I’m aware of (appreciate, and respect) Gryph’s approach to questions about writing fanfic in the UF setting; but I have a variation.

I’m at an RPG con (AmberCon NI, I go every year) and inevitably this is the time when my imagination runs the most wild about games I’m going to run next year (and given the length of my list, probably the following three).

Anyway, so my question is would it be ok to set a ttrpg one off (or series of one offs) in the UF setting? It’s an environment where it doesn’t matter too much if the players don’t know the setting too well but the GM having a good knowledge really helps, and as much as I always GM by winging it somewhat it can be good to have a canon to base your response off when they go off at right angles to the plot; and it might take two decades of writing to have something as rich :-D

Currently I’m thinking something like NCIS: New Avalon; but I’ve previously had thoughts about something set on an IPO Special Operations vessel.

L.

>Anyway, so my question is would it be ok to set a ttrpg one off (or
>series of one offs) in the UF setting?

As long as it's not for, you know, publication, sure, go nuts. That sounds like fun! I've toyed with a similar concept a couple of times, but I'm no game designer; I'd have to base it on an existing system, and frankly the amount of research that would require felt way too much like work. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

I can confirm the "way too much work" part- I tried doing a UF setting back in ~2005, and just trying to list out the sources to look at for races and equipment had me in over my head.

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

>I can confirm the "way too much work" part- I tried doing a UF setting
>back in ~2005, and just trying to list out the sources to look
>at for races and equipment had me in over my head.
>
>"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

You could just play GURPS. I'm pretty sure IOU has a branch campus on New Avalon anyway...

Funnily enough, I wasn't aware of the existence of GURPS until a fair amount of time after abandoning this project. We did Rifts instead- for about 2 hours total, and the DM's fumbling of the system soured me on the system entirely.

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

LAST EDITED ON Feb-09-25 AT 09:01 PM (EST)
 
>Funnily enough, I wasn't aware of the existence of GURPS until a fair
>amount of time after abandoning this project. We did Rifts instead-
>for about 2 hours total, and the DM's fumbling of the system soured me
>on the system entirely.

I remember my high school crew tried RIFTS once. We were used to the Palladium system, having played a ton of Ninjas [sic] & Superspies, but we could never get our heads around RIFTS for some reason. Something about the setting just didn't compute for us.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>I remember my high school crew tried RIFTS once. We were used
>to the Palladium system, having played a ton of Ninjas
>[sic] & Superspies, but we could never get our heads around
>RIFTS for some reason. Something about the setting just didn't
>compute for us.

Huh. Ironically, it was the exact opposite for me and my college crew. We loved the setting of Rifts but the Palladium system was a cumbersome mess. Alas, it also suffered from significant power creep.

------
Authors of our fates
Orchestrate our fall from grace
Poorest players on the stage
Our defiance drives us straight to the edge

>>I remember my high school crew tried RIFTS once. We were used
>>to the Palladium system, having played a ton of Ninjas
>>[sic] & Superspies, but we could never get our heads around
>>RIFTS for some reason. Something about the setting just didn't
>>compute for us.
>
>Huh. Ironically, it was the exact opposite for me and my college crew.
>We loved the setting of Rifts but the Palladium system was a
>cumbersome mess.

Oh, I'm in no way claiming that the Palladium system is not a cumbersome mess. Just that we were used to it, and yet still couldn't get to grips with RIFTS for some reason. :)

>Alas, it also suffered from significant power creep.

"MDC structures, MDC structures."

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

This conversation is reminding me of something a fella I sort of know from elsenet, David Prokopetz, says about TTRPG systems. He's a professional game designer himself, and he keeps talking about how a TTRPG's mechanics will have baked-in assumptions about what kind of plot you're going to be running with it -- a traditional dungeon crawl, the tale of a tragic hero, a political drama, a sitcom episode, that sort of thing. The marketing doesn't always expose this characteristic of the game system but it's there regardless, even in supposedly "universal" systems. And, if the system doesn't cooperate with the kind of plot the players and the GM want to run, they're not going to have a good time.

>if the system doesn't cooperate
>with the kind of plot the players and the GM want to run,
>they're not going to have a good time.

I read a similar commentary once, explaining why the Storyteller system didn't mesh with what they wanted from World of Darkness, but it did work for Street Fighter.

Peter Eng
--
"You want to save the world, but first you have to fight with the other people who want to save the world."

I need a link to this.

Here's one example: https://www.tumblr.com/prokopetz/775211583115755520/youve-talked-before-about-how-generic-ttrpg (He talks about this a lot.)

>You could just play GURPS. I'm pretty sure IOU has a branch campus on
>New Avalon anyway...

You beat me to the recommendation (which I was contractually required to provide anyway).

I was toying with the idea of a GURPS UF campaign myself twenty or so years ago, but it never got out of the (huge, imposing stack of) notes stage. That was also about the time of the changeover from Third Edition Revised to Fourth Edition, which basically doubled the work, as I was also simultaneously relearning the system. Foolish me, I thought trying to quantify UF for a game would help me in that.

-- Bob
-------------------
My race is pacifist and does not believe in war. We kill only out of personal spite.

I'll level with you, Gurpsuf sounds like a swearword in one of the alien languages in UF to me. =]

---
"She's old, she's lame, she's barren too, // "She's not worth feed or hay, // "But I'll give her this," - he blew smoke at me - // "She was something in her day." -- Garnet Rogers, Small Victory

FiMFiction.net: we might accept blatant porn involving the cast of My Little Pony but as God is my witness we have standards.

>I'll level with you, Gurpsuf sounds like a swearword in one of the
>alien languages in UF to me. =]

A Gurpsuf is a small furry animal native to Tamaran, which is known for its VERY sharp incisors.

>You beat me to the recommendation (which I was contractually required
>to provide anyway).

I'm not cleared for that...

>>I can confirm the "way too much work" part- I tried doing a UF setting
>>back in ~2005, and just trying to list out the sources to look
>>at for races and equipment had me in over my head.
>>
>>"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."
>
>You could just play GURPS. I'm pretty sure IOU has a branch campus on
>New Avalon anyway...

Ironically, we actually *ran* a PBP GURPS game set in the UF world back in 1999 or so. It only lasted a few months or so, but was quite a bit of fun.

--
-Pasha
"Don't change the subject"
"Too slow, already did."

I remember that! It *was* fun, though it petered out fairly soon.

------
Authors of our fates
Orchestrate our fall from grace
Poorest players on the stage
Our defiance drives us straight to the edge

Back when I was in uni, I took part in a superhero campaign that was run in a homebrew system based on Danger Patrol. From what I recall, the character generation system was sufficiently open ended to handle a setting as broad as UF.

For whatever it's worth, my gaming group took the rule about writing in UF at more or less face value and just... rolled our own, instead? Though I personally couldn't resist a nod in this direction. The setting is called "Bolthole-Fu in SPAAACE!", usually referred to as "the Fu game", because "FU's not UF".

Multiple campaigns in the setting over the past... uh... 15 years, at this point.

As for TTRPG systems, we've tried a bunch, with more or less success depending on which one. Right now we're taking a stab at the Fabula Ultima system and personally I quite like it, both because it's mechanically tight enough that I can just follow the guidelines and the encounter 'feels' right, and because its basic, underlying theme is one of...

... hope.

I am le tired of gritty dystopian maximum suckitude being the default, dammit. :D I mean I still like the (for example) cyberpunk aesthetic, but I want it with the happy ending, not the inevitable tragedy.

--sofaspud
--

>For whatever it's worth, my gaming group took the rule about writing
>in UF at more or less face value and just... rolled our own, instead?
>Though I personally couldn't resist a nod in this direction. The
>setting is called "Bolthole-Fu in SPAAACE!", usually referred to as
>"the Fu game", because "FU's not UF".
>
>Multiple campaigns in the setting over the past... uh... 15 years, at
>this point.
>
>As for TTRPG systems, we've tried a bunch, with more or less success
>depending on which one. Right now we're taking a stab at the Fabula
>Ultima system and personally I quite like it, both because it's
>mechanically tight enough that I can just follow the guidelines and
>the encounter 'feels' right, and because its basic, underlying theme
>is one of...
>
>... hope.
>
>I am le tired of gritty dystopian maximum suckitude being the
>default, dammit. :D I mean I still like the (for example) cyberpunk
>aesthetic, but I want it with the happy ending, not the inevitable
>tragedy.
>
>--sofaspud
>--

Yeah, I'm in a Fabula Ultima game with a Pilot/Sharpshooter. And I love how, as most modern games do, the game encourages the players to collaborate on the world building with the GM.