To Boldly Go: Retrospective

Originally published June 16, 2014

All things come to an end. When I first came up with the idea of a space exploration game for the game that become To Boldly Go, we had just entered the 21st century. I was in love with GURPS and a couple of years later the Transhuman Space setting filled me with even more enthusiasm. I gave that setting a try in 2007 but ran into a major snag: no one was clear on what the setting was about. For some the alien society just left them cold, while others were unclear on the genre assumptions.

A few years later I had solved that problem. I created a starting point, a reference everyone could relate to: the Federation. A vaguely Star Trek-like society, minus the magical technology and with a deeply conservative viewpoint (for the setting), they restricted all use of technology that might change society. No mind uploads, biological immortality, or uplifted animals. No volitional AIs, limited automation of jobs, and few genetically modified humans. A Utopia with seemingly Western egalitarianism, the Federation instead focused on things like energy production and advanced weapons. But outside of Federation space technology ran wild and free.

Fast forward to a couple of years ago. GURPS was no longer my favorite system. I wanted something simpler, more flexible. I discovered Diaspora and Fate Core. I chickened out with my online group, nervous about a new rule set but ultimately ran the game locally with some old friends.

It was fun and my players put their own spin on the Federation that I had not thought of. The stories I wanted tell went well. But now we have come to the end. The First Contact Team of the Federation vessel Columbia managed to claim a billion year old alien artifact for their corporate overlords. With nanotechnology on the level of magic at their disposal it was clear the setting was about to change dramatically. Exploration was no longer a major concern. The upcoming time period would concern itself with a struggle to control this powerful resource. Some within the Federation would seek to exploit it, destabilizing the current technological stasis, while others would try to shut it down to maintain the status quo. Meanwhile word would spread of the Federation's ambitions (exposed by the Team's previous successes in conquering New Earth and the Hub). The mysterious Sojourner Collective might begin to mass their drone armies or perhaps the rogue AIs, defeated a century ago, would make a reappearance.

In any case it would be a decidedly different game, one I am not in the mood to run at this point.

Reflections on Fate

Using Fate Core worked out well. I loved creating Aspects and being able to create characters descriptively and mechanically at the same time. The flexibility and simpleness of the system allowed me to easily adapt it to a variety of conflicts from political struggles to archaeological investigation to brain hacking.

The players did have some issues with the dice or rather the level of randomness. I noticed however that these concerns decreased with play and increased familiarity with the system. I think the issue might have been unfamiliarity with creating advantages. Another possibility is that like many systems Fate uses the system of roll a die and add your skill. But where as in other games the die result goes from 1 on up, Fate dice however roll from -4 to +4, centered on zero. So the players might have had an instinctive feeling that the dice result adds to their roll. That would skew their expectations and lead to a feeling that the dice were hindering them.

For my part, I still need to get better with compels. I generally write-up a few prior to play to ensure the PCs get sucked into the story, but I'm not very spontaneous creating them in play.

Another thing I want to improve on is slowing the pacing of the story. This is not related to Fate itself but is more of a general thing I'd like to focus on. I felt that sometimes I rushed stories, especially mysteries, in ways that weakened the tension and excitement. On the other hand it couldn't be helped. My first child should be born this month and I needed to have my game completed well in advance. I'd rather have a good ending than a perfect but incomplete story.

Otherwise I found that both my players and I got better using the system with time. I did find myself skewing more and more to combat over time (by that I mean a combat every other session or so). I hadn't intended it that way and it might have more to do with me than the system, though I do find Fate lends itself to an action packed style. Ultimately I think I should just accept it. Everyone loved the game and no one complained about the occasional fights.

Storyline Review

I managed to run a wide variety of stories in this game. We had a politically charged murder mystery at the Hub, a disaster survival story upon reaching the minefield outside of Midnight, a horror story at the Derelict, a political contest on New Earth, and a nice mystery on the world of the Artifact.

Mostly they went well. The horror story was probably the weakest adventure due to my rushing things and not letting the tension build up. Thankfully it was followed by the awesome story of the Artifact. That game was really helped by letting it stretch to three sessions.

Overall, I ended up using less of the future shock material than I planned. Fewer issues with genetic modifications and obsolete humanity and almost nothing to do with animal uplifts or other nonhuman intelligences. On the other hand we did visit most of the big ideas: AIs, digitized human intelligences, biological androids (bioroids), nanomachines, flippant genetic engineering, and brain hacking. The question what is human was raised with the bioroids and their enslavement became a major issue in the game. I was also to make my aliens (or least their remains) fairly alien yet relate-able which was a nice accomplishment.

What I Learned

Besides what I wrote above, I found that I need to spend more time making my NPCs, especially when it comes to motivation and personality. I find that I have a small stock of personalities I keep coming back to and if I don't invest the time to make the characters real people, they feel a bit flat (at least to me). This is the first game I've run on a weekly basis in 5 years. Normally I have more time between sessions and invest that in my prep. I just have to focus on the weak points more.

Overall I probably needed fewer major characters than I created, especially towards the end. Then I could have invested those that remained with more personality. The Captain and Ensign Maroon got the short shrift overall. Perhaps I should have used Ensign Roux to fill the role of Maroon, bumping him up to minor NPC status earlier. The roles of Captain Teragan, Science Officer Babbage, and Medical Officer Morgan might have also been squeezed into two characters rather than three.

Final Thoughts

In the end, the game was a success. I accomplished my goal of running a transhumanist setting that my players could accept and feel at home with, acclimating to the strangeness in tandem with their characters. At the same time I was able to highlight how technology might change society if not human nature. I still have stories to tell of humanity's future but they will be different stories.