Incline Non-post apocalyptic sci-fi RPG thread

[BlizzardStockholmSyndrome]

OMG, it actually calls itself “spacepunk.” Is that even an established genre at this point?

There's an ongoing Kickstarter for a game calling itself "Mesopunk". Though at least the developer is Mexican.

The old Aztec pre-colombine Gods ranged between dicks to genocidla sociopaths. They make the Greek pantheon sound sane. To the gods, us humans are always walking a tightrope above a precipice then they would randomly blow wind to know a couple of us into the abyss just to the other walkers don't forget their place. When life is brutal, the only explanation the high priest can come up with is: "The Gods are assholes, deal with it".

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Hyperspeed, 1991.
I'm not sure if I'd call it an RPG but it received a review in Dragon magazine issue #180(4/5 stars), therefore I shall mention it.
https://af.gog.com/en/game/hyperspeed?as=1649904300
Dragon review:

can be purchased on both GOG and Steam
https://af.gog.com/en/game/hyperspeed?as=1649904300



Perhaps a not as well known sister game to the Starflights and such?

 

[Zombra]

And a steal at just 59.95.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. I kept falling asleep through some playthroughs of this.

There needs to be a better review.

 

[ropetight]

Late for the party - just wanted to say that Mega Traveller had one of most memorable character creation I ever seen: rolling dices through childhod and career of your future, tons of things that affected your (planet and tech level, schools, injuries)
You started with bit of personal history for party members, and it helped to make bond with your party.


Whale's Voyage had something similar with added parents gene splicing and mutations.


Games were good, but they never reached greatness of their character creation - MT always felt like it was shortened, MT2 was buggy mess, and Whale's Voyage had corrupt disc on version I had so never finished it... but good memories.

I always wondered why there was not more of this kind character creation in games... or why there was no more Traveller games.
Setting was bit over the top, but it was very detailed - there is some great roleplaying in space underneath all those mechanics.

At least we have Slough Feg and their Traveller album:

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Yeah, every one of Paragon Software's games were plagued by having incredible character creation systems, but didn't have any real game to it. I think the flaw in it is that they were taking systems from PnP games and after adapting character creation, they didn't know what to do. I understand the game they made after Microprose bought them out, Challenge of the Five Rings, I think, was actually decent.
You talking about Whale's Voyage reminds me of its untranslated German sequel. Any Germans know if that was any good? I understand it kept the same systems but seems to be in 3D now?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Star Command received a 4.5/5 review in Dragon Magazine #138

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Didn't see mention of this.


review.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Interesting, that sounds kind of like Ironseed, but with a focus on what's actually on the planets...and probably with less amazing music.

I also find it amusing that one of those trailers is from Realms Deep. One of the games to actually come out from one of those things...isn't from 3D Realms. Ouch.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Unfortunately, there just aren't many non-post apocalyptic non-cyberpunk scifi crpgs. I don't know why, especially not after Bioware and Obsidian showed what you could do with the space opera genre. It's a real pity.

I think a crpg based on TSR's 1998 Star*Drive could've been great. It has adventures and metaplot events that could've served as the foundation for a video game adaptation. The planets and alien wildlife are detailed enough that you could add a planetary surveying minigame similar to Mass Effect. The setting, while composed of a lot of well trod scifi tropes, uses the tropes in new ways that I haven't seen done elsewhere to such a degree. It also defies a few space opera stereotypes. Instead of humanity being united under an alliance that is contesting other alien civilizations, you have a dozen stellar nations created and run by humans with most aliens encountered limited to client states. And the backstory opens with the Roswell greys coming to Earth and working with humans to build the first FTL drives in the galaxy, explaining human dominance.

I'd make my own setting like that (I've had no luck finding substitutes elsewhere), if not for the fact that Hasbro owns the IP and is now very lawsuit happy.

 

[Cpt. Dallas]

Unfortunately, there just aren't many non-post apocalyptic non-cyberpunk scifi crpgs. I don't know why,

Because there is no optimism about the future of humanity anywhere, anymore. It's dystopias all the way down.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Unfortunately, there just aren't many non-post apocalyptic non-cyberpunk scifi crpgs. I don't know why,

Because there is no optimism about the future of humanity anywhere, anymore. It's dystopias all the way down.

I wouldn't say a lot of space opera is optimistic in the way Star Trek is. Dune is very cynical, for example. BattleTech is hardly utopian. Warhammer 40,000 is the biggest dystopia ever.

Star*Drive isn't inherently dystopian, but some of the stellar nations are dystopias on mind-boggling scales and several alien races have hugely dystopian backstories. The sesheyans were enslaved by a megacorp empire, the weren are slowly losing their traditional culture even though the stellar nation that owns the space around their planet is very egalitarian, the mechalus/aleerins became vulcans as a result of exterminating the only other sapient species in their solar system, the medurr are the only other known species to have independently developed FTL travel and they're an expansionist empire, the thaal run a covenant-esque theocracy that serves space demons responsible for destroying the precursors, etc. There's more than one reason the setting pressures groups to play frontier campaigns.

 

[thesecret1]

I wouldn't say a lot of space opera is optimistic in the way Star Trek is. Dune is very cynical, for example. BattleTech is hardly utopian. Warhammer 40,000 is the biggest dystopia ever.

Dude what? Star Trek is highly dystopian with humanity being reduced to a bunch of faggots. WH40k on the other hand features highly xenophobic humanity coupled with endless war against hell itself. One of the most utopian settings out there

 

[RaggleFraggle]

I wouldn't say a lot of space opera is optimistic in the way Star Trek is. Dune is very cynical, for example. BattleTech is hardly utopian. Warhammer 40,000 is the biggest dystopia ever.

Dude what? Star Trek is highly dystopian with humanity being reduced to a bunch of faggots. WH40k on the other hand features highly xenophobic humanity coupled with endless war against hell itself. One of the most utopian settings out there

I meant pre-Kurtzman Trek

 

[ropetight]

I wouldn't say a lot of space opera is optimistic in the way Star Trek is. Dune is very cynical, for example. BattleTech is hardly utopian. Warhammer 40,000 is the biggest dystopia ever.

Dude what? Star Trek is highly dystopian with humanity being reduced to a bunch of faggots. WH40k on the other hand features highly xenophobic humanity coupled with endless war against hell itself. One of the most utopian settings out there

I meant pre-Kurtzman Trek

I think he did too.