Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Song of Stars and Silence

I heard about this a couple of weeks ago, but once again I procrastinated until now.  Turns out Ganesha Games, publisher of Song of Blades and Heroes, is coming out with its own set of starship combat rules. 

Awhile back on that mailing list, the SoBaH author mentioned in passing that his company is working on a generic SF (presumably skirmish) game as well as a spaceship game.  I asked Andrea Sfiligoi for more details and learned the following:
  • each player controls a small force (3-6 ships per player)
  • games last about one hour
  • comes with predesigned spaceships or players can build their own
  • torpedoes, fighters, etc. are represented on the game table
  • combat is two-dimensional
  • damage system kept very simple to minimize use of counters (playtesters used puffs of colored smoke with different colors indicating different damage classes) 
I like the fast play, back-and-forth action, and customizable forces of Song of Blades and Heroes.  I will be interested in hearing more about how Ganesha ports those features into a spaceship game.  No word on what the game will be called, so I came up with Song of Stars and Silence.  What's your suggestion?

4 comments:

  1. Silence almost must be in there I'd say. Song of Stars and Silence is spot on.

    Off topic now...if I was looking for spaceship combat rules to adapt/hack for a retro space rpg what should I look at?

    Ideally it would be very different from Traveller/High Guard but it should be simple, customizable,and have an old school feel...

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  2. oo! Maybe I could use these ships I saw on em4:

    http://www.em4miniatures.com/acatalog/Science_Fiction.html

    Looks like a good deal, < 3 quid for a dozen ships!

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  3. if I was looking for spaceship combat rules to adapt/hack for a retro space rpg what should I look at?

    The answer to this deserves a post of its own, but for now I will just suggest the long-out-of-print Starfleet Wars. Written in 1978, it has rules for weapons, force fields, tractor beams, and energy damping beams and gives off a very old-school vibe.

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  4. Thanks for the suggestion. I will look for it.

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