In all seriousness, my tinker itch is going off like crazy for BattleMouse Galactica, but no way I can add another hobby project to my plate right now.
Holy Hannah that’d be cool. How to tap into the core paranoia of the show, though? Maybe a Nature(Cylon) and a Nature(Human), and the first time you use one or the other is when we find out what you are?
p.
Three Natures: Nature Unknown, Nature Human, Nature Cylon. Each has its own set of distinct descriptors. You start unknown and don’t get to pick which of the other two you eventually turn into. And it’s possible to later turn from Human to Cylon (via a twist or condition!).
That would, indeed, be one hell of a twist.
p.
Because I can’t leave well enough alone: a BattleMouse Galactica braindump.
Premise – What’s this about? What do characters do in this setting?
Crewmembers of Galactica preserving the limping remnants of the human race.
Missions – What kind of missions do the characters go on?
Getting food or fuel. Scoping out planets and various other space stuff. Recon. Defense. Fleet security.
Overarching Conflict – If your setting isn’t about outdoor survivalism, what’s the overarching conflict? What’s the implacable force?
The weight of survival, and the relentless efforts of the Cylons.
Territories – What are the Territories for this setting?
The fleet. (or New Caprica)
Denizens – What creatures or NPCs populate the setting?
Cylons of many stripes. The human colonists.
Skills – Your setting’s going to need new skills!
Spaceship stuff - flying and fixing them.
Recruitment – This is the biggie. Recreate the Recruitment section so that it fits your setting! Rename the steps, but keep the same number of steps and the same point totals.
What colony were you from? What did you do back there? What did your family do? What do you do in the fleet now?
And there I was thinking you meant a BattleMouse Galactica that actually involved mice!
Easily remedied:
Premise – What’s this about? What do characters do in this setting?
Crewmembers of Galactica preserving the limping remnants of the mice race.
Denizens – What creatures or NPCs populate the setting?
Cylons of many stripes, with the foot solder Cylons being metallic weasels. The mice colonists.
The 3 natures would become: Nature Unknown, Nature Mouse, Nature Cylon.
Seasons could become Hyperspace Jumps, with every 4th Jump (i.e. Winter) being to a ‘safe’ place to recover from the previous 3. A bit contrived perhaps but could work.
Now to think about Star Mice…
Other than the furry quotient, though, what does making them mice actually do to the game? Are there implications of scale? I’m thinking – and this is just totally riffing here – that BMG would feature the surviving mice living aboard the BSG, amongst humans, zipping around in ducts and hiding in forgotten crannies of the ships while hiding in cargo to move from ship to ship. I have no idea what happens when you introduce humans into a MG game, though – they’re so big and effectively immortal and all-powerful that they’d probably be forces of nature.
Further riffing on this: do the Cyclons have a second prong in their efforts to discover the secrets of their own souls? Are there in fact Cyclon mice hidden among the survivor mice in the fleet?
This whole angle would allow you to use Nature(Mouse) unchanged from the original rules – they’re still MG mice, and they’re probably even still medieval, but now they’re on ships featuring a whole different set of issues.
p.
That’s kind of cool. Can we frame it so that they never actually see humans?
Maybe exchange “weather” complications for “human” complications? Implacable and unavoidable – just something you have to deal with? Running gun battle, food riot, etc.
No thoughts yet on rebuilding the seasons cycle around that.
p.
For some reason this, particularly the food riot bit, is giving me strong “Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri” flashbacks. I’m having currently-inarticulable (woah is that a word?) ideas based on the social problems of post-exodus societies. I have no idea if it’s relevant for MG hacks but I just thought I’d share.
The Territories could be on something like an Ag ship, where crops are being grown.
But then you lose the whole “I’m in space” thing.
OR, it turns the game into The Starlost/Metamorphosis Alpha.
Hurm.
Heck, it could be that the Mouse Guard mice found a space on the ships of Silent Running… instead of weather, or humans, it’s Robots… Programming replaces Weather Watcher.
The One Human aboard the remaining fleet is a boogeyman…
But we’d still need two or three more scales…
Shuttles
Small Ship/Dome
Big Ship
To continue my previous thoughts on Mousestar Galactica… Commandmouse Gwendolyn has managed to, along with the ‘priests’, reprogram the ships of the fleet, after the [human?] crews were recalled back to [earth?]… they didn’t build them, they can’t make new ones, but they can go in search of the promised land… a World with no Weasels.
It was only after the humans left that the mice discovered the forest was in an agrodome… they’d been captured surreptitiously…
The Cylons, yup… cyber-weasals. Me, I like the clarity of sides of the old BSG… and dislike nBSG for it’s “yanks in space,” “Minorities are suspect or incompetent,” and “They are among us” memes.
Them cyber weasels took over a few ships, too… Anyway, instead of lakes, we get crossing to other ships in either suits or ships… and remember, a shuttle for humans can be a significant flying village for mice…
Let’s see… a ZPE system, and 3D printing tech… and a series of near-AI computers that the mouse-priests have learned to extract sacred teachings from…
We also change the 4 elements: Tech, Mice, Other Critters, Environment.
We add pilot, vac-suit, electronics, and programming to the lists. Vac-Suit is added to guard skills, Pilot to both Mentor and Guardmouse, Programming to Captain.
For a more galactica feel, ranks are renamed:
Tenderfoot-> Trainee
Guardsmouse-> Warrior
Patrol Guard -> Sergeant
Patrol Leader -> Lieutenant
Guard Captain -> Captain
Head of Guard -> Colonel or Commander (Each ship has a Commander; each may have a colonel or two as well… the senior-most commander sits on the council of 12…)
The Council: the 12 agro-ships, the MouseStars, each have a seat on the council. Each is programmed to simulate the seasons in the ag sections, so seasonal variations can be done. The other ‘ships’ are either captured or are actually shuttles colonized by mice, and are village like.
New weapons are all way out-of-scale for the mice… they are all ship-to-ship. So we get cool guardsmice running about, cloaks on, swords, etc… fighting cyber weasel invaders, and trying to capture Weasel controlled shuttles, and tyring desperately to survive long enough to make the jump to a system with no weasels…
What they don’t know is that the weasels ALWAYS get the jump coords… but due to their hacking, have slowed the jump process… thus giving a season in jump and 3 seasons in system: One weasel free, one with just the leading elements, and one with major ships in range…
So I’ve been reading this thread for a little while and wanted to chime in with some of the work I’ve been doing on this matter. Keep in mind that these Natures are for Humans and Cylons, not Mice. You can always adapt though!
Human Natures (By Colony)
Aerelon: Survivor, Private, Simple
Aquaria: Self-Sufficient, Exploring, Quiet
Canceron:
- North: Troublesome, Devoted, Chip-on-the-shoulder
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South: Dour, Haggler, Devoted
Caprica: Metropolitan, Specialized, Sheltered
Gemenon: Faithful, Resourceful, (choose) Zealot/Accepting
Leonis: Proud, Bitter, Persevering
Libris: Focused, Plotting, Full of Style
Picon: Militaristic, Traditional, Born to Lead
Sagittaron: Peaceful, Hard-Working, Faithful
Scorpia: Calculating, Influential, Charismatic
Tauron: Tough, Stubborn, Inventive
Virgon: Opportunistic, Keen-Eyed, Under-Rated
Cylon Natures
One (Cavil): Sarcastic, Spiteful, Cold
Two (Leoban): Prophetic, Patient, Knowing
Three (D’ana): Driven, Faithful, Must-Know-The-Five, Lost
Four (Simon): Trusting Face, Scientific, Toes the Line
Five (Doral): Peevish, Second, Cruel
Six (Caprica): Seductive, Creative, Compassionate
Seven (SPOILER PROOF): Spoiler Proof
Eight (Sharon): Emotional, Manipulative, Gutsy
Raider: Predator, Group-Think, Swarming
Centurion: Slaved, Guarding, Destructive
Hybrid: Prophetic, Plugged-In, Babbling
You don’t have to use all 7 of the Cylon Humanoid Natures if you don’t want. You can just cull them all down to 3 Traits you feel are useful.
More to come, probably on Equipment bonuses w/ Vehicles.
Too many natures. You should offer trait choices based on home colony, but humans should just have the one nature. And to be true to the show, it should be about selfishness. Lying, betrayal, etc. The cylon nature should be about selflessness.
I also don’t think any non-skinjobs would be much of a playable character. Maybe centurions, but as we know in the show they’re apparently all chipped to keep them in line. Hybrids are idiot savants, while raiders are described as being like animals. I think all of them could be represented as “animals” in MG terms - a single Nature(Centurion) or whatever stat.
I think you are correct in that there’s too many human natures. I was going with the idea of Humans battling against their natures to stay together, band together and all that. I feel that each Humanoid Cylon is different, their own culture, but all that can be taken into account during creation with traits. I think i’ll work on a “recruitment” stage next to revise this.
As for the Cylons, I did use the animals as templates. You may notice similarities if you flip through that section. I tried to use dogs as a general guideline for the Raiders, just with twists. But as of 4x03 and 4x22 We see that Centurions are more independant if allowed. After all they evolved once before.
This was just a lot of off-the-top-of-my head stuff, I’ll see about revising and see where it goes.