Solarpunk

There's definitely a lot of challenges, but it's what myself and my friends wanted to play, so we made it.

The nice thing is that since it's open source, people can take the parts they like and toss what they don't.

Depends on how bad, but if I can hear you it's probably fine. We also have a text game starting.

https://discord.gg/tjscrvjd

I airways wondered why people don't just get a better mic. You don't need to spend a lot of money, a $20 headset will work

Thanks!

I just recently learned that a separate group of writers made a solarpunk game for FATE if you prefer that system. Overall, I'm writing towards the play system that appeals to me, but I think a lot of the content could be used in one's system of preference: http://solarpunk2050.de/

Here's the Discord link, which I forgot to share: https://discord.gg/tjscrvjd

We organize games here and have a channel for development discussion, so if you're interested you should join the server and drop in when time allows.

That sounds appealing. Can you share a link? Also, what's your approach? I'm assuming you're talking about synthetic photography, right?

A solarpunk society is going to have many of the conflicts any human civilization tends to see. By working on fundamental inequalities and striving to provide safety nets and stability, we can remove a lot of motivations for crimes, but there'll always be people who'll try to cheat others, take harmful shortcuts, or commit crimes for reasons other than necessity. Serial killers spring to mind. Even within a fairly equal society you may have people who feel they could have had more, that they've been cheated out of a birthright of capitalist millionaire-hood or some good-old-days existence, real or imagined

How do you handle law enforcement, how do you contain genuinely dangerous people?

There'll also be groups outside solarpunk communities. People who ascribe to old world values, who prioritize extraction and hoarding of resources, who push their externalities like waste onto others or their environment. They might be upstream, poisoning your water. Personally I see it as a fairly postapocalyptic setting, focused mostly on people rebuilding in a more thoughtful, deliberate, and inclusive way, so I don't think it's a stretch to say bandits and accelerationist survivalists will still be around on the fringes. Perhaps someone wants what you've built and they don't want to share it with you, perhaps they disagree with the entire premise of your society and want it to stop existing.

How do you negotiate with these people? How do you work out some kind of arrangement that improves things? Can you avoid violence when the other people glorify it?

Even if you don't think that stuff fits, that it's not utopian enough, any community will be plagued with conflicts over the best way to accomplish something, even if most members agree overall on the goals. Environmental movements are full of disagreements over which tradeoffs to accept.

Here's an example from something I've been thinking about recently: society needs a certain amount of steel and concrete, especially when rebuilding. You can reduce the overall amount, but that has other tradeoffs, you might need to harvest more lumber, deforesting certain areas, or cut back on housing or civil services, worsening peoples' lives. Or you meet the required amounts - steel and concrete both take tremendous amounts of heat to produce. Your community could build a solar furnace using a ton of pivoting mirrors, and a parabolic concentrator, or a traditional fired furnace/kiln. The former will cover much more land, destroying habitats, and any birds who cross through the solar flux. The traditional system will produce lots of CO2 and other pollutants, and require fuel whose extraction process also damages habitats and will cost money or trade goods for as long as it runs. This kind of conflict is almost worse because most people involved want to do the right thing and have considered the options, they just prioritize different aspects of the problem.

The genre is new enough that there isn't really a cultural collection of recognizable tropes. Which is really a big reason why I made this.

In the first campaign, there is one story about a high-stakes medical emergency and two stories that are similar to conflicts you might find in cyberpunk fiction, but reframed by the context in which they take place. You can read through the stories in the campaign module. Or join a play session. I think you'll have fun.

Yeah, it's a reasonable take. Personally, I have enough issues with all the systems I've tried that I homebrewed enough rules that it's easier to just describe the rules than reference anything else.

The rules started with the Corporation RPG, which uses 2d10s for skill checks, and you try to roll below your attribute + points in a skill, and the skills are all selected to be genre-relevant.

The combat system is totally custom. I get that it's kind of risky and hubristic, but I'll just say it: I've never found a combat system that worked for my interests. The most fun systems I've played are Gloomhaven and Unmatched, which are both board games, not RPGs. So I made my own based on what I like.

The goal was to make something that had a feeling like fights in real life: it should feel somewhat tactical, but also be very fast and impulsive rather than slow and methodical. The solution is that it's a played on a hex grid map, and the players have a very simple set of actions: they can move, they have one or two attacks, they can defend, and they can aim. It acts like rock-paper-scissors: everyone picks their action at the start of the round, then reveals at once. If you want to get tactical, there is plenty of room, but generally it should feel like a real fight: if someone has ranged attacks, you want to take cover. If someone is very aggressive, you should probably play defense. If they are very defensive, take advantage by using aim, which doesn't work if you get attacked in the round you play it, but makes your next attack devastating if you play it successfully. There are some nuances like fudge dice to avoid it all being determination, but overall it feels fast, easy to pick up, and fair.

Personally, it's my favorite combat system. Which is funny, because the game isn't that combat heavy, but it's an example of why I just went ahead and made custom rules system. If i thought I could tell the stories better with another one I would've, but I didn't. So this is what i did.

As you said, it's FOSG, so people can take the stories or lore and use them in FATE or GURPS or whatever they like. But it started as a game for friends, and I wrote the manual around the game as I ran it.

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