board game and not a roleplaying game. I think Cataan checks all of these boxes if you interpret trading negotiations as a diplomatic scene.

Well, you see, in my previous sketches I proposed something like a traditional party-based setup. But playing SMAC again I dont think that really fits the game "spirit" at all. Sure, its perfectly viable to play in such a way using the game setting (see the GURPS sourcebook), but I think it makes SMAC a disservice as it throws away most things that make the PC game so interesting in the first place. So, ultimately, I think its possible to blend the PC game thematic strenghts together with a tabletop roleplaying aspect.

TiaC wrote:Ok, I also think that what Silva has doesn't sound like an RPG. However, I think it is worth it to try to figure out what part of SMAC makes people interested in the idea, because this is at least the fifth time I've seen it suggested.

First, there are the factions. The original 7 are all unique yet plausible. They each have a different take on survival and how to run a society, but each of them could work. (The expansion factions are a little too gimmicky, it makes them less believable.) I think this is one of the big draws. One possibility to allow characters of different factions would be to keep the factions "officially" unified, or a least less openly hostile.

Second, there is the technology. SMAC didn't shy away from world-changing technologies. Many of the techs and projects have transhumanist, dystopian or utopian implications. This means that life on Planet could range from a cyberpunk police state to a harmonious culture of empaths.

Third, there are legs to the basic conceit of feuding humans on a hostile world, before you even get into the whole Planetmind thing or the aliens.

Good list of premises. I just disagree on the first one: see, factional (and more importantly, ideological) competition is emblematic to the game in such a way that, if you take it out, youre going back to "lets use SMAC setting as a canvas for our weekly hack-slash" instead of "lets design a rpg that captures SMAC spirit", which should be the fundamental premise here, I think.

Other themes/aspects I think are important to the game: survival, exploration, resource gathering and management, politics/intrigue, generational play, shared world building.

This last aspect is pretty important, I think, because the game setting is too sketchy at a personal/ micro level (even if its pretty detailed at a macro one), so allowing the players to fill this "canvas" with their own views and ideologies would be a perfect fit.

About the "its not a roleplaying game" assertion, I must disagree. There are a tons of roleplaying games out there which already share similar premises and aspects. In fact, I think these games could serve as a good source of inspiration for this project:

- Pendragon has generational play, domain management;
- Birthright has domain management;
- Houses of the Blooded has domain management and competitive/cooperative play;
- Tenra Bansho has scene framing, competitive/cooperative play;
- Shinobigami has Scene framing, comp/coop play, and an explicit rounds & turns setup;
- Smallville / Dresden Files has shared city/world-creation;
- Reign has company/faction-size mechanics;

etc.

silva · Post by **silva** » Sat Oct 31, 2015 3:27 pm

Also, your typical "full-party" scene should be rare in such a game (except if its Planetary Council meeting, that is). Considering a group of 5 players, most of time the scenes would be composed of 2 or 3 players max, regardless of who "framed" the scene (a player or the GM).

One question: assuming such a premise, what characters should the players assume ? Faction leaders or second-in-commands / Talents / important people within the faction ?

More rumblings: we could have 2 sheets: one for the players, and other for its faction. The character classes should be common among all factions, I think. Maybe future generations could open up new classes for your children, if you researched the apropriate tech. Eg: "The Empath" after Centauri Empathy, "The Prober" (from Probe Team) after Planetary Networks, or "The Thinker" after Mind-Machine Interface, etc.

AndreiChekov · Post by **AndreiChekov** » Sat Oct 31, 2015 8:33 pm

I would suggest not having the people be leaders, or even high commanders of the specific factions. that causes the problems that you can never have them head out and try to deal with a problem like bandits raiding trade caravans or something. (Which, while it doesn't turn up in SMAC, should have.)

Just have them be talented scientists, soldiers, drivers... etc from various factions. I would even suggest them being from the same faction, and working together to make theirs the dominant faction.

Also, now I have to play this game again.

silva · Post by **silva** » Sun Nov 01, 2015 2:32 am

AndreiChekov wrote:Also, now I have to play this game again.

If more people get interested, we could have a Den SMAC multiplayer.

AndreiChekov · Post by **AndreiChekov** » Sun Nov 01, 2015 3:46 am

silva wrote:
AndreiChekov wrote:Also, now I have to play this game again.
If more people get interested, we could have a Den SMAC multiplayer.

That would involve me dying horribly. Even after playing the game on and off for 10 years, I still play on Citizen.

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Mon Nov 02, 2015 2:05 am

TiaC wrote:Ok, I also think that what Silva has doesn't sound like an RPG. However, I think it is worth it to try to figure out what part of SMAC makes people interested in the idea, because this is at least the fifth time I've seen it suggested.

First, there are the factions. The original 7 are all unique yet plausible. They each have a different take on survival and how to run a society, but each of them could work. (The expansion factions are a little too gimmicky, it makes them less believable.) I think this is one of the big draws. One possibility to allow characters of different factions would be to keep the factions "officially" unified, or a least less openly hostile.

Second, there is the technology. SMAC didn't shy away from world-changing technologies. Many of the techs and projects have transhumanist, dystopian or utopian implications. This means that life on Planet could range from a cyberpunk police state to a harmonious culture of empaths.

Third, there are legs to the basic conceit of feuding humans on a hostile world, before you even get into the whole Planetmind thing or the aliens.

Edit: Also, Silva, put that giant image in a spoiler.

Has there ever been a really good, kind of hard transhumanist sci-fi game like SMAC as an RPG?

Eclipse Phase is the first game that pops into my mind. And I hate my mind for doing that to me. There's a few obscure ones I can think of, a couple Traveller hacks that focus on more hardcore transhuman shit.

I guess you could put Cyberpunk and Shadowrun (aside from the magic) into the transhumanist category, but they are almost dabbling in the kiddie pool of the concept.

Taking a concept like the Angels/Demons that was posted here where you take philisophical/ideological concepts and running with that to make a transhumanist RPG on a completely alien world might be a fun thing to explore.

I'd almost want some scientists or hardcore futurists commenting on the concepts at play in the game. Maybe someone who got a philosophy degree could kibitz too before they went to their day job as a barista. Same way Shadowrun's magic system was designed by people who thought magic was real, I'd like to see a transhumanist game designed by people who took the idea serious.

Edit: I do realize I just requested someone to kitbash a Lord of Light RPG up.

ETortoise · Post by **ETortoise** » Mon Nov 02, 2015 2:38 am

Silva, have you looked at Burning Empires at all? It has the PCs take on roles like "admiral of the planetary navy" and other archetypes with lots of political power. It's also a really strict game when it comes to choosing what scenes to play. In fact, all games are meant to involve the invasion of a planet by parasitic mind-worms. It's probably eminently minable for ideas related to your goals.

silva · Post by **silva** » Mon Nov 02, 2015 12:26 pm

Thanks for the recommendation, ETortoise. I'll take a look at Burning Empires.

Flatline: Transhuman Space is the harder sci-fi RPG I've seen. But it suffers from a "what do I do with it?" syndrome somewhat. Worth a read just for ideas, though.

silva · Post by **silva** » Mon Nov 02, 2015 12:36 pm

AndreiChekov wrote:
silva wrote:
AndreiChekov wrote:Also, now I have to play this game again.
If more people get interested, we could have a Den SMAC multiplayer.
That would involve me dying horribly. Even after playing the game on and off for 10 years, I still play on Citizen.

Tips:

- expand fast at the beginning until you reach your base threshold (on normal size map and Thinker its 7, I think)

- use formers to build boreholes on rock titles, and forests everywhere else

- as soon as you reach Industrial Automation spam 2 or 3 supply crawlers in some key bases. Then disband them to rush Special Projects. Then spam them again until the next SP

- don't be afraid to change Social Engineering wildly. Sometimes to enhance your strengths, other times to cover your weaknesses, and some times to please a bully neighbor!

This is the best Lets (multi)Play I've ever seen of the game. You can learn some neat tricks from it( besides having some laughs from the Miriam player and his propaganda leaflets ):

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.ph ... bem.92864/