Wizards, the real rulers

Wizards are an integral part of many role-playing games. Often they are restricted by rules, such as not being allowed to use weapons, a weak attempt to limit their unimaginable power. If we assume that the people in fantasy game worlds behave at least approximately as people in reality do, then some of the widespread […]

Designing Space Ships – Important Questions

Whether you’re writing a novel, designing a role-playing setting or planning another science fiction project: Spaceships are usually part of it. The most important questions as to how these should look and function concern not only the ships themselves, but above all the cultural and technological developments that must exist as prerequisites for space travel. […]

Building a Star Empire (Part 1)

The heart of every Space Opera novel or setting is a star empire – or better: several of them. But what exactly is a star empire? On Earth we have seen the evolution of many nations and alliances of nations from the Roman Empire to the European Union. Assuming that mankind (or any other intelligent […]

The Adventurer (Trope)

A very basic element of nearly every tabletop RPG is the concept of “The Adventurer”. You will not find many games where players are taking on the roles of bakers, social workers or civil servants. Typically character roles or class are not occupations or real life tasks. Regardless of what fancy name the roles have […]

Sci-fi tv tropes – Ship Designs

When I look at spaceship designs from movies, tv series, comic books, video games and other ressources, I typically find one of the following three archetypes, with Type II being the most common: Type I – NASA/Semi-Realistic Realistic deep space explorer ship by Do Mo These designs look like variations of the space shuttle or […]