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Old 08-28-2017, 06:11 PM   #41
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Default Re: Space Opera Box set Ideas

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Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
That doesn't match my own experience. I've never even seen anyone in my circle suggest any sort of military SF game. Actually not even if we went back to my college years.
I tried to run a star traders game, and it was dismal. I don't think we got through rolling for speculative cargo. :(
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Old 08-28-2017, 06:30 PM   #42
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Default Re: Space Opera Box set Ideas

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I think we need to define the term "space opera" - what does and doesn't count.
Like all genres, really, "space opera" is a fuzzy thing that you probably can't firmly pin down. It's not a matter of a fixed definition, it's a "these setting elements, tropes, and narrative devices are commonly present" thing. That said, here's what I'd say is a list of said things commonly present in stories I'd call "space opera".
  • Space! The stories involve space travel, and as a plot element, not just a background detail or one-off event to put the protagonists at their destination. "Planetary Romance" stories like Burroughs' John Carter of Mars novels or the Planet Krishna setting aren't Space Opera, because they're confined to the planet.
  • Higher technology. It's adventures set in the future, or at least a setting with more advanced technology than Earth.
  • Greater-than-personal scope. The impact of the events the protagonists are experiencing goes beyond just themselves or their acquaintances, and affects large groups in some significant way. "The fate of the world is at stake", although it doesn't have to be the literal whole world - protecting your home city from destruction is, IMO, a valid space opera goal.
  • Personal choices are important. The protagonists can take actions and make decisions that matter on the scale they're operating at. What they do will help sway events. They don't have to be the only ones who do so, but they do have to have a chance of doing so. (This element is why I don't consider most of Asimov's early Foundation novels to be Space Opera as a genre, because the protagonists, due to the nature of psychohistory, are explicitly unable to affect the greater outcome.)
  • Motivations are largely personal as well. People do things out of greed, love, ambition, courage, cruelty, etc. Even when their motivations are toward a larger object, like an admiral striving to restore the Galactic Empire with her rag-tag fleet, she'll be motivated by a personal sense of duty towards the Empire, not just an abstract sense of "someone's got to do this, might as well be me".

Those are what I'd consider the core elements of space opera as a genre. Now, I don't think that a Space Opera boxed set/PDF line should only encompass stories told with those genre elements, nor are they the only elements that commonly appear in space opera stories (I haven't touched on "weird powers" at all, for example, despite them being quite common in space opera).

I do think that any other sub-genres chosen for support in such a line should be carefully considered for how well they fit into that core space opera narrative, though. That's why I suggested, in the other thread, that space exploration (a la Star Trek) and "space scoundrels/traders" (as per Traveller or Firefly) are good things to cover - the sort of characters who fit into those types of stories slides very easily over into space opera as well. I'd expand that list to include the "bug hunt" or military sci-fi subgenre as well - I'd say that, again, characters who fit into those sorts of stories can be used pretty well in space opera too, and they're pretty classic genres for gaming.
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Old 08-28-2017, 06:34 PM   #43
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Default Re: Space Opera Box set Ideas

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Originally Posted by sir_pudding View Post
I tried to run a star traders game, and it was dismal. I don't think we got through rolling for speculative cargo. :(
I've run multiple campaigns with trading as an activity, from my first GURPS campaign (set in the Uplift universe) to my current fantasy campaign (set in a bronze age world). Characteristically, the players stop being enthusiastic about the buying and selling and expenses after the first voyage. They still like the contact with different cultures, and they take a mild interest in the goods available, but they really prefer to just handwave the profit and loss statement.

In any case, while mercantile activity is a common frame for science fiction (Norton's Solar Queen, Heinlein's Free Traders, Anderson's Polesotechnic League, Cherryh's Union/Alliance series, Vinge's Qeng Ho), I don't think stories about it often fall under "space opera." Players who are looking for space opera are more likely to want physical action.

I'm not sure that this proposal will work if you offer multiple "mission statements" that players can choose between. Doesn't Dungeon Fantasy work by offering a single mission, going into an underground realm to kill things and bring back treasure, with the mechanics ruthlessly focused on carrying out such a mission, step by step? I think maybe what's needed is to define a standard mission for a space opera story. And maybe that calls for picking out a group of source works that tell the kind of story you want to play out.
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Old 08-28-2017, 06:58 PM   #44
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Default Re: Space Opera Box set Ideas

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Originally Posted by Refplace View Post
...
Other boxed sets will not help this line other than publicity (which is good)so I disagree that another boxed set coming first will significantly help a Space Opera book.
...
My thoughts on earlier box sets were less "build a market" and more "figure out the market". i.e. Are boxed set buyers primarily "one and done", or do the go on to buy other product? If most are "one and done", then setting up a series will not work. Being more polished on which cuts to the original rules are a must, and which ones hobble latter supplements is also something better learned first.
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Old 08-28-2017, 07:16 PM   #45
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Default Re: Space Opera Box set Ideas

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Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen View Post
. I'd expand that list to include the "bug hunt" or military sci-fi subgenre as well - I'd say that, again, characters who fit into those sorts of stories can be used pretty well in space opera too, and they're pretty classic genres for gaming.
While I don't recall ever seeing or running anything that close to a bug hunt game I've seen lots of characters who've borrowed items from the prop department of such a thing.

For example, my last Traveller character managed to muster out with a suit of powered armor and a plasma gun. What? The tables said "armor" and "weapon".

My college roommate (who got me started in gaming) was playing in a game of FGU's Space Opera I was running and left the Bureau of State Security with a shoulder-launched nuclear weapon in his briefcase. The looks on the other player's faces when he finally used it are something I will remember til the day I die. I guess you never forget your first nuke. :)
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Old 08-28-2017, 07:28 PM   #46
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Default Re: Space Opera Box set Ideas

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Originally Posted by adm View Post
My thoughts on earlier box sets were less "build a market" and more "figure out the market". i.e. Are boxed set buyers primarily "one and done", or do the go on to buy other product? If most are "one and done", then setting up a series will not work. Being more polished on which cuts to the original rules are a must, and which ones hobble latter supplements is also something better learned first.
In part the Dungeon Fantasy Companion - which I hope will be available in print or on CreateSpace - can be used to gauge demand for an expansion to a boxed set game. A possible sales spike of Dungeon Fantasy PDFs can also be used to help gauge that demand.
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Old 08-28-2017, 07:37 PM   #47
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Default Re: Space Opera Box set Ideas

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When I'm talking with my players, I say "mission statement."
That sounds good. "Mission statement: Raid dungeons, get treasure." "Mission statement: Fight off the Martian invasion, save Earth." Etc.

So, taking that term over to the Space Opera discussion:

I'm inclined to think that open-ended mission statements ("Hunt bugs! Or trade goods! Or spy for the Rebellion!") sounds great for a PDF line. Because a PDF line is also open-ended.

But a boxed set's very concept is "This is all you need, and all you get (for now, anyway)". It faces big restrictions on what the rules books can hold, what maps and figures can cover. An included adventure has to pick one mission statement to address. The goal is ready-to-play, out of the box – and that doesn't mesh with "Think about what sort of campaign you'll want to play in..."

I think a space-opera themed box set will likely want to focus on one mission statement, like DFRPG. But we'll see. It's awfully early for such speculation, as The Market has yet to even get its hands on DFRPG, let alone voice its opinion...
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Old 08-28-2017, 07:42 PM   #48
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Default Re: Space Opera Box set Ideas

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
I've run multiple campaigns with trading as an activity, from my first GURPS campaign (set in the Uplift universe) to my current fantasy campaign (set in a bronze age world). Characteristically, the players stop being enthusiastic about the buying and selling and expenses after the first voyage. They still like the contact with different cultures, and they take a mild interest in the goods available, but they really prefer to just handwave the profit and loss statement.

In any case, while mercantile activity is a common frame for science fiction (Norton's Solar Queen, Heinlein's Free Traders, Anderson's Polesotechnic League, Cherryh's Union/Alliance series, Vinge's Qeng Ho), I don't think stories about it often fall under "space opera." Players who are looking for space opera are more likely to want physical action.

I'm not sure that this proposal will work if you offer multiple "mission statements" that players can choose between. Doesn't Dungeon Fantasy work by offering a single mission, going into an underground realm to kill things and bring back treasure, with the mechanics ruthlessly focused on carrying out such a mission, step by step? I think maybe what's needed is to define a standard mission for a space opera story. And maybe that calls for picking out a group of source works that tell the kind of story you want to play out.
Rjn and Falkayn evolved into a larger then life plot by founding a civilization. In any case even when they were just making money they were always saving the planet-of-the-week from disaster.

The Chanur Series is about a first contact interfering in an intersteller feud.

The Peregrine probably falls under as close to the technical definition of Space Opera as can be. It has a larger then life event grow out of the circumstance pretty ordinary traders.
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Old 08-28-2017, 10:08 PM   #49
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Default Re: Space Opera Box set Ideas

While my favorite space setting would combine THS and 2300AD in something that would evoke the revisioned Battlestar Galactica or Pitch Black (although not the second film...), if I were to pick a space opera, I'd go with the Third Breath setting found in the Alacrity FitzHugh and Hobart Floyt triology, by Brian Daley.

It has just about everything required for a good campaign setting. The premise is that humanity made it into space about 500 years, previously, and discovered a hyperspace FTL (the "Hawking Drive") a couple of hundred years later.

Humanity expanded rapidly, although it's not clear for how long. However, humans became over-extended and that first effort eventually collapsed into disorder. This left many of the early colonies mostly, if not completely, abandoned. That was the "First Breath."

After several generations, the Solar System recovered enough to send out FTL ships, again, and found that while some of their former colonies had developed strangely, a fair number of them had survived and grown prosperous enough to develop a viable trade network.

This fueled interstellar travel and trade enough that humanity continued to expand, and humans slowly began to find Precursor artifacts of strange construction and incomprehensible purposes. This continued, until the first human scouts reached Spica, and found the largest Precursor "artifact" of all -- six garden worlds evenly spaced around the blue star, in the Goldilocks zone.

This triggered an unprecedented land-rush and any number of religious cults. The presence of sophisticated Precursor ruins on the worlds of the "Spica Diadem" also gave unprecedented insight into the Precursor civilization -- apparently, they'd been trying to get a handle on how to manipulate space-time, through the use of "Causality Harps."

With so many habitable planets in one system, Spica began to compete against the Solar System for control of the economy of humanity's space. Raising the stakes were several instances of first contact with alien races, the most significant of which were the Srillians.

Resembling bipedal giant anteaters, as much as anything, the Srillians had a comparable tech level to humanity, controlled a large section of space, and benefited from an equally competitive instinct.

This gave the movers and shakers in the Spica Diadem the opportunity they'd been waiting for. They formed a Camarilla, and after many years of effort, engineered a war between humanity and the Srillians. It lasted for years and devastated both species, but Earth took the worst beating when a Srillian fleet bombarded the planet with rocks and nukes.

The unexpected virulence of the war caught even the Camarilla by surprise, and both humanity and the srillians collapsed. This ended the "Second Breath."

The books take place at the start of humanity's "Third Breath." Earth is an authoritarian backwater where the need to survive resulted in the elimination of all existing nations, in favor of a poor, bureaucratic, oligarchical "EarthGov." The Spica Diadem bounced back more quickly than anyone, and now exercises the greatest economic and political power in human space.

The srillians have recovered as quickly, and have begun investigating the causes of the last war; they don't like what they're finding. In the balkanized human space, small polities that range in size from one regional area on a single planet, to several clustered solar systems, have begun to explore beyond their borders and establish trade contacts with lost human colonies and other alien species in a universe where news and information travels no faster than the fastest star ships, which take weeks to cover interstellar distances.

It's a wild, brawling, chaotic place, with lost colonies, aliens, several hundred years of star ships (in a wide variety of decors, qualities and states of repair), space pirates, evil conspiracies, organized crime, spacer unions, bounty hunters, crooks on the lam, interstellar conflicts, horrific atrocities, peaceful colonies, mega-corporations, high (and medium and low) fashion, penny-dreadfuls, freelance journalists, archaeologists, genealogists, and the mysteries of the Precursors which have strange effects on the minds of those who learn too much.

While I doubt SJ Games would want to license the property, I think a space opera setting should aim in a similar direction. Start people out with a search for Precursor artifacts (treasure!), and then add stuff in if the setting sells.
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Last edited by tshiggins; 08-28-2017 at 11:01 PM.
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Old 08-28-2017, 10:32 PM   #50
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Default Re: Space Opera Box set Ideas

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Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
That doesn't match my own experience. I've never even seen anyone in my circle suggest any sort of military SF game. Actually not even if we went back to my college years.
Counter-point: In my 'college' days I was in a two year bug-hunt campaign. I ended up playing the more 'heroic'* style characters and basically made a new character every session...




* Heroic, unlucky, whatever.
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