RolePlay onLine RPoL Logo

, welcome to Game Proposals, Input, and Advice

10:15, 29th March 2024 (GMT+0)

2032: Colonize Alpha Centauri.

Posted by Malakhon
Malakhon
member, 2010 posts
Sat 16 Jun 2018
at 16:15
  • msg #1

2032: Colonize Alpha Centauri

Mankind begins its most monumental task – the colonization of space. A crew of internationally renowned scientists and security strategists, with wide-ranging convictions and diverse ethics, embarks on a mission that will alter our destiny forever.


I've been thinking about a way to accommodate more player styles - so I have two potential ideas for the setting:

IDEA ONE:
 First Phase: The players take the role of the six leaders of the Ark Mission to Alpha Centauri. They must make key decisions about what to bring with them on the first colonization attempt out of our star system. We already have colonies on the moon and Mars - so we can piggy back on some of that technology.

 In this phase, players will use points to add to the common core of the Ark ship - additional generators, research labs, etc.

 There is also a Biome deck - with six unique chambers to bring one functioning microcosm ecosphere with you to the new world. The player will be able to design this themselves - could be an idylic chinese landscape, could be african sergengetti, could be Idaho Cornfield complete with a baseball field and a house with a white picket fence.

There will also be THREE additional sponsor decks. The players will interview the various sponsors from Tesla, Microsoft, The Papacy, etc who are willing to invest additional resources into the project in return for one of the sponsor decks.

Second phase: I could try to make the game generational and roll several generations on the ship itself - I am not sure how exciting that would be but during that course the players would have limited options - directing research, responding to potential crises on the ship - or I could skip this entirely with a cryogenic sleep chamber. I lean towards the sleep chamber.

The players arriving would be playing their descendents if we don't do the sleep chamber.

Third Phase:
Planetfall - the first dome goes up on the planet and the players must direct the shape of the colony and it's provisional government. You will eventually make decisions about what economic system, allowing religion or not, educational systems, etc. Players will have chosen two directors before they left home, and these positions direct projects for you - exploration, research, colonization, etc as your field operatives.

IDEA TWO: We skip past Planetfall since all of that could take a long time and play a game in the tradition of Sid Meir's Planetfall where there are multiple colonial factions already -the players being part of the same faction must deal with an inhabited new world and the diplomacy/potential for war as well.


GAME SYSTEM: I would want to approximate table-top experience except using the forum so it would not be 'freeform'. Rules lite -with dice rolls as appropriate but very few if any statistics.

 Yes, there would be power grids, food shortages, colony stability, health coverage etc but all of that would be dealt with in game simply by saying "We are nearing the point of power shortages, to build that we need another ark generator" instead of Power is 9800 and tracking each buildings power consumption in a complex exercise in data capture/accounting - and a system of tracking all the needs and outputs of each building.

I was thinking of having ONE primary resource that is sort of a universal currency of sorts which represents everything from manpower, to building materials, to research efforts. The player would be provided a % of this every "Turn" in the game by NOAH the central colony AI. This currency would reflect the share of the available resources of the colony after what is required for its continued operation. If you want to build a small observatory, fund a particular kind of research, create a unit of Peacekeeper elite troops, whatever - you simply spend the required resource.

I could, of course, split this out into sub-currencies reflecting intrigue, diplomatic, research and military aspects of the colony but I tried hard to think of why I'd want to do that other than it allows finer control of specific colony resources. I don't know if it matters though in the grand scheme of a space opera.


I think I would dispense entirely with character statistics, preferring instead to grant the player certain attributes that are qualitative - to have been chosen leader you would have genius level skills in some key areas - political genius, research, military genius - etc.


I could be convinced to go an entirely different way with this - the players are AI/android caretakers of the human population they brought to the new world.

The colony has been in existence for 400 years, and lost contact with Earth and now has developed space flight for a return trip, etc.

ideas wanted/interest wanted.

please note: for father's day weekend I will have limited access to RPOL.
This message was last edited by the user at 16:16, Sat 16 June 2018.
csroy
member, 124 posts
Sat 16 Jun 2018
at 21:07
  • msg #2

2032: Colonize Alpha Centauri

You might want to check Shadow Over Sol, it is a hard sci-fi system/setting with a source book about colonizing Alpha Centauri.
kingjawa
member, 65 posts
Sun 17 Jun 2018
at 10:47
  • msg #3

2032: Colonize Alpha Centauri

Idea one is pretty much one of my dream games. I really hope this happens!
Hendell
member, 105 posts
Sun 17 Jun 2018
at 12:13
  • msg #4

2032: Colonize Alpha Centauri

I tend to think that even this wide viewpoint of 'character' will still benefit from a few defined system mechanics, even if it is only a set of points split between a few key styles that somehow relate to a single die for randomization.

The players being the AI guardians of a colony ship seems like a much better idea than trying to require a single person out of what looks like at least tens of thousands being set aside as the leader each generation for hundreds of years.

While the whole system may not be what you want but Starfinder has a universal resource called the UPB or Universal polymer base that represents a standard unit about the size of a pill that contains standard building blocks needed for what amounts to 3d printing of any kind of object, these also represent the only physical currency and the value of electronic currency for the entire setting.
Malakhon
member, 2012 posts
Sun 17 Jun 2018
at 17:00
  • msg #5

2032: Colonize Alpha Centauri

How cool!

Thank you for the feedback.

I had one other idea that I was going to propose if this one did not find traction but I will go ahead and start it (link below).

link to another game

Just getting started with it.

I did download Shadows over Sol and I am going over it now. I believe that I will use some parts of it but not all. I will use the minimally viable statistics/dice rolls/documentation - the least amount necessary to still support player choice and make it fun - so we can focus on ROLE PLAYING over ROLL PLAYING.

This way players can jump in without learning a lot of new things and we can focus on the important aspects. As an example, A strength statistic and derived damage in melee. As I really doubt that the game will focus on hand to hand combat - I don't care about this.

What I do care about is the player's charisma/ability to negotiate or intimidate, ability to reason and their experience with various technologies from robotics to medicine. These are things that will come up again and again.

I do like the UPB but I would like to make the generic resource not simply a physical and tangible resource. It will cover everything from new modules on the ARK ship, enacting laws, training elite military units, funding research and diplomacy, etc.

I am going to open up the shell of the game now - so this thread can be closed.

We can discuss the design there since there is some initial interest.

One caveat - today is Father's day so I totally expect to be busy later and I am sure many of you will be as well (Happy Father's day if you are celebrating it).

I also travel early tomorrow morning and will have limited availability until next weekend.
This message was last edited by the user at 18:57, Sun 17 June 2018.
Sign In