What tropes do you want to see more of in sci-fi RPGs?

[schneeland]

For SciFi it's a bit harder to figure out than for fantasy stuff. Immediate thought:

• A "hardish" SciFi setting/game that plays on earth, but also extends beyond it, but which doesn't have a magic FTL drive (so probably rather cryo sleep, maybe some sort of wormholes/etc) and has a rather gritty tone - basically Blade Runner meets Alien (but not necessarily tied to these franchises)
• A good space opera setting that isn't Star Wars

(please not both in the same game )

On a second thought: I'd also like to see more settings in which the dominant culture is not western (like e.g. Coriolis).

 

[gorice]

Like, how long? "Sailing to a new continent on Earth" long? "You might as well keep all the action on one planet because there's no way to get to a different solar system within a reasonable human lifetime" long?

Well, either, but I think 'sailing to a new continent' works well for travel to other planets within the same solar system. Which means you probably do want to stay on the same planet, but you can absolutely go on an epic voyage that involves e.g. coasting for months before you complete your Hohmann transfer.

 

[gorice]

Travel via Stargates or other planet-bound devices is definitely something I'd like to see explored.

Another thing I wouldn't mind seeing is a Sci-Fi setting where it's not (at least not much) about some ancient dead civilizations and finding artifacts, and more like trying to get stuff from more advanced existing civilizations or entities, and otherwise trying to get recognized or accepted by them. Not hostile aliens, but aliens that just don't feel like sharing (maybe for good reason, maybe because they are petty, maybe because they are indifferent). If hostile aliens, they'd might be merely accidentally hostile and maybe not even capable of reasoning, something like a bunch of Von Neumann probes on search for more paperclip wire base materials.

Yeah, I like this too. Something like the Culture novels, where there are all kinds of civilisations out there, some of which are so far ahead of you that they won't share anything with you, anymore than you'd hand a weapon to a toddler. Plus, somnolent Elder civilisations of vast power that long ago disappeared up their own rear ends/translated to a different plane of being, but may one day wake up (the game Stellaris uses this trope to good effect).

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

Well, either, but I think 'sailing to a new continent' works well for travel to other planets within the same solar system. Which means you probably do want to stay on the same planet, but you can absolutely go on an epic voyage that involves e.g. coasting for months before you complete your Hohmann transfer.

Ah, thank you. It was a necessary question given different tolerances and senses of scale.

 

[Bluenose]

I'd like to see more games that focus on colonisation and terraforming, ehat happens after your generation ship arrives at its new world/star system and people building new worlds and new societies in new places. There's a few but most SF RPGs focus on other things (there's even more games focusing on exploration and science or Science!).

 

[gorice]

I'd like to see more games that focus on colonisation and terraforming, ehat happens after your generation ship arrives at its new world/star system and people building new worlds and new societies in new places. There's a few but most SF RPGs focus on other things (there's even more games focusing on exploration and science or Science!).

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri: The RPG would be quite a wild ride.

 

[Endroren]

What happens when space isn't "cool" anymore. When space life becomes "life as usual." The Alien films captured this. It isn't that it's gritty - it's just normalized. Star Wars also captures this pretty well (Mandalorian in particular).

 

[Bluenose]

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri: The RPG would be quite a wild ride.

That'd be one example of the genre (and one of my favourite computer games of all time) but there's a spate of other games in the wake of Surviving Mars. IMO some of them are on a small enough scale to be more suitable for an RPG group.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

Space/science-magic that's based around current vague science rather than stuff from half a century ago (i.e. psychics).

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Optimism.

People being augmented to handle space, and the ways that changes how people think. Stuff like in my Earth with magic game, where space tech involves the user “meshing” with the machine, joining organic consciousness to technological input and digital data.

Giving a damn about the social sciences.

Weirdness that isn’t grim or edgy. Sentient nebulas and such.

Trahnshumansim that isn’t dystopian or horrific.

Weird tech/weapons like how Dune has personal shields that deflect high velocity objects but not slow-moving objects, leading to futuristic knife fights.

Consideration of stuff like music and cocktails and art movements and small scale architecture.