Quote from: Cathode Ray on March 17, 2025, 04:20:15 AMI like ship-to-ship combat and pulp adventuring.

Like Flash Gordon? With Ray Guns(tm) and Death Rays, Rocket Packs? And the protagonist is wearing no gear but a longsleeve shirt which gets torn off and he's wielding a sword in one hand and a blaster in the other?

I can always get down with that.

Quote from: jhkim on March 17, 2025, 02:28:29 AM

Quote from: tenbones on March 16, 2025, 11:52:30 PMAs the title suggests.

Do you want the "Federation of Planets" thing - where multiple races band together against other star-faring empires? How gritty do you want it? Ship combat? Away-mission variety? Or gritty war-campaigns with more fantastical elements like Star Wars-ish stuff? Pulpy sci-fi?

Do you prefer realistic stuff with mechanics that try to emulate real physics as long as its fun?

Tech-levels? Large command-ships with swarms of fighters? Or just capital ships slugging it out in space. Orbital bombardments and drop-ships with mechas and power-suited shock-troops with rich military specialties?

What pop-culture IP's inform your tastes?

I'm happy with lots of different IPs. Planet of the Apes, John Carter, Neuromancer, Terminator, Mutant Year Zero, Doctor Who, Paranoia, etc.

There's a sense of "sci fi" to mean only rayguns and aliens and spaceships, which bugs me. It's similar to how "fantasy" is assumed to mean D&D-esque swords and wizards and monsters. Nothing wrong with D&D or Star Wars, but the genres include such a wider range of possibilities that it seems like people just don't consider.

That said, I have been thinking of an Alien adventure - which is spacefaring sci-fi. But there's plenty of sci-fi that doesn't involve space at all.

Totally get all of that. But do you lean any particular way? or it is purely on your mood at the moment of a game? Should probably differentiate whether you're playing or GMing. There is a big difference.

Quote from: Kiero on March 17, 2025, 05:35:06 AMI'm utterly soured on Star Wars and anything else leaning into fantastical "space magic". When there isn't even a skein of versimilitude to explain why various design choices were made, then I'm not interested.

I prefer stuff towards the harder side of things nowadays. The Expanse and films like Alien, a grimy, lived-in universe where the only aliens are horrors. Mass Effect is about as space opera as I can take.

So Star Trek/Babylon 5 - is more on the Star Wars side of the spectrum for you? Do you GM or play? And does either of these positions affect your tastes?

Quote from: tenbones on March 17, 2025, 12:21:44 PMSo Star Trek/Babylon 5 - is more on the Star Wars side of the spectrum for you? Do you GM or play? And does either of these positions affect your tastes?

Pretty much, yes. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed watching both of those properties, but wouldn't want to play or GM them.

My kids are my default target player group nowadays, I could get my eldest excited about The Expanse, other stuff would be a hard sell.

Quote from: tenbones on March 17, 2025, 12:19:06 PM

Quote from: jhkim on March 17, 2025, 02:28:29 AMI'm happy with lots of different IPs. Planet of the Apes, John Carter, Neuromancer, Terminator, Mutant Year Zero, Doctor Who, Paranoia, etc.

There's a sense of "sci fi" to mean only rayguns and aliens and spaceships, which bugs me. It's similar to how "fantasy" is assumed to mean D&D-esque swords and wizards and monsters. Nothing wrong with D&D or Star Wars, but the genres include such a wider range of possibilities that it seems like people just don't consider.

That said, I have been thinking of an Alien adventure - which is spacefaring sci-fi. But there's plenty of sci-fi that doesn't involve space at all.

Totally get all of that. But do you lean any particular way? or it is purely on your mood at the moment of a game? Should probably differentiate whether you're playing or GMing. There is a big difference.

It just depends on my mood and the game. I've greatly enjoyed some Star Wars and Star Trek games, but I also enjoy gritty sci-fi and hard sci-fi.

I'd distinguish that "gritty sci-fi" is more about the trappings. Things are more cynical and dirty with less sense of wonder, but there isn't necessarily a greater basis in science. I'd put the Alien movies, the Firefly series, and the Murderbot novels in this category. A good example here is that in Alien, crew go into hibernation to save on resources - but they still have FTL travel that goes hundreds of times the speed of light. Going 100c doesn't have any more scientific basis than going 10000c, but it feels grittier to say that travel takes weeks or months.

Hard sci-fi is about exploring scientific possibilities, which is independent of being gritty. Some hard sci-fi has dazzling technology, like A Fire Upon the Deep, Blindsight, or The Three Body Problem. It's not that it's close to Earth tech, but the possibilities are inspired by science. Most hard sci-fi is closer to modern-day tech - like The Martian, The Doomsday Book, Project Hail Mary, and others - but not all. Something like the sophon of The Three Body Problem or the astrophage of Project Hail Mary are incredible and wondrous, but they are inspired by science rather than trying to find ways around science.

Hard sci-fi is pretty rare in general, and particularly rare in RPGs. That doesn't make it better. I've rarely tried for it in games that I've run, but I've considered it. I have thought about trying to do a first contact game of some sort, set in close to modern day Earth.


Again, I'm more interested in the particulars of the game than about soft vs gritty vs hard sci-fi. What makes the game interesting is more to the point.

My sci-fi tastes are all over the place and I don't think one game can capture them all.  I like xeno-archeology and first contact stories, exploring derelicts, and discovering ancient mysteries.  But, those don't really fall into the game of the week category.  I also like blue collar in space settings like Hostile, Those Dark Places.

I got Across a Thousand Dead Worlds, Entity, First Contact, and some other sci-fi titles in my to-play queue.

Quote from: tenbones on March 17, 2025, 12:18:01 PM

Quote from: Cathode Ray on March 17, 2025, 04:20:15 AMI like ship-to-ship combat and pulp adventuring.

Like Flash Gordon? With Ray Guns(tm) and Death Rays, Rocket Packs? And the protagonist is wearing no gear but a longsleeve shirt which gets torn off and he's wielding a sword in one hand and a blaster in the other?

I can always get down with that.

Exactly!

First, let me preface this post with saying I am a merchant seaman, I primarily run games on ships, and thus campaigns tend to last about 6-8 weeks 3-4 times a week and then either the crew change ends it or the ship schedule does.  I also decide what setting I use based on the feel of the group of players I can assemble.

I have two different scifi setting games I run.  Over the years I've tried different systems but largely it's irrelevant as the settings themselves jelled a long time ago. Currently I use a mash-up Traveller and Cepheus Engine rules set.

My first setting I describe to my players as a combination of Bladerunner, Outland, Silent Running, Moon 44, and Johnny Mnemonic.  I play it straight and it's done as a more grounded and almost cyberpunk style game.

My second setting is heavily inspired by a lot of the scifi books I read as a kid.  It's definitely an advanced universe with aliens, easy to use FTL,and and magic by today's standards tech.  I definitely borrowed a lot from Frank Herbert, EE Doc Smith, Andre Norton, and Edgar Rice Burroughs.  This tends to have a bit more of a high adventure feel.

The best advice I ever got for running games is "run the game you want to play."  These two settings are very different from each other but they are both games I'd love to play and I love to run for my players.

I'm not going to add anything else from my semi-coherent views except this. If you want to do a space opera game, you are doing yourself a solid favor by reading the Preliminary Notes section and skimming the rest of the Atomic Rockets website.

https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/index.php

Quote from: Kiero on March 17, 2025, 05:35:06 AMWhen there isn't even a skein of versimilitude to explain why various design choices were made, then I'm not interested.

This is one of my biggest hangups too. The settings' tech capabilities can be fantastical, but they need to be internally consistent.

Quote from: zircher on March 17, 2025, 02:37:47 PMMy sci-fi tastes are all over the place and I don't think one game can capture them all.  I like xeno-archeology and first contact stories, exploring derelicts, and discovering ancient mysteries.  But, those don't really fall into the game of the week category.  I also like blue collar in space settings like Hostile, Those Dark Places.

I got Across a Thousand Dead Worlds, Entity, First Contact, and some other sci-fi titles in my to-play queue.

Alternity Star*Drive probably fits the bill for you. It's deliberately designed as a space opera kitchen sink.

It has multiple extinct precursor civilizations that left ruins and weapons behind. One of them is fairly conventional advanced civilization, while another is outright lovecraftian.

One of the novels has salvagers enter an alien derelict, only to discover that it's actually a cryoship and awakening the crew. The crew then uses their onboard wormhole generator (this is not a known technology in human space) to bring in reinforcements and establish a beachhead. Turns out they're not!Scarrans from Farscape!

The setting has psionics, robotics, cyberware, mutation, etc. and multiple jockeying human civilizations dedicated to specific niches. The Thuldans are like the genetically modified humans from Andromeda mixed with space Romans and Gattaca, the StarMech are space Western, Austrin-Ontis is space Texas, Borealis Republic is University of Planet with mass cloning, Hatire are militant space Amish, Orlamu are deistic rocket scientists, Voidcorp are corporate klingons, Rigunmor are plutocrats, Nariac is space soviet cyberpunk, etc.

There's also invading alien forces reminiscent of the Covenant from Halo. The same book also introduces a Star Trek-, Niven or Mass Effect-esque federation of alien civilizations opposing the religious nutjobs.

It was basically TSR's attempt to create a generic scifi kitchen sink that would be to scifi what Forgotten Realms is to fantasy. Naturally, WotC cancelled it so they could get the license to Star Wars, which they lost a few years later and is now worthless. To add insult to injury, they decided to make an original IP for their upcoming in-house c/rpg Exodus. It has talking animals and time dilation.

Interesting, will have to put out some feelers for that title.  Thanks for the heads up.

Quote from: jeff37923 on March 17, 2025, 05:57:12 PMI'm not going to add anything else from my semi-coherent views except this. If you want to do a space opera game, you are doing yourself a solid favor by reading the Preliminary Notes section and skimming the rest of the Atomic Rockets website.

https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/index.php

Also, for some inspiration on some board games and RPGs that employ innovative spaceship mechanics, Prhject Rho has a harder-to-find page that you will love:
https://www.projectrho.com/game/coolgame.html

I'm good with most sci-fi. I like Star Trek*, and Star Wars* for different reasons. Big Dune fan. Babylon 5, The Orville. (Doing a re-watch of that show right now.) I even like the 80's cheesy sci fi like the original Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers TV series.

*Usual caveat about the recent poor quality of these franchises.

I will say I like hard sci-fi, too. But I really glom onto that "Opera" part of space opera as a genre. It's hard for me to fight against my expectations of such a charged word. So much is conveyed in a name...