Quote:
Originally Posted by sjard
On the other hand, I'd love an SF box that would let me do something that is roughly a mashup of Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon, Star Wars, Star Trek, and Battlestar Galactica. A somewhat generic low/squishy science fiction borderline space opera of the sort from the late 60s-early 80s.
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The problem with that is that those are some vastly different sub-genre's to support. They vary drastically on the realism slider, on the power level slider, on the "weird powers" slider, importance of Space Battles, and even on the technology slider. Star Wars dials most of those up to 11, while Star Trek falls somewhere in the middle, and Battlestar Galactica dials them down to 2-3. I don't think you can capture all of that in a book that's anything like Dungeon Fantasy or Monster Hunters which removes the toolkit and provides a defined genre to play in. Ultimately, that's the big failing of the idea of a "Space Opera" box set, because you either need to make it so broad that it's still a tool kit - and thus fails to do the simplification that makes the Dungeon Fantasy RPG Box a good idea - or you have to narrow it down and annoy some people. I'd much rather see something like a Tales of the Solar Patrol box set, as that would at least narrow the subject down to something that can be played right out of the box.