Call for your Sci-Fi Imagi-Nation

[Conquistador]

Never really understood imagi-nation...

<snip>

Doug

Because the "Real World" has too much baggage?

I have a friend who will not "kill" American troops/figures.  Horses for Courses...

Gracias,

Glenn

[FramFramson]

I haven't made any sci-fi imagi-nations in years and years, but I did have one fifteen years ago called "The Populous Agglomeration". 

[Diakon]

My friend and I have this alternate history starting at WWI. We play stuff throughout it. We have a 6mm Tank battle set in the Jovian War (2104-2117) and a small shadow war Skirmish game set in the early 1990's. Was gonna copy and paste it into here but it's really long so put it in a Google Doc instead.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lLThHv9jiLRKf4B1FR8-wYm5Cri3wqdmoiEQtt-4HPw/edit?usp=sharing

We are also working on a Cyberpunk setting for playing Alternity RPG in. My friend the GM is describing it as Ghost In The Shell meets The X-Files, so that should be good too. 

[Inso]

My Imagi-Nation is based around Grymn and includes a variety of alien races. It is in a future where Humans are spacefaring and planet settling but still in the early stages. Here is some fiction that I wrote to sort of give a flavour of the universe through the eyes of a small group of characters... be warned, there is a lot of reading (they are three 'books' and the links are in order):

http://forum-of-doom.com/index.php?topic=15718.0
http://forum-of-doom.com/index.php?topic=15968.0
http://forum-of-doom.com/index.php?topic=16152.0

[Sir Barnaby Hammond-Rye]

Wow! I see what you mean! 

Have you used Blurb or one of those other self-publishing sites to produce an actual book? A paperback can be made for as little as $9-10 dollars, IIRC.

Blurb has - or used to have - a feature where they "slurp" all the contents of your blog and format it into a book. You have to do some formatting afterwards, but the result is pretty nice. I did it one time, as sort of a Blog Archive, and a small hard cover with dust jacket came to under $30.

If I could do some campaign diaries with as much story as you have developed I'd be putting them in book form with maps and illustrations. 

[Inso]

Cheers

No I haven't gone to the effort of publishing... it's 'out there' now so I can't really see the point. I can churn out stuff like that all day long when I'm in the right frame of mind but I'm in full time work and don't really have the enthusiasm for getting books published.

Maybe in a few years when I have retired

[Sir Barnaby Hammond-Rye]

I wasn't meaning for sale necessarily. I meant for "personal use" like the old wargame's diaries that [some] people make for their games. Of course, back in the day, such things were on lined paper stuffed into binders, or written out longhand, or consisted of notes pasted into scrapbooks. I was just saying that - nowadays - we can use Blurb (etc) to do a mighty fine job!

[Predatorpt]

I must say this is turning out to be one of my favorite topics on LAF.

Lots of great universes/stories/timelines here, keep them coming! 

[Brummie]

My Imagi-Nation is based around Grymn and includes a variety of alien races. It is in a future where Humans are spacefaring and planet settling but still in the early stages. Here is some fiction that I wrote to sort of give a flavour of the universe through the eyes of a small group of characters... be warned, there is a lot of reading (they are three 'books' and the links are in order):

http://forum-of-doom.com/index.php?topic=15718.0
http://forum-of-doom.com/index.php?topic=15968.0
http://forum-of-doom.com/index.php?topic=16152.0

Thats pretty cool.


I've always liked the Grymn but since everything I do currently for sci fi is 15mm I never delved into adding them into the background (though  had ideas) still have some of the figs though.

When it comes to my background, there were a few obvious influences (Aliens, Firefly etc) but the games G-Police (which has an awesome intro short-film) Fallout and Planetside, Hawken  were also pretty influential, especially the former (which i sorta hijacked).

[Sir Barnaby Hammond-Rye]

I have also played around with modifying the Fading Suns RPG. That is, taking the background and tweaking it a bit to fit what I want. My thinking is that the RPG has created a lot of named factions and characters (thus saving me time) and there are plenty of trouble spots on the various planets (described in the planetary atlases) to provide wargames scenarios.

[The_Beast]

Never really understood imagi-nation...

Because the "Real World" has too much baggage?

I have a friend who will not "kill" American troops/figures.  Horses for Courses...

Gracias,

Glenn

Sorry, no. Every time I saw the term, it appeared to be some proprietary reference. Just never understood what it signified. Not sure I do now, but I'm willing to go along, and take the hit if I've missed the point. "Geese, that Beast. What a maroon!"

Raised on Bugs, Daffy, et al...

Don't think I'd have any interest in a game involving pedophiles, so, yes, I have my thresholds as well. Being half German, half British, WWII stuff has some angst, but I can shoot either way. ;->=

Doug

[Vermis]

Never really understood imagi-nation... Just never understood what it signified.

Fantasy for people who don't like fantasy?

First times I encountered it, seemed to be for people to use their historical armies for 18th-19thC style political and battlefield maneuvering without actually using real 18th-19thC nations. I dunno if I'd use the term so much meself, especially not for science fiction and fantasy which are already, y'know, fiction and fantasy.

Don't think I'd have any interest in a game involving pedophiles, so, yes, I have my thresholds as well.

That raises a few questions.

[Sir Barnaby Hammond-Rye]

I usually spell it: ImagiNation

For me it is just following in the footsteps of Charles Grant, Tony Bath, and Peter Young, etc who invented imaginary nations to set their battles in. I suppose it is the opposite end of the spectrum from those gamers who only do one period in one scale and argue about whether a particular model tank has enough rivets or if the backback on a Napoleonic infantryman is "all wrong".

[Maj Guiscard]

I would agree. Keep the definition simple. Especially for the purposes of this thread, an ImagiNation is any construct that adds background and context to the games on the table.

I have really enjoyed reading all of the stuff you fine folks have laid out. Thanks for sharing, and keep it coming. Maybe if there is enough interest we could set up something like the Emperor vs Elector blog.

Thanks,
Maj Guiscard

[The_Beast]

...I suppose it is the opposite end of the spectrum from those gamers who only do one period in one scale and argue about whether a particular model tank has enough rivets or if the backback on a Napoleonic infantryman is "all wrong".

Well, the point is a disdain of laziness, and I plead guilty to that laziness in most of my constructs, but some of the backgrounds above, and the depth of imagined details, put that stereotype to rest. 

Doug