Creating a Sci-fi adventure

[Ichneumon]

Feeling the need to do something different, I'd like to DM a Sci-Fi adventure, not a long campaign, just a simple short adventure. However, unlike with D&D, I encounter a few problems with designing the setting and adventure:

1. When choosing the setting for my regular fantasy games, I usually start with a generic fantasy setting and change things from there, moving away from the standard underlying assumptions of a generic setting. With a Sci-Fi setting, I have no idea what the "generic sci-fi setting" looks like or what the standard assumptions are.

2. With D&D there are these standard plot hooks: searching for an old ancient artifact, trying to stop evil cultists from liberating an ancient evil locked deep below etc. And these standard locations such as an ancient tomb, ruined castles and let's not forget dungeons. With a Sci-Fi setting I have no idea what plot hooks or motivations to use for the characters to start their adventure or in what for locations to put them.

3. The logical reply to 2. would be to just take a standard "Fantasy" adventure and just shift things into something somewhat sci-fi like. Turning a dungeon into a spaceship, turning evil cultists into stormtroopers or robots/androids and turning the ancient artifact into <something else>, but honestly all I can think of is non-interesting and feels lame to the point that I wonder what's the point of even doing Sci-Fi.

I still very much like the idea of doing a simple D&D-like adventure, but in a Sci-Fi setting, any advise?

*Note, I haven't even considered what game system I'm going to use, that's another question all entirely.

[the humanity]

you could start with what you know- fantasy. then, by adding a fold in the time space continuum (very sci fi) you can throw your party into the future (in the exact same place- no matter how lame it is, seeing a guy who looks just like your old friend Yari walking into a bar just like Yari would would is kinda awesome), and they have to get back to their own time.

alternately, you could planeshift to a plane where mechanical prowess is supreme, and your PCs have to just do something there.

spaceships are bad- maybe a space station could be a good location. spaceships get into space ship battles and blow up. your PCs cant logically do much about it- if they can run a spaceship, anybody can. wresting for control over a space station plane by destroying an AI villian or a space goblin army is much more fun than watching NPCs fight each other.

[bosssmiley]

Proper sci-fi (as opposed to fantasy/detective story/slasher flick/[your genre here] with pew-pew lasers) is about exploration, wonder and the mystery of the unknown. It is about awe in the face of a universe richer and more complex than previously anticipated.

Start by immuring yourself in applicable reading material (Asimov, Baxter, Bear, Bester, Clarke, Philip K. D!ck, Stapeldon), maybe look over a couple of sci-fi RPGs, then decide what mystery of the cosmos you want your players to help solve.

[Calmar]

You don't need to reinvent the wheel in order to create a cool and memorable science-fiction scenario.
For example, Star Trek is, at it's core, a trek... to the stars; combined with the exploration of strange places and cultures. Or Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers is basically interplanetary island hopping combined with air assaults by futuristic para troopers in high tech armor.

History sometimes repeats itself. Just take a historical framework and turm it futuristic. It could be it an expedition to the Arctis or into the depths of the Amazonas, a great war, a revolution, or something different...

[LurkerInPlayground]

Or you just do fantasy in space, ala Star Wars.

[Solaris]

Proper sci-fi (as opposed to fantasy/detective story/slasher flick/[your genre here] with pew-pew lasers) is about exploration, wonder and the mystery of the unknown. It is about awe in the face of a universe richer and more complex than previously anticipated.

Start by immuring yourself in applicable reading material (Asimov, Baxter, Bear, Bester, Clarke, Philip K. D!ck, Stapeldon), maybe look over a couple of sci-fi RPGs, then decide what mystery of the cosmos you want your players to help solve.

The man hit the mark. Sure, there can be battles, but it's really gotta be about exploring and finding new stuff.

[Radar]

@Solaris: or rediscovering old stuff.

IMO the basics for a sci-fi setting are:
1. Means of interstellar travel (how big ships can/have to; how long does it take).
1a. Means of interstellar communication (is it possible to communicate more rapidly then travel or not).
2. Sufficiently advanced technology (how much advanced and in which areas).
2a. Energy weapons (a very known classic).
3. Alien life forms (how densly universe is populated, how are interspecies relations going, tech-level differences and such).
4. The Unknown (anything anyone has never seen before - minerals with strange features, lifeforms with psychic powers, ancient artifacts of unknown purpose etc.)
Start by writing vague descriptions of said points and work pu from there.

[Rising Phoenix]

Here are some guns and grenades for your game:

http://www.ptolus.com/images/Technology.pdf

I am using the above, plus aliens (Kythons and Mind Flayers), the equivalent of the internet, androids (warforged) to create a semi hybrid setting. Thus far it has been working nicely.

R.P.

[Volkov]

Proper sci-fi (as opposed to fantasy/detective story/slasher flick/[your genre here] with pew-pew lasers) is about exploration, wonder and the mystery of the unknown. It is about awe in the face of a universe richer and more complex than previously anticipated.

Start by immuring yourself in applicable reading material (Asimov, Baxter, Bear, Bester, Clarke, Philip K. D!ck, Stapeldon), maybe look over a couple of sci-fi RPGs, then decide what mystery of the cosmos you want your players to help solve.

Pfft mystery is old school. Theses days it's all about goin' really fast, makin' big 'sploionz, dakka, choppa and da WAAAGH!

[Devils_Advocate]

Here's one idea for a setting.

Several decades in the future, technological breakthroughs and increased automation have greatly reduced the need for human labor. Even things that would be considered luxuries today are produced so cheaply that they're available for free, and no one needs to work for a living any longer, at least in the first world. The world has seen tremendous surges of activity in academics and in the arts, but also growing ennui. Moreover, powerful and potentially disruptive technologies keep being developed faster than they can be regulated. It has gotten to the point where there are many people with the means and the motivation to produce groundbreaking new inventions for their own personal use and then quickly use them to manipulate things to their liking in the brief window of time before other people develop countermeasures. Heavy-handed surveillance and criminalization of various technologies have stemmed the growing tide of chaos but also provoked burgeoning clandestine research and development and active resistance to outside control. Humanity has entered the age of the mad scientist.

So that's a way that you can have exploration and discovery without space travel and aliens: New things keep popping up right on Earth at an alarming rate.

[Project_Mayhem]

Rip off Firefly. It makes for immeasurable amounts of win.