The Official OTC TBRPG Planning and Organization Topic

[Krayzikk]

As a fellow veteran of FTL, Atton, I'm afraid I have to disagree with you on... Most of those points, actually. While FTL has its problems, especially near the end, the structure of the game as taking place on a ship has actually been agreed to be a good thing. OTC simply does not have the playerbase to support large sandbox games (with a few exceptions), so engineering a scenario in which PCs are always kept in relatively close proximity to each other solves that problem quite handily. Player spread has killed a fair few games, especially games set in space.

 

Your personal issues with characters, as well, are a bit... Well, to be perfectly honest, biased. They stemmed from very realistic issues in how the other crewmembers reacted to your character, and the issue regarding NPCs was not at all limited to FTL; with the way you were using them, you likely would have run into issues with most RPGs currently active. 

 

And the note of the relative "hardness" of sci-fi is, as you yourself admit, a matter of taste. Though I do have to disagree with you on the notion that space opera ignores the realism of outer space. Simply put, a game that dedicates itself to being as realistic as possible in terms of mechanics is going to struggle to find a playerbase here. By definition such a degree of realism would require a high-level understanding of physics and technology, and to expect such a level of research from one's players is simply unfair to them. 

 

I am, in fact, usually an advocate for more realism than Rule of Cool, and I still disagree that making one's sci-fi RPG as hard in its sciences as possible is foolhardy. As long as your explanations fit with the universe's internal rules, then there is no issue.

 

 

EDIT: I almost forgot I wanted to address the note of the Transformers RPG. While I apologize if anyone takes offense to the implication, the fact is that there has not been a successful RPG for that franchise in years. I have been involved in every single one, from the last successful one through all the failed ones, and the primary issue for all of them is simple; the playerbase does not properly exist among the established RPG players. Most of the Transformers fans that also played RPGs are long gone, and while we've gained a few new ones, the number is still low.

 

When an RPG lacks any support from the core playerbase, that is to say the people who spend much of their time on BZP playing RPGs, its success becomes much harder. The number of characters is not an issue, nor is the quality of the story; neither is even remotely relevant if the game cannot get enough support to get properly off of the ground.

Edited May 29, 2015 by Riku Tryon

[HeavyMetalSunshineSister]

 

 

On the other hand, I could also see it going the other way as well. You offer up too much freedom and players are just going to get lost. They won't know what to do and it will just make things seem chaotic. You'd probably have to find the right balance. I'd imagine one would need to have just enough of  a story to give the players a sense of direction while simultaneously leaving just enough room for creativity. 

See, I feel like the hypothesis that RPGs die because players "just get lost" shows a disturbing lack of faith in the players - generally speaking, if players want interaction and are free to pursue it, they can hop on a freighter, catch the 9-o'five to Croissant, and be there in time to fistbump their buddies into oblivion.

 

The problem I have seen come up in a handful of Star Wars RPGs and every incarnation of the thrice-cursed mess that was Reality, arises when two or more characters are already interacting somewhere, and the player behind one or more of the characters other players are relying on skips out without so much as a by-your-leave, resulting in the other involved players not being sure whether the other player is coming back or not, leaving them unable to haul their characters off and get things going elsewhere.

 

Clustering everyone together is one possible solution to the problem, as it makes it easier to slip into interacting with other characters without explicitly abandoning the one you were already working on something with, but it is not a perfect solution, nor is it necessarily the only one.

[Atton Rand]

 

That makes sense, but I'd say it's still possible to go too far, and then it gets constricting. What you'd need is a middle ground of sorts, a small enough setting that the players are grouped together while also leaving some room for them to spread out.

 

I suddenly find myself wondering if a viable alternative might be to shift focus from space travel to settling on one particular location. For example, the moon. The moon is definitely a small area (at least compared to Earth) so with the proper transport it would be easy to get around. That would theoretically put everyone in one place while leaving room to explore.

 

The other possible option I could see is Mars, but the moon is a lot smaller.

[Prowl Nightwolf]

Well I don't know where a space RPG came from I have to ask if say colonizing an exo-planet would be a viable option? I mean yes while traveling to said planet it could be a bit cluttered together but once there the process of building bio domes to make inhabitable zones on a normally hostile planet and then having exploration missions from said dome to expand and what not could levitate some of the cluster yes? There also leaves the option to interact with local wildlife if there are any.

 

Farscape comes to mind.

[IcarusBen]

Of course, now talking about all these different "on a boat" games, I kinda want a Star Trek RP.

 

Just saying.

[Atton Rand]

Well I don't know where a space RPG came from I have to ask if say colonizing an exo-planet would be a viable option? I mean yes while traveling to said planet it could be a bit cluttered together but once there the process of building bio domes to make inhabitable zones on a normally hostile planet and then having exploration missions from said dome to expand and what not could levitate some of the cluster yes? There also leaves the option to interact with local wildlife if there are any.

 

Farscape comes to mind.

 

Darn it! I literally just wrote an entire post breaking down in detail all my criticisms of this only for my internet to crash on me when I was ready to post. Okay, let's try this again.

 

First off, I'm not sure about the feasibility of interstellar travel. It doesn't seem likely with the technological resources available today. The nearest star system, Alpha Centurai, is 4.37 lightyears away from us. This means that it takes light (which I should point out moves constantly at the fastest possible speed) takes just over four years to reach that system It takes light 100,000 lightyears to travel from one end of our galaxy to the other, and that's not even getting into the even bigger distances between galaxies. Even if we could prepare a ship that had sufficient fuel to make the trip, it would have to be moving at the speed of light and that brings out the whole complicated issue of time dilation.

 

Now theoretically there is a way that spacetime can be folded to create a shortcut, but how one would go about making those folds is beyond me. Wormholes are another possible solution but so far we have yet to find one in our Solar System, so it doesn't really help much. Right now, there isn't much of a shot at travelling to Alpha Centurai, letalone the rest of the galaxy. That leaves us with the Solar System, and for obvious reasons we can't travel to the sun, so that is already rule out. Earth also isn't really an option for reasons that should also be obvious.

 

Theoretically we probably could develop the technology to travel to Mercury, but there isn't really much of a reason to do so. Mercury doesn't have much to offer, and its environment isn't exactly welcoming either. One side is always excruciatingly hot and the other is always freezing cold (depending on which side is facing the sun at the time). The only thing that might make a trip to Mercury worthwhile is geological reasearch, and that could be done with probes.

 

Venus is out of the question. Even if you can handle the toxic atmosphere the runaway greenhouse effect has temperatures that are hot enough to melt lead. There is no way you can land on that surface and take off again. There are theories of building cities in the clouds but I'm not going to get into that right now. I think that might be a bit too complicated to work with.

 

Then there are the Jovian planets, none of which are viable options. Jupiter is made up primarily of liquid hydrogen, and even if you wanted to try and reach its rocky core you'd have to endure an immense amount of pressure and brave the constant storms, some of which (the Great Red Spot being the most famous example) have been going for hundreds of years. Saturn is made of gas. Uranus and Neptune are both more like "slush planets" which don't have much to offer (plus the former has a problem of lending its name to stupid juvenile jokes). Their moons might still be accessible, but there is still the distance to consider, and some of them (i.e. Io) you really don't want to get stuck on. 

 

That leaves Mars. It is the closest thing in our Solar System to a habitable planet besides Earth. It doesn't exactly have a breathable atmosphere, but it does have frozen water which would be essential to any colonial effort. In theory one could construct a successful colony on Mars if they could build shelters and find a stable source of oxygen. There is even an attempt of sorts to create a Mars colony now with people being recruited for a one-way trip toward the planet.

 

There is still one other feasible destination: the moon. We've already been there before. It only takes three days to reach from Earth, and there isn't much of a time dilation to worry about (there is a minor radio delay that is imperceptible to humans). It would be easier to transport construction materials to the moon and there is a supply of frozen water. The moon is also a reasonably spacious environment that would allow players to move around and explore while simultaneously being able to get around and easily interact with people (over radio, if nothing else). Of course it wouldn't have any aliens but in my experience aliens are not essentially to creating good science fiction.

[25K Now!]

If someone wants to make a colonization RP, real life feasibility can probably take a backseat to getting it to be interesting and enjoyable to a potential player base.

 

O'Neill Cylinders at the Lagrange points don't really have the poetry of having a giant station floating around in the atmosphere of Venus.

[Parugi]

 

 

Since when have we ever had a successful RPG with a serious plot line and serious characters? 

 

*glances at Rise of the Rockets*

 

It's actually not that hard. #soproudofus

 

Tell me your secrets Parugi.

 

How have you survived the last four years?

 

Five years, actually!

 

It's simple . . .

 

Sadly I don't have a straight answer to this kind of question. D:

 

I will say that, taking into account the fact that RotR's list of in-game locations is ridiculously large (a minimum of six Regions consisting of at least ten cities and towns each) and yet still manages to function, there's likely something that we're doing right in terms of managing the spread of players and characters. If that weren't the case then logically speaking, as has been mentioned several times in the thread, the RPG should have died due to a lack of player-to-player interaction. Perhaps this isn't a problem simply by virtue of the fact that

1. while we started out with a ton of locations, we also started out with a ton of players, and thus had time to get our footing before the size of the map could become an issue.

2. at this point the character-player ratio is so heavily skewed (I feel like the average player has at least six characters to their name, and even more NPCs) that cases of non-interaction can be easily solved by sending an inoperative NPC/PC to meet with the character in need of interaction with little explanation necessary as to how/why they're there.

 

At this point I'm fairly certain that 99% of the reason that we're still around and going strong (which I don't believe is necessarily indicated by our rate of activity in the thread) is simply because, at this point, it's too hard for any of the remaining players to up and quit. We're too invested in what we've got. Heck, there have been numerous points where I've gotten frustrated with things in the story or with RotR's playerbase and genuinely wanted to quit, except I couldn't because I have too many plans for the game that I want to see through to the end. And I know that even two years ago, there seemed to be a similar sentiment--"the story's been going too long and we don't want to end it without finishing it." It's kind of a loop at this point--we're invested because of time we've spent in the game leading to more time spent in the game leading us to become more invested.

 

So, who knows? Maybe it's the character-to-player ratio that allows us to survive despite the odds. Maybe it's the unnatural levels of dedication from the playerbase. Maybe it's my utterly charming and loveable personality.

 

tbh i really don't know.

 

 

 

(but actually the main thing to take away from this is that the players in a game are -SO IMPORTANT- and if you don't have players who are absolutely willing to stick with the game through thick and thin then it's simply not going to last)

 

(so in other words find committed players)

 

(and no you can't have mine.)

Edited May 30, 2015 by Apears

[Prowl Nightwolf]

Wow.. So sayith the man with a cosmonaut for their picture and signature. Food for thought, the speed of light is not actually finite. While still the fastest known substance(?) in our universe. Not so recent discoveries have shown that the speed of light fluctuates based on exterior factors such as gravity and the catalyst that the light travels through. Yeah I watch a lot of Discovery, Science channel, History2, The NASA Channel while it was available. So I pick up some stuff.

 

Anyway with that little brain teaser out of the way I don't see why we have to conform to current scientific discoveries for any such RP. I mean theoretically wormholes are possible and even though we have not officially discovered them we have discovered the so called entrance in Black holes. Since we don't actually know what happens after something reaches the singularity even who is to say they don't get barfed out of a white hole somewhere else? As for intergalactic travel, If Star trek and Star Wars can do it then why not a Space Exploration RPG here?

 

@Apears:

So you don't want to part with me? Aw I am touched. Guess I better not let you know I am cheating on your with the BZPRPG. Uh, forget I said anything, moveing on.

[Atton Rand]

Wow.. So sayith the man with a cosmonaut for their picture and signature.

Cosmonaut? You do realize that both those astronauts were American, right? Also, you say that like it's a bad thing. Some of the most crucial steps in early space exploration were performed by cosmonauts.

 

Anyway, it's something of a condition I have when writing science fiction. I really don't like it when science fiction blatantly disregards established science and would rather not take creative liberties for the sake of being cool or dramatic.

 

But working on a smaller scale it's not as much of an issue. Being set on the moon it would be easier to incorporate actual science without any interference with pacing.

[IcarusBen]

 

Wow.. So sayith the man with a cosmonaut for their picture and signature.

Cosmonaut? You do realize that both those astronauts were American, right? Also, you say that like it's a bad thing. Some of the most crucial steps in early space exploration were performed by cosmonauts.

 

Anyway, it's something of a condition I have when writing science fiction. I really don't like it when science fiction blatantly disregards established science and would rather not take creative liberties for the sake of being cool or dramatic.

 

But working on a smaller scale it's not as much of an issue. Being set on the moon it would be easier to incorporate actual science without any interference with pacing.

 

The problem is that not as many people care about hard science, meaning an audience will be harder to find.

 

But, actually, FTL is a possibility. Enter the Alcubierre drive. It's a theoretical sort of "warp drive" that promises to give us FTL capability in just a few decades, should the science hold.

 

It's also not hard to imagine a ship equipped with an Alcubierre drive. Either strap on some gravity rings or (more likely) use the natural thrust of the ship to push everything downwards towards the engines, and voila, Earth gravity!

 

Also, the odds of an Earth-like planet existing somewhere in our universe are extremely high because of the infinite nature of the universe.

[Silvan Haven]

Somebody brought up a Stargate RPG and nobody told me!

 

But yeah, in regards to hard sci-fi to soft sc-fi I can definitely say I'm more of a soft sci-fi guy. Even so, I try to keep bias out of my discussions.

 

Only using technology that we definitely-totally-know-works-right-now both puts way too many limits on what you can do with an RPG and is somewhat less realistic than you might think. This article is less than a year old and for a while engines like that were confined to places like Star Trek. It's really hard to predict what might come out in between now and when a space RPG might be set.

[IcarusBen]

Somebody brought up a Stargate RPG and nobody told me!

Sorry, Silvan. Forgot you were the resident Stargate fan.

 

I actually want to talk about that real quick, because I think it could work. It's a good concept and with the right people (aka people who have seen every episode of SG-1 about three dozen times) behind it, it could work.

 

Silvan, what do you think about an SG-1 RP set sometime during Season 8?

[Silvan Haven]

It could work I suppose. I feel like a better time frame would be earlier in the series when Earth was less established in the larger galaxy. It allows for more freedom in what stories can be told and makes it so that the players can have a larger impact on the direction that the SGC takes.

 

Plus by season eight most of the major villains had already been taken out. The only real ones left were the Ori.

[IcarusBen]

I suppose, but my reasoning was that in Season 8, Jack was the head of the SGC, and while earlier seasons had more enemies, later seasons had better enemies.

 

*cough*Ba'al*cough*Anubis*cough*Replicarter*cough.*

[Silvan Haven]

Hammond was a good general and all those same enemies were either already around or could be brought into the RPG before they were in the show.

[IcarusBen]

a). Debatable, at least when compared to Jack.

 

b). Introduce an enemy before they were introduced into canon?

 

 

In all seriousness, though, the loremaster in me would flip out if that happened. Don't know why, it just does. We could try, but my head might explode.

 

What season would you want to set it in?

[Silvan Haven]

I never said he was a better general, but Hammond is hardly bad at what he does.

 

As for the lore, it's an RPG. Unless you put the thing on an ironclad railroad it's going to go differently than the show will.

 

Setting wise it should be as early as possible to give the maximum chances for episode usage. Or it could be tweaked a bit, say that after the events of the movie the gate just sat there until the present date. Apophis does his thing, O'Neill is pulled out of retirement to command the SGC instead of Hammond.

[Prowl Nightwolf]

 

Wow.. So sayith the man with a cosmonaut for their picture and signature.

Cosmonaut? You do realize that both those astronauts were American, right? Also, you say that like it's a bad thing. Some of the most crucial steps in early space exploration were performed by cosmonauts.

 

Anyway, it's something of a condition I have when writing science fiction. I really don't like it when science fiction blatantly disregards established science and would rather not take creative liberties for the sake of being cool or dramatic.

 

But working on a smaller scale it's not as much of an issue. Being set on the moon it would be easier to incorporate actual science without any interference with pacing.

 

Actually I though that was the politically correct term for a space man. My apologies if I got the lingo wrong. The Word fiction I would think would allow for freedom of expression in that regard I would think. It is not like you were writing science fact. Though I guess in your case that may actually be the case.

 

True the Moon is naturally the first stepping stone to exploring the Solar system, then the Galaxy, and finally the Universe as a whole. I don't see why an RPG could not in theory start there and then develop resources to expand to the other planets. There had been talk of using passing comets and asteroids as way stations for intergalactic travel. Once we learn how to harvest the raw materials from such sources.

 

As for the Stargate RPG I am afraid I cannot weigh in as I have never actually watched any of the episodes. Please don't stone me...

[IcarusBen]

Stargate: SG-1 is basically a show (based on a movie) about an ancient alien artifact called the Stargate, created by an advanced race of Negligent Precursors, and the struggle between Earth (read: the US Air Force and their Russian counterparts in a few episodes) against an alien menace known as the Goa'uld, a race of parasitic snake... thingies... that burrow into a person's neck and take over their body. They've enslaved the galaxy for thousands of years, but are toppled in roughly 10-15 years, give or take, by one planet. It's pretty much the cornerstone for scifi set in the present day. It spawned two spinoffs (the equally awesome Stargate: Atlantis and the vomit-inducing eyesore that is Stargate: Universe) two movies (Stargate: Ark of Truth and Stargate: Continuum,) a few comic books, several games (most of which were hyped to the extreme and then promptly cancelled) and a huge fanbase.

 

So, go. Pick up a copy on Netfuluzon Prime or whatever you use and watch. And watch some more.

 

Fair warning though, the first season was on Showtime. They were pretty good about keeping it broadcast friendly, but... um... The first episode had an... attempt... at garnering a larger... male audience, if you catch my meaning. It was thankfully only the one time, but if you're like me and don't like that sorta stuff in your scifi, it will drag on... and on... and on...

[Silvan Haven]

Stargate is probably the only show I know of that managed to be so hugely successful and still extremely niche at the same time. Not all that many people outside of sci-fi fans know more about it than the name, if that.

[IcarusBen]

It's one of the best scifi series ever, though I will admit there were quite a few embarassing moments that even the writers swept under the rug.

 

*cough*the Hathor retcon*cough*

 

Back on topic, setting it roughly around the middle of season 1 is probably the best idea. It's early on, but the base has already settled into it's role of "go to planet A, mess up doohickey B, get caught by civilization C, fix problem with doohickey D."

[Silvan Haven]

That sounds about best.

[IcarusBen]

The other thing I would want established are joinable factions. I'd recommend leaving it entirely as Tauri factions, because personally, I feel they'd make the most sense.

 

I'd say the players should be able to join the US Air Force/Marines, the Russian Air Force/Marines, the NID, SGC Science personnel, SGC Diplomatic personnel and SGC Medical personnel.

[Silvan Haven]

Not really sure why. Maybe two of those actually count as separate factions but the point of a Stargate RPG is to fight aliens, not other Earth people.

Edited May 31, 2015 by Silvan Haven

[IcarusBen]

Yeah, thinking about it, I could group them under US-SGC, RF-SGC, and NID, but those last two would probably work better as non-joinable factions, since the focus will be on the SGC, with the only other P.o.I on Earth might be Colorado Springs, DC, and Area 51, but they'll only really visit there when the plot needs them to.

 

There's three more issues I'd want dealt with; the first being will we recycle episode plots every now and again (I'd wager that we'd only use the plot-important episodes), the second being how light-hearted will the RP be (I'm thinking maintaining the typical balance of drama-to-comic relief, with a few moments that are all "ERMEHGERD DERHMERH" and a few that are, well, Urgo/200/The Other Guys) and the third being how to deal with SG-teams. I'd say that after a character is approved, they're assigned to an SG-team by the GMs.

[Silvan Haven]

Certain plot episodes will probably happen unless the RPG makes major butterflies. Other more normal episodes could be used for basic missions. That's not to say only use episodes as a basis for missions, though. Stargate's lore is fleshed out well enough to come up with lots of great missions anyway.

 

Not sure why the serious ness of the RPG would be of any concern. I mean yeah, the show tossed in a fair amount of humor. That's not going to effect the RPG though, stuff like that is up to the players.

 

Sounds like a fair enough way to work with the SG-Team thing.

 

At this point I feel the need to say that while I would love to play a Stargate RPG, I'm not going to help run one. I'm already going to be heading another game in the Bionicle RPG section and I try to be careful with how much time I devote to RPGs.

[IcarusBen]

Two things; one, can you PM me about what game you'll be running in BRPG, I'd like to know but also not derail this topic too badly. Otherwise...

 

 

Yeah...

 

Secondly, a lot of the humorous episodes were humorous through no fault of SG-1, but rather because of the people they had to interact with, in particular the episodes "Urgo" and "Window of Opprotunity." If that's the case, it'd be up to the person writing up the planets, not the RPers, who'd be in charge of how much humor was thrown in, to which I say, "once in a while is fine, but don't let it absorb the RP."

[Silvan Haven]

That would be on a case by case basis, depending on the episode/mission.

 

A Stargate RPG would really well in an episodic format.

[Atton Rand]

 

 

Anyway, it's something of a condition I have when writing science fiction. I really don't like it when science fiction blatantly disregards established science and would rather not take creative liberties for the sake of being cool or dramatic.

 

But working on a smaller scale it's not as much of an issue. Being set on the moon it would be easier to incorporate actual science without any interference with pacing.

 

Actually I though that was the politically correct term for a space man. My apologies if I got the lingo wrong. The Word fiction I would think would allow for freedom of expression in that regard I would think. It is not like you were writing science fact. Though I guess in your case that may actually be the case.

 

As far as I'm aware, "astronaut" is generally considered sufficient to describe any person, male or female, who lives and works in outer space. The term "cosmonaut" is usually used to refer to astronauts from the Soviet Union (hence my confusion about you referring to two American astronauts by that name, given their government's... strong feelings about communism). Cosmonauts actually played a crucial role in early space exploration: it was a cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, who was the first person to be successfully launched into orbit and return to Earth safely. It was also a cosmonaut, Valentina Tereshkhova, who was the first woman in space 18 years before America would send up their first female astronaut (Sally Ride) and 27 years before Canada's first female astronaut (Roberta Bondar). 

 

 

True the Moon is naturally the first stepping stone to exploring the Solar system, then the Galaxy, and finally the Universe as a whole. I don't see why an RPG could not in theory start there and then develop resources to expand to the other planets. There had been talk of using passing comets and asteroids as way stations for intergalactic travel. Once we learn how to harvest the raw materials from such sources.

 

In theory, that makes sense. I could see a few ways in which the moon would make sense as a a stepping stone for exploring the Solar System, though I feel I should point out that what you are describing is interplanetary travel, not intergalactic. You shouldn't confuse interplanetary, interstellar, and intergalactic seeing as those are three very different forms of travel that imply different distances. Interplanetary simply means travel between planets (i.e. from Earth to Mars) with a Solar System. Interstellar implies travel between Solar Systems which is already a greater distance (it takes hours for light to travel from our sun to the edge of the solar system, most solar systems are separated by lightyears). Intergalactic is travel between galaxies, which generally tend to be even further away from each other than Solar Systems within them. Interplanetary travel is definitely possible, interstellar maybe one day, but there is no way we are ever going to have intergalactic travel in the near future.

 

Anyway, it makes sense in theory and would make a great science fiction story, but I could see a few problems running an RPG in that form. I'd imagine there would probably be an issue of timing to consider. If the RPG was made with the intent of expanding and people knew that, I could see players getting impatient staying on the moon waiting for technology to reach a point where they can start visiting other planets. I'd also have to make sure it happened at precisely the right moment: too early and it would feel rushed, too late and the moon portion of the game would just seem to drag longer than it needs to. I'd also have to consider the fact that, realistically, this hypothetical RPG would have to take place over several years at least (I've been in RPGs where it sometimes takes months just to write one day). There might be a way of managing that but I'm not sure what it would be.

 

Then of course, hypothetically speaking, if we did get to a point where we could travel to...say... Mars, only a few people would be able to go. Then we'd have to roleplay the two years of travel time to Mars. The players who got put on the mission will have to roleplay the day-to-day lives of astronauts and while everyone else might have to take on Mission Control. They also will be stuck on that ship for some time and unable to interact with everyone else (especially with radio delays being taken into account). Then I guess there'd also be the question of what happens when those players actually land on Mars. The same would arguably happen for any other planets being visited. In this case it would likely be the Jovian worlds since there's no real reason to go to Mercury and Venus is out of the question, but Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are even further from each other than Earth is from Mars. Once again, there would be the question of what happens when they arrive.

 

I don't want to say this idea couldn't work. It's just that there are a few issues to consider and I think they would need to be addressed if we are to consider going this route. This is part of why I thought a smaller scale would work better.

[IcarusBen]

That would be on a case by case basis, depending on the episode/mission.

 

A Stargate RPG would really well in an episodic format.

Of course, episodic format sounds like it's a bit harder to work with.

 

Speaking of which, does anyone else have any ideas for a Stargate RP?

[Silvan Haven]

Atton Rand: Could always just timeskip. There is no reason the players would have to actually RP that travel time.

 

Ben: Not really. Episodic is not really that much harder or easier to work with than the normal type. The only real difference is that you have a distinct beginning and end to each adventure instead of one long continuous flow from one to the next.

[IcarusBen]

 So, basically a TV show, but in a text-based RP. Alright, I get it.

[Atton Rand]

Atton Rand: Could always just timeskip. There is no reason the players would have to actually RP that travel time.

 

It might be a bit disorienting, but including timeskips probably would be the most effective way to run an RPG that takes place over several years. The only problem I could see is it interfering with players' individual stories, but worst case scenario I suppose they could always use flashbacks if they had to depict something within the gap.

[Not Quite Dead]

Or you could just, ya know, put new fancy technology in your game that circumvents the problems of real interplanetary/stellar/galatic travel.

[IcarusBen]

Or you could just, ya know, put new fancy technology in your game that circumvents the problems of real interplanetary/stellar/galatic travel.

 

Wait... fictional science... in science fiction?

 

 

In all seriousness, though, yeah, at some point Rule of Fun must take the priority away from Rule of Realism.

[Prowl Nightwolf]

Well the Travel and distance aspects could have simple solutions along the lines of both time skips and perhaps making a bridge of sorts to these different locations. Mind you intergalactic as you defined it would be overly pointless without the tech to achieve it. So if we were to attempt such a feat within an RP we would have to extend the logic of the people having such tech. I mean we are talking about a Stargate RP as well that has this very much perceived tech.

 

So well it seems illogical for a species to travel across their galaxy we can simply say there are ways. Several Syfi series have this tech from wormhole travel as seen in Star trek I believe to Reaching speeds above lightspeed via dropping into a different type of space. In star Wars it is Hyperspace. In the Animorphs series it is called Z-apace, in other media it is called a space bridge. Though I think the later is simply a form of wormhole travel.

 

On a related note I used the term intergalactic travel universally for all space travel even though I know there are smaller forms. Due to it being the largest known form of space travel. Though inter-universal could be even greater it is not actually solely space travel as one could travel between universes without even leaving their home planet.

[IcarusBen]

Uh... Prowl... I think you've gotten your arguments crossed. We're talking about two different RPs; one about space travel, the other about Stargate. Don't bring the Stargate one into the other RP.

[Prowl Nightwolf]

I know they are different RPGs but I suggested that the possibility of a "stargate" as a means of travel between two parts. Similar to how the ground bridge and space bridge works in the Transformers series. Also the term was used in the ancient Aliens series on H2. So I am only speculating that the actual gate in the series of the same name serves a similar function. Thus the concept could be carried over if the need arose to supplement the whole taking years and lifetimes to travel between to locations. The GM of the Space travel RP could simply use such a device to open new planets and areas buy saying something along the lines that so many NPCs finally reached the new designation and secure a faster means of traveling there via these bridges/gates.


Stargate from one of the shows.


Ground bridge used in Transformers Prime Series. Looks very similar yes?


Believed to be a real stargate found in Peru used by ancient gods. Here it is closed yet legend says it has opened and beings have stepped through.

[Silvan Haven]

Yes, but the Stargate RPG does include interstellar travel.

 

Also Prowl. I would suggest not using intergalactic to mean any kind of space travel. It's kind of like calling a metro or subway the same thing as global transport.