Back to imagining the game Universe – just engaging with the idea of making an SF “World” has reminded me that what we are really talking about is a wider expanse of space. GURPS Space provides some suggestions around the types of society which have supported SF adventure in literature, film, the small screen, and other RPGs.

For this initial sweep of decision-making, I fancy running the game’s civilised worlds within a Federation. The frontier will, of course, be effectively a patchwork of independent worlds and failed states with which to make contact. One goal might be to explore the frontier and invite worlds into the Federation.

As for interstellar organisations, I am open to pretty much all of those presented on Space pp 24-27 and will leave the specifics to be sketched in as the players interact with me to create their own specific game in this Universe. In other words, if they decide to be Explorers then I will dial in the Survey Service with more details. If they choose to be Colonists, then I can tailor the Office of Colonial Affairs to suit. You get the idea. The strength of GURPS Space is that it provides me with support around the kinds of organisations that might have interests in this Federation and beyond.

SPACE TRAVEL

Time for the biggest decision of all: interstellar travel. Yes, I want a Faster-Than-Light drive as the foundational ‘miracle’ of the setting. Because the Universe is very old, I am also comfortable with the idea that FTL travel and manuever drive technology is very old in principle. That there was a Dark Age of lost technology in the near-past which led to the inability for worlds to sustain starships is a cool idea I want to lift from Traveller. I also want there to be no FTL communications outside of a starship taking a message across space. In other words, information will travel at the speed of the FTL drive.

I don’t want to fiddle around with rocket equations at the table. I want to run a more free-wheeling and exciting SF universe even though I want it to feel grounded in physics. Because of my love of Diametric Drives in popular SF, I’m going to say that the maneuver drive is a technology based on gravity manipulation, offering us also artificial gravity and contragravity technologies to boot. All of this is, of course, superscience and part of the flavour of the universe.

The bigger decision is around the form of the Star Drive. Having looked through the suggestions in GURPS Space, I am a little torn between some form of Jump Drive and a Warp Drive. The main advantage of the former is that I could set up Jump Points between star systems to form a network of connections between worlds. This allows me to channel player character movement across the initial sector of space and slow the need for new world data. However, given the ideas above, I am leaning towards a Warp Drive because it allows starships to feel more like deep-space ships on long voyages and it offers more open transport between worlds.

Given my uncertainty, let’s put it to the Oracle. I am leaning slightly nearer to the Warp Drive idea – mostly because I like the Star Trek feel of ships able to interact with real space as they travel and the deep-space submarine vibe – so I am going to ask the question: Is the FTL a Warp Drive? I set the odds at Likely. Drawing two cards and any Yes will do… I get a Yes on the first card. Warp Drive it is. That also settles another question on my mind relating to the star map.

Back in the first edition of GURPS Space (1988) there’s a really cool section about star mapping in which a system is offered for 3D mapping (cf pp97-98). This was then followed up in the Space Atlas range of books from 1988 onwards, the first of which was (if I remember correctly) a resource pulled from the core Space book due to lack of, erm, space. I’ve been wanting to try this approach to star-mapping, so I’m going to import that system of X, Y, Z coordinate mapping to this game. While I’ll use the more modern random World Design Sequence for GURPS Space (2006), I’m going to utilise the notes from the earlier edition to lay out the basic sector.

For now, I’m going to leave the remaining technological decisions until later in the process. I want to skip on to creating that sector map and starting to populate some star systems. In my view, you’ve got to allow yourself space to move the focus of your prep where your interests lie and take advantage of the enthusiasm that arises through this kind of play.

Game on!