Steam Powered Etherships and Martian Princesses
I've had a copy of the original hardbound printing of the Game Designer Workshop edition of Space: 1889 for a number of years. I got it in collection of other RPG stuff, and for the most part it's just been sitting on the shelf. But I've been getting the itch to play some kind of RPG, and I took the game out and really too a look at it for the first time.
This game was Steampunk back before Steampunk even was a thing. The game draws heavily on ideas of all of the early science fiction masters, but does create it's own distinctive game world in the process. The basic idea of the game world is that during the height of the Victorian Era, Thomas Edison develops (or as it will be in my game world; stole from Nicola Tesla) a kind of propulsion system that makes space travel possible. Exploring the inner solar system, they find the other worlds inhabited and meeting the expectations of early astronomers. Venus is a wet swampy world inhabited by dinosaurs and lizard men, Mars is a dry world home to the noble but slowly dying martian races. For the most part, space travel is limited to the inner solar system. All the ship are steam powered (naturally) and they get heat for steam from solar powered boilers. Beyond the asteroid belt, there is not enough sun to power them, so the gas giants remain a mystery. But with four worlds to explore, there is still lots of possibilities.
I've heard a number of complaints about the game system. I can see it is kind of clunky, but I wonder if half of the problem might simply be the way the information is presented. The rules do seem to be buried in a lot of text, and there is a distinct lack of charts or diagrams to help explain the game. The game's combat system clearly shows it's roots in miniature combat, it's almost as if the game needs to be played with miniatures. It goes into a lot of detail on how a battle is supposed to be played out, maybe more than what is really needed, but I think I can make this work. If nothing else, just writing out the appropriate steps for a combat round in a nice handy bullet pointed chart might improve things quite a bit.
This game was Steampunk back before Steampunk even was a thing. The game draws heavily on ideas of all of the early science fiction masters, but does create it's own distinctive game world in the process. The basic idea of the game world is that during the height of the Victorian Era, Thomas Edison develops (or as it will be in my game world; stole from Nicola Tesla) a kind of propulsion system that makes space travel possible. Exploring the inner solar system, they find the other worlds inhabited and meeting the expectations of early astronomers. Venus is a wet swampy world inhabited by dinosaurs and lizard men, Mars is a dry world home to the noble but slowly dying martian races. For the most part, space travel is limited to the inner solar system. All the ship are steam powered (naturally) and they get heat for steam from solar powered boilers. Beyond the asteroid belt, there is not enough sun to power them, so the gas giants remain a mystery. But with four worlds to explore, there is still lots of possibilities.
I've heard a number of complaints about the game system. I can see it is kind of clunky, but I wonder if half of the problem might simply be the way the information is presented. The rules do seem to be buried in a lot of text, and there is a distinct lack of charts or diagrams to help explain the game. The game's combat system clearly shows it's roots in miniature combat, it's almost as if the game needs to be played with miniatures. It goes into a lot of detail on how a battle is supposed to be played out, maybe more than what is really needed, but I think I can make this work. If nothing else, just writing out the appropriate steps for a combat round in a nice handy bullet pointed chart might improve things quite a bit.