Setting development thread for a Metroid + Lovecraft (in spaaaaace) style settingand for a Earthbound style "weird modernish but totally not the real world" setting with psychic powers and strange happenings all over the world.
Should the Metcraft be humanist or alienistic? Only humans, or lots of different races?
For setting one, inspirations include:MetroidEvent HorizonSunshineThe Aliens moviesThe Half-Life seriesfor setting 2 inspirations include:the Mother seriesand, well, not a whole lot else is even somewhat relatable, except maybe that Contact game, right?Maybe Earthbound is Exalted modern with psychics instead of exalts and mr.saturn instead of heroin pissing dinosaurs...
>>753230I like Ridley and Zebesians. Please include them.Also, a lovecraftian setting should naturally include aliens (Mi-Go etc). I vote pro-aliens.
>>753230Well by definition humans are no longer inconsequential. Lovecraft's worldview had humans being these insignifigant things compared to "gods" that were really extraterrestrials. Well if were already in space, then were now relevant.I think at least with the alien plague (the metroids/parasite x/headcrabs/whatever) it's more the fear of the unknown. Like people don't want to believe theres xenoforms out there. The whole ghost ships and "are you infected?!" cabin fever scenarios could be fun.But there should also be some arrogant bastards who think they can contain/experiment on the things.But thats with the flesh and blood (or green fluid) xenoforms. I suppose the "oh god I can see stars!" stuff comes in the form of the burgeoning research into hyperspace or something.
>>753241I meant more, 'Do the humans know?'. I'm leaning towards humanity being in the dark of the truth of it all, but I was curious as to wether or not any knowledge would have been glimpsed yet.
>>753233Also: 2001 - A Space Odissey.
>>753246My vote is that, like Metroid, there are other sentient alien races that live among humans in the galaxy. Theyre of human enough mindset where theyre just as prone to the terror as the humans. Bassically playable non human alien races.
>>753258Definately a choice. Each thinks the universe is pretty dull, but secret horrors await them all?
http://www.cthulhurising.co.uk/its sorta been done
>>753246I see it like this:Humanity went to the stars with enthusiasm and a positive attitude. Nations raced each other to build colonies on the Moon and Mars, then the development of jumpgate technology led to an equally enthusiastic seeding of humans on remote solar systems.However, going through the jumps, and living on a remote colony, one tends to get wierd ideas. Whispers from the walls. Strange architecture long abandoned on distant planets. Alien ships drifting past systems, empty of life but full of artifacts and texts that induce madness when deciphered. Corporation freighters disappearing without a trace in supposedly safe corners of space. Disturbing rumours of whole bases going insane, of gates to Hell opening in remote research installations, of military-industrial experimentation with alien organisms, super-predators that would drive humanity to extinction if they would ever be released. Strange cults arising on ships during long voyages or on isolated colonies, human sacrifice and rituals that show a strange similarity across space and time. Government and corporate interest just barely maintaining a grip on the situation, sending in heavily-armed forces at the least sign of insurrection, controlling media and spinning propaganda to keep the masses in the dark.
>>753273Yeah. But we can dream.
>>753280Nicely put.And now I have the image of a family of colonists devolving and inbreeding into a hive/cult of mutants aboard a lost colony ship over hundreds of years, the young feeding on the old.
>>753280Thats fine but I still think there should be the big trendy city world/colony with humans and aliens living side by side buying things they dont need and all that stuff. Because preventing the apocalypse is more fun when there's something to save (and someone to not believe you).
>>753291Agreed. Also, there should be alien races devoted to feeding and worshiping the Elder gods. Those would be far from civilized space and basically be scary stories to tell little children of the civilized races.
>>753285If the players are bounty hunters a la Samus Aran or Iria they are bound to end up in the most remote areas of space where shit like this happens on a regular basis. Then when they come back to the capital with the technology or whatever they had to retrieve, covered in slime and gibbering nonsense about the stars being right, no one believes anything they say, and the government confiscates all the evidence.
So galactic civilization has jumpgates, but some corps/governments/assholes are trying to develop hyperdrive, which is going to lead to brushes with the great and terrible beyond?
http://www.cthulhurising.co.uk/basic outline of the Cold Tower secarioOil Rig on a frozen ice planet drills to deep and finds some acient Alien WMD factory. Sends research teams in and a rival company sends a commando team to try and take the site.The AI in this factory awakes and deploys it servirtors (mutant robo spiders) kills and captures everyone. Prisnors used for experimentation and to keep up the facade that situations normal, so the AI can continue its main objective of makeing nukes to Nuke the YithiansContact is lost with the rig and a team is sent in to investigate (PCs) but get stuck there due to massive ice stormBio-spider rape and other horror ensues
>>753301Now I'm thinking Babylon 5. Some race developed jumpgates, and is now leasing them out to all space-faring races. Attempts of making a jump drive lead to close encounters of the Cthulhu kind, but some crazy morons still persevere...
Maybe pure humans and pure aliens are seen as crazy degenerates (and are more susceptible to worshipping the ruinous powers and so on) whereas most of civilized galactic society are mixed human-alien breeds? Kind of like how in Dr.Who the human race spreads the galaxy fucking everything...
>>753328Would you fuck a Zebesian Space Pirate?In b4 pic of said act.
Anyways, it'd almost be funny if instead of the usual humans-with-stuff-on-their-foreheads star-trek aliens, if the aliens living and working with humanity were mi-go and the like and the scary xenoforms on the edge of the unknown were something else, something worst.Ok, that'd probably suck, but it's a funny thing to consider.
>>753331How about the other direction then: even with the aliens humanity is friendly with, we don't exactly walk down the street arm in arm with. Like, sex between an alien and a human is a Cronenberg body-horror style experience, ala the supernatural race in Wicked City.
>>753470This gives me an interesting idea. Have the main cities have a bit of a Naked Lunch vibe, with humans mingling with insectoid aliens, sapient protoplasm and the like. Maybe even have some aliens secrete mind-altering drugs.Sex between species should definitely be freaky. I mean, freakier than fucking any animal on earth. Obviously, there's people who would do anything (in b4 metroidsexuals) but those would be few and far between. Hell, you could have a bounty mission where the characters travel to the edge of space to locate and capture a xenomorph for the private menagerie of a very rich sexual deviant. But this is starting to take the thread pretty far from the original direction.
Damnit, I knew it'd devolve into Zebesian Space Pirate porn discussion!Back on the original topic, I had somewhat envisioned the universe to be colder than that, with no other alien life forms, humanity being completely alone in the universe (as far as they know, DUN DUN DUNNN). It gives a more Dark Star and 2001: A Space Odyssey vibe, of the cold stark loneliness of the infinite reach of space.Maybe they'd find remnants of civilizations that existed before them, or find things like haunted alien ships appearing on the edge of colonized space, from which humanity can gather new technologies and learn just a little about the Things That Cannot Be Named. The jumpgates-left-by-previous-civilizations idea could definitely be done.Lonely. Isolated. Empty. Cold. Sterile. Stark. Somewhere, out there, in the darkness of the void, are secrets that humanity could not survive the knowledge of.
Since it isn't getting much love in this thread, I'd like to make some points about the Earthbound-style game. Definitely, definitely Mutants & Masterminds with a few alternate rules.Firstly, you start with a very low power level. Probably just level one or two. You don't spend any of your character points on typical "super" attributes, but you do get to pick a certain number as your PSI powers.You have a pool of PSI points (PP) and you pay a number of PP equal to the cost/rank of the power * rank at which you want to use it. Obviously, rules on this will need to be tweaked for balance issues. Some players won't want to play PSI-users but instead play geniuses or pure fighters, etc, so rules for that will be necessary, as well.I'd be inclined to keep the same damage rules from M&M, though traditional HP can be easily integrated into the game.
