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The Ship Who Sang 7: Gaming
Would the setting and concept make a good game? Is there such a game already? Indeed, has Clash already written it (!) ? Does the blend between short-term episodes and long-term aspirations (eg paying off perinatal debt, or in other stories tracking down particular archaeological evidence for alien races) work in a game context? What primary features of the book would you borrow for gaming?
Comments
My StarCluster series of SF games have various types of AI including human or alien brains/nervous systems in non-meat bodies, and there is always a price to be paid for it, typically paying off indenture. So you could game this book directly from the free base game and a single option toolbox. I think it would make for a cool character in a game, but all the players can't be ships. So one player who is a ship and the rest as crew - or in this case 'brawn'? Totally doable.
I think it would make a good game. However the themes don't speak to me where I am right now.
Yes, it seems quite gamable, though not really something I'd run off the shelf. I do see some pretty good potential in the realm of SF horror, though. Imagine if the crew is off-ship and the ship mind is compromised or captured. And what if the PCs don't realize this at first, and the various members of the party are getting conflicting information or directions from the ship mind. They rely on the ship, but can't trust it. That could be interesting.
I've played a couple of games with the "ship brain" as a distinct character type. One was Mindjammer , where AIs in vehicles are commonplace and a common PC option. The other is Blue Planet where cetacean PCs are possible; they're not exactly ship-brains, but share the features of not having a physical presence in the same space as the human characters. In both cases, the way to bring those characters into the game is through remote operations and remote presence. We saw a little of this in The Ship Who Killed, where Helva could affect things by controlling the surveillance system in the town square.