01-06-2016, 10:44 AM | #31 | |
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: L.I., NY
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Re: GURPS - Space Opera?
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01-06-2016, 11:00 AM | #32 | |
Hero of Democracy
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: far from the ocean
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Re: GURPS - Space Opera?
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01-06-2016, 11:45 AM | #33 | |
Untitled
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: between keyboard and chair
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Re: GURPS - Space Opera?
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Rob Kelk “Every man has a right to his own opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts.” – Bernard Baruch, Deming (New Mexico) Headlight, 6 January 1950 No longer reading these forums regularly. Last edited by robkelk; 01-06-2016 at 11:52 AM. |
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01-06-2016, 12:17 PM | #34 |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: GURPS - Space Opera?
There is also subverted space opera, where the trapping of space opera are used to tell a more serious SF story. I'm thinking of things like Colin Greenland's Take Back Plenty, and some of Iain Banks' Culture stories. However, one can't really write a guide to doing this.
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01-06-2016, 01:12 PM | #35 | |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: GURPS - Space Opera?
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01-06-2016, 03:50 PM | #36 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: GURPS - Space Opera?
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For that matter, even though TSP cites Heinlein's juveniles as a source, they really aren't space opera at all. In fact Willy Ley wrote that they set the standard for scientifically rigorous sf, at a level too high for a lot of other authors to reach; and most of them have substantial social science fiction elements too. Their relevance to TSP is not in style of storytelling but in setting—the first six are all set in the solar system as it used to be envisioned before we had accurate planetological data. The same is true of the Lucky Starr novels, though they're neither as well written nor as sophisticated as social sf. That's not to say you shouldn't try to do a campaign based on Star Trek or one of the Heinlein juveniles (they don't have a unified setting). It just wouldn't be "space opera" as I understand it: No larger than life heroes, no grand space battles with fleets of millions of starships, regular attention to legal and social issues that go beyond simple adventure plots. I think the closest Heinlein comes to space opera is the stereovision serial that Hazel Stone writes in The Rolling Stones, "The Scourge of the Spaceways"—and the whole Stone family poke fun at it.
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01-06-2016, 05:39 PM | #37 |
Join Date: May 2011
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Re: GURPS - Space Opera?
I think the term "Space Opera" might be a problem. It seems to mean such different things to different people. For a line of game supplements, would "Science Fiction Adventuring" or something similar work better? I mean, if we already have Tales of the Solar Patrol and people don't find their needs met, telling them, "but this is what you are asking for" seems like a disagreement about labels. Who cares what you call it?
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01-06-2016, 05:50 PM | #38 |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: GURPS - Space Opera?
The problem with Tales of the Solar Patrol as The GURPS Book Of Space Opera is that while it is space opera, it's in a very specific style, and space opera as a whole is a much broader category.
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01-06-2016, 05:51 PM | #39 |
Aluminated
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: East of the moon, west of the stars, close to buses and shopping
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Re: GURPS - Space Opera?
I think the core ideas for the game have to come first, and the name rather later. "Science Fiction Adventuring" would be a reasonable placeholder until a better name shakes itself out from whatever the concept for the game happens to be.
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01-06-2016, 06:07 PM | #40 | |
Join Date: Dec 2012
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Re: GURPS - Space Opera?
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Your 'racker' concept is similar to the 'fighter tree' idea that I had for Five Earths, but has a better name (and is more fully developed).
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