2001 - A Space Odyssey for Star Frontiers RPG - RPPR After Hours
Added 2024-05-20 18:52:44 +0000 UTCFor some unknown reason, TSR licensed the classic sci-fi film 2001 to make a RPG module for their sci-fi game, Star Frontiers. It's an extremely literal interpretation of the film. Start as man-apes scavenging food in 4 million BC and end up face to face to with the Star Child. Enjoy!
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Comments
fortunately I recorded it when maddy wasn't home!
Ross Payton
2024-06-12 01:59:21 +0000 UTCI am honestly surprised Maddy did not lock you out of the house and/or sic their raccoon army on you after the Daisy song in the announcer voice.
Ray Gibbs
2024-06-12 01:54:28 +0000 UTCAm am I on drugs did I start smoking again was 5th Ed called to rules heavy? You i know its been a decade almost since the last Eclipse Phase campaign... but like, Wild Talents and all of that are all so super crunchy. I assume Delta Green is decently crunchy from what i have run of it I do not know about mutant year zero or mutants in the now. That is just such a out there statement to me
DiploRaptor(Samuel)
2024-05-24 15:54:45 +0000 UTCyeah that's stuff that seems obvious now, but someone had to write it first.
Ross Payton
2024-05-22 23:44:28 +0000 UTCYeah, there's a world of difference between Gygax telling you rules and hoping the intended play experience of D&D falls out, and Robin Laws explaining how the rules of the gumshoe system are designed to create the intended play experience. I haven't got around to playing thirsty sword lesbians yet, but I'll be damned if it isn't a book that explains what the game is actually supposed to be like as an experience for the players.
William Weiser
2024-05-22 23:28:58 +0000 UTCyeah, that's a very good point. The grammar of game writing had yet to evolve, but the ideas were there, at least in some form.
Ross Payton
2024-05-22 17:03:38 +0000 UTCYeah, I think one of the things that becomes obvious reading early RPG rulebooks is the way that RPG design and RPG rulebook writing were different sciences being developed in parallel. I've had a surprising number of people tell me that Gygax didn't understand dungeons and dragons when they hear his opinions on role playing. Really puts in to perspective the gap between game design and rules writing. 80s rulebooks certainly give the impression of all RPG play being entirely procedure driven, but it seems like the notion of including procedures for role playing itself hadn't entered the genre yet, the first attempt I can think of is sanity is in CoC but I feel like it took a long time for that innovation to be more widely understood within the RPG genre. People like Mentzer were exploring what games could be like but seem like they were still approaching the rulebook as a wargaming manual of procedure, leading to some really baffling books where trying to understand what the game would actually be like to play is a challenge.
William Weiser
2024-05-21 01:43:13 +0000 UTCMentzer seemed to be interested in defining and pushing the boundaries of what RPGs could be. Fascinating! Those early days had a lot of very experimental games and ideas.
Ross Payton
2024-05-20 23:44:16 +0000 UTCI love a dive in to something obscure. This book being by Frank Mentzer is something I find fairly interesting, given the complaints you had about (lack of) role playing in it. Mentzer was actually the first person to write a D&D core rulebook (the 1983 basic set) that actually defined what "role playing" is, and he describes it as being like acting but without a script. Given some of the things Gygax would write in his book about role playing, I find it fascinating that the early pioneers of the RPG rulebook as a form were so damn bad at communicating what they thought the games were supposed to be like. I know most of us roll our eyes and skip the "what is a role playing game?" section in rulebooks today, but there was clearly a time when stating intended play experience was something that hadn't yet been innovated. Gygax compared role playing to therapy and said that rules for combat are not a role playing game, which serves to highlight the fact that during the first decade or so of the medium no one really had any idea how to write a rulebook, since none of the early D&D authors ever seem to have written a rulebook that lead to people playing the game that the authors envisioned. Also, fun fact, this is not the first off the wall rail road by an early D&D rulebook writer you've reviewed for after hours. "The Future King" was by Tom Moldvay, author of the 1981 D&D basic set rules. Lastly, the choice of what to do with the 2001 licence seems obvious with the benefit of hindsight. DCC style astronaut funnel where characters who survive and complete their hidden agendas become PCs, or rip off that other game about an evil computer and try to make paranoia except the computer is even more explicitly trying to get you killed. My first response was "Everyone is HAL", but that's my first response to adapting anything.
William Weiser
2024-05-20 23:31:10 +0000 UTCI am aware of the sequel module and we'll probably cover it after the time loop isekai AP.
Ross Payton
2024-05-20 19:37:23 +0000 UTCI'm not 100% I have the 2001 adventure, but I know I have the 2010 sequel adventure the poster map of the space ship was amazing! Of course, we never played it.
Dan Williamson
2024-05-20 19:08:59 +0000 UTC
