 December 13, 2015 - 6:42pm | Does anyone have any experience with the Firely or Serenity RPG? It looks like Serenity came first with movie rights and Firefly later with TV rights. I cannot find much on the first, but Firefly has a decent amount of material. I'm mainly curious about the game mechanics and the quality of the adventures. |
 December 13, 2015 - 7:15pm | Yeah, the TV series was screwed-over by the network. Fox not just threw them under a bus, but tried to drop them into a ditch, hoping that no one would see. Basically, moved its schedule around, threw it on a death slot, played the episodes out of order, gave it little advertisement, and concealed the series half way through the run. The TV series happened so quickly, that most people missed it, and those that did were confused. The movie was by a whole other network, and it came out of the blue for most people. The RPG looks OK — its not my kind of system. As a guide book, it is essential! I really like the part that enplanes the science of the series: artificial gravity, propulsion, fusion containment, etc. |
 December 14, 2015 - 12:58am | The first one (the Serenity RPG) is excellent overall, but with a few gaps. It was more limited in how it could treat material from the series, so you have to look sideways and squint to find the series references like "King of the Dungheap" (Badger). It has the advantage of being one of the last MWP games to use conventional statistical-based game mechanics. The Firefly RPG uses one of those "fuzzy logic" rule sets where you try to BS your ref into believing that how much your character loves his girfriend affects his accuracy with his pistol. The "sourcebook" has virtually no story material and is poorly broken up into tiny little pieces each of which is somehow supposed to help you learn a rule or feature of the game. In short, it's a disorganized mess that fails to deliver on it's promises. Stick with the Serenity RPG and it's supplements. MUCH better value for the money. |
 December 14, 2015 - 3:49am | Thanks for the appraisal Chris. I've seen pictures on line of people play with what looked like a well produced deck plan for the ship. If I was interested in just the ship does it matter which one I turn to? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 December 14, 2015 - 1:13pm | I've played the Firefly boardgame awhile back and it seems okay. Mind you, it did take a long time to get going on the first play through. |
December 14, 2015 - 2:54pm | There's a difference between the board-game and the RPG, which is what I thought we were discussing. I can't speak to the board game, not having played it. Jedion, from what I can remember, if you want floorplansand such, go with Serenity. |
December 14, 2015 - 4:24pm | Does Serenity have plenty of material? It seemed that I could find numerous moduals and a couple of expansions for Firefly. And if not, how difficult do you suppose it would be to use firely material with serenity's system? My oldest two kids are apparently dedicated brown coats. Which is fine with me because I couldn't bond with them during their Dr. Who phase. (no offense to the fans of the Dr. here). I want to play over Christmas break, but I am not looking forward to working hard at it. |
December 14, 2015 - 4:52pm | Honestly, I don't know what to tell you. I haven't kept up with the 2nd version of the RPG. I slogged my way through maybe half the book, skimmed the rest, then wrote it off as a bad idea and got rid of the book. And my biases are my biases. If you're fine with a "fuzzy logic" ruleset, you may well enjoy the FF version of the game. I personally don't like that type of game. And I found the book to be confusingly laid out and fragmented. That was my response to it. As GM, you're going to have to put some "sweat equity" into either version. If this is a pickup game just for over break and you already have FF, go for it. The point is to enjoy the time w/your family after all. |
December 14, 2015 - 5:23pm | There's a difference between the board-game and the RPG, which is what I thought we were discussing. I can't speak to the board game, not having played it. Fair enough - just thought I'd mention it. |
 December 17, 2015 - 3:39pm | Serenity had for it: a core rulebook, Big Damn Heroes Handbook (rules expansion), Referee's Screen (which had the cool ship map for a Firefly), Serenity Adventures (five of them), and Six-shooters & Spaceships (a gear book). The late, great, Cortex or Waves in the Black forums had lots of cool ideas, spaceships, and a good dozen or so adventures (labelled from "Ming Zhou Productions"). This guy has most of the latter. http://www.peracles-rpg.com/firefly.htm I have all of the stuff I could find off the web, as well as all of the above products. I've run two year-long (real-time) campaigns, and they were great. I continue to have ideas for another campaign or two, to run someday. Some of the characters that the players created remain among my favorites. P.S. I love the boardgame, too, and have several of its supplements. |
December 17, 2015 - 3:40pm | I've only read the Gencon preview of the Firefly RPG. I can't speak to the quality or usefulness of any other material for it. Maybe Santa will be good for me, and some of those books will appear under my tree this year. "The Firefly RPG uses one of those "fuzzy logic" rule sets where you try to BS your ref into believing that how much your character loves his girfriend affects his accuracy with his pistol. " It seemed to me more like you use the "I love my girlfriend" asset to win a fistfight in one roll. It's more "cinematic" in that fights and encounters can be wrapped up in one pass, rather than the typical "5 minutes of combat takes an hour to resolve" of RPGs we all know & love. I can see how that's useful in creating a combat-light game, I'm not convinced it's for me or my players. |
