Let's blindly play Space 1889.

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Released back in 1990, Space 1889 is a computer adaptation of the pen and paper role playing game, and general setting, of the same name. Since I started playing weird oldfag games my brother, his friends, and my own friends both from school and from my P&P club do recomend me I have tried to get into this game several times, for it is kind of awesome as far as all of them are concerned. I have failed every time, however, given the visuals have not aged well and, let's be straight about this, they suck a whole lot. And swallow, too. With a straw.

So, like, every now and then I try to get into the game, because all I have heard about it is kind of so totally cool. So I do read the quite cool manual, set up a party, start the game... and then leave when my eyes start wanting to die. Not any more, however. This time I have decided to actually play the damn thing(ie) up to the end, or at least up to the game handing my tail back to me with a quite formal apology.

To make it even more interesting, however, and since I have somewhat noticed I have much more fun with the blind, or almost blind, Let's Play thingies than with the ones about games I already know quite well, I will be making a blind Let's Play of this. And given I have been wanting to try one of those party based Let's Play thingies I will be creating only the first character on the party, our glorious leader and main character, and it will be up to you to create the rest, one per each of you, so it will be your fault if our party lacks what it would take not to suck. Likewise, if during the game I come across a point where it is not clear what should I be doing next it will be up to you, that being those of you in my party, to choose what to do next, and to bear the burden of my untimely failure.

So during this first update we will do nothing but actually go about the character creation system and stuffies, so you will have a vague idea of what you can pick and what you can choose. Then I will show you how all of this work by creating my failure of a totally LARPed main character, and then it will be up to you to save me from myself.

But first let's quote the manual introduction to the game and setting, so you know what are we getting into.

So this is kind of like Arcanum, only with steampunk aetherships going to mars and neither magick nor dwarves. And what's the game about, you ask? Your guess is as good as mine, at least beyond the few first couple of hours or so and what is said about it on the manual.

The Age of Decadence release date? In any case, character creation works as follow.

First you must choose a gender. Then you must choose a name, at most twelve characters long. Then the game will randomly generate your score on the six basic attributes, those being Strenght, Intellect, Agility, Charisma, Endurance, and Social Level. The value will range from 1, you suck, to 6, you are awesome. Then you must pick your face, and then your career, which is kind of your class. Some of them are only for girls while others are only for guys. Guys can never enter female only careers, but girls actually can enter male only ones based on their agility and intellect, in which case they are actually passing as males.

Your social level also means the social class you belong to, according to the following list: One is working class, two is tradesman, three is middle class, four is gentry, five is wealthy gentry, and six is aristocracy.

Then you have twenty four skills, related to the already mentioned attributes. In Strenght there is Fisticuffs (whose initial value is Strenght minus one), Throwing (whose initial value is half Strenght), Close Combat, and Trimsman.

In Agility there is Stealth (whose initial value is Agility minus one), Marksmanship, Mechanics, and Crime.

In Endurance there is Wilderness Travel (whose initial value is Endurance minus one), Fieldcraft, Tracking, and Swimming.

In Intellect there is Observation (intellect minus one), Engineering, Science, and Gunnery.

In Charisma there is Eloquence (again, Charisma minus one), Theatrics, Bargaining, and Linguistics.

And, finally, Social Level includes Riding (again, social level minus one), Piloting, Leadership, and Medicine.

And those are all of the skills. Also, everyone gets General Skill Points, which are used to raise any skill you want. If the corresponding attribute is 5 or 6 the cost on general skill points is halved, so each general skill point raises the skill by two. If the corresponding attribute is 3 or 4 each level costs one general skill point, and if the corresponding attribute is 1 or 2 the cost is doubled, each level costing two general skill points. Also, no skill can have a level higher than it's corresponding attribute, though they can be raised beyond such level by Careers. Also, no character can have a Close Combat skill higher than one above the level given to her or him by the careers.

Each character can pick up to two careers. Each Career has either a series of prerequisites or no prerequisite at all. As I explained before, male only careers can be had by girls under certain circumstances but not the other way around. Also, the Master Criminal career can only be had as a second career. Other Criminal Careers may be had as first career, but if you do the only careers you may then choose as Second Careers are other criminal careers or the army, actor, or adventuress career. A career, basicaly, gives you skill points, usually seven or so. Also, you can pick twice the same career (once as your first, once as your second) if you do want. Some of the careers have different values based on your social level, too.

Apart from those the game's pretty cool in that it allows you to create your own careers, though I believe it to be more of a way to add new careers from the pen and paper game than to munchkin your way to victory, given you can really do munchkin your way to victory that way. Therefore, we will not be using such vile tools of corruption.

Finally, the game will calculate your starting wealth in pounds sterling based on a lot of different thingies. Whatever. The important part is that if you are either a Merchant, Adventuress, or Criminal the computer will multiply your starting fortune by an additional 10 and if your character's second career is Master Criminal then it will be multiplied by an additional 50. Also, characters with a Social Level of 5 or 6 will receive an annual income equal to their initial fortune, paid in twelve equal monthly installments. Characters in the Foreign Office and the Colonial Office receive a salary of 40 pounds sterling a month. This money all goes to the party's account.

Now I will show you how all of this works by creating our glorious leader. I will be making her a combination of Dilettante Traveler and Adventuress, therefore I will need to reroll her attributes until her Social Level is of at least five, her Intellect is of at least four, and her Charisma is of at least five. However, my LARPer side considers anything below a Social Level of Six to be well below me, so I will reroll her until she's a well bred lady in addition to everything else. And, yes, we will have to roll and re-roll our attributes, so please keep that in mind before deciding you want your characters to have all sixes or something.

This is the first thing we see upon choosing to create a new character.



I pick the first option. The first prompt ask me whether the character will be a male or a female. The second prompt ask me her name, Miss Faith. Then we start rolling. The game, naturally, decides to show me how much does it hate me.



Screw you, game. After a while, however, I manage to get an actual result I can kind of like. Slightly, but it will have to do. Next we pick a face: There are only five for each gender and they all look like people you don't want to come across in a dark alley.




Next I pick her two careers, Adventuress and Dilettante Traveler. I was stupid: I should have picked Adventuress and Master Criminal to get my initial funds through the roof, but I did not notice it until later, and there's no undo option. If you don't like what you did you have to start it all again, including the rolls.



Then the game tells me I have 2.0 general skill points. Remember buying skill points on attributes we have five or six costs us only half a point, while it costs us an entire point to buy a skill point on an attribute with a value of three or four. And, if we had an attribute with only one or two it would take all of our points to raise a single skill by a single point.

I raise Leadership by two, Markmanship by one, and Theatrics by one.



And that's it. Our glorious leader is ready to go where no cat, regardless of hue, has gone before! Now we need four volunteers before being able to start the game, though more are also welcome as I will be going about this in a pseudo Iron, uhm, Gal manner, which means if Miss Faith, our legendary heroine, kicks the bucket I will be reloading, but if other character dies horribly and painfully I will be adding a new recruit in his or her place instead. At least as far as I remember there was no revival on this game.

Oh, and I almost forgot. Those are the five faces for male characters.



So that's it. Let's see how this goes.

There is only one appropriatedly Codexian character face in this entire game.

YEAH. RIGHT MOST, Gentleman.

left most ubermoustache is also acceptable.

Blond and green, obviously.

Superb idea for an LP. I recall playing a few sessions of the old PnP game from back in the day. Granted, I never played the old PC game, but I can speak for the original PnP game that it was "kinda awesome" as your friends put it. At the time, it was definitely one of the more refreshingly different PnP roleplaying games out on the store shelves. Space 1889 was one of my early influences for what sparked my interest in Victorian steampunk science fiction.

Looking forward to MOAR!

Oh...and iirc...fieldcraft is awesome.

Heh. I read manual for this game once. Full speed ahead!

:foreverignored:

Character builds, nao. I didn't type all that stuff about character generation because I was bored, monocled fellows.

I hope I will be able to do the setting justice. If you want to throw in a bit of lore or the like every now and then, be my guest. It would be quite cool to get a bit more background and lore on what we come across, from someone who did play the P&P game. :3

I'll go

Looks like everything else is up to the dice.

[EDIT*2] Since Kazgar beat me to the scientist position, and I cannot into reading, I've edited my build twice:

Alrighty! The esteemed Doctor and Engineer (was going for naval officer, but it seems that doctor cannot into higher social status than 4?) Pariah Zeal (Or just Pariah if it cannot into spaces) is ready to join your expedition!

Right-most face.
And, of course, Doctor and Engineer as careers.

Skill points in medicine, engineering and mechanics, as you see fit.

4 social level to qualify for both doctor and engineer, 6 intellect for engineering and 6 agility for mechanics. Let the other scores wind up as you please.

Note though, that if you can actually have higher than social level 4 as a doctor, I'd like to revert to my "old" build of Doctor/Naval officer with 6 social level and 6 intellect, and focus on medicine, piloting and gunnery skills.

....Damn u took the doctor.

: ( Make me a cowardly inventor/mechanic. I beg you!

Abandon at 3rd page!

The Cat is back, HURRAH!

Are there open slots in the party? If yes then do add Sir Humphrey, an esteemed high social gentleman (high social and intellect) working as an Agent and Diplomat of the foreign office. His face is the second from the left,since silver stache guy is taken already...

Is there combat in the game? Can dudes die?

Can I be a thief+master criminal with powergaming stats and the left most female face?

It seems there was a mistake with either the manual or my memory, given while I was sure the manual did said the general skill point cost to raise a given skill was defined by the respective attribute it is actually defined by the Social Level attribute, maybe to simulate the better education and schooling of those with higher social standing. Therefore, I made sure to give the highest social possible to each character, according to their desired careers. And after a heavy session of re-rolling stats I have the first batch of characters ready...

... and then I forgot to save the character list, because I forgot the game deletes all your characters if you don't save them before leaving.

Back to rolling.

Ahem... I have a pretty good completion rate so far. Have more, heh, faith on the kuroneko, I say!

Yes, there is. There's ground combat of our gals and guys against a similar number of gals and guys, or against monsters and beasts, as well as boarding actions, which are kind of like ground battles but on a starship, and ship to ship battles.

And, indeed, dudes die, without revival as far as I remember. So we will be going through a lot of recruits and volunteers, I reckon.

Sure, I'll roll the character so I can give her good stats and attributes and post the result on the next update for aproval. Then we'll add her to the reserves.

I was planning on doing them after this one, given they are somewhat similar on general gameplay. If you were thinking on doing them, however, go ahead and consider this my reservation of a party spot for Sentinel Worlds. :3

Posting my build for whenever you need it:

Oh, and for doing another lp.

Three cheers, the cat's returned.

[Codex]

LOL, shitty grafix.
tl;dr

[/Codex]

looks like a cool system.. how is it implimented?

Name
Henry Hunter

Gender
Male

Portrait
Number 1

Attributes
2+ Strength
6 Agility
6 Endurance
1+ Intellect
1+ Charisma
6 Social Level

Classes
Explorer
Big Game Hunter

Skills (Primary)
Marksmanship
Fieldcraft
Tracking
Wilderness Travel

Skills (Secondary)
Stealth
Swimming

I've always passed over this game while browsing Abandonia but no more. Thanks for the exposure.