Factions/ Setting

 When I started this project I chose Exosquad at the recommendation of a friend. When I was a kid I remember really liking Exosquad and in fact I had a handful of the toys, but I am not a lifelong fan. When I decided to make Exofleet Adventures one thing I knew I would have to do is watch the entire series as research for the game. Luckily one of my buddies had the complete series on DVD so I was able to borrow the discs from him. 

One of the things that stood out about Exosquad is the relatively complex plot and setting for a kids show of this era. In the 90's most kids shows were basically commercials for toys. The plots were simple good guys vs bad guys stuff. Exosquad, while definitely tied to a toy line was a little "deeper" than your average show from that time. 

I remembered from my childhood that the primary forces involved in the show were the humans as the good guys and the neosapiens as the villains. Even as a kid I remember there was some ambiguity with the morality of the two factions. The humans created the neosapiens but then treated them as a slave race. The neosapiens were waging a war of extermination against the humans but many neosapiens saw the war as the only chance they had for survival. Humans are not always presented in a positive light and neosapiens were frequently sympathetic. 

Now that I am about halfway through the first season I am surprised at how many factions are represented and how large the cast of characters is. The neosapiens are the primary antagonists but there are also human pirates, resistance forces on Earth, Mars and Venus, There are mutinous forces among the Exofleet and even the different neosapien generals lead their forces in different ways. General Draconis on Venus for example is much more genocidal than the other neosapien except for maybe Phaeton himself. 

This was a pleasant discovery for me. Thinking in terms of the tabletop its a great asset for this setting to have so many diverse and philosophically distinct factions. Players could be members of any one of these factions and be in conflict with any other faction within the canon of the show. 

Researching/rewatching exosquad has been a fun project. Hopefully some time this week I will have another rules/gameplay update. 

Exofleet Adventures 9/2/20

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Core Mechanic/Scale

 As mentioned in my previous post one of the main challenges of translating Exosquad into an tabletop game is the idea of scale. Over the course of the series combat in Exosquad takes place at a number of different "scales." for the purposes of the tabletop RPG I have identified 4 differnt scales. Infantry level combat with humans fighting neosapiens on foot is common. E-frame and space fighter scale combat is probably the most common combat scale that we see in the show. Large vehicles like larger mecha and tanks appear occasionally, and finally very large scale vehicles like capital ships have a major role in the show as well.  I believe in a game like Exosquad the idea of scale needs to be baked into the core mechanic of the game. Lawful Nice (of white wizards workshop) had a discussion on their blog several years ago about using a D10 dice to represent mecha combat in a game that usually used D6's for combat. The idea of larger dice representing physically larger
Read more

Vehicle Creation

 This will be a pretty short update:  If you are going to make a game based on a property like Exosquad which was centered around a new novel technology like E-frames, you better have the part of the game that represents that technology nailed down tight. Most of the time your players are going to be role playing what characters do with that technology. In this case the characters are going to be role playing the act of piloting and fighting inside of E-frames.  In order to encourage this style of play my idea is the keep the actual character creation very simple. Characters are going to be five bonuses and maybe one or two traits to make them feel distinct from one another. The real meat of the "character creation" and will be in either in the creation of a unique E-frame or the selection of an E-frame seen in the show, as well as the equipment loadout selected by your character.  This week I spent time working on Vehicle Creation rules. If you plan on sticking to Canon, I a
Read more