"Players wanted for a Space Adventure Campaign!" What are you hoping to see?

[niklinna]

If you are looking for published material, you might want to check out Fading Suns, which has recently been republished in a new edition. I had the original books—the genre style is kind of a blend of Dune, Babylon 5, and Stargate (interstellar travel via ancient jumpgates, political intrigue, and mysteries of all kinds, plus demons and such) with White Wolf-style structure (orthogonal "professions"—noble, priest, technician—and factions crossing those professions with obvious structural parallelism).

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

When I think swashbuckling adventures in space, I think of heroes like Flash Gordon, Commando Cody, Rocket Man, Adam Strange, John Carter, Eric John Stark…

I think of would-be planetary emperors, space pirates, smugglers, lost or decadent civilizations, occasional alien monsters & robots running amok…

I’m expecting some retro-futurism, melee weapons still bring meaningful, jet packs, unusual firearms…

 

[Yora]

Oh wow, suddenly so many replies. Some even respond to my question.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

I can agree with the "no traders trying to find their next job" bit. I have done some Traveller in the past where the crew is trying to make their ship mortgage payments and its not as fun as it sounds. The players often take the less risky path and often it leaves great opportunities behind.

I am curious about what type of mischief a crew gets into in a no politics and no factions type of game? I mean, in typical Traveller trading jobs usually lead to adventures, and in Pirates of Drinax the politics and factions lead to the adventures. Would this adventure focus game be like Star Trek exploration or like Star Wars where the PCs are white hats against clear black hat NPCs?

That was part of it. And I could see politics that drive stories, but not stuff a character is involved with or that deep political manuevering wasn't something the characters did, or that made them feel ineffective. Star Wars had lots of politics, but it is hugely different than Dune.

 

[aco175]

You may start to get less this,

But more this instead,

Hopefully not this,

 

[niklinna]

I had such a crush on Robert Urich, but it wasn't enough to overcome that movie's stank factor.

 

[Jmarso]

Oh, and for space swashbuckling, let's not forget 1980's Flash Gordon.