Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

A far future setting after humanity accomplished the geek apocalypse, the rapture of the nerds, by uploading almost all of itself into a vast computer network that laces the planetary crust leaving behind anthropomorphic animals created as toys in humanity's decadent final days.

The few uploads who retain an active interest in the real world are known to the inheritors of Earth as gods who offer their followers counsel and offer the "worthy" an afterlife, joining them in their virtual heaven. The chosen priests of the gods get even more since the gods allow them to command the nanotechnology invisibly infused into the environment, allowing them to perform "miracles". Meanwhile those known as witches and wizards are the ones who have managed to salvage old technology from the last days, including brain implants that allow them to command the same nanotechnology without the authorization of the gods.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

I like it. Maybe I'll use this to GM, some time in the future.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Dangerous Thing is right. This is a kwel setting!

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Another Star Trekish premise

The characters are on a lightly armed but heavily laboratoried science vessel. I might go so far as to give it a cloaking device to make it easier to escape confrontation. It would fit with the general vibe of such a show which would be much spookier than any previous Star Trek series because ultimately you are looking at a lot of dead things and figuring out what killed them as well as digging up things that were usually better left buried.

The basic formula would be ship arrives at:

1. A failed colony
2. A derelict ship
3. Ruins left behind by an extinct civilization

Their job is to figure out what killed everyone, find and deal with any remaining hazards and sequester anything potentially dangerous but possibly useful while destroying things that are both dangerous and useless. For a change of pace they might show up at a colony or a ship that isn’t quite dead but can’t figure out what’s threatening them. They might also do some chasing of the illegal trade in scavenged and potentially dangerous artifacts.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

I came up with a variation on this idea, once, although it definitely drew from the notion that "bad movies can make good campaign settings."

I set it in the 2040s, about 40-some years after the events of the movie, Predator 2, starring Danny Glover, Bill Paxton and Maria Conchita Alonso. The premise was that the alien technology that Glover's character managed to recover in the course of those events had triggered a technological revolution.

On top of that, the absolute certainty of the existence of some means of FTL travel, combined with convincing evidence of hostile aliens (Glover's character recovered a huge tissue sample, in the form of the left hand and lower arm he'd chopped off the Predator...), meant the U.S. government restarted the space program with an ungawdly budget, by 2000.

The solar system is rapidly being settled (and militarized), and the PCs crew one of the first FTL scouts headed out to discover exactly how bad things are, Out There.

My friends didn't bite. They didn't want to spend the whole campaign chasing around (and fleeing from) Predators and xenomorphs and Things and triffids and stuff.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

They didn't??

Then why were they playing RPGs??

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

It sounds like a good bug hunt to me. Like Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2 color me confused. Were they looking for a detective game or something involving social manuvers?

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

OMG! Does this mean I might have to sit through (or worse, GM) Highlander 2, the Sleezening? :)

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

I think my lot might be interested. If I ever run something similar, I'll let you know how it goes.

Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds
 

Don't ask me, man. I thought it was a good campaign premise.

We went on to play a GURPS: Harn campaign that lasted years, so things turned out okay. <shrug>