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[_DivideByZero_]

So I was thinking about doing a suggestion game. I have a background planned out, but there's a few different games I feel would work well in the same setting.

The setting:

It is close to the year 3000. Humanity has not left the solar system, but we have colonized six bodies off-Earth, each with its own flavor of unobtanium to facilitate space trade.

Spoiler: Major Colonies (click to show/hide)

Earth: A planet of twenty billion individuals. Society revolves around VR tech and a simulated universe, and the majority of the population is plugged in at underground sites although there remains a minority who prefer to live in the abandoned urban jungles.

Venus: Originally founded as an aerostat research colony that became mostly self-sufficient. Now they're a hub for Sundivers who mine cosmic strings from the vicinity of the sun.
Luna (the Moon): Titanium, which is good for lightweight ship parts, not so much structure for which aluminium is much better. There's also some phosphorous and volatiles. Mostly aligned with Earth rather than the colonies.
Mars: Phosphorous and alien artifacts. There was a definite alien presence in the solar system, and Mars is the only place where the remnants have been preserved decently well.
Ceres: Home to a self-replicating nanotechnology called Logitree, found in the Bright Spots the Dawn orbiter spotted, used for quantum computing.
Europa: Originally this colony started as a heavy mining operation to explore the moon's subsurface ocean, where they found alien artifacts. Now it's the system's largest shipyard save Luna and a hub for outer-system travel.
Neptune: The magnetic field of Neptune is partially caused by magnetic monopoles originating in the planet's mantle and mined by humans. Uranus also has some, but not as many as Neptune.

Honorable Mention: Titan
Titan was first exploited in the early 2400's after hydrocarbon imports from Earth started declining. Earth retains a huge ground military presence here, it's only major forces outside of the Earth-Luna system and some recent depots. While Colonials exploit the hydrocarbon reserves regularly, Earth only currently allows this in exchange for Logitree and cosmic string export treaties that favor Earth.

However, tension has been increasing the past century due to a large-scale extrasolar mining project started nine centuries ago. Robotic miners were sent to the star Beta Pictoris to build up factories and create antimatter refineries out of the star's debris disk. Now the first shipment is set to arrive in fifty years, and both the Colonials and the Terrans have built up navies to compete for dominance of the solar system in preparation. Large-scale warfare has never happened before in the solar system, so space combat doctrine is yet to be tried and tested.

Spoiler: Idea one: War Profiteering in Space (click to show/hide)

Players would suggest actions for a ragtag group of space junkies who decided to try and make a profit during the war, either by smuggling resources to Earth or the Colonies, salvaging after battles, fighting as mercenaries, or simply piracy and opportunism.

You'd have a small freighter at first able to do basic trade runs, but there's no reason a freighter can't have a gun attached and be made into a warship.

Spoiler: Idea two: Doctors without Orbits (click to show/hide)

Instead of trying to make a profit, the game instead revolves around a hospital ship maintained by some non-profit fund, meant to rescue survivors after space battles occur. You'd have to contend with governments asking (and bribing) you to hand over prisoners, dealing with looters and scavengers who want to have that shiny stasis-pod tech, and dealing with borders and military law to get the wounded into a proper hospita, among other things.

Spoiler: Idea three: Arms Race, Interplanetary Edition (click to show/hide)

Basically WW2 in space. I haven't hosted an arms race game before, but what I had in mind is that players would own a tech company with a neutral alignment in the Antimatter War. They'd end up either siding with one or waiting it out and selling tech to both sides. Either way it would involve observing battles and developing new tech, and maybe some politics.

I could also host a more traditional RtD in the setting, but I've learned to dislike games where everyone's forced to share the same ship. If anyone has any suggestions on how to handle that while retaining some sense of player cooperation, I'd appreciate it.

[Andres]

If you're making a space game, you have to heavily stylise it like 40k did or it'll probably end up being generic.

[Rolepgeek]

Not necessarily. You think in absolutes entirely too often, Andres.

Besides which, generic doesn't mean bad.

[_DivideByZero_]

Well, I think he has a point. Mass Effect would be pretty damn generic if the story was told by me 

[Rolepgeek]

Made Effect is already generic. It just does it well. That's what matters.

[Parsely]

If you're making a space game, you have to heavily stylise it like 40k did or it'll probably end up being generic.

You're joking right?

[Andres]

If you're making a space game, you have to heavily stylise it like 40k did or it'll probably end up being generic.

You're joking right?

I haven't been able to distinguish the various space games that've popped up on this board. The only generic sci-fi I can recognise at a glance are in video games and movies, not in forum games.

[_DivideByZero_]

It does take a lot to build the sort of memes 40K has. Although being generic has its pluses, I've noticed my more generic games have had more unique characters in them, simply because people had established tropes already to work with.

[Kadzar]

Spoiler: Idea two: Doctors without Orbits (click to show/hide)

Instead of trying to make a profit, the game instead revolves around a hospital ship maintained by some non-profit fund, meant to rescue survivors after space battles occur. You'd have to contend with governments asking (and bribing) you to hand over prisoners, dealing with looters and scavengers who want to have that shiny stasis-pod tech, and dealing with borders and military law to get the wounded into a proper hospita, among other things.

I really like this idea, even outside the setting, because it encourages players to try to solve problems non-violently, and it gives players a goal other than trying to get as much money as possible (though I think money should still be a factor, with things like supplies, buying new equipment, payroll, having to bribe officials, etc.). They probably shouldn't have to fund the whole operation themselves, but, out in the field, it doesn't matter how much money your organization has if you don't have cash on hand. Or sometimes you might have an expense that headquarters wouldn't be willing to authorize, or you just don't have the cash, so you need to find something besides money to exchange for goods or services.

Also, I figure it's your intention, but the game should solely focus on the ship itself, specifically its crew, the people who care enough about saving lives that they're willing to risk their own entering a battlefield to help people. Even if the crew is especially large, you should have a few characters use as viewpoint characters. But also take advantage of the fact that it's a suggestion game, and that if you kidnap or even kill a character, you're not putting anyone out of the game. The players are putting are putting them at risk when they try risky things, and, if you lose them, it's going to be hard to find a replacement with their skills, especially while on a mission. See what happens when your best surgeon gets captured in the field or your chief engineer gets killed by pirates.

And, perhaps if a character loses contact with the main group, the players shouldn't be able to see what they see or dictate their actions; they either do nothing or follow their last orders, or whatever the gm deems appropriate. Contact would mean having their personal comm radio on them, or just being on the ship, but, if for some reason you needed them be incognito or whatever, you could have them not using their comm, in which case they'd stop being directly controllable, and you'd have to send and receive any new communication or orders by other means. I don't know, it's just an idea to prevent metagaming.

But back to my mention of kidnapping: this game should probably involve less killing of player characters than most games, or at least intent to kill them on the part of NPCs. In some ways because this it's more realistic this way (most real life thieves would be a lot more willing to negotiate than most D&D bandits), and also because, as people with an aversion to killing, it will be a little harder for the characters to do things if every enemy they meet is always out for blood. This doesn't mean they'll necessarily be friendly, and since player combat won't be a focus, combat could be much more lethal and injuries more debilitating than usual, making surrender and parley much more agreeable options to players. And enemies should generally be willing to accept their surrender, because captured prisoners can be held for ransom, information, prisoner exchange, or to perform some service for the enemy, and also because most people are adverse to killing a helpless opponent.

Looking back at the post, you specifically call out space battles, and I suppose it wouldn't work so well with the setting you have, but at first I was imagining them operating on planets: having to land on the planet (harder on some more hostile worlds; some trickery may be needed), negotiate their way to the battlefield, set up a field hospital, and in some cases successfully extract patients back their ship for proper treatment (or even getting ship and patient away from the planet to a more advanced treatment facility). This might require a more advanced setting with FTL and human-habitable planets and a planetary defense system that prevents ships from just landing right on the battlefield. I don't know. But what I really liked about the whole doctors idea was that it encourages players to be clever and tactful and not try to solve their problems by going in all guns blazing.

[Digital Hellhound]

I echo Kadzar's thoughts on Doctors without Orbits. I'd imagine a whole number of complications and dilemmas for the crew - what if one side of the battle demands you only tend to their wounded at the risk of being arrested or attacked? If pirates board you - and it turns out they need surgery for their leader, though giving such aid would cause problems with other factions. If one side offers you a sizeable reward or desperately-needed funding for your help, which risks your image of neutrality? I like it for the variety of non-violent problems and solutions you could throw at 'em.

I also like it because I know sooner or later someone is going to treat it as an actioney combat game and ruin everything by fighting someone you really shouldn't.

[maidiance]

PTW

[ATHATH]

Okay guys, idea here...

What if we took the top three or so best/most well known forumites from a bunch of different forums and put them in a forum game together with a legendary GM?

I have no plans to actually do that; I'm just putting the idea out there.

[Andres]

The idea reminds me of Zac Effron at E3.

[Digital Hellhound]

So, basically, you'd have to figure out who are the top players and how the hell do you judge that, do the same for the GM, somehow convince them to use their time on this game, make a game all of them actually want to play, get them to migrate to the same place from their forums of choice...

Yeah, uh, good luck with that.

[origamiscienceguy]

So, basically, you'd have to figure out who are the top players and how the hell do you judge that, do the same for the GM, somehow convince them to use their time on this game, make a game all of them actually want to play, get them to migrate to the same place from their forums of choice...

Yeah, uh, good luck with that.

Hey, Mafia Championship did that!