Tuesday, March 6, 2012

What to make of Rogue Space?

I think one of the best tells to see if your ideas have, at least in someway, hit their mark is by seeing how others interpret them.  Rogue Space, for good and ill, is meant to be a launch pad for your own game.  I prefer, and play it myself, as military sci-fi ala Starship Troopers or Aliens.  Yet it lends itself to pulp sci-fi or really any other kind of game you'd like to play.  If you look at the work done by fellow bloggers you will see some of the wide range possibilities and hopefully be inspired as well.

With that in mind, I was pointed to a recent look at Rogue Space by Chris Jackson on the A Susurrus In Carcosa blog. It is a very well thought out look at the basics of the game (from the sample) and to me most importantly, it looks at what could be done with the rules.  He suggests many changes, things he likes and doesn't like as well how he would make it all work.  That's all good in my book and as far as I am concerned-mission accomplished.  Things are kept basic for a reason and while Warrior and Rogue may not fit a "sci-fi" genre in some folks mind, they do fit as an archetype descriptor--but could easily be changed to Scoundrel and Military or Astronaut or Gold shirt, Red shirt, Blue shirt or whatever fits your game.  I built the launch pad-but what the ship looks like when you leave is up to you!

As work begins on the first issue of Rogue Transmission I hope between generous contributions from some very talented people and my own work, Rogue Space will continue to expand and explore many different possibilities.

One additional note, Chris Jackson appears to have an older Rogue Space sample he is reviewing.  At one time weapon damage and armor were fixed values, but the rules are now random for both doing damage and armor protection.  See the sample download for specifics.

5 comments:

  1. Interesting review, I might do a little tinkering myself - reading RS about the Pirates and Peril setting made me revive my blog -
    http:// freakdebris.blogspot.com/

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    1. Sean I am glad to see you back and blogging! You will be added in to the link list and if at some point you'd like to contribute something to the Rogue Transmission magazine drop me a line: Fenway5@frontier.com

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  2. Hi, thanks for the linkback. I had previously identified myself on a lot of websites as "Hyperform," since it's been one of my online identities since time immemorial, but recently (I guess because of social media, among other things) I've been going by my real name. I just changed it on the blog to reflect that.

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  3. Noted Chris, and blog entries are changed to eflect the man behind th mask stepping forward...as it were. :)

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