Which of Shakespear's plays could be redone in Traveller?

[Liam Devlin]

Well, extoling the virtues of Mr melville's other works, there's also other classical authors whose *stories* could be dropped into a *Traveller setting*.

The vessels, and hardware and tech goodies are all window dressings to *the story*. Several older stories we have seen have been recast in a SF-settings.

Alexander Dumas' adventures (Three Musketeers, Cyrano, Man in the Iron Mask, Count of Monte Cristo, (The Four Musketeers)Twenty-years After)

Homer's Iliad, & the Odyssey (Traveller's The Long Road Home?)

these immediately leap to my mind. There are hundreds more I'm sure.

Back to topic...Aside from Shakespeare's plays, what other playwrights works could be done as traveller adventures?

 

[otherles]

And then there's the Babylon 5 as Swamp Castle thing...

"Don't like her? She's beautiful! She's rich! She's got huge...influence on the Grey Council!"

"But I want the girl I marry to have that... certain... special... something!"

"STOP THAT! STOP THAT! There'll be no singing while I am around! Now you are going to marry Satai Lucky, so you better get used to it!"

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

Originally posted by Liam Devlin:
Possibly Jeff--but if one of your players was one of the Noble Households, he/ she could be either of these two characters..

Its easier, true--if the players are sidekicks (Rosencrantz/Guildensterns) within Romeo & Juliet, to insert into an established campaign group.

As we have seen with several motion pictures, you can change *the settings* in Shakespeare, but leave *the story* intact and still be entertained & moved by it.

All of the above is true, yet the major difference between those and a game is the genre within which the story is told. By the fact that a roleplaying game is used to tell the story removes a lot of author control over what happens because the players themselves are dictating the action within the story and thus making it an interactive venture.

Back to Romeo and Juliet, lets have these two characters played by your average RPG player. The two characters meet and the player running Romeo decides that his character has fallen madly in love with Juliet. Meanwhile, the player running Juliet decides that she doesn't like Romeo and instead falls for the brash Mercutio, and she wants Romeo and her to "Just Be Friends". There went the main reason for the play, but the interactive story can still go very strong. I could easily see this then becoming similar to either Rebel Without A Cause or The Blob (young Steve McQueen version) as an adventure.

(Just an aside here. I'd kill to have a small group of gamers just roleplay through an entire free-form adventure without any combat.To me, that would be entertaining, I can't say that the rest of the group would enjoy it, though.)

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

Originally posted by Liam Devlin:
Well, extoling the virtues of Mr melville's other works, there's also other classical authors whose *stories* could be dropped into a *Traveller setting*.

The vessels, and hardware and tech goodies are all window dressings to *the story*. Several older stories we have seen have been recast in a SF-settings.

Back to topic...Aside from Shakespeare's plays, what other playwrights works could be done as traveller adventures?

Not exactly a playwright, but since I've been reading Rudyard Kipling lately - just about any of his short stories could be used as templates for adventures. I tend to think that they'd have more of a "feel" for games set during the Rule of Man when the upstart Terrans had to administer what was left of the Vilani Empire, though.

Gilbert and Sullivan would be interesting...

Not as a parody and definitely off-center, but the musical Cats. I can easily imagine a travelling theatre group of aslan performing their interpretation of Cats during the period following the Aslan Border Wars as part of a cultural exchange. The aslan interpretation of Cats would be as significant to Solomani and Imperial culture at the time as Inazo Nitobe's book Bushido was to western culture when it came out.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Gilbert & Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance was themed into a Challenge Adventure set in the TNE- where the player's encounter a group of theatre robots and their Vampire ship, kidnapping female crew off them, and of course cause the remaining (male) PC's to research 'How to defeat' the Pirates.. by having them surrender "in the name of Queen Victoria"

 

[Gadrin]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
The Tempest, duh!

I mean, wasn't the Forbdden Planet movie based on that?? If that's not something that could fit into Traveller I don't know what is.

I've got most of it down for another space RPG but I think it's doable in Traveller.

I'm working on a tweaked version:

Tempest Surety Ltd (bail bonds and insurance)

Prospera Island an isolated, remote island (where the mansion of the owner is located)

converted terraforming machines on the island, to create Fog and Storm conditions (not quite on demand, but...)

holographic AI based "spirit" to take the place of the actual spirit.

Beautiful "daughter" ex-army who is a bounty hunter and insurance investigator.

Eccentric older owner who is the lead partner and ex-intelligence man, now in his late 60s.

possible outpost on the island
http://www.zaon.net/file/Starships/ZAON_PlanetHomestead_Outpost1.jpg

 

[Space Cadet]

Originally posted by Liam Devlin:
Well, extoling the virtues of Mr melville's other works, there's also other classical authors whose *stories* could be dropped into a *Traveller setting*.

The vessels, and hardware and tech goodies are all window dressings to *the story*. Several older stories we have seen have been recast in a SF-settings.

Alexander Dumas' adventures (Three Musketeers, Cyrano, Man in the Iron Mask, Count of Monte Cristo, (The Four Musketeers)Twenty-years After)

Homer's Iliad, & the Odyssey (Traveller's The Long Road Home?)

these immediately leap to my mind. There are hundreds more I'm sure.

Back to topic...Aside from Shakespeare's plays, what other playwrights works could be done as traveller adventures?

Peter Pan?

 

[Gadrin]

How the Grinch Stole Christmas

 

[kafka47]

I would adapt the entire I, Claudius scenario for a Court scenario that I was going to do with Playbyweb but nobody was interested. And, here is the kicker, if GT could be set in alternative 1116, so would mine... :devil

 

[Valarian]

How about 20,000 leagues under the sea?

A dispossessed noble builds/steals a prototype warship and revenges himself on the Imperium that destroyed his life and his family.

 

[ravells]

Wallace and Gromit: The wrong Trousers might be fun!

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

What's Wallace and Gromit?

 

[vegascat]

Capt Ahab could be hunting a large white Vargr pirate cruiser.

Vargr cruiser Moby Dick
Modified TL12 75,000DTon Raider
Sensors, power plant, drives modified to TL14+
Heavy armor, much repaired, base paint white lead.
Extensive sensor and stealth suites to avoid bad encounters.
Weapons
Spinal PACC
Bays and turrets energy weapons of all types, taken from victims

 

[Liam Devlin]

Originally posted by Valarian:
How about 20,000 leagues under the sea?

A dispossessed noble builds/steals a prototype warship and revenges himself on the Imperium that destroyed his life and his family.

Now I know I've used that one before myself, as well as several other GM's. Good example!

 

[ravells]

Originally posted by Jeff M. Hopper:
What's Wallace and Gromit?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108598/

Ravs

 

[mbrinkhues]

Sir Arthur Conan Doyles "Lost World" can surely be re-done in Traveller. Replace Balloon with Starship, keep the rest, crash starship on a planet that is not on the maps. Have fun(1).

Beowulf has been done so many times, even Xena, Antonio Banderas and Christofer Lambert where there. Still the basic concept is sound and the Hero vs. the Monster and his Mother can be done

Jules Vernes "Robur the Conqueror/" should be do-abel, replacing either the airvehicles with spaceships or even using TNE as a backdrop and keeping balloons. The Hollywood Version with "the bomb" is definitly doabel

McLeans "Guns of Navarone" is doabel. Replace the island channel with the only possible refueling system, WWII with SolRim War or Rebellion. "Where Eagles Dare" might be doable in a SolRim context, replace "Guy who knows Overlord plan" with "Guy who knows Assault on Terra" plan

C.S. Forresters "Hornblower" has already been re-done with a skirt and a cat

"Gone with the Wind" can be done using the SolRim as a background, replacing grey with black


As for "Classics not doabel":

Bram Strokers Dracula
Jules Verns "Moonflight by canon" stories (both)

Spartakus and Ben Hur (2) would need a lot of tweaking since the 3I lacks slavery





(1)I freely admit I would adapt the 1999 series rather than any of the movies
(2)Both where novels long before they where filmed

 

[Valarian]

Originally posted by Michael Brinkhues:
McLeans "Guns of Navarone" is doabel. Replace the island channel with the only possible refueling system, WWII with SolRim War or Rebellion.

This'd be good - a brave team of adventurers out to destroy a meson gun emplacement guarding the refuelling system.

 

[mbrinkhues]

I have a Fantasy version of it still lying around:

Catapults replacing canons
Elves replacing the Germans
Hobbits replacing colaborators

And a mixed Human/Orc team as Force Ten.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Originally posted by Jeff M. Hopper:
What's Wallace and Gromit?

http://www.wallaceandgromit.com/fla/wg.html

 

[Andrew Boulton]

I did Guns of Navarone with commandos trying to take out a deep meson site on Luna.