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Is there a B5 RPG?

I

ITRP

Member
Just curious. Being a fan of AD&D 1st & 3rd edition and the new Wizards of the Coast Star Wars RPG, I was wondering if there was a B5 RPG floating out there.

I read somewhere that they are working on a FarScape RPG & computer game. Either one would be cool for both FarScape & B5.

If there is an active thread or URL, could you point me in that direction?

Thank you
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USPTO - Where I work.
Stanley Associates - Who I work for.
UD Cancer Agent
 
If you're talking paper and pencil RPGs, there was one called "The Babylon Project" produced by a company called Chameleon Eclectic. The company is out of business and the game is out of print, unfortunately. I have a copy of the main rulebook and the Earthforce supplement. It's a pretty decent game, with a particularly nice character generation system.

There are quite a few online B5 RPGs going. I'll take the liberty of inserting a shameless plug for the one I play:

ISA Phoenix Sim

We've been playing since 1997 and have some really wonderful writers. We're also looking for new players. Feel free to email me at sailbourne@aol.com if you'd like more information.

Hope this helps,
Jamie

(who has a ton of RPGs that she'd love to find folks to play with ... anybody in the Portland (Oregon) area out there?)


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"Obviously no one reads Santayana anymore. If you'll excuse me, I'll be over there, getting drunk with the rest of the aliens."
--Susan Ivanova
 
Not too sure about the answer, but I'm moving this to general discussion as it relates to B5.

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Coach: It's the damnedest thing. I've been shivering all the way over here.
Diane: Well, Coach, you don't have a coat on. It's thirty degrees outside.
Coach: Oh, thank God. I thought I had malaria.
-Cheers
 
Chameoleon Eclectic's "The Babylon Project" was it. There were a slew of supplements scheduled, but the publication dates fell further and further behind schedule and, ultimately, there were only three releases: The Babylon Project, Earthforce Sourcebook and Gamesmaster's Resource Kit, although the latter only seemed to be released after it had been announced that the line was finished and Chameleon Eclectic had folded. Part of the problem with the delays may have been that the writers were dealing with an ongoing series, so possibly (note how speculative I'm being) had problems with keeping their material updated. There were problems with some facts not tallying with the series (I can't remember exactly what they were at the moment!) and with some proofing, so that there were multiple instances of the same portrait representing more than one character in the Earthforce Sourcebook. Nevertheless, it was a good attempt at a B5 game and had strong approaches to character generation and campaign development to help give that B5 feel. I've only run one game, but it was a success with my players.

I hope that there will be sufficient renewed interest in B5 for a games company to pick up the licence. While I would prefer to see a continuation of the Chameleon Eclectic system, I'd be interested in any well-written, well-researched game. Particularly if they managed to get Fiona Avery onboard as atmosphere-writer and fact-checker!

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It would be nice if the B5 RPG would get picked up by either White Wolf or Wizards of the Coast.

If I remember correctly, White Wolf produces the games that all have 3 categories of attributes, 3 attributes per category. They specialize in Vampires, Werewolves, Mages, and Faeries. Wizards of the Coast are also starting to standardize their character-creation methods, and they've recently produced the Star Wars RPG, the new edition of D&D, and all versions of Star Trek.

Just as long as Atlas Games doesn't get B5; they butchered Ars Magica.

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An Old Egyptian Blessing: May God stand between you and harm in all the empty places that you must walk.

Thoughts & prayers to soldiers fighting overseas and to their families.
 
Wizards got Star Trek? That's cool. Oh - maybe it was the trading card game of ST that someone else got instead of Wizards. I'll have to check it out (I think my SW GM plays in a ST Campaign as well).

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USPTO - Where I work.
Stanley Associates - Who I work for.
UD Cancer Agent
 
I seen a topic on the ISA PHOENIX:an e-mail RPG in the old Fandom, Fanfic forrum. So, I checked out the website link. I liked the looks of it, so I joined. It has been so much fun! You should all check it out at: www.sailbourne.com/phoenix

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-With every light is born a shadow-
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Ninja_Squirrel:
Wizards of the Coast are also starting to standardize their character-creation methods, and they've recently produced the Star Wars RPG, the new edition of D&D, and all versions of Star Trek.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Personally, I'm not keen on the D20 system, and don't think that it fits with the B5 style. I'd rather someone like Chaosium, with their percentile-based Basic Role-Play system, picked it up. Or Pagan Publishing, who have turned out some of the best role-playing materials ever (IMHO) in Delta Green, Delta Green: Countdown and The Golden Dawn. Their Godlike is also eagerly awaited.

Oh, and it's Decipher, not WotC, who have the Trek licence. The first Trek RPG was from FASA (excellent game), then the licence went to Last Unicorn Games, who produced seperate games for each of TOS, TNG and DS9. Oh, and in between came the Prime Directive game from the makers of Starfleet Battles. Decipher now have the RPG licence, along with the CCG licence and the Lord of the Rings RPG and CCG licences.
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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Ninja_Squirrel:
It would be nice if the B5 RPG would get picked up by either White Wolf or Wizards of the Coast.
If I remember correctly, White Wolf produces the games that all have 3 categories of attributes, 3 attributes per category. They specialize in Vampires, Werewolves, Mages, and Faeries. Wizards of the Coast are also starting to standardize their character-creation methods, and they've recently produced the Star Wars RPG, the new edition of D&D, and all versions of Star Trek.
Just as long as Atlas Games doesn't get B5; they butchered Ars Magica.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Actually, WOTC doesn't have Star Trek - Decipher does. WOTC bought Last Unicorn Games, which *had* the license, and Viacom insisited Paramount exercise the clause whereby sale of LUG forced them to give it up. This was rather painfully gone into on the (now defunct)LUGTrek ML.
I'm not big on WOTC's d20 system - it's still too class-based, and I prefer skill-based, but more importantly, WOTC wants to support only one major SF game, Satr Wars. They fear any more Sf games would detract from sales, which is why Alternity died, and Star Frontiers could not be resurrected (SF, now that game rocked! Check out www.starfrontiers.org and www.starfrontiers.com ).
Companies I'd like to see have a go at a B5rpg: Blacksburg Tactical Research Center (Timelords, CORPS), GURPS, and Far Future Enterprises (Marc Miller's Traveller).
I particularly dislike White Wolf, they seem to me to be far too blatantly and aggressively self-promotional. To me, the "storyteller system" ain't all that.
BTW, if you have spare time, there's little to stop you from doing a writeup, in whatever system you like, for B5. Add internet access, and you could even post it, although that gets into an area frowned on by some.
Darkwing

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Darkwing
Let's..get..dangerous

[This message has been edited by Darkwing (edited February 26, 2002).]
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Ninja_Squirrel:
It would be nice if the B5 RPG would get picked up by either White Wolf or Wizards of the Coast.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

On current standing, the most likely candidate is Agents of Gaming, who don't currently produce any RPGs, but do have the only current B5 gaming licences (Babylon 5 Wars, Fleet Action, GROPOS plus the assorted miniatures to go with them). They recently polled interest in whether there would be a demand for such a product and a reasonable response.

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Paddy Sinclair

"I think it's an excellent plan. But then, I've been shot through the head on five or six occasions"- Troop Leader Keitel, The Corps
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by ITRP:
Wizards got Star Trek? That's cool. Oh - maybe it was the trading card game of ST that someone else got instead of Wizards. I'll have to check it out (I think my SW GM plays in a ST Campaign as well).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Er, nope. Decipher has it (and is just off to produce a game). The last version was produced by Last Unicorn Games (and was rather good) but the company ran into some difficulties and were bought out by Wizards (presumably hoping to net the Trek licence). Paramount pulled the licence, which then went to Decipher, but did get left with the Dune one (which is meant to be getting a d20 retread after the initial limited release which was as developed by LUG). Almost the entire LUG development team on Star Trek went over to Decipher to work on the new game (which will be at least slightly different).

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Paddy Sinclair

"I think it's an excellent plan. But then, I've been shot through the head on five or six occasions"- Troop Leader Keitel, The Corps
 
Hrm....<random thought> Wonder if Citadel (or a similar company) could pick-up/do an Epic ship battle system like they do for War Hammer 40K? </random thought>

Need to find caffeine....brain stopped working
laugh.gif


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UD Cancer Agent
 
I have a copy of the core B5 book, but never got a chance to play it. Horrid artwork, some nifty info. Anyone know if it's "canon", "kinda-sorta canon", or "stuff they made up 'cause it sounded good"?

Alternity kinda stuck me as having a B5-ish feel to it.

WotC also has d20 Wheel of Time. Not too bad, if you like that universe (and I do).

Someone's coming out with d20 Call of Cthulhu. I had many good times with the original Chaosium rules.

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"We are (not) all Kosh."
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Anyone know if it's "canon", "kinda-sorta canon", or "stuff they made up 'cause it sounded good"?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Well, AFAIK That was one of the things that annoyed the B5 guys, that the TBP guys used too much "stuff they made up 'cause it sounded good".
Like writing stuff without checking with the B5 guys if it's what in their files (which made the Prometheus an Nova...), etc.
Afterward BabylonianProductions and WB instituted a policy that everything a licenseholder does has to be checked and approved by them before release...

That said, most of the general stuff in TBP is "kinda-sorta canon - unless aynone else, like JMS, BabProd or another licenseholder has a better idea".

Personally I prefer the BG info from Agents of Gaming - that one DID pass the reviews of BabProd & WB, and the guys there DID take extra care with the BG. (even though B5W doesn't cover a lot of the things you'll need for a RPG...)
I really hope they'll get their license expanded and make a good B5 RPG sometime in the future... maybe even get the now-defunct B5 character miniature line from former Harlequin Miniatures to support it. Unfortunately that won't happen soon - right now they're busy with Babylon5Wars, it's large-fleet cousing FleetAction, and the B5 ground combat game GROPOS. But in a year they might have time & space for a new project - there was talk about either a B5 RPG or a B5 strategic game...

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"ShadowScout"
Roman Alexander

"Go on, watch out for Shadows - we'll watch you right back!"

What do you want?
ShadowShips!
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by ITRP:
Hrm....<random thought> Wonder if Citadel (or a similar company) could pick-up/do an Epic ship battle system like they do for War Hammer 40K? </random thought><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Agents of Gaming have such a system already, Fleet Action (though just going into a second version at the moment) for which they produce a whole horde of miniatures - an Omega class destroyer is about an inch and a half long, a Narn G'Quan cruiser is about the inch mark, and the Whitestars are just over a quarter inch long.



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Paddy Sinclair

"I think it's an excellent plan. But then, I've been shot through the head on five or six occasions"- Troop Leader Keitel, The Corps
 
Strange who you run into when you're out and about Hiya Roman
smile.gif
[Whoo hoo, I've got my second diamond at last with my very infrequent posts...]

Originally posted by ShadowScout:
Personally I prefer the BG info from Agents of Gaming - that one DID pass the reviews of BabProd & WB, and the guys there DID take extra care with the BG. (even though B5W doesn't cover a lot of the things you'll need for a RPG...)

When it comes to the Narn, Centauri and Minbari I found the B5Wars range of products actually covers more roleplaying aspects of those races than the BP ever did. Certainly ranks and such like, big chunks of social history and the course of a few wars as well.

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Paddy Sinclair

"I think it's an excellent plan. But then, I've been shot through the head on five or six occasions"- Troop Leader Keitel, The Corps
Click to expand...
 
I remind you that if you join the ISA Phoenix Sim, you have to be really active. As I don't have my personal connection to internet and I check my mail... well, not very often plus I had a busy time with my studies, my mail was soon to be filled with posts and they were very interesting story threads. But as I read 20 messages, I had still 20 other messages to read and then arrived 30 new messages. So if you join, you must keep in touch with your email or soon you will drown with rpg-threads. I unfortunately had to quit, but I hope that I could someday join again and finally do something interesting.

Regards,
TheInfection
 
Hi Infection,

I'm not sure when you were a member of the Phoenix, but these days we're not as busy as we used to be. We've had an average of 10 story posts a month so far this year, plus a few admin posts, but that's about it. (And that's been a real flood compared to the year before. I think the B5LR movie really woke people up!)

We're also a lot more liberal about folks who just want to lurk than we used to be. No minimum posting requirements, the way it was when I joined back in 1996. We're under new management. /ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif

You'd be welcome to come back if you wish!

Best wishes,
Jamie
 
I'm in two RPG's one is run by EntilzaDelenn in a yahoo group called Babylon 5 last Hope and I'm in the Phoinex sim also which is really fun
 
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