Browncoats and Hands of Blue

[Rafe]

For hazards, I would say: space, the ship (its systems), humans, enemies (Alliance, Reavers, whatever). Space would replace environment, while ship would replace weather (systems failures, etc). Humans replace mice and enemies replace animals.

In terms of skills, I don’t think you’d need to add much. Maybe make Hunter into Gunslinger, and keep Fighter as Fighter (or make it Brawler). For riding, just have Rider instead of Insectrist. Some of the craft-type skills probably need to be removed. Fill those in with necessary skills for the setting, like Engineer, Technician, etc. Harvester becomes Salvager, etc.

The best way to do a hack is to not change much. If you can just reskin, do it. Better to substitute names than try to create too much new stuff.

The big question is this: What would Nature look like? Once you have a good idea of Nature descriptors, the rest is gravy. The key to Nature descriptors is to have things that are in a firefly ship’s crew’s nature… but which stand somewhat opposed to what they would likely be doing during a mission.

Luke said it really well when we were working on the Realm Guard hack:

@luke

Nature in Mouse Guard is a force at odds with the duty that must be performed. As it stands now, Nature in this hack is perfectly in tune with the duty. This does not adequately represent the source material. Aragorn is not at peace with himself and his role. To put it in game terms: His Nature is one thing, his duty is another.

Therefore, I propose Nature’s descriptors for these Rangers be Grief, Tradition and Family.

Grief – the weight of the tide of time upon the immortal and long-lived
Tradition – the rituals, etiquette, mores and values of this most venerable culture
Family – the deep-seated instinct to build families, dynasties and lineages.

Note well that none of these are particularly useful to their duty. In fact, these qualities call these men home like a siren song. At home, they can mourn their grief, practice right and good traditions and tend to their families. In fact, this is what they fight for when they roam and range. That internal conflict will add depth and vulnerabilities to these hardened fighting men.