First, from Mongoose:
Last but by no means least, a new universe will be coming to Traveller. Under our agreement with Amarillo Design Bureau, we were to produce a Star Fleet Universe edition of A Call to Arms and, in return, ADB were to produce a Traveller edition of their Star Fleet Universe game, Prime Directive. This will appear in 2012, and we have requested it cover not just Federation away teams and independent free traders, but bridge crews for, well, all the key empires – here at Mongoose, we can’t wait to jump in with a Klingon bridge crew campaign!
Prime Directive is Original Series Trek split off before any of the movies or Next Generations took place. There's a ton of background for it developed over the last 30+ years with Star Fleet Battles and there have been RPG versions in the original system, d20, and GURPS but I think using Traveller could lead to the best system yet by far. There's a lot going on in the Star Fleet Universe and finally having a decent set of mechanics to play it should be a lot of fun.
Second:
MARGARET WEIS PRODUCTIONS TEAMS UP WITH MARVEL ENTERTAINMENT TO UNLEASH MARVEL HEROES ROLEPLAYING GAMES
August 2011—Margaret Weis Productions, Ltd., a publisher of cutting-edge roleplaying and adventure games, is thrilled to announce MARVEL HEROES, a family of tabletop RPG products under license from Marvel Entertainment, LLC. Beginning with the launch of the BASIC GAME in February 2012, MARVEL HEROES delivers action-packed Super Hero adventure in the Mighty Marvel Manner.
I think this was announced at GenCon but I had forgotten it, then I ran across it while catching up on Vigilance Press podcasts. I have not been a fan of MWP's products thus far - Smallville, Leverage, etc. as they were just not my cup of tea. Their existing system was somewhat similar to Savage Worlds, I know, but I'm guessing it will be tweaked and tweaked hard for Marvel. I don't know that it stands a chance against M&M3/DCA with a lot of people but I'm happy to see it being worked on and I'll give it a look when it comes out. The basic book is supposed to be based on the beginning of New Avengers (the breakout) and then the 3 big releases will cover Civil War, Annihilation, and Age of Apocalypse - sounds pretty solid to me.
So there we go: two solid, interesting products for 2012! Familiar universes, no doubt, but with a different spin that should be worth a look.
I'm all over that TravTrek business.
ReplyDeleteI wish it were actually a Star Trek game and not a Prime Directive/Starfleet Battles game but it is of interest. It doesn't excite me though. That's always been my problem with SFB. It doesn't excite me.
ReplyDeleteThe Marvel RPG is intriguing. Even if I don't go for the system the source material should kick butt.
The big win here IMO is that it's going to have all of the trappings of Original Trek worked out for Traveller, and I doubt it will be too difficult to use it for the non-SFB universe if that's your preference. I think having (presumably) Star Fleet Academy and the rest worked up for character generation, and then having stats for the gear and ships, means that you can do pretty much anything you want as far as running the game without trying to work it out as you go. Lots of potential there.
ReplyDeleteI too am not sure about the mechanics of the Marvel game in this version but I like the way they are approaching the production if nothing else. The stats/attitude/etc for a character will be based on how and who they were for that particular event, not a summary of everything they have ever been, which I think is a pretty good way to approach it. The ecample they gave was that Spiderman in his own series takes on whole teams of villians, but in the new Avengers books he's mostly comic relief, so he would probably be presented differently in two different game books if they each covered those things.
Neither is perhaps a holy grail, but it is nice to have things to look forward to next year.