Plan A

When I have tried an ‘ideas gathering’ set of posts in the past what has happened is that because there is no real structure in place there are almost too many options. Once discussions become circular we stop making progress.

Another problem is the transient nature of blogging. Ideas soon drift down the list of articles and away into oblivion.

So to Plan A

I am going to hammer my way through a conversion of White Star to create something that is extremely basic but both reminiscent of Spacemaster and actually playable. This will be the Navigator RPG.

Navigator RPG will be a Pay What You Want game on DriveThruRPG so you can pick it up for free or make a voluntary contribution. It is also a Creative Commons Share Alike product so no company can ever own the intellectual property and restrict its use.

The rules will be extremely modular with the intention of swapping out core rules for optional rules. In fact this swapping out of rules will be essential.

Yesterday, in my free time I wrote the Introduction, The start of the character generation chapter, rolling stats section, stat bonuses and I have just started the Species chapter. I have a pretty heavy schedule for the next 10 days or so but by early May I hope to have Species, Professions and Skills completed.

This may all sound rather egocentric. It is just me, my ideas, my opinions and my game. Why would anyone what to play my idea of a overly simplified Spacemaster?

Because it is easier to criticise something that is already there. I don’t really have to create anything new in doing a conversion from an existing game to a game with Rolemaster principles. We all know the ‘Rolemaster way’ so where there is a mechanic that could be more rolemaster then it is easy to apply that.

In addition, the design philosophy is that every single section of the rules will be replaced. I am providing just three or four races or species. Anyone can create new species, replace the provided species or anything in between. We know races are going to be primarily a collection of stat modifiers and resistance roll modifiers. You could start creating a bunch of new races now because you know what the options are going to be.

Art

There a few other things I have been working on. When I release Navigator RPG, on the same day, I am going to release three other downloads. The first will be a compatibility license.

This isn’t particularly exciting but what it does do is send a signal to the indie RPG developers that Navigator RPG is open for business.

The second is an Art Kit. A selection of art, backgrounds, spaceships, weapons, figures and so on. This is to make it as easy as possible for an independent developer to produce great looking supplements. The Art Kit exists already but it only contains three pieces of art. By the time of its release it should be a few hundred pieces strong.

The final download will be a document template for at least Word and inDesign. This is so that anyone can create a supplement and it will look and feel exactly like an official release.

That may not sound every exciting but the three, the license, art kit and document template are the three requirements to create a Community Content Programme [CCP]. You will have heard a great deal about CCPs on the ICE forums. This game will have all the required criteria to have a CCP.

Here is a curious thing…

This game will be OSR, Old School Revival. When it is listed it will be found on DrivethrRPG under HARP/Spacemaster and OSR/Old School Revival. So? There is only one other OSR community content programme and that is Zweihander. What this means is that most places where the Zwei CCP shows, Navigator RPG will show too. You have to like a bit of standing on the shoulder of giants.

10 Replies to “Plan A”

  1. Are you considering a default setting of sorts like White Star has? (Except without the truly bizarre “sectors” it has – Galaxy Edition’s is even worse!)

    1. Hi,

      Yes but I haven’t really given it much thought yet. It is heavily implied that the White Star setting is synonymous with the Star Wars universe. The Alien Brute is a Wookie and the Void Knights are Sith and the Mystics are Jedi.

      As I build the Art Kit I am hoping it will tell a bit of a story and generate the setting. Scheduled in for some time after the weekend I am supposed to be porting No GMs Sky to my 3Deep system. If you watch the feature video at https://www.nomanssky.com/ you cannot tell me that the fighter aircraft landed on the grass are not Star Wars Y-wings? I think I could easily port No GMs Sky to Navigator RPG as a starting adventure for fans of the video game.

      1. Yes, the Star Wars influence is very clear and it only becomes stronger in the Companion and Galaxy Edition, with the Orbital Battle Station and a setting that is strongly reminiscent of the Empire/Rebellion conflict. Plus player races that are definitely Jawas and Ewoks.

        I have spotted elements influenced by Star Trek – probably the second strongest – Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, Transformers and Marvel Comics as well.

        That video has something that looks suspiciously similar to a Colonial Viper too.

        1. In theory at least the universe should be the Shadow World universe which was also the default SM1 universe.

          Part of the advantage of providing an art kit would be to make it easier for people to create settings for the game.

    1. Pretty much but they will be one table per weapon I think rather then all weapons in a group sharing a table. But nothing is set in stone yet and it will be perfectly normal to swap out my tables for others.

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