Informal Survey

[Fourth Horseman]

With our election little more then a week old, the future has been on my mind a lot. I'm a bit curious to know some of your opinions on game settings placed in the near future, i.e. 30 years down the road.

(a) What's the biggest thing storywise you would like to see included in such a setting?

(b) What's your biggest pet peeve concerning games of this genre?

[luke]

You know my thoughts on this, but I'll post them here to get the discussion started. My pet peeve about near future scenarios is: ["in a land..." announcer's voice] "30 years ago something really cool and intense happened. Now you're going to play in the boring time afterwards."

that, and future tech that's about as advanced as a 4-slice toaster. Shadowrun's Datajak, Datapad and Deck come to mind.

-L

[Viper]

The central question I would like to see the setting revolve around is technology vs. spirituality/religon. You can see the beginnings of it now in the opposition to stem cell research- what will it be like when gene manipulation will allow you to take any form you choose, even that of an animal (or a hybrid)? When nanotechnology allows for the grafting of machines and circuitry to your body? When functional immortality is available to the rich? Do you need god to feel happy and fulfilled when you can just take a pill that will give you the same feeling? Do androids dream of electric sheep?

You will have anti-technology zealots, some of which feel such things are such an affront it will drive them to sabotage industry and commit terrorist acts against tech firms. You will also have technocrats calling for an end to the primitive belief in god and spiritual things- anything you want, we can give you... why worry about the afterlife when we can make sure you never have to see it?

This being a SF/Fantasy world, the fantastic effects of technology should be real, but so should the powerful faith of those who believe - they should have undeniable miracles that mirror anything technology can do. It's tempting to set it up as good vs. evil, but it's not that cut and dried - its more about what they put their faith in. It should be a time of crisis- the last temptation of man, if you will... we now have the means to master the universe - we know how to break all the rules, and even how to make new ones. Do we trust ourselves with this power, or do we look to god for guidance? We can do anything, but SHOULD we? Who decides?Most of the world will be coming down on one side or another, with a few splinter groups here and there trying to combine the two approaches.

My biggest pet peeve with the genre is that they're just kind of limited in the way in which they deal with the impact of technology. In cyberpunk, it's like, hey, I'll get a cyberarm, with such-and-such doodads- it'll be awesome! Not taking into account that making that decision means you are making the decision TO CUT OFF YOUR FUCKING ARM. I know that there is the humanity mechanic in that game, and it's a good start, but I don't think it captures the scope of what that decision does to a person.

[stormsweeper]

Storywise? Something for the characters to do, besides "make your way on the mean streets" or similar. I less a fan of nihilism than I was when I was 15.

Pet peeves? Trying to hold too hard to a tough economic setting. Cyberpunk made it too hard to buy anything, unless like almost every other group out there your GM started paying you too much. Shadowrun tried for that, but generally you just ended up trying to figure out how to spend all that nuyen (Oh, I guess I'll get 10000 rounds of HEAP ammo).

Also, the tech things are ridiculous as Abzu pointed out. I cringe whenever I open up my copy of Cyberpunk 2020 and see those huge 1989-style cell phones (the briefcase sized ones) listed for $500 with service at $100/month.

One of my favorite games in the genre really is Cybergeneration, the spin off game from Cyberpunk 2020. While it did have some of the flaws above (notably a corporate takeover of the USA 2 years before the setting), it also dealt with many things, or at least eliminated them.

[Thor]

To me, the key to a future setting like this is to figure out exactly WHY it should be set in the near future to begin with. Generally, I think, the answer is to take something we see happening today and move along the timeline to where we think the breaking point might be.

Viper's suggestion about the tension between religion and technology is a case in point. We take the issue of genetic engineering/stem cell research that we are grappling with today and extend into the future to see what happens when the conflict finally reaches a head.

Afterall, this is what the best SF does anyway. It takes a difficult issue and removes it from the present, which can be too immediate for us, and moves it to somewhen else -- close enough to still be recognizable, but far enough that we can look at the issue from the outside, as it were.

For me, the big ones are religion v. secularism and security v. civil liberties (perhaps with technology v. privacy as a subset).

As for pet peeves, along with the ones already mentioned, I hate it when settings project a future with sweeping changes to the political, economic and business landscapes, but the writers are ignorant or naive about how politics, economics and business works.

For instance, I remember being annoyed by some of the changes projected in Abberant, although it's been long enough that I don't remember precise examples. I think one of them was the idea of Viacom buying out Microsoft, which struck me as patently ridiculous.

[Yagathai]

You leave Shadowrun alone, Abzu! It tries very hard.

[rafial]

I'm generally attracted to two genres. First is nice crunchy Space Opera, with blasters, wack military uniforms, and spaceships snarling through the void. This can be played gonzo, ala Star Wars, or more sedate, ala Traveller. The key element here though is that apart from a general nod to "Science" rather than "Magic" it all plays out much like your typical fantasy RPG, only you have more ranged weapons, and you may spend a little more time talking to the non-humans rather than trying to slaughter them (YMMV).

But I also really love me some genuinely speculative transhuman stuff. I've got the hardback for Transhuman Space, and the setting just fills me with glee. Not "I got me a cyberarm" -- rather "I'm a simulation of a personality reconstructed from historical records decanted into an AI processor housed in a body genetically altered for the Martian environment: am I human?" On the other hand, GURPs as a system makes me fall asleep, so if I ever did attempt to run it, I'd love to have some BW Future back in underneath it.

I think BW Future could support either of those approaches. And of course the BW system *must* at some point be used to run a Traveller game ;)

[Kaare Berg]

IMO the most important part of creating a Sci Fi BW would be to keep the original generic style of BW.

Now I love both Star Wars and Transhuman Space settings. I am playing with the idea of making Burning Suns (BW in the Fading Suns universe), or even better setting a game in the WH 40K universe (drool and swoon).

IMO the best way forward for BW (pun intended) is to leave all specific issues (like religion vs progresss) out of the core set. This does however pose certain problems for character burning since lifepaths are concept derived.

You could do:

Colony World Setting:
Core World Setting:
Space Nomad settng:
Space Pilot Setting:
Armed Forces Setting
Gutter Scum Setting

and so on.

The clue, IMO, is not to tie the game into a pre-determined conflict.

*edited to answer the original question. should teach me to read before posting.

I think I answered part A, I just forgot about part B and got a bit rantish. Well its friday - - -

b)pet Peeve.
Settings that place focus on technology at the expense of human drama. Transhuman asks you, what is human?
WEG Starwars is about being a good hero. (d20 Star Wars is about what level are you and what feat do you have.)
Cyberpunk asks what happens if you put to much machine in the meat.
Technology features (somethimes heavily), but the overriding feature is human drama.
I've lost the facination with spectro-rays and x-ray glasses for their own sake. And my peeve is with settings that focus on: "you're in a pit what do you do? I pull out my collapsible porta teleporter and zapp out. Cool."
Instead I like to ask: "You see the exit, its clean, no aliens here. will you leave or will you return to the hive to get Newt?"

Apologise for the need to edit to make my point. Have I made one?

K

[AnyaTheBlue]

This thread is very very old, but what the hey?

a)I'm going to vote for a "First Contact" type scenario, where advanced Aliens have contacted us, and how that develops.

Oh, yes. And I'd like a Beanstalk, please... =)

b) Pet Peeve?

That's a hard question. I'm going to vote for dystopian settings. I'm tired of dystopia. Well, unintersting dystopia, anyway. Hopeless dystopia. I'm also pretty tired of conspiracy, but perhaps that's just me getting 'X-filed" out during the 90s...

[jc_madden]

Some how this topic went from near future to sci-fi? What would I most like to see in a near future game? Early solar system colonization, I think it's feasabile in the next 30 or so.

Pet peeves about the near-future genre? The need to a) exaggerate everything like the super scifi stuff that supposed to somehow be developed in 30 years or B) adding elves to it.

[Kaare Berg]

Some how this topic went from near future to sci-fi?

now this is irony, JC commenting de-railing. :lol:

Since I went way of the mark in this here old thread, let me try again:

a) The creation of AI and the question what is life?

b) same as before just with different examples.

K