The Wanna Be #10 "Reach for the Stars"

From the pages of Critical Hit, the Wanna Be emerges! I had been posting on the Critical Hit forum this little column for a couple months now. I was a little shocked when Nick asked me to submit the column official-like. But with this episode, number 10, I started on a big project and it seemed like the best place to start as an official-type column. Therefore, I removed this one from the Critical Hit forum and republished it here. I'll have something fresh next time.

Promise.

It's been said that you'll know you're a writer when you wake up in the morning and can think of nothing else to do that day but write.

In this sense, I guess I'm a game designer. I guess I just don't know what else to do with my time.

I like all kinds of games. Board games. Card games. Video Games.

I suppose I'm more an idea man, though, since I mostly come up with the raw concept rather than the finished product. I could do a finished product. I just need to stick with it long enough to, well, finish it.

In light of this I'm going to share a sort of a dream project of mine. I wasn't sure if I wanted to share it because, unlike most of my other projects, I might, big might, but might have a slim possibility of a chance to actually get this one to press.

The game is Starfaring, Second Edition.

A brief bit of history.

Starfaring was first published in 1976. It is widely considered the first science fiction RPG ever published. TSR's Metamorphosis: Alpha actually beat it to the marketplace, but it was a very closed system, being set in a large, derelict spacecraft. Starfaring allowed you to build your own spacecraft and boldly go where no one has gone before.

Actually, to be fair, Starfaring really isn't a role-playing game itself. It's more a...game... It's hard to describe.

Basically, as far as I can tell, each player controls a ship and its crew. Yes, everybody on board. Captain, doctor, security chief, etc. You, as in all of you, fly off on missions to earn money. How much you make depends on what you find.

The production values are very 1976. It looks like mimeographed typewritten pages. The cover is bright pink and spiral bound. Art wise, well, let's just say the artist, Ernest Hogan, has probably done better since. To be fair, they're mostly cartoons but some of them are in questionable taste. Questionable enough that the author put a disclaimer at the beginning of the book stating that "None of the artwork herein is meant to be offensive to any ethnic group, but is merely an attempt to represent more than a white American masculinity in what we hope is an amusing fashion."

In any case, the first printing apparently was snatched up immediately by the fledgling gaming community. A second printing came out later that year, but something terrible happened. A little game called Traveler came out and took over the science fiction gaming market. Starfaring sank without a trace.

Small wonder. The book reads more like a collection of ideas than a cohesive game. What little concrete rules there are, are somewhat wacky. This has to be the only game with the number ten million in the base combat mechanic.

That's right. Ten Million!

Basic combat takes place between space ships with an effective range of 200,000 miles. Ships moving at sublight speeds with weapons moving at the speed of light takes a bit of calculation to fire the weapon not at the target's current position, but where the target WILL BE. To facilitate this, the gunner usually has a psionic talent of precognition to literally see the future, and the enemy's future position.

This all breaks down into a formula of one thousand divided by the mental stat (M) of the crewman linked to the ship's computer plus his Psionic stat (P) times ten thousand the range in miles (R) all divided by the fraction without the decimal of the speed of light at which the ship is moving (S). This all simplifies to 10,000,000/ ((M - P) * R * S). Yes, folks, it is that simple.

The publisher, Flying Buffalo is famous for their Tunnels & Trolls and Mercenaries Spies and Private Eyes RPGs. Actually, they're more famous for their Play by Mail enterprises. At one point in the early 80's, they had planned a new edition of T&T as well as a sci-fi game based on their Starweb PBM game. Unfortunately, they just couldn't get the capitol to do it, so the idea languishes.

Starfaring, in its own right is very, ...inspirational. There are many adventure and world building seeds that I hope to flesh out. In fact, I even came up with a goofy marketing gimmick. While publication is a possibility, this gimmick is unlikely in the extreme so I'll just say it even though it spoils the surprise.

What we'd do is post announcements all over, ads in magazines with only one line. Actually several lines, but they all read the same:

"The Kien are coming."

'Kien' being one of the many races that will appear in the finished product, along with the Sl'sh, the Cxos, The Terrans, the Tetra-Zees. They're all coming. At conventions, we'd hand out t-shirts with vague artwork of the races. Sort of a collage picture for each race, but as if they were lit darkly, from behind. And always the same tag line. The (race) are coming.

Then at Gen Con, we'd finally release the book, and t-shirt showing the full art of the previous t-shirt.

Shades of Alfred Hitchcock. He used that same tag line to hype The Birds.

Oh well. Maybe it would've worked. Maybe it wouldn't have. But there's nothing wrong with a good old-fashioned American teaser.

Non-disclosure makes the heart grow fonder.