Legends of Avantris Announces Neon Odyssey, a 5E Space Opera Project

Avantris Entertainment, the publishing arm of Legends of Avantris and the makers of The Crooked Moon, has announced a new space opera-themed D&D project that will launch on Kickstarter later this year. Neon Odyssey is described as a "a neon-soaked science fantasy space opera trilogy for D&D 5E," drawing inspiration from sources like Star Wars and Cowboy Bebop. The Neon Odyssey project includes three books, an Outrunner's Handbook containing player rules and character-building guides, a Cosmic Codex detailing the Stardust Rhapsody campaign setting, and the Overdrive Expansion that contains optional rules for professions, racing and more. All the "classic" D&D character classes are reimagined in the books under new names and containing mechanical upgrades, with 40 subclasses, 30 species, and 300+ alien monsters and enemy vehicles to battle against.

The Kickstarter for Neon Odyssey will launch in May, with Avantris running weekly Neon Odyssey-focused content on their channels from March to June. Avantris's last Kickstarter to fund the Crooked Moon, raised over $4M in 2023.

 

[TheAlkaizer]

Historically, people don't like space in their RPGs.

There's multiple ways we could explore that question.

But I did a market research last year. One of the data source I used was the number of products on DriveThru. I had a few surprises. If I limited it to English products, Science-fiction wasn't that far off from Fantasy products if we checked only Core Rulebooks. Something like 7000 VS 5000. If we counted all products (so sourcebooks, aids, adventures), then fantasy exploded and dwarfed everything else.

There isn't necessarily a straight correlation between number of products and total sales, but I thought that was interesting.

 

[Morrus]

There isn't necessarily a straight correlation between number of products and total sales,

Yeah, that's the crux of it. Do they sell?

 

[Youshang]

I always have the feeling stuff like this is too fantasy for the sci-fi crowd and too sci-fi for the fantasy crowd. I don't see the appeal either and looking at the current market people seem to agree.

 

[Cergorach]

Do they sell?

I wouldn't expect a 5e supplement about Folk Horror to sell all that well either, but according to their website, they sold over 30,000 copies... And their KS raised $4 million... With a planned 400+ page book (which turned into a 623 page tome), but now they aim to do a 1400+ page trilogy (which will probably turn into 2100 pages).

It looks cool and interesting: https://www.launchoracle.com/avantris-entertainment/neon-odyssey/BLAST

But I won't be participating in the KS. I'll wait until it comes out, preferably when the FVTT modules come out, and they eventually fix those... Note: got some comments about how horrible the FVTT module for The Crooked Moon was 9 months ago, apparently they fixed that...

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The sci-fi genre in the entertaiment industry has got a serious handicap: It ages very poorly and becomes obsolete relatively quickly. The new generations miss in the oldest titles technology that arrive later, like the mobiles, or the digital inmortality. What if, in the future, nanotechnology allowed the reconstruction of telomeres in DNA, granting eternal youth? (For example newly graduated university students would have difficulty finding employment because almost no one retires).

The space fantasy with a touch of vintage look seems a possible option. something like mixing fantasy and cassete (retro)futurism. Maybe this should be the way to reintroduce TSR's "Star Frontiers" franchise.

Paizo's Starfinder is in its second edition and it published a lot of sourcebooks. This should mean the number of sales had to be enoughly good.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

This doesn’t look particularly appealing to me. I prefer my space opera at least a little grounded, and not set up as a parody from the start. The players will provide enough silliness without it being built into the rules. This was the problem with Starfinder and Esper Genesis as well. I’m more interested in Exodus and Traveller 5e.

 

[Cergorach]

The sci-fi genre in the entertaiment industry has got a serious handicap: It ages very poorly and becomes obsolete relatively quickly. The new generations miss in the oldest titles technology that arrive later, like the mobiles, or the digital inmortality.

Maybe... But something like Alien is still a popular franchise, even after almost 50 years... We still think of the cool green and black CRT screens, while current day tech would probably use (O)LED displays especially in space craft as they would be a LOT lighter then CRTs. But the International space station still had CRT screens from the Russian side...

When we look at near future sci-fi like Cyberpunk, many of us still prefer the 80s style, as currently there is very little cyber and punk in the world. A similar setting today would probably be more like Nanorave... Still properties like Shadowrun remain popular in the TTRPG space, many even preferring the older style of SR instead of the more updated versions that tried to 'fix' the tech discrepancies and hanging too much into the magic side of things...

And let's not forget the popular giant robot/mecha franchises, even those that dip into the TTRPG side. A 100 ton Battlemech would not survive contact with a field of grass... There is already quite a bit of fantasy in most sci-fi settings, often handweaving away inconvenient facts for the sake of it being cool...

But I also think that what people find cool and what not has also changed over the decades, a TTRPG about a dystopian future were companies like OpenAI rule supreme, young people not finding work or being able to afford a home at all, might just be hitting to close to home and very few would see much 'coolness' in that today.

Meanwhile smaller niche games like Mothership that lean heavily into much of that retro vibe or even the official Alien RPG, the Bladerunner RPG, Cyberpunk (2077), and Shadowrun still remain pretty popular while still embracing that retro vibe (more or less). It's still not anywhere close to D&D or Pathfinder, but that also makes the stark differences clear. Just like many Alien RPG fans wouldn't be very enthusiastic for an Alien supplement where you can play barbarians and wizards, neither are many folks playing D&D and Pathfinder that interested in flying around in space ships and replacing magic with tech. Hence the more popular hybrid approaches where there is both 'magic' and tech in the adapted sci-fi fantasy settings.