Worlds Beyond

[rust]

It seems that I am a bit more old fashioned ...

While I have no problem at all with intelligent starships and thelike, I never
could "get into" any kind of cybertech- or transhumanist-SF.
In my settings I always had to introduce some legal obstacle (above 50 %
cybertech and you are a robot and someone's property ...) or religious rea-
son (He/She/It created us without artificial enhancements ...) to keep such
stuff to a minimum and the game "believable" for me.

But then, I am almost as old as dirt, and being old fashioned probably fits
me well.

[FunGuyFromYuggoth]

Originally Posted by Shaira

Possibly Perry Rhodan type stuff makes for a better and more easily accessed game, but I'd be interested to see game material derived from (off the top of my head) Peter Hamilton, Cordwainer Smith, Larry Niven, Stephen Baxter.

I'm curious about this too and would welcome it if something came down the pipe. Actually, long ago, I read alot of "1970s" science-fiction that actually addressed many of the issues you described. I think the difference is "space opera" versus "high science fiction" (is there such a thing like "high fantasy" versus "swords and sorcery")? I would agree that accessibility would be an issue. GURPS seems to have gone after these topics somewhat (have they missed any? they were going after everything in the 1990s), but I never much cared for the GURPS or other systems like RIFTS.

[GerallKahla]

Many of the elements Shaira was describing fit into Iain M. Banks' Culture novels...

Drones are sentient, and full citizens. Ships are tremendously intelligent and participate in their own sub-culture as well as interacting with people who merely walk about. Teleportation is so commonplace that, while the Mind who is about to fling you through a wormhole is explaining carefully about the 1 in 1200000 chance you won't emerge on the other side, you lightheartedly click the "I Agree" box on the EULA and permit Microsoft Vista to ruin the computer...

Wait - that's not right.

Regardless, I agree that the interesting bits of science fiction gaming are deep under the chrome and rayguns. Hell, the "chrome and rayguns" paradigm is, what?, 50 years old now?

Let's see what happens when evolution starts taking root in technology and some bored researcher turns it up to 11.

Which 3 aspects of human existance do we want to radically change for the setting?

Intelligence / Cognition?
Reproduction / Longevity?
The Human sensorium?
Human's place in the cosmos?

We'd also have to define Humans' place in the culture found in the new environment.

What specific things do we want to tinker with? How do these changes interact with each other?

Too many things, and you run the risk of a setting that's too alien for most gamers to invest in. Too few things (or not developing them deep enough), and you are in danger of seeming cliche.

This thread's very interesting...

[Conrad]

Originally Posted by rust

It seems that I am a bit more old fashioned ...

But then, I am almost as old as dirt, and being old fashioned probably fits
me well.

I'm in my mid forties and although I love Traveller and Firefly I would like to see a supplement for BRP that enables a GM to run space opera that is of a more modern type, like Banks or Alastair Reynolds or Charles Stross.

[Conrad]

Originally Posted by GerallKahla

Many of the elements Shaira was describing fit into Iain M. Banks' Culture novels...
Regardless, I agree that the interesting bits of science fiction gaming are deep under the chrome and rayguns. Hell, the "chrome and rayguns" paradigm is, what?, 50 years old now?
We'd also have to define Humans' place in the culture found in the new environment.

What specific things do we want to tinker with? How do these changes interact with each other?

Too many things, and you run the risk of a setting that's too alien for most gamers to invest in. Too few things (or not developing them deep enough), and you are in danger of seeming cliche.

This thread's very interesting...

I thought that "chrome and rayguns" went right back beyond even E.E. Smith's Lensman series.
If Iain M. Banks Culture books don't alienate readers then they could be used as some sort of starting point for developing a more modern type of space opera roleplaying for BRP.
As for things seeming cliched, even modern space opera has its recurring ideas, but that doesn't hurt a roleplaying game that needs commonly accepted tropes to keep players from being alienated.

[Shaira]

I think one of the issues with SF roleplaying is simply that the future ain't what it used to be. To future proof what you're writing beyond a few years you have to think *very big* indeed, otherwise you end up producing rules or settings that contain retro elements and you have the "alternate history" klooge to enable it (kind of like starting up a Twilight 2000 or Traveller OTU campaign now. My phone outsmarts a Model 2/bis every time...). The only SF writer I can think of from more than 50 years back who isn't riddled with anachronism is Cordwainer Smith, and his marvellousness mostly holds together from placing little emphasis on chrome and more on societal and psychological future development. Dune, although younger, is another prime candidate for still holding water - and for similar reasons.

Does anyone remember Alternity? Tried to be a universal set of SF rules, IMHO ended up spreading itself so thin you had to rewrite most of the rules for your own setting (unless playing space opera). The conclusion I would draw from Alternity is that to get a usable set of SF rules, you more or less have to pin down the setting first (even though you can gloss over the fact by using generic names like "Space Opera", "Traditional SF RPG", "Super-tech", "Transhuman", whatever).

So, when we sit here discussing SF rules for BRP, maybe we're talking about (at least) 3 different things:
i.) Space Opera, Traveller-type stuff.
ii.) Hard SF - 2300, Aliens-type stuff
iii.) "Predict the amazing future and blow your mind" type stuff (a la Ian Banks, Cordwainer Smith, Stephen Baxter, Peter Hamilton, etc).

Here's my take on it:

1.) BRP could easily be expanded to incorporate Hard SF chrome. Vehicle-design rules, laser & particle weapons, space travel & manoeuvre rules, planetary & star-system design, all extrapolated from what we currently know and our current understanding of physics and tech. This would fill out one area of the BRP "hard rules" which would be very usable.
2.) Doing the above would satisfy gearheads and provide a rules basis for the type i and ii SF styles above. For example, you could probably use the "hard SF rules" to fire up your Traveller game in BRP. Or more or less any other Hard Tech or Space Opera game.
3.) The Super-tech approach would need a loose set of assumptions to work from which would need to be predefined. You could use the Culture setting as the basis, or you could roll your own. You would then use that loose setting (sort of like the original OTU setting implied by the 3 LBBs in Classic Traveller - no real detail but heaps of assumptions) to fill out a set of rules - ie how intelligent starships work, what kind of geneering everyone can have, longevity effects, all that good stuff.

So, that looks like 2 projects to me. The first - a Worlds Beyond rewrite involving the best of Ringworld minus the setting (but with the "implied" setting), to cover the Space Opera / Hard Tech games - effectively a "rules expansion" for BRP. The second - a completely new beast Which Has Not Been Written Yet, which might use some of the rules from the SF Rules Expansion (ie planetary design, some vehicles, etc), but would ignore stuff like computer programming skills, in favour of its own background - ie effectively a "setting sourcebook".

How does that sound?

Cheers,

Sarah

[rust]

Originally Posted by Shaira

How does that sound?

It sounds very good, although I have to admit that I would probably buy
only Supplement I, the Worlds Beyond rewrite.

[Conrad]

Originally Posted by Shaira

So, that looks like 2 projects to me. The first - a Worlds Beyond rewrite involving the best of Ringworld minus the setting (but with the "implied" setting), to cover the Space Opera / Hard Tech games - effectively a "rules expansion" for BRP. The second - a completely new beast Which Has Not Been Written Yet, which might use some of the rules from the SF Rules Expansion (ie planetary design, some vehicles, etc), but would ignore stuff like computer programming skills, in favour of its own background - ie effectively a "setting sourcebook".

How does that sound?

Cheers,

Sarah

Could a supplement be large enough to combine the two and make Chaosium some money?

[Conrad]

Originally Posted by rust

It sounds very good, although I have to admit that I would probably buy
only Supplement I, the Worlds Beyond rewrite.

I will e mail Dustin to ask if Chaosium has any plans to reissue a revamped version of the game.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by Conrad

Could a supplement be large enough to combine the two and make Chaosium some money?

I suspect there's a dance of resources that go on here; there are complicating issues with big books, and if it doesn't sell well, you take a bath; with two smaller ones, you're less likely to have both not sell (because someone didn't want to spend money on a big book they weren't going to use half of) and as such you're a little safer.