RPGs Day Eight

[james_davis_nicoll]

Stealing from Aaron de Orive, my first ten tabletop RPGs in ten days, in the order in which I encountered them. Number eight is FGU's Space Opera, an ambitious science fiction RPG. Upside: tons of support material. Downsides: convoluted game mechanics, bold organizational choices, counter-intuitive editing, and maybe a smidgen of not enough play-testing. Which is to say, it was an FGU game.

The two things I remember about it was our min/maxer getting frustrated over seeming skill prereq contraditions, and that time someone fired a fusion pistol in an enclosed space, unaware that fusion pistols set everything in the vicinity of the target on fire, or that "Fusion weapons produce hard radiation (Rad Level) at the surface of the target hit by the main bolt, but not the splatter." It was a bit like using fireball as a melee weapon in D&D.

Comments

[kedamono]

It's right up there with the PGMP and the FGMP from Traveller. To do damage comparable to an equivalent normal weapon, both would have to be man portable rocket motors. Considering that you have to be wearing battledress to use either of these says something. Of course, when you run the numbers, both are useless in an atmosphere, as the ambient air pressure would cause them to bloom into a big ol' fireball when in use. (The only real benefit of the FGMP is that it has more energetic alpha particles thanks to fusion...)

[roseembolism]

I remember the weekend warriors back in Santa Barbara switched en masse to Space Opera when it came out, partially because of more competent characters, and partially because it had properly Heinleinesque Powered Armor, and not the lackluster excuse that was Traveller's Battle Dress.