Musings on Sci Fi Campaigns/Adventures

[gambler1650]

So I've recently been perusing some Traveller/2300AD rules, and watching Stars Without Number playthroughs with the eye towards eventually setting up a SciFi campaign involving characters with/assigned to a starship of some kind (merchant/military/exploratory). I don't know why, but SciFi seems so much harder to set up an 'open campaign setting' for me compared to Fantasy. At a superficial level, Traveller sectors appear to give you everything for a Hexcrawl which is something I can easily grok in a fantasy setting. But in a Hexcrawl, each hex is pretty simple, even the ones with stuff in them to explore. In a SciFi setting, each system feels daunting to characterize 'on the fly'.

So, there are a few campaigns I can think of to get around some of my issues (which I feel like I haven't explained well).

1) Follow orders campaign - The ship isn't owned by the characters. They are employees of some sort on it (whether military, rescue, exploration, news, etc). Their employers give them mission orders. They attempt to complete the mission. These are simple. You know what to prepare because you can come up with the order/event. The problem then becomes how to give the characters more agency. There are some obvious ways to make an adventure less railroady - almost always some unexpected event that requires the players to have to do more than just the mission (while still trying to - in most cases - complete the mission). But overall, the characters won't have much control over where they go and what they're asked to do. A subtle distinction here is that the PLAYERS can still tell the GM what kind of missions they would like to have, therefore at least giving the players more agency than their characters have. The exploration possibility however could be more open ended if it's some sort of # year mission into an unexplored region.

2) Sandbox - The characters have a ship that's pretty much under their control. This could be sort of a Firefly style campaign, something where the characters are merchants (or pirates), mercenaries, or even an independent news group. The last one is a thought that Coriolis put into my head since journalists are a career option there. I think for that to work it's really not as hard as my fears say. Once you understand the kind of group your characters are, preferably in a Session 0, you can end the session with some possible hooks/rumors. And ask what they want to follow up on. And then you do that at the end of each session. So, for instance, if they decide to travel to Beowulf at the end of an adventure you ask them if they have something they want to do at Beowulf. If they just plan to resupply/refuel and look for a new job you immediately give them the 'bulletin board' and ask them to decide on something. That becomes what you prepare. If they want to explore something in the city they heard about offhand previously, then you prepare that. This requires some time management on the GM's part when coming near the end point of an adventure so there's time to do this.

 

[Theory of Games]

 

[J.Quondam]

I'm sort of in the same boat as you, finding Traveller-esque sci-fi campaigns to be overwhelming compared to fantasy.
Something I found helpful is a book called Solo, by Zozer Games, that provides a solo play framework for Traveller games. (I'm pretty sure there are other similar products for sci-fi games.) Whether you care about the solo aspect or not, though, there are also broad guidelines for about half-a-dozen different types of campaign (eg, "Traders" or "Commandos" or whatever, as well as a sort of "default" mode of play.) For each type, he provides a top-level play-loop, which breaks down a lot of the different things sci-fi characters might do in that sort of game. Even if you don't use his play-loop as is, I've found them to be a nice way to put some bounds on what happens in a sci-fi hex session to session. Ymmv.

 

[Theory of Games]

I'm a huge fan of the "Sandbox" option: it puts the players in control, which should be the default position of all ttrpgs IME. Otherwise, it's the GM telling the players what to and how to do it - how is that fun?

 

[payn]

I've done both types.

The Orders one we had a Traveller lab ship repurposed as a medical rescue team. The ship was called the Benevolent ("The Ben") and we had a shuttle for going planet side called the Beneficent ("The Benny"). The Ben was owned by a doctor who chose the jobs at first, but later took input from the crew. Having a focus on a type of adventure actually helped folks create characters and get into the theme. Not being directly military, yet often going into military zones as a neutral party, gave quite a bit of nuance to the type of missions and stories told.

The Sandbox this one is tricky. I've found the typical Firefly gotta repair the ship and keep it fueled type adventure often runs awry. Players naturally lean towards safer missions and have no real anchor or purpose beyond keep ship flying and make money. Which is why I prefer to give out metagoals in my sandboxes (sci-fi and beyond). The Pirates of Drinax series updated by Mongoose is a great example of this. The players are tasked with the goal of empire building in the Trojan Reach (sector of space). Its a large space, but not all the space in the universe so the adventures have the ability to be impactful through factions and contacts. The goal is so large, that essentially anything the players do is a step towards it. Allowing them to be pirates, diplomats, economic dealers, etc.. as they build their empire out of the ashes of the wild region of space.

 

[payn]

I'm a huge fan of the "Sandbox" option: it puts the players in control, which should be the default position of all ttrpgs IME. Otherwise, it's the GM telling the players what to and how to do it - how is that fun?

Some players actually prefer strong GM direction. They dont do well with ambiguity and the vast opportunities in front of them which then the game stalls out. To be fair, some GMs are really poor at presenting sandboxes too. Paizo's Starfinder adventure paths are like the PF ones which come in both linear and non-linear variety. Some players like engaging a particular story and following through while the GM presents interesting exploration, social, and combat encounters along the way.

One thing I agree with, the players ought to have agency with their characters and how they choose to engage the game in any format.

 

[gambler1650]

Adventures... I see a lot of 'dungeons in space' type of adventures which is understandable because most people come from the Fantasy end of RPGs before SciFi. Derelict ships, ancient alien structures, etc. Sure, those are great but if that's all that you do, you're not exploring the things that can make SciFi different.

I think it's probably important to NOT do a 'site crawl' as the first thing in a campaign. At the same time, it has to be something interesting. I read a Traveller 2300AD module recently (Rescue Run by Mongoose) because it seemed geared to a relatively new group. All I could think while reading was "So boring." Basically it was a skeleton of an adventure with almost no 'weird' bits. It's SciFi. You should experience SOMETHING interesting. Instead you get:

1) An order to go to another planet in system to rescue researchers stranded at a research station before the planet's orbit moves too far from the star for them to survive there.

2) A possibility to interact with another similar group and/or locals in the city - all human and 'normal'.

3) The trip to the other planet. There are a few encounters, mostly local system traffic all heading inwards because of word of a Kaefer attack out of system. There's one encounter which is a couple of Kaefer raiders being chased by military ships. The main point of this encounter - in addition to making the system feel 'lived in' like the other encounters - seems to be for the players to get used to obtaining sensor locks on other ships because it's obvious they shouldn't involve themselves in any way (and the Kaefer aren't going to stop to chat). I also quibble a bit with the idea that the system NEEDS to feel lived in. This is space. Beowulf has far less people on it than Earth. And the appearance of raiders from an attack in a whole other system that happen to cross near the characters' ship is a coincidence of the most amazing degree at least in a nominally 'hard sci-fi' setting.

4) They get to the planet. They can fix some damage to the habitat/station and mediate between stressed researchers. The damage fixes are just straightforward rolls, and not too hard at that. There's no real info given as to what happens if the characters fail their rolls. They can also discover that someone secretly 3D printed something potentially illegal or at least highly restricted. But they can't find out what. Oh, and they're told that one of the researchers went missing during a storm no one likely could have survived. And another one is coming so it makes no sense to go out and look for the missing researcher.

5) The storm hits, possible random damage can occur. There's no information given as to the effects of the damage (water treatment plant, life support, etc) and/or how the characters can fix it. Maybe there are more general rules for this in the main Traveller rules (I'm reading them at the same time as the modules, so I may not have gotten there yet).

6) Turns out that the missing researcher is convinced the rescue team is part of a Pentapod takeover plot. The module doesn't say why he thinks this - though it mentions he's a bit on the crazy side when it comes to aliens. You would think if he actually thought this, he would have said something around one of the research team before the current period of the adventure. He's the one who secretly printed out a handgun. Which if the characters could figure that out would have been able to prepare for something. Like the attack the missing researcher makes. The characters have to subdue him and then get everyone together and leave when the storm ends.

7) They get paid and praised.

I guess if you're doing a strict Firefly type of campaign this would be ok... After all, there's not much 'weird' in Firefly beyond the Reavers and some of the science that the legitimate government sponsors. But the base setting of 2300AD is one with aliens and this is an alien world. The world itself has no indigenous life larger than 2mm, and the characters will see none of even this. What they will see is a Pentapod from a small base away from the human research station. It comes to the door after any possibly damaging event and asks if there are any expended/surplus human bioshells for trade (seems to be referring to dead humans). A student recalls the main professor asking "Trade for what?" but the response or lack of response by the Pentapod isn't given. When the humans are about to escape the planet, the Pentapod returns and gives them a patch from a uniform for a human space ship the characters haven't heard of. Turns out, this is probably the most intriguing element of the adventure - the Pentapod and what it wants leading to questions of 'why?'. But there's no actual information given to the referee so that they could reasonably play a question/answer session with the Pentapod and player characters. Turns out this is explored in much more depth in the 2nd module of the series.

So, what you get is a by the numbers plot with almost no actual agency, no exploration, and no uniquely Sci-Fi weirdness that the players can actually interact with.

The second module has a section that I find absolutely dumb. The players can decide on a number of overland routes to a destination. Along the way a number of things can happen depending on how safe a route they took. Almost all significant events have to do with damage to their vehicle that slow them down and require rolls (no thinking) to fix. Then some actually truly interesting stuff happens which I won't spoil (I didn't care about spoiling the first module as pretty much none of it is interesting). And then the characters have to use the same procedure for much of their return trip which is described as a race against time before the planet becomes completely uninhabitable as it moves on its orbit. But... no actual timetable is given, and if there were and the characters died because of too many random damage events, I think my table wouldn't play Traveller ever again. Fortunately(?) there's no actual time table, but it means the rolls for the events and the rolls for fixing damage are basically meaningless.

So based on reading those two, I can come up with a couple of Sci Fi adventure precepts (which to be fair, apply to almost any adventure):

1) Something significant in the adventure should be weird (where weird = alien or just something outside the usual human experience). By significant, I mean something that can be interacted with, explored by, and then respond to the characters,

2) Straightforward rolls to solve a problem, especially when there are no consequences if you fail OR if the adventure stalls if you fail are to be avoided with extreme prejudice. At LEAST give the characters a way to make the rolls more in their favor or alternate paths forward.

The only way I would ever use "Rescue Run" is in a paragraph summary of the group's first mission as a flashback (that the players don't have to playthrough). It's just too mundane, especially as a campaign starter.

 

[Dalekdad]

2) Sandbox - The characters have a ship that's pretty much under their control. This could be sort of a Firefly style campaign, something where the characters are merchants (or pirates), mercenaries, or even an independent news group. The last one is a thought that Coriolis put into my head since journalists are a career option there. I think for that to work it's really not as hard as my fears say. Once you understand the kind of group your characters are, preferably in a Session 0, you can end the session with some possible hooks/rumors. And ask what they want to follow up on. And then you do that at the end of each session. So, for instance, if they decide to travel to Beowulf at the end of an adventure you ask them if they have something they want to do at Beowulf. If they just plan to resupply/refuel and look for a new job you immediately give them the 'bulletin board' and ask them to decide on something. That becomes what you prepare. If they want to explore something in the city they heard about offhand previously, then you prepare that. This requires some time management on the GM's part when coming near the end point of an adventure so there's time to do this.

Here is where I think something like Traveller really shines. Plot them on a map and give them a reason to have to take on shady jobs besides just carrying cargo (I believe the 1st edition of Mongoose Traveller was designed to make it nearly impossible to keep your ship running by playing it safe). In most cases, their ship will only be able to jump one or two hexes away, limiting the number of worlds you need to prep for, so the overall sandbox prep is not that heavy on a week to week basis.

I liked to structure things so that each session started with them jumping into a system and looking for work while any cargo trading happened in the background. This usually meant coming up with a couple of jobs/situations they could get tangled up with. I'd also have a few passengers ready to add complications.

The meat of the session is doing the job/resolving the scenario and the session would end with them picking which world they wanted to jump to next.

It started very episodic, but over time their actions would lead to consequences and NPCs catching up to them.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Just some thoughts.

PCs/NPCs who might be in control of their own ship:

Explorers/colonists
Pirates
Someone lost/adrift
Refugees/exiles
Mercenaries
Miners
Ultra wealthy
Religious fanatics
Mad Scientists


Possible mission/adventure seeds:

Exploring/settling new frontier
First contact/diplomacy
Rescue/Salvage
Archaeology
Lost in space
Crashlanded
Fending off boarding parties/invaders

 

[dragoner]

I have not had as many problems, the recent adventures I have released are mostly openers, such as meet partron, have a variety of weird experiences: stop the suicide attacks by cannibal pirates, take a drive on the apocalypse highway, etc. Overall the setting is setup with real star maps:

These are 30 maps, roughly like subsectors, and the Earth only has influence in 9 of them so things are really open to how one wants to do things. I have a lot of tables for generating encounters, though I also simply wing it, and vibe with the players.