"Interest in a loot-driven, random "crawl" scifi game?" Topic

I guess you could summarize this as "Destiny as a mini's game".

You have a hero and possibly a few henchmen, randomly generate enemy encounters in various areas (open or dungeon), fight them and get loot.

Loot would be new weapons and gear but heavily randomized, so it'd be very unique. Both in weapon stats and in unique perks.

Some character progression but probably fairly limited.

Small number of characters versus mobs of enemies with occasional boss monsters.

Very well suited to solo play or a few players on the same side, each running their own heavily armed hero, which carries over from game to game.

Obviously a lot of random tables and whatnot going on. Probably fit in pretty much any miniatures you already got.
Monsters would draw from the archetypes I used in No Stars in Sight/Clash on the Fringe.

Rules engine? Something fairly straight-forward (since the focus is on the loot, not clever mechanics). A variation off Clash on the Fringe?

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Is this something that you'd interested in?

Yes it is something that is of interest to me.

Didn't SPI do a "board"" game like this back in the '70's for Ares magazine? IIRC, the board was built up randomly from counters drawn from a pool.

I'm sure there's something out there along the same lines.

Essentially what I want is a character-driven game that you can play over and over, with D&D style loot tables (but scifi) and heavy, random elements.

I would certainly buy this. I volunteer to help make it, too! It sounds loads of fun!

I had hoped that the Doom boardgame was going to be like that. I'd certainly be interested in it.

I'd probably aim at regular tables as the default but of course, it could use floor tiles too.
Probably better to not require floor tiles though, I'm thinking.

Okay, watch this space.. I'll try to get some ideas on paper.

edit; Keep leaving comments etc. :-)

That may be the only way I can interest some players in a SF game.

Nice. I think there could be different types of missions you can do:

Some might just be patrolling the wasteland for goodies, and you might take on different missions for specific rewards.

I think all this could be done with Numenaria.

There's a PC game like that on Steam.

starcrawlers.com

Might serve as good brain candy.

I played a convention game once that was similar to this. It was a home brew set of rules that was one of the most convoluted and incomprehensible sets that Ive encountered. It ended up being one of the worst games I ever played. Their premise however was solid and interesting.

Each player had a band of characters and a vehicle whose purpose was to scavenge whatever they could find and escape with their lives. Each loot item had a point cost. The most prized loot of all was the sacred SPAM. Whomever found the sacred SPAM was almost guaranteed to win.

Of course it wasnt so simple an affair. There were wandering encounters as well as the other scavenger bands to contend with.

It would have been alot of fun with more of a beer and pretzels style rule set.

I still see the guys that put on that game at a local con and I cringe every time I see them.

I'm in! Anything that one could do to make it like a campaign game as well?

War Monkey – Definitely intended as a campaign, where you'd keep the loot, maybe have some upgrades to acquire and so forth.

wtb godly exoplate of the starwhale 20 soj

This sounds neat, especially if it has a bit of the old Diablo (1) feel for loot, but hopefully lighter and less clunky.

Ebbles Gun crawl with Rogue Trader weapons tables Work nice if you have a search roll for large rooms.
This Idea sounds really cool as the closet to this is the Gears of war boardgame and it is very hard to get hold of.
The space cadets away missions game is very good but I have only got the one mission in so far.

I don't think this game is completely random, but it is in essence a squad-level sci-fi dungeon crawl:

link

I have Level 7: Escape, which is more survival horror, but great fun:

link

Cheers,
Wilf

Why no character development..? seems teh perfect environment to do just that. Nothing crazy detailed but something other than just weapon stats and buffs would really invest players in their little dudes.

The way I envision it, there'll be some, but fairly small scale, mostly to keep the heroes from getting too out of hand.

Probably the way to do it would be to double the XPs needed to get the next skill in a category, e.g. to get +1 shooting costs 25 XPs, then you'd need another 50 XPs to get +2 shooting (and keep on doubling for each +1, etc.) Picking up low level skills would be rapid, while to reach very high levels would be the equivalent of a lifetime of experience (or to be a specialist in some area.)
And if you want to brake advancement further, just have a low XP reward rate per game… ;-)

a. Time limited crawl. this could be such things as "find it and get out before the ship blows up" or "find it before The Les Horanyas find it", or" find the oxygen storage before yours runs out."

Ah! Sounds like "Sucking Vacuum"!

link

I have a sculptor working on miniatures for almost exactly this style of game.

Yes, but you mentioning Destiny killed it for me :D

I thought about doing a game based on the Borderlands games, specifically the random weapon feature.

Sounds a lot like a sci-fi version of Frostgrave.

A friend and I invented a D&D-style game like you are postulating way back in 1978 (inspired by the release of "Star Wars"). We called it "Space Raiders" and played it for a while. It worked very well, as I recall.

I like the whole idea, you would think that with a whole ship or colony, there would be lots of goodies to be had, now getting them and keeping them is another story

Zombiecide uses the idea of loot-driven team, although, using zombies as the bad guys so they can't open doors but have great hearing so they come along and try to swarm you…

You might try combining Steve Jacksons "FRAG" and Fantasy Flight Games "DOOM" to get a good mash up or the ideas you like.

Sounds like Mutants and Death Ray Guns – Song of ….

Yes please.

Funnily enough this is something I've been thinking about recently partly because I got Destiny at Christmas and rushed through it.
Partly because all I play wargaming wise at the moment is Infinity and have been looking into the YAMS mission system and 20×20 systems both are random.
I am also playing quite a bit of frostgrave.

Holy thread resurrection :-)

The idea is still on the burner, though as a one man operation, efforts are spread pretty thin.

It's a great idea, Weasel, especially if the rules play simply but allow for detailed development when required. I am rally looking for something just like this; a fast-playing space between rpgs and wargaming.
Some character development along the lines you mentioned is a must for me and my players.

Any idea yet on how open or specific the game world will be, and how this might be reflected in the rules? Because at a fundamental level there is, I think, a difference in the way a space opera game should play from a hard sci-fi 'realistic' one – not just in tech or quasi-magical powers, but in the possibility for epic, heroic actions and the like.

I'd be happy with anything that allows for fairly heroic, pulp-ish sci-fi games, with a selection of weapons, powers, etc, suitable for everything from rogue trader and retro-raygun to star wars an aliens-type play.

Anyway, good luck an keep us informed!

There's a scenario in Mayfair's "Hammers Slammers" boardgame like this; A ship crashes in hostile terrain during a lull in fighting, and scatters valuable containers of Geri-spice, a life-extending pharmaceutical around the are. The factions of mercenaries on the planet decide to 'recover' the containers for various employers and hilarity ensues.