Drake Equation and SF

[subplotkudzu]

While the votes are still no where near being in, I am noodling with what I might do with a 'start from scratch' Traveller game. One idea that came to mind is how one could model various SF series based on where they weight the Drake Equation. (an additional factor might be added for those who have obtaoed FTL travel).

The Foundation Series, for example, effectively zeroes out the number of planets other than Earth develop intelligent life.

Pournelle's CoDominion, what I know if it, is very close to that, with only one other sentient species (the Moties) appearing.

Known Space, on the other hand, has moderately high numbers across the board, with several communcation-capable intelligent species, but several more habitable but non-sentient race worlds for those species to colonize. 

Stephen Baxter's Xeelee stories keep the "viable planets that will develop life" at 100%, but greatly expands the definition of 'viable' so there are living ice creatures in the ice on pluto and elsewhere across the Sol system.
 
Jack McDevit's Priscilla Hutchens novels, while they have a low number of habitable worlds per star, focus on the low length of time any civilization survives to send messages into space, so our heroes find several artifact rich dead worlds or peoples collapsed back to a pre-gasoline tech level.

This is just me playing with an idea, but has anyone ever seen this discussed in an RPG context.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Universe! I thought I was the only person on Earth who bought that game. It had a star system and planet generation system much more scientific than Traveller -- and it came with a cool poster-size map of all the stars within 30 light-years of Earth; I think I still have mine.

The character-creation rules were nearly incomprehensible, and I never tried to do ground combat. Space combat was a separate game, and I don't even know if it ever was released.

Spaceships were kind of neat -- you had a basic "spine" which you could customize by adding modules. I thought that was quite simple and flexible.

The big problem was the game failed to make it clear what you were supposed to DO. The sample adventure was a deeply boring science puzzle which read like an episode of Lost In Space.

Now I'll have to go dig my copy out of the closet and reread it.

Cambias

[mylescorcoran]

I'm sad that I have lost the foldout map of local space from Universe. It was a lovely piece of work and adorned my bedroom wall for a while in the 80's. I also loved the environmental matrix that showed how you adapted to heavier or lighter gravity than your home gravity. I thought that was neat.

Like many early 80's games the rules did a very poor job of making it clear what you were supposed to do. It really was a time when every game needed a GM in the box.

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

As an aside, _Stars_Without_Number_, a consciously retro SF game, is available for free download from RPGNow. I haven't read it yet, and I don't think it addresses my points, but here's the link.

http://sinenomine-pub.com/

It's so IMTU it glows.

[(Anonymous)]

I think I know someone who worked on an early version of that game. The setting looks very familiar. And if this is the one I'm thinking of, it was pretty much conceived from start to finish as "Traveller with real science."

JLC