How to create a new setting for Space Adventure roleplaying that captures the same sense of wonder and depth as Star...

...

...

...

...

Star Wars was devised as story first, setting... not even second, really. More like waaay, waaay fifth or sixth. All the EU shit only came about after Star Wars had cemented itself as a great story first and foremost, and people were emotionally invested enough in its world to want to know more.

This is a problem that seems to infest modern fantasy/space opera writing, especially among amateurs. You don't start by laying down an entire world. You start by writing a good, solid, dramatic story, and build the world to fit.

Like, half the reason Star Wars feels so weird and magical is because so much of the setting is vague and undefined. Details are only ever given when they matter to the story at hand. In the Force Awakens, when BB8 is running away into the desert, there's a moment where a... thing... pokes its head out of the sand and watches him roll away. What that thing is, or why it's there, is never explained. Because it doesn't NEED to be explained. It's just a weird little thing that helps make Star Wars feel all the bigger and stranger.

It's interesting how simple all the designs are in Star Wars. Despite the greeble, everything is basically a circle, a cube, a triangle. Nothing is too complicated.

The technology works the same way, as do the plot and characters. Get the sword. Rescue the princess. Fight the guy.

It's like how much of the plot and gameplay of Dark Souls is simply "Ring the bell. Light the fire."

" You don't start by laying down an entire world. You start by writing a good, solid, dramatic story, and build the world to fit."

This.

Dark Souls captures the Star Wars magic pretty well. I'd argue Legend of Zelda does too.

I agree with Peter Serafinowicz in saying that Dark Souls is essentially a dark fantasy version of Zelda.

...

...

...

...

...

...

This picture is actually a really good example of what I mean. It's clear that when this painting was produced, no-one had yet decided that lightsabres were solely a Jedi thing, because what the term "Jedi" actually meant was still up in the air. So stormtroopers carrying lightsabres (and regularly engaging in melee combat, given the shield guys in the background) was totally possible.

For all their faults, one thing the prequels got right was maintaining that commitment to simple, readable shapes in the ship and robot designs.

>Barbarella

What if, instead of lightsabers, there were transparent orange chainsaws?

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

Here's some concept art by a (non-McQuarrie) guy who gets it

Here's some that really doesn't

Less Neuromancer, more Princess Mononoke in Space

The battle of Hoth would go dramatically one-sided.

...

...

>Depth as Star Wars
Someone has to say it.

I find that a good contrast of Mixed occasionally with makes for a good space setting. You have to realize that technology is there, but you still want that mythical storytelling atmosphere.

If Willow were set in space, would it be better or worse?

...

...

...

...

...

...

This makes me think of Evangelion and how they threw crosses everywhere.

...

...

...

...

...

...

Dune or The Incal
>/thread

Consider something like eclipse phase's gatecrashers. Almost all of our civilization is contained within the solar system, but there's a jump gate in the Kuiper belt to a solar system "router" which allows travel to hundreds of formerly inhabited worlds, with human smugglers and colonists and so on trying to make their way in the far reaches of space

Don't go full eclipse phase and make it all transhuman. Instead, make customizing an iron man style space suit part of character creation. There aren't really shuttles in this setting, because the suits have enough power to make it to atmosphere on low gravity. The suits are energy shields like in dune, so a lot of personal combat is melee and hacking based.

>implying it's not

Draw on its sources, like some other anons mentioned, but don't forget that one of the strengths of the original series was that it also drew on how the world looked to people at the time. X-wing cockpits are just fighter plane cockpits, the room with the clear plastic maps where they coordinate the battle is just a CIC you'd find on a carrier, Mos Eisley is just some seedy bar in Morocco. It's easy to see everything as Star Wars, to look at Han Solo and think, "that's Han Solo" instead of thinking "that guy's going to steal their money and leave them drifting in space."

Coming from someone that is striking out on just such a task themselves, I can say that it's vitally important to focus on the story but also the cast of characters involved in it.

For me, I wanted to do a Space Opera that doesn't have UNLIMITED zany alien species overwhelming the senses; instead I choose to have a very very select group of extra terrestrial species. To compensate for the lack of diversity, I have a rich history and culture set up for them as well as dividing factions among them.

I mean, personally, if you just keep shitting out fuckery into your universe WITHOUT there being a purpose for it then it just adds too much clutter and detracts from the finer elements.

May I ask you what you're working on? I'd be very interested in hearing about it.

So too if you desire to hear about my setting, I'd be glad to discuss it further.

>depth as Star Wars
A major point of Star Wars was cutting as much depth and exposition as possible without confusing the audience. Everything you conceivably need to know is contained in the original trilogy. In fact I would argue so much of the EU sucked and still sucks because nobody intended there to be explanations for 90% of what you see on screen.

Halo is an example of a series where the outside content was intended from day one (IIRC the first book came out before the first game), and the books really benefit from that. Fall of Reach is just good. Tellingly, once they reached the limit of what Bungie intended to say quality fell off a cliff.

the world in Destiny gave me the same Star Wars feel, for some reason

>nobody intended there to be explanations for 90% of what you see on screen.

Which works for a MOVIE format, but literally is cancer for everything else

Some other dude, but post more details. I'd check out your book.

Sure, here's the basic setup in as loose a format as possible because I have to leave in a few moments

>Humans have fully explored their native system
>almost all resources have been drained from their homeworlds
>technology is developed to traverse to the next suitable and closest system
>a gateway, linked from their homestar to another is constructed, first of its kind
>the only problem is that initially it is a one-way trip
>the first Pioneer fleet is sent with enough provisions to establish settlement and extract vital resources
>after establishing colonies and ensuring sustainability, construction of the second gateway is implemented
>during this time they make first contact with an alien race across great distance
>initially just communication, but eventually interest develops of meeting one another
>the aliens are slightly more advanced and can traverse to our Pioneer solar system, but it takes still yet a very long time
>fast forward a few hundred years and the construction of the gateway is nearing completion
>the alien fleet is on the outter skirts of the system now
>a diplomatic envoy is launched to meet them, splitting the fleet's power up considerably
>as the envoy is on the way, disaster strikes
>in a freak accident the gate is destroyed, resulting in an inner planet being forced into a collision course with the star
>the major government body was based on that planet
>seemingly out of no where a new unknown and colossal fleet appears on the opposite end of the system from where the diplomatic meeting is to take place
>this new lifeform initially refuses any attempts at contact, but it is clear that they're assembling a fighting force

That's where my story begins. The first contact of an alien race, major loss of government structure and a mysterious threat amasses outside in the dark.

Right now I'm still in heavy world building mode, but I am also experimenting with homebrew system.

With luck, Veeky Forums /co/ and /tv/ for this

Although I agree to an extent with your sentiment, dune really shits over that rule.