Quote from: Tod13;1012134I spent a lot of time and money looking for sci-fi modules my group would like.

I find the lack of good support material for SF gaming is a huge problem. I ran into this running White Star recently. D&D fantasy has near-infinite support available online. Where's my plug & play SF sandbox campaign setting/adventure? All that's out there seems to be (a) linear railroads or (b) so under-developed I could more easily do it myself, as you say. The effort required to keep even a pulp space opera game running is orders of magnitude greater than what I need to do for a sandbox dungeon fantasy campaign.

Ironically a kind of very high tech or even transhuman version of space opera did have a revival (Vinge, Brin, Banks and eventually many others). Not sure how many sf rpgs draw on that modern style.

Quote from: Premier;1012100From a specifically RPG-oriented perspective, the greatest difference to me is that fantasy has a clear common ground and sci-fi doesn't.

If you create your own fantasy campaign setting and each of your players has a basic grounding in at least one of Tolkien, Sword & Sorcery or classic D&D, they'll all get your setting after the first session. Why? Because all (or almost all) fantasy is fundamentally similar. Sure, the Hyborian Age doesn't have elves and dwarves and Middle Earth doesn't have so many evil scheming demon-summoning sorcerers, but you could still take any element from one and transplant it into the other without too much chafing.

Sci-fi is not like that. Individual sci-fi works can be so different that each only really works as stand-alone entity. If all your players know is that you'll be starting "a sci-fi campaign" and one brings a brash Han-Solo lookalike with expectations of Start Wars technology, one a scheming Reverend Mother-ripoff from Dune, the third a down-to-earth twentieth century scientist from an Arthur C. Clarke hard sci-fi novel and the fourth Robocop, they're going to make an unworkable mess both with each other and with your actual campaign setting.

This may be why it is so hard to get non-D&D style fantasy gaming established. Just like sci-fi players don't really have a clear handle to grasp.  Look at Tekumel, it is not really any more complicated than Vanilla D&D, it just seems that way because elves, orcs, wizards and the rest have so permiated popular culture, where as the Ssu have not.

Star Wars and Star Trek are easy to use as gaming backgrounds, everybody knows Wookiees and Vulcans, and Klingons, but try telling most players they meet a Kzin or a Thranx.

Quote from: Tod13;1012909The comments were in regards to published modules, which is what I think drives a lot of the popularity of systems.

Yes, that was the DIY option, which I always include:).

QuoteI want full-length modules, not mini-adventures. I sometimes use mini-adventures to add an area to an existing module. I've found Creation's Edge mini-adventures useful for this, and they have a full-size preview. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/152050/Peril-at-the-Pod-Auction-A-SciFi-RPG-MiniAdventure

What is a full-length module for you;)? I'm really not "in the know", but I thought there's no standard length for modules.
Here's a 76-page one, A Life Worth Living which also promises to give you a follow-up.
This one seems to be the Traveller's analogue of the Great Pendragon Campaign. It's got 592 pages.
The Fall of Tinath has a non-3I Traveller with over 100 pages.
This one is just 44 pages. There's longer adventures in PWYW format.
French Arm Adventures is 178 pages, for the harder-SF-version of Traveller: 2300 AD.
And then there's all the adventures for the previous several editions of Traveller;).

And then, if you want a more transhumanist approach, there's the adventures for Eclipse Phase 1st edition.
Here's the link to all of the electronic books for said edition. The names of the adventures are Bump in the Night, Continuity, Ego Hunter, Glory, Million Year Echo, and The Devotees.

And there's adventures for Stars Without Numbers, as well, like Hard Light and Polychrome for example.

Have you run all of these? Because that's what I found with a quick search on Drivethru;). And I'm not exactly the biggest fan of adventures.

And if you tell me you had run all of the above, after I stop chewing on my hat, I'm going to write an adventure, too, publish it, and sell you a coupon to get it on an 80% reduced price:D!

QuoteMaybe once I'm done writing and testing my system I can play with modules.

Go ahead!

Quote from: Voros;1013225Ironically a kind of very high tech or even transhuman version of space opera did have a revival (Vinge, Brin, Banks and eventually many others). Not sure how many sf rpgs draw on that modern style.

Eclipse Phase and Mindjammer come to mind. Kuro and Fates Worse Than Death are halfway there, showing more the moment of transition to transhumanism.

Is Mindjammer like Spelljammer? Or not related at all?

Not related in the slightest.  Think of less-dystopian Eclipse Phase.

Quote from: Celestial;1013355Not related in the slightest.  Think of less-dystopian Eclipse Phase.

Yeah, this - I admit I only got it because I wanted to see "transhumanist Traveller".

Quote from: S'mon;1013224I find the lack of good support material for SF gaming is a huge problem. I ran into this running White Star recently. D&D fantasy has near-infinite support available online. Where's my plug & play SF sandbox campaign setting/adventure? All that's out there seems to be (a) linear railroads or (b) so under-developed I could more easily do it myself, as you say. The effort required to keep even a pulp space opera game running is orders of magnitude greater than what I need to do for a sandbox dungeon fantasy campaign.

I find a fair bit for Traveller, although the community isn't actually all that good at promoting itself really. Traveller is the biggest sleeper hit in RPG history, I think.

Quote from: TrippyHippy;1013431I find a fair bit for Traveller, although the community isn't actually all that good at promoting itself really. Traveller is the biggest sleeper hit in RPG history, I think.

Yes, took me ages to get the game and appreciate it. Since then, I've been joking that there's no skills in Traveller that deal with advertising your product;)!

Quote from: TrippyHippy;1013431I find a fair bit for Traveller, although the community isn't actually all that good at promoting itself really. Traveller is the biggest sleeper hit in RPG history, I think.

TrippyHippy, do you have a YouTube channel with Traveller videos? That seems to be where the game is headed promotion-wise, people filming Traveller events at cons, etc.

Quote from: Tod13;1012134The sci-fi modules seem more exploration based, while my players like dealing with intelligent and semi-intelligent dungeon denizens. I ended up taking BFRPG modules and changing them into "steampunk sci-fi", which seems like it will work for my players.

I'm not a fan of modules. But I did like Two Days on Carsten for Mongoose Traveller http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/225723/Two-Days-on-Carsten as a setting between other worlds.

Quote from: TrippyHippy;1013431I find a fair bit for Traveller, although the community isn't actually all that good at promoting itself really. Traveller is the biggest sleeper hit in RPG history, I think.

Is there a Babylon-5/Deep Space 9/Deadwood city/station/starport type setting for Traveller or other SF game? I'm thinking something like that might work well for a plug & play SF sandbox. It could have civilised zone, slum zone, and dungeon-delve ruin zone all in the same habitation.

Quote from: S'mon;1013497Is there a Babylon-5/Deep Space 9/Deadwood city/station/starport type setting for Traveller or other SF game? I'm thinking something like that might work well for a plug & play SF sandbox. It could have civilised zone, slum zone, and dungeon-delve ruin zone all in the same habitation.

For Babylon 5 Traveller, check out Warehouse23 or ebay. I don't know about the others.

Quote from: S'mon;1013497Is there a Babylon-5/Deep Space 9/Deadwood city/station/starport type setting for Traveller or other SF game? I'm thinking something like that might work well for a plug & play SF sandbox. It could have civilised zone, slum zone, and dungeon-delve ruin zone all in the same habitation.

They did have a Traveller version of Babylon 5 for a while. In terms of that style of setting for Traveller's Third Imperium setting, there must be some place, somewhere, where such a place could exist but I'm not sure of published material.

Quote from: S'mon;1013497Is there a Babylon-5/Deep Space 9/Deadwood city/station/starport type setting for Traveller or other SF game? I'm thinking something like that might work well for a plug & play SF sandbox. It could have civilised zone, slum zone, and dungeon-delve ruin zone all in the same habitation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_5_Roleplaying_Game

https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/9/9578.phtml

I know of it, but never played it.