[UA] RE: Firefly/Serenity

[Mike Dewar]

Having played in a short game along those lines - just one (Admittedly
slightly off-topic) suggestion. It may be that there's (gasp) an even better
system for running this sort of game than UA. 

Obviously, the wrong mailing list to be suggesting this, I know. ;-) 

UA would work well, I'm sure, but the mini-game I was involved in used the
Deadlands rules. They're already chock-a-block with Western Flavour and
they're as lethal and have a sanity system (though not as good a one as UA,
I admit). 

Certainly, UA creates an excellent system base for almost any kind of
character-driven story, but Deadlands is specifically designed for the
Western frontier feeling and it shows. 

But back to the question itself and the UA angle - Chris's idea does sound
impressively cool - I think the idea of making the PCs spent points to
create and advance the ship will be a good way for them to "invest" in it.
After all, sinking hard-won XP into the ship has more impact than just
telling the party techie to make a repair/mount new gun roll. 

One possibility - rather than have the ship have both hardened and failed,
simply give it the capacity for failed, and when say that if it passes a
stress check, nothing happens (ie. no hardened gain). 

Too many failed and it starts to glitch up. I can see the idea of the failed
angle for malfunctions, but I think that a spaceship getting "sociopathic"
is more of a stretch, as is giving it Passions in the strictest sense.
However, maybe the PCs can be allowed to use their own Passions when rolling
ship skills: "Come on baby, just hold together for twenty more seconds..."

Possible gauge translations for a ship: 

Violence - Physical trauma to the ship itself. Rather than give it wounds,
just make attacks cause violence stress checks. Blow your gauge and blow
your ship. 

Isolation - Straight-out neglect, failure to maintain it, change the oil
etc. It might be very cool to have the PCs start with a
heavily-Isolation-failed ship - the classic idea of nursing a wreck back to
its former glory. 

Helplessness - Engine failure (and possibly life-support, too, at extremes).

Unnatural - The result of travelling outside its recommended specs.
Full-burn in atmo, for example? Weird and unexpected consequences -
short-circuits, the waste tanks leak into the mess hall...

Self - Uh. I got nothing. I suspect that this one doesn't really apply. 

Failed results could also cause the classic freeze/fight/flee when they
happen: 

Probably translates to power cuts for freeze, on-board hazards for fight
(electrical fire, hull breach etc.) and loss of control for flee. 

So possibly Deadlands with UA gauges could be a way to go? 

- Mike