Something I've been wanting to do for a while is a campaign based off of 1950's sci fic. Stuff like ludicrous technology, sexy green alien damsels, dashing space captains, fighting communism and all that jazz. Problem is I don't know any good systems for it, let alone how to write a decent story for it.
Anyone else done anything like this? I could use some advice.
Also 1950's Sci Fic art thread
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Well you can start by reading up on and looking for inspiration with "retro-futurism" and "raygun gothic." As for systems and stories, these kind of tales were really part of and the tail end of the pulp era. Whether written or on screen, they were serialized, and they were full of Good vs. Evil, so the plots aren't necessarily that complicated. Whether or not you want to deconstruct that is up to you, obviously. I would still consider using something loose and free-for-all. Risus, maybe. Fate, if that's your thing. On the crunchier side, GURPS has to have a supplement for this.
Thanks for the advice! I was thinking of making it a sort of campy parody of 50's lifestyles with lots of "hes bad because he's evil" kind of mindsets to match the literature of the era. Never heard of Risus, I'll have to look into it.
Risus is about as freeform as you can get while still having something like rules.
Does anyone have that pic of a raygun guy shooting a purple tentacle monster?
Nope, but I can bump the thread
Risus is a fine choice, one of my favorite rpg's. As an alternative I offer you pic related, which is a nice, simple system that was specifically designed for retro-future games and works really well. It's a modified version or Warrior Rogue Mage, and you can use monsters and stuff from that system to flesh it out.
Damn, thanks user
also some more art
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a primary component of 1950s science fiction is more than just the pulpy raygun gothic appearance. At its heart is an optimism that science will make the world better. That authority is in the hands of people who can be trusted, and that crime is engage in by bad people.
in general anyways. There's plenty of room for nuance, its not like the better writers of the era shied away from criticising power or portraying underdogs as desperate people willing to get their hands dirty.
The one thing that is absolutely required however is optimism and faith in the ability of science and an organized system to make the world a better place.
the government can be flawed but in general the idea is a bureaucracy combined with taxation system and good regulation usually will benefit people when combined with advanced technology.
so in general you'd be doing space wild west probably.
Password?
Weird. Don't know why it's asking for that. Try "cancel"
Jesus fucking christ what's up with captcha?
Loading it to Dropbox. Give me a minute.
Aye thanks a lot user!
No problem. Now, as for advice on running something like this, read the attached. It's fairly short but has some very good stuff it it. The system is mediocre but the setting info and the basic overview of playing in a retro sci-fi game is good. Also, for some fun and fairly modern retro stuff I heartily recommend watching the Duck Dodgers cartoon. It's great.
Here's another collection of images. dropbox.com
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I participated in a short lived game of Mutant's & Masterminds inspired by Flash Gordon, Adam Strange, Challengers Of The Unknown, assorted B-Movies and old covers of Amazing Stories and Popular Science
It was great while it lasted
You might also like this thread:
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1. BIGGER IS BETTER! Remember that this was the period we were changing from vacuum tube technology to transistors. Miniaturization just wasn't a thing yet. Computers filled entire rooms.
2. Atomics were the way of the future and could do anything. Atomic rockets, atomic rayguns, atomic robots, nothing mechanical couldn't be made better by the addition of atomics. How did it work? Atomic power, of course. Stop asking silly questions.
3. Gravity is science's bitch. Hovercars and the like are easily built with a bit of scientific knowledge and some elbow grease. Now, you may ask why, if it's so easy, they aren't ubiquitous everywhere. The answer of course is shut your whore mouth and stop asking uncomfortable questions.
4. And, on the topic of gravity, from the biggest planet to the smallest moon it's the same wherever you go. Similarly, every single one of them will have an atmosphere humans can survive in, and will likely already have life
5. Radiation... radiation is amazing. It doesn't give you hporrible burns and slowly unwind your DNA, killing you in an agonizing manner. No, it turns you into a cool, rampaging monster and/or makes you taller than the average highrise. Radiation rocks!
6. Robots aren't common, but they aren't rare either. Usually they come in one of two flavors, bumbling but well meaning, or "Murder-Tron 5000!" (but still rather bumbling and ineffective).
7. Aliens everywhere. Seriously, you can't even land on a nice quiet asteroid to stretch your legs and maybe have a space pee without running into alien life. Like robots they tend to come in two flavors, monstrous and bestial, or strangely human-like and better-than-thou.
8. Magic is real! Except that it always winds up being alien super science or, in rarer cases, psionics. (Yes, yes, I know "psionics" is just space magic. Let me just reiterate shut up.)
8. Women are there to look good and be kidnapped by the monster/space conqueror of the week. Now, the better written ones sometimes prove to be quite capable in their own right, but over all... yeah.
9. Children are nothing but trouble magnets. Avoid them if you can, space the little bastards when the camera is focused elsewhere if you can't.
10. The insanely complex pan-dimensional calculations needed to travel from point to point in space are best done by the ship's computer, but anyone with a bit of training can knock them out in a few tense minutes when necessary.
11. And, on the subject of travel don't worry, you'll get there soon enough. It doesn't matter how far it is, it rarely takes more than a few days to make it.
12. Ships come in two basic styles, bullet shaped for Earthlings, and saucer shaped for aliens. (I don't care if it looks like a flaming hubcap hanging from a string, it's a flying saucer god damn it!)
13. Never, ever, EVER trust the strangely human-like alien overlord. He's almost invariably out to take your woman and conquer your world no matter what he might claim. And, if he's dressed like a space Mandarin/Roman/Whatever just go ahead and shoot him in the face.
14. No matter how impossibly advanced and powerful the alien technology, human gumption and cunning can overcome it to save the day.
15. Nothing- and I mean NOTHING- makes better clothes and space suits than silver lame tights. If anyone tries to tell you otherwise you send those filthy liars packing.
16. Don't sweat the language barrier. Either you'll be able to understand the aliens immediately or you'll never be able to understand them at all. It's one of the manifold mysterious marvels of the universe.
17. Nanites or something similar must exist even though no one ever talks about them. It's one of those dirty little secrets. How else do you explain the fact that none of those space ships ever seem to have showers or toilets?
18. Get them to the pods! No injury, no matter how severe, can't be healed by some time in a medical pod. (Nanites again maybe?) As long as the person is still technically alive when you put them in the pod, they'll come out healthy, whole and hale.
19. Fist beats sword. Gun beats fist. Armor isn't really a thing unless it's part of the aliens' culture. (Not!romans, I'm looking at you.) Forcefields do exist, though, although rarely in human hands.
This user knows his shit.
20. Nothing says style like form fitting, matching jumpsuits, no matter how pudgy the actors might be.
21. And, ladies, you might think that long, flowing hair floating around loose inside your spacesuit helmet would be a problem, but that just shows what you know about physics. Good thing the ship has a kitchen to keep you occupied when you aren't being kidnapped.
22. It's in a cornfield in rural Iowa. Whatever alien thing lands on Earth and needs to be found, it's in a rural cornfield in Iowa.Don't even bother looking elsewhere.
23. The military will be useless or even outright detrimental once you do find the alien thing that landed on Earth. Do everything in your power to keep them out of the way while your plucky band of adventure-scientists do the real work.
24. If it's glowing... DON'T TOUCH THE DAMNED THING! This should be common freaking sense! I don't understand why some idiot always insists on touching the glowing thing. It never ends well. "Don't touch the glowing thing" should be tattooed on every bloody character's forehead. So many lives could be saved from horrible mutation or devourment if they would just remember this one simple rule.
Mr. Rogers approves.
I can't tell you just how happy that thought makes me.
Fuck, this really helped my morning. Well done user!
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That sounds like my ideal campaign, both as a player and GM
I wonder if authors of this shit are going to call cops if their car gets stolen
>I wonder if authors of this shit are going to call cops if their car gets stolen
Huh?
>”I’m BACKWARDS you idiot!!”
Stuff that might be worth checking out:
>archive.org
There's a lot of pulp SF magazines from the 50s, and you can find many of them online, but Galaxy is by far the best. Not necessarily the best representation of the genre as a whole, as they had considerably higher than average standards, and explicitly didn't want "Western but in Space" or pure technobabble stories, but I can't recommend them enough. Lots of SF writers that are still hailed as some of the best of their time got published in Galaxy, and many of the stories still hold up.
>archive.org
Or, if you want something ridiculously cheezy, there's SPACE PATROL!, probably the archeotypical space ranger series. Commander Buzz Corry reminds you to start your day with cardboard-tasting cereal! Buy enough boxes and get the official Space Patrol cheap plastic raygun!
>archive.org
Slightly lower in the cheese-o-meter is Tom Corbett, Space Caded, a radio serial (also a TV show, like SPACE PATROL!) originally based on a Heinlein book with the serial number hastily filed off.
saved your pic.
this shit ITT is the best I ever seen since I saw Frazetta's books on the Mars saga.
princess of mars
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Happy to be of service.
Following this gentleman's post, I would suggest the Buzz Lightyear cartoon, which wasn't from the 50's obviously but really managed to capture the flavor while updating it. Plus it's just fun. The Lost In Space series is also a classic, if a decade later, and downright hilarious once they get to the second season and Harris (the actor who played Doctor Smith) starts hamming it up. And, Plan Nine From Outer Space needs to be watched by any connoisseur just because it's so bad. (See "flaming hubcap flying saucers".)
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Frazetta's intuition for depicting the sense of motion on a still image is fucking amazing.
Press F to pay your respects
reminds me of this
youtube.com
God Jane fonda was hot as fuck back in the day. Too bad she was a treacherous fucking bitch who should have probably been napalmed
Let it go, man. She said and did few stupid things (especially the photos, which she has always regretted) after being led to believe that America was targeting farms and dikes and were killing non-combatants, but most of what's claimed about her is outright lies. You have to keep in mind that a LOT of people opposed that war on moral grounds and actively worked against it not out of any kind of traitorous intent but because they thought it was genuinely wrong. She was just the one that got most of the media attention.
Would Genesys work?
Can't see why not. It started as Star Wars, after all, which isn't far from the style in question to begin with.
she also ran propaganda for the VC tried to deny that the Vietcong tortured POWs and called them liars when they returned from war. She personally visited a POW camp, met with a few POWs that they trotted out as propaganda, then tried to claim that people who were tortured there were just liars. Most people just thought the war was bullshit but she went into "the Vietcong dindu nuffin!" territory. The story you posted is false obviously but what she did went a bit beyond protesting the war.
Here you go
youtube.com
youtube.com
I was against Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and am certainly not into the idea of going into Syria but if I was in a rice paddy with an M60 back in 'Nam and I saw that wolf-dike hollywood cunt walkin around I would have lit her ass up.
this dude is right
Except he's not. First, she never personally witnessed any torture or saw any signs of it. The claims that the seven men she met with were beaten and forced to meet her are outright lies refuted by the men themselves. Her later claims that returning POW's weren't the victims of torture were rather fucking stupid on the face of it, but like a lot of people at the time she honestly believed that most of those stories were propaganda created by the state department to further their cause. As for the radio messages. again she wasn't saying anything that a lot of other people weren't already saying. She just had the unfortunate ability to actually have her message reached. And, if you ever listen to her broadcasts they weren't "America is evil. Bring down the great Satan." They were "This war is wrong and we all know it. Please stop.", a view held by a great many people.
She wasn't a malicious actor trying to bring down the country and get men killed, she was a foolish, ignorant and somewhat naive girl who thought she was doing the right thing, and who the VC were happy to use to further their ends.
TL:DR; Stupid, yes. Traitor deserving of death, no.
She was an activist for the Black Panthers before the war. That should give one an idea of just how stupid and trusting she was.
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>LARPers in the future getting disturbed by low-flying spacecraft.
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I think said larpers might be more upset by the explosions from the the spaceships weapons than by the ships themselves.
I mean, maybe it's just me, but...