Serenity Roleplaying Game

[Erekose]

I have recently purchased the Firefly series and Serenity film DVDs and I am currently about halfway through watching the series.

It strikes me that the setting is ideal for a roleplaying game and the crew of Serenity typify a player character group.

I was just wondering if any one has had any experience playing the Serenity Roleplaying Game?

It appears to have limited support as it was published in 2005 and has only had one supplement (an adventure called, Out in the Black) which has had mediocre reviews.

 

[Xer0]

I've played Serenity, I own the book. It's a good system - it uses a skill + attribute system where you buy dice for each, skills and attributes. Later on you can use progression points, plot points that you've saved up to advance your abilities, skills, etc.

I like it so far. I'm not running it, so I haven't encountered any combat yet, but you're right, it's a good set up for a group of PCs.

I would definitely make sure when you're setting up your party, have clearly defined roles for each of the PCs. A Captain, a Pilot, an Engineer, a Doc, etc.

 

[Cam Banks]

The SERENITY RPG has excellent fan support, which has been great for getting the word out at conventions and game shows, and online. Check out Waves in the Black for some excellent articles, resources, a message board, and downloads.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Xer0]

Oh yeah, I forgot about the After Serenity podcast/living campaign.

 

[Pbartender]

I've played Serenity, I own the book. It's a good system - it uses a skill + attribute system where you buy dice for each, skills and attributes. Later on you can use progression points, plot points that you've saved up to advance your abilities, skills, etc.

I like it so far. I'm not running it, so I haven't encountered any combat yet, but you're right, it's a good set up for a group of PCs.

I would definitely make sure when you're setting up your party, have clearly defined roles for each of the PCs. A Captain, a Pilot, an Engineer, a Doc, etc.

I, on the other hand, don't like the system much.

I played in a demo game or two at mini-con gamedays, and won a copy of the rulebook (signed by Margaret Weiss, no less) as a door prize. In hind sight, I'm glad I didn't pay money for it. At this point, for me, the book would make a decent source book for a Serenity game in some other system (True20 comes to mind).

My experience was that is was simply too difficult for players to much of anything useful or interesting. In one adventure, my pre-generated character was the "Captain" of a ship and had a reasonable amount of piloting skill, though not nearly as much as the "Pilot", but nearly crashed the ship when trying to land on a planet without any distractions or stress occurring at the time... I was just trying to drop down from orbit and land in a flat, wide-open pasture on a clear, calm, sunny day. Eh.

Combat seemed to be more of the same... Most we ended up running away from after a few rounds of incompetence.

But maybe that's just me. Either way, I've been generally soured on the system through bad first impressions.

 

[Cam Banks]

My experience was that is was simply too difficult for players to much of anything useful or interesting. In one adventure, my pre-generated character was the "Captain" of a ship and had a reasonable amount of piloting skill, though not nearly as much as the "Pilot", but nearly crashed the ship when trying to land on a planet without any distractions or stress occurring at the time... I was just trying to drop down from orbit and land in a flat, wide-open pasture on a clear, calm, sunny day. Eh.

If I were running that session, you wouldn't have had to make a roll.

There's no point in calling for skill checks when there's no real dramatic result if you fail. One of the key points to running this game, and the upcoming Battlestar Galactica RPG using the same Cortex system, is that when somebody attempts something dramatic, you use dice. Otherwise, they should pretty much be able to do what they want. Got the Pilot skill? Then you don't need to roll to land your ship on a flat bit of land.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Crothian]

I'm not a big fan of the system but the material in the RPG is good for running an RPG based in that Universe. I'd be tempted though to use different mechanics.

 

[Erekose]

Thanks for the replies - I may well buy the RPG as a resource and potentially use d20 Traveller as the ruleset if the Cortex system isn't to my liking.

The series does tend to feel like how we used to play Traveller in the mid' 80s . . .

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

I've run it at a couple of gamedays. There are some elements I like, but the skill system needs a ton of refinement IMO. The book and the fan support, though, would be valuable for running your own game whichever system you use.

Were I going to use it, I'd be tempted to dump most of the subskills. I'd make the ones I thought important enough to keep their own primary skills, eliminate the dice break between general and specialized skills, and retool the skill point allocation to fit. As it stands, its a pain for the DM to adjudicate on the fly. If the DM isn't flexible, it can hurt players when spending points as they'll end up with skills they rarely use through no fault of their own. I wouldn't like losing the interplay between character and DM in coming up with interesting skill combinations, but in my limited experience that doesn't happen often enough to offset the other problems.

 

[Dragonhelm]

Oh yeah, I forgot about the After Serenity podcast/living campaign.

Tracy Hickman did a series of articles on The Signal podcast called Adventures in Serenity. Those have been compiled for download somewhere on the site.

I did a series called Gaming in the 'Verse, which gives some ideas on archetypes and such to play for the game. This was all in season two.

So those are two resources you guys might check into.