GURPS - Space Opera?

[safisher]

I can understand the reasoning for not doing space opera as line, but I think it's not very satisfactory. GURPS already has the tools in place -- from Ultra-Tech to Spaceships to Psionics, and it's really just a matter of assembling them in a way that makes them coalesce around the theme in such a way that any GM or group can say "Like Blade Runner but Psi and ships." It's that simple. Just like the Action line or the Monster Hunter line takes liberties with the genre's, Space Opera could as well. There's plenty of interest on the forums, and even authors who would tackle this in an instant. I'm supposing of course that there are far more untapped Star Wars fans than Action buyers, and I think that's not wrong.

My take, which is entirely unofficial and uninformed, is that the 4e version of GURPS Space was instructive -- it was too generic, too vanilla. Few books have featured so little in my GURPS sci-fi games. If the proposed Space Opera line looks like GURPS Space writ large, it will be a featureless blob. The 3e versions of Space did far more with far less. Go back and look at them -- space travel, space combat, ship construction, weapons, armor, gadgets, character advice, etc. Those books made some basic assumptions and went with them, and they sold enough to warrant multiple editions. So there is the challenge of the editorial decisions to make the line work. But consider that you can't do a line of sci-fi which apes Star trek because you already have Prime Directive. That would be bad form, if not probably against some contractual obligations. (Again, guessing.) And that leaves the final, actual objection, which is that up until now, we had GURPS Traveller, which filled the non-Star Trek sci-fi niche. And then of course there is Transhuman Space and Vorkosigan. Seen that way, we've had multiple lines of sci-fi in GURPS 4e for some time, none of which probably did a tenth of the sales of Dungeon Fantasy. The problem, of course is that those lines all have weighty non-generic components and several of them preceded the nifty MH, DF, and Action lines' approaches to genre gaming.

What the consumer wants is to wipe the slate clean and start with an Action-esque line of Space Opera books, and I'm not sure that's possible with the other competing GURPS products, or without it being too bland to be worth the effort. It would make a heck of Pyramid issue though!

[trooper6]

GURPS does have the space opera pdf Tales of the Solar Patrol. I imagine if that sold really, really well, they would have made it a line.

[(E)]

While personally I don't consider Star trek or star wars to be space opera. Star wars is science fantasy with some space opera scale thrown in. Star trek is at heart a story telling device for sci fi.

The problem is as Kromm states that Space opera is to wide. So what are the sub genres of space opera? What defines each one?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by RogerWilco

I would call something like Red Dwarf Space Opera, it's defining characteristic that there is no real character development, the characters are stereotypical and only the interactions between the characters matter.

I would never call anything comedic or satirical space opera.

In fiction, the quintessential space opera series to me is the Lensman novels, though the fiction of Campbell and Hamilton also qualifies, and some of Jack Williamson.

In film, the Star Wars trilogy (I haven't seen episodes 1-3) is my go to example.

[Lord Azagthoth]

GURPS has its own space settings (Traveller, Vorkisigan Saga, etc.)

The reason why GURPS has no Star Wars is because of legal rights. WotC had it for quite a long time (a did do nothing with it then make new books, make them obsolete and start a new). Now another company has the rights to make a RPG of Star Wars.

Star Trek idem.

I don't know about Red Dwarf, but it might be the same case.

When GURPS has its own Space Opera settings, people must really like that setting while lots of people think :"It looks like Star Wars but it isn't".

[Verjigorm]

Originally Posted by safisher

I can understand the reasoning for not doing space opera as line, but I think it's not very satisfactory. GURPS already has the tools in place -- from Ultra-Tech to Spaceships to Psionics, and it's really just a matter of assembling them in a way that makes them coalesce around the theme in such a way that any GM or group can say "Like Blade Runner but Psi and ships." It's that simple. Just like the Action line or the Monster Hunter line takes liberties with the genre's, Space Opera could as well. There's plenty of interest on the forums, and even authors who would tackle this in an instant. I'm supposing of course that there are far more untapped Star Wars fans than Action buyers, and I think that's not wrong.

My take, which is entirely unofficial and uninformed, is that the 4e version of GURPS Space was instructive -- it was too generic, too vanilla. Few books have featured so little in my GURPS sci-fi games. If the proposed Space Opera line looks like GURPS Space writ large, it will be a featureless blob. The 3e versions of Space did far more with far less. Go back and look at them -- space travel, space combat, ship construction, weapons, armor, gadgets, character advice, etc. Those books made some basic assumptions and went with them, and they sold enough to warrant multiple editions. So there is the challenge of the editorial decisions to make the line work. But consider that you can't do a line of sci-fi which apes Star trek because you already have Prime Directive. That would be bad form, if not probably against some contractual obligations. (Again, guessing.) And that leaves the final, actual objection, which is that up until now, we had GURPS Traveller, which filled the non-Star Trek sci-fi niche. And then of course there is Transhuman Space and Vorkosigan. Seen that way, we've had multiple lines of sci-fi in GURPS 4e for some time, none of which probably did a tenth of the sales of Dungeon Fantasy. The problem, of course is that those lines all have weighty non-generic components and several of them preceded the nifty MH, DF, and Action lines' approaches to genre gaming.

What the consumer wants is to wipe the slate clean and start with an Action-esque line of Space Opera books, and I'm not sure that's possible with the other competing GURPS products, or without it being too bland to be worth the effort. It would make a heck of Pyramid issue though!

That's odd. GURPS Space is one of my most read and thumbed through books. I particularly find the System Generation and Alien Organism chapters useful.

[Turlo]

Originally Posted by safisher

What the consumer wants is to wipe the slate clean and start with an Action-esque line of Space Opera books, and I'm not sure that's possible with the other competing GURPS products, or without it being too bland to be worth the effort. It would make a heck of Pyramid issue though!

I'm new here, but I would like to point out that this is something I would be interested in. For lack of a better description, a set of Sci-Fi "cook books" would be useful. I have GURPS Space, Ultra-Tech, Bio-Tech and Spaceships, but to be honest, I don't have the experience to put them all together.

I read a lot about how Far Trader for GURPS Traveller was so useful because it explained how to do merchant campaigns and experienced GMs were using it for their own home brew campaigns.

As sorta mentioned a few times, short PDFs on Generic Economics in Space, Generic Habitats in Space, Generic Government Systems in Sci-Fi and so on could be a useful series (or even TL independent books like Boardrooms and Curia). Additional, 'framework' PDFs that reference other material as a guidebook on how to create a campaign with a specific feel (as is use weapons from Ultra-Tech in this tech level except for Gauss weapons, use ships from these specific books in the Spaceship line and trend towards these Advantages/Disadvantages and avoid these) could be an idea.

To be frank, after looking through Space and Ultra-Tech, I was overwhelmed with the options. To be honest, it would be nice if there was a setting product of some sort to help me get my feet under me. But as I said, I'm new here so some of my comments could already be addressed in specific products or forum posts.

I can hope with the re-emergence of Space Opera in media that maybe the market will change (the 'Star' franchises, The Expanse, Dark Matter, Killjoys, etc).

[weby]

As seem even in this thread people have so different ideas of what space opera is..

But I agree with Turlo that trying to set up a scifi game is challenging due to things like the tech books having so many options that really do not work well with each other. Biotech kind of gave a nod in the right direction with the two example systems in chapter 9.

Transhuman space gives one answer for scifi settings, Traveller another, Vorsigan Saga third(though the technology chapter there is a mess so a bad example in that way).

Now that gurps traveller is no more and vorsigan saga is kind of one shot that has not been fixed or followed up some other scifi option than transhuman space would be good. Basically transhuman space fills the hard scifi role well, but there is nolonger a good super science scifi system.

There seems to be also large parts of limited super science system support in place but no comprehensive book to gather it together. Basically a book like "Ultratech-a technology view of tomorrow" or any better name someone comes up with.. would be very welcome. A good candidate would be about TL 10 limited superscience system that could tie in to the classic space atlas books, the high number of Fusion Torch Engine TL 10 craft in the space ships line and so on. There could be something like a chapter on how to tie in with other things like a listing of other things that are useful and tie in well at the those technology assumptions. The rest would basically discuss a selected subset of the different technologies in ultratech as in "these assumptions work well together with each other" with a lot of "if you chose to add this, then note that..."

I have no idea how well such would sell, being a subset of the potential market, but it is just something I have noted that has existed in the background without being ever lifted to the foreground for a long time in gurps books.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by GodBeastX

Yeah, I think we're making Kromm's point for him.

Quite.

An observation I'd make here is that the existing campaign framework lines (that is, DF, Action, and MH) aren't trying to do a comprehensive genre. There's a genre as a backdrop, but mostly what they do is give PCs a specific thing to do. DF is fantasy, sure, but mostly it's about killing things and taking their stuff. There's not a lot about, say, realm management or political intrigue or being a merchant prince there, even though those fit into the fantasy genre.

Trying to come up with the Platonic idea of "space opera," then, is a fool's errand that won't get any closer to an actual game, and I see people go down that rabbit hole time and time again when this topic comes up. The question, if the intention is to come up with a line in parallel to the other campaign frameworks, is "what will the characters do?", with the intention of doing it in science-fiction dress. "Bug hunting," as PK indicated, is one option, in the tradition of Starship Troopers and Aliens. PCs are military types running around on distant worlds shooting monstrous aliens. Exploration is another one: PCs are more scientific than space-farers, doing the whole "strange new worlds" bit (a la Star Trek and maybe Stargate). Something along the lines of space traders or space smugglers might be something as well. I'm sure people can come up with others.

Naturally, though, that doesn't solve the other questions that Kromm raised. I would love to see a SF campaign framework for GURPS, but I also realize that it'd be pretty easy for them to make one that I wouldn't be particularly interested in. There's an opportunity being missed here, but I also understand that the odds of doing it wrong (from a business point of view, publishing something that not enough people will buy) are formidable.

[Ulzgoroth]

Space Opera might make sense as a genre book like Mysteries, though it's partly covered by Space already.

As others have said the label doesn't point to a core structure of the kind that DF/MH/Action are built around.