The Campaign Builder's Guild

Stargate the DVD, Stargate the flamethrower...

Now that that's out of the way.

It was mentioned in the remembrance thread that we should make a Stargate-inspired campaign setting. I wholeheartedly agree. But I don't want to do this alone. I would love to see people's help with this.

Thoughts?

What ideas where you thinking of keeping in? I liked the show but didn't get to watch it a whole lot. Obviously the gates are cool, but I like portals/gates (5 Realms plug). I never understood the whole Asgardians things (I think that is the right term). The universe spanning empire of the Ghul was very cool and I liked how they tied it into ancient myths on Earth.

I would be willing to help, but not sure how much it would be.

The Asgard? They're simply an alien race.

As for the other questions, it depends entirely on how much we want to base it off the series. At one extreme, we would simply be statting out the relevant stuff you need to roleplay SG-1, and at the other we've got something that's barely recognizable as stargate. I'm leaning more towards the former, where we perhaps go a bit into the future (hypothetical season 12 or 13) so we get the asgard knowledge base to play around with, but I'm also a fan of going back to the beginning and build up from there.

Now that I'm actually thinking about it, I think we should start near the beginning of the series, simply so our signature villains aren't already dead and that players who have no idea what the stargate is don't have so much catch up to do.

I'd really like to make sure that you don't have to play SG-1 in this; if you want to be SG-13 and do nothing but research anomalies, then fine. This really enforces the whole 'four person group' though, since that's the standard size of a team.

Quote from: Stargate525[...] It was mentioned in the remembrance thread that we should make a Stargate-inspired campaign setting. I wholeheartedly agree. But I don't want to do this alone. I would love to see people's help with this.

Thoughts?

Well, I'd say that the WCS is already pretty much inspired by Stargate. ;)

* The Plagues have a worldspanning empire of conquered worlds they exploit for resources and slaves, and are always looking for new worlds to invade.
* The worldgates themselves - while not being circular, they allow [almost] instant travel to other places on the same world or to other worlds.
* Plague and dragon artifacts, being incomprehensible masterpieces of magical construction to mortals, allow those who wear them to perform incredible stunts.

Yes, I agree with SG. We should have it start near the beginning. Being SG-1 is  a possibilty, playing as O'Niel, Daniel, Teal'c, etc. However, it should be more based around the adventures of your SG-team. For instance, while SG-1 is off doing the adventures in the shows, your team (SG-3, 4, whaterver) could be unearthing Ancient technology, finding ZPM's, etc.

Quote from: Ra-Tiel

Quote from: Stargate525[...] It was mentioned in the remembrance thread that we should make a Stargate-inspired campaign setting. I wholeheartedly agree. But I don't want to do this alone. I would love to see people's help with this.

Thoughts?

Well, I'd say that the WCS is already pretty much inspired by Stargate. ;)

* The Plagues have a worldspanning empire of conquered worlds they exploit for resources and slaves, and are always looking for new worlds to invade.
* The worldgates themselves - while not being circular, they allow [almost] instant travel to other places on the same world or to other worlds.
* Plague and dragon artifacts, being incomprehensible masterpieces of magical construction to mortals, allow those who wear them to perform incredible stunts.

*looks around, shifty eyed*

Why wasn't I told of this before?

Ah well, then we'll have to do a closer version, that's all. Actually have an SGC and all. I think you should be allowed to play SG-1, but not with those characters. Who says Carter, Daniel, and them all have to exist at all?

We will have to stat them out though, of course.

If the plan is to rebuild the SG universe then, and I hate to ask this, what is the point? The SG rpg exists already that I am sure can be modified to fit whatever you want.

What is going to make this different than that rpg world?

I'm all for it! Don't get me wrong, just want to understand.

well, for one factor, in order to do that, someone would have to buy the books. And it is to my understanding that no one likes buying overpriced books. Now, the reason we would do this is because we're cheap, its fun to create technobabble, and just to say we did it. (By the way, I would like to contribute as much as I can to the project.)
AND< once we finish, it will be easily adaptable if someone wants to play somewhere along the lines of SG: Atlantis, or once the new series comes out, the new series.

Quote from: RavenspathIf the plan is to rebuild the SG universe then, and I hate to ask this, what is the point? The SG rpg exists already that I am sure can be modified to fit whatever you want.

What is going to make this different than that rpg world?

I'm all for it! Don't get me wrong, just want to understand.

Quote from: Jedi Master Yogurtwell, for one factor, in order to do that, someone would have to buy the books. And it is to my understanding that no one likes buying overpriced books. Now, the reason we would do this is because we're cheap, its fun to create technobabble, and just to say we did it. (By the way, I would like to contribute as much as I can to the project.)
AND< once we finish, it will be easily adaptable if someone wants to play somewhere along the lines of SG: Atlantis, or once the new series comes out, the new series.

Well there's that. Also, if we do it we can feel free to futz around with different systems, build our own, do whatever it is we want.

Also for me, the primary reason is that the current Stargate RPG is no longer being supported. I'm not willing to shell out the necessary 50-80$ for a dead system.

Perfectly good answers.

I'm in! :D

Quote from: RavenspathPerfectly good answers.

I'm in! :D

oh good.

First thing I think is to figure out what system we're going to use, or if we're going to build our own.

I've only got access to D20, both modern and D&D, or anything posted free on the net. Modern would serve our cause pretty well as a base I think, but the item and wealth system we would probably have to modify/replace to reflect the military aspect of it. By looking at the character sheets, the official RPG seemed to use D20 as a base.

I'm also for doing our own system, since we can strip out what won't find use in a stargate setting (such as all but the most basic wealth system) and incorporate features that would play a role (ranks, a decent diplomacy system, etc)

You can use the D20 Modern system, with d20 Future tech, or possibly just use the Star Wars Saga rules, without Jedi or Force powers.

I'd really love to play in such a game; it would be a blast.

Although I don't own the books, the original StarGate d20 setting from Alderac used the same system SpyCraft (which I do own) used - a modified d20 version implementing vitality/wound points and expanded feat trees with an additional "action die" mechanic integrated deeply into the mechanics.

I think it fits the flavor rather well, because as we know from the series, there was little between "unhurt" and "dead", especially when staff weapons were used. Therefore I don't think it would be a problem with PCs going from "fine" to "almost dead" too quickly - because that's exactly what's happening in the tv show.

Also, the Babylon 5 rpg from Mongoose had the same problem. However, once the players realized how deadly and dangerous combat was to their characters, they suddenly developed a good sense to actually look out for and make use of cover, suppressive fire, and military movement (as in covering each others' asses instead of running around like headless chickens :D ).

okay, once we finish this I am totally running a PbP of it.

So regular d20 with some of the variant rules? I don't own spycraft, so what's this action die business?

Action dice are similar to action points, but differ on some aspects:

(1) Action dice are gained on a "per session" base, and refresh at the start of each gaming session. How much action dice a character has, and what die types he rolls is dependent on his level.

(2) The DM also has action points. He has a pool of - IIRC - 3 + 1/PC d12 he can use for all NPCs. However, all NPCs share a common pool - that is the DM has probably around 7 action dice for all enemies in the whole session.

(3) For extraordniary roleplaying, great in-character ideas, or just based on good mood the DM can award additional action dice to his players. However, to keep a balance, the DM gains an action die whenever a player gains one.

(4) Action dice are an integral part of the mechanics. Critical threats only trigger a critical hit when the attacker spends an action die to "activate" the crit. This really removes the danger of PCs dying senselessly at the hands of some mooks, because the DM probably doesn't want to waste his few action dice on the mobs.

(5) All characters can spend action dice to heal themselves (a bit), gain bonuses to skill/ability checks, attacks, or saves, improve their defense, or ask for an inspiration (to prevent the game from stalling) or education (to get info as a player on something the character would probably have learned in his training) check.

All in all, I personally like action dice much more than action points, most likely because action points are an "addon" to the mechanic with hardly any real effect at all, while action dice really put some power into the players' hands and allow them to do something extraordinary (like surviving an otherwise absolutely deadly explosion mysteriously) now and then.