Get into a spot of bother on your homeworld? Don’t fancy a spell on the prison planet? No problem, go and do a degree at Weber College, the fustiest, dustiest learning establishment on the East Coast. Eh? Don’t like the sound of that? Prison planet it is then. Yeah, thought that’d make you change your mind. Next shuttle leaves in ten hours. You’d better be on it.

Don’t know much about History? Biology? A science book? Then you’ll fit right in to Alien House. It’s the coolest, hippest, happeningest frat house on campus, but watch out! Dean 'Wormhole' is on the warpath. He’s been trying to have Alien House closed down for years, and now he thinks he’s got them just where he wants them. Complete your studies, have a cracking time and save Alien House from closure. Do you think you can manage that?

Sci-Fi Beta Kappa is a game where players take on the role of slacker aliens with a bunch of abilities such as power manipulation, enhanced senses, larceny, super strength etc., who, having been kicked off their homeworlds for various misdemeanors, have been exiled to Terra. There, they get into all sorts of scrapes and are under constant surveillance by Dean 'Wormhole', who hates aliens and is always looking for an excuse to close down Alien House.

Think Animal House meets Men in Black, with a dash of Monsters And Other Childish Things. Anyone interested in playtesting this game, please either reply in this thread, PM me or e-mail leomarshalldesigns [at] hotmail [dot] com. If you’re not in the UK, I’ll e-mail you the rules and an opening scenario.

Party on dudes (just don't get caught!).

Sounds like "Orbit" to me....

Same galaxy, different planet.

In Sci-Fi Beta Kappa the aliens are slackers who get into mischief, and rather than go to the trouble of sending them to the prison planet the authorities instead send them to Terra, which by this time (late 22nd century) has used up all its resources and has had to go cap-in-hand to the Galactic Federation. The Federation signs a deal which allows Terra access to its member planets' resources and tech, in exchange for what Dean Wurmhohler, Dean of Weber College (one of the places they end up) calls 'taking in their riff-raff'.

I've finished writing it pretty much, and when I've okayed the draft with my writing partner we'll start alpha-testing it, with beta-testing beginning in about a month or so. When that happens, if there are any interested folks outside the UK I'll e-mail them the rules, together with the opening scenario plus GM's notes.

Oh, BTW, I was absolutely not accusing you of plagiarism, in case anyone was wondering. I know there have been so many RPGs that sometimes an original idea will look like an older game.

No worries mate, I didn't think you were.

In any case, these days it's nigh on impossible to avoid duplication. I mean, even though I think my idea is fairly original, realistically how many original ideas can there be? My dice system I'm confident is quite original however*, although I dare say there's something a bit like it somewhere in the universe.

*Sorry, don't want to say too much about it now; I'd like it to be an interesting surprise when it hits the table-tops.

Still tweaking the system, but will be taking a sort-of v1.0 to Conpulsion, Edinburgh University SU, April 6-8th. Folks can pre-register here. Following a (we hope) successful playtest there we'll be writing up some GM's notes, which we will make available to interested parties. Rock on, dudes!!

Well, last night was the first ever playtest of SFBK. I must say, it felt a bit weird playing in a game that I'm one of the designers of. I expect it was similarly weird for Dan, my co-writer, too, but he really stepped up with both his GMing and his portrayal of Kraag, who in no way resembles a member of a fictional warrior race conceived by Gene Roddenbury.

Hats off to the other players, Bill and Nick, who got stuck in and expanded the pre-gens with their RPing.

Highlight? Well, I think it has to be Kraag at the toga party, trying to impress his idol, Princess N'Zala, by brandishing a vibrator that my character, Drunzi, had stolen from a sex shop and suggesting she put it somewhere Not Safe for Work. Yeah, I think y'all know what I mean. Anyway, he rolled the dice and got six failure points, which meant that the haughty N'Zala, the most popular Zarkonian on campus, was distinctly unimpressed by this. First she knocks the hapless Kraag to the ground and then, beckoning her entourage, storms out of Alien House, batting away Harok's offer of one of his 'special cakes' as she goes.

Honourable memtion too for Zlith for releasing the energy he's been storing up through his power manipulation ability to make his head glow on and off and act as a kind of disco light. Epic!

Can't wait for my next game!!

P.S. Apologies folks for taking so long to get SFBK in front of the general role-playing public- I hope to put up a PDF somewhere soon so folks can download that at least while we wait for the book to come out. Apologies also for not getting stuck in on this and other forums: as well as writing SFBK I'm in the middle of moving house so I've been a bit distraced of late. When that's over I'll get chatting with you guys

Ok, got it sorted. This is just to give you the flavour. For the full doc, possibly with artwork, we're currently looking at end May.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/44973653/SFBK%20teaser.pdf

Happy gaming all!