Way back in the day, I used to play a lot of AD&D 2.5 and Shadowrun 3rd Edition. While browsing through a stack of RPG books I picked up from a garage sale one day, I found one entitled More Tales From The Ether, which was an adventure supplement for an RPG I’d never heard of called Space: 1889, which is best described as “An RPG set in the Victorian British Empire on Mars”. My kind of game, in other words.
The thing is, no-one I know has ever actually played the game. I later bought the rule books and a couple of the sourcebooks because the scenario interested me a great deal, but to this day I’ve never some across anyone who has actually managed to run an expedition using the game’s rules. which do seem somewhat… cumbersome, especially to someone who is used to the d20 or Shadowrun d6 system.
Anyway, I’m wondering if anyone on the boards has actually played the pen-and-paper version of Space: 1889? How did you find it? And how did it compare to other RPGs youve played?
EN World is mainly D&D and d20. I’d recommend trying the fora at RPG.net – there’ve been a few Space: 1889 threads there in the past.
From what I recall, in the main: no, nobody actually played it. There were a few people who had houseruled it into something they’d play, and others who had used other games (e.g., GURPS) to play it.
I’ve always wanted to play, but never thought it was the kind of game my group would grok.
I played it - as a player - back in the day. I have been trying to find a copy of the books for AGES. It was loads of fun.
Actually, I think the best way to run it (at least, this is how the adventure I was in was run) is like a cross between a standard AD&D d20 game, and the original Call of Cthulu.
But I haven’t played in nearly 20 years, so I’m not sure how good my opinion would be in this area. However, if you can tell me where you came across the books, etc, I would be greatful.
(As I look at the website, I think we ran one of the pre-done adventures, but I’m not sure. Oh, and never having the books, I wouldn’t know if we house-ruled it or not. I don’t think so, but I could be wrong. I don’t have contact with that group much anymore, unfortunately.)
I played it just once, in 1988 for [del]20 minutes[/del] a few hours. I liked the concept and it was fairly fun and basic like Traveler. However, the Ref and I were the only ones that enjoyed it and we did not continue. We had similar results for the original “Stalking the Night Fantastic”
I played once at a gaming convention (4 hour session) a few years ago. Don’t remember the rules other than 1d6 acted differently than xd6 for no reason whatsoever.
I believe I Played an add on to it called Sky Galleons of Mars. That was fun. The More Martian wood you blasted from your enemy’s ship they more he would sink until it Crash onto teh Martian surface. That was All I remember.
Know it, but haven’t played it in years. Cool concepts, but the rules mechanics were, well, pretty clunky. (Not as clunky as some - I ran a Space Opera campaign, once upon a time - but pretty clunky, nonetheless.)
I bought the book and loved it. Didn’t look too playable, though. I did plan to incorporate some of the ideas to a GURPS campaign but it never happened.
It looks like a lot of fun, but I’ve never found a group that would be interested in playing it, alas. I live in hope, however…
That was my take on it, too. The setting is brilliant and the sourcebooks have a lot of detail in them, but the dice system could use some improvement, from my reading of the rulebooks…
I got the books off Amazon.com, if that helps. I was as surprised as anyone to discover they were back in print, and they’re great sourcebooks. Lots of good adventure ideas in there!
It’s a problem that a lot of “cool setting” RPG’s have: what’s cool to some people (“OOOOH!! Victorian spaceships and scientific romance!”) is too high concept for the vast majority of RPG players. I know it’s odd saying that something is too “high concept” for people who the top two favorite games are Tolkein-esque fantasy and vampires but there’s a handful of very comfortable settings for 90% of the already small market of RPG players and they refuse to step beyond that.
Personally I like the idea of high concept, short campaign games but that’s not what the industry is built on and its unlikely that they’ll ever gain any steam. I’ve never played Space: 1889 but when I heard about it I really wanted to try it.
Space: 1889 is one of those RPGs that a lot of people know about, well at last a lot of older people who played RPGs know about, but I have yet to meet anyone who has actually played it.
This has been my experience so far- heaps of people saying “Yeah, I remember hearing about it back in the day- never played it, though”. I assume someone is playing it- they are reprinting the books, after all.
As Just Some Guy says, 90% of all RPGs involve either Tolkeinesque High Fantasy or Vampires. Even Shadowrun- which I reckon could be a great Cyber-noir adventure game in the vein of Blade Runner- has Orcs and Elves and Trolls and Magic Spells in it because, it seems, that’s what people want in their RPGs. Personally, I prefer my RPGs to be distinctly free of Magic, Elves and Vampires, but apparently I’m in the minority there…
I’m confused, there were many successful Sci-Fi games over the years. Traveler and even Space Opera were very popular back in the day and Battle-Tech had a good run at least into the mid 90s.
Are there really no major sci-fi games that are popular currently?
Now, I have always preferred the Tolkienesque High Fantasy, but I am a Tolkien fanatic and I started playing D&D before there was an AD&D. I am trying to recall, but I think the old 3 book White Box set actually called Hobbits, Hobbits. I know we did.
I just started back up a 1st edition based, Middle-Earth campaign that another doper is actually playing in along with some old friends. In fact one of the players I have known since 1976 when we were happy to have the Monster Manual.
Yes, tragically this is one of those games more talked about than played, like Boot Hill. If they’ve re-issued it I hope they’ve re-vamped it in accordance with new enthusiasm for Victorian sci-fi.
While 90% might be too high a number for Tolkein knockoffs, but it is probably close to 70-75% though. The only real success in the sci-fi realm lately has been liscensed, I think. For nearly a decade the Star Wars RPG was huge. Then Wizards got their hands on it and ran it into the ground…Their latest attempt seems doomed, but the miniatures game is still going strong. Star Trek has never managed to keep its head above water but someone tries every couple of years…and the Stargate RPG, which was based on Spycraft, was a lot of fun but only lasted for four books before it was pulled. Back in the day there was Star Frontiers, of course…and more recently I thought the Fading Suns RPG was absolutely amazing. The Babylon 5 RPG keeps chugging along, but I don’t know if anyone actually plays it (I tried the first iteration…The Babylon Project…and it was hideous. Hideous. I can’t, off the top of my head, think of any other hard sci-fi. There’s a couple of super-hero games out there.
There is the Dawning Star setting for d20. It has a following, and it’s the closest thing to a fully supported science fiction setting for d20, at least. Most GMs doing sci-fi must resort to kitbashing.
The Serenity RPG is apparently going to be putting out new items in the next year, so it’s not what you’d call dead. Mind you, if I were to run a Firefly game, I’d probably want to do it in the Savage Worlds system, which is not that different from Serenity’s Cortex system. The Cortex system is also being used for the Battlestar Galactica game, but I have no idea how well that’s being supported.
If you want to get into sci-fi roleplaying, you might consider picking up the old Alternity stuff. If you buy one supplement a month off of eBay, it’ll be like you’re getting a year’s worth of the best supported sci-fi system ever. And it’ll be cheaper than if it were new. Personally, I love the Star*Drive setting for Alternity. I’ve been running it in d20, and I’ve recently converted some of its concepts to Savage Worlds, so players of that system can enjoy it.
Well I.C.E. had a space game that never really caught on and Star Frontiers and Gamma World had very little success. Travelar & Space Opera and even the First try at Star Trek managed to sell many additional books and supplements. Star Trek the least.
Is Champions still around? I use to play that late 80s and early 90s. Its weird, I am not a comic book guy, but everyone enjoyed my NYC based campaign. I think because I played up the humor & relied heavily on the scary reality of 1990 NYC.
