![star wars traveller rpg creatures star wars traveller rpg creatures](https://www.gameinformer.com/sites/default/files/styles/full/public/2021/03/19/3fdd08c7/tottworld02.jpg)
However, I'm damned if I can coin a _ & _ term along the lines of Sword & Planet that covers all aspects without making any mandatory. In other words, they could all be transcripts of particularly good Traveller campaigns.Īs I said, this genre is like the Space Opera version of Sword & Sorcery. They all involve individuals or companions - adventurers, traders, investigators, contractors - pursuing goals of only local significance.
![star wars traveller rpg creatures star wars traveller rpg creatures](https://media.miniaturemarket.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/m/g/mgp40058.jpg)
They are all set in spacefaring civilisations where technology has somehow - with an authorial handwave - and my handwave is particularly cunning and internally consistent - failed to eliminate the human element, where you still need a human to pull the trigger or pilot the scout ship, and where nanotechnology, 3D-printing and vertical farms have neither eliminated trade, nor ushered in a crime-free post scarcity society. The same goes for Vatta's War, and most of Flinx, and actually Jack McDevitt's Alex Benedict stories ( *). I think the reason we recognise a kinship between, say, Dumarest (space drifter) on the one hand and Firefly (space trader ) on the other is because they share a similar science fictional universe in which the what matters more than the why. Jackson's Lord of the Rings movie gives us orcs using Steampunk technology at Isengard, and Tolkien himself turns the Shire into a Steampunk dystopia, but neither are by any stretch of the imagination actual Steampunk.
#STAR WARS TRAVELLER RPG CREATURES SERIES#
Green's scenery chewing Deathstalker ( *) series boast various Cyberpunk augmentations, but the series is squarely Space Opera. Thus, for example, characters in Simon R. The parent genres often use the same tropes and technologies, but it's the punk sub genres that engage with them. Second, there's a focus on the personal experience of individuals with personal agency - "punks"? - navigating the technology of the storyworld.
#STAR WARS TRAVELLER RPG CREATURES HOW TO#
(Perhaps we punks are really just magical realists who know how to plot?)
![star wars traveller rpg creatures star wars traveller rpg creatures](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/3/3f/AlienArchive-cover.jpg)
In this, the $CONCEPTpunk genres have a lot in common with Magical Realism. We want the story world with the Zeppelins and steam-powered tanks, partly because they're cool, but also because they enable stories that explore certain themes and human experiences. Taking Steampunk as a representative example: Philip Reeve's Predator Cities ( *) trundle around the dried up ocean beds eating each other with backstory, but no plausible technical explanation and Oppel's more lyrical Airborn ( *) gives us an airship based future with some technical explanation, but not much backstory. It's what some writers call a "gimme".Īny deep worldbuilding is mostly just handwaving to support the technology that produces the desired literary effect. ( Wikipedia has a handly list) all share one or both of the following:įirst, the $CONCEPT really works by authorial fiat. The range of $CONCEPTpunk genres, namely Cyberpunk, Steampunk, Valvepunk, Elfpunk.
![star wars traveller rpg creatures star wars traveller rpg creatures](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/4c/6f/e7/4c6fe7330394274a6d2df9bafef28e44.jpg)
It's the subgenre that that bears the same relation to Space Opera that Sword & Sorcery bears to Heroic Fantasy.īut it doesn't have a name! And though I'm half a century late to the game, I think we should call it "Star Punk". However, it's also defined by protagonist(s) and scope independent operators struggling to make a go of it in a hostile human universe with the antagonists capped at corporation or "house" level, with no Dark Lord, and no saving the galaxy. It's partly defined by vibe hardboiled adventure in an imperfectly distributed future where there are more planets like Tatooine than Coruscant. The same subgenre as EC Tubb's Dumarest books - hero wanders the galaxy in search of Earth - or Moon's Vatta's War - hero trades across the galaxy while coming to her family's rescue - or Firefly - oddball crew trade between worlds - or, of course, the venerable Traveller Roleplaying Game - I've been reviewing the new Mongoose Traveller over on Black Gate ( *). Though there's fighting - the protagonist is a retired mercenary turned archaeologist - it's small scale stuff and the focus isn't on the regular army. It's called " The Wreck of the Marissa (The Eternal Dome of the Unknowable #1)".Īnd yes, as you might guess from its title, it's at the other end of the spectrum from the transhuman wibbletech extrapolative futures that Charlie likes to explore. Yes, despite all my books to date featuring many, many swordfights, I wrote a Space Opera. Right now it's actually blasters because I'm wearing my Space Opera hat. The writer with the swords and some books in print, rather than the one with the cats and a metric tonne of books in print (plus enough rockets that we really should get him that Tracy Island in which to keep them).