D&D 5E Fifth Age: A hard science fiction 5e conversion

[Ideamaster_1]

I love this material and I would love to see it finished! Is there anything I can help with? I would just love to see this completed.

 

[Ideamaster_1]

I love this material and I would love to see it finished! Is there anything I can help with? I would just love to see this completed.

 

[Capn Charlie]

out of interest, how does cargo volatility work, is it like a +/- thing?

It is a modifier. Say a cargo has volatility of 3, you roll 3 gain dice (increasing its value by that much) and then roll 3 loss dice (reducing its value by that much). Other factors can alter this. fast transit times might increase gain, a local busted economy might add loss, a favorable trade deal with a megacorp might add 2 gain dice, etc.

The idea is to kind of sort of simulate an economy with a few dice rolls, just so the prices are not always static. As always though, a dm can just set them to be the numbers they wants them to be.

Do you plan on putting up a trade goods column in your setting, just to see what generic trade goods would be worth? @Capn Charlie

Trade goods prices exist in a very abstract form. Honestly, it never really occured to me to go beyond "agricultural supplies" or "consumer electronics" on a table, and I would just make up whatever made sense at the time (one habitat produced loads of blue jeans, and the party had to start them as a cultural trend to move them a few systems down the line).

I love this material and I would love to see it finished! Is there anything I can help with? I would just love to see this completed.

This is my passion project and development is ongoing but slow. In fact, I just put up poll about which way I should go next, so your input could be helpful!

 

[ConflictGames]

What are you guys doing for the narrative part? Any interesting in using the Monster Description Cards from US?Link

 

[NotAYakk]

I suspect you should merge Str and Con into one stat - fitness or body.

And then add another stat. Luck, Education (splitting int), Tinkering (technology), Avatar (ability to use direct mind-computer interfaces), Reputation, Speed (how fast you move is 20+speed), Connections...

 

[Capn Charlie]

What are you guys doing for the narrative part? Any interesting in using the Monster Description Cards from US?Link

I could totally see some system with a deck of cards to generate random aliens or combat robots. I'll have to look into this, it sounds fun.

I suspect you should merge Str and Con into one stat - fitness or body.

And then add another stat. Luck, Education (splitting int), Tinkering (technology), Avatar (ability to use direct mind-computer interfaces), Reputation, Speed (how fast you move is 20+speed), Connections...

That's a lot of ability scores. I will admit str and con have a lot of overlap for me, but if anything I'd want to see fewer moving parts and not more. I will admit that dex is an overloaded stat in a world with guns, but I've tried to make str more than just an easy dump.

 

[Ideamaster_1]

hard to show static objects like space stations or asteroid belts (two ships moving at high velocity relative to the system, but low speeds relative to one another, such as holding distance, should effectively zoom by objects like stations, moons, derelicts, etc that are close enough to matter, but not moving fast enough to keep up with combat.

I feel like the grid is the better of the two options, and I feel like 'static' objects like you have mentioned here, or at least relatively static, have a simple solution. Either roll Initiative for the 'static' environment, make a standard, like always on Initiative 20 or Initiative 1. Then, all you do is move the environmental objects, like astroids and other things, on their turn it is a very simple turn, but very important and keeps immersion and eliminates that drawback.
Brief explanation of why this works:
The objects are not moving, but they are relative to the combatants. You might think this doesn't take combat movement into consideration, but it does. If the combatants are actively soaring through space while fighting, the map just represents their current location relative to each other, not in a stationary sense. This means that with an asteroid coming you might move behind the other ship, which makes it seem like the astroid is moving, but really you just slowed the ship down a little and then maneuvered to get behind the ship. So this method would take most physics into consideration and represent them, without insane amounts of work and flows simply and could go unnoticed. So for those who don't care about the physics there are just objects moving around in space and for those who like physics you are able to explain the relative motion.
Thoughts? Does that solve the problem at all?

 

[sawsaw325]

Wow, Fifth Age. This is a very high quality pdf.

The illustrations are beautiful and present an appealing setting.

I havent looked at the mechanics yet, but if theyre using 5e theyll probably be good.


Since the goal is to make this ‘hard’ science fiction, I have some concerns about how plausible any futuristic setting might be.

Consider the acceleration of technology. (See Kurzweil, etcetera). It is literally impossible to imagine what the ‘far’ future might be like.

By about year 2025, something comparable to our laptop will be as intelligent as a human. At this time, supercomputers will be even more intelligent. In our century, the 2000s, computers will become vastly more intelligent than our entire human species put together. The only way for humans to keep up, is for humans to use technology to enhance our brain, whether by implanting hardware, wetware, or genetic modification. In sum, by the end of this century, by the 2100s, a single human then will be more intelligent than our entire human species today put together.

We literally cannot imagine what year 2100 will be like.

This acceleration of intelligence makes ‘Star Trek’ scenarios impossible. By the time that humans have the technology to cross the galaxy, humans will necessarily be so intelligent, it is literally impossibly for us to predict, imagine, or even comprehend what they might be doing. Captain Picard certainly wont be worrying about whether he is bald or not.

This makes any kind of ‘far’ future setting, by definition, the opposite of a ‘hard’ science fiction.


Now looking at the illustrations in the Fifth Age pdf. The pictures suggest a ‘near’ future setting. Robots, cyborgs, ‘unmodified’ humans, and ‘synthetics’, all coexisting. For most images, I can imagine them happening within our century, the 2000s. Maybe sometime between 2030 and 2050? (I know, not far away!)

The ‘synthetics’ probably have wetware deriving from human brains to achieve actual living, sentient, consciousness. I doubt humans will understand how hardware can artificially duplicate sentient life yet.


The only problem I can see, is the spaceships. There is no way humans will invent space travel during our century. Therefore, by the time humans do invent it, humans will necessarily be ‘modified’, super-intelligent, and beyond the scope of what we can image.

However, the aliens in the setting can provide the narrative solution.

Suppose, when the Greys - the Greyliens - arrived on our planet, the Greyliens brought their space travel technology with them. So, we humans, in our century, are using their technology to travel thru space. We arent the ones who invented it yet. So us ‘unmodified’ humans can still sail around in space.

Now, according to this narrative, these Greyliens also didnt invent this space travel technology. They seem as primitive as we humans are. But they are ‘scavengers’, and ‘resourceful’, and make use of the technologies from other alien species who are far more advanced than any of us.

The narrative only needs a pretext to explain how Greyliens got a hold of this kind of technology. Maybe the advanced species that invented space flight, is benevolent. I suspect, the species must be compassionate to avoid destroying itself in the first place. So, in some context, this advanced species expressing goodwill, thought it was a good idea to give Greyliens a spaceship. Why? Who knows why? That advanced species would be so intelligent, we couldnt understand the reason why they did it anyway. But they didnt try to get the spaceship back. So maybe it has something to do with the technological species being compassionate - in some alien way.


So, a timeline for this ‘near future’ ‘hard science’ setting seems possible.

Somewhere around 2020, the Greyliens arrive on earth in their spaceship. In this decade, the spaceship itself knows how to reproduce spaceships. Humans develop a fleet spanning the solar system. Some are even spanning the galaxy. This is mostly sightseeing tours. Besides some mining projects, and a few biodome experiments, space colonization is brand new and modest.

So, the setting takes place somewhere between 2030 (after human cultures are feeling the impact of superintelligent computers, cyborg technology, and synthetic life) and 2050 (before technology accelerates beyond the capacity of normal ‘unmodified’ humans to comprehend what is going on). Greyliens have a decade or two to fit into human cultures. Notably, during these two decades, there are already supercomputers who are doing who knows what!

2030 to 2050.

This is a very small window in time for this kind of setting.

Hows that laptop is smarter then a person going?

 

[Yaarel]

Hows that laptop is smarter then a person going?

Still on schedule. Consider how much better translators are becoming.

 

[Capn Charlie]

I feel like the grid is the better of the two options, and I feel like 'static' objects like you have mentioned here, or at least relatively static, have a simple solution. Either roll Initiative for the 'static' environment, make a standard, like always on Initiative 20 or Initiative 1. Then, all you do is move the environmental objects, like astroids and other things, on their turn it is a very simple turn, but very important and keeps immersion and eliminates that drawback.
Brief explanation of why this works:
The objects are not moving, but they are relative to the combatants. You might think this doesn't take combat movement into consideration, but it does. If the combatants are actively soaring through space while fighting, the map just represents their current location relative to each other, not in a stationary sense. This means that with an asteroid coming you might move behind the other ship, which makes it seem like the astroid is moving, but really you just slowed the ship down a little and then maneuvered to get behind the ship. So this method would take most physics into consideration and represent them, without insane amounts of work and flows simply and could go unnoticed. So for those who don't care about the physics there are just objects moving around in space and for those who like physics you are able to explain the relative motion.
Thoughts? Does that solve the problem at all?

That makes a lot of sense, actually. I was looking at having gravity wells matter too. Like, being within so many hexes of a planet forces a pilot to move one extra hex closer towards it, or some such.