[Sci-Fi] Adventures - What Would Be Fun?

[TreChriron]

So, sci-fi adventures seem to have a broad range of possibilities. What are the most fun of those possibilities?

If someone pitched you an adventure for your next sci-fi game, what elements would you be looking for? Which ones are exciting to you?



I want to put together a scenario for a con but I don't want to offer up a bog-standard adventure. I want to offer something interesting. It doesn't have to be new, just exciting and fun.

The setting is "space opera", human-centric with a few alien species available, FTL through gates or Lagrange points of the largest planet in a system, anti-gravity, fusion power, a human federation, an alien federation and the reptilian warlike race/empire in a cease-fire with both other empires. For the moment.

 

[gamerprinter]

What kind of sci-fi theme trips your trigger: merchant trading/smuggling, interstellar military game, espionage/diplomatic missions, exploration/planetary survey, space pirates, antipiracy/interplanetary navy, or something odd and epic like a Dune theme? There are so many ways to go from Star Wars to Chronicles of Riddick and everything in between. What game system are you using? In some cases the systems themselves help determine what kinds of games they are designed to be used.

I'm planning on building a setting and short campaign borrowing EN Publishing Santiago setting ideas using Pathfinder with magic as technology for my home game. I've already created an alternate wizard as a computer hacker class and a starship pilot, and will be creating many more new classes, alternate and archetypes to draw in the full Pathfinder class lineup in sci-fied up condition. Since I helped develop some yakuza concepts for my Kaidan setting, I plan to use the Creating Yakuza Gang rules to create me an intergalactic crime syndicate using those rules. Then I might do a "cops and robbers" on the galactic rim with a pervasive crime syndicate, dirty cops, dirtier politicians - kind of a crime, detective, diplomacy game, with undercover work, clandestine meetings, etc. I haven't worked it all out yet.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Howzabout the PCs all being on the space station hosting relatively important peace talks...and a kerfuffle ensues (pick one or more of the following):

1) someone sabotages the space station, perhaps by making the automatons go kill-crazy a la Westworld

2) alien critter gets loose, perhaps a bioengineered weapon gone AWOL or an unknown alien predator. See The Green Slime or Death Machine.

3) new hostile race crashes the party, possibly from another dimension.

4) natural phenomenon cripples space station, causing evacuation. PCs land on nearby planetoid, and while awaiting final rescue, find they're being hunted...

 

[Bluenose]

A small free trader vessel gets shot down by pirates while delivering supplies to an isolated outpost. The crew has to trek across part of the planet to survive, making friends or fighting with the native species who aren't human or technologically advanced, and then deal with the fact that when they reach the outpost it's been taken over by the pirates or their allies. Can they manage it?

 

[gamerprinter]

I created two levels of a mountaintop, top secret bioweapons facility for use with a possible near future sci-fi game - kind of reminding me of something James Bond in flavor. Perhaps it could inspire some sci-fi scenario for you.

 

[Umbran]

Here's some inspiration for you....

[video=youtube_share;D5p8YhhaVlA]http://youtu.be/D5p8YhhaVlA[/video]

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Scarily enough, that DOES give ME some ideas...

 

[Umbran]

Goofiness aside, that last verse does make me think:

"Carmen Miranda's ghost is haunting Space Station Three.
Not that we're complaining, since the fresh fruit all comes free.
But now and then we wonder what it means for the human race
That ghosts of generations past are taking off for space."

What *does* it mean? That could be a campaign-level question.

 

[Andor]

Heck if you're going to use Leslie Fish for inspiration I'd look to Banned From Argo or Sam Jones first.

For a scenario that can move in a lot of directions depending on the interests of your group try a first contact scenario is a place that is of interest to more than one of the great powers. That brings in diplomacy intrigue and potentially combat, drama, survival, etc. It touches on everything that makes scf-fi great.

 

[TreChriron]

You can check out my other thread about the Con and the description. I'm going with a "crash land on derelict alien spaceship, explore, solve mystery, survive, discover something, escape" adventure with [redacted].