I would like to do some space sci-fi next. We did do a little Star Wars, and most have played Cyberpunk.
Star Wars thoughts
Future Serenity
Star Trek thoughts
Traveller thoughts
Hard Space Science Fiction Notes- General introduction to some of the science of space travel in more "reality based" or "hard" science fiction.
Ship Designs- This is something of an editorial on spacecraft art, just something that came to me one day. Not really related to playing a game.
Spacepunk- Take the Cyberpunk 2020 rules and do a campaign mod moving it to space sci-fi setting. Cyberware and neural interfacing in space.
Weird things Gamemasters think of while working: Social media in space.
Why Sci-Fi?
I want to share and convey the feelings I get from sci-fi. The huge implacability of the Star Destroyer at the opening of Star Wars. The haunting sweep of Blade Runner's cityscape at night. The celestial beauty of Saturn and its rings. The terror of passing through the Reaver fleet in Serenity. The, well, alienness of the derelict ship from Alien. The coldness and vastness of space. The wonder of alien creatures from Pandora in Avatar. The tragedy and triumph of humanity in Spock's sacrifice in The Wrath of Khan. The marvels of engineering in ships and devices.
What do I want?
Alien races and animals. Aliens don't have to be PC races, but they need to at least exist as background and possible enemies and allies. There should be some PC alien races.
Droids? Maybe, but not required.
Science missions exploring exotic worlds- gas giant moons, toxic atmospheres, ring systems, maybe some small mega-structures
Alien remnants, mostly ruins, but maybe working technology.
Easy ship combat? Maybe. We played Serenity campaigns with almost no combat, in Star Wars it's common and easy, Traveller not so much. In The Expanse it should be hard, but they tried to make it easy. We could probably run a Traveller or Star Trek civilians game with none or almost no ship combat.
Settings and Rules
If we do Star Wars, I'll use Star Wars D6. If we do Firefly, I'll use Cortex Serenity. If we do Traveller or Star Trek, well… The old Traveller rules aren't bad, but outdated, and there are some newer versions. Character generation is fine, combat just needs some work. The FASA Star Trek rules aren't terrible, but clunky. Ship combat in both is iffy, although I did do a hybrid version of Star Trek with the Star Fleet Battles wargame. I have looked at running both games with the Serenity rules system. SWD6 and Serenity are both fast paced, heroic, low crunch systems.
One thing that none of these systems handle well are cybernetics. Star Wars and Serenity both have very simple rules for cyborg parts. And that's part of their settings; cybernetics are rare. If I wanted to do a new setting where cybernetics are more common, then the Cyberpunk 2020 system would be the way to go. BUT. CP2020 is VERY crunchy. Lots and lots of die modifiers.
Campaign Flavor
Various things set the tone of the game. For example, I want aliens and alien animals (and maybe alien monsters…). The setting may be fairly large (Star Wars spans an entire galaxy) or smaller, but not too small like Serenity which only covers the planets in a five star stellar system (although, there are a lot of them. But they're all terraformed. Boring). Humans are probably mid-level on the galactic social/power scale. There may be super advanced races who care little for others. There will definitely be ruins and remnants from dead races to explore. There will be worlds with natural hazards like animal life or toxic atmospheres. I was just reminded of the cool movie Prospect that takes place on an Earthlike world with a breathable atmosphere, except the planet's plant life generates spores and pollen that are fatally poisonous, so you have to wear full suits. And we'll spend time in space suits, working on the outside of ships and asteroids, or visiting worlds with hostile conditions. One of the many things I love about the Expanse is that the characters spend lots of time in space suits, either working/fighting outside or sealed up in combat. One season of the Expanse has more time in suits than all the Star Wars and Star Trek movies and shows COMBINED.
Technology is a big flavor deal for me. Not technobable ("Mr. Data, program the navigational deflector array to project a field of negative soliton particles"). I realize some of the justification for advanced science fiction tech is handwaving, but I try to stick to harder sci-fi that's more grounded in science and technology we understand today. Someone once said in science fiction you should only have one or two reality breaking things. FTL travel is one.
Speaking of FTL travel, I'm going to need to lay down some rules for it. SWD6 and Traveller have rules for FTL travel, although recent Star Wars movies have upended some of them and I'll be trying to avoid that. Star travel may be fast and easy like Star Wars or slow like Traveller. I am leaning towards hyperspace drives and not warp drives.
The other side of the FTL coin is FTL communications. In Traveller, there is none, messages have to be carried by ships. Think of mailing a paper letter as opposed to email or telephone calls. Star Trek and Star Wars both have FTL messages, but not easy. Messages in Star Trek often can take long periods (although sometimes not, their writing is inconsistent). In Star Wars they may be fast, even real-time, but are expensive and low bandwidth. Serenity, by my interpretation, has real time FTL communication, but it's short ranged and bounced through repeater stations.
Easy FTL communications allows characters to have NPC contacts that they can interact with easily. That was useful in Serenity, but is difficult to impossible in other settings, making backstory NPCs less useable.
Artificial and antigravity is another staple advanced technology. Think of landspeeders and ships hovering as they are coming off the ground in Star Wars. Traveller and Star Trek have it and Serenity has antigravity to a degree. They all have artificial gravity aboard ship. The Expanse does not and does a great job depicting that. The 2300AD RPG doesn't either and still uses helicopters and most ships have spin habitats.
