List of Cool Things for a Space Game

[Fixer]

It is my hope to generate a list of 'cool things' to put into a futuristic game. Things that would be cool and interesting to me, and hopefully to most of you.

Therefore I ask you for a list of 'neat' things you'd like to see represented in a futuristic RPG. These should be things that won't be terribly disruptive in the hands of PCs, as PCs tend to get their hands on everything a GM doesn't want them to.

Fixer's List
Bioware (includes genetic engineering)
Cyberware
Full Body Armor suits (ala Master Chief)
Inertialess Drives
Laser Guns (in all their shades)
Nanotech
Robots (large and small)
Spaceships
Space Stations

List added by others
Advanced Weapon Technologies (see below)
Aliens (Friendly and non-, humanoid and non-, mammalian and non-, carbon-based and non-)
Alternate Dimensions
Alternative Energy Sources
Artificial Intelligence
Colonies / Terraforming
Condensed Food (packets, cubes, paste, something like that)
Cosmic Empires
Cryogenic Freezing (for travel or for life-saving functions)
Drugs (Spice, whatever)
FTL Travel
Hive Minds
Holograms
Jumpgates
Junkyards (large, space, etc.)
Lingual Difficulties & low-tech solutions
Lost in Space
Mutations / Genetic Experiments
Normal space-based heavenly bodies (black holes, binary stars, gas clouds, etc).
Outer Space Organisms
Personal Energy Shields
Personal Flight Apparatus (Boots, backpack, wings, whatever)
Psychic Powers (induced)
Space Elevators
Spatial Anomalies
Stun Weapons
Technological Structures in Space (Dyson Spheres, Ringworlds, etc.)
Transporter Devices (ala Star Trek)
Varying tech levels between civilizations
Voice-Operated Computers
Virtual Environments ("Matrix" or Holodeck technologies)

Advanced Weapons/Defenses
Plasma weapons
Ion Weapons
Anti-Planet Weapons
Mines (Magnetic & normal)
Cloaking Devices
Unmanned Vessels

[Bouregard]

Genetical improved humans/ animals
Teleporting devices
Holograms

[Fixer]

Genetically improved would be under bioware, or are you talking about something else entirely?

[chiasaur11]

Mad AIs
Energy shields
Futuristic stun weaponry, a la Deus Ex's riot prod

[Theodoriph]

Elves and Penguins!

[Fixer]

Futuristic stun weaponry, a la Deus Ex's riot prod

Please explain. I am not familiar with this one.

[AstralFire]

Rocket Boots You Can Kick People In The Face With.

I came up with it before Dr. McNinja.

[Hawriel]

FTL travel or folded space hopping.

Aliens

Inovative colonizing of highly inhospitibl locations.

[GolemsVoice]

Futuristic stun weaponry, a la Deus Ex's riot prod

It's basically a taser that isntantly knocks most humanoid targets out for about 20 minutes or so. It's really not that futuristic.

- Food that comes in one of the following varieties: replicated, in strange tubes or packs, or in little cubes that you have to put into a machine and viola! Turkey. It's not really the future unless theres some kind of cubed food.

- Humans who, by means of technology, have gained access to their latent psychic powers/have gained psychic powers anyhow. This specifically does not mean talents that are born naturally, but rather induced psychichs whose natural talents would be insignificant otherwise. Wire coming out of the head are a must.

- Some sort of VR. Shadowrun, Matrix, Neuromancer. Take your pick.

- Backlit, slow moving fans sorrounded by fog for no reason other than to make the area look creepy.

- Computers you can access via voice orders.

- If the setting features long distance interstellar travel, some sort of revolving, giant jumpgate would really be cool.

- Cryosleep. It just has to be, otherwise it's not sci-fi.

[Jair Barik]

terraforming (probabley comes under colonies)
Xenomorphs/aliens
Mutants
Cyborg implants
Entropy perhaps (or technology to prevent it)
Alternate realities?
Corrupt/evil cosmic empires
Hive minds/consciousnesses

EDIT:Ninjad on several of these

EDIT:Asimov's Last question, Asimov's Laws of robotics, Asimov's ideas about the future usage of Jupiter Asimov's.... Heck just look at most of Asimov's stuff if your stuck for ideas, its a great source of sci-fi inspiration

[bosssmiley]

• Generation ships - huge ships wherein the crews live out their lives, and raise and train their successors. Usually sub-light speed, sometimes not...
• Intelligent plants
• Space-dwelling organisms
• Illogical interstellar empires
• Retro computers (either command line interface, or red lens + voice-activated. There are no GUIs in spaaaaaace!)
• Sufficiently advanced aliens
• Uplifted animals
• Hooves on the deck plates and melee weapons in boarding actions - sword and planet / regressed future (like Foundation, only moreso)
• Spice (which must flow)
• Deep Time - history, artefacts and alien races that go back millions of years
• Weird extreme environments (Stephen Baxter's short stories are full of these)
• Class M worlds
• Orbital habitats and asteroid colonies
• Space elevators
• Binary systems
• Spacial anomalies (roughly 1/week) - "You're suspended! Hand in your Spock ears!"
• Black Holes
• Literary allusions galore
• Everything on the Elements of the Mutant Earth lists at Like Being Read to From Dictionaries

@v: entries amended for better explanation

[Fixer]

• Generation ships
• Hooves on the deck plates and melee weapons in boarding actions
• Deep Time
• Weird extreme environments (Stephen Baxter's short stories are full of these)
• Class M worlds
• Spacial anomalies (roughly 1/week)

Explain these a bit better, please.

[Foryn Gilnith]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_M_planet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_ship
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Spatial_anomaly
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xeelee_Sequence ("Several novels also deal with humans and posthumans living in extreme conditions, such as the heart of a neutron star (Flux) or a universe with considerably stronger gravity (Raft).")


Google is your friend.

While I dislike some of the listed things, I would agree that they are all "cool" and should, if plausible, be integrated into a space game.

[Ianuagonde]

More languages than you can shake a laser stick at. Aliens should be incomprehensible to most humans.

EDIT: And for the mutation, the common hamster would be a good starting place...

[Jair Barik]

Babelfish perhaps?

Undeveloped/low tech civilizations and cultures as seen in star trek, would be good.

[Lysander]

Massive inhabited structures like Dyson Spheres and Ringworlds.

[PLUN]

If you're not in a unisex bodysuit that has more features than your computer, you're underdressed.

[Ravens_cry]

Civilisations make contact with advanced aliens (future humans) using around present level space vehicles, riding up to meet the 'gods' on a pillar of flame.

[Flickerdart]

You must decide whether you're doing it hard or soft sci-fi, because many ideas can only be one.

[Jade_Tarem]

The improbability drive.

[Jair Barik]

The improbability drive.

Don't you mean the infinite improbability drive?

[Civil War Man]

A general lack of space marines for once

[PLUN]

I would argue people who fight both in space ships and on land, marines in space if you would, are still acceptable.

[Ravens_cry]

I would argue people who fight both in space ships and on land, marines in space if you would, are still acceptable.

True, but more like MACO,
not Doom Guy.

[AstralFire]

They should be called spacers or something. Marine is water!

[PLUN]

True, but a lot of science fiction just put their navy on floating boats and call it a day, rather than beef up their (generally air force) space program.

[AstralFire]

True, but a lot of science fiction just put their navy on floating boats and call it a day, rather than beef up their (generally air force) space program.

You would have to mix the two. Neither military force is a precise fit for how things work.

You would also just about always have an Army. This has always bothered me. If you're going to do invasions, you use armies. Marines are used as shocktroopers, they can't hold positions. They don't have the numbers. The US Army made more amphibious assaults in WW2 than the US Marines did. The people trained in first response bloodbaths don't use the exact same skill sets as the people engaged in sustained firefights constantly or posted defensively.

Such an army would probably still have its own methods of transport as well, just as the real army does have its own air transport right now.

[Fixer]

I wanted to reduce the amount of space combat, limiting it to fighter-class ships. Anything bigger than a starfighter will have a hull so reinforced that it cannot be breached by any conventional weapons, so even if you break the shields you cannot destroy the ship with normal weapons.

Best you can hope for is to destroy external components (like engines and gun ports) then send in "space marines" (which I will probably keep just because it is accepted vernacular) to clear it out or detonate a large explosive inside the hull (before your opponent self-destructs).

For those familiar with E.E. Doc Smith's ships, I am going to draw heavily from that for starfighter combat. Capital-class starships will be something entirely new from my head.

I am also deciding NOT to have artificial gravity on starships. I am trying to keep this as close to science theory as possible, and I haven't heard anyone describe how to do artificial gravity from any sort of sensible perspective.

[Fastmover]

Recyclers
Espionage Probs
Robotech like Mechs
Solar Satalites
Plasma Technology
Ion Technology
Shield Domes
Interplanetary Missles
Anti-planetary Missles
Planet Defenses
Mine Fields
Megnetic Mine Fields
Special Mining planets
Cloaking Devices
Unmanned ships
AI

[Foryn Gilnith]

I am trying to keep this as close to science theory as possible, and I haven't heard anyone describe how to do artificial gravity from any sort of sensible perspective.

So this sci-fi is hard. Great; I get enough soft "sci-fi" from Star Wars anyway.

What, exactly, do you plan to do with this?