08-27-2017, 08:36 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Yukon, OK
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Space Opera Box set Ideas
As an exercise lets see if we can come to a reasonable consensus on a possible Space Opera setting for a possible boxed set like the DFRPG.
Thread Objectives: The word count needs to be around the size of the DFRPG so it wont leave a lot of room for gear or setting details. Also it needs to be playable out of the box and have as wide an appeal as possible. What I would like...
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08-27-2017, 09:21 PM | #2 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: MO, U.S.A.
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Re: Space Opera Box set Ideas
One of the reasons I suspect this would be better latter is that I think that with some care, this could be a multi book set after the first box.
In the box a fairly simple core set up, the Marines from Aliens, the Starship Interprize MDD 2812, or the Insurrection against the Galactic Imperator. After the first set, add the bits needed for the next set, say start with a Man to Man version of Aliens, or Starship Troopers, call it Bughunt. 1st supplement, Galactic explorers to find the Bugs, cribbed from First in. Second supplement, "What you thought the government was a benign and friendly set? " add in a government that needs over throwing. But wait, there's more! Now the neighbors are unhappy about the loss of trade, smugglers anyone? etc. etc. etc. The scope of Space Opera is both a problem in setup, and an opportunity in future books. Fitting something like this together is not truly practicable until you have a better base from earlier box sets. DF is coming out, next, in whatever order is best, Monster Hunters, Steampunk, Supers, and After the End. If you setup After the End carefully enough, you can then drop Reign of Steel over the top of it as a test run for the Space Opera sets.
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08-27-2017, 09:46 PM | #3 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: Space Opera Box set Ideas
I made some posts elsewhere on potential directions for a Space Opera box. I'll drag them over here:
I imagine new boxed sets would want to follow [DFRPG's] lead [in removing "switches" and other GM options]. For Space Opera (a fine choice that, done right, could show off many GURPS strengths), that would mean not leaving the GM to make all sorts of choices about tech level, game world scale, nature of space travel, etc. The set would make as many decisions on these things as needed to present GMs with a ready-to-play setting.and Super-simplified settings may even work for other genres (to a degree, anyway). Space Opera? If the action is meant to center on bustling cities and spaceports, then remote planets could be lightly painted as generic "wilderness". Or if the idea is to explore wild planets in detail, with PCs spending almost all their time "Down There", then the spaceport might as well be set aside without detail as "town".and I was having the same sort of thoughts [re a Space Patrol that has to fill many roles]. 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.=== That's about all from me now, except to note one problem with the immediate above. I describe a Space Opera setting in which PCs might be an exploration team, or a multi-mission Patrol team, or maybe a private rogue-ish team, or many other possible teams. That sounds fun, and meets experienced gamers' expectations ("the PCs can be whatever the players want them to be!"). But FWIW, that's not the approach DFRPG takes. DFRPG sets out exactly what the PCs do: they raid dungeons. Period. Clear as a bell! (Let me call that "occupation", as in "occupation: dungeon raider"; it's not the same as what DFRPG calls "profession".) If – and that's if – a Space Opera game were to follow that lead, it would have to make a decision on what PCs' occupation is. It'd be a Space Opera game in which PCs are planetary explorers. Or bug hunters. Or free traders. Pick one occupation, like DFRPG, and build a game around that. (A darn tough choice, given so many possibilities...) I don't know whether a Space Opera boxed set should or shouldn't take that path. If it did... adm's post is interesting, suggesting that the game could start with one PC occupation (like DFRPG's "dungeon raider"), giving new players an immediate focus. It could then use future supplements to offer more occupations, expanding play to all-new campaigns and types of teams. That'd mark a departure from DFRPG's approach... but space is big...
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08-27-2017, 11:21 PM | #4 | |
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Yukon, OK
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Re: Space Opera Box set Ideas
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Imagine something like Tbone and EricSmiths posts. You can have enough occupational templates to cover the bulk of things. Mission or Adventure books could include a prebuilt ship deigned for the adventure, possibly a couple of enemy ships. Make hem compatible with the Spaceships line and note it in the material and the GM has an option for more books already in print if they want to expand in that direction. Sparriels is already an Alien book ready to go. Include them as a race template in the set and players wanting more detail can get the book for it. You could go in the Prime Directive direction for supplements, Race or empire books. Geography/setting books, etc. 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. As for Reign of Steel I agree it could bean add on to an ATE boxed set.
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08-27-2017, 11:49 PM | #5 | |
Join Date: Oct 2016
Location: Mojave
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Re: Space Opera Box set Ideas
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08-28-2017, 12:17 AM | #6 |
Join Date: Jan 2015
Location: Madrid, Spain
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Re: Space Opera Box set Ideas
I would pay for a developed Space-Opera Box based on the works of Psi-Wars of Mailanka. I am not a big fan of Star-Trek, Traveller, Transhuman or Hard Sci-Fi worlds but Star Wars/Psi Wars/W40K and simmilar worlds are very appealling to me.
The space is big, so a "space gameworld" could support all the genres but an approach like "this box is a neutral space gameworld and you can make any game you want just by creating it by yourself" is not a buy-driver for me. In resume. +1 vote to produce the Mailanka's Psi-Wars! :)
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08-28-2017, 12:32 AM | #7 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Space Opera Box set Ideas
I think that a space opera series should avoid having a detailed world design system. Such things are appealing to people like me who like to work out settings in detail, but they're likely to put off people who recoil at pushing a square root key or perhaps even plugging numbers into a formula. Instead, I would recommend doing world types, both physical world types and social world types, painted with a broad brush. It might be a good idea to have a secondary "world types" table for earthlike planets with one or another predominant environment: the desert planet, the grass planet, the arctic planet, the jungle planet (perhaps with a note that any planet has other environments in some areas).
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08-28-2017, 01:19 AM | #8 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Binghamton, NY, USA. Near the river Styx in the 5th Circle.
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Re: Space Opera Box set Ideas
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Similarly with spaceships, I would highly recommend using GURPS Spaceships rules to design the spaceships and provide maybe a dozen various ships for use (Free Traders, Pirate Corsair, Patrol Frigate, Patrol Scout, etc), but the Space Opera box set should *NOT* include the spaceship design system. It ought to include the rules for using various ship systems and (a perhaps simplified) ship combat, but the only thing it ought to include regarding the design and creation of said ships is which design switches need to be turned on in the design system so that someone who is interested in designing their own ships can buy GURPS Spaceships to do so.
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Eric B. Smith GURPS Data File Coordinator GURPSLand I shall pull the pin from this healing grenade and... Kaboom-baya. Last edited by ericbsmith; 08-28-2017 at 01:33 AM. |
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08-28-2017, 01:55 AM | #9 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Binghamton, NY, USA. Near the river Styx in the 5th Circle.
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Re: Space Opera Box set Ideas
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Further expansions could fill out each of those campaign scopes as well as add others (such as the Free Trader or Space Navy), but with Space Opera it seems more fitting to keep the initial options open.
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Eric B. Smith GURPS Data File Coordinator GURPSLand I shall pull the pin from this healing grenade and... Kaboom-baya. |
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08-28-2017, 02:16 AM | #10 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: Space Opera Box set Ideas
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So I guess that's a big question to tackle: Should a space-operatic boxed set be a narrow "Very Specific Occupation/Activities Covered in Detail, Amid a Space Opera Background"? Or should it be a broad "Many Possible Occupations/Activities Covered in Broad Strokes, Amid a Space Opera Background"? The former hews to DFRPG's precedent; the latter veers from it. Maybe a middle ground: "A Handful of Select Occupations/Activities Covered in Reasonable Detail..." ?
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boxed sets, entry products |
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