Why the hell aren't there more "space opera" / futuristic CRPGs?

[rusty_shackleford]

I've always wondered about the lack of good space opera RPGs myself, and my pet theory is that for fantasy the general shape of RPGs has been cracked long ago. You need a map for overland travel, some dungeons to explore, maybe some cities. In some cases just dungeons is enough. That's the basic for almost all of them.

When you translate that to scifi with a space map as the comparable element to an overland map in fantasy RPGs, you run into the problem how to present individual worlds. Do you go for whole worlds or do you just go for single locations? And how would you justify not allowing access to whole worlds without rather arbitrary made-up reasons. I think that's the crux no game has solved so far. Either games go for whole worlds, which are most of the time utterly empty and boring, or they have single locations, and it feels oddly constricting

I think scifi games could work much better if they would just focus on single worlds like many fantasy games with the explanation that space travel is prohibitive and there's not FTL, but then it's really hard to do any big space opera

I always prefer hub-based design to "open-world" for any sub-genre of RPG. A smaller, well detailed hub is far more interesting than a boring open world with copy pasted crap.
If I had to guess, many open world games are actually simply designing their games the wrong way: First they create the world, then they fill it with content. As deadlines near and the world is still mostly empty, they have to rush out content and you end up with shit like half of modern games using the ubisoft formula of running around to markers on a map to complete boring, repetitive tasks(hi witcher 3.)

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Shrug, your loss. You don't have to pay attention to the MMO aspect of it at all to enjoy the ~100 singleplayer missions it has. Also has some of the last known recordings of Nimoy as Spock.

I told you before I played and finished the Imperial Assassin campaign. I know how the game plays. It's the same busywork as WoW, just with a better story. If you like MMOs I'm sure it's great, but I vehemently hate their design.

I was referring to Star Trek Online.

 

[Viata]

I think scifi games could work much better if they would just focus on single worlds like many fantasy games with the explanation that space travel is prohibitive and there's not FTL, but then it's really hard to do any big space opera

Go for a star system only thing. You can only visit the planets in a stay system because teh technology to go further has not been developed yet(obviously, you'll need some good explanations and so on). This way you have small number of planets, but each one of them could have a lot of places to visit.

 

[DalekFlay]

I was referring to Star Trek Online.

Oh, I see that. I thought this was connected to our old TOR discussion, whoops. Anyway same thing applies really, I hate online and MMO games. I guess I could try it someday though.

 

[Louis_Cypher]

One new game that I only spotted recently is Titan Outpost, which seems to be a hybrid of base building with RPG elements; it's about the colonization and industrialization of Saturn's moon. On the non-RPG front, there was an interesting one a while back called Crying Suns that I really liked the look of; it had elements of a choose your adventure rogelike game about exploring a ruined alien empire, and was inspired by Dune and Foundation. So, I'll summarize the upcoming projects and recent stuff again to have it all in one place, listing a few non-RPG ones for interest:

Upcoming Space Opera RPGs

• Untitled Sci-Fi RPG by Archetype Entertainment
  
• Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role Playing Game by Iron Tower Studio
• Stellar Tactics by Maverick Games
• Starfield by Bethesda

Unconfirmed Space Opera RPGs

• Untitled Mass Effect by BioWare

Non-RPGs of Interest

• Crying Suns by Alt Shift

Recently Released

• Titan Outpost by The Boar Studio

Archetype's Untitled Sci-Fi RPG

Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role Playing Game

Stellar Tactics

Starfield

Crying Suns

Titan Outpost

In terms of anticipation, I am most excited about Archetype's RPG; it's announcement just really fleshed out a pretty bare upcoming list of games and it's former-BioWare credentials make it my number one because KOTOR and Mass Effect are the peak of the genre for me, after that probably Colony Ship is my second most anticipated, and the ambitious Stellar Tactics has potential but I dunno when it will leave early access. I wonder why we haven't mentioned The Outer Worlds at all in this thread? I guess for me personally, I never got much of a space opera vibe from it; in all the marketing I never saw any screens that were not like something out of Borderlands - itself a space game technically, but in practice not really a space opera. I'll give it a go at some point but being a social satire its probably closer to cyberpunk than space opera.

To be perfectly frank it's alien cultures and depth of setting in that regard that I want to see; exploration of new worlds and new civilizations. If I just wanted a space sim I would play Elite, but an empty star field full of sterile rocks is not the same as an ihabited galaxy like Star Wars or Star Trek or Babylon 5 or Farscape or Mass Effect.

 

[Darth Canoli]

When you translate that to scifi with a space map as the comparable element to an overland map in fantasy RPGs, you run into the problem how to present individual worlds. Do you go for whole worlds or do you just go for single locations? And how would you justify not allowing access to whole worlds without rather arbitrary made-up reasons. I think that's the crux no game has solved so far. Either games go for whole worlds, which are most of the time utterly empty and boring, or they have single locations, and it feels oddly constricting

KotoR nailed it with single locations.
Still, if someone did it with good TB combat and a bit more locations on each planet, it could be great too and would justify a partial open world with some locations locked until later (it has to be consistent with the story too)

I guess you probably have a point, nobody dares to go all-in taking the risk to go bankrupt if it fails.

 

[V_K]

There's also Space Wreck being currently remade from 1-hour freeware into a full-scale RPG.

And that weird French sci-fi Ultima clone, Cosmos: The Secret Melody:

 

[rusty_shackleford]

One new game that I only spotted recently is Titan Outpost, which seems to be a hybrid of base building with RPG elements; it's about the colonization and industrialization of Saturn's moon.

The dev is a regular here and there's a subforum for it
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?forums/titan-outpost.116/

 

[Grauken]

When you translate that to scifi with a space map as the comparable element to an overland map in fantasy RPGs, you run into the problem how to present individual worlds. Do you go for whole worlds or do you just go for single locations? And how would you justify not allowing access to whole worlds without rather arbitrary made-up reasons. I think that's the crux no game has solved so far. Either games go for whole worlds, which are most of the time utterly empty and boring, or they have single locations, and it feels oddly constricting

KotoR nailed it with single locations.
Still, if someone did it with good TB combat and a bit more locations on each planet, it could be great too and would justify a partial open world with some locations locked until later (it has to be consistent with the story too)

I guess you probably have a point, nobody dares to go all-in taking the risk to go bankrupt if it fails.

Not that you couldn't use a clever set up as a workaround. StarGate style, for example, could work, space travel only via gates and the only parts accessible would be the area around the gates. The gates could even lead to some cool locations in space, stations, abandoned space ships, etc.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Also, there's Between the Stars. I made a thread about it a few months back.

Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1393754749/between-the-stars

http://www.isolatedgames.com

About This Game
Between the Stars is a space action game with RPG growth and real time combat that places you at the helm of an interstellar cruiser. Your mission will be to protect the civilized world from the Children of the Sun, a faction that dominates border planets in the known universe. In order to undertake your mission you must cross the galaxy, face new challenges at each warp jump, and make difficult decisions that affect your ship, crew and the world that surrounds you while upgrading your ship's equipment and fighting in battles to survive.

• Fight in intense space battles in real time.
  
• Use special abilities on your ship in the right moment to mark the difference on the battlefield.

• Unlock, upgrade, personalize and buy different playable ships and their systems in order to conquer the galaxy.
  
• Create a captain and develop them throughout the adventure. Level them up and acquire different attributes depending on your decisions.
  
• Explore the stellar map and its events generated in a procedural universe.

• Visit space stations and planets across different sectors that make up the galaxy.
  
• Hire and upgrade your crew in order to face the dangers of the universe. Ensure their safety and cover your casualties, as well as level them up.

• Hundreds of text based events that will pit your capacity as well as your crews against countless dangers.
  
• Craft, salvage, and investigate new weaponry in order to augment your offensive capabilities.
  
• Decisions made in one event could change the evolution of the entire playthrough.
  
• Enjoy a standard difficulty mode or play with permadeath on for a challenge.

Anyone try it out yet? Has pretty good reviews so far.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Not that you couldn't use a clever set up as a workaround. StarGate style, for example, could work, space travel only via gates and the only parts accessible would be the area around the gates. The gates could even lead to some cool locations in space, stations, abandoned space ships, etc.

Well, as far as settings go, i'd rather have a Tschaï cycle settings or Demon Princes or anything Vance ever wrote for that matter.

The Tschaï cycle would be amazing though, you first crash on a planet so you have basic equipment and eventually limited phaser battery so at some point, you'd have to use primitive weapons until you find a way to get some resources and reach a big city to buy some more advanced weaponry.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Non-RPGs of Interest

• Crying Suns by Alt Shift

You could also add Starship Troopers - Terran Command, due to release this year. Doesn't look that impressive though.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1202130/Starship_Troopers__Terran_Comma

 

[Tyranicon]

There's also the cyberpunk crpg/srpg I'm working on, although it involves hookers and animated pixel sex.

 

[Maxwell's Demon]

I've always wondered about the lack of good space opera RPGs myself, and my pet theory is that for fantasy the general shape of RPGs has been cracked long ago. You need a map for overland travel, some dungeons to explore, maybe some cities. In some cases just dungeons is enough. That's the basic for almost all of them.

When you translate that to scifi with a space map as the comparable element to an overland map in fantasy RPGs, you run into the problem how to present individual worlds. Do you go for whole worlds or do you just go for single locations? And how would you justify not allowing access to whole worlds without rather arbitrary made-up reasons. I think that's the crux no game has solved so far. Either games go for whole worlds, which are most of the time utterly empty and boring, or they have single locations, and it feels oddly constricting

I think scifi games could work much better if they would just focus on single worlds like many fantasy games with the explanation that space travel is prohibitive and there's not FTL, but then it's really hard to do any big space opera

You can get around many of these problems by restricting the scale to a single star system, or to moons and satellites orbiting a single brown dwarf (e.g. Jupiter). Shows like Gundam and Martian Successor Nadesico hit all of the major story beats of Space Operas on this scale. There's really no need to try to fill a whole galaxy.

 

[Louis_Cypher]

I've always wondered about the lack of good space opera RPGs myself, and my pet theory is that for fantasy the general shape of RPGs has been cracked long ago. You need a map for overland travel, some dungeons to explore, maybe some cities. In some cases just dungeons is enough. That's the basic for almost all of them.

When you translate that to scifi with a space map as the comparable element to an overland map in fantasy RPGs, you run into the problem how to present individual worlds. Do you go for whole worlds or do you just go for single locations? And how would you justify not allowing access to whole worlds without rather arbitrary made-up reasons. I think that's the crux no game has solved so far. Either games go for whole worlds, which are most of the time utterly empty and boring, or they have single locations, and it feels oddly constricting

I think scifi games could work much better if they would just focus on single worlds like many fantasy games with the explanation that space travel is prohibitive and there's not FTL, but then it's really hard to do any big space opera

I think people earlier in the thread were overstating how much more difficult science fiction is than fantasy.... sure it requires more imagination.... you have to think of how a brand new alien society might function, like "they evolved on a subterranean world full of radioactive minerals containing Uranium and Radium, so have a thick layer of skin which deflects alpha/beta radiation" but that's why it's also ten times more fun to build one.

If the formula for a fantasy RPG consists of a map for overland travel linking indoor maps such as dungeons....

...then maybe just do nested concentric layers, like a Russian Doll of galaxies, star systems, exoplanets, settlements - layer A, the galaxy map - layer B, the planetary map - layer C, the individual ruins/bunkers/cities. You aren't exactly multiplying the amount of work or anything, just adding an extra layer for cosmetic effect. The galaxy map, like real space, is largely empty punctuated by actual bullet points such as stars, nebula, space stations, lunar penal colonies, mining facilities on asteroids, derelict ships, etc. They can lead directly to a dungeon, i.e. a derelict, or to a secondary over-world map, i.e. a planet. Mass Effect basically did it this way and it was great, and to make space really damn interesting for virtually no development cost, they had someone write juicy little bits of exposition in planet descriptions like "sensors briefly detected power signatures from inside the gas giant's atmosphere, but they were gone soon after..." The truth is many fantasy games don't allow access to the entire world they are set in. They often compress distance, so in a way, some way-point flashing on an exoplanet with a 10,000km diameter is even more sensible!

I loved those little bits of exposition text. I salute BioWare for writing them with care for hundreds of planets, most of which will never be seen by casual gamers who played it as some kind of third person shooter. I don't know why more companies don't just hire someone to add little touches to things, deliberately inserting little bits of mystery and world-building. Or actually I do, it was passion driving the creation of this setting, and you can sense it viscerally, that these people loved space opera. AAA publishers don't care or understand the value added. It probably costs very little out of overall development yet adds so much. That is the kind of care which should be standard to an ambitious space opera RPG.

 

[Tyranicon]

I don't know why more companies don't just hire someone to add little touches to things, deliberately inserting little bits of mystery and world-building.

Because AAA no longer cares about quality, attention to detail, or fuck all beyond how a game is monetized and how game loops can be exploited to addict mindless pre-teens into purchasing overpriced microtransactions.

#edgy, but also true.

 

[Louis_Cypher]

I honestly don't know how good the story or gameplay is, but when I was posting about lesser known JRPGs for the NES/SNES/Master System/Mega Drive in this thread I came across Lagrange Point, a seemingly science fiction RPG from the era of 'Dragon Quest' and 'Final Fantasy' which doesn't seem to have any fantasy elements unlike Sega's 'Phantasy Star'. It might be of interest as a rare console style RPG with sci-fi themes. If you still play classic RPGs on your emulators or old consoles it might be worth a go, and has finally been translated after a 10-year project:

Just thought I would mention it here for anyone interested. There was also Sega's famous Phantasy Star series but expect that its more like a Might and Magic type fantasy hybrid with mythical enemies, and there was Star Ocean but that was another case of light anime type fantasy that is barely space opera, with elves and stuff, from what I can tell. For those unfamiliar, the Phantasy Star series was once one of the big three along with Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, being Sega's answer to DQ/FF. If you are wanting something a bit different and are sick of modern RPGs, it might be worth trying some NES/SNES ones out. A screenshot from the Master Syetem original:

 

[Chris Koźmik]

One interesting note, from theory of literature point of view Star Wars is fantasy not SF Basically all space opera universes that would do well as an RPGs are in fact fantasy in space, not SF. True/pure SF is not feasible for RPGs (where the basic mechanic is, let's face it, slaying monsters for gold and exp, regardless of the amount of story, exploration, etc). Even half SF/Fantasy like Babylon 5 would be quite hard to make as an RPG (point & click adventure game, by all means, probably a strategy could do as well).

Why hasn't someone, say, adapted Traveller into a CRPG? Why is there no Star Trek RPG? Or Babylon 5 RPG?

Star Trek requires a licence. Babylon 5 requires a licence. Dune requires a licence (and you will *NOT* get one, even if you are a big company like Fantasy Flight Games; read about the story behing Rex: Final Days of an Empire). Tolkien-like fantasy, well... does not require a licence

In short, to make a SF based game you need a licence (unless you make something specific like Wasteland/Fallout/Roadwar) because people will instantly expect the INSERT_HERE_THE_SUPER_POPULAR_SF_MOVIE_TITLE movie. For fantasy you can make your own universe and you can still have elves, dwarves, wizards, dragons and magic.

The need for a licence is especailly deadly when connected with much lower interest for SF RPGs from players compared to fantasy RPGs (so you both target a snaller audience and have much higher costs).

Also, compare the Buck Rogers sales and Pools of Radiance sales... the SSI employes even claim they were forced to make Buck Rogers by the licence owner "against their better judgement", in case you doubt that fantasy RPGs are more popular among players.

In the end, all you can count on is some very big thing (like Star Wars RPG or Dune RPG) made by the biggest of the biggest mega corporations or some MadMax style RPG which is generic enough to not require a licence.

Still, that's a bit sad...

 

[Louis_Cypher]

I respectfully disagree, this is something we debated a little earlier in the thread, but to summarize my opinion, basically I feel that space opera succeeds whenever it's good, that very few attempts are made, and that most attempts are poor. When the world building is good, when it is compelling enough, when the game is actually good, it succeeds. When a setting is interesting enough, as was the case of Mass Effect, it will sell just fine. But we barely see competence. I think a lot of companies can't create good science fiction space opera because they don't get it. I might as well quote:

For me, part of the fun though, is learning a new setting, not being asked to suffer through another bad distillation of High Fantasy.

Buy in is overemphasized. It's the job of the writer to circumvent this problem in some way, through sheer understanding of the deeper thematic pull of their genre, and their skill with words/imagary. To translate ideas on the emotional level. To have concepts interesting enough that people want to learn more. Video game writers should be highly literate people. At some point in the past, Star Trek and Star Wars didn't have much exposure, but the audiences learned their ideas well enough. Star Trek wanted to tell a tale that would make science fiction as real for a general audience as the police procedurals of the time. It set out to popularise an idea that nobody in TV had been exposed to; the idea of a professional military/exploration force in space, and translated it emotionally by hitting the same emotional points as Royal Navy fiction such as Horatio Hornblower and Jack Aubrey. It succeeded unimaginably well, yet there is no "space sextants" or anything so trite and on-the-nose, just the emotional equivalent. Like a colonial era captain, Kirk is a patriot, afforded a high degree of latitude to interpret his orders, with a belief he is on a civilizing mission, Star Trek is in fact ridiculously Victorian, unapologetic about it, and it works really damn well. Each planet he visits is like a new island being discovered by Cook. He is bringing futuristic humanism, repect for cultural difference, instead of Anglican protestantism, but the emotional point is the same. He is in competititon with the a rival global empire, the Revolutionary French/Totalitarian Klingons. He can't resist lecturing less civilized natives on their ethical errors, and the show treats every scenario as a chance to compare the Apollonian and Dionysian aspects of society; Kirk, Spock and McCoy are a Platoic Trio, with McCoy representing pathos/emotion, Spock logic/empiricism, and Kirk acting as wise decision maker who synthesizes the two.



I truly think that a lot of the problem with the genre being under-utilised, is down to the people in charge of the genre being confused and bereft of a clear understanding, either of science fiction, of literature/entertainment in general, or perhaps of life, due to a philosophical malaise. Modern science fiction television is less literate than it was in the mid-90s to early-2000s golden age when Babylon 5, Star Trek, Farscape, Stargate, etc, were all on TV. Even shows like Dark Matter, a recent one, just lacked the depth of past shows, though I applaud them for at least trying to revive the genre. They don't even make use of simple techniques such as matte background images of fantastical cities or show ordinary civilians across the galaxy reacting to a news report, simple things that would add context and scope for little budget.

They fear using highly effective cost-cutting measures like this for fear of how a few immature people will shit on it and miss the point. Yes, maybe alien civilizations would not build the way we currently imagine, but that does not mean a story is beholden to populate a solar system with nothing but boring O'Neil Cylinders or a Dyson Swarm; if having an alien monestary full of monks serves the story better, then that is all that matters, and you justify it as best as you can with sociology/science. One episode of Babylon 5 such as The Long Twilight Struggle, contains more drama that all seasons of something like Killjoys or Dark Matter. TV writers now make personal soap operas about hidden identities, secret grudges, and all this other soap opera shite. In the past the emotional situations came from the epic events, the two were entwined expertly; a prideful man lived to see his homeworld bombed, his fortunes as ambassador reversed, and his disgrace complete, before finding a new way of looking at life that transcended his previous concerns - that was real fucking drama, not "I want to love you but I can't, we must drag out our unrequited feelings for five seasons", or "behold, it was I all along, misleading you for six seasons!" There is no synthesis between real-world naturalism and literary imagination. Sci-fi has become less imaginative. People are fixated on negatively pre-empting criticism, rather than thinking in terms of possibilities.

It's not anything inherent to the genre, but to me, I'm sorry to say, it seems that many writers these days have lost the capacity.

It's been noted that Captain America: The Winter Soldier is basically a 90s action movie disguised as a superhero film. Well, it works. If Star Trek is Hornblower in Space, and it works, or Doctor Who is a gentleman adventurer/wizard in space, and it works, what does that suggest? Perhaps that taking the emotional points from another genre and translating them into space, then using that as a framework to tell actual science fiction, the literature of big ideas, is a really successful way of presenting something. I don't care what people think of BioWare, but they understood this; Mass Effect (at least the first game) is basically the last setting we have seen that I felt "damn, I wan't to inhabit this world!" the way Trek/Wars/Scape/Fly/Gate did. It hit all the right notes. People in writing circles might even be less objective due to the influence of illogical French post-modernism clouding their objectivity; or sometimes perhaps just too snobbish to admit how profound/entertaining something like space opera can be when done without irony or self-consciousness. Okay, some poorer TV science ficiton writers don't even feel they need a scientific education, but on the complete opposite end, some take themselves too seriously to consider doing a wacky "western on the holodeck" episode here and there.

I don't want to put people off trying, but cmon, if you are going to be a writer, wouldn't you want to make the erudition and quality of your work better and better? To constantly learn and refine? Inject real nuance, psychology, ethics, symbolism and science? To be well-learned across a variety of subjects? Make every new effort a shot at the best damn game ever, shouldn't that be the goal of any artist? I know the pressures of the industry, but this is why we have one Planescape: Torment in three decades. What the hell is up with all these bland fantasies, don't people have any pride? Arn't they fed up of making poor simulacrum?

...

...

A lot of the definitions of science fiction being used here are specifically for Hard Science Fiction - nowhere do the rules of society say that science fiction must be so rigorously conservative in it's use of fictive/imaginative devices, only that it is considered "hard" if it does keep them to a minimum. Classics by Asimov or Le Guin are not going to be ejected from the canon just because they use a couple of fictive things to spice up their setting (e.g. FTL, telepathy).

I know there are multiple meanings, but using Wikipedia as a guideline:

- Hard Science Fiction deals with "an emphasis on scientific accuracy"

- Soft Science Fiction deals with either "soft sciences" or are simply "not scientifically accurate"

For fun, here is how I would place some of the big works:

*Harder*
|
|- Revelation Space, Tau Zero, Red Mars, Rendezvous with Rama, Permutation City, Greg Bear, etc
|
|- The Expanse, The Martian
|
|- Foundation
|
|- Babylon 5, Star Trek, Stargate SG1, Firefly, Mass Effect, Dune, Warhammer 40,000, Farscape, The Dispossessed, etc
|
|- Star Wars
|
|- Doctor Who, Space 1999
|
|- Philip K Dick, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Lensman, John Carter of Mars, Flash Gordon, etc
|
*Softer*

But truthfully they are mixed; most of them contain hard and soft elements.
​

To me, the distinction between fantasy and science fiction is whether the metaphysics are fundamentally natural or supernatural. Science fiction may not always be absolutely plausible (i.e. psychic powers), but if it attempts to reconcile itself with natural science that's usually good enough. A real popularizer of the genre like Star Trek or Stargate SG1 actually tries to ground the setting in reality. Find a 'good enough' scientific reason for a few fictional elements, and adjust them if too implausible.

Also, I mean cmon, using the example of a Buck Rogers game (an antique setting) failing from 30 years ago, is hardly good empirical data on the genre's potential in 2020.

 

[Cat Dude]

It is more accurate to question why there are only a few wrpg in the market. Even for mobile there is very slight chance to come across a wrpg in Googleplay app.

 

[JarlFrank]

True/pure SF is not feasible for RPGs

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

True/pure SF is not feasible for RPGs

Don't forget

Even though it's described more as a crew management game than pure RPG.

 

[DraQ]

One interesting note, from theory of literature point of view Star Wars is fantasy not SF Basically all space opera universes that would do well as an RPGs are in fact fantasy in space, not SF. True/pure SF is not feasible for RPGs (where the basic mechanic is, let's face it, slaying monsters for gold and exp, regardless of the amount of story, exploration, etc). Even half SF/Fantasy like Babylon 5 would be quite hard to make as an RPG (point & click adventure game, by all means, probably a strategy could do as well).

Star Trek requires a licence. Babylon 5 requires a licence. Dune requires a licence (and you will *NOT* get one, even if you are a big company like Fantasy Flight Games; read about the story behing Rex: Final Days of an Empire). Tolkien-like fantasy, well... does not require a licence

In short, to make a SF based game you need a licence (unless you make something specific like Wasteland/Fallout/Roadwar) because people will instantly expect the INSERT_HERE_THE_SUPER_POPULAR_SF_MOVIE_TITLE movie. For fantasy you can make your own universe and you can still have elves, dwarves, wizards, dragons and magic.

Are you retarded or just putting up a good act?

 

[urmom]

Well, as far as settings go, i'd rather have a Tschaï cycle settings or Demon Princes or anything Vance ever wrote for that matter.

I think Ricky Gervais would be great to voice a Vance role.

 

[Arrowgrab]

Well, as far as settings go, i'd rather have a Tschaï cycle settings or Demon Princes or anything Vance ever wrote for that matter.

The Tschaï cycle would be amazing though, you first crash on a planet so you have basic equipment and eventually limited phaser battery so at some point, you'd have to use primitive weapons until you find a way to get some resources and reach a big city to buy some more advanced weaponry.

A belated reaction to this post, but I'm curious: would you happen to be French, Darth Canoli? Just because I always heard it referred to as Planet of Adventure, and I just googled and found "Tschai cycle" to be apparently the title of a French translation.