[Brainstorming] Gaming David Zindell's Neverness?

[jsnead]

If you wanted to run a game in the setting of David Zindell's Neverness, what system would you use and what advice would you have some someone considering such a setting? Tri-Stat seems like it might be the best option, but even that conversion seems somewhat complex. If anyone has done such a game, I'd love to hear about both the mechanics and the plots used.

[Menchi]

My initial thought was something like Fading Suns. But I suspect a generic system would handle it better - maybe Mutants and Masterminds? GURPS Traveller?

The thing is that Neverness is so unique as a sci-fi setting, it's hard to think of a game that currently supports such a universe.

Conan

[Jenna Moran]

It seems like the kind of thing where adapting SteveD's Firefly game might work. I'd add a constraint on the GM similar to the constraint on the players, so that the setting is walking the line between competing motifs in the same way that players in that system are walking the line between aspects of their characters. And then, um, I guess you might as well use something like that system for the characters' lives themselves. ^_^

Rebecca

[James Ojaste]

Originally Posted by jsnead

If you wanted to run a game in the setting of David Zindell's Neverness, what system would you use and what advice would you have some someone considering such a setting? Tri-Stat seems like it might be the best option, but even that conversion seems somewhat complex. If anyone has done such a game, I'd love to hear about both the mechanics and the plots used.

Neverness is the most convoluted, unnecessarily complicated scifi universe I've ever seen. People die easily and messily. Math is the most important skill in the world (shortly followed by surgery, if the book is any judge). I'd say it needs a highly crunchy, highly detailed system to support it.

I presume you'd be playing in a pre-Mallory Neverness (because despite the sheer amount of detail presented in the book, there are really only three settings detailed: space, Neverness, and the arctic wastes, and the first two essentially disappear after Mallory solves the universe). The author hints at a lot of other settings, but doesn't go into detail for any of them (possible exception of the waterworld, which is covered in about as much detail as there probably is).

I guess you could play a more Amber-like game, with Mallory-level protagonists who regularly stop time, teleport to any point in the universe and commune with gods. This level of game by necessity would have to be much lower crunch, with some sort of "sure-thing" metamechanics (fate points or the like).

[FredH]

...SteveD did a Firefly game? Where, please?

[cjh]

Originally Posted by FredH

...SteveD did a Firefly game? Where, please?

The link is in his .sig or here. It is a thread in the game design forum.

[Menchi]

D'oh! Why didn't I think of it before? Unknown Armies or Nobilis. Both of these games would be ideally suited for a philosophically heavy setting like Neverness.

Crunchiness wouldn't suit - the universe is all about interaction and theory rather than the technical side of it.

Conan

[PaulK]

Originally Posted by jsnead

If you wanted to run a game in the setting of David Zindell's Neverness, what system would you use and what advice would you have some someone considering such a setting?

GURPS has a fair amount of support and is normally my choice for SF. If you wanted to do a low power game in the setting it might still work.

HeroQuest is my other usual choice for a generic system - it should do better for definign characters as you go and cope more easily with any odd abilities that don't fit too well into GURPS.

My third choice would be to try to adapt Everway. Aspects of the setting for Everway do remind me of Neverness so maybe it would work.

If you want more about the universe you really need to read the follow-up trilogy (A Requiem for Homo Sapiens) although it's even heavier going.

Alternatively you could try the fantasy (?) setting Zindell is using for his Ea Cycle - it certainly uses similar ideas and themes (and, unfortunately the main characters seem almost interchangeable). But I think it might adapt better to a game.

[FredH]

Originally Posted by cjh

The link is in his .sig or here. It is a thread in the game design forum.

Thanks for the link!