Campaign Setting: The Edge of the System
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I like making campaign settings, but always have trouble actually making the crunch around it. A little while back, I came up with an idea for a sci-fi based game, which was a little bit Jennifer Government, a little bit Star Wars, and a large dose of Iron Man. This was the result:
It is 2308. Mankind has claimed the Helios System for itself. With established colonies on Selene, Ares, Anadyomene and the satellites of Zeus, mankind stretches further. Terraforming once inhospitable worlds, humanity formed the League of Worlds (LoW), a governing body designed to maintain order throughout Helios. They steadily placed more and more pressure on corporations and consortiums until one day, the corporations fought back.
In one rapid strike, the Astral Mining Corp, Hades Manufacturing and the Triad Conglomerate unleashed destruction upon every LoW building in the system. Within days, the Speaker of the League of Worlds was on his knees, begging for mercy.
The League of Worlds was dissolved, and Helios was divided between the three companies. The Triad claimed Anadyomene, Posideon and Cronus, AMC claimed Hermes, Ares, the Hephaestus Band and Zeus, and HM claimed Hades, Eris and Morpheus.
That was 40 years ago. Now, the three corporations are at war. Armed with the latest technology, each corporation employs a team of Technonauts who wear powerful suits of armor and are able to travel in them through the vast reaches of space.
The Technonauts are basically iron man suits worn by the best of the best champions. They’re capable of space travel and travel at thousands of miles per hour.
What do you think? Anyone interested in helping out?
Hmm…sounds more like the premise for a sci-fi wargame than a pen-and-paper rpg. And with those Technonaut suits, you’re basically allowing god-characters that can really only fight each other (because nothing else provides a challenge, if the suits are as powerful as you describe).
My approach would be to run the game from a diplomatic perspective by having the characters take the role of merchant envoys or political operatives trying to subvert the other megacorporations. Out-and-out combat sounds like it’s going to be exceptionally deadly for everyone involved.
My thoughts exactly. Possibly allow the PC’s to assemble a “custom” suit over the course of the game?
Make the suits the “boss battles” rounding out each chapter of the game?
I like the rest of it, reminds me a lot of Dawning Star for d20 modern/future, mixed with the elysium nebula (www.elysiumnebula.com).
Every journey begins with the first few steps!
Should I be assuming the PCs are meant to be Technonauts? If so, what do the Technonauts really do?
I could see a lot of room for corporate espionage and sabotage in this setting.
Before crunch is made, it is generally a good idea to know what the important parts of play will be…
Neat idea. I like a good sci-fi corporate war…..
One thing to keep in mind though: Space is BIG.
“The Technonauts are basically iron man suits worn by the best of the best champions. They’re capable of space travel and travel at thousands of miles per hour.”
So this means that they may not be able to escape a planet’s gravity well, would take about 9 days to go from the earth to the moon, and can barely maintain orbit. The space shuttle travels at about 17,000 miles per hour.
I would recommend either really upping your numbers, or treat things as “travel times” not as “speed”. Keep in mind that “battle suits” like that could get to pretty much anywhere on the planet in 20 minutes, by doing a parabolic orbit to the destination. You could make the suits more dependant on support ships, and treat the game as a “fighter pilot” type adventure, a la Battlestar Galactica, Robotech, etc.
You could also have the companies working short of total war. What if they didn’t “cleanly” divide up the planets, but instead defined “spheres of influence” or controled various portions of each planet. This would allow you to have a “hidden war” of espionage, minor ground skirmishes, etc. It would also allow parties of players with “mixed” alegiences, mercs, etc.