Quote:
Originally Posted by ericbsmith
I'd suggest some sort of Space Patrol - one part Texas Ranger bringing law to a rugged frontier region, one part Survey Scout of the uncharted frontier, one part Space Marines as the only military presence in the region.
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I was having the same sort of thoughts. A space frontier is huge and unknown. Imagine it's just not possible to properly cover the frontier with all sorts of proper organizations for exploration, research, policing, fighting, trade, and more. Rather, circumstances call for one very flexible Patrol (or Agency or whatever) that has to play all those roles to some degree.
It's naturally going to be stretched thin, too. So while there will be big colonization efforts here, and major military operations there, much of what goes on will have to make do with small teams. And the Patrol knows from experience that space is big and weird, and totally unpredictable, with backup and rescue typically far away. So teams have to be diverse: even if the mission is just exploring an interesting planetary feature, teams try to include a soldier, a biologist, a medic, a technician, a psi... all "just in case".
And yet, even that level of deployment isn't always possible. So the Patrol learns to work with others as needed: official Agents work alongside contracted experts, mercenaries, guides, corporate reps... even "free agents" (to place a "we'll-just-look-the-other-way" name on smugglers and other rogues). Teams sometimes contain more outside hires than Patrol members.
Needless to say, organizations other than the Patrol also have teams doing things here and there. The frontier also crawls with private "adventurer" teams beholden to no one at all. (Read: Pirates, bounty hunters, and "kill the bugs and take their stuff" explorers.)
That's all pretty basic Space Opera filling, but maybe it's the sort of framework that would support "adventurer teams in space" gaming without going too deeply into hard-wired setting. It could resemble fantasy gaming quite a bit, with a few key differences. (One key difference from DFRPG: Unless the setting is really out in
nowhere, organizations will likely be important as employers, Patrons, etc. Which just creates a reason to include GURPS' new-ish, nifty, and simple rules for requesting aid from organizations (
DF 17 Guilds, an awesome book)).