Anachronistic SciFi - the beginings of an idea

[Bailywolf]

I was musing on re-reading DUNE for the 8th time, when I began to consider how to best bring such an Anachronistic SciFi setting to life throuh an RPG.  This is not a "create a DUNE rpg" thread, but one inspired by the sort of world seen in DUNE (forget the follow-up books.  I have).

The primary elements which concern me:

1) A society based on archaic models existing on a galactic interplanetery scale.

2) Political gamesmanship, manipulation, and covert action have replaced large-scale war.  

3) A complex heirarchy of social structres, orders, secret societies, training schools etc.  

4) Heriditery acension to power w/ generational power struggles

5) Feudal trading culture- weird trade goods take the place of manufactured synthetics (resin from a special tree grown on a single planet is used to make assassin knife blades, the glands from the brain of a special squid caught on a certain world is used to make a longevity drug etc).  

6) Several key core supertechnologies- FTL and some kind of nearly perfect countermeasure vs technological devices.  These need not be scientificaly justified, but should be internaly consistent.  

7) NOT a high tech culture fallen into a dark age- a functional culture which relies on several core technologies it can still produce, but which render many other 'modern' technology obsolete.  I want knife duels instead of gun fights.  

8) Weirdness.  Some weirdness is acceptable, but it should not be rampant.  More than is seen in DUNE (precogs, superhumans, 'the voice', past lives manifest ect.)  but not full-out magic or psionics.  I was toying with the idea that the core tech and the manifest weirdness all relate to probability manipulation.  You don't read minds, you guess what others are thinking with absurd accuracy.  Oddshields warp the odds in your favor to prevent attacks from landing...you have to get close enought to your enemy  so that your natural probability field interacts directly with his, perventing Oddshields from warping the path of your attacks etc.  Probability duels involve not only heightened physical training and superior skill and reflexes, but also the ability to improvise without hesitation, as certainties turn into impossibilities under the influence of an Oddsman's manipulation or an enemie's Oddshield.

I figure FTL and AG is just an aplication of this (???).

9) System.   ???

Basicly, my gut tells me it needs something on the border between G and N.  Some floating authorial control to allow players to enliven the setting with plots and machianations, whith some gamesit elements to 'keep score' and mark progress, and to reward actions within the 'theme' of the world.  

I am not concerned with simulating reality- this setting is not terrible realistic or pragmatic- but with creating a sense of conflict and social coup couting with the mechanics of the system itself.  

Combat will for the most part be interpersonal- man to man- with melee weapons and Odds-tweaking.  

I'd like to set up PC groups so they themselves are the motivators being a campaign- they have goals, desires, and scores to settle, and they make it happen.  The GM would narate and provide resistance, but wouldn't "run adventures".  The players would be powerful and influential enough to go forth and make what they want happen.


10) Premise- dynamism vs tradition.  The galactic society is very old and very tradition-bound...but the people who move and shake within it- the PC's and their antagonsist- are dynamic.  They use the traditions of the larger society to their advantage- like the rules of Chess- to formulate complex strategy.  If they bend (or break) to many rules, they will find themselves outlawed, with no status, and with a price on their heads.

11) Color- enormous baroque castles miles tall.  Hollow asteroid pallaces.  Vistas of farmland, with a huge star cruiser resting light as a feather feet off the ground. Ships with control rooms filled with polished brass, rivits, enamled iron rittings, expensive stained wood.  People of strange blended ethnicity, exotic figures with deep unknown secrets.  Sumptuous dens of inequity filled with painted whores with rubies for teeth and sickly sweet narcotic smoke.  A ship the size of a ocean-liner drifts silently down into an open meadow, lowering a ramp down which a single man- cloaked in black and chrimson- trods heavily- the ship whisks away just as silently.  The culmination of years of planning, plots, manipulations, bribes, and black tricks is a fight to the death in a stinking back alley on a forgoten planet with poisoned knives and steel-toed boots.




These ideas are thus far just a conceptual framework- more a stick figure than even a skeleton.  Anyone care to add some flesh?

[Valamir]

May I suggest the greatest science fiction series of all time:
Exordium:  by David Trowbridge and Sherwood Smith.

The science is very hard, and in some areas very advanced, but the society and culture are VERY baroque, very class concious, very Borgia, and very believable.

There are some "wierd tech" but its mostly of the form of stuff thats incredibly high tech but taken absolutely for granted.  Kind of the equivelent of a digitial watch...they may be mentioned in a story, but no one explains how they work, because they are such a trivial item.

Thats something the Exordium series does better than any other series I've read.  So much of science fiction gets caught up in explaining how stuff works it makes it seem very unreal and artificial.  In Exordium the stuff the characters use they just use, just as we'd use a watch, and they don't explain it any more than we'd explain a watch.  Leaves the reader with a little bit of extra work, but alot better sense of wonderment.

At any rate, its not a perfect fit for everyone of your elements, but several of them you'll find great inspiration there.


1) Yup, the 1000 worlds, are a galactic Panarchy.  More 16th-17th century than Feudal but definitely not "modern" (and it makes perfect sense).

2) Political gamesmanship is the rule of the day.  Their are super powerful battle cruisers, but the 1000 worlds has few external enemies (although the main plot involves the rise of one)...also has the coolest most non "fighters in space" space combat ever.

3) Social structures and heirarchies...and how.  There are many many layers.  

4) Heriditary power...yup...generation power stuggles...yup...especially witnessed in the transfer of power in the 1000 worlds rising enemy.

5) Wierd Trade goods...not exactly...but there are some REALLY bizarre items of technology.

6) Super technologies...Yup...and they actually make sense.  The weapons and drive systems of the space ships are especially well done.

7) There are vague references to some flight from earth in eons past but at the time of the stories the 1000 worlds are sort of like Pax Romano at its peak.

8) Some wierdness...especially with the few aliens...they are very alien.

10) Check

11) That's pretty much the entire series.

[Bankuei]

I figure FTL and AG is just an aplication of this (???).

Makes me think of the tech I used in my last Final Fantasy game, which was Quantum, used as the cheapo excuse for why robots can cast magic :P  

But in the case of FTL, it was that in quantum physics, there is a absurdly low possibility calculated in the form of probability, that all of your subatomic particles might just appear at the other side of the universe, reassemble, leaving your body somewhere, out there.  This is based off the real life fact of subatomic particles randomly disappearing and reappearing without known cause.  I simply justified that the gross computers calculated the exact velocity and vector one would have to be at to make this occur for a space jump.

As far as actual game design, I highly recommend including some form of social rank/contacts/influence traits, and of course, loyalties/desires as well.  

Chris

[Matt Snyder]

Bailywolf, yer a bastard. See, right now I've got graphic design gigs piling up -- there's Ron's nearly finished Trollbabe, some Godlike work, and a whole slew of projects by Forgers, including Jared, Valamir, and hardcoremoose.

So, needless to say the deadlines are printed on the back of my eyelids.

Then, you go and post this thread, almost _exactly_ what I've been tinkering with in my "game designer's notebook." Damn you and you ever-present interests that always seem to coincide with mine! ;)

See, I'm with you on about 98% of every aspect here. Even had a few specific notes written down myself, influding:

*Few, if any "supernatural" elements, maybe subtle Psi powers, as you hint.
*A vast and fairly diverse human culture, with elusive "first contact" aliens still knowable only as radio transimissions that become a near worshipped voice over centuries (i.e., few aliens, but various human types/factions/player characters).
*A caste of duelists employed by the ruling elite that act as one man "armies" to settle scores and disputes. That is, the elites have extraordinarily talented and trained champions with "thrum-blades." They employ the duelists to avoid the ugly mess and bad diplomacy of war.
* A dominant religion of ancestor worship, where adherents acknowledge hundreds even thousands of human ancestors as kind of saints, (and genetic fanatics that trade "holy" DNA!).

Now, if it weren't for the above deadlines, revising Dust Devils for the big Con, and -- oh yeah -- that whole Dreamspire game I've been working on, I'd be all over this NOW. However, I'm going to have to keep it back burner. I will offer this teaser, though. I plan to create a PDF "space opera" game loosely based on my Dreamspire rules set, which actually fits better than it might seem, given the apparently different trappings. I'd then create a setting "module" much like the one you're discussing here, and encourage folks to create their own SF mods if so inclined.

Problem is, of course, that it'll take me a few months to do it. Keep the good ideas coming, and I'll try to as well, in between the cracks of other duties!

Matt

P.S. Thanks, Valamir, for the reading suggestion (Exordium). I've been looking for something in that vein with little success to keep me sated 'til I can work on this as a game. Anybody else have similar reading suggestions?

[Mike Holmes]

Sweet, man, sweet. I want on board. I've been trying to do this one for years. Being a rabid Dune-phile (I read and adored all five sequels), I really want to see this one come out. Fading Suns tries it and comes close, but just doesn't quite cut it somehow. System first off, but the setting isn't quite right either. Too much angst, not enough politics maybe.

Anyhow, here's my croc of an explanation of why knife fights. Actually, I wanted sword fights, which this works even better with. Comes down to Calibrium (or whatever name; I belive the generic is Unobtanium), a metal forged from iron and rare earth metals only found in minute quantities in remote places like asteroid belts. So minute are the quantities that you can't the expense in making stuff from it is insane. Made only possible by the fact that when energized in an esoteric fashion the metal becomes impervius to just about anything, including being near atomic blasts, for instance (a large antimatter weapon at ground zero might do the trick, but then that would probably eliminate the planet as well). The sole exception is Calibrium itself, which can, when also energized appropriately, penetrate other Calibrium.

What does this mean? Well, for those who can afford it, a suit of such armor and a sword makes you an unstopable killing machine. Except by others similarly armed. Guns that fire large Calibrium rounds that are self energized exist, but rare. And the ammo is limited, costing as much as a sword does for each round.

Anyhow, the armor is powered, of course, making the combatants extremely quick, accurate, and powerful. So much so that suits are constantly being upgraded to make sure that nobody has an edge. Which leaves it to the skill of the individual operating the suit to make the difference, often. Not to say that all kits are equal, but having an advantageous one is reserved for Kings and the like. Usually the advantage is in the power of the weaponry as opposed to the speeds. The lesser ones would put a lightsabre to shame. A realy powerful one might have devices capable of leveling office buildings in short order.

At the rate that these battles occurs at takes huge skill. In fact, only one in a million people can operate such a suit at all. These people have one of those "near psionic" abilites that you mention that allows them to operate at hyperspeeds.

Anyhow, this also gives you your super-commodity. He who controls the Calibrium controlls the universe. But more importantly, the people with the ability become another resource as well. This leads to your feudal society, with armored knights, and their leige lords. Those with the resources can provide protection, those without must seek it.

The other important commodity (yes, lets do Dune one better) is Hyperium which, of course, allows for the FTL travel. Which gives the Merchants Consortium their pull. A suit of Calibrium can be lined with Hyperium as well to make it possible that such equiped people can travel from world to world as need be (the suits fly fast enough to close planetary distances in short order without resorting to FTL to get there). The amount of Hyperium needed is almost as much for a suit as it is for a starship, however, making this inefficient use another staggering outlay to provide.

Much of the tradition exists in part to keep the suit operators from going rogue, and trying to start their own kingdoms on the fringes. Which still happens at alarming rates. It's too much power to put in the hands of just one individual. The other reason for the tradition, and an explanation fo the lack of other technological development, is that the established powers fear that a technology could be devloped that would make the Calibrium technology obsolete. Which would mean an end to their power. Plus, human labor is cheap, and the powerful have gotten used to using them for things, which explains all the hand crafted stuff, and the poverty despite the available technologies.

So, what do you think of my Unobtanium solutions? We should do a hole-poking session. When you do that, you create explanations to plug the holes, which creates other interesting setting details.  

Mike

[Bailywolf]

One thing I wanted to really enforce is the sense that the technology is not the star character- the star ship, the phaser, the time machine- the characters are the stars, and the tech is nearly invisible- and on the surface no more advanced than the 18th or 19th century.  Native riding beasts provide easy common trasport- I have this image of a giganitc space barge hovering a foot off the ground while a long line of beast-drawn wagons loads bags of narcotic leaves for shipping...

The only true resource in DUNE was the Human.  Spice only served as an enhancing agent to boost the value of a human respurce.  I wanted to do this one better.  IN Dune (the books, not the movies) FTL was possible as a process of the Holtzman planer shield effect- same theory which produced AG and shields.  

In this thing (what the hell should it be called?  I was thinking "The Game of Empire" or some such- perhaps translate that into a dialect of latin)- in this thing, I wanted everythig to be an extension some basic human capacity- FTL, the McGuffin defense, and all- all direct or indirect aplications of human discipline.

The more I think of it, the more I like the probability manipulation scheme for weirdness- it can extrapolate to all sorts of stuff (including really bizare forms of person martial arts which seek to set up ripples of ghost probability designed to confuse and colude the oddsense of an enemy).  

Special conditioning trains someone with the talent of Oddsmithing into one of many different specialities (the class of duelists is friggin brilliant, and provides a ready-made campaign structure for a traveling band of characters- a duelist and his entourage- who travel and get involved in plotting and such.  Especialy powerful oddsmithers would be nearly autisitc, and would be trained for such purposes as FTL probability jumping or FTL communication (by "guessing" what another Talksman is hearing halfway across the galaxy).


Matt

All your stuff is brilliant- I would love to get in on this when you start working it out.  Can you give a quick overview of the system you would use?

[Valamir]

Matt

All your stuff is brilliant- I would love to get in on this when you start working it out.  Can you give a quick overview of the system you would use?

No, Matt's busy.  Leave him alone...
;-)

[damion]

So, what do you think of my Unobtanium solutions? We should do a hole-poking session. When you do that, you create explanations to plug the holes, which creates other interesting setting details.  

I think I can do that. :) Attempted constructive criticism comming up. Note: Not all these ideas are compatable with each other.


1)I would use Calibrium as the expensive, important component in some sort of invulnerable personal forcefield rather than armor.
This avoids inconsistencies with with people just going for the 'chinks' with say gasses or nanotech attacks. Also, a Calibrium coated weapon can penetrate said field, as before.
Another posiblity is there could be some sort of absolute limit
on this field. Either the mass or volume it could encompass. This would proved nice limits for the suits, and everyone continoully tries to sqeeze more inside!.

2)You could justify powered suits, ect by the fact that augmentation is needed to penetrate normal armor worn under the Calibrium field.

3)One could imagine shells designed to be easy to retrieve. Possibly the bullet claws it's way out of the target or something. This is more for reuse purposes, but is also bad for what is shot. Alternativly, the energization could make shells impossible.

4)Obviously and invulnerable surface gives a easy way of propelling ships: Explode a nuke in a calibrium chamber. Also make a rather nasty flamethrower this way.

5)Another posibility is FTL travel is based on surrounding an object with a Calibrium field and blowing up some nukes outside to tear a hole to where you want to go. This creates huge explosions at both ends. This is usually done in space to avoid wear and tear on the planets. Planetary junps would probably be banned by treaty.

6)One would thing that people would come up with OTHER ways of controlling the Calibrium knights. Holding their families hostage or possibly some sort of conditioning. Rouges, essentailly those who don't care about anyone might occasionally slip through, but would be rare.

7)Onother option is to have invulnerabilty based on say Hyperion style 'fast time'. This would allow a single user to be imensly powerfull with out worrying about the  'how much damage can one guy with a sword do problem?'  Possibly operational ability is based on a sort of precog ability to detect incomming problems fast enough 'fast dodge' anything. You can 'dodge' a couple miles if need be.
I actually like this. A single soldier could fire many, many shots that would all appear to hit at the same time... Of course they wouldn't have to be fatal. One guy could tie together the shoelaces of an entire army.

8)You could always say the Calibrium acts like a sort of universal polarization. Anything can leave, but stuff outside can't get in. Alternativly the polarization can be adjusted really quickly. (Actually you'd need this, otherwise you couldn't communicate with your warriors). If the sytem detects dangerous levels of anything, it adjusts the polarization. Thus you could't even blindside an attack through it.

8)One might think that assasinating knights outside their suits is a big thing, so they can't really take them off...kinda sucks to be one of these people.

9)One could say the the 'weird powers' only manifest in whatever weird fields are created by the unobtanioum.


It may seem like I'm focusing on the tech here. The reason is, if YOU focus on it, you can make it all work, and then players can ignore it as background color.

More Novel Suggestions: The Demon Princes: by Jack Vance.
I think this gives another take on the style your looking for.


Matt:Andromeda includes a race who believes that in something called 'exact genetic reincarnations'. Basicly, it is possibly the same exact genetic code could occure again and they believe that this will happen to their messiah. Sort of a modern twist on ancestor worship. This would sort of tie in with Baily's 'probability' based science.

Some thoughts.

[Matt Machell]

Color- enormous baroque castles miles tall.  Hollow asteroid pallaces.  Vistas of farmland, with a huge star cruiser resting light as a feather feet off the ground. Ships with control rooms filled with polished brass, rivits, enamled iron rittings, expensive stained wood.  People of strange blended ethnicity, exotic figures with deep unknown secrets.  Sumptuous dens of inequity filled with painted whores with rubies for teeth and sickly sweet narcotic smoke.  A ship the size of a ocean-liner drifts silently down into an open meadow, lowering a ramp down which a single man- cloaked in black and chrimson- trods heavily- the ship whisks away just as silently.  The culmination of years of planning, plots, manipulations, bribes, and black tricks is a fight to the death in a stinking back alley on a forgoten planet with poisoned knives and steel-toed boots.

Mmm, nice colour. I think some mechanics for rewarding player invention of colour could really work with this game.

Might stray close to Fading Suns in some ways (similar inspiration), but you could easily forge your own way.

I like the Tradition vs Dynamism premise. I think you could do a lot with that. Especially if you tie the "weirdness" into exploring the premise.

So, not much to say except it sounds like the kind of game I'd play.


Matt

[Mike Holmes]

One thing I wanted to really enforce is the sense that the technology is not the star character- the star ship, the phaser, the time machine- the characters are the stars, and the tech is nearly invisible- and on the surface no more advanced than the 18th or 19th century.  Native riding beasts provide easy common trasport- I have this image of a giganitc space barge hovering a foot off the ground while a long line of beast-drawn wagons loads bags of narcotic leaves for shipping...

The problem with the low tech against high tech setting is that you need a good explanation for why. Why, if we have enough tech to go FTL, do we rely on pack animals. I mean, not even cars? Do they do this just for kicks? This needs a good rationale. Is the tech still there, but just so unobtrusive as to be invisible? If so, are the pack animals in your word picture artificial or something?

In Dune you had the Butlerian Jihad that eliminated all "Thinking Machines". But you still have some really high tech for most other things. Ornithopters, lasguns, suspensors, lots of nuclear power, extreme genetic manipulation including perfect cloning, and modification of people so that they can shapchange, etc. All in addition to the Shields and FTL. IOW, Herbert only eliminated the technology that was explained by the background.

So what's the explanation here?

My unobtanium solution provides an answer. Keep the people from having technology so that they cannot ever rebel. This can be done with other technologies, of course. I just thought the armor lent itself to the period feel.

[Also, if the armor seems to take center stage too much (it's not intended to), you can go with Damion's version so that it's a little less visually obvious (I veered away from this mostly because I wanted to get away from using Dune's ideas). But I tried to tweak it so that it leaves the human as the most important component, as I agree that's what's interesting. It's the people in the suits (or shields, whatever) that make it all happen.]

Other solutions would be a Neo-Luddite movement similar to Herbert's Butlerian Jihad, some socio-political shift away from certain technologies. Not too original, but you could work out the details of something there. It's kind of a cool concept in a way. If all tech is looked on badly, then those using the neccessary stuff like FTL ships could be Untouchables in the caste sense. Another cliche would be to only have priests with access to tech.

A different option is the no Earth option. That is, the universe does not include Earth in it, at least not to this point (unlike Dune). So you could have a renaisannce world that suddenly makes certain breakthroughs that allow just the certain techs. Leaving everything else at the lower tech level. Which might even be sustainable in the long run given medieval thinking patterns. Or the discovery can just be relatively recent so that other technologies just haven't had time to develop.

There are other more "meta" options. Technology is failing due to changes in the Universe (perhaps brought on by FTL travel). This one is tough because it's full of holes that are easy to poke. Technology is a matter of social development, and not any particular forces that we don't need for absoutely everything else including breathing. Still, it can be examined.

In any case, it's hard to justify just having certain technologies and not others. Any thoughs?

Mike

[Matt Snyder]

The problem with the low tech against high tech setting is that you need a good explanation for why. Why, if we have enough tech to go FTL, do we rely on pack animals. I mean, not even cars? Do they do this just for kicks? This needs a good rationale. Is the tech still there, but just so unobtrusive as to be invisible? If so, are the pack animals in your word picture artificial or something?

Just a couple thoughts, Mike and everyone, before I call it a week of spending too much time on the Forge at work ;).

On the "pack animal" issue specifically, I'd explain it as genetic superiority. Perhaps the animals are bred / cloned for the task as part of a larger scheme of ecological conservation. They just are the most efficient, clean converters of energy for the task.

To expand this specific answer, perhaps what appears as low tech to us isn't. That is, things like pack animals, swords, and other neato elements aren't so much low-tech as they are just good ideas -- actually the products of high tech, but taken for granted such that they seem low tech. The technology has become so invisible, people don't worry about it. So, for the pack animals, it's genetics. For a sword, could be, i dunno, molecular interference or the ever-present slow weapons vs. a shield routine a la Dune.

OR, the other argument is ... who cares? I got to thinking about this SF stuff after re-viewing Attack of the Clones again, but at one point in the movie I was thinking, "So why are guys (jedis) with energy melee weapons charging into a full-scale heavy battle with battle-ship sized machines, missile launchers and rockets flying about?" Then I thought, "Who cares! It's Star Wars! How much fun is this?!?" We can over think this -- the goal, at least for me, isn't nerd-proofing the ideas; it's making a far out setting & game, man!

[Mike Holmes]

To expand this specific answer, perhaps what appears as low tech to us isn't. That is, things like pack animals, swords, and other neato elements aren't so much low-tech as they are just good ideas -- actually the products of high tech, but taken for granted such that they seem low tech.

That's a good option too.

OR, the other argument is ... who cares? I got to thinking about this SF stuff after re-viewing Attack of the Clones again, but at one point in the movie I was thinking, "So why are guys (jedis) with energy melee weapons charging into a full-scale heavy battle with battle-ship sized machines, missile launchers and rockets flying about?" Then I thought, "Who cares! It's Star Wars! How much fun is this?!?" We can over think this -- the goal, at least for me, isn't nerd-proofing the ideas; it's making a far out setting & game, man!

Ahh, that's not so good. Internal consistency is important. Even if it's a cheap one. Why are the Jedi charging? Becasue they are just that tough. They have a good defense against ranged attacks so they don't fear those, and they are deadly when they do close range. Not the greatest explanation, but it's enough to swallow the action presented. I'm not saying you must have an airtight reason, but just some reason. Your reason above wold be fine.

One thing I do like about thinking about such reasons is that often you end up fleshing out things by doing so. I think that it's pretty easy to avoid any potential damage of overthinking. And there's a hard sci-fi edge here (or so it seems to me) that demands at least a little thought.

Or you could pointedly and explicitly say that there is no reason. This makes it absurdist, and that's OK too. Just don't leave it there hanging or people will have problems with it.

Mike

[C. Edwards]

Man, must be something in the water.  I've been kinda sorta working on something in a similar vein myself.

 Some tech ideas I had included solar-powered rifles.  They would have relatively low damage capabilities and inconveniently long recharge rates.  This would make primitive weapons like knives valuable for their reliability and ability to kill quickly.

 There would be very deep fissures in places that would release steam from far under the surface.  Steamriggers would be used to collect the steam and condense it into liquid.  Water being a precious commodity, the steam rigs could be under danger of attack (no Ice Pirates references please ;] ).  

 I also had the idea to have strange colonies of bacteria live within the steam fissures.  Often a colony of bacteria would be lifted into the atmosphere by the rising steam.  If someone came into contact with one of these pseudo-sentient colonies they ran the risk of becoming "contaminated".  The bacteria would form a symbiotic relationship with the host and as the bond strengthened the bacteria would attempt to bend reality (in small ways) to the hosts will.  There would have to be discouraging side effects, maybe painful death in some cases, but I haven't gotten that far yet.

There was another idea I was playing with that is a little "out there".  It involved an "ancient" artificial intelligence that had been hidden on the planet.  The A.I had been infected by the bacteria and all sorts of weirdness had resulted.  Pockets of virtual reality existed, almost a kind of digital pollution.  If you entered one you could be physically "translated" into a virtual space created by the symbioses of the bacteria and the A.I.

Stemming from that was a sect of quasi-religious cenobites (monks) in a give and take relationship with the A.I., they would have devices that allowed them to link mentally with the virtual realm without having to be there physically (less dangerous that way).  I had this vision of them developing blueish veins around their temples in patterns that rezembled circuitry.  The more they "translated" the more pronounced the veins would become.

The working title is "The Face of Aramei", a reference to the planet and possibly some idigenous mythology.

-Chris

[Matt Snyder]

Ahh, that's not so good. Internal consistency is important. Even if it's a cheap one. Why are the Jedi charging? Becasue they are just that tough. They have a good defense against ranged attacks so they don't fear those, and they are deadly when they do close range. Not the greatest explanation, but it's enough to swallow the action presented. I'm not saying you must have an airtight reason, but just some reason. Your reason above wold be fine.

That's all I'm saying. By nerd-proofing, I certainly didn't mean NO reason for things. Consistency, plausibility is crucial, yes. But in the Jedi example, you might easily hear the Lucasite-critic freak say, "Oh yeah? The Jedi can defend against blasters, but not explosive missiles. And remember when they ran from the droid destroyers in Ep. I? Huh? Huh?" At which point you just have to go get another soda. Or, as one of my favorite comedians, Lewis Black, says, "There's just not enough deodorant for this conversation."

One thing I do like about thinking about such reasons is that often you end up fleshing out things by doing so. I think that it's pretty easy to avoid any potential damage of overthinking. And there's a hard sci-fi edge here (or so it seems to me) that demands at least a little thought.

Yes, that's a good point, that some of criticism creates additional details, especially in creating the social details surrouding some kind of technology or hardward. That's how I came up with the "relic DNA" traders.

[Ring Kichard]

I've been kicking around a concept that could be the Luddite Simulationist twin of yours. It's set in a desert place, heir to the Roman Empire. It's got

1) A society set in an archaic time.

2) Political manipulation in a world where large-scale war is more difficult.

3) A complex hierarchy of social structures, orders, secret societies, schools and the like.

4) Monarchy and merchants.

6) Feudalism and a trading culture.

7) Er, no key supertech, but you've got to admit that I was close

8) "Some weirdness acceptable", but actually probably only in the amount seen in Dune.
Undoubtedly my baby RPG was influenced by Dune, which might explain some of the similarity.

9) We may be able to trade some ideas, if you like what you see. I've mostly been banging on mechanics, and while they have a bit of a Nair/CharSim feel to them I'm sure they're flexible enough to be "Beaten to fit, painted to match." If not, I'd be interested to hear what you would do differently. Our design concerns might illuminate one another. The resolution stuff I've mostly banged out, but I'm still hashing out genre support and encouragement (system does matter, yep).

10) Er, my premise is actually different, but both are based on achievement, at some level. "How do a group of people change as individuals, and as a group, when presented with opportunity and adversity."

11) Color- enormous baroque castles miles tall. Hollow asteroid pallaces. Vistas of farmland, with a huge star cruiser resting light as a feather feet off the ground. Ships with control rooms filled with polished brass, rivits, enamled iron rittings, expensive stained wood. People of strange blended ethnicity, exotic figures with deep unknown secrets. Sumptuous dens of inequity filled with painted whores with rubies for teeth and sickly sweet narcotic smoke. A ship the size of a ocean-liner drifts silently down into an open meadow, lowering a ramp down which a single man- cloaked in black and chrimson- trods heavily- the ship whisks away just as silently. The culmination of years of planning, plots, manipulations, bribes, and black tricks is a fight to the death in a stinking back alley on a forgoten planet with poisoned knives and steel-toed boots.

This is undoubtedly the part that excites me the most.
I've been working on a world with a diasporic order of ascetics (monks), who travel every great desert with their holy scriptures in hand just to locate one sacred grain of sand, which one of their order must eat. A Palatial Palace (to quote Moxy Früvous) once carved out of sand stone, now struck so often with lightning it has turned to glass. Giant masonry buildings sunk into vast salt mashes where water is recovered from the muck under heavy guard. Overflowing trade caravans from the distant shore and dusty tented hovels cashed with produce from the sultan's own water gardens. The priest of desiccation drowned at midnight by a mob frenzied with desperation.

It seems that a lot of people have posted from the time I started. I hope I haven't cross-posted.