"Ever Gamed SF Excursions On A Dinosaur Planet???" Topic

Watching clips like these make me want to mix my love for prehistorics with other SF:

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I guess if we are talking a human landing on an alien planet, they don't have to be dinos at all. They could just be Alien Megafauna all the same.

Ever gamed anything like that? If so, what sort of world, or area of that alien world, did you select? What kind of terrain? What creatures? What figures? What rules?

CC
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Click on Aurelia and then look at the video clip for the Stinger Fans:

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I'm sure that would make any alien planet explorer cause to wonder if the plants are really plants.

CC

Rattrap Productions has rules to allow you to do this. You have to get the Fantastic Worlds core book and the Valley of the Thunder Lizards supplement.

When I used to play Traveler we did some high tech games set on a dino world.

I've wanted to. A 'Jurassic Park' type pleasure world with the dinos living free and getting hunted by the off world rich and stupid. Everything goes horribly wrong of course.
That's what I love about SF. Want zombies? Bio engineered plague. Want dinos? Genetically engineered/recovered DNA. Etc, etc.

Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader has rules for dinosaurs, I've played a few Eldar and/or Space Marines vs Dino games, years ago.

I'll bring the , you just tell me when…

I did a similar thing that Alxbates mentioned. I had an Imperial Guard cargo ship carrying valuable equipment crash-land on a dino planet. Space Marines were sent in to retrieve the cargo. Naturally, the Marines could care less about the Imps, so I gave a chance that the cargo ship could be repaired enough to limp out of danger. It was charged by a wounded Brachiasuarus before repairs could be carried out. Lots of fun!

Alxbates/Artslave,

Sounds like you had some serious fun. You've gotta give us the details!!!

Any battle reports or other bits of wisdom?

CC

Anyone read Peter F hamiltons "Fallen Dragon." Te terrans invade one of their own colonies to "asset strip" and meet resistance from the locals who have bio-enginered themeselves into wild feral beings as well as the local creatures. They literally charge into battle on genetically enginered behemoths and their tactics devastate the powere armoured earth forces. Reminiscent of a passage in Dirtside 2; "If you want your powere armoured troops to ride into battle on genetically engineered dinosaurs…" (the quote may not be exact!)

I did a scenario (pre-Jurassic park even) set in 2300AD. Players were hired to guard a hunting expedition on a dino planet. Of course things went wrong, though it wasn't so much dinos causing the trouble as the enemies of the people going on the hunt trying to kill them off. Of course in the end there was the big fight between a battle walker and some dinosaurs. Plasma guns, missile launchers and autocannons ended up being more effective than teeth and claws.

"pre-Jurassic park even"

Was it like a "Triassic Park" then? :)

CC

Hi

In another thread about mixed genre games, I mentioned a campaign that players worked down in detail from grand strategic space exploration down to individuals landing on a planet.

To make this work, instead of "populating" the universe, Michael Scott Kurtic and I worked up generators for the purposes and just rolled up planets as they were found.

We published those in our "Star Trek" rules that were done with the release of the first trek move and an expanded version with our "Star Patrol" rules which tried to cover every possible SF situation.

It did happen that people landed on planets with empty rock, or slime mold up through every phase.

One player, famously, paniced when he warped into a system and was surprised to see a Klingon cruiser. fired off a torpedo spread in hopes of screaning his leaving (the klingon was BIGGER than his little destroyer), and accidently nuked a planet in the way with a new civilization developing…..iron.

Rocky

"and accidently nuked a planet in the way with a new civilization developing…..iron."

LOL. Well, there goes the prime directive!!!

CC

Anne McCaffrey's The Planet Pirates could be a good source of inspiration too.

From wiki:

The Planet Pirates is based on two books by Anne McCaffrey, Dinosaur Planet and Dinosaur Planet Survivors, which also form the core of The Death of Sleep.

Sassinak (1990-03-01) – Anne McCaffrey & Elizabeth Moon

The Death of Sleep (1990-06-01) – Anne McCaffrey & Jody Lynn Nye

Generation Warriors (1991-02-01) – Anne McCaffrey & Elizabeth Moon

As to details, they are a bit "foggy" now. I blended rules from WH, Saurian Safari, and Darkest Africa as available from Foundry. I set up a mountainous jungle terrain table, with a few open top hills to serve as landing zones for the Marines. The Imps could win by getting the ship repaired and away, or baring that, lugging the valuable cargo to one of the LZ's. Marines could win by blasting their way to the cargo. Dino placement and movement was as is in SS. Dinos on the table wander on a random scatter chart, but carnosaurs move toward the scent of blood if within their move distance.

Totally off topic Cacique, but in reply to your post about "were we scared off the moon?" take a look at this. Particullarly the guy who says he was shown photos by a nasa photo expert. Also read anything by Timothy good.
disclosureproject.org
Appologies for hijacking the thread, we now return you to your normal broadcast….

Here's an oldie, but a goodie:

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CC

Rogue Trader scenario where the imperials crash their shuttle and have to make it back to base and defuse a nuclear demoltion charge they planted. There is no chance in hell they will get out of the blast radius on foot.

Herbivores were sprinkled around the table and would ignore the players unless they came to close. They would stampede if fired upon or a carnivore got to close.

Carnivores were randomly generated for type and start location. They were always aggresive and charged.

I used plastic dinosaurs.

I ran a Travellar game where the players were hired to steal (pleistone era?) endangered animals from a preserve planet. The planet was protected by quarantine and a small detachment from the Imperial Scout service. Their employer provided a stealth ship and funds so the characters could equip themselves. There was a list of species to collect with various price tags attached to each.

I have fond memories of that game night. Large herbivores sedated and no cage to put them in so they let them go. Tree dwelling animal sedated and falls to it's death. A large carnivore sedated in rocky terrain and no way to get the ATV to the location. Players attempt to carry the carnivore out until the drugs wear off… A poisonous aquatic snake in a swamp. The final critter on the list was small and easy to trap but had a location transmitter surgically implanted…

The next mission was escape the prison planet!

"I have fond memories of that game night. Large herbivores sedated and no cage to put them in so they let them go. Tree dwelling animal sedated and falls to it's death. A large carnivore sedated in rocky terrain and no way to get the ATV to the location. Players attempt to carry the carnivore out until the drugs wear off… A poisonous aquatic snake in a swamp. The final critter on the list was small and easy to trap but had a location transmitter surgically implanted…"

That must have been a riot! Wow, wow, wow. What a game.

Found more material for possible ideas:

prehistoricpulp.blogspot.com
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CC

Heck, man, that was like 15 years ago. I don't remember much specific other than using painted cardboard tubes as a pipeline and plastic toy dinosairs as opponents.

"Heck, man, that was like 15 years ago."

LOL

Hi

CC, you have no idea!

The back story was that the sector had a couple of space fairing civilizations who had fought a war millenia in the past. Stealing from Saberhagen one side had invented berserkers to kill their enemy and the other had invented berserker killers.

So, when the kid nuked the re-emerging civilization, the "guardians" out in oort field looked at the Feddy destroyer and decided it was a new berserker with a LOT of "good life" on it. And persued them across half the galaxy.

That player never did get to do other than spaceship combat!

Some of the klingon players assembled a small empire entirely by negotiation on the planets, supplying tech and helping them in police activities….essentially acting like Feddies.

A couple feddies essentially did "you will join the federation or we will….".

The best part of such a campaign is the interesting stuff the players come up with!

Rocky

I played the game before Jurassic Park came out. In fact I was partly inspired by a story in Judge Dredd with a similar dinosaur theme park.

From Discovery Channel:

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CC

Well, maybe 15mm is the route to go for now . . .

. . . and, instead of dinosaurs, I'm seeing Ice Age megafauna on the horizon:

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. . . though I know I'll eventually do it in 28mm.

Regardless of size, I'd still like to do something with explorers and dinos, like this artwork:

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Dan

For so many reasions, I have considered this: "Dinosaur Planet", the 200AD story 'FLESH' on an agricultural planet, and some other ideas . . . not only because megafauna are fun, but you can come up with some interesting variants on worlds with parallel saurians that have different body forms than terrestrials.

And of course so I can call it 'This Land' . . . :D YouTube link

Avatar was pretty close to this:

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Dan

Maybe closer to NGC's Blue Moon:

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Dan

I have been building for a number of scenarios based around dealing with mega-fauna. Hunting, defend the colony/farm, jail-break, etc, etc….

QRF and Irregular make figures in 15mm. Irregular has a set of rules.

I have run a number of RPGs games on this theme over the years. Including a homage to the Isle of Dr. Moreau in the Terraformed Jungles of Venus…. Now that is a game to revisit.

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Magister Militum has Dinos too!

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Dan

Infojunky, I've had some 15mm prehistoric animals made in 15mm -- two sets so far -- and just commissioned a third.

I've also made something inspired by prehistoric tales, a, err, large primate, which should be out in a few weeks. One of the prehistoric sets, wooly rhinos, is already available.