When there's a new RPG on the block claiming to do #Solarpunk, I'm obviously interested. Recently, @FullyAutomatedRPG made its way to me via @fiction so I'm giving it a look. What does it want to do? It wants to be a kind of D&D for Solarpunk – a big kitchen sink game that becomes a cornerstone for the genre. That's… Hm, I like my RPGs written with a lightning focus on telling specific stories, so I feel like I'll be biased against #FullyAutomated, but let's see. 1/8
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Starting on the front page of https://fullyautomatedrpg.com/ I notice that the starting point of the system is a Cyberpunk homebrew, that it is “similar to the d20 systems most people are familiar with” and that the system highlights combat, I miss the big points of the @SolarpunkPrompts: Community as protagonist; Infratructure is sexy; No simple solutions; Human-Environmental Context. But the combat page pre-empts the question, so I'll head there next. 2/8
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“Knowing that a fight is possible […] makes the risk of violence more present from the metagame perspective of players.” I don't think I have seen a game where rules are there to not be used, and I have my doubts it can work here. In particular with combat taking up about 1/3 of the 3-page character sheet. Are there effective rules also for other domains where “it doesn’t work. It’s completely subjective. It takes an incredibly skilled GM to make it interesting or coherent.”? #FullyAutomated 3/8
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The character sheet has three pages. The first page indicates a very traditional game with stats and skills, a combat focus, and fluff (though a lot of it) cramped into the remaining space. The second page is pretty redundant with the first one and looks like it has no mechanical effects. The third one is full of combat options with formal terms that strongly assume a hex grid and HP, the interesting thing is that the relevant gear seems to be restricted to 6 double slots. #FullyAutomated 4/8
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The game looks extremely traditional so far, and that's really not interesting to me. At this point I would give up on a game and not delve deeper – and I haven't even looked at the actual rules yet. But for #FullyAutomated, I'll go a bit further. There is a starter campaign, so I can at least look at the kind of stories it wants to tell; and I can at least skim through the rule book to see whether any interesting things jump out at me that I might want to consider for playing #Solarpunk. 5/8
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[#]FullyAutomated's campaigns (https://drive.google.com/file/d/18SV2sVrwsbT480cAtAQ4G59Ckbyz7c6-/view) talk about various flavors of violence (fight/feud/assassination/abducting) and otherwise focusses on different styles of investigations, from data heists to searching for cures. They have a classical mission structure, with briefings and debriefings and a rather linear structure in between. 6/8
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The #FullyAutomated rules make up about 75 pages in the book. Despite the campaign's investigation focus, there is nothing on investigation in the ToC, neither on the player nor on the GM side. Stuff is about 20 pages, the combat and health rules are another 20. Add a general outline for Skidooing (diving into someone's mind) and some generic rules for research in downtime, and that's pretty much the mechanics after character creation. The GM section contains only advice, no rules. 7/8
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Even for interesting and coherent investigation and negotiation (which are topics of the campaigns) the #FullyAutomated GM needs to be “incredibly skilled”. That's before getting to the classical #Solarpunk topics of communities, differing views, social and technological infrastructure, ecology, and transformation. That is despite a multitude of games exploring one or more of these topics in their mechanics in detail. I find this quite disappointing and will not delve further. 8/8
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@Anaphory a few months ago I was approached by the author and asked for feedback.
What I said was essentially the same as you did, maybe even a little less detailed.
When I look into an allegedly #Solarpunk #TTRPG I expect not only violence not to be the default conflict solution mechanic, I expect it to be actively harmful to the character goals, traumatizing and fragmenting communities.
As it stands I consider Ironsworn Starforged more (potentially) Solarpunk than Fully Automated.
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@Anaphory neither gives you proper tools to visualize communities or infrastructure (like Legacy: Life Among The Ruins) does, but Starforged doesn't reward violence with either experience or mechanical crunchiness. It has scores more social mechanics, not only in XP-generating Bonds with other characters, but also allows you to use the general Conflict/Fight dynamics for social and communal tensions.
You Gain Ground by revealing an uncomfortable fact and Strike by insulting, sure, but it works.
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@Anaphory Mutant Year Zero puts emphasis on violence, but has some basebuilding with strong social / cultural aspects, where having a museum of a buygone world serves an important function.
In Legacy, you can decide if you want to use this Tech on an individual level as a +1 sword, or invest it in your community over decades to build a well or something crucial, but struggle more for this adventure.
This is a good start for Solarpunk storytelling.
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@Anaphory if you want tightly focues games, @capacle has some awesome themed miniRPGs, some of them covering different aspects of Solarpunk (like very poetic Scraps).
If I was to choose a kitchen sink Solarpunk RPG, why not the original Blue Planet? They've been creating Solarpunk and environmental stories for over 25 years!
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@Anaphory @capacle https://capacle.itch.io/scraps calls itself a #solarpunk #ttrpg and is "a crafting game in a hopeful world among the ruins of an ancient civilization". It doesn't talk about progressing from capitalism to a better world, it gives us some vague fantasy world to talk about striving to build something more, helping communities, fighting with decay and enjoying the small, beautiful moments of life.
Its mechanics is largely... Tetris.
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@Anaphory @capacle on the other hand, more "unfocused" game - https://www.biohazardgamespublishing.com/blueplanet
Originally published in 1997, it doesn't call itself a #solarpunk #ttrpg , but I could consider qualifying it as such. It allows a lot of playstyles: cyberpunk corpo wars, scientific exploration, native independence uprising, community building with emphasis on care. You can play as humans, human hybrids, dolphins and other marine mammals.
It inspired the Avatar movie, Eclipse Phase and some more.
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@Anaphory @capacle the mechanics of the Recontact edition are a little similar to FATE, where characters get tiered aspects, like:
Amateur Historian > Earth Culture Specialist >
Insurgent Sympathizer
Electronics Technician > Remote Operations >
Surveillance Technician
which already flesh out your characters A LOT.
It does feature combat extensively, but it also gives you a lot of structure for "campaign archetypes" should you choose to avoid physical conflict and explore other playstyles.
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@Anaphory if @FullyAutomatedRPG wanted to become the new "kitchen sink Solarpunk", it could build on Blue Planet RPG's lessons.
Even with little social mechanics / structures, it could actively worldbuild with characters' aspects, creating almost PbtA playbooks which actively pull players in a specific direction, orchestrating ideological, cultural, philosophical tensions even against the simplest external "adventure".
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@Anaphory @FullyAutomatedRPG that however requires very conscious worldbuilding and might be even harder than just creating a very focused miniRPG.
Think about White Wolf's New World Of Darkness, where each series had a distinct 5x5 faction roster. Each character was a sum of ideologies and approaches of both their factions (with 25 combinations) and it very organically led to specific, interesting outcomes.
My https://alxd.org/solarpunk-rpg-factions.html was a proposal in a similar direction.
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@Anaphory @FullyAutomatedRPG https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/androidpress/fighting-for-the-future 's RPG would be an interesting example: it is to use Belonging Outside Belonging (like Wanderhome!), but its character archetypes / (factions?) are a little confusing to me.
Why is Solarpunk a separate archetype from the hacker, the DIYer or the empath? How are they different?
In a conflict between several characters with such archetypes, what would they argue about?
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@Anaphory @FullyAutomatedRPG I think that a lot of game designers might get confused, or maybe drunk on "the newness" of #solarpunk and don't really consider the possible depth of the worlds they create and the conflicts, consensuses and brittle alliances that shape them.
It's really hard to do it, especially in a form you can present to a player new to the movement and genre.
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@Anaphory @FullyAutomatedRPG Even if we assume that there is a specific "better world" to strive towards we can all agree on, there's a multitude of paths, and the conflict in our stories and games can reflect that.
Do we want to allow the dirty, global economy to have "a final push" to produce enough PV and windmills for decentralized energy?
Do we want to dismantle everything right now and be small-scale only?
How do we deal with knowledge that can be used for "solarpunk objective" evil?
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@Anaphory @FullyAutomatedRPG if we find a database from Amazon or Facebook with everyone's data in it, showing us who and how to manipulate it, do we use it or destroy it?
What about oil that has been already dug out and processed? Do we fuel a hospital with that, saving lives, or describe it as our sacred duty to put it underground?
You can form factions based on that. You can set the "base" of the game far off from "your boring utopian routines" or "firefight of the week".
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@Anaphory @FullyAutomatedRPG I haven't played it, but maybe https://yrgirlkv.itch.io/songsforthedusk is worth mentioning as well? It seems to be moving in Solarpunk-ish direction?
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