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Originally Posted by ericbsmith
If the players have no ability to travel through space on their own then there's not much use in making it a "space" game instead of a single-planet sci-fi campaign.
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I’ve been running multiple-planet sci-fi games for over thirty years. They have been successful and well-received by scores of players. And they have never involved the PCs having private spaceships nor other means of travelling through space on their own. PCs have been Imperial law-enforcement officers, explorers working for the official Survey program, rich dilettantes travelling for recreation, intelligence officers, clandestine operators, troubleshooters for NGOs, mercenary cadre, art thieves, and undercover security & counterterrorism officials. I’ve run hundreds of adventures, the exotic geographical and social characteristics of the planets have been highly relevant, and the PCs have never had a private spaceship.
Though admittedly that setting does involve superscience for FTL travel, and limited-superscience (fusion-powered steam rockets) for ground-to-orbit services on planets with too little trade and development to afford non-rocket launch facilities.
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They might as well be hopping a plane from Paris to Shanghai for all the difference it makes.
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Lots of fine adventure material involves characters such as James Bond and Indiana Jones hopping from place to place on commercial airliners. It does make a difference and is well worthwhile.
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At that point you might as well just set it on Earth to make the fictional background easier to deal with.
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Not if dealing the the fictional background and the institutions and characters it produces is the whole damn point.