A New Background for Sci-Fi Games? Maybe Star Wars?

[Jagannath]

Hi all,

I've been working on lots of fairly generic 15mm sci-fi over the past few years and I'm looking for some new inspiration for a more focused project.

I'd like some settings where low level conflict makes sense, and that have enough background that I can explore. So, whilst I really like the background, I'm not really looking for Warhammer 40,000 grimdark with trillions of troops, but neither am I looking for gang-warfare. Or simply gaming one particular battle.

One consideration I had was a Star Wars 'proxy' - the miniatures wouldn't need to be identical, they'd simply need to convey a similar vibe as their counterparts. But outside of the larger battles seen in the films, I'm not sue where to start.

What I'm looking for is not a massive planetary invasion, it's reasons that a patrol/platoon might be battling without a huge amount of support, or conflict between sci-fi insurgents and equivalents of LRDG. Perhaps a background heavy with smaller colonies. Even better with a variety of protagonists.

Whatchagot?

Cheers

[baldlea]

I think you're along the right lines with "heavy with small colony worlds". Our homebrew setting has each player's force as part of one of the bigger, more successful "nations" that arrived in crowded star cluster when they left Earth.

There are also many, many small colonies both successful and failed. Deserted colonies become "fair game" to the big factions when nobody is left to claim them leading to small battles.

Even where a colony still exists, some of the nastier nations may be exploiting them leading an opponent to send a task force to protect them. Or perhaps the colony itself is isolationist because it's up to no good etc. My own faction are Political Correctness gone mad and will fight over environmental issues etc. (if it makes for an interesting game).

You say that you like 40k backrground. Could you compromise and look at Rogue Trader? That had all manner of strange scenarios for smaller forces than the current iterations prefer. Rick Priestley is a genius because he dreamed up a setting that had vastly disparate tech levels, races and cultures...thousands of reasons to fight and means of doing so. I know he borrowed from other settings but that just meant RT allowed players to base their games on existing fiction. Lawmen, pirates, insurgents, regulars, militia...they're all there.

I'd also recommend Nordic Weasel Games for some of their scenario generators (though the games maybe pricey if only buying for the generators).

[zemjw]

You could also have a look at the Traveller universe. More of a hard SF settings, so definitely not 40K, but it has been developed for several decades, so there's plenty to pick and choose from.

[Jagannath]

Thanks everyone - there's some interesting stuff there.

Where should I start with 'Traveller' if I'm only interested in the background? It's so vast that it's always seemed a bit impenetrable to me.

You've desperately given me some ideas for spaceship games - basically a feudal type set up with battleships as knights and smaller asteroid miners or stations as the 'serfs'.

[zemjw]

My Traveller experience is very much reading and wishing, rather than actually playing , so the following is purely opinion, rather than experience based.

The Spinward Marches seems to be the most flexible of the sectors, but it's worth having a look at them all. The Traveller Wiki is a good (and free) starting point.

They've just finished detailing the Spinward Marches in the Traveller Wiki, which includes sections on history and background.

Gurps Traveller did a full write-up of the Spinward Marches. The 147 page pdf is available from Warehouse 23 for $7.99. It doesn't go into massive detail on most of the planets, but there seems to be at least a paragraph on each one, as well as some details of mega corporations. If you're interested in buying it, you'd better do so fairly soon, as SJ Games is dropping all Traveller stuff within the next few months.

The current official source is Mongoose Traveller. Their Spinward Marches guide, along with some maps and adventures can be found on RPGNow with this search.

The offical Traveller forum is here

[Jagannath]

Thanks for that - I bought the Spinward Marches PDF, so let's see where that takes me!

Appreciate it,

R

[dbsubashi]

Looking at your requirements, I immediately thought "Shadowrun". It is a RPG set about 60 years from now, where 10 super-corporations have more or less taken over, but most of the "old" nations are still around. Advanced science mixes with magic and all are used on the battlefield. This is also a game world where most of the old nations have "Balkan-ized", i.e., in North America the South defected, as did Texas and California. The Native Americans took over everything else. The corporations prefer not to go to full war mode, but have clashed with military forces several times over the game's history. They also support 2 "commercial" warzone, where they send forces to fight and televise the whole thing. These proxy wars are sometimes used as a form of arbitration, just to up the ante. So you get 10 corporate forces, and multiple national forces, along with some strange and fantastic things-Caribbean pirate fleets, South American shapeshifter armies, dragons, Sioux Wildcat Special Forces, African ghoul armies, Fairie terrorist/freedom fighters coming out of the Broceliande Forest, and more. It is covered in a series of source books going back 25 years now. Heck, with a ruleset covering small unit combat (4-12 a side) you could even recreate the black bag corporate raids the game is named after.

[Jagannath]

I'll have a look at Shadowrun - I'd always dismissed it but perhaps I shouldn't.

Whilst I was poking around the internet I found this guys post, which really inspired me:

http://thebestofimgur.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/i-tried-to-find-gritty-star-wars-art.html

Maybe I should pursue a Star Wars based project....

[Major_Gilbear]

If you're looking for something ready-made that you can "slot into", you have quite a lot of options really. It's the continual bigger battles that struggle to be justified IMO.

Off the top of my head therefore:

Rogue Trader / Inquisitor.
Obvious, I guess, plus models are dead easy to come by. Plus, you don't need to actually have a RT or Inquisitor leading any group or gang really - the setting style, size, and detail against the bigger backdrop is all  you need.

Infinity.
The game grew from an RPG, and is basically what you seem to be after - it even has sci-fi vs near-future skirmishes and is essentially just about infantry-based skirmishes. Not grimdark at all (quite the opposite in many ways), but the whole thing is geared to skirmish-size micro-conflicts all over the known systems. Colonies of the 5 human powers exist all over outside the planets they hold, and present you with lots of interesting material. The downside is that I don't think the game as written will work at 15mm scale at all, but if you're just using the setting, then it'd work just fine.

Star Wars
A great setting, well known, and there are several official timelines too. Pretty much anything you want can be represented (probably has been!) and there's lots of freely-available support material too. I even picked up AE Bounty rules a while back just to play these sorts of games in the Star Wars universe myself.

Firefly / Serenity
Again, pretty much what you're after. Lots and lots of colonies, some stuff is near-future, other stuff is fairly sci-fi. Despite the short series and the single film, it is a very rich (and I'd say untapped) universe to explore.

Mass Effect
This is unashamedly more sci-fi than near-future, but as backgrounds go there is massive scope to set your games in - a whole galaxy filled with everything from some lonely pre-fabs on a planet to huge space stations and teeming cities. From mercenary companies (some even fairly legitimate and large corporation-sized) to armed colonists, there's plenty of variety to fit your figures into (as long as they are fairly sci-fi!). There's a big Wiki as well that has lots of info too, so getting information on the setting is pretty straightforward.

Beyond that, there's really a huge number of other settings that you can look into or make up yourself as Scurv says.

Either way, I hope that you share your project with us here on LAF when you've made your choice!

[Momotaro]

A couple of thoughts from other Traveller roleplaying games.  Both the exampled below have a lot of PDF sourcebooks still available on DrivethruRPG.

The aftermath of an invasion, as seen in 2300AD

Perhaps the invaders were defeated, and now their forces are scattered across one or more colony worlds.  Your job is mopping up pockets of resistance anywhere from shattered cities to isolated bases and farms out in the wild, all against a backdrop of hostile alien landscapes.  As you're at the fringe of human space, your forces are also not as well supplied as they could be.

There are other powers, both human and alien in the region - maybe they help, mayge they finally make their own move...

Or your forces have to evacuate from the invaded planet but are trapped behind enemy lines. Can you make it back to the last operational spaceport?  We've toyed with the idea of a co-op campaign of fighting, scavenging and exploration in just such a scenario.

Rats in the walls of a collapsed interstellar civilisation, Traveller: The New Era

Civilisation has collapsed across the galaxy, and you are just starting to explore the stars again.  The collapse happened everywhere, and many worlds have changed completely since you last heard from them.  Some have regressed to barbarism, others got religion, others were invaded and some are cold, dead habitats on airless moons.

Again, fighting, exploration and scavenging, but the great battleships of yesteryear are gone - you are taking to the stars in battered old light traders and patrol boats.  A crew of dozens rather than thousands.  A different world, a different foe, a different challenge every battle... and whatever caused the collapse is still out there...

Another good RPG on the theme of a collapsed civilisation is called Stars without Number - a free version is also available on DrivethruRPG.  It's built as a sandbox game, so it has tons of resources for creating your own planets, aliens, missions, corporations, scenarios etc

Take a look at some of the Two Hour Wargames too - 5150 Star Army/Platoon Leader and All Things Zombie have great campaign resources

[aliensurfer]

'One consideration I had was a Star Wars 'proxy' - the miniatures wouldn't need to be identical, they'd simply need to convey a similar vibe as their counterparts. But outside of the larger battles seen in the films, I'm not sue where to start.'

If you decided to try and use the old WEG line, you can also use GZG 25mm figures as rebels and Imp armies / PDF and they size up perfectly.

[eilif]

I really like the Battletech universe.  Lots of places to plug in and lots of worlds where battlemechs aren't the main focus.  One of the most developed gaming universes there is.

Alternatively you could take a look at our club's homebrew sci-fi gaming universe the Galactic Frontier.
http://chicagoskirmish.blogspot.com/p/galactic-frontier-homebrew-sci-fi.html