Wait, WHY on Earth are you developing this?

This might be an opportune time to explain a little bit about the game I'm intending to make, and WHY I think it's relevant and worth your time.

Since I was a kid watching Star Wars, I've always liked Han Solo a bit more than Luke. Don't get me wrong, Luke's character arc is great, but the transition from ruffian smuggler just barely escaping the long arm of the law always appealed to me. When I was in middle-school, a little PC game know as "Wing Commander: Privateer" was the hot new thing, I was rather taken with it, and I've played through the game and it's expansion several times since then. The fact that there's a thriving community that has made an open-source, modern version of the game tells me I'm not alone. Privateer wasn't even the first game out, "Elite" was made back in 1984 for PC, and has since spawned a couple of sequels, and a recent Kickstarter campaign massed over 1 million BPS, solidly over it's goal amount. There's the infamous Freelancer game from Microsoft game studios as well. In short, there's plenty of fan-interest in this vein of video-game, and I think that a pen-and-paper RPG version would be well-received. 

A tabletop version of that gameplay style opens-up a whole host of options for storytelling - many players have lamented that these type of PC games have 1 'storyline' that concludes, and they're left sorta feeling empty. A tabletop campaign doesn't need to end. Deeper characterization can happen within various factions - no longer are Pirates simply 'Friendly' or 'Hostile' to the PCs. The players can have reputations of varying qualities - good, bad, not-to-be-messed-with, law-abiding, former-pirate, different pirate gangs or syndicates have differing opinions on a PC, etc.  Add a little bit more nuance to the Privateer gameplay, and I think we've got a winning recipe. 

You can play the legitimate trader pushed to the edge and eventually  'Breaks-Bad' to become a criminal
You can play the bounty-hunter with a heart of gold
You can play the space-pirate who turns into a rebel against oppressive governments

And a whole bunch of other scenarios. Space trading simply provides a nice platform from which to launch stories from. Just like a "Mr. Johnson" in Shadowrun hiring the PCs to do something, or a "old man in a tavern" telling the PC's about a dungeon full of treasure, a simple cargo mission lets the GM ship the PCs in a particular direction, and the plots can go from there.



Now, one can certainly say that Interstellar Profiteer is really no different than the vaunted 'Serenity' RPG (which is soon to be revised for a second edition! Horray!), however, the intention is for IP to be a much harder variety of sci-fi, along with having interstellar travel, and a bit more focus on space-combat. I'd also like to say that Interstellar Profiteer's setting has a bit more depth than Firefly's. All due respect to Joss Wedon, Firefly is a wonderful bit of character-driven fiction, not a playground for GMs and players to create new stories. I'm trying to make sure it plays-out as a vibrant and interesting world.