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<blockquote data-quote="Arrgh! Mark!" data-source="post: 3145006" data-attributes="member: 14559">I don't understand the context of a technical problem as the basis of an adventure. All of my games revolve around some form of interaction. Please give me an example; if you pose a problem to me in astrophysics, you really can't complain when I haven't got a clue. If on the other hand you need me to find the phase converter because the shield battery is kablunkey, so be it; no problem.I've run a &quot;Hard&quot; SF setting. It involved ancient dead planets, frozen PC's and the wonderful effects of explosive decompression; Alien style. I wouldn't ask my players to work out the mathematics for the remaining fuel supply or even tell me how they fix something. Neither they nor I know anything real about the science that might happen in five hundred years. An anecdote: I was once playing the most boring game of Traveller I've ever encountered. We did a lot of pissing around starports buying junk, looking for work and so on. No real adventure occured that I could work out. Eventually (4 sessions later) we got on a starship and pissed off to some miserable planet when a bunch of tanks rocked up. My girlfriend (A very, very bored space marine) and me (A very, very bored HUMINT specialist) sat there listening to two guys yap on about potential space travel, the problem of ridding a ship of heat and many other things. Some parts were interesting but mostly just boring. The whole thing was an excuse to talk about potential spaceships. The very next game had us listening while a bunch of space vikings got really angry at a bunch of planetsiders. For hours. I &quot;Was too busy to play&quot;. I'd be careful of trying Hard SF. &quot;Hard&quot; SF is a setting and only a possible one at that. Try for an adventure, not a boring conversation.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Arrgh! Mark!, post: 3145006, member: 14559"] I don't understand the context of a technical problem as the basis of an adventure. All of my games revolve around some form of interaction. Please give me an example; if you pose a problem to me in astrophysics, you really can't complain when I haven't got a clue. If on the other hand you need me to find the phase converter because the shield battery is kablunkey, so be it; no problem. I've run a "Hard" SF setting. It involved ancient dead planets, frozen PC's and the wonderful effects of explosive decompression; Alien style. I wouldn't ask my players to work out the mathematics for the remaining fuel supply or even tell me how they fix something. Neither they nor I know anything real about the science that might happen in five hundred years. An anecdote: I was once playing the most boring game of Traveller I've ever encountered. We did a lot of pissing around starports buying junk, looking for work and so on. No real adventure occured that I could work out. Eventually (4 sessions later) we got on a starship and pissed off to some miserable planet when a bunch of tanks rocked up. My girlfriend (A very, very bored space marine) and me (A very, very bored HUMINT specialist) sat there listening to two guys yap on about potential space travel, the problem of ridding a ship of heat and many other things. Some parts were interesting but mostly just boring. The whole thing was an excuse to talk about potential spaceships. The very next game had us listening while a bunch of space vikings got really angry at a bunch of planetsiders. For hours. I "Was too busy to play". I'd be careful of trying Hard SF. "Hard" SF is a setting and only a possible one at that. Try for an adventure, not a boring conversation. [/QUOTE]

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