I am aware of a number of Powered by the Apocalypse games in the science fiction genre. But, of course, science fiction is a huge genre! I think my playgroup would enjoy trying out a sci-fi game with a Firefly-esque mood and feel—a crew of (more or less lovable) scoundrels flitting between dusty frontier worlds and the encroaching high-tech hegemony. What systems, ideally Powered by the Apocalypse, emulate this subgenre best? I’m especially interested in any stories of actual play people might have to illustrate the possibilities of their preferred system.
Best PbtA Game to Emulate Firefly?
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I only played once, but Scum and Villainy has an explicit space cowboy vibe. It’s Forged in the Dark, so it’s similar though not exactly like the PbtA game engine.
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I think @nylota has nailed it. I mean S&V is pretty much designed to play Firefly. (The “theme song” for S&V is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zJE4mb2Yhw)
The only other thing (not PBTA) that I would recommend is @jtreat3’s Strange Gravity - which could most definitely do what you want.
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Impulse Drive! That’s PbtA.
With its really neat Calamities.
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The playbooks in the first edition of Apocalypse World are basically the characters from Firefly.
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Seconded! Impulse Drive is a great way to play Firefly.
The Tempest is totally River Tam.
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I playex Uncharted Worlds for a while an thought it could accomodate Firefly really well. There’s a Faction mechanic, a barter move and mix-and-match backgrounds to make distinct characters. I’m not crazy about the harm system (tag based) and the rules for ship-to-ship combat are foggy, but overall I had a good time playing it. My group were basically space pirate drug traffickers. There was a drug lab in the ship.
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I’m curious, how do the calamities work in Impulse Drive?
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The best way I can think of to describe it: Impulse Drive has the stress track from Blades in the Dark, but when you fill up the track you don’t get a trauma, you get a calamity, which is an event rather than a trait. Usually an event important enough to alter the character or story, kind of like the marks in Night Witches.
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Second upvote for Jay Treat’s Strange Gravity.
My local group has probably played more of this game than anyone, including Jay. We turned it into a campaign.
Here’s how Strange Gravity works:
- The game is a LARP, with no MC or central facilitator.
- The game plays for 5 to 7 pretty well.
- You play your character, and take on a role related to it. For example: The Captain gives moral lessons, the XO decides who is in what scenes, the Counselor tells us about relationships, etc.
It is very much good at Star Trek: The Next Generation, and could readily do something like Firefly.
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