Outsiders Thoughts About OA

[Drashner1]

Maybe people has a bias about OA and think is very restricted and has no room for imagination.

For example: One can think archailects know everything. And the things that happens are only because the archailects allow it to happen. So, the characters don't have freedom to make the RolePlay.

There are presumably RP settings with gods who (at least in principle) know and control everything. And in OA, this is a simple issue to avoid - just go to places where the archai and transapients aren't.

Or maybe someone want to play with some of the tropes about space that are used in other settings.

Such as? I'm guessing FTL travel and/or ships dogfighting in space, but that's just a guess. And again, I would think a lot of other RP settings have various rules and limits on how their spacecraft operate. Beyond that, how much of any given RP game is spent doing stuff in space?

Coming at this from a different direction - One thought that comes to mind is that OA makes little allowance for people 'getting away with stuff' - things like hacking computer systems, breaking into vaults, outwitting security systems or personnel, or personally fighting off a superior force. We tend to depict most tech and processes in the setting as close to perfect at what they do and nearly unbeatable - at least at the level that human level characters would play at. My (possibly incorrect) sense of RPGs is that characters do a lot of this kind of thing and not being able to do it - or it being very hard to figure out how to do it - might be seen as a large negative to people interested in RPing within the setting.

As with the issue of archai and transaps, I think there are ways to address that - but it might be a matter of leading people to seeing what those options and opportunities are.

A lot of this can be due to a lack of information about the project.
I don't think the "illustrated backstory" http://www.orionsarm.com/xcms.php?r=oa-backstory show a picture near to the project reality.
Illustrated backstory has 10 panels and 8 are for the first millenium. In the other 2 panels are FirstFed, SecFed, Version War, etc.

Edit: Also, what you are saying Steve too. Some places of OA still look like the year 2001. (Or apparently look like that) because Big Ideas Grand Vision goes up to the start of OA's First Federation. (Like the mentioned illustrated Backstory).

I'm also not a fan of the illustrated backstory and would like to replace it in some fashion - although I'm not sure with what at this point.

Todd