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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Darrin Drader" data-source="post: 4375861" data-attributes="member: 7394">Hey Devyn,I think the better question is - what didn't? to which the answer would be only one space opera franchise that I can think of. Star Trek.Here's a partial list of films/TV/books that provided some level of inspiration:Star Wars - I wasn't particularly interested in the Force or the evil empire element. It was really almost entirely the swashbuckling aspect, which provided the foundation for another of my inspirations. I also like the idea of a universe filled with worlds, aliens, and cultures - so many that you wouldn't be able to list them all even if you had the time, inspiration, and budget. As it stands, I only included the most prominent ones in the setting. I do have a partially completed manuscript with a bunch more worlds and aliens at the moment. The Lamogos tend to drop out of space around unsuspecting worlds to pursue their own agendas in much the way that the empire would do.Starblazers - Remember those evil blue guys (I forget what they're called), the naval looking ships (OK, some of them looked entirely too naval <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />), the fighters, the epic quests.... While saving the Earth isn't something that I carried over, some of the show's elements informed the direction I wanted to go with this.Firefly - Get a job. Get paid. Firefly had the swashbuckling, while including darker elements. For the most part, RoD is a nice and shiny setting, even though the civilizations out there are having a hard time holding themselves together in the presence of the power vacuum that exists. I tried to work rugged and dirty worlds where simple cargo haulers could make a living and find adventure with the Frontier Systems.Babylon 5 - There are elements of Babylon 5 influence present with Rover's Beacon. Though I have to say that the leadership bears little resemblance to the command staff of B5. They're a bit on the corrupt side, whereas B5s command crew were usually white knights.Freeport - Yes, Freeport. Given the state of the galaxy, raiders figure prominently, particularly at Rover's Beacon. While I didn't want the vast majority of the raiders to be pirates in space, I did want there to be safe havens for them as well as major areas that used them.Star Frontiers - Mainly the races. I liked the idea of sentient bugs and sentient life that was (very) loosely based on other creatures found here on Earth. For now, I'm avoiding the humans with funky head ridges cliche, though you might see a little of that later.As I've said elsewhere, I wanted RoD to be an everything and the kitchen sink type of setting. I wanted GMs to be able to set virtually any type of space based scifi story in this setting. It isn't one single well known setting with the serial numbers filed off, it is actually supposed to be it's own thing that draws influence from virtually the entire genre. I think I achieved that.</blockquote>

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