Roleplaying in the Firefly/Serenity universe
About ten years ago a friend of mine loaned me his dvd set of the Firefly television series. I loved it! He and I and several other friends had been playing role playing games together since high school. I immediately realized that this would make a great setting for a role playing game. I wasn't aware at the time that there was already an official Serenity rpg, so we went with Gurps as the system. Once we got started, I discovered the official one, but it was too much trouble to switch. I did go ahead and use Margaret Weiss's system for space combat, but otherwise, it was purely what I had cobbled together in Gurps. I was working evening shift at that time, and I often had lots of time between putting out figurative fires at my work. Since I had all that time, I wrote up synopses of each gaming session. Here it is ten years later, and I mentioned these notes to one of the friends that had played. He said he'd love to play some more of that. A month or so ago, I started again, picking up right where we left off. I figure other folks playing Serenity might enjoy the synopses. Maybe you can get some ideas for your own games from them.
I used anything I could find on the internet as grist for my mill. Granger's Garden, for example. I don't remember where I found it, or who wrote it. If it's you, let me know, I'd like to give you full credit.
(Update: Apparently Lynn LeFey designed the station, I'm pretty sure she also wrote the setting)
Also the Swift Ox and Mantis class ships. The website I got those from is long gone. Luckily I had saved the files from the site before it disappeared. I had to work out the ship stats for the Mantis for myself, so any errors in that are my own fault.
I enjoyed having the Serenity and her crew show up, as well as the crew of the Bellflower from the excellent fan videos on YouTube. Of course, all trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Thanks to Jim Meggenhofen and his Big Damn Gaming Page (Link in the column on the left) for giving me permission to steal shamelessly, such as the Britannia from his "Lost Sheep" campaign. The character of Naomi Hale appearing in season two (and three) was created by Raleigh Love. Also, I went back and edited the original synopses to align with cannon that has come along in the last 10 years (primarily The Verse in Numbers and the comics).Well, we've just wrapped up season two. Looks like it won't be another ten years before season three. Some of my players have expressed an interest in continuing.
Update: Season Three has begun.
Further Update: Season Three has drawn to a close. It's longer than One or Two. It was fun, but I'm tired. I'm not sure when we'll continue.
Well, I've got the bug again. Setting up for a new session. We're going with all new characters, and set earlier, The Thunderchilde was set in late 2518, right after the movie. This one will be set in early to mid 2516, just before the series (right about the time Jayne joined the Serenity according to the Firefly Wiki). Since we're starting over, we're going to use the actual Serenity system instead of GURPS. Looking forward to it.
We've started. Calling it the Prequel until and unless a better name comes along.
Prequel is on hold due to complications of Covid.
We're back to gaming in person, but currently we're doing 3rd edition D&D. When the players are ready we'll return to the 'Verse.
Still not sure when it will happen. In the meantime I've started adding info to the Cyberpunk RPG wiki site: Cyberpunk RPG
Questions? Comments?
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Kevin Flanagan