Saturday, March 16, 2013

Project Generations - Scenario Writing

Generation Ship art by Fraterchaos
http://shadowness.com/fraterchaos/generation-ship-2

I spent the day today working on the scenario chapter for Project Generations, the FATE-based SF series on generation ships that I am writing for +Chris Birch's Modiphius Entertainment. The first Project Generations product is tri-statted for Starblazer Adventures, Diaspora, and Bulldogs! 

Once I turn in the manuscript for this one, I'll be working on an all-new Project Generations product for FATE Core. I already have some great new ideas for that one. Really over the top!

Chapter Six of the current project is where the scenario lives. The previous chapters build up to the scenario, but also give you TONS of new tools for running games set on generation ships, stats for two sample generation ships , a deck-by-deck treatment of one generation ship, and stats for numerous auxiliary/support ships for use inside and outside the vessel. (These come in helpful because generation ships can be HUGE!)

The scenario chapter broke 31 pages today of single spaced text - it's a monster! The chapter includes background on the generation ship used in the scenario, information on its current state and the rival factions on-board, rules on awakening from cryostasis on a generation ship, drop dice tables for ship locations, and scenes. I think whether you like to use a scenario in its entirety, or you prefer to pick and choose a few elements of a published scenario to use in your own game, you'll get good value out of this product.

My goal is to get most of the scenario finished this weekend. We'll still have some NPCs to statt out during the week, but if I can finish the scene pieces this weekend, we'll be in good shape to finish the writing before April.

Then comes art and layout, which is in great hands with the team Modiphius has together!

Just look at what they are doing for Achtung! Cthulhu over here!

2 comments:

  1. OK, I am insanely excited to read about this. Years back, friends and I worked seriously on the framework of a game set on generation ships, but we never quite got things to cohere. Fate is great for the purpose and I'm really looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

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  2. Glad to hear it! Back in the 90s, I started writing a game called NOAH, which was also a gen ship game. It was a different setting, on a ship with numerous mad AIs that thought they were gods. Some of that might come back for FATE Core.

    But the influences go back even further. As a kid, I was pretty fascinated by Star Trek's Yonada. And I was really captivated by The Starlost, which admittedly most SF fans of the time thought was terrible (but the ship design! a work of beauty). One of the first RPGs I owned after D&D was the original Metamorphosis Alpha. I got a kick out of the game, because one of the first SF books I ever read was Heinlein's "Orphans of the Stars". So this stuff has been with me a long time.

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