A recent Bundle of Holding reaquainted me with GDW’s 2300AD second edition, a game I enjoyed the heck out of in the late 80s and early 90s. It’s a very complete and enthralling setting, based on the best understood star astrography at the time, out to a 50LY sphere around Sol. An affirmingly factional future, where humankind reaches for the stars, whilst we continue to subvert and kill each other jealously. That feels about right.
The history was based on a 1980s strategy game to extrapolate out from Twilight 2000 nuclear tragedy, to see where and how the nations of the world develop. Vive La France! The technology rumbles forward with certain incredible advances but other area are slow, or simply not imagined or projected by the mid 1980s design team. This provides one of those delicious retro SF settings seen through a particular lens.
The particular development to get us out there is Stutterwarp, with high cycle engines that propel ships through micro warp tunneling to very high apparant speeds. FTL whilst not moving. Starship combat is pin point missile strikes in the cold vacuum of space, refreshingly distinct from a more space operatic game.
The system is a developemnt of the GDW house system, rolling a D10, adding a skill value and trying to beat a difficulty number. Retries are possible with determination and luck. Combat is lethal, with weapons at close range scoring damage that can instant kill if hitting the right locations, almost regardless of personal combat armour. It is, as one might expect, a bit fiddly, but works well enough. I have a few dot matrix printed house rules in the box, from back in the day.
It may have been a wash of warm nostalgia, but I really wanted to pick this game up and run it. Immediate instincts were to run the game Rules As Written (RAW), embracing the foibles, and the decimal combat damage. However, this seems like a neat opportunity to see how seamlessly one could apply The Comae Engine over the top, to give a modern lightweight d100 system to an old GDW clunker. The combo would make a somewhat different game for North Star.
I’ve done some light meshing. 2300AD skills have become Focus for the Comae skill categories. Careers provide the top skills in the tree and all initial skills are Focus additions. This doesn’t conform to the Comae suggestions, but I expect they will work just fine to get you started. I have considered having four Focus Levels that provide 10-40% bonus, further accentuating the more detailed skills, on top of the base provided by Comae. ‘Coolness Under Fire’ becomes a Willpower Focus, with the ten digit providing the Initiative points.
Weapon damage and armour, at least at the personal scale, will depend on how much I emulate the ‘blown away’ nature of 2300. I’ll blend in the simple hit location table of 2300AD and give a damage bonus for ‘Heart’ locations, Lens might provide an add as might ranging. Weapon chatracteristics will be lightly modelled to give a reasonable effect and preserve their differences.Without looking, I may well just leave Vehicle and Starship scale combat as they are, but using Comae for hit resolution in the Conflict.
As with any such meshing, I think it is important to do just enough to make it give the feel of the original game, without slavishly trying to retrofit all mechanical elements. The Comae Engine provides a fresh and modern engine right over the top, assimilating comfortably thanks to not obsessing about detail. There probably is more detail to consider, but with just an hour of tomfoolery Comae 2300AD looks to be a comfortable flyer.