 June 21, 2018 - 3:35pm | For me these only appeared in Dragon magazines never in the bookstores of the town i spent my junior high to high school years and my Senior year of high school in Britian i was lucky to find 1 other kid at my high school who played D&D and Car Wars and forget ever seeing a Dragon mag because i lived in the tiniest village in the English countryside. Owning Star Frontiers i wasnt really interested in Traveller but the ads for Twilight 2000 always intrigued me. Perhaps in part because i grew up on a SAC air force base where they would never confirm nor deny the presense of nuclear bombs although it was openly known that our FB 111s were tasked with flying to Russia if war broke out and landing in Turkey. Also Paranoia looked interesting. And Toon. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 July 6, 2018 - 7:07pm | about 4 years ago, I ran an RPG of mercenary fighter pilots in the Russian Civil War, 1918. I used Wings of War for the flying (and minis) and Savage Worlds for everything on the ground. I'm curious about this any advice on doing something like this? Hmmm. Here's what sticks in my mind most about that game. - Have the players try out the flying rules before starting. We tried the WW1 variant of In Harm's Way (?- can't remember the title), and I found that unworkable. We tried Wings of War, and it seemed to work at first, but a few of my group grew frustrated with it-- they never got the knack of lining up to drop bombs. As I said, I wished I'd still had Dawn Patrol around, maybe that would have worked? We ended up using the Savage Worlds chase rules at the end. - One of my failings regarded overestimating my players' reaction to a sandbox-- they didn't do anything proactive for making their own missions or interacting with the civilians at their airfield or the Zeppelin crew I'd set up as their rivals. - I wish I'd had the game Night Witches on hand, it's set in a WW2 night-bomber squadron (Soviet, all-women). Very interesting, in that half of the scenes are in Day- gather equipment or information or build friendships with other crew or NPCs, and then half are at Night- flying the missions and daring death. - I did have a crew of interesting personalities once they'd generated characters, some a little over the top and cartoony. - For all that I tried to avoid mixing supernatural things into my historical game, I still wanted to end the game with them flying their canvas & wood planes against a flying dragon. I turned the game over to one of the players for that. Advice, assuming we're talking about a fighter-pilot game: have things inside and out the cockpit to do. Not every game should be nothing but a dogfight. Find a setting that allows a small group of pilots to make a difference-- there's some reason the warring parties won't flood the sky with planes-- political, financial, technical How's that so far? |
July 8, 2018 - 1:10am | about 4 years ago, I ran an RPG of mercenary fighter pilots in the Russian Civil War, 1918. I used Wings of War for the flying (and minis) and Savage Worlds for everything on the ground. I'm curious about this any advice on doing something like this? Hmmm. Here's what sticks in my mind most about that game. - Have the players try out the flying rules before starting. We tried the WW1 variant of In Harm's Way (?- can't remember the title), and I found that unworkable. We tried Wings of War, and it seemed to work at first, but a few of my group grew frustrated with it-- they never got the knack of lining up to drop bombs. As I said, I wished I'd still had Dawn Patrol around, maybe that would have worked? We ended up using the Savage Worlds chase rules at the end. - One of my failings regarded overestimating my players' reaction to a sandbox-- they didn't do anything proactive for making their own missions or interacting with the civilians at their airfield or the Zeppelin crew I'd set up as their rivals. - I wish I'd had the game Night Witches on hand, it's set in a WW2 night-bomber squadron (Soviet, all-women). Very interesting, in that half of the scenes are in Day- gather equipment or information or build friendships with other crew or NPCs, and then half are at Night- flying the missions and daring death. - I did have a crew of interesting personalities once they'd generated characters, some a little over the top and cartoony. - For all that I tried to avoid mixing supernatural things into my historical game, I still wanted to end the game with them flying their canvas & wood planes against a flying dragon. I turned the game over to one of the players for that. Advice, assuming we're talking about a fighter-pilot game: have things inside and out the cockpit to do. Not every game should be nothing but a dogfight. Find a setting that allows a small group of pilots to make a difference-- there's some reason the warring parties won't flood the sky with planes-- political, financial, technical How's that so far? sounds advice, not anticipating my players to sand box well. Will need a Colonel figure to direct action and push story in right direction. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 August 9, 2018 - 10:56pm | My most recent "I wish I could play that!" was Final Impact by Darkshadow Games, but I recently obtained a copy of the rules and I must say, even though the gameplay is a bit hazy, the game itself is relatively sound and entertaining. I don't know where you're going, but do you have room for one more troubled soul? -Patrick Stump, Alone Together |
