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Hi Peeps

Taking this thread basis from another, ongoing, thread....but I thought this might deserve a discussion all of its own.

Right now, there seems to be alot of new companies coming out with their own range of multi-use miniatures....however, on the flip side, theres not many companies coming out with new and innovative gaming ideas! Could it be that this is because the future settings have all been covered by ongoing Sci-Fi settings?

So my questions:

1. What is your favorite Sci-Fi setting? It could be anything, no limited to current wargames....so WH40K, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica...whatever.....

2. What makes your chosen setting work for you? Characters, hard-ware, utopic view of the future....

3. If it isn't already a table top wargame, would it be successful as one? and which compnay do you think would handle its creation in a way you'd like?

To kick things off here's mine:

1. Star Wars, Dune, Infinity, Mass Effect

2. All of the above have strong characters and races, with strong history and compelling aspects. All of the above have adult themes that transend the need for mindless killing, but all share a strong political sub-plot which defines the violence and gives it a subtle but deeper meaning. The various settings have a relatively bright and optomistic view of humanities future, but you never forget that if the wrong choices are made that future could turn dark.....the storylines are cohesive and becauseof this they entice and continually evolve the charcters and their surroundings!

3. So far as I know, only Dune and Mass Effect have not been made into a TTWG (Table Top War Game), I never played the Star Wars game, because the miniatures were so bad, and Infinity is great as it is.....in fact I'm so impressed with CB handling of Infinity, that I'd put those guys forward for handling the other three settings.

40k.
Very detailed, tons of different factions, ridiculous over the top stuff.

I also like Mass Effect, Star Wars, and probably a few others that I can't think of at the moment.

Farscape, Babylon 5.


Whilst I love the 40k background, it is fairly relentlessly about war, which is cool but kind of a one trick pony.

A combination of Battlestar Galactica, Stargate, Mass Effect, 40k, Star Wars, Farscape, Dune and Star Trek would suit me fine.

I like far too much sci-fi to focus on one particular element. Never played the star wars game (bad minatures/boring rules) and apart from that 40k is the only one that has its own board game (that I know of).

Stargate SG-1 would make an interesting tabletop game. Plenty of factions, people already know the fluff and there's a whole Galaxy of expandability. (Multiple Galaxies, actually.)

starcraft and 40k

starcraft has the UED i like that concept and the terran civil wars that go on, aswell as the protos wariors and zerg swarms, 40k is just all round flixable and EPIC nuf said bout 40k, dune and the setting in killzone are cool too. starwars is a bit cheesy but if you look into the knights of the old republic story then it is awsome.

mm starship troopers is alright but starcraft is basicly that on steroids. halo has its own thing but some people find it too overated.

table top halo could work but id rather a stragety
game version on pc first, starcraft could work

STARCRAFT toable top, now that would be cool

terran race

factions, UED, sons of koral, terran dominion, terran confederancy, terran rebel/mercenarys.

hq, special characters, jim raynor emperor megnks ect...

elites, ghost squads *snipers and special ability nuclear launch* fire bats

troops
marines *medic upgradable to the squad* and remember all medics are female

transport
drop ships.

fast atk
vulture speed bikes, sentinal walkers *upgrade to special anti air missles* wraith air fighters

hvy support
siege tank
anti air valkrie ships *they are diferent to 40k*

protos hq
fenix, zeratule and tassadar

elites
dark templars high templars
Archons *dreadnaught size*

troops
dragoons *they can be terminator bases*
protos zealot

fast atk
scout air fighter ect

transport the shuttle

heavy
reaver, and anothe rlfying thing,

zerg hq
kerigan *like abadon, rly rly high points and pwnage in game* cerebrate, overmind wariors?queen

elites
hunterkiller hydralisks
lurkers,

troops
zerglings*like guants*
hydralisks infested terrans and others

fast atk
mutalisks *they fly* devourers and the other flying thing, scourges and stuff

transport over lords

heavy
ultralisks?


it could happen! any other starcraft fan please add in

Starwars, Stargate are my favourite because that they are just awesome, the awe of seeing lightsabers (new technology) and the star gate with wraith and the oracle etc. i love it. both of these games can become tabletop, if it happened i would instantly try it out since i love it, starwars could be used with space battles with ships and with stargate. would be awesome.

BSG, obviously. The whole "band of survivors" thing always massively appeals to me.

Firefly had potential. I liked the idea of the mix of civilised inner and slightly backward outer planets, so there was a built in variety of settings WITH justification.

Terminator future. (I've not seen Salvation yet, so I hope my image of Earth's future survives it). Again, the whole gritty band of survivors thing...

Blade Runner. I love the whole depressed atmosphere of it.

Aliens has the same "corporarations run the world" scenario going on, and the colonial marines were ultimate badasses. That element was missing from the other films and was one of the reasons didn't quite like them as much.

W40K is good in so far as it is a post-apocalyptic story writ on a galactic scale, though it is too cheesy to be a serious contender. I admit that it is a necessary evil for the purpose it has to serve, however.

Star Trek is my flatmate's favourite because of the variety of elements and ship designs, especially federation. Personally I love the Borg for their implacability. (Especially before they introduced the Borg Queen, which I feel was a development mistake as it personalised them, and their very facelessness was what made them cool. I thought Hugh was a far better story arc if they wanted to develop personality traits in any Borg.)

Star Wars has elements of win, like the enviably cool Star Destroyers. My favourite bits were on Tatooine though; the blend of high and low tech.

I'll go for 2 obscure literary universes and one pop culture one..

The Half Continent of "Monster Blood Tatoo"
It's -borderline sci-fi, being a fantasy world, with mad alchemy and sugrical skills, but it's rather compelling.

Larklight - A mad victorian steampunk romp through the solar system, endlessly engaging.. and did I mention the mind control hats from the end of the universe? (The same author writes the Hungry City Chronicles, which comes in a near 4th)

Dr Who - okay, never mind that it is rather filled with omnicidal maniacs, it has cat nuns..

Ooh ooh, that reminds me. Not quite Sci-Fi, but China Mieville's Perdido Street Station is all win in so many ways.

Fifty wrote:Ooh ooh, that reminds me. Not quite Sci-Fi, but China Mieville's Perdido Street Station is all win in so many ways.

Yeah, Bas-Lag is amazing, first really original fantastical background and world I'd read in years. I think The Scar improved on PSS though.

My favorites?

In no particular order:
Dune
Star Wars (they've kind of ruined Star Wars with all this EU crap)
Star Trek

The stuff for Laserburn is pretty cool for the most part.

40k, but the background has gotten progressively worse imo.

Shadowrun, Star Wars, and Firefly make up my top three. Both Starwars and Firefly are obviously space operas, but for a universe that hasn't left terra but still wows the hell out of me is Shadowrun.

Magic and technology come together in a world that I just love.

@Vladsimpaler

Isn't the Expanded Universe that which makes Star Wars more than just a simple "space movie".....I mean, all the Knights of the Old Republic stuff, and the stuff following on from Return of the Jedi, thats what really helps give SW the scale and scope it enjoys.....IMHO of course.

Delephont wrote:@Vladsimpaler

Isn't the Expanded Universe that which makes Star Wars more than just a simple "space movie".....I mean, all the Knights of the Old Republic stuff, and the stuff following on from Return of the Jedi, thats what really helps give SW the scale and scope it enjoys.....IMHO of course.

Perhaps I should have clarified. I don't hate all EU stuff. Like pretty much anything Timothy Zahn for the most part. A good amount of the other books are good. I like Kotor. What bothers me is the all the stuff with Cade Skywalker. I mean, for goodness' sake, just let it go. The New Empire with a new Emperor except they're inclusive (how many Imperials have survived, anyway?) It's as if the Battle of Endor wasn't even important on a grand scale because 3 minutes later 20 Imperial Grand Admirals have 20 billion stormtroopers each.

I don't mind a little grit but grimdark and Star Wars to me just don't fit. That's what a lot of the new EU stuff is doing.

Don't get me started on the new Clone Wars TV show either. It's as if we know what is happening every waking second of the Clone Wars and that's boring. Leaves nothing to imagination.

Star Wars is the 'verse that I return to time and time again. The draws for me are:

1. Galaxy-spanning civilization.
2. Awesome ship designs.
3. Detailed artwork and background that bring everything to life.

Like Vladsimpaler I consider most of the EU crap. The good stuff is: the movies, the Incredible Cross Sections, the KOTOR games, atlases, and some of the Clone Wars info (just setting details, like equipment and battle locations). I flesh this out with copious amounts of fan-derived scientific analyses from like-minded sources (Star Wars Technical Commentaries, stardestroyer.net, Domus Publica).


I suppose Babylon 5 comes in as a distant second, suffering largely from it's comparatively small scale and dearth of ground combat. There are other universes that I like but they are sorely lacking in either believability (40k, Star Trek) or artwork/background/fluff (pretty much all of David Weber's universes, Stargrunt/Full Thrust universe). I'm largely a visual person so pretty pictures of ships, battles, and ground troops are important to me.

Vladsimpaler wrote:My favorites?

In no particular order:
Dune
Star Wars (they've kind of ruined Star Wars with all this EU crap)
Star Trek

The stuff for Laserburn is pretty cool for the most part.

40k, but the background has gotten progressively worse imo.

Dune for me as well , though i still need to watch the movie and read the book.

But the spice must flow! the dune cat commands it!

40k is my favourite. Well... old 40k. Back when it was ACTUALLY grimdark (2nd). Ever since 3rd I felt it got a bit too joylight. It still has it's moments, but it doesn't seem as dark and ... grim... as it used to. I like the direction some fluff has progressed, but others is just meh. I guess it balances out.

I like Wh40k because it's not a group of survivors struggling to survive (but that's fun too) but it's the storngest thing the universe has ever seen slowly falling apart because of people that just want to fight (orks) people that want to kill stuff (chaos) and people that want to torture stuff (dark eldar).when you break it down really really simple it gets kind of funny

Totally unrelated to miniatures or gaming for me, but my favorite Sci-Fi setting from the enormously popular ones anyway is Star Trek, for the optimistic view of the future.

Dune, except the part where the prequels described cyborg sex.

Ursula K. Le Guin's Hainish universe. Because it's intelligent social science fiction.

Oooh, Hain, too.

malfred wrote:Dune, except the part where the prequels described cyborg sex.

There's a reason why people say that Dune was the only good book in the series.

Modern Zombie Outbreak!

Its the desperate survival idea that i really love. As a person its tough to imagine not being on the top of the food chain, but when the zombie madness kicks off its a desperate fight to keep alive.

Im sure its out there but im not sure where yet. I believe a simple version of necromunda with a very well planned non player zombie side. (or possibly zombie player if your feeling it!)

Simple campaign system with an end goal, character development, gear upgrades(aka modeling opportunitys), mob growth or decay, depending on how you are tactically or if you find survivors.

Possibly space hulk on a more open/less super human side.

What good is a stroll through the food chain if your as armored as a tank and equally well equipped?

Okay, I have another favorite sci fi setting.

Anything that's like Robocop, Total Recall, or something along those lines. Like it's futuristic but filled with a lot of weird stuff but at the same time it feels like it is the present. Oh and it is most of the time over the top violent. And mutants. It's also funny because both of them were also originally given X (or NC-17) ratings.

Terminator is another cool sci fi setting. Kind of fits in up with the above.

I also like the Lexx, though I doubt many people have even heard of that. It actually reminds me of the 40k universe in a way. It's very... bizarre.

40k.
Star Wars.
Stargate.
Halo.
Killzone.
Dune.

In that order, descending.

Halo before Dune? You probably just broke the needle on the HERESY! meter with that.

The universe of Peter Hamilton's 'Night's Dawn' series. Oh, to fly a Voidhawk!