How does this sci-fi game sound? What woould you want from a d20 future campaign?

[The Grackle]

Personally, I've always wanted to play a (relatively) hard sci-fi- no artificial gravity on the ships, very little ship-to-ship combat, only humans,etc. Kind of a Stanislaw Lem, Tales of the Pilot Pirx setting.
None of my players were ever been interested, though.

You should ask your players what their favorite sci-fi books are. There's such a wide range, it's going to be hard to focus on what you want.

Start w/the jump-gates. Who controls them? How do they work? Are they remnants of an ancient race (Fading Suns), or man-made? How do they link together? Do they create trade routes, borders, hot spots?

 

[Olive]

Personally, I've always wanted to play a (relatively) hard sci-fi- no artificial gravity on the ships, very little ship-to-ship combat, only humans,etc. Kind of a Stanislaw Lem, Tales of the Pilot Pirx setting.
None of my players were ever been interested, though.

Sounds like fun to me!

You should ask your players what their favorite sci-fi books are. There's such a wide range, it's going to be hard to focus on what you want.

I've done that on a private board, at least for most of the players.

Start w/the jump-gates. Who controls them? How do they work? Are they remnants of an ancient race (Fading Suns), or man-made? How do they link together? Do they create trade routes, borders, hot spots?

See, Iain M. Banks has written this new book called The Algebraist, and the Guardian newspaper in London published an excerpt from it and it was great. It was all about a future society that gets cut off from the rest of the galaxy for a few hundred years because terrorists blow up their jump gate. It had jsut enought setting to really inspire me and I'd like to it here but the bastards took the excerpt down and I didn't save it, and the book won't be out ehre till the end of the month...

EDIT: and then I looked in the Google cache, here the damn thing is!

 

[ecliptic]

Halo is still the best scifi universe out there imo.

 

[Shadowdancer]

An option you might consider is having a space station-type home base for the players (sort of like Deep Space 9 or Babylon 5), with jump gates nearby that can be used to get to other places.

This could also play into the competing governments angle, with representatives from the various political factions represented on the space station.

One element I would like in a d20 future campaign is espionage and intrigue. A setting like that would be ripe for that type of adventures. But you have other adventure options as well for a change of pace.

Another element I like is corporate espionage and intrigue, sort of like in cyberpunk. There are giant corporations with just as much influence as the governments -- in some cases, the corporations actually control the governments.

 

[Justin D. Jacobson]

Start w/the jump-gates. Who controls them? How do they work? Are they remnants of an ancient race (Fading Suns), or man-made? How do they link together? Do they create trade routes, borders, hot spots?

This was one of the first issues we tackled in Dawning Star. We wanted to set it in a distant galaxy but not have a universe-spanning campaign to maintain a level of versimilitude. The initial jump is, in fact, accomplished by a jump gate, but the humans were totally unaware of it and unable to control it. The jump gate system, which had spanned the universe, has fallen into disuse. And the tentaari, who were responsible for building and maintaining it, aren't saying why.

What this sets up is a system whereby you can run a DS campaign entirely on Eos, if you want to go the local route. You can give them a sub-light ship if you want a stellar system campaign. Or, ultimately, you can have the party negotiate for use of the jump gate system with the tentaari, which creates in interesting blend of diplomacy and vast exploration.

 

[Olive]

Halo is still the best scifi universe out there imo.

http://marathon.bungie.org/story/halo_culture.html

I hven't played Halo, but that site explains how much the works of Iain M Banks played into the game world of Halo.

An option you might consider is having a space station-type home base for the players (sort of like Deep Space 9 or Babylon 5), with jump gates nearby that can be used to get to other places.

This could also play into the competing governments angle, with representatives from the various political factions represented on the space station.

This is a very good point. I thought that the space station stuff on Firefly was really cool as well...

One element I would like in a d20 future campaign is espionage and intrigue. A setting like that would be ripe for that type of adventures. But you have other adventure options as well for a change of pace.

Another element I like is corporate espionage and intrigue, sort of like in cyberpunk. There are giant corporations with just as much influence as the governments -- in some cases, the corporations actually control the governments.

These also suit. I'm not the best ar writing mystery/intrigue style adventures, but I'd like to get better at it, and what better way is there but to try!

This was one of the first issues we tackled in Dawning Star. We wanted to set it in a distant galaxy but not have a universe-spanning campaign to maintain a level of versimilitude. The initial jump is, in fact, accomplished by a jump gate, but the humans were totally unaware of it and unable to control it. The jump gate system, which had spanned the universe, has fallen into disuse. And the tentaari, who were responsible for building and maintaining it, aren't saying why.

What this sets up is a system whereby you can run a DS campaign entirely on Eos, if you want to go the local route. You can give them a sub-light ship if you want a stellar system campaign. Or, ultimately, you can have the party negotiate for use of the jump gate system with the tentaari, which creates in interesting blend of diplomacy and vast exploration.

This is cool, but I'll tell you one of my pet hates: aliens/humanoids with plans that they aren't shaing. It's like when the elves have some sytical secret. How could it not have gotten out by now? Especially when players can roleplay elf characters. I'm assuming that tentaari aren't a roleplayable race, but it still kinda gets too me. No offense.

 

[Justin D. Jacobson]

This is cool, but I'll tell you one of my pet hates: aliens/humanoids with plans that they aren't shaing. It's like when the elves have some sytical secret. How could it not have gotten out by now? Especially when players can roleplay elf characters. I'm assuming that tentaari aren't a roleplayable race, but it still kinda gets too me. No offense.

I agree, so no offense taken. I don't think this is a major problem for Dawning Star, though, and here's why: (1) as mentioned, we do not recommend tentaari as a PC species (among other reasons, they are more powerful/not-balanced for PC play and enjoy PL8 familiarity), (2) at the start of the campaign, the tentaari have only had contact with the humans for two years, so no surprise that the secret is still secret, and (3) we fully intend for the secret to be revealed to the PCs out-of-game and the humans in-game but leave the where/when/why to the GM.

Still, I don't want to hijack your thread (any more than I have already ). I'll start a new thread for DS questions.

 

[The Grackle]

Have you ever looked at Fading Suns? I think there's a d20 version of it out now.
It's kinda' cool- sorta' like "Dune Lite." It has a strong mideval/european/catholic flavor to it though.

It might give you some ideas, at least.

 

[CarlZog]

Check out the original Star Drive campaign setting and sourcebooks, published for Alternity. You can pick them up cheap on ebay.
Although this setting does include aliens, there is not a proliferation of them, and the future history of human exploration into space leading up to the setting is surprisingly believable.

A loose federation of governments is struggling to keep the peace in the aftermath of a galactic war, and re-establishing post-war contact with an outer frontier known as the Verge. The systems of the Verge are the primary romping ground for the setting, and run the spectrum in terms of ecology, culture, and industrial development.

This setting has no overriding hook or gimmick, which lead some to call it uninspired. But I find it a diverse, fascinating universe with a wealth of adventure opportunities. The systems are detailed in the setting book as well as several other sourcebooks -- all published between 1998 and 2000 for use with TSR's Alternity rules, but adaptable to d20 Future (Although, if you pick up the core Alternity books as well, you may find you like it better than d20.)

For more information on the setting, check out www.tequilastarrise.net, a dedicated Star Drive site, or www.alternity.net, a broader Alternity site.