Thousand Suns: New Scifi RPG

[Rhialto the Marvelous]

Have any of you checked it out yet? It's by James Maliszewski. Looks promising to me.

http://www.rogue-games.net/othergames2.html

Whatever happened to his Fourth Millennium RPG, by the way? I mean, after his laptop with all the files was stolen.

 

[rust]

I have Thousand Suns, and I really like it, because it has some (well, quite
much) of that old "Traveller feeling" based on the science fiction of the Fif-
ties and Sixties.
The system is a d12, Abilities plus Skills = Skill Ranks, Character point buy,
system with the usual typical science fiction professions and skills. It is well
thought out, at least for my taste.
The book has about 270 pages and contains everything needed to play the
game, including ideas how to build a setting plus a meta-setting with various
options, for example Federation or Empire, good or bad leaders, optional his-
torical events, and so on.
The aliens of Thousand Suns are interesting and truly alien, the technology
is a bit underdeveloped (no ship building system yet), and the world building
system is perhaps overly simple (but more developed than CT).

 

[Jame]

Oh yeah! I saw this in an FLGS and said "Man I wish I had the money for this!"

 

[Vargas]

Now that I think of it, it certainly took a while for news of this to hit here.

 

[maliszew]

Whatever happened to his Fourth Millennium RPG, by the way? I mean, after his laptop with all the files was stolen.

Fourth Millennium (renamed Fourth Millennium: Future Imperfect) is still in the works for later this year from Rogue Games. There is even a page dedicated to it on the site.

I'm not sure where the laptop with the files being stolen story came from, since I don't own a laptop. The game is slowly coming along, as it has been for years, mostly because it's one of those back burner projects that I keep tinkering with and then changing as I grow frustrated with it. I've finally hit upon what I hope is the right formula for the game, which is why it's on tap for later this year. As it gets closer to completion and publication, I'm sure you'll hear more about it.

 

[rust]

Maliszew, if you are the guy who developed Thousand Suns: Congratulations,
and thank you very much for an excellent science fiction RPG !

 

[Rhialto the Marvelous]

I'm not sure where the laptop with the files being stolen story came from, since I don't own a laptop.

I could have SWORN I read a post on the infraweb by you yourself telling that tale!

But congratulations on 1000 Suns. It's funny, I used to love reading cyberpunk, but RPG-wise I always preferred older-school settings like the one you wrote.

 

[maliszew]

Maliszew, if you are the guy who developed Thousand Suns: Congratulations,
and thank you very much for an excellent science fiction RPG !

I am indeed the developer of the game and you're quite welcome. I'm so pleased it's found an audience who are happy with it.

 

[maliszew]

I could have SWORN I read a post on the infraweb by you yourself telling that tale!

I suppose I could have overdosed on psi drugs and forgotten the whole incident. Otherwise, nope, 'twas not I. Fourth Millennium is still sitting on the hard drive of my desk top computer and will see publication later this year. At the moment, I'm concentrating on Thousand Suns and its first supplement, but 4M will finally get the treatment it deserves before the year is out.

 

[Qstor2]

I liked your work for GT too. Any chance of more Traveller work?

Mike

 

[maliszew]

I liked your work for GT too. Any chance of more Traveller work?

Unlikely, I'm afraid. There aren't a lot of paid writing opportunities for Traveller anymore and, more to the point, I'm honestly not sure what else I could write for the game. After all these years, most of its nooks and crannies have been pretty well detailed, which is part of the reason why I decided to create my own game without a "toolkit" approach and no canon setting.

Mind you, Traveller is my first love in gaming and I've learned never to say never ...