In television terminology, there is a concept known as the crucible, the idea being the characters are not the only critical element, those characters need to be put into a dramatic crucible that challenges them and changes them. In very traditional terms, it's easy to see some of these crucibles in action, favourites being a police precinct, an emergency room, a section of MI5 and whatever else. It's my view each role-playing campaign needs a crucible, though it might be called a variety of other things in the gaming context (the reason for adventure, the group template, whatever).

You look for a number of things in your crucible. First, it needs to provide a reason for the characters to go to interesting 'places' (geographically and / or dramatically) and get involved in conflicts of some type. Second, you could look at it to provide a level of legitimacy if that is required. Third, it often places characters in a position of responsibility, while some crucibles don't seem to do this, they actually do. Even Firefly has this, in the sense the responsibility is to each other and maintaining their 'independent life in the black'. As an example, the fact the characters are FBI agents in the X Files provides reasons for conflict and geographic mobility, affords a high level of legitimacy and puts them in a position of responsibility.

So, what is the Fading Suns crucible?

The initial idea was to have a more defined crucible that had quite clear routes into conflict and certainly provided a level of legitimacy. The idea being the characters are all 'agents' for The Citadel and as such are sort of special operatives for the closest thing to a UN or Babylon 5. The reason for considering this model is I wanted to avoid the campaign being about 'characters middling about scrounging a living as space traders'. At the time, I was also thinking of the ease of always being able to fall back on a mission-based structure. The characters also had to have a reason to be involved in big scale and meaningful stuff. I rarely do the inconsequential and the small scale (intimate moments in the big scale, yes, but that's different).

I think I've dumped the idea as an essential requirement as things have moved forward. I've dropped it as a requirement for three reasons: First, I think the milieu offers more; second, it's best to let the crucible have a lot of player input; and third, the crucible is potentially multi-dimensional across character and crucible. Pulsars and Privateers fell into this approach, with the crucible being the fact we were privateers for a faction, but the crucible was just as much defined by the characters on the ship (all of them having connections to the setting and factions and as such extending the range, depth and nature of the crucible as well as providing an upgrade to the legitimacy of the conflicts). The legitimacy to solve big problems on a space opera scale came from the dramatic landscape of the characters, which made them important, not from the crucible of being privateers (it was more a GM delivered mission tool). The conclusion is I don't necessarily need to define the crucible at this point, or as rigidly, to provide legitimacy.

At the same time, some principles on which everyone can work are essential, after all, I want to be running a game I'd want to play in, no? It's just that game can be quite flexible. Anyway, general concepts in my head at the moment:-

• A crucible will exist to get the players out and seeing the galaxy and mixing it up;
• The players will have a starship of their own, one with a Warp Drive;
• The crucible and / or the dramatic landscape of the characters will provide the legitimacy and responsibility to eventually do the space fantasy stuff;
• An all human cast is preferred (the concept and milieu is human centred);
• If absolutely essential, more human characters than alien must exist;

That's it. No draconian stipulations to narrow the imagination of the players (the Mass Effect style 'spectres' of The Citadel was crucible limiting if not character limiting). I'm confident that the necessary crucible and characters will be formed through discussion that is suitably interesting and awesome, and I have no fear the individuals involved will choose character options that exile them to obscurity (exactly the opposite to be fair).

On another front, I got to scan the Rogue Trader RPG in Forbidden Planet today, it was a great concentrated input of things to ponder. Some of the imagery used was specifically inspiring (while some was too Warhammer 40k), but the way stellar cartography was done was spot on and I really need to take that on board.