Comments on: Starblazer

By: 8 April 2010: RPG roundup, continued | Gene's Worlds

8 April 2010: RPG roundup, continued | Gene's Worlds — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 19:28:32 +0000

[...] to D20"M&M"2e. Diaspora is a transhumanist RPG that's a bit more portable than SBA, and after comparing them, we might combine the former's hard-SF concepts with the [...]

By: 3 August 2010: "Vortex" — why rules matter | Gene's Worlds

3 August 2010: "Vortex" — why rules matter | Gene's Worlds — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 23:50:10 +0000

[...] Diaspora is Traveller-style hard-SF rather than space opera. (Here are more comparisons between Starblazer Adventures and [...]

By: Mike Jensen

Mike Jensen — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 22:09:56 +0000

Fred, I read your post in rpg.net. I admire that you put it all out there so the readers could understand your context. That’s nothing less than totally professional in my view. Keep up the good work!

By: Fred Hicks

Fred Hicks — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 16:06:12 +0000

Happy to.

By: armageddonsocks

armageddonsocks — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 06:00:36 +0000

Wow. That was fantastic. Thank you for writing that up – it’s amazingly revelaing to see some of the vague shapes of concepts and inspirations that have floated around in my head (regarding the evolution of FATE from 2.0 to SotC to/backto SA) realized concretely and in such an articulate form.

By: Fred Hicks

Fred Hicks — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 17:22:19 +0000

It really was.

By: Chuck

Chuck — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 17:00:07 +0000

That is completely fucking batshit awesome.

– c.

By: Fred Hicks

Fred Hicks — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 16:39:45 +0000

Dude, my guy got snatched away just as he was stepping off the boat to face the Germans in D-Day. He got turned into a toy soldier by Peter Pan and used to fight an endless war in Faerie. Eventually he got painted gold so he could be the Gilded General. When he returned it turned out he was a shard of Oberon’s soul, and in one altercation managed to trick Oberon into knocking him towards his pick-up truck so he could grab his sawed-off and give Oberon a shotgun blast in the face full of shards of cold iron. He got a friend of his to pull a heavy assault rifle out of his memory of military training so he could gun Lost Boys out of the sky as they tried to steal away another friend’s kid brother.

Yeah, that sucked!

By: Chuck

Chuck — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 16:27:51 +0000

I see what you’re saying. You’re saying you didn’t like Changeling: The Lost. Fine. I’m going to go over here and sulk.

*sob*

– c.

By: nemomeme

nemomeme — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 01:32:01 +0000

I own and like both Diaspora and Starblazers Adventures. Fate in the general sense is one of my top five games of all time and I wouldn’t say I LOVE it. And I’ve played or read a couple hundred systems over 30 years. I prefer my own hacked versions, raw as they are, to anything I’ve seen come out to date and I don’t even love those.

Superlatives in our culture run so rampant it’s easy to be quickly accused of damning with faint praise. Especially on a gaming forum where everyone’s exited about the new hotness and marking their territory.

I really appreciated the “Fate back to its roots” part of your post. There’s some things in Fate 2.0 that got left behind that I’d like to see more of in some form or another.

By: Fred Hicks

Fred Hicks — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 00:40:08 +0000

It’s that whole thing about familiarity and contempt, my friend.

By: Carl Rigney

Carl Rigney — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 23:59:19 +0000

You don’t love Don’t Rest Your Head? You MONSTER!

Or perhaps I miss your point.

By: Fred Hicks

Fred Hicks — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 23:32:26 +0000

Yeah, as I’ve said there are a few implementation decisions that I make the “hmmm face” at in SBA, but I think that Fate (and SBA) is flexible enough that it’s pretty harmless to excise some of the stuff that doesn’t fly.

By: Fred Hicks

Fred Hicks — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 23:31:37 +0000

One of these days I’m gonna write a post talking more directly about the consequences of an open license. Some folks are just going to take an open system in a direction that’s not on the same vector as the folks who originated the system. That can be fantastic, but it can also cause a lot of “bifurcations” in the presentation of ideas. I’m comfortable looking at SBA as a closely-related branch to what Evil Hat’s doing with Fate. They’re probably not going to grow in exactly the same direction even though they’re springing from a common root. For some folks that will be awesome — more variants means an easier chance for plug-and-play grow-your-own options. But it can also leave others feeling muddled, like they have to pick through a bunch of stuff they *don’t* want when they’d rather just have something optimally tailored to their particular taste. But for me, I like diversity, and I’m happy to see it out there; I’m just frustrated that Evil Hat itself hasn’t managed to match the output of others so we can be a part of the continuing diversity. Come middle of 2010, though, that should start changing, thanks to the Dresden Files coming about.

By: Mick Bradley

Mick Bradley — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 22:12:59 +0000

Nicely written. I enjoyed the original post on RPGNet and really enjoyed this one, too.

I feel pretty much the same as you do about hard sci-fi, but I can see the coolness of doing the stuff that Diaspora sets up and then using that to make a really character-driven set of situations to play. So I’ll eventually have to get it – although I’m reading through the SRD version at this point because even with the discount I’m not ready to pull the trigger on a Lulu purchase.

As for SA, I never really felt much desire to get it because overall it didn’t seem as innovative as I was hoping for in the sense of taking Fate to a new level that I wouldn’t have been able to come up with myself or glean off of the various groups and fora from other folk. My taste of the early Dresden documents actually provided a lot more meat for my enjoyment of Fate than what I’ve glanced from SA. But, I think your very thorough analysis helps me see some ideas I missed before. I might have to get myself a copy eventually after all.

I still envision a good deal of Fate-based play in my future, so I guess it’s a good idea to get my hands on as many iterations as possible.

By: Robert Slaughter

Robert Slaughter — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 20:21:26 +0000

Thanks for posting this. There are a few things in SA I’m having concerns about (mandatory consequences in addition stress, for instance). But I think it covers the space-opera itch pretty well. I still plan on grabbing Diaspora as well.

By: Daniel M. Perez

Daniel M. Perez — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 18:45:25 +0000

I can *see* how your very frank disclaimer could be taken the wrong way… if I didn’t know how open you keep your windows online. But that’s a whole ‘nother topic.

By: Fred Hicks

Fred Hicks — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 18:35:43 +0000

Fantastic!

By: Fred Hicks

Fred Hicks — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 18:35:26 +0000

Daniel — exactly! I loved the Star Trek movie so I didn’t think I was saying something unfavorable there.

By: Daniel M. Perez

Daniel M. Perez — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 18:08:52 +0000

To me, it was that comparison of SA as New-Star-Trek-Phasers-Blasting-Blah-Blah-Science-Eat-This-Romulan-and-Klingon-Scum and Diaspora as that scene in Firefly that made we both want Diaspora and love the fact I own SA.

Good stuff all around.

By: Thornlord

Thornlord — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 17:22:42 +0000

Thanks for the post. I read the thread you mentioned on RPG.net and think that your post was well spoken and laid out exactly why you preferred Diaspora over SBA professionally and without attempting to hurt any feelings or burn any bridges.

So, I hope that bridges weren’t burned by people more sensitive than I am.

As I tweeted to you, I’m loving SBA and very happy I picked it up.