Known Space

[Connectamabob]

I've been rereading the Ringworld books recently on a lark, and I started wondering: are there any systems that would adapt well to gaming Niven's Known Space universe?

Minis aside (which would be a whole topic in itself IMO), it's a little tricky for me in some ways to imagine how one might play a Known Space game without turning it into a Star Trek/B5 type of thing. Even the action-y bits are very spread out in terms of time and distance. I suppose one could adapt cold war spy games to the Gil Hamilton-era ARM or the Puppeteers'/General Products' dealings with humanity, or maybe WWII French resistance to Kzin-occupied Wunderland.

A game based on the exploration-themed stories, or a space combat game with relativistic mechanics and time scales would be what I really want though.

Has anyone ever tried this before? Am I mental to want it?

[flooglestreet]

There was a Ringworld RPG from Chaosium, which shows up on eBay every so often. Chaosium uses the Basic Role Playing system. You can go to Chaosium here http://catalog.chaosium.com/ and search for Basic Roleplaying. It is available in hard copy and PDF.

Search eBays Toys and hobbies for "Ringworld", I turned up nothing but I did get a magazine with an article on the game offered. Another place to hunt is Geek-Do, the RPG arm of Board Game Geek. They have 2 people supposedly willing to trade Ringworld, and will list any copies available through them or eBay. http://rpg.geekdo.com/rpgitem/46835/larry-nivens-ringworld

Please stop using the term "mental" as an insult or for self deprecation.

[elysium64]

I have also pondered this idea, and own a copy of the Chaosium RPG and companion, superb sourcebooks, were actually used by Niven to give to prospective authors of the Man-Kzin wars series (not read these, must remedy)as the background to work from.
Having just purchased AE-Bounty from Darkson designs I would recomend these as being very adaptable to any background you want.
The only thing that has held me back is a lack of suitable figures, I have thought of paying for some to be sculpted but cost would be high. Still on my list of to do's, just need to save a bit of money.

[Connectamabob]

Thanks for the info. I'll give those a look.

If I find a system I like, I might try sculpting figures myself. I've never sculpted in gaming mini scales before, but I've been wanting to try. It's just a matter of sufficiently motivating subject.

If I did that (BIG emphasis on the "if"), I couldn't guarantee they'd be acceptable to everyone. Kzin in particular are a sticking point with me. I get the impression that the popular image of a literal upright tiger (or worse: a human body with fur and a tiger head) has pretty much steamrollered the way they're actually described in the text. I don't think I've ever seen a visual representation of a Kzin that even tried to use the text description beyond token details like the ears. Much of that is forgivable, since the text descriptions would actually be pretty challenging for even a professional illustrator, much less an amateur fan (love to see Wayne Barlow give it a crack though: he's really good at believable alien anatomy, and his Puppeteer & Thrint are pretty spot-on IMO), but the idea of lots of people looking at an image and saying "that's not a Kzin" because it wasn't an upright tiger (or a furry) seems too plausible.

OT: why so sensitive about the word "mental"?

[Supercollider]

Very interesting project, looking forward to seeing it develop, maybe even getting swept along myself   I've also got a copy of most of the old RPG books, often thought about putting together the cast of Ringworld, plus maybe a couple of other books, myself.

This is a pretty good online index for Known Space, it contains a great deal of info on Ringworld itself.

http://www.freewebs.com/knownspace/index.htm

There's also some good info on Pupeteers and Kzin, including pics.  In fact the site contains a lot of images taken from the RPG and its companion materials, so they're probably about as official as you're likely to find? (I understand Niven was pretty heavily involved with the game's development).

Included is an image of Louis Wu - wonder if there are any suitable minis that spring into anyone's mind?

[Connectamabob]

I'd suspect that Niven's use of the RPG sourcebook was more about the text than the images. Having a reasonably complete encyclopedia of Known Space already in print would have been very handy under the circumstances.

Both the online concordance and Niven's own site contain multiple visual interpretations of the same subjects. I don't really get the sense there is anything that can be considered more or less official in terms of the art.

[Supercollider]

Ah cool.  It was just something I heard from a friend.  I know there's no 'canon' as such.  Thought it might be a good place to start

[mrgrigson]

If you're looking for Kzin, Dark Sword Miniatures might have something passable.  Check out

http://darkswordminiatures.com/mainwebsite_html/gallery/Elmore_DSM1229.htm
http://darkswordminiatures.com/mainwebsite_html/gallery/Elmore_DSM1230.htm

As far as puppeteers go, I know I've seen one in miniature, but I believe it was a one of a kind piece that's in the collection of one of the folks on Stuff of Legends.  Couldn't dig up anything more at this hour, though.

[Whiskyrat]

Saw some Sci-Fi Lion-men recently - I'll try and find the link.

They were called Rawr or something similar. 

[Connectamabob]

See, there's that sticking point I was talking about: Kzin are not lion men (those are called Kilrathi ). They're not anthro, and they're not even really feline. They're aliens which are very overtly alien in their literal appearance, while at the same time presenting a strong sort of overall impressionistic big cat-ish feel to human eyes. The text in the novels & stories is pretty explicit about this, but for some reason a lot of people completely blank out on all that and only see/remember the phrase "tabby cat".

I'm almost tempted to call it a lack of imagination, except for that the same people are usually pretty imaginative elsewhere. I could say it's because its difficult to work out the details of something that's both completely, explicitly alien, and yet strongly evocative of something familiar at the same time, but I've seen illustrators and concept artist pull that trick off too many times before for that to be really convincing either.

That's why I was talking about sculpting my own. I know there's plenty of cat people figures out there to choose from, but cat people are not what Kzin are, it just sort of the lazy, mutated pop-culture image that's somehow come to supplant the actual text. Like how Tolkien's Ents got turned into walking trees.

Sorry if that seems rant-y. I don't mean to be ungrateful for the figure suggestions. It just bugs me.

[Whiskyrat]

I don't mean to be ungrateful for the figure suggestions. It just bugs me.

Ungrateful bugger! 

Not read the Ringworld books - must remedy this over the summer.

It was actually your earlier post reference to upright Tiger which got me thinking about the Lionmen sculpts I had seen recently.