Sci-Fi Concept Cards – In Use (The Sage of Hyblos IV)

Today we printed up and set out a whole load of concept cards, having set up some transitional suit symbols for them (they’re not final, but they’ll work for now).

And we decided to start trying for our Kickstarter Video, going with the approach that has served us best: sitting in front of the camera for ages playing with the cards, and cutting together something cool from that.

We did get something cool, but it’s a lot longer than we can use for the final video – so we decided to share it now!

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Sci-Fi Concept Cards: Space is Big! [On helping the sci-fi GM]

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“Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.”

Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

No, really, space IS big. Most fantasy games cover a kingdom, or even a whole world. Scifi adventures cover whole galaxies – maybe even the Universe. Throw in time travel as well, and that’s a lot to fill. Ever wonder why there’s a maximum of half a dozen locations on any given planet?  

Because no author, filmmaker or designer can actually portray space as big as it is, and still have something we can relate to. So you get ‘this week’s planet is a jungle’ “this civilisation is Ancient Greece, but IIIIN SPAACE!”

As GMs, we have to walk a tightrope between not enough detail and too much. We have to include enough from the canon to make it the setting we chose to play in, while writing enough new to make the story our own.

Think for a minute about Star Wars. The middle unstated bit of the original trilogy – after Yavin, before Hoth. Vader hunts down the Resistance because they are a problem. So there are stories to be told elsewhere about other groups of intrepid resistance fighters getting up the Empire’s nose, enough that the Rebellion as a whole is more than just Luke, Leia, Wedge and a handful of extras. But because we’re playing Star Wars, we probably need to visit Tatooine and Hoth and Bespin and Coruscant – otherwise we could be anywhere (The problem of who gets to be the Jedi is a different argument, which I am not getting involved with) But we also need new places, not specified in the book. Places that aren’t in the films, because we were there – and if my personal experience of playing Star Wars is in any way indicative, probably blew up / made uninhabitable / sent to the Dark Side / set up franchises on  – whichever seemed most destructive.at the time.

In order to tell fun stories, the GM needs a whole pile of people to meet, shoot at, betray, fall in love with, and rescue. Planets we can freely visit, come from or devastate. Locations to rob, blow up, control or maybe even just occasionally walk away from. (does anyone spot a theme to my scifi games?) So, we here at Artemis are writing a whole bunch of concepts for you to wrangle into your games.

Unlike the fantasy cards, every card is likely going to need tweaking to fit the setting you play in. Take Lt. Commander Martinn Jarvi. He’s an Imperial Officer, young for his rank,  who believes in absolute galactic order, knows all the right people to get ahead, and has a remarkably quiet voice. He’s even prepared to sacrifice lives for the greater good.

A card of generation alpha-0.2 – come back soon for a more polished version.

In Star Wars, depending on when you play, he might be a Republic official, a Death Star officer, or a New Order officer. Other than that he can be pretty much dropped in as is.

For Star Trek, he almost certainly works for the Federation, but the liberal attitudes of that organisation don’t really fit him. Make him a Vulcan, however, and the desire for order and logic becomes much more explicable.

In Warhammer 40k, he could be an officer in the Imperial Navy, but he makes a much better impact as a Space Marine, stamping out heresy and rebellion. He’s a good fit for an Ultramarine, but he has to be demoted to Sergeant to fit the much smaller deployment model the Marines have. The quiet voice becomes firmer, and his physical description becomes more about his transhuman anatomy than “probably blond hair and blue eyes” He could also be an Inquisitor, where his stamping on everyone ‘just to make sure’ makes him a suitably fanatical antagonist.

Likewise other settings will need him to morph to reasonably exist. Some internal locations make more sense on planets than on space stations, or vice versa  – perhaps the mine is on a nearby asteroid, and the ore is processed on the space station? We’re trying to make as few as possible that couldn’t exist on DS 9 or Babylon 5 – you might never have seen the Water Processing Plant, but logically there probably is one. And your contact wants to meet there – why?

Stories work because we, the protagonists, go to interesting places and meet fascinating people. And not always kill them. Unless they wear black hats. Morality in gaming? That’s a whole ‘nother question for a whole ‘nother day.

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Third Thursday Freebie: The Druidic Paths

This piece is one drawn from our currently active 13th Age campaign – a solution to a common problem “How do we allow people to get to distant places quickly, without removing the potential of travel-related plots”

Of interest to some might be its original inspiration – a different take in some ways, while similar in others, and serving similar purposes for the play of its game – the Trods of the Empire LARP

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Sci-Fi Concept Cards: Suit Symbols

Three of the interim suit symbols for sci-fi concept cards – destined to be replaced.

In the Concept Cards line we treat the connection between card and concept quite seriously, using it both as a design tool and a way to standardise the structure of the concepts. Every card is defined by its primary suit – and each suit has a specific meaning in any given deck.

Over the course of the 11 decks of fantasy Concept Cards the meanings of the suits varied significantly, with each suit having at least two meanings (and most having three) – so when we came to start writing the Sci-Fi Concept Cards we decided to take a step back and think about what we were going to do with the suits.

We knew we were only doing a limited set of decks for Sci-Fi, whether 3 or 4, so we could plan ahead and get them all consistent – or so we thought.

It turns out that there was a very strong reason we weren’t consistent before – different concepts have different needs. There were some inconsistencies that could be solved by planning ahead, but others can’t be.

In the end we made only one major step towards consistency: in the original (fantasy) Character Cards decks Spades was the characters profession while Diamonds was their appearance – but in the Location Cards and Plot Hooks decks Spades was physical characteristics and Diamonds was wealth – so in Sci-Fi Character Cards we’ve made Diamonds the suit of their work, how they earn their wealth, and Spades the suit of appearances.

The suit meanings as they’re currently set out are:

Clubs: Connections/Politics for Characters and Planets, Dangers for Locations.
Diamonds: Wealth, resources or profession
Hearts: Desires/behaviours for Characters, Inhabitants for Planets and Locations 1)Listing the inhabitants of each character would be quite samey – E. Coli and other digestive bacteria every time.
Spades: Physical Traits

Of course, meanings aren’t the only complication when it comes to designing suit symbols. As you saw at the top, we have a set of interim images – but they’re far from the final version. For fantasy Concept Cards we had the amazing Marcos Hidalgo drawing the suit symbols, but this time around we’re looking for talent that we can afford to properly pay – people who either want to join the team, or who do such drawings as a job – rather than relying on finding another enthusiastic and artistic fan who’s just happy to be paid in decks!

My art skills (as displayed above) are massively better than they were, but they’re still not up to the standards we want for our work. By this time next month we should have better ones to show you!

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References   [ + ]

1. Listing the inhabitants of each character would be quite samey – E. Coli and other digestive bacteria every time.

Sci-Fi Concept Cards: What do we Mean by Sci-Fi?

In space, no-one can hear you complain about the colour palette

 

As you hopefully know by now, our next major project is another set of Concept Cards, this time Sci Fi Concept Cards. (If you don’t know what Concept Cards are, take a look at the fantasy ones here.)

Science fiction is a huge genre – it encompasses everything set five minutes or more into the future, and some thing that are set in the past too – especially when you include time travel. We couldn’t possibly hope to cover all possibilities in one deck – characters would range from the Victorian dandy making strange steam powered inventions in his basement, via cyberpunk corporate salarymen, to star ship captains. While there is no doubt scope for some variants of those in each other’s sub-genres (the steampunk airship needs a captain), there are enough differences that we don’t think it would be helpful. In future perhaps these will get their own decks – but not right now. (n.b. In the Fantasy Epic Locations deck there is already one sci fi reference – the Urban Emperor, The Last of the Ancients, is a man in stasis wearing a bathrobe, and references both Red Dwarf and the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy)

What we mean here, then, is the kind of sci fi that involves starships and blasters. From Star Wars to Star Trek, to Firefly, to Warhammer 40,000 and even Eclipse Phase and The Foundation Trilogy.1)Ste Note: I’m drawing a bit from Schlock Mercenary too

These settings feature relatively ubiquitous space travel, some form of interstellar travel, aliens, blasters and/or laser weaponry, huge threats larger than a person, a city, or even a planet, and so forth. There are exceptions, of course – The Foundation Trilogy only features humans, Firefly takes place entirely in one solar system, In Eclipse Phase interstellar travel is limited to Pandora Gates, and Stargate has present day humans exposed to a far more advanced setting.

How interstellar travel works is something which can help define a setting – for instance in 40k the Warp is incredible dangerous, while in Star Trek, travelling at Warp Speed is rarely a problem (barring unusual accident, which inevitably happen to the Enterprise). The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has such unusual methods as the Infinite Improbability Drive (whereby it is incredibly unlikely you will simply teleport from one point in space to another, so if one can increase the level of improbability high enough it’s bound to happen), and Bill the Galactic Hero has the Bloater Drive (which works by expanding the space between atoms such that the ship is the size of the entire distance between the start and the end of the journey, and then condensing them back to normal.)

Then there is the question of psychic powers. These show up in many forms and are surprisingly common. In Star Wars the Force is a natural energy that connects all things, but in Eclipse Phase it’s caused by an infection by a sentient techno-virus, while in 40k if you overuse them you’re likely to get eaten by daemons (as is anyone standing too close to you). Regardless, they are usually rare and barely understood (even by the practitioners), but the subject of much research.

Faith also plays a surprisingly large part in sci fi. In Star Trek the Federation is atheist, but many of the other cultures are not – notably the Klingons are deeply religious, but they killed their gods for holding them back! But despite this exploration of faith, the genre doesn’t allow “gods did it” to be an explanation very often, and when it does the gods usually turn out to be extremely powerful aliens or fakes by people using technology or psychic powers.

Beyond all that there are new people, new places, new planets, and new ideas to explore. In Dark Heresy they are probably evil cultists hell-bent on causing death and destruction, and must be stopped at all costs, while in Babylon 5 the aliens have most likely come to the space station rather than the protagonists going to them, but the point stands.

And that, I think, is the key to science fiction –

Exploration of the new and the unknown.  

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References   [ + ]

1. Ste Note: I’m drawing a bit from Schlock Mercenary too

Artemis Games New Years Resolutions

Today is new years day – so we’re all a bit drained from yesterday – but we still want to say something significant. So here are the business-related new years resolutions for us this year:

  1. Go all-in on the February Concept Cards Kickstarter: More marketing, more contacts, better prep. It’s our central product, we need to make sure everyone sees its value.
  2. Work with local game stores to demo and advertise our products – help new players find our tools.
  3. Rebrand Jigsaw Fantasy – either when Dr!p launches, or when we’ve finished design work on Science Fiction Concept Cards.
  4. Talk to at least one publisher each month about getting one of our card games into production.
  5. Get more connected to the UK and international tabletop design communities – and look for opportunities to collaborate with other members of that community.
  6. Continue developing our art resources, and connecting with artists, to create the best looking products possible.
  7. Always remember that we have to look after our own health – and each others – in order to be productive.

 

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