Premise Beach: the Space Station
So at the last gaming session, it was announced to the group that we will be now having two monthly games, one run by one GM, the other by myself.
I will share what I have been thinking about, which capitalizes on the fact that I have possibly two groups, not one, for my future game. One group is my current group: mostly adults who have gamed for some time. The other group is largely children (girls, in fact) and novices to gaming.
My idea was to put the entire campaign on a space station, sort of a much larger DS9 or Babylon 5, something more akin to a small town in space. One group (the novices) play the staff of the station, and are responsible for its safety and operation. They would be the Star Fleet personnel, a more directed and reactive group. The other group (the veterans) would play a group of civilians on the same station: freighter captains, merchants, and other associated ne-er do well's.
So I could have one location (the space station), a single pool of NPC's (the crime boss, the nightclub owner, the local politico, the troublesome starship captain, etc.), and storylines that jump from one group to the other. I could on occasion have a PC jump groups too: the staff of the space station are investigating a crime and need the insight of a civilian informant, or the civilians seek the help of the station's medical doctor in treating a sick crewmen. In my mind it would have a bit of an "upstairs/downstairs" feel to it.
I could use the Star Trek: the Next Generation and Deep Space Nine RPG's by Last Unicorn Games to do this, or Traveller, or the new Firefly RPG. Lots of possibilities there, both in licensed and unlicensed products.
What do you think? Interesting? Overly complicated?
I will share what I have been thinking about, which capitalizes on the fact that I have possibly two groups, not one, for my future game. One group is my current group: mostly adults who have gamed for some time. The other group is largely children (girls, in fact) and novices to gaming.
My idea was to put the entire campaign on a space station, sort of a much larger DS9 or Babylon 5, something more akin to a small town in space. One group (the novices) play the staff of the station, and are responsible for its safety and operation. They would be the Star Fleet personnel, a more directed and reactive group. The other group (the veterans) would play a group of civilians on the same station: freighter captains, merchants, and other associated ne-er do well's.
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| Map by Daniel Swensen |
So I could have one location (the space station), a single pool of NPC's (the crime boss, the nightclub owner, the local politico, the troublesome starship captain, etc.), and storylines that jump from one group to the other. I could on occasion have a PC jump groups too: the staff of the space station are investigating a crime and need the insight of a civilian informant, or the civilians seek the help of the station's medical doctor in treating a sick crewmen. In my mind it would have a bit of an "upstairs/downstairs" feel to it.
I could use the Star Trek: the Next Generation and Deep Space Nine RPG's by Last Unicorn Games to do this, or Traveller, or the new Firefly RPG. Lots of possibilities there, both in licensed and unlicensed products.
What do you think? Interesting? Overly complicated?
You know and I know that the type of game matters relatively little compared with the kinds of stories you want to tell. You should really use Over the Edge as the game system for this game, with the space station replacing Al-Amarja. Get people used to a much less complicated game system. Or maybe Blue Planet? That was an awesome game.
ReplyDeleteWith regard to the NPC pool, though, this is a good idea; so is the "upstairs/downstairs" element.
I'm convinced the map's original designer was using FATE, which is OTE's literary heir.
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