The Problem with Starships

In which I once again think out loud by a vexing part of Second Edition

I am nothing if not predictable and I am — again — pondering a design question that’s been vexing me while I continue to work on the second edition of Thousand Suns: must a science fiction RPG include full starship construction and combat rules? It’s one of those demands players make reflexively. They want the game to be “complete,” even though, in my experience (and, I suspect, many other GMs’ experience), only a small subset of groups ever use those systems at all, let alone in a dedicated way. I rarely do either myself and, when I do, it’s usually only briefly rather than as part of a whole campaign focused on ship design or fleet tactics.

So why do we feel compelled to include them? Are they necessary for a game to feel like legitimate science fiction or are they a legacy expectation carried over from earlier SF RPGs that included them? More importantly for Thousand Suns, are detailed ship rules compatible with the tone and style of play for which I designed the game in the first place?

The Nature of the Problem

As I see it, there are three partially overlapping impulses behind the questions I’ve asked above:

• Completeness. A game without shipbuilding or combat often gets accused of being “incomplete” or even “not a real sci‑fi game.” Reviewers often will notice their omissions and some players will be disappointed.

• Player Expectation. People buy a sci‑fi RPG and expect there to be rules for spacefaring — moving between systems, taking on courier runs, getting into battles. That’s a baseline expectation for many, even if they don’t plan to use those rules very much.

• Design Fit. Thousand Suns aims for certain kinds of adventures, featuring (among many other things) slow, contemplative travel; interpersonal drama aboard those long voyages; interstellar politics and intrigue; and the weirdness of far future society. Some of these don’t naturally line up with World War II-style dogfights or engineering spreadsheets.

These different impulses collide. Omitting rules risks criticism; including them risks bloating the game with systems that get little use and may pull play in a direction I don’t want or care much about, resulting in a design that’s not what I want.

Literary Precedents

One thought I keep having is that classic (and even contemporary) literary science fiction — the material that directly inspired Thousand Suns — very rarely makes ship design or sustained ship‑to‑ship combat the core of its stories. Ships show up as inherited tools, settings, or obstacles. The characters inherit a battered transport, buy passage on a liner, or have to survive an engine failure. More often than not, the ship is a stage or a tool, not the result of a campaign of construction.

Of course, cinematic sci‑fi gives us a different model, full of aerial spectacles, dogfights, and nimble fighters that allow for visually exciting cinematography. Those are great in film and in certain gaming experiences, but, in many ways, they’re really a different genre, with different emphases. Thousand Suns ultimately draws from the literary side, featuring long transits, institutional constraints, and stories about people in transit, so I ought to ask whether heavy ship rules are the right fit for a game that draws on these things.

Who Actually Wants Detailed Starship Rules?

In my experience, detailed ship construction and combat rules can be fantastic for:

• Groups who want tactical play and who enjoy engineering puzzles.

• Campaigns explicitly about mercantile empires, privateers, or fleet warfare.

• Players who enjoy optimization and customization as a core part of play.

But most campaigns — and most players — view starships primarily as “narrative” resources. They’re places to argue, to hunt an escaped alien creature, or to fix a leaking coolant line with duct tape and ingenuity. For those groups, heavy systems are distractions from what they really want to do with starships.

Considering Options

Rather than a binary “include/exclude” decision, I wonder if a middle path of presenting options and defaults might be the best approach. I don’t want to serve only one audience at the expense of another, which is why I’m thinking about some of the following:

1. “Narrative” Default: Offer a light, abstract model of starships for players that treat ships as setting. In this case, there’d be a handful of simple scores that represent a ship’s capabilities (Speed, Hull, Comfort, Defenses, Systems, etc.). When something important happens, roll against the relevant score. This keeps play quick and dramatic without trying to model engineering.

2. Design‑lite Tables: Provide pre-generated hulls and small modular upgrades. Want to tweak your freighter into a smuggler’s ship? Pick two upgrades and one drawback. This gives a satisfying sense of customization without the need for a spreadsheet.

3. Optional Detailed Rules: For GMs and groups who crave it, include a full system for construction and tactical combat, but clearly mark it as optional and put it in an appendix so it doesn’t dominate the rulebook.

4. Play Examples: Show how the same encounter runs under each model. Walk through, say, a boarding action under the narrative default versus the same boarding action under detailed, tactical combat. Let players then pick the feel they want for their campaigns.

5. Downtime/Long Haul Mechanics: This is something I plan on doing in some fashion any way. Since Thousand Suns emphasizes long voyages, I’d like to provide mechanics for things that happen during weeks in transit, like interpersonal tensions, maintenance tasks, resource scarcity, boredom and even superstition. I have a sneaking suspicion those will be more frequently used — and enjoyed —than extensive combat rules.

Lingering Questions

• Is the expectation for detailed starship rules mostly about appearances? That is, do people need a chapter entitled “Starship Construction” to feel reassured, even if they never read or use it? If so, a concise, well‑written appendix might be enough.

• Do detailed ship rules actually harm the kind of play I want Thousand Suns to encourage? Will they subtly force GMs to pivot to tactical space opera when the mood of the group is quieter and more interpersonal?

• How much of the fun in designing a starship comes from handling detailed mechanics and how much comes simply from making a few meaningful choices that help define the ship’s identity in the campaign? Is it possible to capture both desires with a small number of evocative options instead of an entire engineering subsystem?

• What should the canonical examples look like? Are there ways to present ship rules that feel literary rather than gamified, rules that produce adventures about the consequences of a choice rather than a better set of starship stats?

Where I Am Right Now

For the moment, I’m leaning toward a toolbox approach, using a narrative default plus a clearly separated — and optional — detailed module/appendix. That keeps the body of Thousand Suns focused on the long‑distance social drama I prefer, while still respecting the expectations of those players who want to tinker with drives and weapons ranges.

But I’m not settled. I suspect the right move is to write both, playtest them, and see which one players actually use and enjoy. If, for instance, the shipbuilding appendix is never touched, that’s useful information in itself.

If you’re interested in helping me out, please tell me in the comments what you like to do in your sci‑fi games. Do you build and fight ships? Do you prefer the ship to be a set dressing? Or do you want a little of both? Any information you can provide me with is very useful to me.

Thanks in advance!