Vanguard

That’s funny cause we have some of the similar luck in our group too. 

We have a saying: "Aborting to dodge is useless."  Not because gaining a +3/+5 to your DCV is tactically bad, but with a lot of our luck, if you abort your next phase, the GM will end up always rolling less than an 8 making it effectively useless.  The last time I heard the phrase from my fellow gamers, they aborted to a martial dodge making it a 6- to hit and the GM rolled a 5.  To put icing on the cake, the GM rolled just over 4.5 points per die of damage.

Putting a limitation on Speed brings up a lot of arguments about exactly how it works, so I figured this way was easier to handle.

True. The players will need some idea of where to start when doing a campaign. The GM needs to let the players know where to find the plot hooks. If he/she runs a sandbox campaign, great, but it's necessary to explain that to the players, who will otherwise be wondering what to do or where to go.

@Hugh Neilson
 
If that had been the case, the plot threads and hooks, then I don't think there would have been any problems getting the game moving.  The thing was that there wasn't.  We had literally 2 sessions of just sitting around while the GM read a book/futzed around on the PC.
 
Giving the players hooks/ideas/hints of goings on out in the world and then letting them pursue whatever interests them instead of having a more traditional campaign set-up is good and, like I said, probably would have worked.  But just plunked the group down "in the world" and then letting them flounder around isn't the way to start the game. 

Dear gods this the truth.
 
I don't know HOW many times I've been in a game where there's been this "Grand Mystery" that the GM has set up yet,  the only "clues" that could/would have been available are those that exist in his/her own head or things that the characters would understand but the *players* have no concept of.
 
Then having to sit there and listen to the rant and rave about how no one appreciates the time and effort they go through to prepare things like "this" is infuriating.
 
Even more infuriating is when they try and tell you that they explained and/or dangled clues in front of you and the general response from the gathered players is "No, you didn't".
 
It's really easy to pat yourself on the back and tell yourself how much of a genius you are when you're the one with all the clues . . . 
 
@Spence
Very nicely written.
 
I agree with you on the Sandbox campaign.  I've been in one or two and they don't last long.  I mean, not more than one or two sessions because there's absolutely nothing for the characters to do.  There's no focus or drive to move the characters forward.  Those type of campaigns may sound like they're going to be good because "no ones' tied down!" but i've yet to play in one, or hear of one that amounted to anything.

Dear gods this the truth.
 
I don't know HOW many times I've been in a game where there's been this "Grand Mystery" that the GM has set up yet,  the only "clues" that could/would have been available are those that exist in his/her own head or things that the characters would understand but the *players* have no concept of.
 
Then having to sit there and listen to the rant and rave about how no one appreciates the time and effort they go through to prepare things like "this" is infuriating.
 
Even more infuriating is when they try and tell you that they explained and/or dangled clues in front of you and the general response from the gathered players is "No, you didn't".
 
It's really easy to pat yourself on the back and tell yourself how much of a genius you are when you're the one with all the clues . . . 
 
@Spence
Very nicely written.
 
I agree with you on the Sandbox campaign.  I've been in one or two and they don't last long.  I mean, not more than one or two sessions because there's absolutely nothing for the characters to do.  There's no focus or drive to move the characters forward.  Those type of campaigns may sound like they're going to be good because "no ones' tied down!" but i've yet to play in one, or hear of one that amounted to anything.

I was going through my old collection of GURPS Traveller starship sourcebooks and I noticed they included hex-based deckplans in addition to the square-grid ones.
 
Given the lack of existing deckplans for Star Hero, these could be a valuable resource and an excellent companion to Traveller HERO.  Here is a sample Free Trader deckplan:

OK, so I have to jump in here and get some clarification, term’wise, because I do not think your gaming dictionary is the same as mine.
 
To me in TTRPG’s the terms “sandbox campaign” and “narrative based RPG’s” are refer to completely different subjects.  One is setting structure and the other describes game mechanics.  
 
There are many campaign types, here are just a few as examples as I define them. 
 
You have Theme Campaigns where the players take roles within an “organization” and play out their adventures within that theme.  They are Holy Knights, they are Pirates, they are Spies, they are Lawmen in the Wild West and so on.   Players make all their own decisions, but they stay within the campaign theme.  So, if the campaign is about British 00 agents in the cold war, the players will all be 00’s (like James Bond) or support (like Q) and all either be the “good guys” or maybe all be the “bad guys”.  But everyone will play as part of the same agency and will have the advantage of developing develop arch-foes over time.  This is one type of campaign that take a lot of prep on the GMs part.  They have to research enough material to support be prepared for what ever direction to players go.  When I ran a cold war spy game I prepped submarine pens, KGB facilities, military bases, research centers, high finance companies, dive bars, casinos, common civil aircraft and so on.   As a GM I might give them a mission, but the players never ever completed it the way I thought they would. 
 
You have Objective Campaigns.  Most D&D campaigns are objective campaigns.  They have a little pre-structure, but they are really a loose framework so the PC’s can kill stuff and loot while giving a nod to a loose story.  Much easier to GM because if you have the Monster Manual and DM’s Guide for treasures you can pretty much make it up as you go or use a pre-gen adventure as a very very general and non-binding guide.
 
The Sandbox Campaign is brutally boring for GM even if some players like it.  That is because a sandbox campaign is exactly that.  An open sandbox with nothing.  The players just ramble around doing whatever with no real rhyme or reason.  Back when I was talked into running one, I based it in Forgotten Realms.  Some of the players just wandered around looting and pillaging, one just wanted to craft all the time.  Another wanted to be a thief and gamble.  Not a single common theme or direction that I could plan for and build any kind of adventure that might have been interesting.  It was continuous grindingly boring for me.  Every “sandbox campaign” I have run or played in was the same.  They may be great if run by a computer, but they have very little attraction for a GM that can spell their name without help.
 
Now to me “Narrative” refers to the complexity of the rules. 
 
Pathfinder, Hero and D&D “Rule Based Games” are all similar because they require the use of dice to decide most anything and have a higher degree of complexity for building PC’s and adversaries.  The rule structures give greater support to players by allowing them to play their PC even if they do not possess in-depth background knowledge or are thespians. They are "crunchy".
 
On the other end of the spectrum are “Narrative Games” also known as “Rules Lite Games”.  For these games it is all about acting with loose nods to any game mechanic.  Some are so rules lite that you can play multiple sessions without ever rolling a die.  It can be great with the right group of players, but it takes a lot of effort to make sure the game is not dominated by one or two players.
 
For myself I prefer run two types of games.  Either a Rule Based Game like Hero & D&D 5th or Semi-Narrative Game such as GUMSHOE where the players can take advantage of narrative flexibility, but the rules ensure that the spotlight is shared by dividing areas of expertise and PC ability an the quite introvert can contribute just as easily as the drama major.
 
As for the setting to run the games in, I prefer to run Objective or Theme Campaigns. 
 
But from reading your posts, I do not think you define things the same.  I’m interested in hearing how you define things.

I'd never given that any consideration before myself, but hearing it out loud.....
 
I have to wonder the value of knowing when and where....
 
"Okay, guys!  We have to come back here Tuesdays and Thursdays, and bring your strainers!  I'm betting there are quite a few magic rings and amulets in there......"
 
 

Well, you wouldn't have to know about sailing with me, because I don't know a damn thing about sailing.  You could fool me pretty easily.  But there are other areas where I know quite a bit about a topic.  That's one advantage to just glossing over things.  Keep it simple and you won't have players have to correct you all the time.
 
That's also why I don't like mysteries in RPGs.  Just because it makes sense in the GM's head doesn't mean it makes sense to the players.

And it's perfectly fine if people want to do that.  But can you really say it ruins your immersion if it isn't there?
 
Things that ruin my immersion are modern pop culture references in a fantasy world.  Taylor Swiftfoot the elf and Kanye the giant must rescue Queen Beyonce from the evil wizard Lord Weinstein.  My immersion also is ruined when somebody loses a character, and immediately their twin brother shows up.  He's got the exact same stats, is the same level, and has the same personality (except he's pissed at whoever let his brother die), and he wants you do hand over all his brother's equipment and gear.
 
Knowing it's a game world, where real life mundane issues aren't fully fleshed out, isn't an immersion breaker for me.  I don't need to know how often dragons poop, and the GM doesn't need to know it either.  You've also got the issue that we can only worldbuild to our own level of competence.  I've listened to too many people lovingly describe the detail of their worlds, and think to myself "this guy doesn't know how XYZ works..."

See I just like to fight dragons and stuff.

Mine does, actually.
 
Briefly:  The campaign starts at the beginning of the Fourth Age, after a devastating war and then six hundred years of mind-your-own-businessism has elapsed between this age and the Third Age-- an age of exploration and trade that began to develop into a real golden age, right down the emergence of a mercantile class, dealing in goods from far away lands.
 
To be fair, the "road" is a series of waterways, mapped and settled and explored during the Third Age, but when that crumbled, little of it remained in use.  The "core" part did, a pathway through the...  "continent" is not entirely accurate, as the campaign starts in an Australia-sized cluster of large islands.  It starts on the largest one, which roughly 1/3 the size of Australia,  but the center is largely uninhabited, or at least, undeveloped woodland and swamplands.  It gets wetter the further east you go, until it eventually breaks into a series of scattered islands (about 1/2 of Australia, if pushed into a mass) with the remaining land being islands scattered around the permitter of the main continent.
 
The more commonly-used ports along the waterways remained in touch, but the more out-of-the-way or exotic were eventually forgotten about.  As the Fourth Age started, wealth is again accruing along this path, and people are again itching to see the world around them and recover the knowledge and trade that is lost.  Even a couple of races have been lost, remembered as little more than fairy tale boogeymen to frighten children, if at all.
 
During its height, the water trade routes extended to six other continents and myriad island chains on this quadrant of the globe.  It's a great time to be a professional adventurer  explorer or treasure hunter  speculating merchant.
 
Maybe it sounds contrived, but invariably, all my fantasy games are driven by exploration before something just bites the players and they decide to hang around a certain place for a while.  Honestly, I think it's a matter of "Ooh!  I loved this!  Let's see what else there is!"   Sometimes it's "Nope; ain't interested in _that_!  Let's keep moving!"  Personally, I think it falls more to "we want to be professional adventurers, because at the end of the day, that's what an explorer _is_, and they have a hard time getting interested in a setting that's already well-explored.   Seriously.  My players would be _thrilled_ with a game of Dungeons and Traveller.     Generally, once they achieve the level of "success" they are looking for-- be it wealth, carving a new kingdom, overthrowing an unjust kingdom somewhere else in the world-- whatever it is their goals are, they're ready to throw in the towel and start over again.
 
Which is great in the sense that I get to try out new ideas on a regular basis, and horrible, because I have to come up with all-new ideas on a regular basis.  
 
 
 
Oops.  I guess I answered that already.  Sorry about that.  
 
 
 
 
 
I know it doesn't work for you, but do you remember this guy?---
 
 
 
Scoff a bit if you must, but that was a real character-- _my_ real character.  He was like my third D&D character, and the first character (and I think only) character I ever converted from D&D to Champions when we decided to "try it out" on Champions running gear (the test was successful, it seems.  Except for Traveller, and a single summer with 1e Vampire, the Masquerade, everything we play now is on Champions running gear).
 
He was about as ignorant as it was possible to get.  He was also an absolute _joy_ to play.  Not just for laughs, like in that post (though there were plenty of them, because he was dumb as a post), but I daresay for the immersion-- when a sophisticated bard or a persnickety paladin enters a new city and sees a thousand people, or two thousand, and water being magically drawn _up_ an aqueduct to garden floating over a castle courtyard, they may "approve of this, as it's charming," or sneer disdainfully at the opulence---
 
But a barbarian who's entire life was killing and wenching it up in a near-frozen wasteland?  Forget about it!  It was _amazing_....  It was as if Gods had walked the earth here, and every person dressed in fine silks and colorful leggings and starched collars were clearly wizards of great power....   The staggering wealth indicated by the use of metal not for weapons or statues of gods, but for..   art?  Using metal to make something with no purpose?  Truly, these people something wondrous and absolutely terrifying!  People who had so much luxury that they would trade it for coins?  What opulence was here that someone could have too much finery?! And-- and...  bottles of magic!  Bottles at all!  Like skins, but colorful, with the contents dazzlingly on display...   And for coins, one could trade and get bottles that let even Koloth cast fireballs like a mighty wizard---  ASTOUNDING!!
 
 
Oh yeah; being an ignorant savage can be extremely immersive, and often amusing, if that's the game you want to play.  Not all INT:6 D&D characters were murder/death/kill oriented.  
 
 

I wouldn't say removed.  I'd just tuck them in Skills and Abilities.  No flying or anything, but some of the early pulp westerns has abilities that were clearly extra-normal. 

I once ran a Weird West campaign where I built a bunch of pre-made powers and abilities the players could buy.
 
One of them was called "Back in Black". It was basically a "get out of death" power. Resurrection Healing with triggers and a bunch of limitations, etc... to make it cheap. It was a one use ability (once used it was gone for good; one charge never recovers) but could be re-bought with xp. But one of the limitations was a side-effect where whenever a player came back from the dead using this ability they gained a new complication that altered their character in some dark/sinister way. Some examples were: Will now only dress in black clothing, can only speak in a whisper, the killing wound never fully heals (no loss of BODY, but always seeping/bleeding, needs to always be bandaged), crows are always circling nearby, etc... (there were a bunch more, but i can't remember them right now). 
 
So basically the Players could come back from death (if they bought the ability each time), but each time they did they would become darker, and darker and more ominous as their complications kept adding up.  
 
 

Easiest way to do "Invulnerable" is to just buy up his Defense, Con, Recovery, Body, and Stun to a level higher than would normally be allowed.  In a 12D6 game, a guy with 35 PD and ED and a 30 Con might as well be invulnerable.  It doesn't matter if you get through 7 Stun on an average hit, if the guy has 70 Stun and a 20 Recovery.  Just describe part of his power as the ability to "no sell" attacks and that's good enough.
 
A guy who focuses heavily on defensive powers can be close enough to invulnerable for government work. 

Late to the game but:
 
APG 1 pg 87 - Damage Reduction 100%.
 
Note: APG rules are subject to GM allowance as they aren't "normal" rules but they do have some really neat ideas in there.  Also, just like in the main books it has a Stop Sign.

I don't see what the big deal is: invincibility does not protect the mind, is not proof against transmutation ("Congratulations...you are the world's first unbreakable amoeba."), does nothing against teleportation attacks and, most importantly, places a character in a horrific position when their loved ones are facing a threat.

Or Cindy Crawford.

So a vampire then...😀

For the decline of supertech, I would suggest there's less "OMG! It doesn't work anymore!" and more, "This is harder than we thought, and it's amazing this unstable technology worked as long as it did."
 
Example: In 2032, the computer scientist Dr. Joon Bon-Wha proves mathematically that the Zerstoiten Algorithm (basis of all "strong" AI for decades, copied as the name says from Dr. Destroyer) is intrinsically unstable. There's a conflict between the self-modifying aspect needed for generalized learning and decision-making, and the absolute directives that assure loyalty and adherence to particular goals. Eventually the simulated neural net degenerates and goes mad before collapsing completely. Dr. Joon theorizes that Dr. Destroyer and other super-scioentists kept their AIs going as long as they did through dodges such as having a specialized "weak" AI monitoring and adjusting the "strong" AI, but even that would fail eventually.
 
IN 2050, therefore, there is lots of specialized AI that's really good at well-defined tasks such as reading X-rays or driving cars. But genuine free-willed electronic personalities are rarely built. Some countries even outlaw there construction, on grounds that it's inhumane to create an intelligence that must inevitably go mad and destroy itself.
 
Some computer scientists are experimenting, however, with other program architectures -- particularly variations that leave out the "hard wired" directives. But many people are nervous about creating electronic intelligences that will be completely free-willed. Researchers counter that every human infant is an experiment in uncontrolled intelligence. What does it matter if a mind is in silicon or meat? Some researchers prefer to speak of "Artifician Personhood" rather than "Artificial Intelligence."
 
Dean Shomshak
 
 
 
 

Just don't allow a Star Wars captain to end your universe by letting her be the first person to ram an enemy vessel at hyperspeed.
 
Because then all capital ships are a waste of resources as they get annihilated by droid-operated ramming drones just large enough to have a hyperspeed drive.
 
Or Force Lightening.
 
Palpatine:  Hi guys, I'm back in town for a couple of weeks.
GM:  Hey, good to see you.  Still got your Dark Lord of the Sith character from before?
Palpatine:  Sure do.  The DM where I live now runs a higher point campaign, but I'm sure I can make it work.
.
.
Two Session later
. 
.
Palpatine:  Rebel fleet is advancing on my temple?  I'll show them.  I use Force Lightning!
GM:  On who?  Rey or Kylo?
Palpatine:  No, the Rebel Fleet.  I raised my Force Lightning to 10d6 RKA - Cone - AoE.  From here I can hit everything between low orbit and where I'm standing.
GM: . . .

I am a Barbarian GM. I revel in crushing my players, seeing them driven before me, and hearing the lamentations of their women. It is what is best in life.

This sounds to me like a conversation that should involve your group, not some random strangers on the internet. 
 
Tell them you are [enthusiastic/ambivalent/hesitant/concerned/whatever] about the idea but before moving forward to [saying no/saying yes] you want to have a dialog about [the questions and concerns you have, such as the ones you raised in your post] so you can be sure everyone's on the same page and onboard with the idea.