What Makes a Setting? (Part I)

More Questions to Ponder

Last week, I touched on the question of whether the second edition of Thousand Suns should include a more explicit setting than the first edition did? It’s a question worth asking, precisely because science fiction roleplaying games are everywhere now. The field is crowded, diverse, and remarkably healthy. That abundance is a good thing, but it also raises a practical issue for me: what makes one science fiction RPG feel truly distinct from another? What, in a meaningful sense, separates Thousand Suns from, say, Traveller or Mothership?

At first glance, the answer seems obvious. Rules systems are a clear point of differentiation. Some games are “lighter,” some “heavier,” some more “simulationist,” some more story-driven. Tone and subject matter also play major roles. Traveller, for instance, has long been associated with a relatively “serious” take on far-future adventure, concerned as it is with trade, exploration, and the logistics of starship operation. It appeals to players who want a grounded, almost procedural approach to science fiction. Mothership, by contrast, wears its influences on its sleeve. It is openly a sci-fi horror game, drawing heavily from works like Alien, The Thing, and Event Horizon, among many others. Where Traveller leans toward hard-edged adventure, Mothership leans toward dread, isolation, and the slow unraveling of human beings in a hostile, indifferent universe.

What’s especially interesting, though, is that both games are technically “generic.” Their core rules do not mandate a single, fixed setting. In theory, a Game Master can pick up either system and build an entirely original universe without violating their texts. Both games claim this freedom explicitly and provide tools meant to support it. They are not, at least on paper, about a specific setting.

In practice, of course, things are more complicated. Traveller has, since 1977, been accompanied by the Third Imperium, which is a sprawling, detailed example setting that has become inseparable from the game’s identity. Ask most gamers what Traveller is “about” and they probably won’t say “a generic sci-fi toolkit.” They’ll say “the Third Imperium.” That association has only grown stronger in recent years, particularly under the current Mongoose Publishing edition, whose catalog is increasingly anchored by Third Imperium material.

Mothership occupies the opposite end of that spectrum. Open its books and you won’t find sector maps or detailed histories. Even so, it still isn’t wholly setting-neutral. Its rules reference androids as playable characters, interstellar megacorporations, specific kinds of weaponry, equipment, and starships. These aren’t just mechanical widgets; they’re tonal and thematic signals. They point, unmistakably, toward a certain kind of universe — a capitalist, industrial, corporate-dominated nightmare of cold corridors, exploitative contracts, and disposable human lives. You can ignore or change these elements, of course, but their presence creates an implicit setting all the same.

That’s the key point I want to drive home in this post. Neither Traveller nor Mothership requires a specific setting, but both powerfully suggest one. They lean and guide. They shape the Game Master’s imagination in particular directions. In my experience running and playing both games, they naturally tend toward certain styles of play and certain kinds of fictional worlds, not by accident, but by design. That isn’t a flaw. On the contrary, it’s one of their great strengths. These games know what they’re about and their presentation actively encourages people to build worlds that resonate with their core identities.

That’s exactly what I want the second edition of Thousand Suns to achieve.

The first edition’s meta-setting was designed as a framework. It’s an outline on which a vast range of different science fiction universes could be constructed and I still think it does that job reasonably well. It offers structure without prescription and guidance without confinement. However, repeated feedback from players and Game Masters has made it clear that something is missing. Even with that framework, Thousand Suns does not yet stand out sharply enough in a crowded field. It risks feeling like “just another” generic sci-fi RPG, when what it should be is unmistakably itself.

That’s why the idea of a clearer, more defined setting, perhaps not a rigid, canonical universe, but at least a stronger implicit one, has become increasingly persuasive to me. A stronger sense of what Thousand Suns is about might be exactly what the second edition needs.

Next week, I want to explore that question in much greater detail. What would it actually mean for the second edition of Thousand Suns to lean into a more explicit or implicit setting and how might that be done without betraying the spirit in which I originally wrote it (and, truth be told, still prefer it)? That’s where the real design challenge lies and where things start to get truly interesting.