I think I know how to set up and run a typical D&D-fantasy style campaign: starter village, local dungeon, more dungeons etc on a wilderness map. PCs get XP and loot from exploring the dungeons; rinse and repeat. With SF I don't really have the same competency; campaigns tend to feel linear, which doesn't generate the same energy. Compared to fantasy sandbox campaigning I think there is a profound lack of material for SF sandboxes, at least material that works for me.
What is your biggest RPG heartbreak?
I think I know how to set up and run a typical D&D-fantasy style campaign: starter village, local dungeon, more dungeons etc on a wilderness map. PCs get XP and loot from exploring the dungeons; rinse and repeat. With SF I don't really have the same competency; campaigns tend to feel linear, which doesn't generate the same energy. Compared to fantasy sandbox campaigning I think there is a profound lack of material for SF sandboxes, at least material that works for me.
John R Davis
Hero
Savage World. The ooh look I've hit, oh no you haven't melee combat
WHFRP has an awesome look. Then in a combat there it's like SW except you potentially hit less. Then you spend 2 sessions in a canal boat healing up
WHFRP has an awesome look. Then in a combat there it's like SW except you potentially hit less. Then you spend 2 sessions in a canal boat healing up
Mind of tempest
(he/him)advocate for 5e psionics
maybe it is the scale of sci fi anything more than a solar system and it gets hard to build stuff well.
John Dallman
Hero
The difficult thing with "generic SF" is that different settings have very different technology and assumptions. You could write generic adventures for Star Trek-like settings, and you might be able to make those work for Traveller-like settings too, but getting them to work for Star Wars as well would be very hard.
Yes, scale is a big issue. Also SF has lots of different scales - planetary & space, notably. With fantasy you have limited mobility and I find it easy to create a fantasy sandbox with a home base, not so in space.
Mind you I haven't really done a fantasy seafaring campaign/sandbox either, maybe you need to be able to do that before you can work up to doing it in space.
John R Davis
Hero
Yeah. Often thought I should create a Sandbox in Space. Have some scribbled ideas for a " Sector Hack" based on Black Hack / Hex Hack ideas
Tried to run a SF GURPS game one time. Characters ended up having tech that could just completely negate every challenge I could imagine. Oh, I can unlock that door. Oh, I can find any missing person or object. Oh, I can cut my way through those walls. Oh, I can remotely disable the engines of that escape pod. Oh, I can exist in the vacuum of space.
This is why I don't run SF.
This is why I don't run SF.
werecorpse
Adventurer
Yeah I struggle with SF spacefaring as well, specifically Traveller space truckers style.
Stars Without Number might help there.
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