I've been wondering which system would work best for a campaign using the Revelation Space setting from the series of novel by Alistair Reynolds. For those who don't know, it's a space opera, but one where the lightspeed limit is respected and humanity is alone in the galaxy. It's a reasonably hard science fiction for space opera. Traveller seems a bit ill-adapted for it but it's the only one that springs to mind. Any input?
>>46600595
I use Traveller for a setting strongly inspired by the Revelation Space. It serves its purpose alright, the rest is up to the GM.
>>46600595
This is super relevant to my interests.
I like that there is a clear timeline, a clear limit to what established technologies can do, and areas like the Glitter/Rust Belt, Chasm City and Pattern Juggler worlds that are almost endless in variation.
I also love the pessimism in the setting. I wish we knew more about the other aliens in the universe though.
>>46600595GURPS
I don't really have anything to contribute, but love Revelation Space and will be watching this thread with interest.
>>46605136
>I don't really have anything to contribute
Neither do I, but maybe some people haven't seen this story yet?
https://subterraneanpress.com/magazine/summer_2014/the_last_log_of_the_lachrimosa_by_alastair_reynolds
It's damn fine words.
>>46600595
Man I love Revelation Space. Any system from a sci-fi RPG would probably work. I'd leave the ships as plot devices because fuck statting out a lighthugger.
I'd probably run either in the Glitter/Rust belt or Chasm City.
Also those ships look like FedEx skins for Homeworld frigates.
It looks like we may be the seven people on /tg/ who know what Revelation Space is. I'd kill for a roll20 game in it.
What would you guys run?
Belle Epoque Glitter Belt high society?
Scheming Ultras doing scheming Ultra things?
Solving murders on Juggler worlds?
War on Sky's Edge?
Post-war politics?
Rust Belt madness?
Chasm City anarchy?
Do you join the Coalition for Neural Purity to get those damned Spiders off Mars?
I'm personally pretty for Ultra traders who are so divorced from what happens on planets that they may as well be gods. Politics and occasional deadly combat and piracy and trade mechinations. Rogue Trader writ small and dingy and savage.
>>46607139
I agree there. Ultras are pretty good character fodder. I'd start with a couple of one shots, either on Sky's Edge or in Chasm City. As with Traveller, the ship would be an important plot device/ setting/character
>>46607139
A good one would also be scientific exploration on pre-coup Resurgam or secret police shenanigans on post-coup Resurgam. Have a group of PCs hunting subversive elements or the Triumvir herself.
>>46607235
The ships are pretty integral to the setting
>>46600595
If you used Traveller you would have to adapt or make up stats for the hyperpigs and the uplifted primates in use as labour in the Yellowstone system and presumably in the other demarchies. Maybe the "mermaids" in the Europan Demarchy as well.
>>46600595
>humanity is alone in the galaxy
We really, really weren't.
Not sure if the Juggelers were sapient or even sentient or not. They might have just been reacting to things in complex ways with no actual reasoning behind their shit.
The Srouders/Amaranthians/Sunstealers/Dudes that live in the neutron star computer definitely were of human or greater intelligence.
The Grubs were also still around by the time humanity started traversing the stars. Although they were hiding terrified and almost gone.
Don't know if Wolf Machines count
>>46609796
>Not sure if the Juggelers were sapient or even sentient or not. They might have just been reacting to things in complex ways with no actual reasoning behind their shit.
Perhaps the same could be said of all men.
But enough talk, have at you!
>>46600595
It'd need to have a very clever GM, with some serious knowledge of the setting. There's so much left up to your interpretation, or touched on and never elaborated on.
>>46609796
My mistake. I didn't want to spoil too much of it for those who may not be familiar with the setting.
Great setting.
Don't doubt it'd make for terrible games with how even just in this thread you all have different expectations.
>>46609796
There are others as well.
The parasitical creatures which may or may not be grubs but probably aren't.
Shadow people as well. Perhaps more entities that are encountered somewhere in the galactic North.
But apart from a few cultureshiding in the gaps from the Wolveshumanity is functionally alone. Jugglers aren't meaningfully sapient, at the very least they are Varelse and incapable of functional communication.
>>46613555
trips don't lie.
Reynolds writes a good yarn but the setting spans dozens or hundred of light years and thousands of temporal years. Clavain is the better part of a thousand years old when he dies and he isn't even the longest lived named character.
There is just too much, and too much is poorly fleshed out or alluded to.
>>46613555
I think the problem stems from both the huge scope that >>46613733 mentions and the way things work changing as the author properly develops them, leading to lots of points of conflict. That's a double-edges sword though since it opens up the possibility of making up your own shit to fill in the gaps.
>>46600595
Well this is certainly relevant to my interests.
>>46617192
How would you describe the setting to someone who had never read Reynolds? How would you get them invested in such alien characters as half millennia old Ultras?
>>46606969
Revelation Space and Absolution Gap are some of my favorite books. It is such a shame that there isn't a dedicated TTRPG set in the world.
Also, I agree. There ought to be a roll20 game for the few of us that play TTRPGs and can read a full length novel.
>>46600595
I propose that /tg/ gets shit done and compiles the known information about the world of revelation space into a single document/archive so that there will be a reference for GMs trying to run the game.
Continuity for all!
>>46609796
the Inhibitors/Wolves could be sentient. I think it was described in the books as "A tool to be used where appropriate, and put away when not". Basically there's a subroutine in there somewhere that makes them wake up if they run into a particularly tough nut, then puts them back to sleep.
>>46618242
They're sentient when needed, yes. Otherwise, just a dumb bunch of scripts and preplanned responses.
>>46618174
KNOWN SETTLED WORLDS:
Earth (???)
Mars + satellites
Europa
Sky's Edge (22nd century +. only planet to have been settled by generation ship.)
Zion (not much known)
Diadem (settled by Von Neumann probes mid 22nd century? Worms in the ice.)
Yellowstone (epsilon eridani, settled by Von Neumann probe, then later the Demarchists. Post Melding Plague under Conjoiner control. Includes Glitter Band pre-Plague and Rust Belt post.
Fand (unknown, Lacaille system.)
Haven (not much known. Demarchist)
Turquoise (pattern juggler world)
Delta Pavonis/ Resurgam (detailed in Revelation Space primarily)
107 Piscium/ Hela (wack shit. Absolution Gap)
Ararat (pattern Juggler world. Landing site of the Nostalgia for Infinity/ The Captain. )
Grand Teton (demarchist, not known location)
Spindrift (pattern juggler world. no known location.)
KNOWN SPECIES OR FACTIONS:
Demarchists, mentally augmented humans whose implants allow them to participate at all times in direct democracy. 'good guys' but not immune to war, war crimes, slavery or discrimination.
Conjoiners. Very heavily augmented hive-mind humans. Live in a constant state of distributed consciousness. Extremely capable, probably post-human, holders of time travel, causality breaking and infinite power technologies. Smarter, faster and stronger than baseline humans.
Ultras. Post-humans, but in a different manner to the conjoined. Xenophobic ageless diplomats and merchants. They are separated from humanity by time and distance. Their wants and desires no longer have much resemblance to baseline humans.
Skyjacks. Not much is known. I presume augmented humans who work either on carousels/habitats or in asteroid/comet mining.
The Coalition for Neural Purity. Clavain's faction when he was at war with the Conjoiners. They had funky biotech stuff but eschewed mental augmentation.
>>46618679
Skyjacks are like Ultra, but instead of trading, they're going for culture.
Checks with the bridge, and a few art stuff mentioned in the books, like the glass sculptures.
>>46618808
Glass sculpting bridge dude was just one Skyjack.
They were described as rarely seen and had brain modifications that allowed them to go for extended amounts of time in isolation from other humans and it not bother them.
Glass dude was described as having grey thick skin designed to be radiation resistant. His skin is also pitted like the surface of a moon although he works in 0-G with molten glass a lot so that might be why.
I always pictured them as asteroid mining prospectors.
>>46618679
cont.
Gillies. Humans designed and altered for aquatic work. Sometimes they crew high G ships which are filled with liquid so as to protect their organs from acceleration stress.
Denizens. The result of biocrimes from Demarchists. Heavily altered aquatic post-humans. Slaves and workers. At least one survived and escaped Europa where they were born.
Grubs. Strange aliens. Have been void-borne for longer than humans have had writing. They hold amazing technologies, and have strong biotech control. They may all be clones? Not much is known about their reproductive cycle. They appear to be monstrous grubs.Wolf Machines. Also known as Inhibitors, their purpose is to prevent the suffering of the Andromeda/Milky Way impact on sentient species. Non sentient themselves, they have abandoned intelligence so as to prevent their own suffering. Their technological capability dwarfs even the conjoiners, but they seem wary of temporal or acausal technology.
Jumper Clowns. Not much is known. Allies of the Grubs for sure.
Nestbuilders/slugs. Highly technologically advanced culture/s.Killed the Scuttlers when they tried to contact the Shadows.Actually two species, the Nestbuilders are no longer sentient, the Slugs control both the Nestbuilders themselves and their technology.
Pattern Jugglers. Giant distributed xenotech computers? Maybe. Might also be the remnants of a galaxy spanning civ. Who knows?
Shrouders. The creators of mysterious 'shrouds' of spacetime which are infamous for ripping ships apart when they get too close, and destroying the minds of those lucky enough to survive a contact.Post-Amaranth/Wolf contact, the surviving technologically able Amaranth spun themselves cocoons of spacetime and hid themselves from the Wolves.
Feel free to amend or add.
>>46618242
>>46618289
The Inhibitors are Varelse at best, and Djur 99% of the time. They are just too alien for us to even tolerate their existence.
Languages
Canasian: French Canadian-Cantonese hybrid, nigh impossible to use properly without neural augmentation.
Norte: Descendant of English
Russish: Presumably same of Russian
Castellano: ditto Spanish
Fuck yeah, Revelation Space.
>>46600595
Can't believe there are other ppl who have read this space opera. One of my favorite space operas of all time. I like the redemption ark timeline with Mr. H. Maybe have a game with a group of shadow players who are recruited to hijack the lighthugger that nevil, Scorpio, and "mr. Clock" use to get to Ararat
>>46600595
I just came to say that Ana x Ilyia is the OTP.
>>46619881
Yes
How the fuck would you stat hot dust weapons? A grenade-sized munition packs a kiloton-range yield, seems a bit tough to use properly.
>>46619881
Dammit. I suppose so. One wonders if there's fanart of this series at all, and if not, are there any drawfags here?
>>46619955
Unless you're Conjoiner or Ultra you probably don't have access to much antimatter. If you are then you're either using it appropriately as a war resource or have very little interest in using it against your own customers.
>>46619955
There's some art out there, mostly seems to be of Lighthuggers more than anything else.
>>46620034
I was going to say much the same thing but it's possible to buy hot dust from Ultras, as seen in Revelation Space. No idea what it would cost seeing as a faction managed to buy a fair bit of it and some other things.
>>46620113
What do ultras even take in payment? Other than the Ferris Marks and Sky's Edge Australs seen in Chasm City, cash is hardly mentioned. I can't see Ultras doing much business in planetary currency either.
>>46620113
I can't remember but you're talking about the coup faction on Resurgram right? Didn't Sajaki sell it on purpose to cause enough chaos to flush Sylveste out of hiding?
>>46619955
I would use many of the big BIG weapons as plot devices but you could, potentially, just slap a multiplier onto a die roll and use that. Just be ready for your party to become genocidal interplanetary war criminals. Time to hop a light hugger and spend a few centuries system hopping u til people forget who you are. Fak, I need this game!
>>46620171
In Absolution Gap they seem happy to take alien artifacts since they can sell those elsewhere, it's possible the hotdust was traded for lots of Amarantin stuff.
>>46620185
There was hotdust on Resurgam from the lighthugger that showed up there before Nostalgia For Infinity. Sajaki went down to the planet to do some other things to flush him out, unrelated to the hotdust.
>>46620198
I wonder if in setting anyone ever ran a lighthugger into a planet.
A "normal" loadout for a lighthugger is a bunch of relativistic ballistics, right?
>>46620817
At cruising speed you mean? Would make a hell of a hole, and be a bit of a waste considering the level of destruction some munitions seem to have, Cache Weapons excluded. Those munitions don't have to spend a long ass time accelerating either, so they can react to a situation far more readily.
>>46620113
I have never heard of this series until coming across this thread. That is one of the most cool and gorgeous ship designs I have ever seen.
>>46621224
They're called lighthuggers, the second pic in the thread is drawn by the author of the series. I posted the purple one because I fucking love that interpretation of it.
Highly recommend the series, the world building is incredibly evocative.
>>46621224
They're that way because they accelerate at 1G for years, then flip over and decelerate at 1G, to travel between the stars. At that rate of acceleration, they eventually crawl up towards lightspeed. Since you can't actually get there, but only come close they are called lighthuggers. At the speeds they travel, the 1-2 atoms of hydrogen per cubic meter of interstellar space become a hurricane-force wind, hence the streamlining.
>>46621224
The ships are massive (as big as a city) and can self repair and modify and shit. Super cool. When I found out that the thrusters are powered by wormholes reaching back in time to siphon energy from the big bang my head exploded.
>>46619955
>How the fuck would you stat hot dust weapons? A grenade-sized munition packs a kiloton-range yield, seems a bit tough to use properly.
Those things are pretty much plot devices. I mean how many of the things would you really want to hand out to your players?
The Japanese covers of some of the books.
Japanese interpretation of the Nostalgia, the two lighthugger's final forms from Galactic North, Chasm City and for some reason mecha on Mars.
Did anyone else get a case of feels when they read the short story "Weather"?
>>46621390
Curiously enough, if you accelerate at 1g for a year you get awfully close to the speed of light. Something like 380 days at 9.8m/s/s will let you hug light.
>>46621952
That Nostalgia is passable since it was pretty fucked up from the plague, but what the hell is that mech in the bottom left?
>>46623779
Yeah I don't remember any scene like that from the book. Chasm City looks alright as well. The Galactic North lighthuggers are very much an anime take on the design.
There were some pictures of the lighthuggers inside the books as well. I have them at home I might scan them.
>>46621676
d6 per player, to go with the d3 cache weapons everyone gets control codes for.
>>46624979
I've seen what players do with even a handful of c4 in games like Shadowrun. d3 cache weapons each and we're going to spend most of the session deleting names off this list >>46618679
>Wait, do you mean the settled worlds list or known factions list?
BOTH
>>46621676
A lighthugger or a sufficiently powerful civilization like Conjoiners or Demarchists will have an amount of antimatter. A ship would need it for fuel for shuttles, suits and various other needs.
However it is extremely rare and extremely expensive.
I think mechanically what makes it important is the rarity. Low tech settlements will not have any, or the little it does have are relegated to weapons. Players will have access to it if they are Ultras or powerful within the Conjoiner or Demarchist factions.
One tenth of a gram of antimatter is equivalent to 4.3 kilotons of tnt and I think any stats should reflect that. So, astoundingly powerful. A milligram is 43 kilograms of tnt, a carbomb in the tiniest of specks.
>>46624979
>give players cache weapons
why would you do such a thing?
>>46625342
>why would you do such a thing?
how bad could it be?
>>46625366
How bad is the rest of the Revelation Space setting?
So... very bad to worse, hazarding a guess.
>>46625366
The party would probably cause enough ruckus to call the Wolves down and then it's TPK. Cache weapons aint shit to them.
>>46625342
>A lighthugger or a sufficiently powerful civilization like Conjoiners or Demarchists will have an amount of antimatter. A ship would need it for fuel for shuttles, suits and various other needs.
No doubt that people have it. I mean didn't Skade use crustbuster antimatter bombs as essentially flares to try and help target a pursuing lighthugger?
Of course access does depend on who the players are, regular shitkickers in Chasm City probably won't get access to it, but if the players are, I dunno, Conjoiner lighthugger warship captains or something they probably have access to it.
>>46625456
I think all lighthuggers, by virtue of conjoiner drives and the beastly amount of endless energy they produce would be able to make antimatter themselves. Presuming, of course, that their systems aren't corrupted by plague, failing, disused or otherwise non-functional which seems common in Revelation Space.
>>46625556
I just remembered that even the combat suits can fling antimatter around like no-one's business. Probably fair to say lighthuggers can manufacture the stuff, at least to some extent.
Hell even the Nostalgia's hull defence gun hits like a nuclear bomb so it wouldn't be a strength to think it's actually some kind of antimatter accelerator.
>>46625866
>it wouldn't be a strength
stretch
>>46625866
I can't remember which weapon types were the most powerful right now. It was probably antimatter accelerators but the grasers and bosers sounded pretty nasty. Some ships even had relativistic rail guns.
What's everyones favourite book in the series?
While I'm not sure it's my fave, I really like Absolution gap because of the cathedral religion, the Scuttlers, andHow the shadows were people fleeing from the greenfly in the future
>>46626115
I like the short story Diamond Dogs, though it's pretty depressing.
>ctrl+f
>No "Eclipse Phase"
Guys, this game is as close as you can get to Revelation Space without a lawsuit. Just refluff it.
>>46621224
>>46621290
>>46621390
>>46621618
They're also armored with ice.
>>46626224
I always felt Eclipse Phase was more Takeshi Kovacs the RPG due to the strong focus on body hopping.
Though certainly Rev Space was an influence, those aliens in Eclipse Phase even have lighthuggers.
The time-line of this series was not the original timeline.
In the original timeline by the time the Wolves came around humanity was a lot more primitive and hadn't colonized nearly as much space.
By the time Earth was annihilated the last few of the Conjoiners were speeding away at maximum acceleration using what looked like antiquated fusion drives rather than the series main timeline which had them opening wormholes back to the big bang for power.
They sent a message back in time to their earlier selves not long after the Siege of Mars with all of their dying wisdom and technical knowledge.
What about a campaign set in the aborted timeline?
The last desperate struggle of humanity against the night, fleeing to the darkness between the stars, trying to save as much as possible from an earlier age of greatness as the tide comes in and throwing one last message in a bottle into time as the ultimate middle finger to fate.The goal of the part is to buy the Conjoiner enough time to perfect their causality violating project and erase you all from history and thus save humanity.If you win nobody will ever know.
>>46626224
That's because it's a shit game.
I'd rather play GURPS.
>>46626556
SPOILER ALERT. THANKS DICK. No, I'm kidding.
I have a hard time imagining what the players in a Coinjoiner Faction would do for entire campaign like this. You'd really just be running away and shooting down Wolves as you go the whole time and the way the Wolves fight at the ship to ship level wasn't explained in detail. It'd take a lot of creative extrapolation to keep the battles interesting and varied.
Playing as any of the other human factions would be more fun IMO. They have no idea what the fuck is going on and a lot of chaos and infighting would probably break out. A party of criminals from the Rust Belt trying to make the most of the apocalypse might have more adventure hooks.
>>46626811
I'm not spoiling something that came out 10+ years ago.
The Wolf Machines could fuck with your head so you could fight their agent assuming you could identify them.
That said what faction would you suggest wold be more fun?
>>46627034
I think the Conjoiner's desperate struggle to save the past could be cool, I just think writing the Wolves well would a lot of work for a GM. Might have call up Reynolds and ask for some inside tips.
I always that the Hyper Pigs were pretty interesting. Maybe all the chaos gives them the edge they need to really organize and strike back at their enemies. I don't know. The RS universe is really interesting but so complex. Any angle would take work to bring to life.
>>46627170
Certainly for a first game in the setting somewhere more normal might be better. Like the plague-warped Chasm City. Or even set the entire game on a lighthugger between stars to hammer home the vast scales.
This was one point that Rev Space really hammered home well. The sheer inhuman scale of the galaxy. Even with the basically magical Conjoiner drives the scale is massively clear.
>>46627975
>Or even set the entire game on a lighthugger between stars to hammer home the vast scales.
The party is mostly passengers who have been warmed by the crew to deal with a problem aboard ship. One party member would be an Ultra, the rest could be aristos or soldiers or whatever. But it looks as though they've picked up a stowaway...
>>46626556
>causality violating project and erase you all from history
I don't think that happened, the original timeline carried on but caused a split and started a new one. So even if you succeeded in that story, you wouldn't ever know.
