Fringe Space: Three Months In

“The question for you to ask yourself is whether what you think you want to pursue will actually get you the happiness you think it will get you.” – Tony Hsieh

From the beginning, I intended to review this campaign after three months of play - a dozen episodes - to answer the questions I posed initially and some new ones that came up along the way, and decide what to do next.

Depending on the answers, my plan was to keep going, drop SWADE and revert to 5150, or abandon the game entirely and move on.

Here are my conclusions; YMMV.

Questions and Answers

Does "5150 for Savage Worlds" work well enough for long-term solo play?

Yes. It needed some tweaking, but I've always found that when I mash games up like this, I have to experiment to find what works and what doesn't; that's one of the main reasons I run solo games. The setting, NPCs and missions work well enough, and I think I have a good grasp of everything else I need. I'm happy I can run this indefinitely without any more significant tweaks or rulings.

One thing which is definitely faster and easier in 5150 is combat, but as you've seen I'm experimenting with various options from the SWADE Adventure Toolkit to come up with something that looks and feels similarly simple and straightforward. The Savage Goose recently suggested using the Fear rules for morale checks, triggered the first time an enemy is taken out or when the foes lose half their number (Extras) or half their Wounds (Wild Cards). I wish I'd thought of that; next time, Gadget, next time.

I'm tempted to introduce some edition of Traveller for starmaps, world statistics, and ships, but I'm reluctant to add another product set. In particular, one of the beauties of the 5150 universe is that - like many wargames - it doesn't need a starmap. Perhaps I should unbend far enough to bring back Interstellar Rebels; maybe I've let my loathing for the movies it emulates (Star Wars Episodes 7-9) blind me to the elements worth using.

Does it work well enough for group play?

I'm less certain about this. My usual players don't get on with on-the-fly emergent play; I could perhaps get around that by working up adventures in advance, much like the ones in the various 5150 No Limits products, or by recruiting new players. I'd have to try it out to be sure, and I already have the next two campaigns sketched out, which at least gives me time to prepare.

Should I adopt more of the SWADE SF Companion?

No. I simply don't need it for this campaign. I did try rebuilding Simon Makavan to avoid using the SFC Captain Edge, but it didn't feel like him anymore after that, and I like him as he is; the same applies to rebuilding him for 5150, it's possible but the resulting PC doesn't feel right. This is interesting as Arion, my previous solo SF character, was rebuilt in a new game engine every few months and always felt like the same guy.

Apart from that one Edge, I'm using the commlink (which could easily be replaced with a cellphone, that's all it is really). I spent many unhappy and unproductive hours trying to design the standard 5150 ships in SWADE, but failed every time; the two chief reasons for this are that Mods are different sizes depending on both the size of the ship's hull frame and the component you're installing, and that Superstructures are enormous, which is a shame as they are the obvious way to deal with 5150 ships' ability to reconfigure passenger cabins as cargo holds on the fly. I could have homebrewed some smaller version of superstructures I suppose, but in the end I gave up and reverted to the SWADE Adventure Toolkit for ship combat, so that I don't need to design ships at all.

Meanwhile, in my group game - the Aslan Route - one player eventually took an Edge from the SFC; the group also took a liking to the stun weapons and automatic shotguns, so the Companion is seeing some use.

Is it worth switching from Roll20 to Fantasy Grounds?

I experimented with this for about a month off-camera, and my conclusion is that for what I do, it's more effort than it's worth. Fantasy Grounds is more powerful, and includes some things that are paid extras in Roll20; but it has a steeper learning curve, especially for the GM, and works by shifting the GM's effort from the session itself into prep time - I'm going the other way.

Like my parallel experiments with AI, also off-camera, I discovered that it automates things I don't do anyway, so until I come up with a more relevant use case, there's no point.

Questions Arising During Play

Is the tail wagging the dog?

That's to say, have I become more invested in blogging than in actually playing the game? No, I don't think so; since 2008, blogging about my solo games has been at least as important to me as actually playing, and has added greatly to my enjoyment; that hasn't changed. If I stopped blogging about solo play, I think I'd probably stop playing shortly afterwards, and that's okay - it's a solo game, so I am uniquely qualified to say which elements matter to me, and how much.

How should I organise my game notes?

I experimented with Obsidian, but it takes up a lot of space for something that organises Markdown files; I don't have a gigabyte to spare on my travel laptop. I wound up with a word processor file containing the character (including planned advances), worlds, NPCs split by location, setting information, and house rules; at this point that's about six pages long. After experimenting with full-fat NPCs I restricted them to name, race, Rep, profession, weapon, and some notes; I'm now ignoring skills and attributes, which are not necessary for my purposes.

I have whole-heartedly adopted the Lonelog standard notation, though, as I find it genuinely helpful and it improves my enjoyment of the game. I did not see that coming, but there it is.

Is it time to move on from 5150?

Maybe; there are days I'm excited to roll more dice and push the story forward, and days when I just can't be bothered with it, but then that's true of most things.

My last few SF games have all faltered somewhat, regardless of rules, setting or characters, so maybe I should give them a rest for a while.

What Next?

I'm not sure whether I want to carry on with Simon and a 5150/SWADE mashup or not; I'll park them for the moment rather than taking any rash decisions I might need to roll back later. (This is not uncommon for me; I am easily bored, and tend to lose interest in something once I have fully understood it.)

The last few solo SF games have not delivered what I was looking for, and I'm still feeling burned out on my normal alternative, the zombie apocalypse; so let's take a short break to pause and reflect.