Deep Space: A Roleplaying Game

[Gnomemaster]

Science Fiction and Fantasy are a staple of literature and roleplaying games. Imagine a game, taking place in a galaxy billions of light years away.

There are no Humans, only various coalitions and federations of solar systems, species, and planets.

My goal is to combine themes and ideas from all manner of sci fi, from Star Trek, to star wars, to Warhammer 40K

I will also apply my Universe Game rules, that I will present in this thread.

Mostly the Idea behind a Universe Game is that Players choose a power level (either low, medium, high, or epic leveled) with various classes to choose from. Characters do not level up or necessarily roll customers up, It's my goal to do away the lengthy process of rolling characters. Character's stats will already be pre-rolled, with many spells, powers, and abilities. It will be up to the players to create a back story, name, gear and other details.

It is my hopes to create a simple but fun science fiction game that takes the work out of character creation and puts more of the focus back into actually playing. I will keep this posted (hopefully)

Please comment on any ideas you have.

[Ra-Tiel]

The idea of different power levels is good. Blue Planet also implemented those to represent the varying abilities "everyday" characters (like conartists or ordinary people), "expert" characters (like mercenaries or gifted artists), or "elite" characters (like special-ops soldiers or very wealthy/competent politicians or scientists) have.

A slight point of criticism: I wouldn't do away with leveling. Gaining levels and becoming more powerful is one staple of DnD, and provides one major part of the fun of the game - to see your character grow and being able to overcome more powerful obstacles.

So, how about another idea to represent powerlevel: level limits? For example, an "low" character cannot gain more than 2 levels in any single class, a "medium" character cannot gain more than 4 levels in any single class, a "high" character cannot gain more than 8 levels in any single class, and an "epic" character cannot gain more than 16 levels in any single class. The total level cap could still be set at 20.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

I would always hesitate to endorse a setting without humans. Some disagree with me, on this, but I fell, since your audience is presumably human, it gives them something to relate to. Having nothing in a setting which thinks and feels and acts the way we do can make it too alien for more than a diversion for some players.

[Raelifin]

I would always hesitate to endorse a setting without humans. Some disagree with me, on this, but I fell, since your audience is presumably human, it gives them something to relate to. Having nothing in a setting which thinks and feels and acts the way we do can make it too alien for more than a diversion for some players.

Surprisingly, I agree. Throwing out humans is one of the hardest choices as a world builder, and if you don't understand the repercussions, it can be one of the worst choices. Make sure that you have a very good reason before you do something of that severity.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

Rael reminds me to qualify my claim:

If you have a creature which is mentally and functionally identical to humanity taking its place, that may be okay. If that's the case, though, you may need to question why not use humans in the first place. Maybe you have a good answer for that; sometimes there is.

But if elves are just going to be humans with pointy ears, but all the usual way of thinking and feeling, what's the point in an all elf world? And if they're so different from us, then how do we -- as your presumably human audience -- relate to them?

Even from a roleplaying perspective, I've always felt human characters, both mine and those I've observed in others, tend to have more depth and personality than other races (assuming those other races aren't being played just as humans with a twist).

[Gnomemaster]

One of the ideas that I had that had been working with that maybe everyone had seen before was that there are Men. The race of Man is made up of descendants of a penal colony ship. I am willing to toss them in there.

I like the premise that Enterprise had, that this is a universe the mostly has no clue what humans are. But I didn't like how Enterprise went about things.

On the no levels, I find that I am a pretty casual DM, so I want a game where I can pick it up with some of my friends very quickly. The power levels will be decided by the GM just like in Mutants and Masterminds but not. I gotta run, but I will have a little bit more concrete work.

One of my hopes is that there will be enough classes to fill a book. Each of them will have everything that a Player needs to just add a name and go.
 

[Ravenspath]

It's my goal to do away the lengthy process of rolling characters. Character's stats will already be pre-rolled, with many spells, powers, and abilities. It will be up to the players to create a back story, name, gear and other details.  

To me character creation is one of the great joys of the game. And if you are going to have my stats, spells and powers already ready decided for me that doesn't leave me a whole lot to do. Yes I can create an interesting back story, but that will be the only thing that differentiates me from another of the same class. I like writing back stories that justify the characters abilities. That is what give the character the individual feel and for me the passion to play them.

I would hesitate to take too much of the character creation out of the player's hands.

I look forward to seeing what concepts you take from the various sci-fi sources and how you blend them together.

[the_taken]

A thread that looked at the variance power levels in WH40K:
http://bb.bbboy.net/thegamingden-viewthread?forum=6&thread=151

The gist of the concept is that Space Marines are so vastly more powerful than any regular human that only the highest level humans can compete with the lowest level Space Marines. Similar things hapen when you compare tanks to titans.
Then there's psychics who can go from Lvl 1 Goth-punks with voices in their head to Lvl 90 Super Saijens with voices in their head.