Properly integrating Sci-Fi elements into your game

[Tinker Gnome]

Okay, I know probably all of you have read the Advanced Technology sub-heading in the DMG. But how many of you have ever actually tried to integrate Sci-Fi elements into your D&D game? I feel that this should have been better covered in the DMG so I am creating this thread so that we can pool together our thougths and ideas to hopefully from soemthign worth stickying.

Okay first things first. How to explain the advanced technology in your world?


The Options

First there is the option(probably the most used one) of having had a spaceship from outer space cash land on the game world either long ago or fairly recently. This option works fairly well, there are no explainations within the world needed like there is for the ltter option that I will discuss later.

The other option is to have an ancient civiliztion on your world that had access to and could use advanced technology. This option works well if you have a way to integrate this civilization into the world seamlessly. Otherwise it may hamper other elements in yuor world.

Another option, this one not really inolving any advanced technology at all is to have some starnge object form space hit the world and cause mutations in the populace. Naturally this will have varying effects depening on where it landed and how big it was.

Or you could have the eggs of a creature come along with the object. Maybe the object itself is a giant carrying case for eggs, and the species reproduce by taking over one planet and draining it of its resoruces and them creating more youg to do the same to other planets. When the eggs hatch and out come tons of strange monsters that grow rapidly, the PC will have to step in and do something about it.

Psionics

Bought the Psionics Handbook, but none of your players seem to want to play a Psionic class? Well now is the time to make use of it. Many seem to think that Psionics have a somewhat Sci-Fi feel to them. Well, they do. So why not use them?

Have an alien species utilize them against the PCs and describe them in a way that makes them feel, well, alien.

Have that starnge object that fell from the sky mysteriously grant those near the radius who survived Psionics powers.

There are a myriad of thinsg to use Psionics for and all of them are only limited by your imigination.

Description

In choosing to use Sci-Fi elements in your game you have dedicated yourself even more to use good description. You want to describe the starnge new sights the PCs see as completely new and exotic to them. Try to do it so well that even your players do not know that they are actually in a starship that crahsed on their world long ago.

Advanced Technology in the PCs hands

Okay, so your PCs fought their way through an alien spaceship and have brought with them many starnge treasures that they are not quite sure what they do. Now, PCs with high INT scores are somewhat entitled to figuring out how to workd the wepaons first. There are two options you can use.

You can either have the PCs, once they figure out how to use the device. Always from then on know how to use it. Or you could have them roll a "Use Technilogical Device" check. It is your choice.

This is all I am putting up for now as it is 4:30 AM where I am and I am very tired. But I will put up more later.

Sorry for any typos, I will get them later.

 

[Aaron2]

You can either have the PCs, once they figure out how to use the device. Always from then on know how to use it. Or you could have them roll a "Use Technilogical Device" check. It is your choice.

You might want to add a new UTD skill that is a class skill to classes you have Knowledge(Any).

One idea I had for a sci-fi campaign a friend was running was to have a mega-corporation. This company finds illegal or insignificant colony planets and blasts them back into the dark ages. Then, years later, sells the planet to the hyper-rich as a personal pleasure planet for them to play with.

The PC don't realize that they are on such a planet, nor do they realize that their "gods" are really spoiled rich people messing with them for their own perverted reasons. These gods live on a high tech mount olympus in the lap of luxury. The PC, of course, slowly discover the remnants of the hi-tech colony and use said finds to locate and, possibly, destroy their former gods.

Anyway, its a semi-logical reason for there to be high-tech stuff lying around. Also, since its a private planet, it also explains why there aren't space ship landing more frequently. Plus, its possible to introduce this element late in the campaign just to shake things up.


Aaron

 

[Tinker Gnome]

Bump

 

[Whisper72]

Well, along the lines of an ancient civilization, you could have it such that the world was once covered with a very advanced civilization, but something (natural disaster, meteorite, war, whatever) pretty much wiped out everything and everyone. This same disaster mutated mankind and brought magic into the world. Now, many millenia further on, almost all of the traces of this ancient civilization are gone. Here and there, in deep chasms in the world, on as yet undisturbed continents, in the middle of huge deserts / the north/south pole or some other area where there are condition ideal to preservation, one can still stumble across entire buildings, maybe even entire cities and find all manner of 'magical' artifacts from energy weapons to food processors...

 

[Tinker Gnome]

Well, along the lines of an ancient civilization, you could have it such that the world was once covered with a very advanced civilization, but something (natural disaster, meteorite, war, whatever) pretty much wiped out everything and everyone. This same disaster mutated mankind and brought magic into the world. Now, many millenia further on, almost all of the traces of this ancient civilization are gone. Here and there, in deep chasms in the world, on as yet undisturbed continents, in the middle of huge deserts / the north/south pole or some other area where there are condition ideal to preservation, one can still stumble across entire buildings, maybe even entire cities and find all manner of 'magical' artifacts from energy weapons to food processors...

i like the idea of something causing magic to come into the world. owuld explain why technology developed first.

 

[Tonguez]

In a the old Galaxy Rangers show the Rangers visited a planet where the people used Magic items with the power coming from the 'World-soul'. It worked out that the whole planet was in fact a giant hitech bio-computer and the items 'technical devices' powered by the computer - always liked that...

 

[Tinker Gnome]

In a the old Galaxy Rangers show the Rangers visited a planet where the people used Magic items with the power coming from the 'World-soul'. It worked out that the whole planet was in fact a giant hitech bio-computer and the items 'technical devices' powered by the computer - always liked that...

That is another really cool way of doing it.