I run hardish SF games a lot, and sometimes I'm tempted to do the old saw of an ancient derelict starship being found. You know, basically the SF version of a dungeon, right?

 I usually stop as I have trouble with the idea of a ship remaining intact for vast perionds on time in space without power or maintenance. I mean, I think to myself if the ship gets near absolute zero then liquids will freeze, pipes burst, a lot of stuff will be shattered by the cold, the hull will weaken due to extreme cold, if you try to reheat the ship it's hull may shatter due to thermal expansion, etc.

So sometimes I pass on an idea simply because I can't technically justify it enough to fit the genre.

If you have what might be a neat idea but it has serious 'reality check' issues do you use it anyway or pass on it to preserve the game's level of realism? At times I wonder which is the right solution.

It depends.

If I'm playing a "hard" military SF (or just Military - see the T2k thread) game, I don't view it as "getting in the way" I think of it as part and parcel of the whole affair.  But I mean, if I'm playing Star Wars, and the party happens upon an old derelict ship from the Clone Wars just floating around some forgotten outer rim world planet - heck no I don't bother with that sort of thing.

Just depends on the game, ultimately.

For me it would also vary, but typically I'd take my lead from my players.  If we all get through that segment and nobody goes 'hey, wait a minute', then we're probably going to run with it.

I do, but not as much as you, I guess.

I mean I do think "that wont work", but if I really want it to work, I can usually think of a way that will satisfy me (which is usually 1 or 2 levels deeper than it takes to satisfy my players.)

Take your ship, for example. Sure, those things might happen, but if I wanted to run a derelict ship:
1) Perhaps all life forms on board died, but there is still enough heat being generated to keep the ship well above absolute zero. This might be automated systems. Of, if your tech includes fission, the reactor is likely to put out heat a long time after shut down.
2) Cold storage is common for some ships that are expected to have portions of them "de powered" for years for efficiency reasons, and thus have safety measures in place when bringing the ship back online. Fluid systems have relief valves, etc.
3) If it's high enough tech, large fluid systems might be antiquated tech.
4) The ship is in close enough proximity to a heat-radiating body (star, brown dwarf) that its black body temperature is well above absolute zero, if not Earth-norm comfy.

etc...

Just because you can't power up the derelict and fly it away doens't mean it's not interesting, or valuable. Leting the players figure out what the hazards are could be an interesting game by iself.

Good answers. I'd considered some. The idea that "it's been adrift for a long time, maybe thousands of years but some power source is still operating" could work in hard science.

I think adherence to scientific accuracy is interesting when it generates interesting stuff at the game table; e.g. Traveller's brutal portrayal of the hard vacuum, radiation and other dangers of space makes spacefaring seem so much more challenging and exciting than, say, in Star Wars.

I don't get hang up on scientific accuracy most of the time. But I enjoy reading up on hard science outside my field and thinking up answers to the obvious physics and engineering problems behind common SF assumptions.

For example, Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space books have Traveller-like interstellar merchants -- but adherence to relativistic time dilation and the lightspeed barrier means these guys and gals travel in huge near-c ("lighthugger") craft and have cybernetics and genemods galore to survive, and take hundreds of years (decades to them) between each visit. That's interesting stuff and I think I'd love to sit down and play a Traveller game built around these ideas. How different would it feel from good ol' Traveller!

Quote from: red lantern;592691I usually stop as I have trouble with the idea of a ship remaining intact for vast perionds on time in space without power or maintenance. I mean, I think to myself if the ship gets near absolute zero then liquids will freeze, pipes burst, a lot of stuff will be shattered by the cold, the hull will weaken due to extreme cold, if you try to reheat the ship it's hull may shatter due to thermal expansion, etc.

Actually, that sounds like pretty good fun.

Don't forget the micrometeorites, either!

Earth sends unmanned probes out beyond Pluto, and they seem to keep working just fine despite it being a bit chilly out there. The vacuum is a pretty kind environment to machinery, much moreso than being on Earth or another planet with weather.

But I would assume PCs exploring a derelict in a hard SF game will be doing it with spacesuits on. If you want it to look like a TV show then running it as hard SF will be tough.

Quote from: red lantern;592691I run hardish SF games a lot, and sometimes I'm tempted to do the old saw of an ancient derelict starship being found. You know, basically the SF version of a dungeon, right?

 I usually stop as I have trouble with the idea of a ship remaining intact for vast perionds on time in space without power or maintenance. I mean, I think to myself if the ship gets near absolute zero then liquids will freeze, pipes burst...

Only if the pipes are full of frozen water. Most liquids don't expand when frozen, so no reason for pipes to burst.

To me this demonstrates how a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and trying to be realistic can end up giving less realistic results than handwaving it. Games where you explode in vacuum, for instance.

The ships were over-engineered/overbuild to handle absolute zero just fine...

I too, prefer hard SF. I also like Star Wars, but Star Wars is space opera and more like playing tennis with the net down.

Thing that I found out was that while I have a background in applied nuclear engineering and like orbital mechanics, most Players consider New BSG to be hard SF. It gets a little easier if you have contact with Players who are anime fans since Planetes and Ghost in the Shell, for example, pay more attention to science than Star Trek.

Don't drop the old tropes of SF, try to make them technically accurate instead. I love the idea of an alien artifact causing the crew that finds it to go crazy, but until I researched what outside influences could cause insanity - I never ran the scenario because I could not justify the result. Then I ran across studies in which rats were exposed to different intensities,  directions, and frequencies of magnetic fields which caused emotional reactions of various degrees (including one in which the rats became suddenly cannibalistic). While tenuous, it gave me enough to logically explain how an alien artifact could cause hallucinations and abberant behavior in humans through magnetic fields. I could then use the old trope.

Quote from: Ladybird;592732Actually, that sounds like pretty good fun.

My thought, exactly. That crystalline fog around the ruptured pipe might turn into a firestorm if you heat it up and shoot a laser gun into it. Turning the ship back on again might start a complicated time bomb as pipes burst one by one and flood the interior with various substances. Careless opening of bulkhead doors might expose you to vacuum in section that have suffered hull rupture. Electric systems might misfire and go haywire. Plenty of fun!

Realism never gets in the way in my games. Either it's a welcome boundary to build on, or it's something to selectively ignore in order to achieve proper genre emulation.

Quote from: S'mon;592744Only if the pipes are full of frozen water. Most liquids don't expand when frozen, so no reason for pipes to burst.

To me this demonstrates how a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and trying to be realistic can end up giving less realistic results than handwaving it. Games where you explode in vacuum, for instance.

Yes, thank you, I do know people don't go "outland" in vacuum, actually. Now bulging eyes and bursting capillaries like the original 'total recall' is a bit more realistic.