What traits would your Ultimate Space Opera setting have?

[fredramsey]

What traits would your Ultimate Space Opera setting have?

Not Hard SF, not fantasy, not Star Wars. A high-adventure setting you could really enjoy playing in. Independent of mechanics.

What would it contain? What's important? What would be left out?

 

[Psion]

Hard to say because I like my SF a little firmer, but if I want a larger-than-life space romp, it's gonna have to have a touch of Lensman in it and a touch of old Buck Rogers. Psychic powers, cool gadgets, fighters, fisticuffs, big slavering aliens, steamy jungle planets, and the like.

 

[Corsair]

Big, ugly ships. Star Destroyers and Omega-class destroyers (Babylon 5) are better than sleek shiny star trek ships.

star fighters which are useful, but not uber dominant (no Rogue squadrons for me).

Interesting politics for the less-blasting minded players.

Ships which look "rough around the edges".

Hot alien babes. oh yeah.


That being said, I think Babylon 5 is the place for me. Just needs more hot centauri babes (or we need the minbari to wear more revealing clothing. One or the other.)

 

[GuardianLurker]

What traits would your Ultimate Space Opera setting have?

It'd be mine.

What would it contain? What's important? What would be left out?

Lots of alien races. Many different FTL mechanisms. Stellar Engineering (a la Dyson Spheres and Ringworld). Ancient artifacts.

Yah. Bab5 gets almost all of it right. Ivanova, Lockley, and Lyta pretty much met my hot babe quotient, so I never felt a lack. Of course, more almost never hurts.

 

[The_Gneech]

Wing Commander (the games, not the movie) during the Vega campaign pretty much does it for me.

-The Gneech

 

[Tolen Mar]

Lots of alien races. Many different FTL mechanisms. Stellar Engineering (a la Dyson Spheres and Ringworld). Ancient artifacts.

I have to agree here...Multiple sources of FTL, maybe even divided along racial/politcal lines.

Our modern world alone is enough to show that there is always more than one way to accomplish something, yet in almost every Sci-fi setting out there, its always one choice, take it or leave it.

Im not so sure if I would allow players to choose one of the many alien races, though. Not sure why.

It would most definatly have a heavy layer of politics over everything. Politics is fun...inside the imagination. Real world...meh.

 

[domino]

Space Pirates.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

The originial version of Privateer hit about 90% of it for me.

I'd only add psi and lightsabers. Jedi rule.

 

[Storyteller01]

HUGE, EPIC overliying story that characters have a direct impact on. Folks like it when their characters input matters.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

A focus on melee in combat and a logical explanation for it, but room for a ranged character.

Psi/force/magic/miraculous powers of some type, with heavy drawbacks.

No or at most only a handful of alien races, and those in the background.

A vast interstellar canvas of ancient empire(s), powerful religion(s), and lots and lots of feudalism.

Realistic space physics.