Babylon 5 Roleplaying Discussion.

[Lord J Esq]

Babylon 5 has lost a fair number of actors for a 15 year old show. Jerry Doyle, Richard Biggs, Andreas Katsulas, Michael O’Hare, Stephen Furst, and Jeff Conaway, may they rest in peace.

Right? The B5 curse.

I've noticed that myself over the years. In contrast the various Star Trek series have always featured remarkable longevity on the part of their principals. When you compare Babylon 5 with its closest Star Trek contemporary, DS9, all the DS9 main cast are still alive, but with B5 it's like a brutal 50 percent death rate.

Poor Zathras.

One thing I remember about learning the truth about Michael O'Hare's passing was that J. Michael Straczynski originally promised to "take it to the grave" in regards to his mental illness, but O'Hare insisted "take it to my grave" instead.

Also JMS had offered to put the show on hiatus for him.

That was incredibly generous of JMS to offer to halt production, and very gracious of Michael O'Hare to want his story to be shared. I knew of O'Hare's mental illness when the story came out a while back, after he died, but I hadn't known those two details.

I am sorry to interrupt the thread! I just wanted to chime in.

[Mauron]

I've noticed that myself over the years. In contrast the various Star Trek series have always featured remarkable longevity on the part of their principals. When you compare Babylon 5 with its closest Star Trek contemporary, DS9, all the DS9 main cast are still alive, but with B5 it's like a brutal 50 percent death rate.[/quote[

Babylon 5 even had a couple Star Trek actors appear in it, Walter Koenig as Alfred Bester, and Majel Barrett as Lady Morella.

That was incredibly generous of JMS to offer to halt production, and very gracious of Michael O'Hare to want his story to be shared. I knew of O'Hare's mental illness when the story came out a while back, after he died, but I hadn't known those two details.

I was very moved by the whole story after it came out.

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

You still getting to play, Mauron?!

[Mauron]

I took some time off because it was becoming more stressful than fun, but I'm hoping to get back to it soon.

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

Gotcha. I don't blame ya! Having to build custom campaigns - or adjust existing ones is both very stressful and incredibly time consuming.

I wrote out a D&D 5e mini campaign that was supposed to take 4 sessions or so; it ended up taking about 12 and required constantly finagling and reworking on my part. I probably spent 100 hours on design, and an untold amount of stress.

[Mauron]

I'm going to switch gears to Farscape for a while because it involves less prep work. Something about political intrigue and diplomacy is a little harder to get the right feel for than "Leviathan full of escaped prisoners gets into trouble."

Also if I want it's easier to modify a module from another system to work with Farscape than Babylon 5, and I didn't like the designs of the Babylon 5 modules.

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

Farscape > Babylon 5, anyway! Well, at least in my book. Farscape is more... well, fun. I've actually been slowly accumulating the comics that details events after the series ended, and I gotta say, assuming the comics really were future season plans, they're most excellent.

At what point in the timeline is the tabletop?

I wish I could play!!!

[Mauron]

Today we did character creation, but no gameplay. I'm not sure when I'll set it yet.

I've read those comics. They're good.

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

So what's the party make up? Races/classes?

[Mauron]

I'm still doing the gestalt characters, so double the class fun. One's a Tavlek Warrior/Tech, and the other's a Sheyang Warrior/Tech. They'll definitely be able to hit/fix things.

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

Those are two ugly races, hahaha!

Can I join and play as a pilot?

I can just sit around on the ship and command drones to do things.

[Mauron]

That would be an interesting experience, a player pilot. Move the DRDs all day.

There are pilots who aren't bonded to a Leviathan. They can be useful in combat.

Watching the show after looking at the roleplaying book made for an interesting experience. Some of the cast likes mentioning stats about their characters. "I am a Peacekeeper Commando." "I am a Luxan Warrior." "I am a 10th level Pa'u Priestess."