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Pen & Paper Roleplaying Central => Pen and Paper Roleplaying Games (RPGs) Discussion => Topic started by: tenbones on November 23, 2021, 11:01:59 PM

Title: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: tenbones on November 23, 2021, 11:01:59 PM
This is not about systems, per se. This is about genre conceits and "what is cool". AND more importantly, do established Space Opera settings get in the way of your ability to enjoy other settings in the genre?

What elements do you like in a Space Opera?

 - Human space federation?
 - FTL?
 - Pseudo-Science?
 - Lots of humanoid aliens?
 - Capital ship customization and combat?
 - Fighter-scale combat?
 - Psionics? How powerful?
 - Politics/Exploration?

What KILLS Space Opera for you when it raises its head?

Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: HappyDaze on November 24, 2021, 12:34:10 AM
I don't like my space opera to take too hard a line on science when it comes to starships. I want space fighters that dogfight and ponderous capital ships firing barrages at one another. I don't want combatants that eliminate one another at extraordinary ranges with missiles/drones.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Spinachcat on November 24, 2021, 01:35:23 AM
>What KILLS Space Opera for you when it raises its head?

Realism.

It's why I call it Space Fantasy when I run it. Not enough people understand the "opera" part and what it means because the public schools have failed civilization.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: S'mon on November 24, 2021, 01:52:56 AM
I like all those things OP.

My big problem with Space Opera - a genre I love - is that for easy long term RPG play you need a default game activity, and space opera gaming does not have the equivalent of D&D's 'go in the dungeon & loot'. Traveller has 'buy & sell', and Star Wars has 'go shoot some Stormtroopers'. The former is a bit dull. The latter is ok for linear mission based play, but does not lend it to the kind of sandboxing I like.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Aglondir on November 24, 2021, 02:36:37 AM
This is about genre conceits and "what is cool". AND more importantly, do established Space Opera settings get in the way of your ability to enjoy other settings in the genre? What elements do you like in a Space Opera?... What KILLS Space Opera for you when it raises its head?

Wow, great question. Cool Established Settings:

Babylon 5
Buck Rogers XXV
Dark Matter
Fading Suns
Lightspeed
Pirates of Drinax
Serenity
Star Hero's Terran Empire
Stars Without Numbers (Post-Scream space)
TravellerMap.com


Not Cool Settings (could fill up a page why they are uncool):

Star Trek's Federation
Star Wars


Cool Stuff

A humans-only universe
Ancient technology
Anti-grav tech
Bringing a sword to a blaster fight
Cargo cults
Droids that look like machines
Droids that can pass as human (androids, replicants)
Evil AI's
Genetic engineering (replacement limbs, altered humans)
Humanoid aliens can be cool if done right
Jumpgates
New space religions and cults
Noble houses
NPC aliens that can't be comprehended
Psionics that are not too powerful
Psionics when the focus is on the dramatic elements and not kewl powerz (see Babylon 5)
Ships that spin for gravity
Space combat that's like pirates (broadsides and boarding parties)
Wet nano-tech (inside your body, it can heal you)


Uncool Stuff

AIs that run the PCs ship
Alien PC races that are so alien they are unplayable
Cloning tech (usually)
Dogfights in space
Dry nano-tech (creating/disintegrating objects. See space magic)
Light sabers, etc.
Mecha
Replicators
Space magic (The Force)
Space magic (Treknology)
Space magic (Very powerful psionics)
Teleportation, transporters
The "Better Than You in Every Way" race (Vulcans, Minbari, Space Elves)
The players are plucky rebels fighting an evil empire

Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: jeff37923 on November 24, 2021, 07:00:39 AM
This is not about systems, per se. This is about genre conceits and "what is cool". AND more importantly, do established Space Opera settings get in the way of your ability to enjoy other settings in the genre?

What elements do you like in a Space Opera?

 - Human space federation?
 - FTL?
 - Pseudo-Science?
 - Lots of humanoid aliens?
 - Capital ship customization and combat?
 - Fighter-scale combat?
 - Psionics? How powerful?
 - Politics/Exploration?

What KILLS Space Opera for you when it raises its head?

It all depends on how it is handled.

I think psionics are bullshit "space magic" from a crystal worshiping bygone era of science fiction literature. Don't like them one bit. However, the way that they are handled in the Babylon 5 setting and the Official Traveller Universe as the Zhodani Consulate are really done well and thus are tolerable. I'd like to see more adventures showing how these settings got to that point because I can easily see Akira level and Stranger Things level of disasters previously in the setting history as people experimented with psionics.

If the setting only gives lip service to science and engineering, then it is science fantasy like Star Trek and Star Wars. Yet they work when they are internally consistent. This is one of the reasons why the Star Wars sequels and Star Trek Voyager failed - the characters that had been established went against their own moral and ethical convictions to behave in manners particularly unlike their characters as had been established.

If you go for hard science space opera, you have to deal with the probability that Faster Then Light travel is impossible, that life on other worlds may be just simple unicellular forms (mainly because mitochondria may have been just a happy accident on Earth), and that magical nanotech can't happen because of engineering thermodynamic problems (a lot of heat will get generated during assembly/disassembly). These factors would make for an interesting setting, but would not capture the interest of most players (as evidenced by the responses to this thread).

Lets look at direct neural interface between humans and machines. This looks highly improbable the more you look at the difficulties involved, yet it gets kept around and used because it is a cool idea to have in a game. So it stays because of Rule of Cool.

Where ideas in space opera, and science fiction in general, gaming fail is when they break the suspension of disbelief in the players. Star Wars as a setting works with all its violations of known science because it established a suspension of disbelief in the audience thanks mainly to its cinematic roots. It doesn't matter that AT-ATs and AT-STs are some of the most impractical war machines ever seen, they look cool and provide a credible threat to the heroes since they first appeared in The Empire Strikes Back - so they are accepted in the setting. Staying within the Star Wars setting, Mary Sue Palpatine (Rey) fails the suspension of disbelief in the sequel trilogy because there is nothing that she cannot do with the Force while Din Djarin succeeds in The Mandalorian because while he is heroic he has limitations that he cannot exceed which helps to maintain the suspension of disbelief.

I'm starting to ramble, but whether or not a particular space opera setting works for me (and I like it) depends more on how it is implemented than what exact aspects it has in it.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Fighterboy on November 24, 2021, 07:19:02 AM
>What KILLS Space Opera for you when it raises its head?

Realism.


What he said.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Vidgrip on November 24, 2021, 08:14:10 AM
I like all those things OP.

My big problem with Space Opera - a genre I love - is that for easy long term RPG play you need a default game activity, and space opera gaming does not have the equivalent of D&D's 'go in the dungeon & loot'. Traveller has 'buy & sell', and Star Wars has 'go shoot some Stormtroopers'. The former is a bit dull. The latter is ok for linear mission based play, but does not lend it to the kind of sandboxing I like.

This is a brilliant summary of my experiences. I have never had a satisfying space opera sandbox experience because of this.

The other KILL switch is having alien species that are so psychologically similar to humans that they feel like humans in rubber suits. I prefer a human-centric setting with aliens being so alien that they are not playable as PC's.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: jeff37923 on November 24, 2021, 10:05:21 AM
My big problem with Space Opera - a genre I love - is that for easy long term RPG play you need a default game activity, and space opera gaming does not have the equivalent of D&D's 'go in the dungeon & loot'. Traveller has 'buy & sell', and Star Wars has 'go shoot some Stormtroopers'. The former is a bit dull. The latter is ok for linear mission based play, but does not lend it to the kind of sandboxing I like.

I don't mean to be insulting, but this sounds more like a failure of your own imagination than it does a failure of the game systems or official settings. For both Traveller and Star Wars in the official settings you can do campaigns of exploration, colonization, political intrigue, free trade, mining/prospecting, and many others. Hell, some of the weird ones that worked was a wandering rock band,  a new market group of a fast food restaurant chain, and a wildcat graffiti artist collective out to tag every world in known space.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: tenbones on November 24, 2021, 11:41:51 AM
Ship combat is kind of a must for me. Whether it's technical, or abstract, it has to feel right. And it needs to be scalable from ground-craft to capital scale.

I like lots of weaponry - even redundant kinds. Cyberpunk spoiled me on that. Give me brands. AND GIVE ME MODIFICATION RULES. This goes for Armor too.

Blue-Collar Sci-Fi. I like scrabbly folk trying to earn some credit. Firefly, Rim-worlders from Star Wars, the Non-Trek cultures that "doing their thing". Then you have the "authorities" trying to keep the Man down. Be they Stormtroopers, The Alliance, Republic, Federation blah blah

Aliens - I'm fine with rubber-suit humans as long as their cultures are cool. I fully submit that Trek's sillier species like the Andorians, had their stock raised through the roof by ONE MAN - Commander Shran played by the awesome Jeffery Combs. But I like Alien-aliens too.

I always thought Star Control 2 would have made a helluva setting for a Space Opera game. It has rubber-suit aliens and alien-aliens, genocidal serious themes and lots of humor - sometimes both at the same time.

I agree with S'mon about the concerns of Space Opera as a genre, but that is a setting design issue. A good space opera is no different than how I'd approach any fantasy game in this regard, it's just on a much larger physical scale.

Exploration - there always needs to be more exploration. How else to toss in macguffins - or "dungeons" in the form of lost dead civiliations/ghost-fleets/etc. for intrepid adventurers err... starship crew members?

Ancient Races - I can take or leave it. To me it's always tantalizing in the sense that you can introduce irreplaceable and irreproducible tech into the game as "magic items". Plus you can slowly expand the conceits of your setting by implication.

Galactic Scale, not Intergalactic. But interdimensional can be fun too.

Human Federation - I can take it or leave it. Depends on the setup. At the point of having interstellar contact there is little hope humankind would last long without having a unified front (I'm sure I could argue the opposite if I put any thought into it). It just seems unfun to do it that way, reflexively. I don't need humans to be top-dog. Or bottom-dog (ala David Brin's insanely good Uplift saga) with Feisty Adaptive Points! It's all in sticking the landing relative to whatever else is in play.

 
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Premier on November 24, 2021, 11:54:50 AM
OP got me thinking about the necessary minimum requirements of Space Opera - the stuff without which you can't have it. I think it's the following:

- There is an active, dynamic conflict or threat with a moral dimension. There are Bad Guys out there, and if someone doesn't do something, the Bad Guys will win.
- Extraordinary individuals have a chance to change the outcome of that conflict. The Big Damn Heroes step up to the plate and actively participate in the conflict. A party that spends all of its time looting space dungeons and swindling primitive natives while not giving a shit about the Evil Empire is NOT Space Opera
- Individual actions triumph over objective chances. The Big Damn Heroes can succeed even if they have a smaller force, less advanced weaponry, and a crappy logistics train.

MAYBE:
- The technological assumptions of the setting (be they realistic or not) are set up in such a way as to facilitate space combat. The setting allows for spaceships to go pew-pew at each other, because it's cool.

In my opinion, anything else might be a common element in Space Opera, but is not strictly necessary. You CAN have S.O. without a sprawling interstellar empire, you set within a single solar system. You CAN have it with only humans, or with a bewildering array of aliens. You CAN have it handwaved bullshit technology or with reasonably realistic hard sci-fi. You CAN have it with or without space magic, whether that be psionics, nanotech, cybernetics or actual supernatural powers.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: tenbones on November 24, 2021, 01:31:25 PM
So is the active threat immediately extant? The Federation is *immediately* known to be in conflict with the Romulans and Klingons. Or is the threat to be discovered? Like the Shadows in Babylon 5?

Or both? I like both - since the discovered threat(s) become leverage to scale the setting upwards and outwards when the time comes for the GM to push things.

Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Premier on November 24, 2021, 01:33:47 PM
Personally, I think it should be *more than just background noise*. Sure enough, not every adventure has to be about directly confronting the Bad Guys, but telling the side story of some petty smugglers/adventurers/whatever who have nothing to do with the big conflict while the actual heroes are getting shit done off-screen is not very Space Operatic.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: S'mon on November 24, 2021, 02:57:33 PM
Personally, I think it should be *more than just background noise*. Sure enough, not every adventure has to be about directly confronting the Bad Guys, but telling the side story of some petty smugglers/adventurers/whatever who have nothing to do with the big conflict while the actual heroes are getting shit done off-screen is not very Space Operatic.

Hm, well, you could do it like Goblin Slayer basically as a subversion of genre tropes.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Premier on November 24, 2021, 05:16:04 PM
Hm, well, you could do it like Goblin Slayer basically as a subversion of genre tropes.

I've never watched Goblin Slayer, but sure, you could play as a subversion of Space Opera genre tropes... but within the context of this thread, why would you want to? The OP's question wasn't about how to play Space Opera while not really playing Space Opera; it was about how to play honest-to-god Space Opera.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: jeff37923 on November 24, 2021, 05:58:50 PM
Hm, well, you could do it like Goblin Slayer basically as a subversion of genre tropes.

I've never watched Goblin Slayer, but sure, you could play as a subversion of Space Opera genre tropes... but within the context of this thread, why would you want to? The OP's question wasn't about how to play Space Opera while not really playing Space Opera; it was about how to play honest-to-god Space Opera.

Except the definition of space opera has changed over the years. A lot of the responses here regard space opera as a direct descendant of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, but there was a time when Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle were writing space opera with Footfall and The Mote in God's Eye. Some have even called Alastair Reynolds House of Suns to be space opera.

"Honest-to-God" space opera should be defined.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Wrath of God on November 24, 2021, 06:37:37 PM
For me Space Feudalism is Da Way.
Somewhere between Fading Suns, Dune and Warhammer.

Bit more diverse and larger than FS with its (5 houses, 5 sects, 5 guilds standard), less sprawling and less based on SUPERHUMAN than Dune, less insane and parodistic than 40k.
Both psionic and some occult/theurgic/mystic more organised powers are fine for me. Diversity of weaponry.
Some sort of anti-technology stance as common tendency among mankind at least default mankind.
Definitely space demons.
Aliens both somehow humanoid - potentially linked by common meddling of ELDER RACE, and alien from world independent from ER meddlings.
Not much massive bombastic wars like in 40k. If such happens they fuck up whole civilisation for few generation.

Now one thing in those 3 that always annoyed me was some future space religions that payed symbolic structural lip service to real life Abrahamic religions while being fundamentally something else - Ecclesia in Warhammer, Church in Dune. I decided way to avoid this sense of irkness would be to remove abrahamic religions from backstory - evolve world independently from Year 0 (one would say even earlier but I think generally speaking Israel was geopolitically one plucky Caanan kingdom among many, and never had like reallly imperial role in history sans religio) and then like move humanity from pagan philosophies of imperial era, to religion based on revelation while in space.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Ratman_tf on November 24, 2021, 07:14:41 PM
Hm, well, you could do it like Goblin Slayer basically as a subversion of genre tropes.

I've never watched Goblin Slayer, but sure, you could play as a subversion of Space Opera genre tropes... but within the context of this thread, why would you want to? The OP's question wasn't about how to play Space Opera while not really playing Space Opera; it was about how to play honest-to-god Space Opera.

Except the definition of space opera has changed over the years. A lot of the responses here regard space opera as a direct descendant of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, but there was a time when Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle were writing space opera with Footfall and The Mote in God's Eye. Some have even called Alastair Reynolds House of Suns to be space opera.

"Honest-to-God" space opera should be defined.

Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Shawn Driscoll on November 24, 2021, 11:18:02 PM
What KILLS Space Opera for you when it raises its head?
When spacebombers fly over other spaceships and drop their payload of bombs on them. Anyway, space opera is just soap opera in space is all. So figure out how you would run a soap opera. Then add space to it.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: David Johansen on November 24, 2021, 11:27:46 PM
The space bombers are just using the ship's internal artificial gravity to power their release, what's wrong with that? :D

I generally feel the big problem with Star Wars is that the movies generally need five minutes of explanation added.

I lean towards harder sf.  I do like FTL because it lets you go somewhere new every week.  You can face entirely different geopolitics from one session to the next.

For space opera I do like some consistency and thoughtfulness.  To me the big line is thinking about how various technologies would affect society.  You can postulate a matter / energy conversion system so advanced that it can create virtual worlds and artificial sentient beings but please explain why they keep using it when it malfunctions every single time it comes up.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: GeekyBugle on November 25, 2021, 11:36:15 AM
I like all those things OP.

My big problem with Space Opera - a genre I love - is that for easy long term RPG play you need a default game activity, and space opera gaming does not have the equivalent of D&D's 'go in the dungeon & loot'. Traveller has 'buy & sell', and Star Wars has 'go shoot some Stormtroopers'. The former is a bit dull. The latter is ok for linear mission based play, but does not lend it to the kind of sandboxing I like.

This is a brilliant summary of my experiences. I have never had a satisfying space opera sandbox experience because of this.

The other KILL switch is having alien species that are so psychologically similar to humans that they feel like humans in rubber suits. I prefer a human-centric setting with aliens being so alien that they are not playable as PC's.

Mix in some Stargate then:

You go exploring to find tech from "The Ancients tm". You rescue Humans on those other worlds. You fight the Evil Aliens by using said "Ancient Tech".

All of this could be as a goverment agent, a plucky group of adventurers, etc.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: 3catcircus on November 26, 2021, 08:02:40 PM
This is not about systems, per se. This is about genre conceits and "what is cool". AND more importantly, do established Space Opera settings get in the way of your ability to enjoy other settings in the genre?

What elements do you like in a Space Opera?

 - Human space federation?
 - FTL?
 - Pseudo-Science?
 - Lots of humanoid aliens?
 - Capital ship customization and combat?
 - Fighter-scale combat?
 - Psionics? How powerful?
 - Politics/Exploration?

What KILLS Space Opera for you when it raises its head?

It all depends on how it is handled.

I think psionics are bullshit "space magic" from a crystal worshiping bygone era of science fiction literature. Don't like them one bit. However, the way that they are handled in the Babylon 5 setting and the Official Traveller Universe as the Zhodani Consulate are really done well and thus are tolerable. I'd like to see more adventures showing how these settings got to that point because I can easily see Akira level and Stranger Things level of disasters previously in the setting history as people experimented with psionics.

If the setting only gives lip service to science and engineering, then it is science fantasy like Star Trek and Star Wars. Yet they work when they are internally consistent. This is one of the reasons why the Star Wars sequels and Star Trek Voyager failed - the characters that had been established went against their own moral and ethical convictions to behave in manners particularly unlike their characters as had been established.

If you go for hard science space opera, you have to deal with the probability that Faster Then Light travel is impossible, that life on other worlds may be just simple unicellular forms (mainly because mitochondria may have been just a happy accident on Earth), and that magical nanotech can't happen because of engineering thermodynamic problems (a lot of heat will get generated during assembly/disassembly). These factors would make for an interesting setting, but would not capture the interest of most players (as evidenced by the responses to this thread).

Lets look at direct neural interface between humans and machines. This looks highly improbable the more you look at the difficulties involved, yet it gets kept around and used because it is a cool idea to have in a game. So it stays because of Rule of Cool.

Where ideas in space opera, and science fiction in general, gaming fail is when they break the suspension of disbelief in the players. Star Wars as a setting works with all its violations of known science because it established a suspension of disbelief in the audience thanks mainly to its cinematic roots. It doesn't matter that AT-ATs and AT-STs are some of the most impractical war machines ever seen, they look cool and provide a credible threat to the heroes since they first appeared in The Empire Strikes Back - so they are accepted in the setting. Staying within the Star Wars setting, Mary Sue Palpatine (Rey) fails the suspension of disbelief in the sequel trilogy because there is nothing that she cannot do with the Force while Din Djarin succeeds in The Mandalorian because while he is heroic he has limitations that he cannot exceed which helps to maintain the suspension of disbelief.

I'm starting to ramble, but whether or not a particular space opera setting works for me (and I like it) depends more on how it is implemented than what exact aspects it has in it.

So. In regards to the neural interface and other "future tech." We're already there. It's crude, but there are things to allow amputees and quadriplegics to control stuff. 

There are many "almost there" technologies that can be used to make things imperfect and unsafe with FTL travel, direct neural interfaces, laserguns, Star Trek style teleporters, etc.

Even psionics should be imperfect with the possibility of burning out your brain, inadvertently destroying stuff of injuring those around you.

Oh - and the whole starship combat - it needs to be silent and it needs to be four dimensional rather than "WW2 dogfights with spaceships."
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Charon's Little Helper on November 26, 2021, 11:48:41 PM
I like all those things OP.

My big problem with Space Opera - a genre I love - is that for easy long term RPG play you need a default game activity, and space opera gaming does not have the equivalent of D&D's 'go in the dungeon & loot'. Traveller has 'buy & sell', and Star Wars has 'go shoot some Stormtroopers'. The former is a bit dull. The latter is ok for linear mission based play, but does not lend it to the kind of sandboxing I like.

I find starship sci-fi (not necessarily full-on space opera) works well when the setting allows for small groups of privateers to be viable. Maybe not in the core systems, but on the outskirts/frontier/etc.

So you can take jobs as pirate hunters, as guards for a convoy, to hunt down stolen cargo, or to hunt down a bounty etc.

While privateers specifically don't fit a lot of sci-fi settings, having the PCs be bounty hunters who moonlight as general purpose mercs isn't generally super hard so long as there isn't instant interstellar communication.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Mistwell on November 27, 2021, 01:16:15 AM
My big problem with Space Opera - a genre I love - is that for easy long term RPG play you need a default game activity, and space opera gaming does not have the equivalent of D&D's 'go in the dungeon & loot'. Traveller has 'buy & sell', and Star Wars has 'go shoot some Stormtroopers'. The former is a bit dull. The latter is ok for linear mission based play, but does not lend it to the kind of sandboxing I like.

I don't mean to be insulting, but this sounds more like a failure of your own imagination than it does a failure of the game systems or official settings. For both Traveller and Star Wars in the official settings you can do campaigns of exploration, colonization, political intrigue, free trade, mining/prospecting, and many others. Hell, some of the weird ones that worked was a wandering rock band,  a new market group of a fast food restaurant chain, and a wildcat graffiti artist collective out to tag every world in known space.

Every time I see your ideas concerning traveler I get inspired. Do you have a blog or videos or anything collecting your ideas or campaign reports or anything like that?
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: RebelSky on December 01, 2021, 04:03:07 PM
The Galaxy's Edge book series has everything I like about Space Opera and Military Sci-Fi.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: RandyB on December 01, 2021, 04:28:01 PM
FGUs Space Opera is a wacky, kitchen-sink approach to classic space opera, and the flavor of the game still appeals to me.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Pat on December 01, 2021, 05:13:21 PM
I think space opera in a lot of ways is closer to the fantasy genre than to what I see as the foundation of science fiction. Which is okay. But I would like to see more elements from science fiction in my space opera. To me, science fiction is the genre of ideas. It's about all the infinite possibilities, not just rehashes of the same thing, except this time with pointy ears or a beam of light of a different color. Steal weird crap from different stories, and make it a part of the setting.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: zend0g on December 01, 2021, 11:41:33 PM
The other KILL switch is having alien species that are so psychologically similar to humans that they feel like humans in rubber suits. I prefer a human-centric setting with aliens being so alien that they are not playable as PC's.
It's a hard balance. It's like the difference between Traveller  (and MegaTraveller) with their humanoid (for a reason) alien races (along with some truly alien races) and Traveller 2300AD with much more alien, alien races. I always had players that wanted to play a Vargr or Aslan. In 2300? It was almost always human-centric games. 
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: tenbones on December 07, 2021, 10:04:49 AM
If you had to synthesize it down to existing properties, or if you wanted to do a mashup Space Opera Heartbreaker (if you want to denote the system you'd use as well that's fine) - what would it look like?
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: GeekyBugle on December 07, 2021, 11:29:15 AM

- Extraordinary individuals have a chance to change the outcome of that conflict. The Big Damn Heroes step up to the plate and actively participate in the conflict. A party that spends all of its time looting space dungeons and swindling primitive natives while not giving a shit about the Evil Empire is NOT Space Opera



Green: All the time sure, but the party could very well spend a long time going from space base to planet to abandoned space station looking for a mccguffin needed to defeat the BBG.

Blue: IMHO that's a no-no, Space Opera tends towards a black & white morality. Unless it's the charming rogue that will/has reform and joins the good guys.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Mishihari on December 07, 2021, 01:13:03 PM
I like
  Fast action
  A setting akin to the age of pirates
  FTL
  Lots of sciency-looking stuff
  Space combat
  Ancient ruins
  Alien aliens
  Exploration among uncharted stars (brownie points for anyone who catches the reference)
  Humor
Don't like
  Humans are irrelevant to the setting (I'm looking at you, Iain Banks...)
  Godlike AI
  Time travel
  Rey
  Really dumb science mistakes

As an example, Pirates of the Caribbean in space would be perfect.   Authors that hit many elements of the right tone, though not all of them are space opera, include Poul Anderson, Andre Norton, Larry Niven, John Ringo, Jerry Pournelle, and David Drake.  Counterexamples would be Iain Banks and Peter Hamilton.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Aglondir on December 07, 2021, 06:27:11 PM
A setting akin to the age of pirates
I'd like to see a space opera setting that ditched the WW2 dogfights for broadsides and boarding parties (breaching pods.) Where the goal of space combat isn't to blow up the opposing ship, but capture it.


Exploration among uncharted stars (brownie points for anyone who catches the reference)
Sorry, missed it (?)

Rey
LOL

Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Marchand on December 08, 2021, 05:59:49 AM

Don't like
  Humans are irrelevant to the setting (I'm looking at you, Iain Banks...)
  Godlike AI


As an example, Pirates of the Caribbean in space would be perfect.   Authors that hit many elements of the right tone, though not all of them are space opera, include Poul Anderson, Andre Norton, Larry Niven, John Ringo, Jerry Pournelle, and David Drake.  Counterexamples would be Iain Banks and Peter Hamilton.

As far as pirates in space goes, have you caught the Alastair Reynolds Revenger/Shadow Captain series? It pretty much aims for exactly this vibe. Space pirates delving space dungeons for treasure.

Also, not sure I follow on Iain Banks. Culture people are not Earth humans but in practice they might as well be (and some of them fit into Earth 1977 well enough to pass as locals in State of the Art). Is it that the Culture is heavily influenced by its AIs? In practice the AIs are either working on a different plane and so ignorable, or when they interact with humans, they show basically human personalities and motivations. The drones are really just people in robot suits.

Consider Phlebas, set during the Idiran war, has some very gameable sequences, like the raid on the temple or on the doomed Orbital, or the final race to secure the macguffin in the tunnels.

Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: S'mon on December 08, 2021, 06:54:41 AM
Hm, well, you could do it like Goblin Slayer basically as a subversion of genre tropes.

I've never watched Goblin Slayer, but sure, you could play as a subversion of Space Opera genre tropes... but within the context of this thread, why would you want to? The OP's question wasn't about how to play Space Opera while not really playing Space Opera; it was about how to play honest-to-god Space Opera.

Except the definition of space opera has changed over the years. A lot of the responses here regard space opera as a direct descendant of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, but there was a time when Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle were writing space opera with Footfall and The Mote in God's Eye. Some have even called Alastair Reynolds House of Suns to be space opera.

"Honest-to-God" space opera should be defined.

I agree, there is a pretty broad genre that can legitimately be considered space opera. Just from TV & film I'd certainly think Star Wars, Star Trek, Firefly; and I think a lot of military SF like Starship Troopers could reasonably count. Literary SF like Asimov's Foundation series or Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep I think counts, though very dry Hard SF I think lacks that 'operatic' dramatic feel. I don't think Arthur C Clarke ever wrote Space Opera.

The scope does not always have to be the Fate of the Galaxy, either - swashbuckling space opera can have smaller stakes, as long as there's drama and flair.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: S'mon on December 08, 2021, 07:02:37 AM
My big problem with Space Opera - a genre I love - is that for easy long term RPG play you need a default game activity, and space opera gaming does not have the equivalent of D&D's 'go in the dungeon & loot'. Traveller has 'buy & sell', and Star Wars has 'go shoot some Stormtroopers'. The former is a bit dull. The latter is ok for linear mission based play, but does not lend it to the kind of sandboxing I like.

I don't mean to be insulting, but this sounds more like a failure of your own imagination than it does a failure of the game systems or official settings. For both Traveller and Star Wars in the official settings you can do campaigns of exploration, colonization, political intrigue, free trade, mining/prospecting, and many others. Hell, some of the weird ones that worked was a wandering rock band,  a new market group of a fast food restaurant chain, and a wildcat graffiti artist collective out to tag every world in known space.

You can do anything in any game, the question is whether the game itself offers support for that activity. Are there rules with an obstacle-action-reward play loop for that activity? Traditional D&D has a ton of support for dungeon-bashing. Traveller has a full play loop for free trading. For exploration, it is good at generating environments, but afaict it does not generate rewards for exploration, so the GM has to come up with something. I'm not aware of any game that has a full play loop for being a wandering rock band (not even Cyberpunk 2020!) or for being graffiti artists.

Edit: For the rock band, I'd expect
(a) environment generators - what gig, where.
(b) Obstacle generators - obsessed fans, travel issues, technical issues - and ways for the PCs to address them beyond simply rolling the 'solve problem' skill.
(c) Rewards, dependent on PC choices and achievements.

Otherwise it's just a chargen system followed by the rulebook author waving their hands "You're on your own now".
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Wrath of God on December 08, 2021, 09:51:20 AM
Quote
Blue: IMHO that's a no-no, Space Opera tends towards a black & white morality. Unless it's the charming rogue that will/has reform and joins the good guys.

Some parts of it sure - like Star Wars. But then there are many works counted as Space Opera commonly without such assumptions: Dune, Legend of Galactic Heroes, Hyperion.

Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Mishihari on December 08, 2021, 03:16:17 PM

Also, not sure I follow on Iain Banks. Culture people are not Earth humans but in practice they might as well be (and some of them fit into Earth 1977 well enough to pass as locals in State of the Art). Is it that the Culture is heavily influenced by its AIs? In practice the AIs are either working on a different plane and so ignorable, or when they interact with humans, they show basically human personalities and motivations. The drones are really just people in robot suits.

Consider Phlebas, set during the Idiran war, has some very gameable sequences, like the raid on the temple or on the doomed Orbital, or the final race to secure the macguffin in the tunnels.

It may have to do with which books I read.  I think I read Excession first, in which humans are essentially pets of the AIs.  They don't accomplish anything, they don't get to make any decisions, and nothing they do is of consequence because the AIs are better at everything.  I think I read one more which didn't change my impression, then gave up on the author.

I'm not saying it's not gameable, and I'm not saying it's not space opera.  I'm just saying I don't enjoy the setting and don't care to read or play anything based on it.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on December 09, 2021, 03:20:29 PM
I think "space opera" has become so broad as to be effectively meaningless. I prefer to take a sentence or two to describe what the player characters are expected to be doing.

I'm currently working on a setting inspired by a variety of influences, primarily 80s/90s gritty scifi. There's FTL travel, cyberpunk, a bug war, psychics, espionage, mechs, corpos, genemods, cyborgs, and so on. It's basically d20 Future. I wouldn't call it space opera, tho.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: HappyDaze on December 10, 2021, 12:37:36 PM
A setting akin to the age of pirates
I'd like to see a space opera setting that ditched the WW2 dogfights for broadsides and boarding parties (breaching pods.) Where the goal of space combat isn't to blow up the opposing ship, but capture it.
If you don't mind WH40K, the FFG Rogue Trader game was age of sail piracy in space. When going against non-Chaos/non-Xenos vessels, capture was far preferred over destruction.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: DragonBane on December 10, 2021, 02:26:40 PM
Old Star Trek style.

Cool Action.

Great people.

Phasers.

Cool aliens. Even that Gorn lizard thing would make a great monster.

Babes in miniskirts.  ::)
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: DragonBane on December 10, 2021, 02:32:56 PM
How do you get rid of a post here?
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: jeff37923 on December 10, 2021, 05:05:37 PM
My big problem with Space Opera - a genre I love - is that for easy long term RPG play you need a default game activity, and space opera gaming does not have the equivalent of D&D's 'go in the dungeon & loot'. Traveller has 'buy & sell', and Star Wars has 'go shoot some Stormtroopers'. The former is a bit dull. The latter is ok for linear mission based play, but does not lend it to the kind of sandboxing I like.

I don't mean to be insulting, but this sounds more like a failure of your own imagination than it does a failure of the game systems or official settings. For both Traveller and Star Wars in the official settings you can do campaigns of exploration, colonization, political intrigue, free trade, mining/prospecting, and many others. Hell, some of the weird ones that worked was a wandering rock band,  a new market group of a fast food restaurant chain, and a wildcat graffiti artist collective out to tag every world in known space.

You can do anything in any game, the question is whether the game itself offers support for that activity. Are there rules with an obstacle-action-reward play loop for that activity? Traditional D&D has a ton of support for dungeon-bashing. Traveller has a full play loop for free trading. For exploration, it is good at generating environments, but afaict it does not generate rewards for exploration, so the GM has to come up with something. I'm not aware of any game that has a full play loop for being a wandering rock band (not even Cyberpunk 2020!) or for being graffiti artists.

Edit: For the rock band, I'd expect
(a) environment generators - what gig, where.
(b) Obstacle generators - obsessed fans, travel issues, technical issues - and ways for the PCs to address them beyond simply rolling the 'solve problem' skill.
(c) Rewards, dependent on PC choices and achievements.

Otherwise it's just a chargen system followed by the rulebook author waving their hands "You're on your own now".

T4 Main Rulebook, p167 -

Performances: Characters may also sell their artistic talents in performances. The normal base payoff for a performance tour (one month) on each world is Cr500 times the market world’s population code (from its UWP). Multiply this times
the appropriate skill level of the performer (Acting, Art, Dance, Music, or Writing), and then multiply it again by the Broker skill of the character acting as agent (which may be the performer himself). Then consult the Actual Value Table for the final payoff, applying the usual modifiers (including Broker skill). No modifiers apply for souceworld or marketworld; it is assumed that the performer tailors the show to suit the audience.

For example, a performer with with Music-3, managed by a trader with Broker-4, performing on a world with a population code of 10, would have a base price of Cr60,000 (3 x 4 x 10 x Cr500). If the roll on the Actual Value Table were 9, the Broker skill would raise this to 13, resulting in a 200 percent payoff. The performer would receive Cr120,000 for this set of shows.

These rules are what we used for the rock band and the graffiti artists.

As far as generating gigs and obstacles, I'd just log onto artists websites and social media to steal ideas from those. Rolling Stone was great for pop culture ideas.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Svenhelgrim on December 11, 2021, 12:10:23 PM
I love all of the things listed.  BRING ON THE CHEESE.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Lurkndog on December 12, 2021, 12:05:08 AM
OP got me thinking about the necessary minimum requirements of Space Opera - the stuff without which you can't have it. I think it's the following:

- There is an active, dynamic conflict or threat with a moral dimension. There are Bad Guys out there, and if someone doesn't do something, the Bad Guys will win.
- Extraordinary individuals have a chance to change the outcome of that conflict. The Big Damn Heroes step up to the plate and actively participate in the conflict. A party that spends all of its time looting space dungeons and swindling primitive natives while not giving a shit about the Evil Empire is NOT Space Opera
- Individual actions triumph over objective chances. The Big Damn Heroes can succeed even if they have a smaller force, less advanced weaponry, and a crappy logistics train.

MAYBE:
- The technological assumptions of the setting (be they realistic or not) are set up in such a way as to facilitate space combat. The setting allows for spaceships to go pew-pew at each other, because it's cool.

In my opinion, anything else might be a common element in Space Opera, but is not strictly necessary. You CAN have S.O. without a sprawling interstellar empire, you set within a single solar system. You CAN have it with only humans, or with a bewildering array of aliens. You CAN have it handwaved bullshit technology or with reasonably realistic hard sci-fi. You CAN have it with or without space magic, whether that be psionics, nanotech, cybernetics or actual supernatural powers.
A couple additions:
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Stephen Tannhauser on December 12, 2021, 01:38:31 PM
What elements do you like in a Space Opera?

For me the things I definitely like are:
- FTL. I want scope and multiple worlds with the same people.
- I like the science and tech as hard as necessary to be convincing, while still wild enough to be fascinating and different. (Yes, energy hand weapons aren't as realistic a possible tech as we once thought they might be, but I still want my pew-pew rayguns, dammit!)
- Spacecraft combat, both at small (fighter) and large (capital) scales.
- Politics and exploration, definitely.
- Action as well as drama.
- Aliens I can take or leave, but I definitely like a universe large enough to contain them even if they aren't in a given story.
- I definitely like psi/mystical powers, although not at such a level that characters without them become irrelevant to the plot.

Quote
What KILLS Space Opera for you when it raises its head?

The things that I really don't like are less specific tropes and more general attitudes, all of which can probably be summed up as anything that feels too "anti-human", or "anti-hope". Alastair Reynolds' stuff looks very bleak and cynical, as does much of Iain Banks' Culture stuff or John Scalzi's Interdependency. Hitting too hard on ideas like "no place in the universe will ever really live up to Earth as a home for humans", "transhumanism is both inevitable and dehumanizing", "people are just no damn good and won't get any better out in space", etc. I don't mind acknowledging the universe's vastness and darkness, but not at the expense of any light.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Heavy Josh on December 12, 2021, 04:13:59 PM
This is not about systems, per se. This is about genre conceits and "what is cool". AND more importantly, do established Space Opera settings get in the way of your ability to enjoy other settings in the genre?

What elements do you like in a Space Opera?

I like Traveller's baseline assumption that there's no interstellar FTL communications. It is a great way to keep the action focused on the PCs and makes the players responsible for their decisions. It's also a very easy thing to get your head around, and feels like a weird old-timey age-of-sail setting choice that activates all the science fiction muscles.

Politics have to be non-utopian, and almost always should show how there's no technological solutions to current political problems that don't cause more problems and issues down the road. There shouldn't be many (if any) clear "good guys" or "bad guys", though I'm not averse to having political villains that are there for the adventurers to fight. One thing that I do enjoy about science fiction is that it does provide many opportunities to comment on real-world issues while keeping a bit of distance. I have one campaign that is all about the PCs spreading civilization and scientific knowledge to planets recovering from the Scream (Stars Without Number). And it has become a commentary on military/political intervention and colonialism, without me having to force it. It's really interesting to watch how the players come to their decisions vis a vis which local government to prop up, which to destroy... neat!

I'm a fan of WW2 dogfights-in-space, but I recognize that it's difficult to pull off well for many campaign styles--unless everyone's a pilot. There is a danger in every scifi game that I run for the whole campaign to turn into the Battle of Britain/USMC Corsair pilots flying off of a small carrier. Some see this as a bug. Some do not.  I do enjoy age of sail ship of the line style space combat because I enjoy age of sail adventure literature too, but Star Wars hooked me early.

I can take or leave psionics or transhumanism, though I enjoyed Altered Carbon on Netflix. Psionics can be fun, but it has to be super-dangerous to the psion. Less like Vancian space-magic.

I like eldritch creatures from non-Euclidian universes/Precursor aliens that left megastructures and monoliths. Just creepy and really makes humanity feel small and ant-like. Yes, I have been enjoying the Expanse TV series and novels, why do you ask?

Exploration should be blue-collar like from Zozer Games' Hostile/Explorers publications. Corporations, unions, and scientific interests should be competing and screwing over PCs all the time. Environmental and other natural hazards are great as well.

Historical linguistics in space: evolution of language, culture, and religion is great. It's like a little bit of archaeology-as-easter-eggs in a game setting.


Quote
What KILLS Space Opera for you when it raises its head?

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SpaceJews (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SpaceJews). Space Jews. Seriously. Not Jewish people in science fiction. Just the trope of racialized characters and cultures mimicking modern-day cultures and stereotypes. A little cultural borrowing for the purposes of filling in a setting is fine. Even welcome, when you have settings where today's societies have settled space (2300, for example). But out-and-out "let's have alien/society X be like modern culture Y" just makes me roll my eyes. It's lazy and dull.

Any willful lack of religion is dumb. Just because it's the future doesn't mean that religion suddenly disappears. Religion is not something to be overcome. Taking it out of a setting just removes adventure opportunities.






Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Aglondir on December 14, 2021, 03:35:24 AM
Any willful lack of religion is dumb. Just because it's the future doesn't mean that religion suddenly disappears. Religion is not something to be overcome. Taking it out of a setting just removes adventure opportunities.

But mainstream Space Opera doesn't take religion out of the setting. Quite the opposite. 

* Star Trek started humanist, maybe even atheist, but by NextGen we see the Federation treats American Indian religions and Vulcan mysticism with respect. In DS9 there is the Religion of the Prophets, which has priests, scared texts, a messiah figure, and a close-minded orthodoxy. Entire episodes, if not the entire series, centers around it. In Voyager, a major character is religious, and his beliefs are featured in several episodes. It's a bit weird we never see any other mainstream Earth religions, but there's definitely religion in Trek.

* Star Wars has the Force, which an imperial commander once said was a "hokey religion." That was probably the majority opinion of the galaxy at the time. In the past, the Jedi had a temple, a library of sacred texts, and a mystic tradition. C3PO mentions "The Maker,"perhaps a god of droids? And the Mandolorians have "The Way" which seems quasi-religious.

* Babylon 5 probably takes the award. In one show, a Catholic priest, a Baptist preacher, and a Minbari mystic compare their faiths. Entire shows feature religious elements and themes, like the one that featured a Catholic monastery and explored the concept of forgiveness. We even get to see a major character heralded as a modern day religious icon, much to his dismay.

* New Battlestar Galactica probably comes in second place. A new monotheistic cult challenged the existing polythetistic religion. The show even touched on issue of separation of church and state, when some of the citizens questioned if the president was being influenced too much by religious leaders.

* Firefly didn't do much with religion, but they did acknowledge that it still existed. One of the characters was a "shepherd," probably a modern version of a Christian pastor. Granted the writers seemed more interested in hinting at his mysterious past than bringing religious elements into the show, but it was there.

* Dune is too complex to encapsulate in a single forum post, but... Orange Catholic Bible. Zensunni.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: S'mon on December 14, 2021, 09:09:26 AM
* Star Trek started humanist, maybe even atheist, but by NextGen we see the Federation treats American Indian religions and Vulcan mysticism with respect.

Uhura: "It's not the Sun in the Sky... it's the Son of God!"

I'd say she was probably Christian, and judging by other comments the Federation/Earth ruling class seem agnostic overall. By Next Gen the Federation ruling class are Atheist, paralleling developments in Southern California 60s to 80s, but treat Hippy New Age mysticism stuff with respect.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: horsesoldier on December 14, 2021, 12:59:32 PM
What elements do you like in a Space Opera?

Whole wide galaxy to explore, settlements on the fringes, low populated dangerous worlds, ability to make/lose a fortune. Kind of like the west in America post civil war I guess.

 - Human space federation?

As long as it is decentralized. Holy Roman Empire as opposed to the British Empire.

 - FTL?

Yes, and not instant.

 - Pseudo-Science?

Can't really have sci fi gaming without pseudo science. But I prefer it to be vague and not overly used.

 - Lots of humanoid aliens?

No, hardly any. Aliens should be alien and dangerous.

 - Capital ship customization and combat?

No, I've never been interested in capital ship combat. Corvette and below. Sloops fighting each other kind of scale. Where all of the crew can have names.

 - Fighter-scale combat?

Yes.

 - Psionics? How powerful?

Very powerful, very dangerous, controlled, misunderstood.

 - Politics/Exploration?

This is the biggest element to me. That's what space opera is, politics/exploration.


What KILLS Space Opera for you when it raises its head?

Anything Star Wars adjacent. Thick lore. Games that try too hard to extrapolate modern tech into the future.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Rhymer88 on December 23, 2021, 08:31:07 AM
Do any of you have experience with Battlelords of the Twenty-Third Century? How is it?
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: palaeomerus on December 23, 2021, 09:51:00 AM
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/16/Battlelords_of_the_23rd_Century.png)

This thing? I'm not sure. I think I remember it being some kind of outgrowth of the old Kryomek table top war game (sort of a fake giger-aliens things with AT-ST like walkers and some weird resin tanks and hab module type scenery.) Probably wrong about that. Maybe I am thinking of Warlords?
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Rhymer88 on December 23, 2021, 11:08:01 AM
Is that an older edition? I think this is the current version:

Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Batjon on December 23, 2021, 11:44:34 AM
FrontierSpace by DWD Studios is excellent.

Stars Without Number by Sine Nomine Studios is great.

Fading Suns 4th. edition by Ulisses Spiele as well.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Greentongue on December 23, 2021, 02:47:22 PM
Are series like "Killjoys" considered Space Opera? There is a clear Evil and the characters are "The Good Guys/Girl".

What about narrativest games like "Scum & Villainy"? It has the overall Bad People that will WIN if not opposed by the Crew.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: palaeomerus on December 23, 2021, 04:08:52 PM
Scum and Villainy is a Farscape/Firefly/Blake's 7 kind of deal. Jerks on the run trying to make money smuggling or robbing people or playing enforcer, disappear before the authorities or enemies spot them, and get out of any trouble they fall into along the way. It links adventures into a campaign that has a sort of opfor that gets feedback from what players attempt, and what they succeed and fail at. So if players score big, and word gets out they need to kick up to lenders/sponsors/associated or they risk being hit, their stuff stolen, or exposed to pursuers, or someone coming to make an ultimatum, getting thrown out of a protective organization or not allowed to do anymore business with a neglected or offended party...that sort of thing.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: jeff37923 on December 23, 2021, 06:47:38 PM
FrontierSpace by DWD Studios is excellent.

Stars Without Number by Sine Nomine Studios is great.

Fading Suns 4th. edition by Ulisses Spiele as well.

In Your Humble Opinion
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Batjon on December 24, 2021, 12:29:42 AM
FrontierSpace by DWD Studios is excellent.

Stars Without Number by Sine Nomine Studios is great.

Fading Suns 4th. edition by Ulisses Spiele as well.

In Your Humble Opinion

Nope, in FACT.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: jeff37923 on December 24, 2021, 08:06:16 AM
FrontierSpace by DWD Studios is excellent.

Stars Without Number by Sine Nomine Studios is great.

Fading Suns 4th. edition by Ulisses Spiele as well.

In Your Humble Opinion

Nope, in FACT.

The FACT being Your Humble Opinion.

It's OK, everyone believes that their own way is the Truth.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: HappyDaze on December 24, 2021, 10:06:53 AM
FrontierSpace by DWD Studios is excellent.

Stars Without Number by Sine Nomine Studios is great.

Fading Suns 4th. edition by Ulisses Spiele as well.

In Your Humble Opinion

Nope, in FACT.
What is the Fading Suns 4e system like?
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Ocule on December 26, 2021, 12:04:34 AM
I usually think 40k when I think space opera. It’s not my go to genre but I think for a good space opera the characters trump setting. Science shouldn’t be outright bad but should make sense in context of the world, high action, heroic or tragic. But I think space opera is firmly planted in soft scifi but not usually to the rocket ship weirdness of early scifi.

To me I think what really loses me crappy characters, uninteresting civilizations or conflicts, or anything that is oh so random lolz. A good example of a failure is Star finder. World is inconsistent doesn’t make sense and made heavy use of “it’s magic we don’t have to justify shit”

Good settings
Warhammer 40k
Dune
5th element
Firefly
Farscape (characters made this enjoyable)
Original trilogy Star Wars
Mass effect 1-3

I also hate any tech that’s function is anything you can think of at the time.

Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Brigman on December 26, 2021, 12:29:42 AM
Not to shill for the Pundit, but Star Adventurer is grand, IMO.

If not for the pandemic, I'd have been running it using the Babylon 5 setting at my FLGS by now.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: tenbones on December 27, 2021, 10:37:13 AM
Give us details on the system/setting.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Brigman on December 27, 2021, 12:06:55 PM
The system is a D20, OSR-based system similar to Lion & Dragon.  I think Pundit designed it to play Star Wars, but it would work well for Babylon 5 too.  There's a class similar to Jedi, there are pilots, there are brawlers.  All the good stuff.  Races go by descriptive rather than name so you can easily adapt from one setting to another.  Whether a "Contemplative" (race) is a Vulcan or a Minbari or a whatever, it's up to you (and your setting). There are 15 PC races that cover just about anything you could need.

Advancement is done in that neat random way that Pundit uses for L&D, not every character gets the same benefit upon "leveling up", which makes for fun progress.

As for the setting...

Babylon 5 is probably the best Sci-Fi show I've seen, and this is coming from a lifelong Trekkie.  It follows a 5-year arc that builds upon itself and little things constantly pop back up from earlier episodes.  Character development is incredible.  This may seem common now, but in the early '90's this was unheard of.  The Season 1 intro sets the stage:

"It was the dawn of the third age of mankind. Ten years after the Earth-Minbari war. The Babylon project was dream giving form. It's goal to prevent another war by creating a place where humans and aliens could work out their differences peacefully. It's a port of call. Home away from home for diplomas, hustlers, entrepreneurs, and wanders. Humans and aliens wrap in two million five hundred thousand tons of spinning metal, all alone in the night. It can be a dangerous place, but it's our last best hope for peace. This is the story of last of the Babylon stations. The year is 2258. The name of the place is Babylon 5."

There is plenty of action, of course, both fistfights/gunfights and starship/fighter battles.  But there's so much more, as it deals with politics, corruption, power, history and religion.  There are no robots/droids as characters - they're basically shown as tools and used for drone/remote work outside in space.  But there are telepaths, there are super-aliens, there are ancient mysteries.

Gah, I don't feel like I can do the show justice in a short review.  But one great line from early on in the show says a lot about the show: 

G'Kar: "Let me pass on to you the one thing I've learned about this place. No one here is exactly what he appears. Not Mollari, not Delenn, not Sinclair, and not me."

(https://i.postimg.cc/Vv0SsR2c/IMG-4463.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/307rngKL)
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: RPGPundit on December 27, 2021, 05:43:56 PM
Not to shill for the Pundit, but Star Adventurer is grand, IMO.

If not for the pandemic, I'd have been running it using the Babylon 5 setting at my FLGS by now.

By all means, Shill for the Pundit!
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Brigman on December 28, 2021, 02:09:37 AM
By all means, Shill for the Pundit!

I think I just did! :D

But, it's sincere.  I really wish RL circumstances allowed me to be running this right now...
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: RPGPundit on December 28, 2021, 07:15:33 PM
By all means, Shill for the Pundit!

I think I just did! :D

But, it's sincere.  I really wish RL circumstances allowed me to be running this right now...

Well, I know it's not as good but there's always online play...
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on December 28, 2021, 08:46:11 PM
Did anyone mention Alternity Star*Drive yet? It’s basically the summation of almost all 80s and 90s scifi tropes distilled into one setting. Humanoid aliens, non-humanoid aliens, FTL travel, cyborgs, advanced AIs, mutants, psychic powers, netrunners, etc. IIRC some of the few things it doesn’t have include giant mechs and animal uplifts.

I never got the chance to play it when it was originally published, but reading about it in d20 Future back in the mid-2000s inspired my current attempts at scifi writing.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: camazotz on December 28, 2021, 09:56:42 PM
FrontierSpace by DWD Studios is excellent.

Stars Without Number by Sine Nomine Studios is great.

Fading Suns 4th. edition by Ulisses Spiele as well.

In Your Humble Opinion

Nope, in FACT.

The FACT being Your Humble Opinion.

It's OK, everyone believes that their own way is the Truth.


So jeff37923, what do you like?
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: caldrail on December 29, 2021, 05:43:12 AM
What does Space Opera mean to me? It means traditional heroism in a 'space' setting. At heart you have old fashioned storytelling and stereotypes. Yes, I do see that that as including Starwars (or at least, Episode IV). The tales of King Arthur, Robin Hood, Blackbeard the Pirate, The Wild West, Sharpe's wars etc etc are all translatable to the genre (and I have done that in the past, something my players thankfully didn't recognise). If you want a more focused source, check out the plentiful novels of Doc E E Smith. He uses psionics very heavily but adventure is readily apparent.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: tenbones on December 29, 2021, 09:22:12 AM
Not to shill for the Pundit, but Star Adventurer is grand, IMO.

If not for the pandemic, I'd have been running it using the Babylon 5 setting at my FLGS by now.

By all means, Shill for the Pundit!

Well you know, I kinda set it up, Pundy. You get your pound of flesh in this thread. And frankly I'd like to hear what others think of it and how they're using it.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: jeff37923 on December 29, 2021, 10:51:12 AM
FrontierSpace by DWD Studios is excellent.

Stars Without Number by Sine Nomine Studios is great.

Fading Suns 4th. edition by Ulisses Spiele as well.

In Your Humble Opinion

Nope, in FACT.

The FACT being Your Humble Opinion.

It's OK, everyone believes that their own way is the Truth.


So jeff37923, what do you like?

Let me do a bit of a set-up here because this is going into personal preferences that may go against the norm. Space Opera to me is mostly read. Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle wrote some space opera that was scientifically sound and engineeringly possible. Heinlein wrote a lot about that as well. H Beam Piper went fast and loose with the physical sciences, but was pretty good at history, biology, and sociology. This is what I grew up on reading and what I wanted to play in a game.

Although along with that was the swashbuckling derring-do brought in with Star Wars which is also space opera, but without the science.

What I like to play depends on which cross-section of space opera I want to indulge in.

For anything anime or manga derived, there is Mekton (either II or Zeta depending on fiddly bits supplied by the Players). I feel those games fit the anime space opera genre quite well and they have never let me down.

For the Star Wars setting, which is science fantasy space opera, you can't beat d6 Star Wars for its easy to understand and elegant rules.

Then there is Traveller, which was specifically made for modern space opera that I used to read  as a child and high school student. There are some squishy areas like gravity control and jump drive, but even they have their own limits and ways of being handled.

I find myself more attracted to things like Star Wars because everyone knows the story and it is easy to get a game started. I find myself very attracted to Traveller because of the lethality of its combat system and overall technology does not rely upon pseudoscience. It also attracts more older seasoned gamers and veterans, whom I tend to get along with.

Personal preference, for each one.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: tenbones on December 29, 2021, 11:27:35 AM
Those seem to be pretty defined ideas, Jeff.

I'm like you - I like using Star Wars as a sort of backdrop that everyone knows.

A big part of this thread is me polling my fellow players/GM's that have more experience than me in running/playing Space Opera. On reflection I certainly have read a lot - all the classics. I've played a lot of videogames, watched everything Star Trek, Star Wars, B5, etc.

I've started going backwards to The Source... (of everything really - I'm currently listening to Ella Fitzgerald a lot, as opposed to Iron Maiden. Re-watching all the classic movies, Casablanca, Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, Citizen Kane). I'm re-examining my framing of everything to fine tune what it is I'm looking for in order to run my own Space Opera.

Obviously I'm re-reading Flash Gordon comics and looking at serials, but I realize it's a genre of RPG's that outside of Star Wars I really don't have a lot of experience running, though I do understand all the genre conceits.

My goal for this is to hear what you guys actually think of when it comes to Space Opera. If there are debates and arguments - great! I'm not solidified on anything other than I don't care too much for "hard science" in my Space Opera, but I have no problem using it as a MacGuffin.

I'm looking for commonalities and themes that most people enjoy. And outlier ideas that sound cool that I never considered.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Greentongue on December 29, 2021, 12:54:03 PM
If "going back to the roots" wouldn't it be good to refresh on what "Opera" is?
===
An opera is a theatrical piece that tells a story totally through the music. It consists of recitatives which provide the narrative plot line and elaborate chorus singing, along with duets and arias,
===

While it might be interesting to make a game where the players sing, I'd be surprised if there was a market for it.

What really stands out to me is the Character Focus over the setting. It really seems to me that it would favor the "Narrative" games with their scene focus over the more traditional blow-by-blow style.

Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: RandyB on December 29, 2021, 12:59:13 PM
I'm also on board with Mekton for space opera gaming. Zeta is my speed, because that's the version I initially encountered. And since Zeta is intentionally "mecha anime", it has to cover the whole range of "mecha anime", not just Macross/Gundam/-likes. And it does so well, IMO.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: jeff37923 on December 29, 2021, 04:46:48 PM
Those seem to be pretty defined ideas, Jeff.

I'm like you - I like using Star Wars as a sort of backdrop that everyone knows.

A big part of this thread is me polling my fellow players/GM's that have more experience than me in running/playing Space Opera. On reflection I certainly have read a lot - all the classics. I've played a lot of videogames, watched everything Star Trek, Star Wars, B5, etc.

I've started going backwards to The Source... (of everything really - I'm currently listening to Ella Fitzgerald a lot, as opposed to Iron Maiden. Re-watching all the classic movies, Casablanca, Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, Citizen Kane). I'm re-examining my framing of everything to fine tune what it is I'm looking for in order to run my own Space Opera.

Obviously I'm re-reading Flash Gordon comics and looking at serials, but I realize it's a genre of RPG's that outside of Star Wars I really don't have a lot of experience running, though I do understand all the genre conceits.

My goal for this is to hear what you guys actually think of when it comes to Space Opera. If there are debates and arguments - great! I'm not solidified on anything other than I don't care too much for "hard science" in my Space Opera, but I have no problem using it as a MacGuffin.

I'm looking for commonalities and themes that most people enjoy. And outlier ideas that sound cool that I never considered.

It can be cheesy at times, but if you want to get back to the source, then watch an old science fiction TV series called Space: 1999. How they incorporate horror elements into what is a squishy science space opera is brilliant. Space: 1999 is an often overlooked gem.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Batjon on December 29, 2021, 08:13:46 PM
Battlelords of the 23rd. Century 7th. Edition.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: caldrail on December 30, 2021, 03:18:18 AM
Quote
then watch an old science fiction TV series called Space: 1999. How they incorporate horror elements into what is a squishy science space opera is brilliant. Space: 1999 is an often overlooked gem.
or indeed it's predecessor, UFO.

Somebody mentioned Traveller. Space Opera? Well, you could play it that way, but I don't think that was ever the intention of the rules' authors. It has more to do with tinkering, solving problems, focused on a small personal scale. Certainly its spin-off, Megatraveller, could never be described as opera in any form. Too detailed, Unplayable in my view because it tries to codify everything. My own experience of scifi RPG's is that the science should always be in the background, means to an end. Once you start trying to analyse and creating rules to reconstruct the possible, you start running into the very same complexity the real world offers us. Not fun.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Eirikrautha on December 30, 2021, 12:28:15 PM
If "going back to the roots" wouldn't it be good to refresh on what "Opera" is?
===
An opera is a theatrical piece that tells a story totally through the music. It consists of recitatives which provide the narrative plot line and elaborate chorus singing, along with duets and arias,
===

While it might be interesting to make a game where the players sing, I'd be surprised if there was a market for it.

What really stands out to me is the Character Focus over the setting. It really seems to me that it would favor the "Narrative" games with their scene focus over the more traditional blow-by-blow style.
Yes and no.  I agree that the "opera" part of space opera is often overlooked, but not the singing.  Opera deals with larger than life characters, malevolent - but relatable - villains, a sweeping scope, focus on the why and not the how (especially important in space opera... that's why midiclorians was such a blunder), heroic falls from grace, etc.  Honestly, opera generally has some overarching goal for the main characters, even if it is their fall from grace, and so a sand-box campaign seems like it would be very hard to accomplish.  I don't think a "storygame" is any more suited than a traditional RPG, as the important part is the themes of the game, and not the mechanics.  Sure, mechanics (especially the "how" mechanics) can be intrusive, but that's much less of a problem than trying to turn your murder-hobo players into operatic heroes...
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Greentongue on December 30, 2021, 01:37:27 PM
The imperative of PbtA / BitD games of "Drive it like you stole it!" just seems to me to align better with an Opera style.
Along with the Scene Resolving by a Move verses the drawn out Back & Forth of D20 rolls.
Obviously there are multiple rule options. I just think that if you want to play in a Opera Style, they are rule systems to consider.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: tenbones on January 03, 2022, 10:50:19 AM
I don't actually like PbtA/BitD for RPG's. I'm pretty set on systems (I have puh-lenty of systems to choose from - I generally find PbtA/BitD are too anemic for my sandbox style of gamine with depth, but I appreciate the offer.)

Yeah I grew up with Space 1999. Loved that series, though it probably deserves a re-watch.

I'm also looking at Space Battleship Yamato and Macross as well as some other old school anime. I'm a big fan of Mekton - I own all the books for it, so I'm top of that.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Greentongue on January 03, 2022, 02:51:35 PM
Yeah, PbtA/FitD is not for everyone but it does seem to do what is commonly called "Opera" style of play pretty well.
I'm sure that there are people that play them without depth but then there are people that require climbing rolls for every 10 feet of height too. "Correct" for one is not always the same "correct" for others.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: tenbones on January 03, 2022, 03:55:43 PM
Sure. I think PbtA is typically played in a way I consider "Too meta" for my campaigns. I like things played a little closer to the drama and action rather than abstractions handwave all the things I consider "the good stuff".

Truth be told - I'm not even convinced that they are "RPG" systems more than souped-up board-game rules. Hot sports opinion, probably better for another thread.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Greentongue on January 03, 2022, 06:55:34 PM
I think you have been exposed to a completely different view than I have but as you say, this is not the thread to dig into that.
Besides, I'm not an expert and don't know every current variation on the hundreds of tuned genre emulations.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: tenbones on January 04, 2022, 09:31:24 AM
As BitD is/can be "Mission Oriented" - I could easily see someone making a Space Opera game in that system.

I'd want an engine a little more detailed and flexible under the hood. I need scaling both vertical and horizontal. D6, Savage Worlds (especially with Rifts rules), CP2020 - if I wanted to get gritty with some Mekton rules over the top on it, would be my immediate go-to. At least until I try the Alien's game, which has a very cool ruleset on paper.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: palaeomerus on January 04, 2022, 01:35:04 PM
Scum and Villainy is close though it's more Firefly/Blake's 7 oriented which was gritty cold doomed anti-hero outlaw stuff.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Greentongue on January 04, 2022, 01:40:38 PM
"Scum & Villiany" is the BitD Space Opera game but, from what I gather, is just focused on three primary tracks.
But yeah, if you want a game that bounces around between multiple types of things like trading / theft / court cases / bounty hunting / love affairs / archeology and such, then not the game system to use.
It's strength is enforcing genre conventions to drive a specific type of activity.  Any one of those I mentioned but not all.
The ones that try to do all, are the horror stories people point to as rules failure. 

As you may know, not all Opera is about "Heroes".
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Jaeger on January 04, 2022, 10:04:24 PM
I don't actually like PbtA/BitD for RPG's. I'm pretty set on systems (I have puh-lenty of systems to choose from - I generally find PbtA/BitD are too anemic for my sandbox style of gamine with depth, but I appreciate the offer.)
...

As someone that has played a lot of PbtA, BitD style games; they are absolutely not suited for sandbox play.

Greentounge kinda nails it in one here:

...
It's strength is enforcing genre conventions to drive a specific type of activity.  ...

They are laser-focused, rules-light RPG's, meant to enforce genre tropes in a very specific type of "on mission" play style.

They are great for one shots, short adventures, and 5-6 month long mini-campaigns, but not more. The PC's will cap out around that point with advancement coming to a standstill.

They're literally not designed for play outside that range.

IMHO they are worth looking at, as they do have several clever ideas that can port into whatever homebrew system someone might be doing. But RAW they are very much designed to drive a very specific hyper-focused style of play.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Greentongue on January 05, 2022, 06:46:58 AM
They are great for one shots, short adventures, and 5-6 month long mini-campaigns, but not more. The PC's will cap out around that point with advancement coming to a standstill.
On the upside, perfect for a series of missions.

It's also one of the few times I've had a players say, "This is the first time I've actually finished a campaign."
Seems that even with all the huge plans GMs have, games don't often make it to "The End". 
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: tenbones on January 05, 2022, 09:35:50 AM
Yeah that's one of the reasons that I kinda find Savage Worlds is the happy medium. It's granular enough mechanically for me to run it sandbox, but it is entirely about the tropes of the genre you're setting demands, and does so without having to do a lot of fiddly stuff. And what fiddly stuff needs to be done is pretty straightforward.

What are some other cool settings/books that are Space Opera that are "not quite" what people think of as "Space Opera"?
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Zalman on January 05, 2022, 11:23:19 AM
What are some other cool settings/books that are Space Opera that are "not quite" what people think of as "Space Opera"?

In that regard, it seems to me that a lot of ideas could be pulled from the Stainless Steel Rat world. Probably doesn't reach even "not quite" levels of similarity to Space Opera, but lots of elements could be re-skinned as more "operatic".
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Dropbear on January 05, 2022, 12:31:51 PM
What are some other cool settings/books that are Space Opera that are "not quite" what people think of as "Space Opera"?

For me personally, I think of Mike Resnick’s Birthright universe when I think of space opera. I would have loved to see that done with a totally different set of mechanics than used by whoever it was that produced the Santiago RPG. Some variant of d20 it was, and I would have liked to see it with Savage Worlds or d100lite. Although adopting it to Star Adventurer mechanics would be okay too. I just didn’t like what ENWorld or whoever it was (I am working, can’t see the files right now) did with it.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Jaeger on January 05, 2022, 01:45:04 PM
...
On the upside, perfect for a series of missions.

It's also one of the few times I've had a players say, "This is the first time I've actually finished a campaign."
Seems that even with all the huge plans GMs have, games don't often make it to "The End". 

Multi-year campaigns do require an additional level of commitment from the players. The game is less of a casual endeavor, and more of a hobby for the whole group. Not just the GM.
Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Wrath of God on January 05, 2022, 07:37:46 PM
Quote
IMHO they are worth looking at, as they do have several clever ideas that can port into whatever homebrew system someone might be doing. But RAW they are very much designed to drive a very specific hyper-focused style of play.

I'd say most of most popular games - Monster of the Week, Wicked Ones, Blades in the Dark, Masks seems to try emulate modern TV-series. Few seasons, 10 episodes each, this kind of stuff.
I think moves logic is different than sim-test, but I wonder could they be implemented as sort of table of random well plot-things for GM's.


Title: Re: Space Opera Gaming
Post by: Battlemaster on June 07, 2022, 01:06:28 AM
Battlelords of the 23rd. Century 7th. Edition.

I was looking to see if anyone here mentioned this.

The setting is pure space opera, but the rules are hardcore. To be honest I'm surprised people don't use it for a game like  Traveller.  People claim they like the hardcore setting of traveller, and BL has a very hardcore setting under it's space opera cover. It's rules for sensors, comms, active systems vs passive ones, electronic warfare, etc should make it a dream system for traveller fans.