Designing a Sci-Fi Campaign Setting from the Ground Up

[Stormborn]

This is not really what you asked for, but was a stray thought that you might can use, so here goes:

Might i suggest a "Preserve" - the aforemntioned 6-12 systems forming a cluster of stars bounded by a huge galactic Empire. With in the Preserve technology peaks at early PL 7 (to use the d20 Future model), and ranges all the way down to the stone age, outside the Preserve the tech is PL 9+, a golden age empire of science as magic gods. For whatever reason, perhaps as a social experiment, the Empire keeps the Preserve isolated, and when any of the cultures develops beyond PL 7, or gets ideas about leaveing the Preserve, they go in and knock them down a peg or two. Inside the Preserve almost every planet and large moon that can be has been terraformed to be habitable. There are dozens of aliens speicies, and an equal number of kinds of tech, for a full on Pulp SciFi feel with in the Preserve. Intrigue, adventure, exotic locales, and occasionally the stray piece of very powerful technology. Pleanty of PC races, pleanty of different kinds of tech.

The PCs can be from a world where technology is mostly c. 1920s North America, but with PL 7 starships and embassies for other worlds (alllowing PCs from other backgrounds). While all the various races and factions within the Preserve seem constantly on the edge of war, the PCs are recrutied into a secret society found in all the worlds. Their mission is to find out why the Preserve exists, and if possible find a way to break free. Meanwhile various alien factions, including those of their own homeworlds, are out to get them. Tensions are rising and with war comes technological progress, which will bring the Imperials if they aren't careful.

 

[Old Drew Id]

Keep in mind that in sci-fi, you rarely see an entire planet. Instead, you usually just see one city on that planet. So, in SW, you don't see Tantooine, really. You just see the city of Mos Eisley. Similarly, in Star Trek, you don't see the backwoods towns of the planet Vulcan, you just see the capital city.

The same thing applies in a game. You don't need to plan out entire planets, just the "landing city" on that planet. And the landing city is really very similar to any town in a D&D campaign, and you can use the town generation rules there to give you a start. Pick a town size, determine the rulership, etc. Once you have four or five towns, you really have four or five planets, which can be spread out among several star systems.

Similarly, Design another town as a mining colony on an asteroid, and maybe another as a free-floating space station. You don't really even need maps for most of this.

As far as general campaign design, though, the original D&D plan still applies. You said "It's not as easy as building a simple village and the surrounding area for a D&D game setting" but it actually is. You can start by building a simple village and the surrounding area and saying that this is a village on Planet X. Now, your first adventure or two does not ever have to leave this area. You can fight the sand people over in Mugger's Canyon, or gamble with the spice smugglers over in that bar in Eos Misley and get involved in a "local" adventure or two. In the meantime, you might see one or two spaceships come and go, but the PC's are not welcome to come aboard yet, they do not have their immunizations or flight certifications yet, or they can not afford the tickets, etc.

During this time, you can build up your world as you see fit. You can have no local aliens, or one or two, and you can decide from that how many other aliens you want in the wider galaxy. You don't need to worry about space flight yet, or other more advanced tech yet, since your players will not get to experience it for at least the next few adventures.

Then, following the rules of dungeoncraft, you develop just enough to keep you going. During those first few adventures, you may have made reference to a Trader's Guild, or a Galactic Council, or a mega-corporation that supplies the entire system, etc. And so with your third or fourth adventure, there is the chance to board a shuttle and visit one of the colonies on one of the local moons. If that goes well, you can have the next adventure require travel to a city on the neighboring planet within the same system, (which really is just the same as visiting the next kingdom over as far as the DM planning is concerned.)

Then, if all goes well and you still need to expand further (and you may go the whole campaign without ever leaving this system if you want) you can let the PC's get passage on an interstellar ship and finally see some more of the galaxy.

Further campaign design tip: Create a "Campaign Bible".
(By the way, I am building up a sci-fi future setting myself right now, which is why I am so verbose about all of this)

I tend to outline everything before I write anything. I start with a nice outline in a Word document as my Campaign Bible, and then I fill in the blanks in the outline a little at a time. If I am working on one section of the outline, such as the timeline, and I think of something else, like a cool faction of NPC's, then I skip over to that section of the outline, and add a little note there, and then return to what I was working on. I also update this outline after each adventure, and as I plan each adventure, so that at any time, the bible has everything I need to write new adventures. (This is what a lot of sci-fi writers and sci-fi TV writers do as well, so it is a successful strategy)

My initial outline for my sci-fi setting looks like this:

Setting Title

General Overview
---Describe the Setting in one paragraph

Role of the PCs in this setting

General Adventure Seeds List

Setting Details
---General Map Plan (Including any maps I create, or a general physical description)
---Travel Times based on current tech (just for handy reference)

Tech Level
---Medical Tech (cloning, brain transplant, disease cures, etc. - what is possible)
---Transportation Tech (ranges for how fast, how big, how tough, how expensive)
---Power Generation & Storage (how powerful, how small, how expensive)

Races
---Human Variants
---Aliens

Factions / Organizations
---Businesses
---Governments / Political Groups
---Religious Groups
---Social Groups (charities, universities, social clubs, extremist groups)

History
---Really long time ago
---Long time ago
---Recent History

Rule Variants
---Classes
---Wealth System or GP or Requisition System
---Action Points
---Allegiances or Alignments
---VP / WP or HP
---Heroes / Ordinaries or NPC classes
---Sanity Rules / Horror Checks
---Variant Chase System
---Enhanced Poisons System
---Other House Rules

FX
---Mutations
---Psionics
---Force Skills
---Magic

Gear
---Vehicles
---Weapons
---Armor
---Mecha
---Equipment

Locations
---Planets
---Cities
---Other (Stations, Nebula, The Black Hole of Doom, etc.)

NPC's
---Special Classes
---Famous Individuals
---Local Individuals

I personally tend to do a lot of my initial work in the timeline section, because I find that this guides me through the process of filling in the other sections. But I would say that you should just start anywhere that you have an idea of what to fill in, and from there it will naturally guide you from spot to spot until your outline starts to really get filled in.

For the timeline, I recommend starting with just little phrases in each section, like "First Colony on Mars" listed in the "Really long time ago" section. Then later on when you get more detail or when you need more detail, you can go back and change that to "2079 AD First Colony on Mars founded. Named Ares Station." Then even farther down the line, if it becomes relevent or you just get a clever idea, you can fill in even more info on each event.

And please post whatever you come up with. I am eager to steal any ideas I can find.

 

[d20Dwarf]

You could pick up GURPS Space. The 3e version is out, and the 4e version is being edited right now (in fact, I mean RIGHT NOW ).

 

[philreed]

You could pick up GURPS Space. The 3e version is out, and the 4e version is being edited right now (in fact, I mean RIGHT NOW ).

Hey, get back to work! Or poker, your choice. Just don't watch anymore horrible movies or else you'll go blind.

Speaking of blindness, it looks like your parents were right . . .

You might just go blind.

 

[Jack of Shadows]

Hey, get back to work! Or poker, your choice. Just don't watch anymore horrible movies or else you'll go blind.

Speaking of blindness, it looks like your parents were right . . .

You might just go blind.

Heh,

Thanks for that link. My sister is a sales rep for Pfizer. Now I have even MORE ammuntion for family functions.

Jack

 

[d20Dwarf]

Hey, get back to work! Or poker, your choice. Just don't watch anymore horrible movies or else you'll go blind.

Poker was better than work the last few days. Of course, that means I'm up now working (and playing poker). As for bad movies, Knightriders isn't really that bad. I did see Batman Begins today, it was awesome, so don't worry too much about me.

 

[Committed Hero]

I'll second what Justin said above, decide what sort of story you want to tell.

Justin mentioned "theme," but I think you are closer to the mark. The "theme" of interstellar merchants works well in Traveller but porbably does not meet his definition. The story will drive the kinds of locations you need.

I will say ignore tech levels in favor of using a galaxy wide standard. I know it sounds odd, but no two people or systems use the same assumptions about tech, and one number for a planet is usually too vague, requiring additional descriptions. Sci-fi games are really the only form where tech levels are implemented; so if you have a book or movie in mind as inspiration, they are unneccessary.