From da06301ec35b00bdbafc8ccce013e99a248cb053 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: SolventMercury Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2026 03:06:03 -0700 Subject: [PATCH 1/3] Added Core Lore Guidelines --- .../roleplay-lore/lore-pillars.md | 17 +++++++++++++++++ .../roleplay-lore/species-lore.md | 6 ++++++ 2 files changed, 23 insertions(+) create mode 100644 src/en/space-station-14/roleplay-lore/lore-pillars.md create mode 100644 src/en/space-station-14/roleplay-lore/species-lore.md diff --git a/src/en/space-station-14/roleplay-lore/lore-pillars.md b/src/en/space-station-14/roleplay-lore/lore-pillars.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..08898310c7 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/en/space-station-14/roleplay-lore/lore-pillars.md @@ -0,0 +1,17 @@ +# Setting Pillars + +## Kitchen Sink +Space Station is a pulpy kitchen sink setting and is by no means restricted to any one genre. Time traveling clowns, cybernetic cowboys, space wizards - anything goes! + +## Direct and Unpretentious +Space Station's storytelling should not beat around the bush. Our zombies are called zombies, our dragons are called dragons, our wizards use magic - basically, present things in the most straightforward and direct way possible. If your idea was borrowed from an existing work, name it after the original. If a concept does not neatly map onto any existing trope, try to give it a name that's direct and descriptive, and avoid using unfamiliar proper nouns for key parts of the game world unless absolutely necessary. + +## Ambiguity +An important element of the Space Station setting is ambiguity. As a canvas for roleplay, the game should avoid dictating any details of the setting which aren't directly related to in-game mechanics or factions. Answers to questions like "Why is the Syndicate attacking the station?" or "What happened to Earth?" should remain unstated and left to players to ivent as they go along. Likewise, proper nouns like faction and place names should be used sparingly. + +As a subrule, Space Station does not generally have named "famous people" in its setting. While there is room for incidental celebrities or urban legends, there is no roster of named characters like generals or presidents which are important to the setting - anything remotely interesting should be reserved for the players to do themselves. + +## Postmodernism and Moral Relativism +The universe of Space Station is cruel, uncaring, and unknowable. Members of the crew should feel like cogs in the machine, interchangeable parts of an uncaring corporate apparatus. There are no epic battles between absolute good and true evil, and there should never be any central authority from which the crew can draw legitimacy, such as a police or military. What gods the setting has are capricious and usually absent, and even the crew's employers should feel distant and unreachable. If something goes wrong, there's nobody you can count on to save you. + +Relatedly, even though the station is constantly besieged by secret agents, paramilitary goons, and supernatural forces, life on the station should still retain an appropriate degree of mundanity. This is not a setting where everyone is special - even in a world full of killer cyborgs and space monsters, someone still has to mop the floors, after all. Conversely, even a grandmaster wizard or a supersoldier pumped to the gills with combat drugs is not immune to slipping on a banana peel and sliding face-first into a trash chute. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/src/en/space-station-14/roleplay-lore/species-lore.md b/src/en/space-station-14/roleplay-lore/species-lore.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..85f51f720f --- /dev/null +++ b/src/en/space-station-14/roleplay-lore/species-lore.md @@ -0,0 +1,6 @@ +# Races and Species +One aspect which sets Space Station 14 apart is that players are free to choose from a number of distinct species to play as. Each playable species differs slightly in its biology and abilities - for example, Moths have wings and can eat fabrics - but any racial differences should be restricted to direct consequences of differing biology. There are no "racial bonuses" in Space Station - species should not have any particular advantage or disadvantage in any particular role. Especially odious is the idea of differing intelligence between species - any species that is pitched as "Strong but stupid" or "Weak but smart" should be rejected out of hand. All player species should be written to be equally capable of intellectual acts, and should never be implied to predispose to any particular profession or worldview. + +In canon, each of the main, playable species in Space Station 14 is known and familiar to all player characters. Racial conflict and xenophobia are not components of Space Station lore. Likewise, there are no "good" or "evil" races - the ranks of all main factions, including antagonists, are filled with members of every species. + +In addition, as part of the ambiguity pillar, species "lore" like homeworlds, traditions, etc. should be left largely unstated, with the notable exception of suggested naming schemes. Each species has an associated naming scheme assigned to it, which outside of graphical and audio design is one of the only means that designers have to suggest how players might choose to roleplay a given species. For example, the plantlike Diona have flowery names like "The Meadows of Excellence" or "The Apiary of Distraught." While individual players have no obligation to adhere to their species' naming scheme, players can and will still use it to make inferences about what their species' broader culture might be like and, thus, how their character might behave. \ No newline at end of file From 58ccf587ad979d484e9e228bb0a18c51987d0cd3 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: SolventMercury Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2026 03:12:48 -0700 Subject: [PATCH 2/3] Fixed SUMMARY.md, reorganized --- src/SUMMARY.md | 2 ++ src/en/space-station-14/roleplay-lore.md | 22 ++++++++++++++----- .../roleplay-lore/lore-pillars.md | 17 -------------- 3 files changed, 19 insertions(+), 22 deletions(-) delete mode 100644 src/en/space-station-14/roleplay-lore/lore-pillars.md diff --git a/src/SUMMARY.md b/src/SUMMARY.md index 20b1e39d4d..bf2657de38 100644 --- a/src/SUMMARY.md +++ b/src/SUMMARY.md @@ -188,6 +188,8 @@ Space Station 14 - [PR Guidelines]() - [Proposals]() + + - [Species Lore](en/space-station-14/roleplay-lore/species-lore.md) - [Roundflow](en/space-station-14/round-flow.md) - [PR Guidelines]() diff --git a/src/en/space-station-14/roleplay-lore.md b/src/en/space-station-14/roleplay-lore.md index 499079e8dc..25e97df651 100644 --- a/src/en/space-station-14/roleplay-lore.md +++ b/src/en/space-station-14/roleplay-lore.md @@ -1,5 +1,17 @@ -```admonish warning "Attention: Placeholder!" -This section is a placeholder, pending a design-doc being created by the related work-group -``` - -# Roleplay/Lore +# Lore Pillars + +## Kitchen Sink +Space Station is a pulpy kitchen sink setting and is by no means restricted to any one genre. Time traveling clowns, cybernetic cowboys, space wizards - anything goes! + +## Direct and Unpretentious +Space Station's storytelling should not beat around the bush. Our zombies are called zombies, our dragons are called dragons, our wizards use magic - basically, present things in the most straightforward and direct way possible. If your idea was borrowed from an existing work, name it after the original. If a concept does not neatly map onto any existing trope, try to give it a name that's direct and descriptive, and avoid using unfamiliar proper nouns for key parts of the game world unless absolutely necessary. + +## Ambiguity +An important element of the Space Station setting is ambiguity. As a canvas for roleplay, the game should avoid dictating any details of the setting which aren't directly related to in-game mechanics or factions. Answers to questions like "Why is the Syndicate attacking the station?" or "What happened to Earth?" should remain unstated and left to players to ivent as they go along. Likewise, proper nouns like faction and place names should be used sparingly. + +As a subrule, Space Station does not generally have named "famous people" in its setting. While there is room for incidental celebrities or urban legends, there is no roster of named characters like generals or presidents which are important to the setting - anything remotely interesting should be reserved for the players to do themselves. + +## Postmodernism and Moral Relativism +The universe of Space Station is cruel, uncaring, and unknowable. Members of the crew should feel like cogs in the machine, interchangeable parts of an uncaring corporate apparatus. There are no epic battles between absolute good and true evil, and there should never be any central authority from which the crew can draw legitimacy, such as a police or military. What gods the setting has are capricious and usually absent, and even the crew's employers should feel distant and unreachable. If something goes wrong, there is no higher authority you can count on to save you. + +Relatedly, even though the station is constantly besieged by secret agents, paramilitary goons, and supernatural forces, life on the station should still retain an appropriate degree of mundanity. This is not a setting where everyone is special - even in a world full of killer cyborgs and space monsters, someone still has to mop the floors, after all. Conversely, even a grandmaster wizard or a supersoldier pumped to the gills with combat drugs is not immune to slipping on a banana peel and sliding face-first into a trash chute. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/src/en/space-station-14/roleplay-lore/lore-pillars.md b/src/en/space-station-14/roleplay-lore/lore-pillars.md deleted file mode 100644 index 08898310c7..0000000000 --- a/src/en/space-station-14/roleplay-lore/lore-pillars.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,17 +0,0 @@ -# Setting Pillars - -## Kitchen Sink -Space Station is a pulpy kitchen sink setting and is by no means restricted to any one genre. Time traveling clowns, cybernetic cowboys, space wizards - anything goes! - -## Direct and Unpretentious -Space Station's storytelling should not beat around the bush. Our zombies are called zombies, our dragons are called dragons, our wizards use magic - basically, present things in the most straightforward and direct way possible. If your idea was borrowed from an existing work, name it after the original. If a concept does not neatly map onto any existing trope, try to give it a name that's direct and descriptive, and avoid using unfamiliar proper nouns for key parts of the game world unless absolutely necessary. - -## Ambiguity -An important element of the Space Station setting is ambiguity. As a canvas for roleplay, the game should avoid dictating any details of the setting which aren't directly related to in-game mechanics or factions. Answers to questions like "Why is the Syndicate attacking the station?" or "What happened to Earth?" should remain unstated and left to players to ivent as they go along. Likewise, proper nouns like faction and place names should be used sparingly. - -As a subrule, Space Station does not generally have named "famous people" in its setting. While there is room for incidental celebrities or urban legends, there is no roster of named characters like generals or presidents which are important to the setting - anything remotely interesting should be reserved for the players to do themselves. - -## Postmodernism and Moral Relativism -The universe of Space Station is cruel, uncaring, and unknowable. Members of the crew should feel like cogs in the machine, interchangeable parts of an uncaring corporate apparatus. There are no epic battles between absolute good and true evil, and there should never be any central authority from which the crew can draw legitimacy, such as a police or military. What gods the setting has are capricious and usually absent, and even the crew's employers should feel distant and unreachable. If something goes wrong, there's nobody you can count on to save you. - -Relatedly, even though the station is constantly besieged by secret agents, paramilitary goons, and supernatural forces, life on the station should still retain an appropriate degree of mundanity. This is not a setting where everyone is special - even in a world full of killer cyborgs and space monsters, someone still has to mop the floors, after all. Conversely, even a grandmaster wizard or a supersoldier pumped to the gills with combat drugs is not immune to slipping on a banana peel and sliding face-first into a trash chute. \ No newline at end of file From 87a90693e38e8ab692971a3c05d40395196b5cf1 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: SolventMercury Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2026 08:25:04 -0700 Subject: [PATCH 3/3] Fine tuning --- src/en/space-station-14/roleplay-lore.md | 10 +++++----- src/en/space-station-14/roleplay-lore/species-lore.md | 4 +++- 2 files changed, 8 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-) diff --git a/src/en/space-station-14/roleplay-lore.md b/src/en/space-station-14/roleplay-lore.md index 25e97df651..d7d41fa289 100644 --- a/src/en/space-station-14/roleplay-lore.md +++ b/src/en/space-station-14/roleplay-lore.md @@ -1,17 +1,17 @@ # Lore Pillars ## Kitchen Sink -Space Station is a pulpy kitchen sink setting and is by no means restricted to any one genre. Time traveling clowns, cybernetic cowboys, space wizards - anything goes! +Space Station is a pulpy kitchen sink setting and is by no means restricted to the conventions of any one genre. Time traveling demon clowns, cybernetic cowboys, space wizards - anything goes! ## Direct and Unpretentious Space Station's storytelling should not beat around the bush. Our zombies are called zombies, our dragons are called dragons, our wizards use magic - basically, present things in the most straightforward and direct way possible. If your idea was borrowed from an existing work, name it after the original. If a concept does not neatly map onto any existing trope, try to give it a name that's direct and descriptive, and avoid using unfamiliar proper nouns for key parts of the game world unless absolutely necessary. -## Ambiguity -An important element of the Space Station setting is ambiguity. As a canvas for roleplay, the game should avoid dictating any details of the setting which aren't directly related to in-game mechanics or factions. Answers to questions like "Why is the Syndicate attacking the station?" or "What happened to Earth?" should remain unstated and left to players to ivent as they go along. Likewise, proper nouns like faction and place names should be used sparingly. +## Ambiguous +An important element of the Space Station setting is ambiguity. As a canvas for roleplay, the game should avoid dictating any details of the setting which aren't directly related to in-game mechanics or factions. Answers to questions like "Why is the Syndicate attacking the station?" or "What happened to Earth?" should remain unstated and left to players to invent as they play. Likewise, proper nouns like faction and place names should be used sparingly. -As a subrule, Space Station does not generally have named "famous people" in its setting. While there is room for incidental celebrities or urban legends, there is no roster of named characters like generals or presidents which are important to the setting - anything remotely interesting should be reserved for the players to do themselves. +As a subrule, Space Station does not generally have a lot of named "famous people" in its setting. While there is room for incidental celebrities or urban legends, there is no extensive roster of lore-critical figures like generals or presidents, and what few do exist should have biographies that can be summed up in at most a sentence or two ("CEO of Nanotrasen" or "Founder of the Space Clown Consortium" for example). Care should be taken not to make named characters *too* cool - the players should always be the main characters in our story, and named characters should be treated as Space Station's extras, placed into the world as, at most, set dressing. -## Postmodernism and Moral Relativism +## Postmodern and Morally Relative The universe of Space Station is cruel, uncaring, and unknowable. Members of the crew should feel like cogs in the machine, interchangeable parts of an uncaring corporate apparatus. There are no epic battles between absolute good and true evil, and there should never be any central authority from which the crew can draw legitimacy, such as a police or military. What gods the setting has are capricious and usually absent, and even the crew's employers should feel distant and unreachable. If something goes wrong, there is no higher authority you can count on to save you. Relatedly, even though the station is constantly besieged by secret agents, paramilitary goons, and supernatural forces, life on the station should still retain an appropriate degree of mundanity. This is not a setting where everyone is special - even in a world full of killer cyborgs and space monsters, someone still has to mop the floors, after all. Conversely, even a grandmaster wizard or a supersoldier pumped to the gills with combat drugs is not immune to slipping on a banana peel and sliding face-first into a trash chute. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/src/en/space-station-14/roleplay-lore/species-lore.md b/src/en/space-station-14/roleplay-lore/species-lore.md index 85f51f720f..6a1eff3a9f 100644 --- a/src/en/space-station-14/roleplay-lore/species-lore.md +++ b/src/en/space-station-14/roleplay-lore/species-lore.md @@ -1,6 +1,8 @@ # Races and Species One aspect which sets Space Station 14 apart is that players are free to choose from a number of distinct species to play as. Each playable species differs slightly in its biology and abilities - for example, Moths have wings and can eat fabrics - but any racial differences should be restricted to direct consequences of differing biology. There are no "racial bonuses" in Space Station - species should not have any particular advantage or disadvantage in any particular role. Especially odious is the idea of differing intelligence between species - any species that is pitched as "Strong but stupid" or "Weak but smart" should be rejected out of hand. All player species should be written to be equally capable of intellectual acts, and should never be implied to predispose to any particular profession or worldview. - + +In general, species designers should avoid assigning traits to their species that cannot be enforced through game design. For example, dictating that a reptilian species should bask for warmth or writing that grey aliens have the ability to sense emotions without adding mechanics to buttress these interactions would be undesirable. + In canon, each of the main, playable species in Space Station 14 is known and familiar to all player characters. Racial conflict and xenophobia are not components of Space Station lore. Likewise, there are no "good" or "evil" races - the ranks of all main factions, including antagonists, are filled with members of every species. In addition, as part of the ambiguity pillar, species "lore" like homeworlds, traditions, etc. should be left largely unstated, with the notable exception of suggested naming schemes. Each species has an associated naming scheme assigned to it, which outside of graphical and audio design is one of the only means that designers have to suggest how players might choose to roleplay a given species. For example, the plantlike Diona have flowery names like "The Meadows of Excellence" or "The Apiary of Distraught." While individual players have no obligation to adhere to their species' naming scheme, players can and will still use it to make inferences about what their species' broader culture might be like and, thus, how their character might behave. \ No newline at end of file