How pulp is your campaign? What would you use to run a planetary romance or vintage space opera game?
We did a Flash Gordon with the serials filed off sort of short campaign last year in my group. We used Savage Worlds. I forget what extra book(s?) the DM used but I can ask him tomorrow if this thread lasts.
It went really well though and felt/sounded right, and the system didnt get in the way at all. It's my only experience with Savage Worlds though so I can't claim to be an expert.
>>46829511
I know Slipstream is designed to be a sort of pulpy, Flash Gordon-esque setting complete with animal men.
>>46829208
Fate Accelerated Edition
There's a bunch of nifty space settings for Fate, from hard and gritty to utopian spess magic, but you don't need that complexity. FAE is universal, but it works especially well in a space opera because it depends on what everyone brings to the table.
My space opera isn't vintage, more dark Star Wars sans Force. Could be though, really depends on where the players take it. Space is vast and not empty. Everything has been discovered or invented countless times. Species have evolved in the most fascinating niches. Everything is colorful, exciting, and often overwhelming. Hugely differing scales is a big theme. Technology is functionally magic and merely themed, not explained.
I believe the only thing you only really have to think about is where Earth and humanity stand. Are humans a dominant species? Is there or has there ever been Earth? Does mankind live the frontier life in countless cultural facets on and around countless planets, moons, and asteroids? Or is there no need for casting actors and the universe is filled with and infinite variation of species, few of which are even humanoid. Maybe humans exist, but is being human a central theme for the players, or would they rather go all Henson's Creature Shop with only one John Crichton and no Sebatians? Or not even a John Crichton? Once the players can all agree on that, everything else really falls into place, from Flash Gordon to Planetes.
If you instead want crunch firmly themed with retro space then there's a German Perry Rhodan game based on Midgard rules which are pretty crunchy. You could simply refluff Traveller. There's Cosmic Patrol, Rocket Age, Ringworld, Buck Rogers, Dune (several), Star Frontiers.
If you want to go even more retro there's Forgotten Futures, Space 1889.
Also look at Lady Blackbird.
If you want to make your own there's nothing better to base it on than ORE.
>>46829208
I prefer more gonzo tastes
The Incal mixed with Dune and random things I find on the web.
>>46833424
>The Incal mixed with Dune
>gonzo
Um- That's about as high brow as you can go in Scifi.
>>46829208
Very pulp, currently trying to understand the effects of a psychic fungus with hive-like properties.
Hopefully it will inhabit every damp corner of the groups ship by the end of the next session :)
And the answer for how - Classic Traveller or gtfoMongoose Traveller is an acceptable substitute
>>46833547
I named two of those planets!
>>46833569
Sarabande is the home world of one of the PCs - one of yours?
>>46833575
Indeed, named for the Handel piece
Also Taranaki, my home province
>>46833588
Taranaki a shit, Wellington best NZ.
>>46833488
Highbrow can be gonzo.
I just finished reading about a far future war between a guy and a futa over the validity of their family's aesthetic philosophies while assisted by an omnipotent and omniscient computer.
