GURPS: Space Opera

Okay, first up, why?

Space Opera in itself is generic enough science fiction, the early FGU attempt at "D&D in space" inspired by classic science fiction novels, TV shows, and movies. Why would we even need to play a GURPS: Space Opera when we have much more solid and compelling settings such as Star Frontiers, Star Trek, Star Wars, or even Traveller?

Because with GURPS, we can.

First up, what is Space Opera? What can we even call this? Generic science fiction in space? Even the cover is strange enough. Goggles Guy space southpaw with a bad haircut, Buck Rogers girl from the NBC Studio Lot, Raptor Man, Badger Wookie, green bald psionic guy with the high collar, not a furry lion guy, and Robbie the Robot. The Death Moon and starships that look like women's razors. Is that a pink space castle back there?

Okay, we are on some serious drugs here.

This is going to be good.

What is Space Opera? Let's check out the introduction.

"The original concept was to create a game that would not need the usually innumerable supplements to its rules but that would be a complete science fiction role playing game. Thus, we wanted a game that would allow players to role play all of the most popular roles for characters in the entire genre of science fiction literature. This called for a game to handle the future warrior and mercenary, the free-trader, the asteroid miner, the planetary explorer and first contact man, and the member of the diplomatic corps/spy service. We needed science and the possibility of scientist characters with medicine playing a major role.

As if this were not enough, the decision was made to base the game on the grand tradition of Space Opera, in the vein of E. Doc Smith and most recently Star Wars from George Lucas. This meant that we would also have to allow for the psionic powers so prevalent in the Lensman series and in Star Wars with 'the force.'" - Space Opera, FGU, page 6

So we have: Lensman, Foundation, Starship Troopers, and other classic science fiction books. We cross that with the Star Trek original TV show, Star Wars, the Buck Rogers TV show, the original Battlestar Galactica TV show, 2001, Flash Gordon, Logan's Run, Alien, Dune, Westworld, and a few other influences and we have Space Opera.

My MS Paint Art, not Space Opera -Hak

Psionic powers are our "magic."

These inspirations are the "science fiction AD&D" we have always been looking for. They mix a mess of pop-culture influences in a huge heaping mess, stir them together, and create a generic science fiction universe that should be able to do anything.

And this is not "Mass Effect" since that in itself has become something of a trope for generic science fiction these days, and endlessly copied when nobody has a better idea. The new 5E science fiction game Wizards silently put out to be drilled full of lasers by Starfinder 2 is a prime example.

You see, D&D got in early, so they could mix Greek, Egyptian, Norse, Celtic, Arthurian, and all sorts of other fantasy influences and create a genre. Science Fiction was a bit late to the party, and the franchise players split up science fiction and movies between themselves, and we never really got a great "universal science fiction" genre like we had in fantasy. Star Wars took its piece of the pie, Star Trek had theirs, and everyone else was scrounging for scraps of the audience.

If we ever had "generic science fiction" Space Opera would be the first known combination of all science fiction genres and the unified universe where it all takes place.

Or, simply put, GURPS Space.

Wait! There is more to this than just saying GURPS Space is your thing. While GURPS Space will be very helpful, along with GURPS: Ultra Tech, that is not why we are doing this mod and conversion.

Or, simply put, GURPS Traveller.

No! Not again! It is true Traveller did beat GURPS out in the early 1980s, then Star Frontiers came and went like a flash, and only Traveller survived. What is even the point of a GURPS: Space Opera? This is just "generic science fiction" right?

Okay, let's check out the back cover of the game. Hey, that is a cool starship, too. We have a couple more clues here.

"For you, as a player, Space Opera offers a selection of species for your character. From a basis of randomly determined characteristics (slanted to favor your character) you take him through his career up to the point when his adventures start. This development system results in a complete and rounded character with skills chosen in a non-random fashion to suit his or her needs.

For you as StarMaster, SPACE OPERA offers rules covering a wide variety of topics from which you may pick and choose those that will best suit the universe in which you wish to play. In this way you can simulate situations from virtually any part of science fiction literature. SPACE OPERA gives you a framework within which to set and develop the adventures which you conceive for the characters. The only limit is your imagination." - Space Opera, FGU, page 2.

We have OSR-like language here. Pick and choose rules? Simulate situations from any part of science fiction literature? A framework to develop adventures for the characters? Okay, we have a few more clues. Still, why play this? And why simulate this with GURPS?

One, I love the world building in this game. They say "generic space game" but they do a lot of creating their own world, apart from what they say, this is a new universe with its own organizations, factions, worlds, and aliens. Granted, very few people even know about this universe and care about it, but it is here and an interesting place.

Our character classes are: Armsman, Technician, Scientist: Research, Scientist: Medical, Scientist: Engineering, and Astronaut. They are an interesting mix, sort of mirroring Star Trek, but not really. I like that Astronauts are the pilots and commanders, while Techs are the higher skill-level technicians, navigators, med-techs, and other non-science specialists. Armsman is sort of a classic 1950s science fiction throwback like a Starship Troopers style space soldier. There are lots of scientists, too, which means there is a lot of science going on in adventures.

My MS Paint Art, not Space Opera's -Hak

This is like Star Trek if Kirk wore a spacesuit all the time and flew the ship, Scott sat in the engine room in a radiation suit, Bones, Spock, and some new Engineering scientist researched in the lab all day, and another new Armsman character named Carter manned his powered armored suit with a nuclear rocket launcher on the shoulder and a Blaster HMG to use as a personal weapon, along with a flame unit and defensive grenade launcher tubes on the back. One of them, a green trans-human named Jar'Jeel, has psionic powers and acts as the ship's precognition expert.

What a strange crew.

It is like Starship Trooper Trek Wars.

I would use the species here, since that matches the strange mix on the front cover. I would also use the random home world generation in Book 1, and then skip to the careers. And this is where the next major bit of world building is done with all the organizations in this universe. We have:

• Star Force
• Marines
• Commandos
• BOSS (external intelligence agency, civilian)
• BRINT (internal state security, military)
• IPA (interstellar police)
• Survey (space)
• Scout (planetary)
• Explorer (independent, corporate)
• Contact (government civilian)
• Merchant
• PDF (planetary defense)
• Police (planetary)
• Mercenary (independent, corporate)

That is a lot of world building! This is way more than either Star Wars or Star Trek have ever done, and it forms its own interesting mix of agencies and organizations which can all interact and take missions all over the galaxy. And this is just the Terran faction! And there are more human factions than just the Terran one, and also alien factions. This universe is huge. The factions and organizations are very deep.

The split between Survey being the space explorers, Scouts being planetary survivalist explorers, and Contacts being the alien culture and linguist people is a fascinating split between the scout factions. Having independent scouts is also a cool division.

And this book has a lot of fun expansion books, one of the ones we loved was the Ground and Air Equipment book, which gave you all sorts of tanks, planes, star fighters, rocket launchers, heavy blast cannons, and other toys to play with. This one even has WW2 era old-tech vehicles, and it is a fun guide across a few tech levels for the heavy metal gear in the universe, all the way up to 500 ton Continental Siege Unit tanks like something out of Ogre.

This is a book packed full of toys. 

There is an Orc-like race of space baddies, space Soviets, bug armies, a human supremacist empire, space Roman merchants, Hisser snake people, Mekpurr tech-cats, space China aliens, Transhuman knights, and all sorts of strange factions in the universe with room to make your own.

Also, if you ever wanted to use Space Opera ship combat, the game's skill levels from 0 to 10 map easily to GURPS skill levels by subtracting 10 from your GURPS skill, so a 18- skill in GURPS becomes a level 8 skill in Space Opera. So the full ship combat system is open to you if you wanted to break out the d100 and do things with this game's naval-war game-like space combat tables. For personal gear and armor, use GURPS Ultra Tech.

This is all of a sudden looking less and less like a generic space game, and more like its own setting. 

Okay, still not enough. Sure, you can break down the universe into all these groups, give me a bunch of aliens, stat out a few armored vehicles, and even give me a dozen stellar guides, but why? It is not Traveller, it is not Star Frontiers, it is not Star Trek or Star Wars, it is not Dune, and it was never compelling enough back in the day to really catch on and endure. The system is so obscure and complicated we need to replace it with GURPS. So, why play this?

One, the concept of a universe that puts a Star Trek like Federation against a Star Wars like Empire is a fun one, and just a little reskinning and you have the ultimate fan-fiction universe. You have a group of Space Romans that could easily sub in for a Dune-like faction. You have space bugs like Starship Troopers and Marines. There are probably places to put Battlestar Galactica's Cylons and Buck Rogers in here, or even Ming from Flash Gordon. If you wanted the ultimate "clash of the fan fiction" science fiction universe, this is it.

My silly art, not Space Opera's - Hak

If you wanted to play it straight, this is an entirely new universe to explore, with plenty of the work already done for you! This is far more than you get in many GURPS source books, and having a whole science fiction setting that has nothing to do with anyone's movie or TV show is a cool thing. It has similarities, but this is a ready-made universe with plenty of factions, aliens, worlds, and adventures to use as a great GURPS setting.

The thing is with Star Wars and Star Trek, and even Traveller, new players will want to play the "official game" before a GURPS conversion, and that is understandable. With Space Opera, you can come in with GURPS players and have a ready-made setting with plenty of lore, planets, aliens, and work done for you. You can tweak most all of this to whatever you want.

Plus, the character types are cool and different. I like the concept of an astronaut being space pilots and eventually fleet commanders. I love that there is such a heavy focus on science. I really like the focus on the armsman, and having a dedicated soldier class that can fill many roles. I even like that technicians are anything from engineers to doctors, all with a non-science focus, but highly capable.

Space Opera, Star Sector Atlas 2, page 49

Downsides? The setting is very strange. There is an incoherence to it. Nothing feels connected and the planet descriptions feel disjointed. The organizations have no identity, they are just names with no history or personality. The setting has no flow or history. The entire universe feels like B-Movie science fiction that is hard to relate to, or even get a feeling of what the universe is about. The setting hinges in a false feeling of self-importance. Players will sit there saying "I don't know what this is or how to act."

In trying to be "all science fiction" the game comes out feeling like "none of it."

I could say the same thing about D&D and fantasy, honestly. 

And Traveller is a far more complete and well-laid out universe. Star Frontiers is a tighter and more focused sandbox. Any "IP science fiction" is easily relatable and instantly playable.

Space Opera, Star Sector Atlas One, page 45

On the plus side, the game has some of the most interesting early 1980s science fiction line art by some of the classic fantasy artists. These are rare and fascinating works from some of the greats we know elsewhere, doing a science fiction flex and doing some amazing work. This art reminds me of early D&D, and these are rarely seen pieces, and they are amazing peeks into the hobby back then and the "what could have been" if science fiction was not taken over by a few big movies and instead embraced by gaming.

This universe of open, interesting, and speculative science fiction in gaming is completely owned by Traveller these days. Flipping through the sub-sector guides that Mongoose puts out on a regular basis, I see so many ideas and concepts being expressed, interesting planets and factions crafted, and a universe of possibilities expressed and delivered to an ever-expanding setting.

I like the strong psionic focus for the setting's "magic." Rarely do you get such a strong focus on the psionic part of the setting, and even in Traveller, the power feels muted and pushed to the back. FGU was never fearful of leaning into psionic powers, and they even have an entire game (Psi-World) on the subject. Psionic individuals are this setting's "magic users" and a major part of the action. In Star Wars and Star Trek, they are pushed to the back or pigeon-holed into a few roles (in Star Wars, forced to be Jedi or Sith). In Traveller, they are very rare and the exception.

Space Opera, page 24

In Space Opera, by the rules, 5% of the population are potentially very power psionic users and can be "awakened" by psionic attack or exposure to psionic power sources (during the game). The awakening process only happens in-game and can never be started with, so this entire system is built into the role playing and a pivotal character moment. This is a very cool system and mirrors the science fiction of the day, where a Star Force astronaut goes on a mission to an ancient temple, meets a dying alien master psionic, "unlocks their secret potential" and "everything changes!"

If you love those classic heroic science fiction novels of the 1950s to 1980s, where there is a story of heroism, awakening, and transformation, then Space Opera will call to you. A lot of today's "class based games" have no surprises for you, where every power is planned out 20 levels ahead of time, and there is no mystery or changing of your character's path and future. You look at Starfinder and your technician has 20 levels of power planned out for them, and there is no mystery or discovery to the character. Even in Traveller you are pretty much set in stone. Star Frontiers, same thing, spend XP to go up boring skill trees.

Only in GURPS and point-based systems do you have that "open character sheet" to freely develop your character. The only "open character sheet" game in d20-land is original B/X where you can freely add powers to your sheet, such as Old School Essentials. The minute you go to AD&D, those level-based charts start to take over the game, and you lose your open character sheet. By the time you get to 3.5E, the open character sheet is gone completely. Modern games like 5E or Pathfinder? Forget it, your character is centrally planned by a committee.

Today's over-designed, over planned, go up the pre-programmed level chart games how no mystery or discovery in them. They are boring and often impossible to balance. They control your character's story. All you are doing is going up the planned power chart and checking boxes. Nothing unexpected or cool can happen to you because of the story.

More of my silly art, enjoy. -Hak

In GURPS? Even in fantasy my bard can become a mage. My fighter can become a druid. My thief can become a paladin. My cleric can learn archery. Whatever happens in the story is reflected on my character sheet, no clunky multi-classing required. My Star Force medic needs to learn how to fly a ship? I can do that. In class and level systems? Forget it, the designers know better than you.

The different branches and divisions of space forces in Space Opera is very cool, and also instant inspiration for your own science fiction universes. What if there were independent explorers and they hired mercenary forces? What would a space police force do, especially with their own ships to fight space pirates and work alongside local navies and star fleet vessels? even if you do not use the setting, there is enough here to give you a wealth of world building ideas on your own.

Just drop in GURPS, let me run an open character sheet, and go.