Generation Ship Campaigns

[starblaze]

That story assumes a strong central figure which forces order (in this case, a very reliable computer with obedience chips in everyone). Unfortunately, by its very nature, this type of society does not tend to produce adventure-worthy conflict (either of a social or a violent nature) without introducing an outside agent not under the full control of the central figure, like the Enterprise crew, or some sort of disaster that the central authority cannot handle by itself. Now, if the computer suddenly goes offline....

JoeG

Or it goes insane and starts creating an elaborate system of security clearances thinking that communists are starting to, but wait that is a different game.

[Mentor]

The original question was to imagine an rpg campaign set aboard a generation ship. Business as usual is poor storytelling. So I'd say no.

Keith "Conflict is the essence of drama" Curtis

Yep. Adventuring requires conflict. Not absolutely necessarily violent conflict, but conflict of some sort.

[Ternaugh]

Or it goes insane and starts creating an elaborate system of security clearances thinking that communists are starting to, but wait that is a different game.

I'm sorry, Citizen. That information is not available at your Clearance. Please report to HPDMC for rerprogamming.

Thank you

Joe-G-FRD-2

[Kaeto]

The computer is your friend... The computer knows what is best for you....


The computer is also off it's chips!

[Greatwyrm]

The computer is also off it's chips!

Kaeto-B-KLN-1, please report to sector DED for re-education.

[Guzalot]

There are so many otions for this type of campaign. What if the society on the ship was in anarchy but suddenly some of the "original crew" start coming out of cryogenic suspension? Maybe the "frozen ones" (the PCs) are thought of as gods.

[tomas]

Let's turn it around. How would you run such a campaign? What would a sample adventure* be like?

I've been toying with an idea of RPGing a closed society with the characters being newly-minted cops when a serial murder takes place. They spend the time both investigating the murder and dealing with a panicked population. A generational ship would be an ideal setting for it.

[McCoy]

I didn't give any ideas of my own for plots primarily because I was just browsing and didn't want to get deeply involved in this thread. Since you challenged me, though, I'll give it a shot. In the games I've been running over the past year, I've been very interested in PCs who are ambassadors of a sort who negotiate between different factions. I can very much see this on a generation ship. Assuming you have enough people aboard to avoid genetic damage from inbreeding, you'd probably have a population of at least 10,000. This is the size of most medium cities in medieval Europe. That's certainly large enough to have distinct factions. And the mere presence of factions does not mean violent confrontation. There are numerous factions in my home city of Portland based on race, class, religion, jobs, etc. and they rarely resort to violence. When they do, it is very brief. Most factional differences are acted out in negotiations or perhaps protests.

I would assume 1000* adults launching with the ship, with 10,000 frozen foti and a sperm bank to expand genetic variability after they get there, wherever "there" is. Assuming equal numbers, male/female, an equal birth rate, each female having two pregnancies, and earth-normal occurance of multiple births, and everyone living 100 years, the population goes overr 10,000 in Generation 25, some five hundred years after launch. In Generation 11, everyone is descended from all of the original crew members.

*Rule of thumb in ecology, species with fewer than 50 breeding pairs probably will have inbreeding problems, one with more than 500 probably will not. Mass is going to be a consideration, go with the lowest safe number.

Don't see how in that small number, with everyone realted, no pockets of isolation, factions could develope UNLESS something goes wrong.

To clarify my original intent in posting, I wasn't out to criticize you guys so much as to challenge you. It has become something of a knee-jerk response in the RPG community to set games in violent situations and let the PCs fight their way through it. I think this not only lowers the quality of the games, but also presents a poor image to prospective players of RPGs. I've been trying to actively recruit females to play RPGs, and I always have to get past the stereotype of it being just an excuse to hack and slash. Most women are not interested in this. However, girls roleplay all the time. What else is playing 'House' or 'Dolls' than freeform RPGs. If we could develop plots for RPGs that focus on PCs interacting peacefully with the world around them, it would be much easier to recruit women into the hobby.

Here we're geting more into the conventions of the Action-Adventure genre. Yes, it's simplistic, but it's also escapist.