Let's identify niches! Places to start Transhuman Space Campaigns

[Astromancer]

What it says on the tin. This thread is all about finding narrow enough areas within the THS setting to start a campaign. Bonus points for logical means to expand later on in the campaign narrative.

Law enforcement and crime strike me as rich sources of niches. All you need is to pick a place that lets the GM use the diversity of the setting without drowning the PCs.

Plenty of neighborhoods in THS London, L.A., New York, or Sydney, would achieve this. Law enforcement on the less populated areas of the Moon would give you space adventure and gritty crime drama.

[sir_pudding]

• I'm still disappointed that my Royal Navy belt patrol technothriller failed and maybe want to try again someday.
• For a one-shot or short campaign, playing the rat king and the other projects escaping Nanodynamics Station before the new bosses arrive.
• There's the anarchist infonsocialists that secretly control that station in High Frontier, which always struck me as a great premise for a surrealist art revolutionaries campaign.
• A martial arts competition game set on Mars.
• Wings of the Rising Sun is just a great campaign framework, especially if you like Thunderbirds.

[dchart]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

• Wings of the Rising Sun is just a great campaign framework, especially if you like Thunderbirds.

Thank you! I wasn't even thinking about Thunderbirds while writing it, but as soon as someone (I think it was Phil Masters) mentioned the parallel, it was so obvious that I think there may have been subconscious influence.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

. . . all about finding narrow enough areas within the THS setting to start a campaign. Bonus points for logical means to expand later on in the campaign narrative.

I found one in the Gabriel scenario (In the Well, p. 121). The problem was a shortage of equally interesting things for a Royal Navy light cruiser based as Vosper-Babbage station to do.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by johndallman

I found one in the Gabriel scenario (In the Well, p. 121). The problem was a shortage of equally interesting things for a Royal Navy light cruiser based as Vosper-Babbage station to do.

If a clever well connected criminal ring entered the area, multiple interesting things might show up. And if a unsavory cult was paying for some of what the crooks were doing and second big bad could be right behind the first one.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by johndallman

I found one in the Gabriel scenario (In the Well, p. 121). The problem was a shortage of equally interesting things for a Royal Navy light cruiser based as Vosper-Babbage station to do.

That's why I went with belt patrol, slavery interdiction, search and rescue, space dominance, etc. all far enough away that while you may have the admiralty nattering at you, there's very little they can actually do about it.

[sparcipx]

While decluttering recently, I found an old Post-It note with the words Transhuman Space, Kuiper Belt, Cargo Cult, and John Frum Meme written on it. Unfortunately, I don't remember writing this, and the idea or context is lost... might have to explore this.

[ScaredofScissors]

I’ve been a player or a GM in three THS games; the longest was based on Kromm’s Action actual play tuned to THS - the players were employed off book by a governmental agency/contractor to solve problems. The other notable one was that we were on Mars working for an uplifted cat and working to free bioroids, xoxes, and various AIs while exploring issues of identity and freedom vs responsibility.

[tshiggins]

I thought of one in which characters played experimental uplifted raccoons who escape from a bio-research lab, conducting some work on behalf of a corporate client interested in making new companions for all sorts of human support markets.

I went with a breakthrough in intelligence that boosted them to human average (IQ 10), instead of the borderline IQ 5-8, which the sponsoring corporation considered a negative development. That had triggered some debate amongst the researchers about what to do with the, "Nova-coon" uplifts.

The PCs would play nova-coon uplifts who learn of the debate, and realize they need to take their fate into their own (quite dexterous) hands, escape the lab with as many of their companions as possible, and try to remain hidden while they find a haven.

It's very much derived from the original book, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs._F...e_Rats_of_NIMH, but not so much from the Disney version.

I never got much further than just the premise, though.