Wednesday, March 22, 2006  sci-fi gm advice  The other day
RPGnetter brianm offered some great practical GMing advice in
the thread Space-based Scifi games: One thing that I’ve used
well is to set up a conflict between two or three big players in
the area of space I know the players are going to be in. Nothing
on the level of outright open warfare (at least, not at first),
but some sort of conflict all three sides will be willing to
kill over. Then I describe for my own use their methods and the
resources they have. Finally, I’ll describe some low-level NPCs
the heroes might run into, and the level of lieutenants just
above them.  Then I craft the first adventure based on this
info, having the PCs land smack-dab in the middle of some little
plot by one of the factions. I make no reference to the larger
conflict, and probably don’t directly link the people the PCs
will be dealing with to their larger faction.  Then, after
adventure one, I cut the players loose to do their trading or
exploring or whatever it is