HUMAN Space, ala Aliens Unlimited...

[MADMANMIKE]

..So good gamer and I are setting about starting a new setting, inspired by the television show Firefly. Humans only, no supers, no psychics, no magic, maybe an occassional minor genetic engineering. Colonies and the galactic government, and the traders/smugglers/spacers in between.

..Also inspired by the old Cyberpunk game, we intend to do a myriad array of background tables to build the characters, rather than having classes for the players to choose from.

..The skill list will be slimmed down, and include some from Rifts, such as the cowboy category, and characters will not be restricted in learning new skills as long as their background or current situation can account for it.

..Experience will be doled out as per my minion creation rules (see my sig), with 100 EP's equally 5 creation points useful for increasing a skill or learning a new one.

..And the Ship building rules from Aliens Unlimited Galaxy Guide will be trimmed here and expanded there to accomodate the travel system, with a set cap on engine types, and a drastic reduction in the availability of weaponry. The environs of space are hostile enough without every crazy spacer sporting several dozen laser cannons.

..Personal armor will be limited at best, uncommon and inconvenient, and personal weaponry will be largely western in style, with minor modifications for the space age (such as oxygen containment systems to allow fire in space).

..Anybody else do this or something similar? I can't wait to get the chance to work on it...

-Mike >8]

[Tinker Dragoon]

That's basically correct. You can post all you want about some material purely as a source of inspiration, you just can't post any actual conversions of that material to game statistics.

[MADMANMIKE]

..My fertile imagination is always plowed under by the fact that everything has been done before... I try not to draw on other sources like you mentioned, but I always find the parallels when I try to run with an idea.

..The trick is to deliberately try to make it different from your inspiration, at first symantically, but later further away from the source, so as to make it your own.

-Mike >8]

[MADMANMIKE]

...the one main difference is that weapons/explosives can be a whole hell of a lot deadlier in GURPS Traveller.

..That's my intention here as well. We will utilize every critical damage table available to add more realism.

-Mike >8]

[MADMANMIKE]

..Hammer's Slammers, With the Lightning and Lt Leary, Commanding by David Drake. Good sci-fi setting, more character driven than setting driven.

..The Foundation series couldn't have been more boring from the start. Don't get me wring, my dad tried to get me into it and had some great exerpts to suck me in, but I just couldn't get past the first 10 to 20 pages. Bleh.

-Mike >8]

[MADMANMIKE]

..Okay, what we've got so far, a D20 chart for determining your background, be it slave, indentured servant, scavanger, canibal(pirate), CCP Government, etc, and then we've started subtables for each of those. Your subtables will give you some basic skills and attribute bonuses; by the time you get to selecting your actual profession you'll only need OCC skills and a very few other skills.

-Mike >8]