Imagine a Sci-Fi ACKS

[quote="RandyB"]

 

 

These books might make a good setting and campaign backstory but thats not necessarily a motivator for PCs.

I say good motivators include rewards and a sense of urgency. In a standard ACKS campaing that could be GP=XP and the rising of evil while the local rules are busy with other things.

 


-Rodriguez

 

Fair point. "1 GP = 1 XP" is a rewards-based, or positive motivator. "High monthly costs from spaceship maintenance and debt" is a negative motivator. Rewards-based or positive motivators for a PMC are contracts and battlefield loot. A sense of urgency for a PMC could be "the rise of a threat while governments are otherwise occupied".

Negative motivators encourage lazy GMing. Challenging PC weaknesses is far easier than challenging their strengths. Presenting a fun mix of both kinds of challenges is tougher still.

[/quote]

I would argue that "High monthly costs" creates a sense of urgency because if the group fails then campaign is over or transforms into a pirate campaign.

Quest rewards and loot are a motivator but not something specific for PMC campaigns. There is also no reason why Space-ACKS would be better at delivering that compared to any other system.

The "rising threat" part also sounds bad for a PMC campaign. Why should mercenaries care? Sounds more like a business opportunity to me.

I really think we dont have much common ground here... 

[quote="Rodriguez"]

I really think we dont have much common ground here... 

[/quote]

I agree.

[quote="fletch137"]

Like Traveller, the game shouldn't assume the PCs are a team with their own spaceship, giving them something to work up toward as they hop rides on active trade ships or get dispatched by an employer.

I'm a bigger fan of class-based systems than skill-based, but I haven't really thought about what the classes would be.

[/quote]

A difficulty I see with having a model where PCs earn the cash to acquire a space ship is that it usually cost a very large amount of cash that could be redirected towards massive amounts of spending on personal equipment, cyberware, lavish lifestyle, etc. That’s not a real problem if you’re running a wide open campaign, but could be if your idea of a campaign involved the PCs system hopping across the galaxy. I’ve only played a couple of demos of Starfinder at conventions, but they had an interesting idea where the PC’s ship was essentially a reward for leveling up. Each character level in the party granted them build points by which they could requisition either modifications to their existing basic ship they got at 1st level, or get a larger more advanced ship as the campaign went along. I thought it was an interesting approach, but it’s premised on the idea that the PCs were part of a larger organization assigning the PCs their ship. Maybe something similar could be an optional setting rule implemented by the GM if it would fit his campaign.

Regarding classes perhaps something could be done similar to what was done with the Freebooter class in the Heroic Fantasy Handbook. Give a class decent fighting and/or hit die, then develop varieties of specialization for engineers, combat medics, hackers, etc. Retain a basic fighting class to represent dedicated space soldiers, but use the Freebooter as a template to build specialist classes. For wuuwuu I’m already converting the Bladedancer into light/dark versions where the Turn Undead ability gets traded in for a +2 to hit for their laser swords, and a inherent ability to cast magic missile (aka Force Lightning) 3 times a day for dark version. The Player’s companion recommends against granting damaging spells in this way, but in this case I think it’s a decent thematic fit, and I “tax” the level 1 damaging spell as if it was level 2 in terms of how often it can be cast. Not sure what to grant the light side version in place of the magic missile. Maybe Fate points.

[quote="wmarshal"] A difficulty I see with having a model where PCs earn the cash to acquire a space ship is that it usually cost a very large amount of cash that could be redirected towards massive amounts of spending on personal equipment, cyberware, lavish lifestyle, etc. That’s not a real problem if you’re running a wide open campaign, but could be if your idea of a campaign involved the PCs system hopping across the galaxy. [/quote] One way I've seen this addressed in both Stars Without Number and Traveller is limiting the availability of equipment by location, as well as by price. Both games generally require you to be on a planet with a high tech level in order to purchase high-tech gear; Traveller's planets additionally have a "law level" which restricts which weapons and armour can be legally purchased there.

Stars without number also includes the ability for players to add asteroid mining and manufacturing facilities to their ship. The requirements for doing so are extremely steep (the mobile factory alone requires 100 NPC crew or a true AI PC to run it), but doing it means the party can produce almost any equipment, vehicles, stations, and even new ships that they might need, given enough time. (The only things such facilities can't make are tech level 5 and above, the "magic items" of the setting.)

Cash spent on a ship isn't necessarily taken away from cash spent on equipment, I guess I'm saying, since equipment availability can depend on things other than available cash.

Come to think of it, most good equipment in ACKS is magical, and non-consumable magic items are generally things you obtain via adventures rather than by puchasing them, so there's no real change there.

Yes, as noted above, tech is limited by available tech levels; I don't see any problem with "low-level" PCs getting all the "TL4" (in SWN terms) gear early on - let them cyber themselves up and get teh best mag rifles available. It's the equivalent of getting plate armor and a plate-barded warhorse (or even a few healing potions!) in ACKS, something you can get on levels 1-3. Any good market (in Traveller terms: high-TL, high-Population, low Law Level world) can supply these and somewhat experienced low-level characters ahve enough cash to buy them. It's the "pemanent magic items" that are rare - starships (monstrously expensive) and equipment beyond the setting's common Tech-Level (rarely available to purchase; you usually find them by adventuring).

If you want to go full "Traveller", start right at the Conqueror level - you already have a starship and cash after chargen and can start saving/looking for financing for cool mid-level stuff such as building a small fleet/trading corporation, pirate gang, or mercenary company.

Further musings...

Outside of cyberpunk, my personal interest in so-called hard sci-fi is fairly low, to the extent that hard sci-fi is defined by "how people today extrapolate from current trends to create what they think are plausible situations in the future". It seems to share the following assumptions:

  • physicalism is true
  • human minds are just computers
  • nanontech will work
  • evolution explains where we came from and where the aliens came from
  • nobody will figure out how to go faster than the speed of light
  • quantum collapse isn't caused by consciousness

These are the assumptions found in most classic and contemporary hard sci fi. Alisdair Reynold's space opera is an example of this genre. 

In contrast, what I like are:

  • physicalism is not true - there's something more
  • human minds aren't just computers - luminous beings are we - and AI never replaces people
  • nanotech doesn't work reliably - no magic mini-robots replace all machinery
  • evolution isn't the full answer, and progenitors, uplift, panpsychic cosmology or something else is involved
  • speed of light travel is routine
  • quantum collapse is caused by consciousness and is the basis of psychic powers

Though these assumptions above are implicit in Star Wars and Warhammer 40K, they are not taken seriously or well-defined, and the result is Jedi that can do whatever, ships that travel at speed of plot, etc.

If I designed a sci-fi RPG setting, it would be hard space fantasy: It would use the second set of assumptions but do so rigorously. As far as I can think of, Dune is the only sci-fi I can think of that does that. 

 

[quote="Alex"] In contrast, what I like are:

  • physicalism is not true - there's something more
  • human minds aren't just computers - luminous beings are we - and AI never replaces people
  • nanotech doesn't work reliably - no magic mini-robots replace all machinery
  • evolution isn't the full answer, and progenitors, uplift, panpsychic cosmology or something else is involved
  • speed of light travel is routine
  • quantum collapse is caused by consciousness and is the basis of psychic powers

...

If I designed a sci-fi RPG setting, it would be hard space fantasy: It would use the second set of assumptions but do so rigorously. [/quote] I'm sold. When's the Kickstarter campaign?

[quote="GMJoe"]

 

In contrast, what I like are:

 

  • physicalism is not true - there's something more
  • human minds aren't just computers - luminous beings are we - and AI never replaces people
  • nanotech doesn't work reliably - no magic mini-robots replace all machinery
  • evolution isn't the full answer, and progenitors, uplift, panpsychic cosmology or something else is involved
  • speed of light travel is routine
  • quantum collapse is caused by consciousness and is the basis of psychic powers

...

If I designed a sci-fi RPG setting, it would be hard space fantasy: It would use the second set of assumptions but do so rigorously.


-Alex

I'm sold. When's the Kickstarter campaign?

 

[/quote]

Be reasonable. Alex needs at least two years to put in the proper amount of work to get the spreadsheets right. :-)

Alex, have you ever looked through projectrho.com ? Lots of articles discussing realistic/consistent sci-fi. Maybe more hard sci-fi than what you’d like for a setting, but I think starting from a hard sci-fi base and then adding the fantasy elements could be productive.

[quote="GMJoe"]

 

In contrast, what I like are:

 

  • physicalism is not true - there's something more
  • human minds aren't just computers - luminous beings are we - and AI never replaces people
  • nanotech doesn't work reliably - no magic mini-robots replace all machinery
  • evolution isn't the full answer, and progenitors, uplift, panpsychic cosmology or something else is involved
  • speed of light travel is routine
  • quantum collapse is caused by consciousness and is the basis of psychic powers

...

If I designed a sci-fi RPG setting, it would be hard space fantasy: It would use the second set of assumptions but do so rigorously.


-Alex

I'm sold. When's the Kickstarter campaign?

 

[/quote]

 

I'll say it again: take my money now!

[quote="Alex"]

If I designed a sci-fi RPG setting, it would be hard space fantasy: It would use the second set of assumptions but do so rigorously. As far as I can think of, Dune is the only sci-fi I can think of that does that.

  [/quote]

I've never heard the term "hard space fantasy." I like it.

I've recently been getting into some '50s sci-fi like Tom Corbett, and I've really grown to appreciate a more vintage view of what space travel was going to look like. Modern rocket design is even going back to the ol' pointy missile asthetic as seen in SpaceX's rockets.

I've also been watching a lot of Isaac Arthur on the YouTube and his videos about colonizing our solar system. When practical space colonies now include covered Martian ravines and floating Venusian sky-cities, I'm all on board with how fantastical "hard science" can be.

[quote="Alex"]

In contrast, what I like are:

  • physicalism is not true - there's something more
  • human minds aren't just computers - luminous beings are we - and AI never replaces people
  • nanotech doesn't work reliably - no magic mini-robots replace all machinery
  • evolution isn't the full answer, and progenitors, uplift, panpsychic cosmology or something else is involved
  • speed of light travel is routine
  • quantum collapse is caused by consciousness and is the basis of psychic powers

Though these assumptions above are implicit in Star Wars and Warhammer 40K, they are not taken seriously or well-defined, and the result is Jedi that can do whatever, ships that travel at speed of plot, etc.

If I designed a sci-fi RPG setting, it would be hard space fantasy: It would use the second set of assumptions but do so rigorously. As far as I can think of, Dune is the only sci-fi I can think of that does that. 

[/quote]

Traveller does a lot of that:

  • It seems agnostic about physicalism, as far as I understand, but psionics and the Empress Wave hint at something more.
  • Full AIs are hard to achieve; most robots cannot fully replace human beings. The exception is the Virus, but again - no day to day AIs replacing people.
  • Nanotech? What nanotech? 1970's tech assumptions... :-)
  • The Ancients tampered with the evolution of pretty much everyone and spread humans around Known Space.
  • Jump travel is pretty routine, though relatively costly.
  • No discussion of quantum collapse, but there are Psionics (which "scientific" basis is not explanied as far s I can remember).

[quote="golan2072"]

 

 

In contrast, what I like are:

  • physicalism is not true - there's something more
  • human minds aren't just computers - luminous beings are we - and AI never replaces people
  • nanotech doesn't work reliably - no magic mini-robots replace all machinery
  • evolution isn't the full answer, and progenitors, uplift, panpsychic cosmology or something else is involved
  • speed of light travel is routine
  • quantum collapse is caused by consciousness and is the basis of psychic powers

Though these assumptions above are implicit in Star Wars and Warhammer 40K, they are not taken seriously or well-defined, and the result is Jedi that can do whatever, ships that travel at speed of plot, etc.

If I designed a sci-fi RPG setting, it would be hard space fantasy: It would use the second set of assumptions but do so rigorously. As far as I can think of, Dune is the only sci-fi I can think of that does that. 

 


-Alex

 

Traveller does a lot of that:

  • It seems agnostic about physicalism, as far as I understand, but psionics and the Empress Wave hint at something more.
  • Full AIs are hard to achieve; most robots cannot fully replace human beings. The exception is the Virus, but again - no day to day AIs replacing people.
  • Nanotech? What nanotech? 1970's tech assumptions... :-)
  • The Ancients tampered with the evolution of pretty much everyone and spread humans around Known Space.
  • Jump travel is pretty routine, though relatively costly.
  • No discussion of quantum collapse, but there are Psionics (which "scientific" basis is not explanied as far s I can remember).

[/quote]

All of those are reasons why I have never considered Traveller to be hard sci-fi.

Traveller is not hard sci-fi, but rather old-school space-opera inspired by 1950's-1970's sci-fi, especially Dumarest, Space Viking, and Van Rijn. But it does have a "hard-ish" feel to it in some cases.

I think the hardness of sci-fi is measured by how a work treats its sci-fi elements: If it goes into the nitty-gritty details of how things work and what they can and can't be used for, that's "harder" than if it only uses its sci-fi elements as handwaves for explaining stuff without exploring the nature of those technologies in any detail... But maybe I'm wrong about that? I'm willing to believe I've somehow misled myself about this particular thing.

Omer, you're right - Traveller does qualify. It isn't explicit but it's definitely implicit in the setting. 

 

[quote="golan2072"]

Traveller is not hard sci-fi, but rather old-school space-opera inspired by 1950's-1970's sci-fi, especially Dumarest, Space Viking, and Van Rijn. But it does have a "hard-ish" feel to it in some cases.

[/quote]

Vector movement of spacecraft and prominence of gunpowder weapons. Oh, and various attempts at a functional economy, all of which are proclaimed "broken" because players can discover ways for their PCs to escape poverty/debt unless the Referee actively stops them.

Love Traveller, but a lot of the online Traveller community is too narrow-minded for my tastes.