Building a Space Opera Setting: Setting Concepts

 Most RPGs are collaborative experiences, the GM and players work together to build a story. Certain things make that easier or harder and they should be carefully considered when building a setting.

• The world should be immersive and detailed enough that the players can quickly understand it.
• Overly detailed and complicated worlds can take people out of the game as they struggle to recall details or figure out how new situations and knowledge fit in.
• NPC's should be diverse and include a mix of ones the players regularly interact with and those that are just background. In very few cases does the GM need an actual stat sheet, even for those frequently interacted with. However the GM should keep notes to maintain consistency and allow the NPCs to grow organically over time.
• The GM should not get stuck on prior decisions. Often the players will inspire new ideas or takes on things and if these things are incorporated the players are likely to feel more invested.  This does not have to be obvious or even known to the players. Keep some mystery, let them wonder if this was the original plan or if it changed! That said I sometimes let players know they changed things but only if it wont disrupt the immersion or feeling.
• The GM and the players should be on the same page as much as possible and working towards a mutually satisfying story arc. Strongly guided campaigns (Railroading) are often less work for the GM but unsatisfying to the players who if they feel have no agency will be less invested. Open stories (Sandbox) leave it up to the players to choose and in my experience are a lot like a business run by committee. The ideal option is something in the middle, my preference is more sandbox than railroad but it takes more work on my part and requires me to leave lots of things the players can pick up on and some improvisation on my part.
• GMs that can better predict the players will typically run more interesting (to the players) campaigns and can save themselves a lot of work. Do not be afraid to recycle ideas. NPCs can often be reused with minor tweeks and the same with many plots.
• Related to the above is anticipating spoken and unspoken desires and goals of the players. If a player is interested in combat then combat should be available. If the player is interested in figuring out mysteries, exploration, advancing the world, or just making a difference these should all be considered and opportunities for them provided. Of course different players may have different priorities so time management is important.

Summary

Much of the above is general GM advise. However, certain things are key when designing a setting.

Place things of interest to your specific players and even broader details should have flavor or fluff material that helps players feel more immersed in the setting.

Building a Space Opera Setting: Personal Weapons

 Combat is an important part of most RPGs, so in a Space Opera setting what should we use?

GURPS Ultra-Tech gives us a good assortment of tech but its a grab bag covering multiple tech levels and sciences. So how should we choose what to include?

Weapon Effectiveness

We want our weapons to be cool and invoke something we think is fun. They also need to make sense for the science of the setting. Good choices will make combat fun and interesting. They should be more effective than modern weapons but not too lethal or else everyone hits dies.

GURPS has a reputation for deadliness, though in my opinion its a bit exaggerated. If you go past 0 HP you risk falling unconscious and start requiring death checks at fully -1* HP. A person with average HT and HP has a chance to die after 5d6 average injury. Lucky rolls, armor, higher HT or HP can make it take more. Modern firearms can do this kind of damage, though small arms will usually require several hits. This means a big damage boost can be very lethal.

The author of GURPS Ultra-Tech, David Pulver considered this and one of his solutions was high armor penetration.

I prefer high armor penetration over massive damage as our heroes can still survive if caught outside their armor, or only wearing minimal armor. I do not want characters to feel the need for battlesuits outside of military actions. Armor Penetration makes armor less effective but gives unarmored people a batter chance than just scaling up the damage.

I also like high accuracy (ACC) and lots of shots so we can avoid reloads or carrying tons of magazines or battery packs. Energy weapons that can be recharged can also reduce accounting. Just recharge between fights.

Star Heist Weapons (TL10)

So I want grav weapons since the technology is a key part of the setting. Grav weapons can do crushing damage and be less than lethal and just recharge back at the starship.

Lasers are a classic, highly accurate, good range, quiet, and also rechargeable.

Slug throwers are often favored by players and can be good when you have special needs or a lower tech base such as on a frontier world.

These are all in Ultra-Tech and I think will use the same stats. So I list this in my campaign bible as..

GURPS Spaceships: Building a Space Opera Setting

 In order to make a consistent and plausible setting you need to outline setting assumptions and try to make them make sense and be internally consistent with the setting.

My first step was to determine what form of FTL I wanted and how it works as well as regular space travel. I wanted to use the same core technology if possible so everything blends together. I went with grav-tech and two variations of Jump drives.

Reactionless drives based on gravity manipulation, not the classic push or pull but by bending the spacetime curvature so ships basically fall in the desired direction and that curve can be as steep as desired for higher acceleration. No grav compensators so that pilots dealing with extreme acceleration is a thing.

The FTL portion is bending spacetime so much that ships fall through space itself, only to reappear days later elsewhere.

This led to TL10^ with Standard and Hot Reactionless drives and a custom FTL drive that used various switches.

How Big Are Ships?

My next big step was to decide how big ships would be. I looked at the material in GURPS Spaceships, specifically the Hull Size Table (p. 9) and some example starships.  Then checked out tonnages and size of real world ships to give me a range of ship classes.

Smallcraft: SM+5 to +7 for shuttles and personal transport.

Corvette: SM +8 commercial, escort, survey, and light patrol ships.

Frigate: SM+9 As corvettes. This is the largest SM where most ship systems do not require a dedicated workstation. This makes Frigates optimal for PC ships where a small crew can easily run the entire ship.

Destroyer: SM+10

Cruiser: SM+10 to +12

Battleship: SM+12 to SM+15

Carrier: SM+11 to SM+15

So Frigates are likely the largest PC controlled merchant ship. Most ship systems do not require dedicated crew so a bridge crew can handle most things. 

• Control Rooms have six workstations, plenty for most PC parties. 
• Each Habitat space includes 20 cabins, covering the full crew with plenty left over for passengers or other facilities such as labs. 
• Hanger Bays can handle 100 tons per system, allowing for a shuttle or fighter craft.
• Each Cargo Hold can hold 150 tons, not a large amount but ok for high value cargoes and a ship can of course have more than one cargo hold.

These guidelines let me focus on what size ships to build a good starting sample set. Star Heist is not intended to be a military campaign so the PCs will likely have a SM+8 or SM+9 starship and compete with larger merchant vessels in the Destroyer or Cruiser class that have higher overhead and crews. I also intend there to be plenty of "independent" merchants using SM+8 or SM+9 starships.

Ship Designations

On earth ships are registered with certain designations. This can be useful for players to quickly identify a ships purpose. I will assign ships transponders that broadcast the designation, manufacture, and the make and model. This will speed things up in play, give PCs with appropriate skills or databases to know roughly what a stock model of the ship they face is capable of, and I hope be immersive. Certainly it feels better than just giving a lot of mechanics and statistics.

For example they encounter an Eagle model courier ship made by Stardust Enterprises.

I can then tell them on a successful roll that it has a UV spinal mount, 1 cargo hold, rated for FTL6/6gs, has a hangar bay, and one electronics compartment - usually ECM.

Of course that just tells them the stock design, they need a good sensor roll or closer examination to find the after market modifications or perhaps even manufacturer options like the spinal mount is Improved UV laser with a gravitic lens and the electronics compartment is really a Tactical Array.

So far I have CX (Courier); LB (Life Boat); MV (Merchant Vessel - mega corp); RC (Research Vessel); TV (Trading Vessel - independent); and military designations CV (Carrier Vessel); DD (Dedicated Destroyer); EV (Escort Vessel).

I'll add more later. Transponders will also list the name of the ship (good for Reputation and maybe knowing the captain), and the owner if its a megacorp or military ship. Transponders can be hacked and military ships can turn them off to be more stealthy, but most ships will broadcast them for legal purposes - much like modern ships and especially aircraft.

Sci-Fi Settings

Check this page for a list of settings. Thats a good list but as a list it lacks flavor.  For flavor we need to break that down into something smaller.

GURPS Infinite Worlds

Created to showcase the versatility of GURPS this is a pseudo time travel setting with two competing parachronic opposing organizations. The setting presupposes a bunch of alternate timelines and the characters travel from world to world doing various missions, This is a fun setting, though it can be hard on the GM as it jumps from world to  world and mission assignments vary.

There are a number books and Pyramid articles supporting this setting.

GURPS Transhuman Space

This is the largest sci-fi setting for GURPS and started near the end of the Third Edition, but has had an update and conversion book as well as several fully Fourth Edition supplements.

The concept is a near future where transhumanism is front and center. Computer technology is prolific and humans can upload themselves into machines. Its similar to cyberpunk but less dystopic in a way.

Reign of Steel

Another Third Edition setting updated to Fourth Edition.  This is a post Apocalypse series where computers took over the world. The difference between this and most others of that ilk is that there are several computers (called zone-minds) with each in charge of a certain region of the world (or beyond!) and they are vying with each other for control of resources and philosophies. This is a harsh world where computers send out hunter killer teams to eliminate a human resistance, use them as lab rats, or a labor force.

Tales of the Solar Patrol

This is a Space Opera setting in the vein of pulp science fiction, with square jawed heroes, helpless damsels to rescue, and a lot of stereotypes. Its a fun setting and one not to be taken too seriously.

Lands Out of Time

Another fun setting designed to be less than serious is Lands Out of Time which has a lost world with dinosaurs that the characters are somehow sent to.

Summary

So that 5 complete sci-fi settings for modern GURPS, two tongue in cheek, two serious and more gritty, and one that is pretty much anything goes. Pyramid has several setting ideas in it as well, and Third Edition settings can of course be adapted.

But that is what we have now, what would YOU like to see in the future?