Saga Games has just published Sci-Fi!, a Swedish space opera role-playing game by Tomas Arfert (rules) and myself (two campaign universes).
By chance, I have found a web page with plenty of artwork appropriate for the game’s New Era cosmos, which takes place in a galactic arm with plenty of wonders for humans to discover. Check it out here (mainly the webpage’s right column of pictures):
Here is an example. (Click of the picture for a larger version.)
Summary in English: News about the Swedish gaming magazine Fenix #75.
Alltsedan speltidningen Fenix körde igång har jag varit en av dess energiska supporters i form av massor av artiklar och några recensioner. Nu vill Tove & Anders göra ett crowdfundad extratjockt specialnummer. Jag har lovat att bidra med två artiklar till det nya rollspelet Sci-Fi!, nämligen regler för psioniska krafter och djungelplaneten Kythera.
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I used to write plenty of role-playing games, but for various reasons there has been a hiatus of several years. But in 2014 I wrote the gritty space-opera RPG Sci-Fi! in Swedish and now Saga Games has published it. I got my writer’s copies from Tomas Arfert earlier today.
Sci-Fi! uses the old-school rules engine that Tomas created for his Fantasy! RPG. Two campaign settings are provided:
1. The New Era, the primary setting, is based on 1960s space opera, such as the Jeff Hawke comic and Edmond Hamilton’s Star Wolf novels, but adapted to modern tastes in the spirit of Elizabeth Moon’s novels about interstellar trader Ky Vatta and the Firefly TV series. Space is vast, the interstellar alien Empire has recently collapsed, and several minor races, among them Homo Sapiens, now compete to survive in this New Era.
2. Red Sand is a pastiche of pulpish 1930s Mars adventures. Intrepid human adventurers explore a Mars-as-it-ought-to-be: an ancient planet with deserts, ruins, mysteries, and many alien races. There is a strong touch of Indiana Jones and Eric John Stark to this setting.
This diesel-style cockpit is a piece of concept art from the science fiction movie Iron Sky. It is also appropriate for the retro-pulp cosmos I have written for the brand new Swedish RPG Sci-Fi!, for instance in the spaceship Athena that transports the adventurers to an old-school Mars. (Click on the picture to get a larger version.)
Summary in English: Some plans for new material for the Swedish space opera RPG Sci-Fi!
I mitt förra inlägg skrev jag om mina planer för artiklar om rollspelet Sci-Fi! i speltidningen Fenix. Jag efterlyste förslag på spännande världar. I spelet har jag bland annat skildrat det Mars som förekom i gammal science fiction: kyla, öknar, stadsstater, fallna högkulturer, monster. Och jotack, jag fick raskt uppmuntrande feedback som satte mina tankar i rörelse.
Det faller sig naturligt att blicka mot Venus såsom hon brukade skildras i pulp-SF med djungler, träsk, monster, amfibiebarbarer, osv (t.ex. i Heinleins ungdomsroman Rymdkadetten som jag läste som barn 1967). Jag avser alltså att skriva en Fenix-artikel om planeten Kythera,* utformad på sådant sätt att världen kan användas som ett fantastiskt Venus i vårt solsystem (dvs för kampanjer i Sci-Fi!s pulpkosmos) eller som en outforskad planet cirklande runt en fjärran stjärna (dvs för kampanjer i Sci-Fi!s FM-kosmos).
Nedanstående bild av illustratören Luděk Pešek visar hur jag föreställer mig Kytheras vildmark.
*Namnet Kythera härstammar från ett grekiskt tillnamn på gudinnan Afrodite/Venus. Under 1800-talet använde europeiska astronomer gärna adjektivet cytherean i betydelsen “venusiansk”.
Summary in English: This post deals with new material for the Swedish RPG Sci-Fi!
Saga Games har meddelat att rollspelet Sci-Fi! kommer ut i handeln under december. Tove Gillbring, chefredaktör för Fenix, har redan frågat mig om artiklar till spelet för kommande nummer av tidningen. Jättekul att hon är ute i så god tid.
Jag planerar att skriva en artikel om psioniska krafter — en stapelvara inom space opera — och en som skildrar en äventyrlig värld. I själva spelet beskriver jag två världar, den torra och kärva planeten Khuda och ett pulpigt retro-Mars, och jag funderar nu på vad som vore kul att ta itu med härnäst. Så här ger jag alla Sveriges gamers en möjlighet att ge mig råd: vilken slags spaceopera-planet skulle du vilja läsa om i Fenix?
The Gramophone Playstation by Vladimir Kufeld. Click on the picture for a larger version.
On November 9, 1989 Europe changed by the opening of the Berlin wall. There the Cold War ended with a fizzle. We who were there, who watched the events unfold, rejoiced at the fall of Moscow’s despotism.
This Japanese Star Wars trailer adds some news angles. Looks great.
James Stockdale, an American navy pilot who spent several years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, has written a book about how to face a severe experience with a constructive mind-set and turn it into something that will be a defining event in your life. You must endure it with the conviction that you will eventually come out of it, but also that there are no shortcuts that will make it easier. Each day must have one focus: to make you do what you need to survive with dignity and self-respect even when hope is faint. Yes, the ordeal may put your life at risk, but do not make it rule you or transform you into a lesser person. Afterwards, draw whatever positive conclusions you can for your future – let the experience teach you what is important and what is not.
I have no regrets about my working in Kabul seven years ago, even though the sojourn caused some mental scars that will never go away fully. Those six months in a warzone taught me that the material goods so cherished in my home country turn trivial when my mind harbours vivid memories of ragged children searching for food in a garbage dump and of the thunderclaps from nearby car bombs.
Instead, what has become precious is stretching out a hand to somebody in need and seeing how she thereby gains the power to take herself out of a quandary. What you give will come back to you – perhaps one should call it “the Law of the Echo”?
So when my days come to an end, I wish to leave the world knowing that I have planted good seeds in the fields, grain that will nourish those that come after me. All things said and done, people are what matters – all else is dust.
The Dream Forge 