Why aren't there more space opera RPGs?

[CaptJohnSheridan]

Most RPGs are fantasy. Nothing against fantasy I think Skyrim and The Witcher are excellent games. Why aren't there more space opera/sci fi RPGs? Is it because the popularity of DnD? Is it because they don't want to compete with Mass Effect and Star Wars? Wouldn't it be cool to command a cool looking spaceship and be badass like Captain Kirk or Sheridan?

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Eh? Fantasy has an established canon, kinda regardless. Wispy up-themselves Elves with bows, tank-tops, swirly tattoos and fast daggers, hairy dwarves with axes, hammers and mead, men who are kinda the in-between and yet someone always win or don't loose, and either Orks, Orcs, Goblins, or some other 4th creature that's half noble half warlike to drive the plot. Also dragons, daemons, other demons, zombies and some manner of wench.
Takes all of 1 hour intro for 99% of gamers to be on the page.

Space though...hour on flight, hour on weapons, hour on Alien race 1, hour on 2, hour on 3-5, hour on cosmic deity bullshit, hour on why I should care, etc...

Takes too long.

KOTOR has a roughly 6 hour intro. Skyrim's in 15min.

 

[Hawki]

Probably because RPGs (or WRPGs at least) have a set of pre-made tropes they can fall back on, usually of the DnD/Tolkein variety. Sci-fi has its own tropes, but those tropes weren't used in roleplaying, or at least not to the same extent.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

I would say the setting makes a space RPG automatically harder to do. Skyrim, Witcher, Fallout, etc all have just one game world wherein characters can fuck about in. Space RPGs have to deal with having multiple worlds and space sections. Mass Effect and KOTOR may as well be linear, level based games because once you leave a planet, there's is almost no purpose to return there. And when you do get to a new planet, there areas aren't significant enough to make it interesting to explore. So they do the same amount of work in making locations, but the payoff is much smaller. Mass Effect Andromeda seems to be trying to remedy the problem, but I have my doubts.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Most RPGs are fantasy. Nothing against fantasy I think Skyrim and The Witcher are excellent games. Why aren't there more space opera/sci fi RPGs? Is it because the popularity of DnD? Is it because they don't want to compete with Mass Effect and Star Wars? Wouldn't it be cool to command a cool looking spaceship and be badass like Captain Kirk or Sheridan?

There are quite a few quality Trek games out there:
-25th anniversary
-Judgment Rites
-A Final Unity

 

[Zhukov]

Because you haven't spammed enough internet forums with variations on this topic.

Go forth son, you have much work to do!

 

[jedisensei]

Eh? Fantasy has an established canon, kinda regardless. Wispy up-themselves Elves with bows, tank-tops, swirly tattoos and fast daggers, hairy dwarves with axes, hammers and mead, men who are kinda the in-between and yet someone always win or don't loose, and either Orks, Orcs, Goblins, or some other 4th creature that's half noble half warlike to drive the plot. Also dragons, daemons, other demons, zombies and some manner of wench.
Takes all of 1 hour intro for 99% of gamers to be on the page.

Space though...hour on flight, hour on weapons, hour on Alien race 1, hour on 2, hour on 3-5, hour on cosmic deity bullshit, hour on why I should care, etc...

Takes too long.

KOTOR has a roughly 6 hour intro. Skyrim's in 15min.

I dunno, if you add 'space-' in front of the name all the key points line up well enough... space-elves (asari/Vulcans), space-dwarves (krogan/Klingon), the other kind of space-elves (turian/Romulan), space-humans (um...the humans). The stage and the actors are mostly superficial trappings; they should be familiar enough in a successful narrative. And since most every game is basically just a re-skin of the Hero's Journey, the central conflict and drama should be instantly recognizable, as well. I'm frankly having a hard time thinking of true divergence points, except to note that sci-fi stories tend to center on more timely subject matter, or even pre-sage an issue.

Maybe the real difference is that no one feels any shame biting off Tolkein's lore...

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Maybe the real difference is that no one feels any shame biting off Tolkein's lore...

As someone who makes RPGs as a hobby, I see that too. Elves, dwarves, etc have become so common now that they're basically givens.

It's one of the reasons I'm actively trying to avoid things like that in my own fantasy setting. No elves, no dwarves, magic is rare, but anyone can do it, not just skinny guys in robes, etc. There's enough tolkien-esque fantasy out there, might as well shake it up a little, eh?

 

[Nickolai77]

Sheer scale. Fallout, Dragon Age, etc can all have one world to be in, space operas tend to use multiple planets. MULTIPLE. PLANETS. Even if you just make smaller areas on the each planet, you'll be stuck designing ALL of that. Granted, not every RPG needs to be a sandbox game and you'd think game devs would realise this.

This. The trouble is space is that it's bloody big. A good RPG has a very detailed universe, and you can't get an adequate level of detail on a universe the size of well...the universe! You could get around this by making the RPG very story-driven and restrict the player to visiting places that are detailed within the story, but that severely limits the freedom of the player which is kind of the whole point of an RPG.

That said, I wouldn't mind a space opera set in just one city. Don't even make the player captain of a ship, make them some a cop, or a bounty hunter, or a government agent but don't make them captain of a ship (why the fuck does the guy required to command the ship get on the ground anyway? Has no one heard of the Peter Principle?).

I would suggest a setting on a newly colonised planet. Humans have recently arrived in a sleeper-ship say, and the world is themed very much about human civilisation expanding and colonising this one planet that could make very detailed and interesting to explore.

That said, you wouldn't be getting interplanetary space flight which is kind of crucial if you want a space opera RPG!

 

[jedisensei]

For those arguing that the scale is too daunting, may I remind you that Star Wars (arguably the most successful and beloved space-opera movie of all time) was set on a desert planet, a spaceship, a second kind of spaceship, and a jungle planet...whose brief appearance mostly featured a dimly-lit room.

You don't have to go grandiose to make a compelling tale; in the end, it's not the 'space' part that makes 'space-operas' appealing. Indeed, too often writers -- both in the fantasy and sci-fi realms -- make that mistake.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

For those arguing that the scale is too daunting, may I remind you that Star Wars (arguably the most successful and beloved space-opera movie of all time) was set on a desert planet, a spaceship, a second kind of spaceship, and a jungle planet...whose brief appearance mostly featured a dimly-lit room.

You don't have to go grandiose to make a compelling tale; in the end, it's not the 'space' part that makes 'space-operas' appealing. Indeed, too often writers -- both in the fantasy and sci-fi realms -- make that mistake.

There's also a really big difference between movies and games. To film a movie you can just GO to somewhere and film it, with games, every single location and object needs to be made by someone. Keep in mind also that with a movie you can film something that's not even a complete room because you're controlling what the audience sees, with games people are expected to move around and look at things from different angles so you have to cover much more with things in order to not show just blank space.