Established Generic Setting for D20 Future

[tjoneslo]

I would have thought the default setting for D20 Future would have been Alterity's Star*Drive setting. There's enough of the Alternity rules in the D20 book to make it an easy port.

 

[Justin D. Jacobson]

Thanks to those who've already mentioned Dawning Star. We designed it to serve that very purpose. WotC has clearly expressed that they have no plans to produce a campaign setting for d20 Future. (There was a GTS seminar to this very effect.) While the other settings mentioned are great in their own way, DS remains the only full-scale sci-fi campaign setting built on d20 Modern and powered by d20 Future. This also means that we've got a full product lineup scheduled. We recently released a full-length adventure module, Shadow Falling; our Helios system mega-book, Helios Rising, will be out in the next 60 days; and we've got several more products planned through the end of the year. And there's no better time to give it a try, as the ENnie-nominated Operation Quick Launch is still available at the ridiculously low ENnies-sale price of $19.95 (for a 208-page hardcover).

 

[Turanil]

It's not completely fleshed out, but RPGOBjects Prometheus Rising seems like a pretty good default. In many ways, it's a more plausible THS

I think that THS is much more plausible than Prometheus rising. The latter has Europa peopled by a native dolphin-like intelligent specie, while THS uses the Solar System as it really is (as far as science knows) as a basis for its hard sci-fi setting. Prometheus Rising was made for d20 Future, but it's much more space-opera, and succinctly described. For a fully developped and fleshed-out solar system with hard sci-fi flavor, I can only suggest THS and its various supplements. The gret thing is that GURPS game stats are minimal, so it's easy to use with d20 Modern/Future.

 

[The Black Kestrel]

Someone (Phil or Hal) want to say a little more about Fourth Millennium? There's essentially no info on it at RPGNow, but one of the reviewers "insulted" it by calling it too unique (I hate it when people come up with interesting and unique ideas!), so my interest is piqued.

While I'm not Phil I do own the 4th Millenium book by Ronin Arts. 4th Millenium postulates that Hyper-evolved post-humans and not AI achieved the Singularity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity or http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Global/Singularity). The Psaikholu achieved the Singularity via experiments with genetic engineering, nanotechnology and networking humand minds and computers together. The rest of humanity views the Psaikholu as hostile do to thier expansinist phase after the Singularity. Humanity has broken down into clades across the many dimensions (no FTL instead humanity spread across various alternate earths). These clades have various views, but the vast majority believe that the Singularity was a disaster and another one cannot be allowed. Technology dealing with genetics, nanotechnology and AI experiments is highly restricted.

It many ways it reminds me of http://www.orionsarm.com/index.html and that's high praise indeed.

There are no aliens, it seems to be fairly hard science and well-thought out. My only complaint is that Ronin Arts implied some setting support and it never materialized. For now it has been relegated to my archive folder and may someday be revisited if it gets some support.

 

[GMSkarka]

It's an interesting question, and one that we wrestled with here at Adamant.

We're launching a new line of products called SFD20, which is supposed to be a Future version of what we've done with the D20 MasterKit line of fantasy products: generic utility supplements that can be dropped into a homebrew campaign.

What we decided on was that most homebrew sci-fi campaigns (whether they're played in an established property setting or in one of the GM's creation) tend to boil down to one campaign model: Characters in a starship, travelling from place to place having adventures. So, we're basing our utility products from that starting premise, with adjustment notes depending upon whether the campaign model is private (the crew of Moya, or Serenity, or the Millennium Falcon) or organizational (the crew of the Enterprise, Voyager, etc.).

 

[philreed]

What we decided on was that most homebrew sci-fi campaigns (whether they're played in an established property setting or in one of the GM's creation) tend to boil down to one campaign model: Characters in a starship, travelling from place to place having adventures.

That's pretty much exactly what I assume (and write for) with all of our starship-related PDFs.

 

[Vigilance]

I think that THS is much more plausible than Prometheus rising. The latter has Europa peopled by a native dolphin-like intelligent specie, while THS uses the Solar System as it really is (as far as science knows) as a basis for its hard sci-fi setting. Prometheus Rising was made for d20 Future, but it's much more space-opera, and succinctly described. For a fully developped and fleshed-out solar system with hard sci-fi flavor, I can only suggest THS and its various supplements. The gret thing is that GURPS game stats are minimal, so it's easy to use with d20 Modern/Future.

I would agree that Prometheus isnt very likely, it takes many pop-culture and pseudo-science elements, like alien ruins on Mars (including the face) and various other moons in the Earth solar system and posits them as being real.

The backstory to the game also includes events from the novel War of the Worlds as true events and the canals Percival Lowell thought he saw as real canals.

That said, *I* think the setting is a whole lot of fun for games and would encourage folks to check it out.

Chuck

 

[Wayside]

While I'm not Phil I do own the 4th Millenium book by Ronin Arts. 4th Millenium postulates that Hyper-evolved post-humans and not AI achieved the Singularity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity or http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Global/Singularity).

You had me at "Hello."

Seriously though, one of the things that's bugged me about the (admittedly small amount of) sci-fi I've encountered is how restricted it is everywhere but in its technology. Dune already did the big backward looking social strata to perfection--it's time for people to explore alternate visions of stuff that isn't mechanical. Ideally I'd like something a little more philosophically in-depth than you get from a wikipedia entry, but at the same time, full-blown theory isn't really gameable. So I guess my next question is: what does the singularity produce in Fourth Millennium, other than an expansionist race with superior technology? What are the big changes we could not have foreseen? After all, the whole point of the singularity is that it has effects we can't predict before it happens, if we can comprehend them at all.

 

[Turanil]

That said, *I* think the setting is a whole lot of fun for games and would encourage folks to check it out.

My own hope would be to have this line of d20 M/F PDFs put together, then having the setting fully fleshed out (I find the setting info rather scarce), and then released as a printed book.

 

[kingpaul]

It's not completely fleshed out, but RPGOBjects Prometheus Rising seems like a pretty good default. In many ways, it's a more plausible THS

I see someone already mentioned Prometheus. I know that it has the campaign setting (http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=3732&SRC=EnWorld) and there's a Dispatch arcticle, New Tortuga, as well (http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=5053&SRC=EnWorld). ((note, I wrote the New Tortuga article, so I'm biased)).