How is GURPS Alpha Centauri.

[Kelly Pedersen]

Figured I should actually post on the actual topic of the thread, rather than just beating my head against the wall. :-)

Alpha Centauri is a great book for worldbuilding. It really takes the options provided in the game, like the social choices and the factions, and tells you what they mean in GURPS, both in terms of world details, and for characters. My brother ran an Alpha Centauri game, and we had great fun building the factions. We gave each faction its default preferred social choice, but then went deliberately for the most divergent choices from their typical portrayal for the other options. We ended up with Yang and Dierdre as the villains, with Dierdre being this crazy psycho-psychic, convinced it was her destiny to dominate both human and Planet minds.

[hackbarth]

In my campaign (aborted due to limitations on play-by-voip, the players couldn't handle it... :-( ) the first mission of an early Morgan-Peacekeepers alliance probe team would try to contact and rescue others factions. Then they find the Hive, and Sheng Ji-Yang is very welcoming of the help offered...

The campaign would continue with the party releasing the uprising of the free drones, and then into mayhem and war and everything that is nice about AC... I must bid for it again, now that we have better software tools (that was two years ago.)

Sheng Ji-Yang is such a perfect villain, but I disagree with treehugger Deirdre being one for the part, I much rather that the players face the unrelenting fanaticism of the Believers.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by hackbarth

Sheng Ji-Yang is such a perfect villain, but I disagree with treehugger Deirdre being one for the part, I much rather that the players face the unrelenting fanaticism of the Believers.

You know, of all the factions, the Gaians are the most likely to build Genejack factories (because the pollution is less of an issue for them). Also they are second only to the Hive as a good place to run a Police State.

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by hackbarth

Sheng Ji-Yang is such a perfect villain, but I disagree with treehugger Deirdre being one for the part,

We were deliberately playing most of the factions and their leaders against type. This was not your father's Lady Dierdre Skye. :-)

Originally Posted by hackbarth

I much rather that the players face the unrelenting fanaticism of the Believers.

The Believers were another fun change. Miriam became a much more reasonable character - still deeply religious, but more in a liberal Catholic or Episcopalian sort of way. We did help her fight a revolt by more fundamentalist fanatics within her ranks, though.

[hackbarth]

Well half the fun in AC is trying to bend the rules and limitations of the factions, so all is fair.

But in my case the players where addicted to the game and, citing Robins Laws of goog GMing: "You can take my stereotypes from my cold dead fingers", so I gave them what they wnated and played mostly by the book.

I also made a point of turning the factions that they had more problems with in the computer game int the RPG villains, so they where used to hating them already... :-)

[gjc8]

Admittadly, Deirdre is set up to be one of the more heroic leaders, but there's nothing about her that has to be that way. On point with Kelly's campaign, Deirdre and Yang share the belief that the individual must, at least sometimes, be subservient to a larger goal.

All the standard atrocities are equally available to the Gaians, and your enemies are still condemned to apparent torture in the faction elimination videos. Mind worm assault is a singularly nasty way to die, and what faction is most likely to use them?

All of the factions, as presented in the game, are potential bad guys.

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by hackbarth

But in my case the players where addicted to the game and, citing Robins Laws of goog GMing: "You can take my stereotypes from my cold dead fingers",

In our case, the group was composed of 50% people who were intimately familiar with the computer game (my brothers and myself), and 50% people who hadn't really played it at all, but were interested in the general concept. My brothers and I liked the sensation of "everything old is new again" we got with changing up the factions, and the others, of course, had no preconceptions. So it worked pretty well in our case.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

You know, of all the factions, the Gaians are the most likely to build Genejack factories (because the pollution is less of an issue for them). Also they are second only to the Hive as a good place to run a Police State.

What's so bad about genejack factories if those jacks find pleasure in work?

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Molokh

What's so bad about genejack factories if those jacks find pleasure in work?

You mean apart from deliberately crippling people's minds so they'll make better slaves? Eliminating free will from most of your population?

[vicky_molokh]

Aren't they vat-grown?