4th & Dragon : Dungeons and Dragons...and stuff

I’ve been tossing an idea around in my head about taking the 4th edition and making a Futures edition.

Along the lines of the old school Traveller but with the ‘Points of Light’ theme instead of Traveller’s ‘everythings cool’ theme.

Classes would have two aspects:  An aspect when they are in the ship, and an aspect when they are on the ground doing missions.  Thus, the Warrior would become a Gunnery Tech while on the ship, and an ‘Arms Tech’ when on the ground.  The Engineer would be ‘hacking’ the ship to repair damage and to boost certain parts of the ship during ship to ship battle and would be the controller for the 1 or more bots while on the ground.

Tell me what you think…

-- Hirahito

Well, considering I’m also interested in what a “4e d20 Modern” would look like, you could say I’m pretty interested.

Taking base the 4E disease system, “modern” diseases like cancer may be cool to run, or maybe taking intense radiation which leads to mutation slowly? =)

Also, future’s skill challenges may be cool as well, sneaking into a computer’s security system, hijacking a plane, trying to win or help someone win the election for premiership, solving a case by using the tech gears (maybe medical jurisprudence).

I’d say good luck.

Offhand I can’t think of any science fiction settings I’d apply 4th Edition too, except one based on the Space Munchkin card game.  ("Outside that portal are Things Man Was Not Meant To Know!” “That’s okay.  We’ll send Colonel Deering through to secure the nuclear generator.  She’s a woman.")

I think 4E would work well for a James Bond type game, so I suppose it should work for a Space James Bond.  Maybe it would also work for a Flash Gordon type setting.

I’ve been doing some reading about radiation with an eye to developing RuneQuest rules.

My conclusion is that as a hazzard, radiation is scary, but in terms of game effects, it either kills you now, or you don’t have to worry about it until you get older and cancer eats your guts out at the age of 40.  Even if it kills you now, it takes minutes to take effect, so you have time to battle the Gorn-bot Droids and then try to shut down the nuclear reactor.

The disease track would probably work well for high intensity radiation, with the time determined by the intensity of the radiation.  Medium intensity radiation would force a save, or else roll on a radiation effects table.  Low intensity radiation would merely reduce a character’s lifespan by xD10 years, which most people wouldn’t like, but that’s life in the fast lane.

I found the wikipedia article on radiation helpful:  Ionizing Radiation and Radiation Poisoning.  The latter article has a table that can easily be adapted for RPG use.

I recommend making up a new category of “Space battle powers” for each class in addition to the normal attack and utility powers. That way, you can make ship combat more interesting and keep everyone involved. Someone needs to be the pilot with some cool maneuvering powers and others can get similar powers for fixing the ship and buffing its capabilities and also firing onboard weapons and stuff like that.

Rothe - 29 August 2008 10:18 AM

I recommend making up a new category of “Space battle powers” for each class in addition to the normal attack and utility powers. That way, you can make ship combat more interesting and keep everyone involved. Someone needs to be the pilot with some cool maneuvering powers and others can get similar powers for fixing the ship and buffing its capabilities and also firing onboard weapons and stuff like that.

That’s kinda what I was thinking of.  There would be ship powers and class powers.

I was kinda toying with the idea that the ship powers could be ‘add-ons’ that only required a certain minimum in skills and/or stats.  So that way, it would theoretically be possible for a technician to also be the pilot on the ship or a doctor to be also be a ships gunner.

I’m not sure how many typical sci-fi role models that would crunch, however.

And yes - the skill challenges were how I was going to handle things like cracking a data file, hacking a security drone, fixing a broken warp drive and so forth.  Though I was going to use something like the Obsidian skill challenge system mentioned on ENworld or something like it instead of the one in 4E.

My campaign idea was to have an artifact find on a long orbital period comet that pointed the way towards an ‘automated factory’ out in the Oort Cloud.  After an initial period of trials and experiments, several blue-prints were found that could be run through the factory to get certain ‘classes’ of ships and a few ‘ultra-modern’ pieces of equipment.  Thus, humanity is shoved into an interstellar war with ships they don’t know how to manufacture, armanents that are VERY old tech (nukes and low tech lasers), and warp drives they have no idea how they work all being controlled by human computers that - very roughly - know how to tell the ship how and where to go.

It’s up to the adventurer’s to scout, do search & rescue, defend and so on and so forth.

-- Hirahito

Perhaps a good model might be something like the Millenium Falcon, which has a number of turrets that extra people can man, even if they have to use them untrained.  PCs can also keep occupied with Repair rolls, Engineering rolls, medical rolls, or even Keep the China from Breaking rolls.

I’m not sure how well a class based system would work, though.  I think it would be limitting to tell the Princess that she can’t take the Double-Turret-Shot power just because she’s not a Gun Jockey.  I think it would be a better idea to just go classless, with a characters specialization being determined by what powers he picks up.

I’ve been taking a similar approach with a proposed Battlestar Galactica campaign, in which all the PCs are Colonial Warriors, so they all have the same basic proficiencies, but can specialize from that into “face”, “brute”, “tech-wizard”, etc roles.

Even if the characters are not all drawn from the same template, perhaps advanced training allows the ship’s nurse to study weaponry if she wants to.

I think that in designing a 4E science fiction idea, I’d have to ask, “what is a class”.

In D20, a class is essentially a cluster of abilities that can be tacked on to a character, even if other people think it is kind of tacky.

In 4E, classes seem to be more of a metaphysical limitation.  Thinking about how I would do a Flash Gordon style campaign in 4E, for example, I think I would not want classes, because why couldn’t Dale Arden or Doctor Zarkov learn to do what Flash Gordon does?  In a 4E game you don’t want one superhero and four supporting cheerleaders:  you want five superheroes.

Something like my Third Legion idea, which is planned for BESM D20, classes might be apropos because it is based on the idea that advanced technology allows anybody who wants to to become a superhero.  Most people are not going to make the investment, but for those who do, there would be Cyborgs, Intellects, Mystics, Strongmen, etc.  Restrictive classes like 4E has would be saying that the investment to really master cybernetic attachments precludes learning advanced engineering or mystical arts, except for in special cases.

Another possibility that comes to mind is to define the races in a science fiction setting as classes.  Since 3E came out, there’s been the idea that any race can do anything, but if you take a more scientifically-oriented view of things, some things will just be a lot harder or even impossible for members of other species.  An example is in Jean Auel’s Clan of the Cave Bears, where the neanderthals just could not duplicate Ayla’s proficiency with the sling because their arms would not swing in that manner.  “Multiclassing” would only be available for hybrids.

Some ideas for converting common science fiction settings to 4E:

Star Trek:  Classes would be Command, Security, Medical and Engineering.  Multiclassing would be allowed.  Anybody would be allowed to take powers relating to ship operations, such as helm manuevers or firing patterns.  Command could be based on the Warlord class, while Security could be based on the Fighter and Ranger.

Star Wars:  Classes would be Jedi, Scoundrel and Noble.  Anybody could learn technological, combat or medical skills, so anyone could jump into a gun turret or fly an X-Wing or try to use a medical kit.

Flash Gordon:  Either go classless, or use races as classes.  Characters differentiate themselves according to the powers and feats they choose, but all options are available for all PCs.

Battlestar Galactica:  While one could define PCs as medics, command, scoundrels, etc, I think it is probably best to make them all one type, such as Colonial Warriors.  Within that type, PCs can specialize for different roles by choosing different skills, feats and powers.  As Colonial Warriors, I think they have the maximum opportunity for interesting adventures, and it would probably be easier than trying to fit in a Medic character all the time, or figuring out how to keep the Command characters occupied.

Babylon 5:  Again, I think it is best to go classless.  Medic and scoundrel type characters are easier to work in than they are in BG, but I think without a compelling reason, I don’t see a need to define restrictions on what characters can do.  Perhaps specialization could be handled as Paragon Paths, e.g. Ranger, Doctor, etc.

It is interesting how, when classes do appear, the following classes seem to suggest themselves:  Command, Medic, Engineering, Scoundrel, Jedi, Noble.  I probably would not use them all in one setting.