d20 Future: which mini-campaigns will be included?

[JPL]

So d20 Future, like d20 Modern, will contain sample settings, presumbably covering the major genres of futuristic sci-fi.

Any ideas?

To get the ball rolling...

1. Cyberpunk --- high tech low lifes.

2. Space Opera --- perhaps the return of Star Frontiers?

3. Grittier hard sci-fi --- perhaps the return of StarDrive?

4. Mecha Crusade?

5. Transhumanism?

I'm getting interested in the proto-Star Wars space opera / pulp sci-fi like Lensman, Buck Rodgers, and Flash Gordon, but I can't imagine that too many other folks feel the same.

A post-apocolyptic world is possible...but the new Gamma World probably has that covered.

 

[Chondu]

My bets:

1: Cyberpunk. Because cybernetics are conspicuous by their absence in D20 modern.

2: Hard sci-fi. Because D20 Aliens/Starship Troopers is too cool for words.

 

[RodneyThompson]

My guesses?

1. Cyberpunk

2. Bug Hunt

3. Mecha Crusade (because of the way the press release was worded)

4. Dystopian future

 

[RickVigorous]

My bets:

1: Cyberpunk. Because cybernetics are conspicuous by their absence in D20 modern.

2: Hard sci-fi. Because D20 Aliens/Starship Troopers is too cool for words.

You know, I rarely hear the terms "Starship Troopers" and "Hard Sci-fi" put together like that. ST has psychics, power armor, FTL travel, and bugs that would collapse under their own weight (psychics and power armor are only in the book). Despite all that, it would still make a great setting. Cyberpunk also seems likely. I also wouln't be surprised to see something space opera (although Star Wars may cover that niche) and/or post-apocalyptic.

 

[Psyckosama]

You know, I rarely hear the terms "Starship Troopers" and "Hard Sci-fi" put together like that. ST has psychics, power armor, FTL travel, and bugs that would collapse under their own weight (psychics and power armor are only in the book). Despite all that, it would still make a great setting. Cyberpunk also seems likely. I also wouln't be surprised to see something space opera (although Star Wars may cover that niche) and/or post-apocalyptic.

Lemme see...

1) Psychics are a maybe. They are a story concern and story > realism

2) Power Armor is not unrealistic. He fleshed out the technology and methods VERY well and it was QUITE believable.

3) FTL is a nessasary evil in most Scifi.

4) Who knows exactly how the bugs were designed. Just because traditional earth insects are unable to get to that size doesn't mean a create that has a passing resemblance and a distinctly diffrent biology couldn't.


SST might not be totally 100% hard scifi but it's still quite hard.

 

[VixenofVenus]

Just an observation, but I think you guys are arguing about different things ... one person is arguing about the Movie, the other about the Book ...

They're almost completely different.

And, personally, I liked both for different reasons.

I would definitely call the book "hard Sci-Fi", but not the movie ... it was just a fun action flick set in Space with Aliens.

I sortof thought the whole movie was really made just so we could see Dina Myers topless a few times!

 

[Bagpuss]

I wouldn't call Aliens or Starship Troopers particularly hard sci-fi both have gravity plating for a start, although other than that and the psionics in Starship Troopers, they are pretty close. You don't see blasters, teleporters and such, but the bugs in Starship Troopers push it into Space fantasy, (as does the Queen in Aliens, but I'm willing to ignore her).

Hard Sci-Fi can have FTL, as Psyckosama said FTL is much a requirement for a setting involving more than one solar-system.

 

[Bagpuss]

As for D20 Future dragging it back to topic.

1) Mecha Crusade (possibly with psionics).
2) Some stupid thing with space elves and magic.
3) Some Space Opera setting like StarDrive.
4) although I doubt it very much a cyberpunk setting.

What I don't expect...

Hard Sci-Fi, not if D20 Modern is anything to go by.

 

[JPL]

2) Some stupid thing with space elves and magic.

Great idea!

No, no, just kidding. I loved "Spelljammer: Shadow of the Spider Moon", but I don't want to see it in this book.

I've been pondering the whole hard sci-fi v. space opera distinction. It's definitely a matter of degrees. I just bought the StarDrive PDF, and while it has humanoid aliens and FTL drive and artificial gravity and bills itself as "space opera", it's a lot more realistic in tone than, say, "Star Wars".

I guess the closest thing to a hard sci-fi setting I'd like to see would be something like "Firefly" --- no FTL, no aliens (or at least no aliens that play chess with you and help you fly your ship), just a more realistic interpretation of humanity's attempts to colonize the solar system.

So if I had my druthers, I'd like to see two settings to show off the two extremes of space sci-fi --- a really pulped-up swords-and-blasters-and-princesses setting [everything from Buck Rogers and Lensman up through Star Wars], and a grittier, more plausible near-future.

And since I love to revisit the classics, my temptation would be to call the first one "Star Frontiers" and the second one "StarDrive", even though neither of those settings have previously been such extreme examples of hard vs. opera.

I suppose pushing either setting in a slightly different direction would alienate some of the old fans [although the distinction would really be one of tone and focus, and wouldn't necessarily involve any major revamps to existing cannon]...but anyway, that's how I'd do it.