Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 05-28-2012, 09:37 AM   #1
Dangerious P. Cats
 
Dangerious P. Cats's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Default Typical races IN SPACE

Myself and some fellows want to build a sci fi setting that encompasses most of the tropes and clichés of your typical space type sci fi (things like Star Trek, Mass Effect, Babylon 5, etc). We're trying to work out what your typical races (outside of humans) for a such a thing are and I was hoping that the wisdom of the forum's hive-mind might be able to shed light on such matters.
__________________
There is no "i" in team, but there is in Dangerious!
Dangerious P. Cats is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-28-2012, 09:47 AM   #2
Figleaf23
Banned
 
Figleaf23's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Default Re: Typical races IN SPACE

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dangerious P. Cats View Post
Myself and some fellows want to build a sci fi setting that encompasses most of the tropes and clichés of your typical space type sci fi (things like Star Trek, Mass Effect, Babylon 5, etc). We're trying to work out what your typical races (outside of humans) for a such a thing are and I was hoping that the wisdom of the forum's hive-mind might be able to shed light on such matters.
I don't think there really are 'typical' races in science fiction. Some cultural tropes repeat themselves a bit -- wise and kind mentor cultures, aggressive and domineering warrior cultures, clownish cultures, weak and pathetic victim cultures, machine cultures, money-driven cultures, dystopian and utopian cultures.
Figleaf23 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-28-2012, 09:47 AM   #3
samd6
 
samd6's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2012
Default Re: Typical races IN SPACE

At a minimum:
A Proud Warrior Race (Klingon, Wookie, Narn)
A Proud Scholar Race (Vulcan, ??, Minbari)
A Proud Merchant Race (Ferengi, Jawas, Centauri)
A truly alien race (background color) (The manatee-thing, every race in the cantina, Pak'mar'a)
A mostly alien race (Bajorans/Cardassians/ Jem Hadar, Mon Calamari, Drazi)
A really, really powerful race (Q, Witches, Lorien)
An outside threat (Borg, Sii-Ruik, Drakh)

And some kind of altered humans (Espers/cyborgs, Force adepts/cyborgs, Technomages/Espers/Touched by Vorlons)
samd6 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-28-2012, 09:50 AM   #4
Turhan's Bey Company
Aluminated
 
Turhan's Bey Company's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: East of the moon, west of the stars, close to buses and shopping
Default Re: Typical races IN SPACE

Some frequently encountered types of aliens races include:
  • Superior life forms: aliens who are smart and may have powers or superior technology, but may be deficient in some way (for example, physically weak, vulnerable to disease, difficulty understanding lower life forms like us).
  • Space barbarians: Badass, but rough around the edges and somewhat tribal. Think Klingons (particularly Next Generation and later) or Jaffa from Stargate.
  • (Animal)-people: Bird-descended aliens with functional wings, dinosaur-like lizard men, cat-girls, etc. There are occasionally (substance) people, like rock-based aliens.
  • Bug-eyed monsters: Large heads, pointy teeth, often have tentacle-like manipulators. Bad news.
A number of aliens are (profession) or (attitude) people. Take humans, change their color or put bumps on their heads, and make them all engineers or pirates or angry or merchants or something.
__________________
I've been making pointlessly shiny things, and I've got some gaming-related stuff as well as 3d printing designs.

Buy my Warehouse 23 stuff, dammit!
Turhan's Bey Company is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-28-2012, 09:56 AM   #5
Flyndaran
Untagged
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
Default Re: Typical races IN SPACE

TV shows are obviously heavily limited by budget and having to use humans in make-up.
Books and RPGs can have all sorts of off the wall aliens.
I always wanted an otherwise boring species that needs to wear a space suit because their biology/atmosphere would be explosive/toxic in human comfortable environments.
Star Trek had Benzites that constantly spewed benzene to breathe... with no mention of how horrendously carcinogenic that gas is.

I like the few members of a primitive not yet officially contacted species.
__________________
Beware, poor communication skills. No offense intended. If offended, it just means that I failed my writing skill check.
Flyndaran is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-28-2012, 11:02 AM   #6
Refplace
 
Refplace's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Yukon, OK
Default Re: Typical races IN SPACE

One of the oddest aiens I recall was from a book I read as a kid. There was this kind of derelict starship/space station humans discovered and there were wheel aliens there.
I do not really recall anything about the book but those aliens stood out. They rolled rather then walked or floated.
Refplace is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-28-2012, 11:12 AM   #7
lwcamp
 
lwcamp's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: The plutonium rich regions of Washington State
Default Re: Typical races IN SPACE

They might not be typical, but Dralasites are by far the coolest science fictional race yet produced.

Luke
lwcamp is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-28-2012, 11:32 AM   #8
jacobmuller
 
jacobmuller's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Not in your time zone:D
Default Re: Typical races IN SPACE

Space Pirate Amazon Ninja Cat-Girls?
And TV Tropes has a good entry.
__________________
"Sanity is a bourgeois meme." Exegeek
PS sorry I'm a Parthian shootist: shiftwork + out of country = not here when you are:/
It's all in the reflexes
jacobmuller is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-28-2012, 12:11 PM   #9
ericthered
Hero of Democracy
 
ericthered's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: far from the ocean
Default Re: Typical races IN SPACE

Aliens on life support. the entire race is.

octopi with a different number of eyes.

precursors who mysteriously disappeared.
ericthered is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-28-2012, 12:20 PM   #10
Ashtagon
 
Ashtagon's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: UK
Default Re: Typical races IN SPACE

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AlienTropes

TV Tropes to the rescue!
Ashtagon is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
races, sci fi, space, space opera, species

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 11:31 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.