Why did TSR drop the ball so badly?

[Ragnorakk]

I never did git any smarter.

[JDJarvis]

So what if the proposed 1E clone in space didn't exactly work great. If the original artist and writers of the three core books had written them we'd have bought them and liked them well enough. THe DM would always be there to smooth things out (and the DM was the only person who controlled the rules anyhow...at least in theory, the players would be too busy exploring space in steller ships fitted with all sorts of goodies, and distant planets with hover crafts blowing giant electric throwing bats out of the f..cking sky to care about rules. The rules wouldn't have been the hard thing about such a game, the setting would have been.

I can't agree here as I have some experience to the contrary: I loved Gama World but a number of players I introduced the game to (that were not fanboy RPGers) complained that it was "too much like D&D". How well did the Buck Rogers game that was AD&D in space sell? It was mired in it's revised 25th century setting but it was a fair D&D rules in pulp space game that could be tweaked to any setting, I don't recall it having much of an impact in the RPG world. A lot of folks really do like different games to feel different and it's more then the trappings it's also in the rules. I'm not arguing that treatment A of sci-fi is better then treatment B, it's just that there are folks that want game B to feel different from game A because it has note-able rule differences.

Aces and Eights (by example) is D&D-like with enough mechanical differences it feels like a different game even when setting differences are disregarded.

A lot of players in my early AD&D days weren't tied to the rule-sets like folks may be now. Most folks knew a discrete fraction of the rules and it was no bother to learn (or not learn) a discrete fraction of another set of rules.

I've played space games using the AD&D rules a number of times but it didn't require 3 new hardcover rule books it only needed a few pages of house rules and equipment, everything else was setting and adventure. Getting folks to buy what they already have bought is a marketing trick indeed and it mostly snares hardcore collectors, completists and fan-boys. The new versions of D&D were as different as they were to provide enough different stuff a wider net of folks could be snared with marketing.

[blackprinceofmuncie]

Its not a question of "what is the better way to have a system work" or a question of differences being good or bad, its a question of marketability. It was the difference betweeen selling huge numbers of books or selling few.

Yeah, I can see your point there. Still, I don't have enough love for TSR (the corporate entity) that I sit around worrying that they didn't make more money off me as a kid, especially if the method for doing so was going to be offering me several AD&D knock-off games that basically repackaged the books I already owned.

[Falconer]

I dunno, guys, 95% of AD&D is genre-specific ideas. I’m pretty sure if Gary had written “AD&D in space” hardcovers, with the 5% familiar mechanics intact and the rest a brilliant synthesis of the spacefaring genre the way he had done with fantasy, it would have been a truly awesome RPG and well worth the money.

[Wheggi]

I dunno, guys, 95% of AD&D is genre-specific ideas. I’m pretty sure if Gary had written “AD&D in space” hardcovers, with the 5% familiar mechanics intact and the rest a brilliant synthesis of the spacefaring genre the way he had done with fantasy, it would have been a truly awesome RPG and well worth the money.

Oh sweet Jesus, could you imagine if Gygax had written a Spaceships and Supernovas and put the same amount of passion and time into it as he had Dungeons and Dragons? The sheer awesomeness of such a prospect is enough to make me feel faint.

I wonder what he would have put in his inspirational reading Appendex?

- Wheggi

[Matthew]

Man, I loved Star Wars D6, but partly because it was a different system to mess around with, and at the time we were enjoying an "experimental" stage with RPGs. Still, the advice in the books was more about creating something that felt Star Wars, and I guess some of it was good and some of it was bad. I never really managed to run much of a campaign, but we had a good laugh playing, particularly when one guy chose to be a protocol droid...

[Melan]

Imagine the PH cover with guys carrying laser rifles instead of swords around and an idol of some alien God, or maybe some crashed ship on a cool planet with weird purple and blue plants (hard cover by Tramp). And the same cover dress (in other words, it would have been three new books that had the same cover style and paper and black and white artwork as the 3 core books -nothing slick or soft).

That's a beautiful summary of a game that really should have existed. GW 1st edition has promising cover art but it is too goofy with the mutant vegetables and psionic rabbits, Traveller is too focused on realism, and Star Frontiers, from what I have seen of it, never had the combination of action and grit your hypothetical product would have had. What's missing is a good AD&D-style game where you could play futuristic commandos and spacemen in a strange world, and you could choose the focus between planetary and interplanetary adventures. The trick is to concentrate on what people do instead of machines - less emphasis on starship-to-starship combat, and more on individual skill. Maybe something like Frazetta's graphics from the 50s and 60s. I agree with Falconer and wheggi that EGG could have created that game if he put his mind to it.

...and then you could mix up this system with AD&D, and play Dragons vs. Helicopters for the real pulp fantasy experience.

[AxeMental]

Its not a question of "what is the better way to have a system work" or a question of differences being good or bad, its a question of marketability. It was the difference betweeen selling huge numbers of books or selling few.

Yeah, I can see your point there. Still, I don't have enough love for TSR (the corporate entity) that I sit around worrying that they didn't make more money off me as a kid, especially if the method for doing so was going to be offering me several AD&D knock-off games that basically repackaged the books I already owned.

Dang PB, that seems a bit jaded. First off I don't buy products to support companies (not even as a kid) I buy them to support my own happyness. Secondly, if this natural evolution (as I saw it and my friends saw it) had occured we'd have another section in this damned site discussing space D&D (and who knows, late 1E and 2E might have never come into being if the company had moved into other genre in a big way. Plus, my interest in "what the hell went wrong" is simply that, interest. It beats the living shit out of talking about other boring crap we've already talked to death 5 years ago (another discussion on initiative anyone, or perhaps your all time favorite PC). Not that that boring crap wont get recycled in the next 6 months...it always does, and is usually more interesting then the latest Drudge or Newsmax headline.

I understand the point some of you guys are making about the problem of something being too similar to 1E to not be interesting. The two obvious ways to avoid that would have been a 1. focus on developing "flavor" a strong setting (similar to AD&D), and 2. new rules atop the old rule system (imagine jet pack combat, subs, hovercrafts and tanks you unload from your ship (ala Thunderbirds).

Of course, to pull this off, Gygax would have had to settle on one style of sci-fi fantasy (hopefully a mix of stuff that was stereo-typical 50s-70s SciFi). The question is, would he have chosen the correct one. I don't think Star Trek would have been the best model, certainly not Buck Rodgers. Melan is dead right when he says the focus should not be on combat with space ships. SciFi at its core is "humanity" not machines. Its no different then the self discovery-grit you get from reading Conan or other classic Fantasy (stuff that you could never address in a real world modern setting).

[Geoffrey]

Melan is dead right when he says the focus should not be on combat with space ships.

I agree.

In the 500 or so pages of the original three AD&D hardbacks, only about 6 pages are devoted to aerial and to waterborne combat. For the sci-fi game under discussion, 6 pages of starship combat rules (out of 500 total pages) seems about right.

[geneweigel]

Having core hardcover sci-fi books with nice illustrations was also done in the later 90's by TSR. It was called ALTERNITY and it sucked. I warmed up to it and it blasted my head off. This was before I was adressed the failures of my GAMMA WORLD campaign and the reasons STAR FRONTIERS couldn't "get off Volturnus". I was too open minded back then and I wish some of the people that I play with would "get it" but I don't think they can. To them "something old about D&D is good and other games never were as good" and they don't really get into it like me.

As I said before, I've offered a specific setting for a pure sci-fi game ("fantasy" only in adherence to rules) to my players to drive it into a "D&D formula" and they've rejected it totally as it doesn't have certain popular sci-fi quirks that appeal to them yet in no way appeal to me. They want a codified known sci-fi ("robot types", "cyborgs", "capital ships", "teleporters", "hyperspace", etc), or "nose prosthetic TV drama" ("Ka-Plah" shit, space empires at war, etc.) this is where asking gets me: right back to the drawing board.

Without a solid background that resists pull from overbearing genres it'll just drift right back into it and you'll get the same old shit sandwich again.

[geneweigel]

You know the big problem that I have with CALL OF CTHULHU is that it is exactly like D&D in play style (hit points and shit) and I don't think there was ever an H.P. Lovecraft story that was an adventure. This is the same thing that applies to sci-fi games except it is an adventure and the mistake is pad on the "six guns & sorcery" conversions and get your "new and original" rpg and thats whats been going on. They use core D&D and pad with "sci-fi doohickeys" and call it a "new" game. You've got to strip out that ABILITY SCORES, HP, AC, DMG, SAVE "system" rip it to shreds and rebuild it with the padding ingrained into the base system itself with "skills" all subsumed into the works. Thats how it has to be like D&D and not easy breazy conversion geekage thats been going on since the 70's in every "original" rpg.

[TRP]

If you're worried about your hit points in CoC, then you've likely already failed in your investigation. The most pulpy of CoC investigators is usually no match for even ho-hum mythos critters.

OTOH, scifi is very adventurous, and such attributes as hit points, dodging, armor, blocking etc are very important. I agree that ship-to-ship combat should not be the focus of a space-centric scifi RPG, but close combat and hand-held range weapons most certainly are. This is true for most any scifi genre in space. Whether your Appendix inspiration list includes Asimov, Heinlein, Leiber, Roddenberry or Lucas. A notable exception could be Clarke. Using Rendezvous With Rama as an example; there's a good case for an outer space adventure that could be run CoC-style.

Hmm .. now as I'm writing about this, I think there is a fine way to run a low combat scifi space game. In fact, a Beyond The Mountains of Madness In Space would be a very viable, and IMO exciting, game.

While I think there is room for Rockets & Lasers, and the combat rules do not have to be that different from D&D, there's equal room for Expeditions To The Stars.

ramble ramble ramble

[geneweigel]

If you're worried about your hit points in CoC, then you've likely already failed in your investigation. The most pulpy of CoC investigators is usually no match for even ho-hum mythos critters.

OTOH, scifi is very adventurous, and such attributes as hit points, dodging, armor, blocking etc are very important. I agree that ship-to-ship combat should not be the focus of a space-centric scifi RPG, but close combat and hand-held range weapons most certainly are. This is true for most any scifi genre in space. Whether your Appendix inspiration list includes Asimov, Heinlein, Leiber, Roddenberry or Lucas. A notable exception could be Clarke. Using Rendezvous With Rama as an example; there's a good case for an outer space adventure that could be run CoC-style.

Hmm .. now as I'm writing about this, I think there is a fine way to run a low combat scifi space game. In fact, a Beyond The Mountains of Madness In Space would be a very viable, and IMO exciting, game.

While I think there is room for Rockets & Lasers, and the combat rules do not have to be that different from D&D, there's equal room for Expeditions To The Stars.

ramble ramble ramble

I agree it can get very rambling when discussing these kinds of design things.

Experience on these matters usually comes from free form crap you've done for a game or even tried to make your own game so its hard to discuss without reviling the work of others.

A lot of effort went into most sci-fi games. TRAVELLER, UNIVERSE, SPACE MASTER, RINGWORLD, etc and yet they're still D&D in "space drag" with four tons of necessary "components" to make it work.

[TRP]

I can agree that D&D in space is worthless.

I forget which of the Great Old Ones (but I think it was Clarke) noted that a science fiction story is only science fiction if you cannot remove the premise without destroying the story. That is, if you can retell the same story in another genre, then it was just a western, horror or crime drama all along.

This is where I get pelted by the Star Wars fans.

[Flambeaux]

This is where I get pelted by the Star Wars fans.

Why? Star Wars has nothing to do with science fiction. Space Opera? Sure. Fantasy/Mythology set in "space"? Yep. But sci-fi? Nope.