My Space Campaign

[dragonewt]

Conrad, nobody but you mentioned the Spanish Inquisition.

That was unexpected.

[rust]

That was unexpected.

And unnecessary, I have my own comfy chair.

[seneschal]

That was unexpected.

Apparently, no one expects the Spanish Inquisition!

[seneschal]

Moving on to (hopefully) safer campaign-building topics, what about the role of sports in your sci-fi universe? Star Trek, Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom novels, and John Norman's Gor novels all feature variations of chess. In fact, Barsoomian Jetan is a particularly brutal team sport, similar to the old computer game Battle Chess. The moon exiles on Space 1999 managed to contact Earth and learned that sports had been banned as too divisive in their absence. Star Trek seems to take a similar view; at least we never hear of soccer or baseball leagues among the stars, although Picard included fencing in his workout routine and Riker was a martial arts buff. On the other hand, Isaac Asimov's Lucky Starr novels included a short-lived sports fad: low-gravity hopper racing, in which drivers competed in egg-shaped monopod vehicles that could jump 30 feet per hop. At the time of the story, the fad had passed and disused hoppers were to be found sitting idle in folks' garages. Sports might also provide a way to include mecha in your campaign even if you don't want them to be part of the military. There could be mecha races or wrestling bouts in lieu of more lethal contests.

So what do you think? Man has always enjoyed games and contests. What sorts of team or individual pastimes can you envision in a futuristic setting?

[Dredj]

Gladiatorial battles using mind-driven robots instead of real people. It will be ultimate fighting, but safe for the contestants.

Plus, you can fill the robots with more fake blood than a person has blood--or confetti or anything else--and will make for some very interesting and surreal fights. It might look like something out of one of those Japanese movies where the blood is spraying like a geyser.

Battlebots taken to mecha proportions would be an interesting thing to see, as well.

Anyway, I'm thinking about converting Eclipse Phase over to BRP. Lots of awesome ideas in that game, I think. You might want to check that out.

And I'm thinking of using Cthulhu Rising for all out-of-the-solar-system adventures.

Edited July 8, 2010 by Dredj

[JarrethSynn]

Good point. Let's see....games.... Well, there will always be a form of cards. Gambling is a staple. Be it Sabbac, Pazak, or some other form of space styled card game. I also plan to use deadlier games...pit fighting and racing where no rules are present. As for common games...yes, a form of chess will definitely be present. As stated, it seems to be another staple and represented in its classic form or some advance form. Also, I like the idea of droids or mechs battling with wagers placed on them. Also, there was an old game...I think cyberball. I liked that, it was a futuristic form of football played by bots. Or I may drop the bots and use that updated arena-styled football game in Heinlen's movie version of Starship Troopers.

[seneschal]

So ... it's been a month. How did the space campaign go?