For many of us who started gaming in the tail end of the 1970s, The Handbook for Space Pioneers: Exoplanet Colonies (1978) by Wolfe and Wysack was basically the first space game supplement that wasn't intended for RPGs at all... and yet...
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@Taskerland As a quick addendum the whole book is written with a straight face, and as the manual for new pioneers, so the material is all ready to be handed to players, with no "gm only" redactions to be made. You could actually just buy old copies of the paperback of the book for £10. The handsome hardback is a lot pricier. But I think you'd just print a chapter out for a game because the players are hopefully all going to the same place*
*knows this is never true in practice
@Taskerland Even this paragraph is full of foreboding for me. If this was what the GM gave me as my introduction I'd already assume horror was about to break out everywhere.
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@Printdevil @Taskerland Now I'm reminiscing about explaining realistic space travel to players. "So you thought Horror on the Orient Express was on rails? Ain't got nothing on this, your options are 'arrive where and when you planned' or 'die'"
There's an entire chapter about that in the book. Not so much the dying, but explanations of time/time dilation, the weeks to arrive (all calculated for you)
Also preparation for the atmospheric and gravitation changes.
There's a few game weeks alone in that actually shipboard, which would make for a good Session Zero/skill system learning period, followed by "oh dear the planet you've arrived on is overrun with bald feet Dereks"
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@Taskerland @Printdevil Napoleonic Paris?
@RogerBW Yeah... Fair point. I think that is literally the canonical example of concentric city planning. @Printdevil
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@Taskerland As a quick addendum the whole book is written with a straight face, and as the manual for new pioneers, so the material is all ready to be handed to players, with no "gm only" redactions to be made. You could actually just buy old copies of the paperback of the book for £10. The handsome hardback is a lot pricier. But I think you'd just print a chapter out for a game because the players are hopefully all going to the same place*
*knows this is never true in practice
@Printdevil I feel that SJG's Transhuman Space books are the spiritual descendants of those non-fiction science fiction books. Terrain Trade Authority and all that.
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@RogerBW Yeah... Fair point. I think that is literally the canonical example of concentric city planning. @Printdevil
I think if you projected forwards you could imagine cities built that way, because there's basically nine different types of world, one already distinctly capitalist, but the social-frame of the game.. cough cough.. book is very pioneer era supported via occasional drops. It's very "you make it here yourself, for a new life on Weirdo XII"
Which is of course totally stressfree
In a game
Which of course this isn't
<_<
>_>
totally is..
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@Printdevil I feel that SJG's Transhuman Space books are the spiritual descendants of those non-fiction science fiction books. Terrain Trade Authority and all that.
@Taskerland Certainly had a lot of influence on a lot of Sci-Fi peeps. This book was very very popular in the 70s, and then.. vanished. I've never heard it referred to in the RPG circles, which I just assumed was that I didn't really move in them, but with @strangequark and I discussing Space1999 a bit recently it popped up on my suggested reading lists and I got a bit nostalgic and was surprised just how good a supplement.. er.. book it still is. It smokes Barrier Peaks for example.
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I think if you projected forwards you could imagine cities built that way, because there's basically nine different types of world, one already distinctly capitalist, but the social-frame of the game.. cough cough.. book is very pioneer era supported via occasional drops. It's very "you make it here yourself, for a new life on Weirdo XII"
Which is of course totally stressfree
In a game
Which of course this isn't
<_<
>_>
totally is..
@Printdevil I feel that this is what good Traveller campaigns are made of despite being completely unsupported by the actual game. @RogerBW
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@Printdevil I feel that this is what good Traveller campaigns are made of despite being completely unsupported by the actual game. @RogerBW
It's *literally* a traveller campaign being handed to you.
You would have to do nothing with either the rules or the generation of Traveller to use it. It's all there.
It works well as a set of worlds to place Star Trek plots on, but that's an abstraction from the actually game.. cough book's narrative.
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It's *literally* a traveller campaign being handed to you.
You would have to do nothing with either the rules or the generation of Traveller to use it. It's all there.
It works well as a set of worlds to place Star Trek plots on, but that's an abstraction from the actually game.. cough book's narrative.
@Printdevil @Taskerland The emphasis on plausible tech would seem to make it a better fit for 2300AD, but I just like 2300AD (if one can pry it away from the milsf people, of whom I have been one, I'm just not in the mood for it at the moment).
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@Printdevil I feel that SJG's Transhuman Space books are the spiritual descendants of those non-fiction science fiction books. Terrain Trade Authority and all that.
@Taskerland @Printdevil It's a shame that the Terran Trade Authority RPG fizzled out with only the rules released.
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@Taskerland Even this paragraph is full of foreboding for me. If this was what the GM gave me as my introduction I'd already assume horror was about to break out everywhere.
@Printdevil @Taskerland
Whatever did your alt text read across the lines, not within the two columns. It's unintelligible.
