It's simple. You have a Fem Shep. And a Male Shep. And episode to episode, or hell even scene to scene it's one or the other, and nobody breaks stride. If you want it can even be the same actor with a wig/bald cap.
And in the "Previously on" you insert added scenes that didn't happen of Shep punching reporters and hanging up on the council. Basically a live-action "Commander Shepard is a Jerk"
Catalase on
"Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination."
Oh man. You do that with the love interests, AND the Virmire survivor.
End of ep 5; Femshep hooks up with Garrus. Start of ep 6, MaleShep wakes up with Miranda and gets called to the bridge. Has a call from suddenly NotDead Kaiden, who yells at Femshep, who yells rig it back at…Ashley and hangs up on her. Him? One of them.
Catalase on
"Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination."
Seriously though, best of both worlds:
Brother/sister Shepards, one paragon one renegade. You can show both sides of every decision tree and still use generic Shepard as the address for everything!
Mass Effect: Into The ME-verse.
Just get every variety of Shepard.
"We need to infiltrate the enemy base; no problem, I'll get Thane on it."
"Huh? Thane died on the Collector Base."
"Oh god, you sent him into the vents, didn't you?"
"Well yeah. He's the vent expert."
"Expert at sneaking through them, not hacking computers once you got there."
Alternatively they could show us what the council races were doing PR wise with the whole thing.
I mean there was a distinct lack of action and political will regarding what Shep found over the games.
So at the start of ME1, we'd have:
The Turian Times: "Quarian vagrant besmirches Saren Arterius' honor!"
Palavan Prospective: "First Contact War sentiments erupt as humanity's first spectre ordered to exterminate Saren Arterius!"
Fornax: "First Contact War or First Contact Whore?"
After Saren's defeat:
Citadel News Network: "Saren brought to justice! Commander Shepard descends into incoherent ramblings!"
The Quantum Collective: "Why giant space squid robots are coming for you and why Ivermectin will save you!"
Fox News: "That's for Shanxi you fucking birds!"
Started LE on PC, and I'm a little proud of this face. Here's Callan, my Colonist War Hero Vanguard:
I found a really cool mod, "Alliance Uniform Consistency," that ports the ME3 digs to ME1. They look so much better than the vanilla uniforms and it's something I wish BioWare had done themselves.
•In 2010, it took me 22 hours to make a perfect ME1 save. Now it takes me 19.
•Kaira Stirling might be the most arrogant person in the entire trilogy when accounting for actual skill—or lack thereof. She's the living embodiment of "letting your mouth write checks your ass can't cash." What did she think would happen?
•Visual consistency is important to me, it's why I switched over to PC for this run, so it's annoying that Liara's armor at the beginning of ME2 doesn't exist in ME1. There are identical models, but they have the wrong pallete. I went with medium Explorer armor for her, since it looks good and the blue/white combo fits her later iconic costume.
•I hope ME5 acknowledges how awful the Citadel Council was. The system is inherently racist, militaristic, boderline fascist*, and ultimately useless. The only reason this cycle can end favorably is that everyone ignored the Council. I wish 3 had done more to acknowledge that. The game could've used cathartic scenes of Shepard tearing into them for being idiots and broad thinkers like Liara pointing out that, if the Reapers are defeated, galactic politics must be completely reorganized.
EDIT: *I say "borderline" fascist because the Council doesn't seem to care what member races do within their own borders so long as it doesn't rock the boat. For example, it doesn't seem like there was any bellyaching over the hanar saving the drell. Or, more darkly, the Council didn't care that the Batarian Hegemony were slaving fascists until they became more trouble than they were worth. The Council system kinda feels like a cross between European feudalism and the medieval papacy.
Yeah, I wonder if ME5 will include true multi-species nations. The Council races work together, but they're still very separate in day-to-day governance/culture.
Hopefully the game is ambitious about growing the universe in a way Andromeda wasn't.
That's why, if they're smart, they'll set it several hundred years after the trilogy. Go out far enough, and you can bring most of the major choices to similar end points—at least enough that the differences don't break the story.
Using your example:
The knowledge of how to cure the genophage is out there, the only question is what Shepard does with it. So if you did a renegade run and sabotaged it, then it stands to reason that the krogan would eventually figure it out and cure it for real somewhere down the line.
Politically, it makes sense for the krogan to be isolationsist/hostile towards the rest of the galaxy. If Shepard went paragon, then it's because Wrex and Eve are trying to build a society. If not, then it's because they're a hairsbreadth from war. In either case, the bad blood between them and the turians/salarians/asari isn't going away anytime soon.
You can also use this for some of the other major choices in 3:
For example, the fate of the quarians.
If Shepard destroyed the geth, then people like Daro'Xen would inevitably recreate them. If Shepard sided with the geth, then it stands to reason that some quarians survived somewhere and eventually rebuilt their population.
You can get around the issue of long-time players feeling like their choices don't matter if you alter the context. It only takes a few extra lines of dialogue ("Shepard was a hero who made the galaxy a better place/Shepard was a monster responsible for all this pain") to make the player feel like they've had an impact. It's like the way the DAI used choices from Origins and DA2 without substantially altering its own narrative.
Speaking of, I really hope they use something like the Dragon Age Keep for Mass Effect. That was a really cool idea.
I feel like the quarians are the easy one. They, or at least their leadership, have proven far too stupid to survive without Shepard's direct intervention, and Shepard has places to be.
You could also write around the genophage issue by saying something like despite Wrex's leadership, the krogan still fell to infighting , and either destroyed themselves, or forced the need for a second genophage.
It sucks that all that effort you put into your game is just wiped away like that. But thems the breaks when you have to ultimately plan around the lowest denominator.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
Look all they do is pick whatever makes the most interesting world state and go from there. It's just like the Raiders/Shady Sands choice from Fallout 1. The player can in Fallout 1 help the raiders and have them murder everyone in Shady Sands essentially, but you don't have to do that and instead for later games they clearly picked "Shady Sands survives and becomes the NCR" as the more interesting option (which it is). Build the games out from that point and make some interesting choices and consequences in whatever the new world state is.
And for the love of god don't end another trilogy on a three color choice.
You could also write around the genophage issue by saying something like despite Wrex's leadership, the krogan still fell to infighting , and either destroyed themselves, or forced the need for a second genophage.
It sucks that all that effort you put into your game is just wiped away like that. But thems the breaks when you have to ultimately plan around the lowest denominator.
I...would hate that.
Going with a "genocide is okay" plot or reducing races to stereotypes would get me to put the game down faster than Andromeda.
It would also mean Dalatrass Linron was right, and fuck that.
And for the love of god don't end another trilogy on a three color choice.
Or at least make sure the choices fit with the themes of the preceding 80 hours of story.
I still don't understand
how they spent two games setting up Joker and EDI falling in love and creating the potential of peace between the geth and quarians, but don't let you even mention it to Starkid.
More than not being peer-reviewed, I'm honestly not sure the people who wrote the ending actually played the games. The endings aren't bad on their own (except for Synthesis) but it feels they're from a different story. What they did would fit Battlestar Galactica or Blade Runner far more than it fit Mass Effect.
Idea for ME5's start line:
PC comes from a system/cluster that was cut off from the galaxy after the Reaper War. Liara recruits the PC to go after [insert MacGuffin], maybe with the added stakes that the hometown is in imminent danger.
It's a ready-made excuse for the PC not knowing anything about the outside world, make the game more friendly to new audiences. You could also do interesting things by contrasting the isolated region with the larger galaxy. What does ~500 years of divergent cultural/technological evolution look like?
I hope, and optimistically expect, that Mass Effect 5 will just assume all the good events happened, even the ones that were implied to be incompatible.
Reapers destroyed but geth lived, quarians have their homeworld, krogans cured the genophage and started building a more peaceful society and ride on kakliosaurs, all the other races got back on their feet, etc etc.
It'd be cool to see new races like the raloi bird people.
Elcor gunnery officer please and thank you. I understand and accept that it would require too much time and effort to have one as a squad member but there is no reason one can't be on the ship crew.
•In 2010, it took me 22 hours to make a perfect ME1 save. Now it takes me 19.
•Kaira Stirling might be the most arrogant person in the entire trilogy when accounting for actual skill—or lack thereof. She's the living embodiment of "letting your mouth write checks your ass can't cash." What did she think would happen?
•Visual consistency is important to me, it's why I switched over to PC for this run, so it's annoying that Liara's armor at the beginning of ME2 doesn't exist in ME1. There are identical models, but they have the wrong pallete. I went with medium Explorer armor for her, since it looks good and the blue/white combo fits her later iconic costume.
•I hope ME5 acknowledges how awful the Citadel Council was. The system is inherently racist, militaristic, boderline fascist*, and ultimately useless. The only reason this cycle can end favorably is that everyone ignored the Council. I wish 3 had done more to acknowledge that. The game could've used cathartic scenes of Shepard tearing into them for being idiots and broad thinkers like Liara pointing out that, if the Reapers are defeated, galactic politics must be completely reorganized.
EDIT: *I say "borderline" fascist because the Council doesn't seem to care what member races do within their own borders so long as it doesn't rock the boat. For example, it doesn't seem like there was any bellyaching over the hanar saving the drell. Or, more darkly, the Council didn't care that the Batarian Hegemony were slaving fascists until they became more trouble than they were worth. The Council system kinda feels like a cross between European feudalism and the medieval papacy.
I can't recommend enough the missing armory license mod for ME1:L, as Cerberus Skunkworks, Jormungand Technologies, and HK Shadow Works all have unique properties such as three round burst, an N7 Typhoon rate of fire build up, and innate shield/DR punch through. The Skunkworks shotgun uses the turret SFX, which is just wonderful.
Hey, so I'm planning a Mass Effect 5e campaign. I've never really DMed before, so I'm nervous. I have an idea for the campaign setting/timeframe but I'm not sure about it.
You guys are the only people I know who like Mass Effect outside of the people I'd be playing with, lol. Could I workshop the concept with you all here?
+3
FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
Hey, so I'm planning a Mass Effect 5e campaign. I've never really DMed before, so I'm nervous. I have an idea for the campaign setting/timeframe but I'm not sure about it.
You guys are the only people I know who like Mass Effect outside of the people I'd be playing with, lol. Could I workshop the concept with you all here?
Go for it
+3
BlackDragon480Bluster KerfuffleMaster of Windy ImportRegistered Userregular
You shall have my quad!
No matter where you go...there you are. ~ Buckaroo Banzai
+2
GoodKingJayIIIThey wanna get mygold on the ceilingRegistered Userregular
At the end of the campaign you have to say:
“…and it was all just a series of short stories published in Fornax.”
Hey, so I'm planning a Mass Effect 5e campaign. I've never really DMed before, so I'm nervous. I have an idea for the campaign setting/timeframe but I'm not sure about it.
You guys are the only people I know who like Mass Effect outside of the people I'd be playing with, lol. Could I workshop the concept with you all here?
So my idea is that the campaign takes place ~100 years after the Reaper War. The PCs are newly-minted Spectres trying to keep the peace...and avert a galactic war between the new superpowers. There is a krogan Pope.
I'm thinking the campaign will break down into episodic missions. That way I can get super varied with genre and it's easy to take breaks if people's schedules/the panny prevent play.
On ME3's ending:
I'm taking a different tack and basing things on a Paragon Control mixed with a little Synthesis.
Shepard took control of the Reapers to save everyone, becoming a benevolent cybernetic deity. When the Crucible fired, certain individuals in every known species were...changed. They gained the ability to interface with any technology, synthetic proteins in their DNA, and other synthetic mutations. The rules provide cybernetic augmentation for quarians. I'm using that system for NPCs/PCs who are "Wavetouched"—they get one free augmentation.
The Shepard helped repair the Citadel and the Mass Relays, then retreated beyond the Omega-4 Relay. They have had no official contact with the galaxy in decades.
Galactic Superpowers
There are 3 big players that have sprung up since the Reaper War:
1. The Citadel Concord. Centered on Earth, and the Citadel in its orbit, this is the successor state to Council Space. It's mostly made up of humans, turians, and batarians. That said, there are large minorities of every space-faring species in the known galaxy. It's currently led by Prime Minister Garrus Vakarian. The Asari Republics and the Salarian Union are very much not members. After the war, Earth represented a "return to normalcy" that was attractive to most former Council races.
2. The Perseus Directorate. Centered on Rannoch, it's mostly comprised of the quarians and the geth. The quarians still have weak immune systems, so the overwhelming majority live on Rannoch. They've only just started recolonizing worlds in old quarian space. Some geth live with the quarians while others hang out in deep space, doing hood shit like building dyson spheres. The Directorate is sort of the "sleeping giant" of the superpowers, in that they're not belligerent towards anyone but extremely capable of changing that if provoked. The current leader is Admiral Jona'Hazt vas Rannoch.
3. The Salarian Union. Salarian space was barely touched by the Reapers, which Dalatrass Linron tried to parlay into galactic hegemony. That directly led to the formation of the Concord. The current leader is Dalatrass Inoste, who actually favors peace with the Concord but feels her hands are tied.
The Concord and the Union are in a cold war. The Directorate is officially neutral, but most observers believe they'd side with Earth in a shooting war. It's only a matter of time before the Concord's economy and military might outmatch the Union's. As such, the salarians have secretly uplifted and enslaved the yahg—that's going to be the Big Problem for the campaign, but the PCs won't know about it for a while.
Galactic Majors
There are several nations which, while not giants, are still important in the grand scheme of things.
1. The Asari Republics. A shadow of its former self, it's almost a rump state. The Republics flatly refused to join the Concord, ending 2,000 years of political cooperation between asari and turians. Civil war may be immiment between those who want to rejoin the galactic community and those wanting to remain apart from "lesser species." It's led by Matriarch Tevos, the last Citadel Councilor, who is doing her Best.
2. The United Clans of Tuchanka. Led by High King Urdnot Wrex and High Queen Urdnot Bakara, the krogan are in the midst of a cultural rennaissance. They're mostly isolationist, though they're friendly with humans. Wrex thinks war between the Concord and the Union is inevitable—and he wants to be on the front lines. Bakara wants him to stay on his diet and remember to take his vitamins.
3. Omega. Aria's still in charge and it's still a mostly lawless cesspool.
4. The Terran League. Centered on Horizon, it's led by Speaker Greagoir Petrovsky. Xenophobic humans who oppose the Concord, or any cooperation with aliens. A lot Cerberus operatives settled on Horizon to escape reprisal from the Alliance.
5. Turvess. The raloi, because I like them and want them to succeed.
Plot Hook
The Spectre Corps is part of the Citadel Concord, and it's a mix between the flexibility of the traditional Spectres and the prowess of the Alliance's N7 marines.
The PCs work for Concord Command, under the supervision of Admiral Miranda Lawson. Unbeknowst to the players, Miranda's also an agent for the Shadow Broker...and, though her, The Shepard.
Here's a link to the system I'm using if anyone's curious.
I can live with the me3 choice. I still think synthesis is sorta problematic because you're deciding to invasively change people without their consent. red ending best ending, though!
re: racial setup
- batarians working with other races is a stretch given the cultural significance of slavery. Unless humans and Turians are now totes ok with installing subservience chips into unwilling people.
- Garrus is dead 100 years later, Turians don't live that long iirc.
- 100 years later the quarians should have their immune system problems sorted out, Tali alludes to it in me3.
- It feels like you have some sort of massive hate boner for the asari. One would think that the revelations of the what was found in the temple would knock the asari down a peg or two. Given their need to procreate with other species to avoid ardat yakshis, them deciding to isolate themselves feels off. *re-reading what you wrote* ok I might be interpreting things unfairly, I think you can do something interesting there with the points I brought up, if you already are then please disregard this point.
- The Terran League feels like it wouldnt work given that Cerberus was working for the enemy. Also, given that it's a small outpost, why hasn't it been nuked from orbit?
- Miranda would also likely be dead 100 years later.
theres another system out there built on the 3.5 ruleset. The one you link is unacceptable to me as warp isn't a detonator ;P
here we go: http://www.jpvsgames.com/masseffectd20/
I've played the one I've linked, it's a bit crunchy, but depending on the players you have they might appreciate that.
I can live with the me3 choice. I still think synthesis is sorta problematic because you're deciding to invasively change people without their consent. red ending best ending, though!
re: racial setup
- batarians working with other races is a stretch given the cultural significance of slavery. Unless humans and Turians are now totes ok with installing subservience chips into unwilling people.
- Garrus is dead 100 years later, Turians don't live that long iirc.
- 100 years later the quarians should have their immune system problems sorted out, Tali alludes to it in me3.
- It feels like you have some sort of massive hate boner for the asari. One would think that the revelations of the what was found in the temple would knock the asari down a peg or two. Given their need to procreate with other species to avoid ardat yakshis, them deciding to isolate themselves feels off. *re-reading what you wrote* ok I might be interpreting things unfairly, I think you can do something interesting there with the points I brought up, if you already are then please disregard this point.
- The Terran League feels like it wouldnt work given that Cerberus was working for the enemy. Also, given that it's a small outpost, why hasn't it been nuked from orbit?
- Miranda would also likely be dead 100 years later.
theres another system out there built on the 3.5 ruleset. The one you link is unacceptable to me as warp isn't a detonator ;P
here we go: http://www.jpvsgames.com/masseffectd20/
I've played the one I've linked, it's a bit crunchy, but depending on the players you have they might appreciate that.
-For this version of synthesis, I'm thinking that the initial wave targeted random people who were on the verge of death or had genetic deformities (like Joker). Paragon Shepard's first thought on gaining godlike power would be "I want to help," but they don't entirely understand what they are or what they can do. The unintended consequences of their actions is why The Shepard takes a hands-off approach to the galaxy. In the years since the war, Wavetouched have been born randomly like any other mutation. How they're treated varies from world to world, though it often mirrors how biotics are treated in a given society.
-I figured the batarians were so shattered that their culture/politics became very malleable, like Japan or West Germany after WW2. After the Reapers, batarians didn't put up much of a fight for controversial beliefs—the humans had food, and that was their first concern. There are still lingering racial tensions within the Concord, though it's muted in light of the threat from Salarian Union.
-Yeah, Garrus is a stretch. But don't take away my Gar-bear! For the quarians, I figure their immune systems have improved enough that they can go suitless on Rannoch and a breach elsewhere is no longer a death sentence.
-For the asari, I want to play with their chauvinism. They spent 3,000 years effectively leading the galaxy. What happens when that ends? Even Liara, who's the most pro-alien asari we ever meet, intrinsically values asari lives and culture above other species. You see that all over ME3. The Reaper War ends, Thessia's devastated, the entire galactic status quo has changed, and nobody's looking to the asari for leadership. How do they deal with that? The xenophobic ones aren't mustache twirlers (mostly)—they feel that asari involved themselves with aliens for 3,000 years and all it got them were 3 devestating wars, the last of which nearly ended their species. They're a lot closer to Erinya from ME2 than, say, Charles Saracino. I can't guarantee anything, but the players will have a chance to mend the rift.
The Ardat-Yakshi is a really good point. I'm going to use that as one reason Tevos' government wants to come back into the fold. It doesn't seem like the connection between purebloods and Ardat-Yakshi is well-known, though. Couple that with 100 years not being a long time to asari, and the issue feels like a long-term concern rather than a current problem.
-The Terran League is one of those things everybody knew would be a problem but nobody wanted to be the one to deal with it. I'm going with the cynical view that most of Horizon's natives were like Delan—reactionary assholes willing to buy any story that made the Alliance/its successor out to be a villain. I figure surviving Cerberus agents were like Oleg Petrovsky, either not indoctrinated at all or suffering minor levels that'd disappate after the war. The League's narrative: while the Alliance was busy cutting deals with aliens for power, Cerberus were the ones fighting to save humanity, only to be stabbed in the back by those "ungrateful Alliance types." You thought I had a hate-boner for asari :P , but Delan—Delan I hate.
-In ME2 Miranda's 35 and says she'll "likely live half again as long as a normal human." Since the ME human lifespan is 125-150 years, I figure a 130 year-old Miranda is very doable. In this timeframe, the living/active squadmates would be: Liara, EDI, Wrex, Grunt, and Samara. I can't guarantee that the players will run into them all, but I have ideas for what they're up to.
•Liara and EDI work directly for The Shepard. They'll eventually become the main player contacts for missions.
•Wrex is leading the krogan with Grunt as his right-hand man.
•Samara's back home doing the Justicar thing. She'll be the player contact if/when they head to asari space.
I'll take a look at the 3.5 version, thank you!
Looking at the 5e rules, I don't think I'll use the primer/detonator rules. It'll add a lot more dice rolls per round (I'll eventually have 6 players, so there'll be a lot of powers flying around), and powers already seem like they do more damage than in 5e.
I'm doing a pre-session 0 with 2 of players (the ones who've played the trilogy) to practice DMing and get a feel for the system. It'll take place in the same universe as the campagn; I'll leave it up to the players if they want to keep their characters or roll new ones. My misson concept is that baddies (maybe pirates, maybe terrorists) have hijacked a hospital ship—one that's illegally carrying weapons in its cargo. Players have to priortize taking down the enemy or resucing hostages, learn what the weapons are for, and ultiamtelly decide what to do with them. I hope it works.
I recall there being some sort of batarian preacher im me3, but I can't for the life of me remember what his deal was. Maybe there's an angle to be explored there?
regarding the asari, spitballing here: I think you could do something similar to brexit
The asari as a people got knocked around, someone leaked what was in the temple and now their cultural identity has been smashed; they used to rule and be regarded as wise leaders but that's changed now.
Which isn't to say that they aren't those things but the branding has taken a hit. This sort of thing does weird things to populations, though. Half of them are ok with being on a more even footing with the other races (progressives), the other half don't want to let go of what they used to be (traditionalists).
Similar to the UK, they've isolated themselves and there doesn't seem to be a clear way forward (at the moment) to bring them back into the fold.
Tevos is competent but her ability to influences noble houses that have been running things for a really really long time is limited.
the 3.5 ruleset is fan made so there are some bits that require looking at the forums for errata but it's a workable system.
I wish you all the best, the ME universe is one of my favorites.
Posts
I can't remember if I actually played through the Legendary Edition on my old PC or if I'm just remembering one of the other half dozen playthroughs
And in the "Previously on" you insert added scenes that didn't happen of Shep punching reporters and hanging up on the council. Basically a live-action "Commander Shepard is a Jerk"
End of ep 5; Femshep hooks up with Garrus. Start of ep 6, MaleShep wakes up with Miranda and gets called to the bridge. Has a call from suddenly NotDead Kaiden, who yells at Femshep, who yells rig it back at…Ashley and hangs up on her. Him? One of them.
Brother/sister Shepards, one paragon one renegade. You can show both sides of every decision tree and still use generic Shepard as the address for everything!
Just get every variety of Shepard.
"We need to infiltrate the enemy base; no problem, I'll get Thane on it."
"Huh? Thane died on the Collector Base."
"Oh god, you sent him into the vents, didn't you?"
"Well yeah. He's the vent expert."
"Expert at sneaking through them, not hacking computers once you got there."
I mean there was a distinct lack of action and political will regarding what Shep found over the games.
So at the start of ME1, we'd have:
The Turian Times: "Quarian vagrant besmirches Saren Arterius' honor!"
Palavan Prospective: "First Contact War sentiments erupt as humanity's first spectre ordered to exterminate Saren Arterius!"
Fornax: "First Contact War or First Contact Whore?"
After Saren's defeat:
Citadel News Network: "Saren brought to justice! Commander Shepard descends into incoherent ramblings!"
The Quantum Collective: "Why giant space squid robots are coming for you and why Ivermectin will save you!"
Fox News: "That's for Shanxi you fucking birds!"
For ME1 I'm using:
Reshade
Better Camera (90 FOV)
Black Market License
ME2 N7 armor
Simple tweaks, but it's basically an expansion pack's worth of new weapons and armor.
I found a really cool mod, "Alliance Uniform Consistency," that ports the ME3 digs to ME1. They look so much better than the vanilla uniforms and it's something I wish BioWare had done themselves.
For those who can't see tweets here:
The main quest - - - - - The Citadel DLC
Steam | XBL
Random Thoughts on My Umpteenth Playthrough:
•In 2010, it took me 22 hours to make a perfect ME1 save. Now it takes me 19.
•Kaira Stirling might be the most arrogant person in the entire trilogy when accounting for actual skill—or lack thereof. She's the living embodiment of "letting your mouth write checks your ass can't cash." What did she think would happen?
•Visual consistency is important to me, it's why I switched over to PC for this run, so it's annoying that Liara's armor at the beginning of ME2 doesn't exist in ME1. There are identical models, but they have the wrong pallete. I went with medium Explorer armor for her, since it looks good and the blue/white combo fits her later iconic costume.
•I hope ME5 acknowledges how awful the Citadel Council was. The system is inherently racist, militaristic, boderline fascist*, and ultimately useless. The only reason this cycle can end favorably is that everyone ignored the Council. I wish 3 had done more to acknowledge that. The game could've used cathartic scenes of Shepard tearing into them for being idiots and broad thinkers like Liara pointing out that, if the Reapers are defeated, galactic politics must be completely reorganized.
EDIT: *I say "borderline" fascist because the Council doesn't seem to care what member races do within their own borders so long as it doesn't rock the boat. For example, it doesn't seem like there was any bellyaching over the hanar saving the drell. Or, more darkly, the Council didn't care that the Batarian Hegemony were slaving fascists until they became more trouble than they were worth. The Council system kinda feels like a cross between European feudalism and the medieval papacy.
Good luck convincing them that those are bad things to be.
I would like to know more.
Hopefully the game is ambitious about growing the universe in a way Andromeda wasn't.
For example a galaxy in which (me3 spoiler)
Not "a bit of dialogue is different" or "you run into this NPC instead of this other one"
Using your example:
Politically, it makes sense for the krogan to be isolationsist/hostile towards the rest of the galaxy. If Shepard went paragon, then it's because Wrex and Eve are trying to build a society. If not, then it's because they're a hairsbreadth from war. In either case, the bad blood between them and the turians/salarians/asari isn't going away anytime soon.
You can also use this for some of the other major choices in 3:
If Shepard destroyed the geth, then people like Daro'Xen would inevitably recreate them. If Shepard sided with the geth, then it stands to reason that some quarians survived somewhere and eventually rebuilt their population.
You can get around the issue of long-time players feeling like their choices don't matter if you alter the context. It only takes a few extra lines of dialogue ("Shepard was a hero who made the galaxy a better place/Shepard was a monster responsible for all this pain") to make the player feel like they've had an impact. It's like the way the DAI used choices from Origins and DA2 without substantially altering its own narrative.
Speaking of, I really hope they use something like the Dragon Age Keep for Mass Effect. That was a really cool idea.
It sucks that all that effort you put into your game is just wiped away like that. But thems the breaks when you have to ultimately plan around the lowest denominator.
And for the love of god don't end another trilogy on a three color choice.
I...would hate that.
It would also mean Dalatrass Linron was right, and fuck that.
Or at least make sure the choices fit with the themes of the preceding 80 hours of story.
I still don't understand
More than not being peer-reviewed, I'm honestly not sure the people who wrote the ending actually played the games. The endings aren't bad on their own (except for Synthesis) but it feels they're from a different story. What they did would fit Battlestar Galactica or Blade Runner far more than it fit Mass Effect.
Idea for ME5's start line:
It's a ready-made excuse for the PC not knowing anything about the outside world, make the game more friendly to new audiences. You could also do interesting things by contrasting the isolated region with the larger galaxy. What does ~500 years of divergent cultural/technological evolution look like?
It'd be cool to see new races like the raloi bird people.
Did you join the true church of HE shotgun?
HE IX pistol
HE IX sniper
HE VIII assault rifle
That's how my ME1 Vanguard run ended when I played it on stream.
https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffectlegendaryedition/mods/661
It's truly glorious.
You guys are the only people I know who like Mass Effect outside of the people I'd be playing with, lol. Could I workshop the concept with you all here?
Go for it
~ Buckaroo Banzai
“…and it was all just a series of short stories published in Fornax.”
PSN: Threeve703
And end every session with "I should go..."
YES!!! sob I wanna play...
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
So my idea is that the campaign takes place ~100 years after the Reaper War. The PCs are newly-minted Spectres trying to keep the peace...and avert a galactic war between the new superpowers. There is a krogan Pope.
I'm thinking the campaign will break down into episodic missions. That way I can get super varied with genre and it's easy to take breaks if people's schedules/the panny prevent play.
On ME3's ending:
Shepard took control of the Reapers to save everyone, becoming a benevolent cybernetic deity. When the Crucible fired, certain individuals in every known species were...changed. They gained the ability to interface with any technology, synthetic proteins in their DNA, and other synthetic mutations. The rules provide cybernetic augmentation for quarians. I'm using that system for NPCs/PCs who are "Wavetouched"—they get one free augmentation.
The Shepard helped repair the Citadel and the Mass Relays, then retreated beyond the Omega-4 Relay. They have had no official contact with the galaxy in decades.
Galactic Superpowers
1. The Citadel Concord. Centered on Earth, and the Citadel in its orbit, this is the successor state to Council Space. It's mostly made up of humans, turians, and batarians. That said, there are large minorities of every space-faring species in the known galaxy. It's currently led by Prime Minister Garrus Vakarian. The Asari Republics and the Salarian Union are very much not members. After the war, Earth represented a "return to normalcy" that was attractive to most former Council races.
2. The Perseus Directorate. Centered on Rannoch, it's mostly comprised of the quarians and the geth. The quarians still have weak immune systems, so the overwhelming majority live on Rannoch. They've only just started recolonizing worlds in old quarian space. Some geth live with the quarians while others hang out in deep space, doing hood shit like building dyson spheres. The Directorate is sort of the "sleeping giant" of the superpowers, in that they're not belligerent towards anyone but extremely capable of changing that if provoked. The current leader is Admiral Jona'Hazt vas Rannoch.
3. The Salarian Union. Salarian space was barely touched by the Reapers, which Dalatrass Linron tried to parlay into galactic hegemony. That directly led to the formation of the Concord. The current leader is Dalatrass Inoste, who actually favors peace with the Concord but feels her hands are tied.
The Concord and the Union are in a cold war. The Directorate is officially neutral, but most observers believe they'd side with Earth in a shooting war. It's only a matter of time before the Concord's economy and military might outmatch the Union's. As such, the salarians have secretly uplifted and enslaved the yahg—that's going to be the Big Problem for the campaign, but the PCs won't know about it for a while.
Galactic Majors
1. The Asari Republics. A shadow of its former self, it's almost a rump state. The Republics flatly refused to join the Concord, ending 2,000 years of political cooperation between asari and turians. Civil war may be immiment between those who want to rejoin the galactic community and those wanting to remain apart from "lesser species." It's led by Matriarch Tevos, the last Citadel Councilor, who is doing her Best.
2. The United Clans of Tuchanka. Led by High King Urdnot Wrex and High Queen Urdnot Bakara, the krogan are in the midst of a cultural rennaissance. They're mostly isolationist, though they're friendly with humans. Wrex thinks war between the Concord and the Union is inevitable—and he wants to be on the front lines. Bakara wants him to stay on his diet and remember to take his vitamins.
3. Omega. Aria's still in charge and it's still a mostly lawless cesspool.
4. The Terran League. Centered on Horizon, it's led by Speaker Greagoir Petrovsky. Xenophobic humans who oppose the Concord, or any cooperation with aliens. A lot Cerberus operatives settled on Horizon to escape reprisal from the Alliance.
5. Turvess. The raloi, because I like them and want them to succeed.
Plot Hook
The PCs work for Concord Command, under the supervision of Admiral Miranda Lawson. Unbeknowst to the players, Miranda's also an agent for the Shadow Broker...and, though her, The Shepard.
Here's a link to the system I'm using if anyone's curious.
re: racial setup
- batarians working with other races is a stretch given the cultural significance of slavery. Unless humans and Turians are now totes ok with installing subservience chips into unwilling people.
- Garrus is dead 100 years later, Turians don't live that long iirc.
- 100 years later the quarians should have their immune system problems sorted out, Tali alludes to it in me3.
- It feels like you have some sort of massive hate boner for the asari. One would think that the revelations of the what was found in the temple would knock the asari down a peg or two. Given their need to procreate with other species to avoid ardat yakshis, them deciding to isolate themselves feels off. *re-reading what you wrote* ok I might be interpreting things unfairly, I think you can do something interesting there with the points I brought up, if you already are then please disregard this point.
- The Terran League feels like it wouldnt work given that Cerberus was working for the enemy. Also, given that it's a small outpost, why hasn't it been nuked from orbit?
- Miranda would also likely be dead 100 years later.
theres another system out there built on the 3.5 ruleset. The one you link is unacceptable to me as warp isn't a detonator ;P
here we go: http://www.jpvsgames.com/masseffectd20/
I've played the one I've linked, it's a bit crunchy, but depending on the players you have they might appreciate that.
-I figured the batarians were so shattered that their culture/politics became very malleable, like Japan or West Germany after WW2. After the Reapers, batarians didn't put up much of a fight for controversial beliefs—the humans had food, and that was their first concern. There are still lingering racial tensions within the Concord, though it's muted in light of the threat from Salarian Union.
-Yeah, Garrus is a stretch. But don't take away my Gar-bear! For the quarians, I figure their immune systems have improved enough that they can go suitless on Rannoch and a breach elsewhere is no longer a death sentence.
-For the asari, I want to play with their chauvinism. They spent 3,000 years effectively leading the galaxy. What happens when that ends? Even Liara, who's the most pro-alien asari we ever meet, intrinsically values asari lives and culture above other species. You see that all over ME3. The Reaper War ends, Thessia's devastated, the entire galactic status quo has changed, and nobody's looking to the asari for leadership. How do they deal with that? The xenophobic ones aren't mustache twirlers (mostly)—they feel that asari involved themselves with aliens for 3,000 years and all it got them were 3 devestating wars, the last of which nearly ended their species. They're a lot closer to Erinya from ME2 than, say, Charles Saracino. I can't guarantee anything, but the players will have a chance to mend the rift.
The Ardat-Yakshi is a really good point. I'm going to use that as one reason Tevos' government wants to come back into the fold. It doesn't seem like the connection between purebloods and Ardat-Yakshi is well-known, though. Couple that with 100 years not being a long time to asari, and the issue feels like a long-term concern rather than a current problem.
-The Terran League is one of those things everybody knew would be a problem but nobody wanted to be the one to deal with it. I'm going with the cynical view that most of Horizon's natives were like Delan—reactionary assholes willing to buy any story that made the Alliance/its successor out to be a villain. I figure surviving Cerberus agents were like Oleg Petrovsky, either not indoctrinated at all or suffering minor levels that'd disappate after the war. The League's narrative: while the Alliance was busy cutting deals with aliens for power, Cerberus were the ones fighting to save humanity, only to be stabbed in the back by those "ungrateful Alliance types." You thought I had a hate-boner for asari :P , but Delan—Delan I hate.
-In ME2 Miranda's 35 and says she'll "likely live half again as long as a normal human." Since the ME human lifespan is 125-150 years, I figure a 130 year-old Miranda is very doable. In this timeframe, the living/active squadmates would be: Liara, EDI, Wrex, Grunt, and Samara. I can't guarantee that the players will run into them all, but I have ideas for what they're up to.
•Liara and EDI work directly for The Shepard. They'll eventually become the main player contacts for missions.
•Wrex is leading the krogan with Grunt as his right-hand man.
•Samara's back home doing the Justicar thing. She'll be the player contact if/when they head to asari space.
I'll take a look at the 3.5 version, thank you!
Looking at the 5e rules, I don't think I'll use the primer/detonator rules. It'll add a lot more dice rolls per round (I'll eventually have 6 players, so there'll be a lot of powers flying around), and powers already seem like they do more damage than in 5e.
I'm doing a pre-session 0 with 2 of players (the ones who've played the trilogy) to practice DMing and get a feel for the system. It'll take place in the same universe as the campagn; I'll leave it up to the players if they want to keep their characters or roll new ones. My misson concept is that baddies (maybe pirates, maybe terrorists) have hijacked a hospital ship—one that's illegally carrying weapons in its cargo. Players have to priortize taking down the enemy or resucing hostages, learn what the weapons are for, and ultiamtelly decide what to do with them. I hope it works.
regarding the asari, spitballing here: I think you could do something similar to brexit
The asari as a people got knocked around, someone leaked what was in the temple and now their cultural identity has been smashed; they used to rule and be regarded as wise leaders but that's changed now.
Which isn't to say that they aren't those things but the branding has taken a hit. This sort of thing does weird things to populations, though. Half of them are ok with being on a more even footing with the other races (progressives), the other half don't want to let go of what they used to be (traditionalists).
Similar to the UK, they've isolated themselves and there doesn't seem to be a clear way forward (at the moment) to bring them back into the fold.
Tevos is competent but her ability to influences noble houses that have been running things for a really really long time is limited.
the 3.5 ruleset is fan made so there are some bits that require looking at the forums for errata but it's a workable system.
I wish you all the best, the ME universe is one of my favorites.