I think this is a good time to start talking about what I want Eyes Wide to the Stars to be like.
It's built out of the same stuff as The BLOODY-HANDED NAME of BRONZE because that is the best game I've ever designed, hands down. It generates irony like Shock: does, but gives you far better momentum in play.
You should play it. https://glyphpress.com/talk/product/the-bloody-handed-name-of-bronze-codex-edition
The fiction that I want Eyes to generate is what I always wished Blake's 7 was like: big, cosmic, goofy, and vivid.
The inspirational material is a small set of airbrush paintings done in the 70s and 80s. Angus McKie, Chris Foss, and Jim Burns are at the top of that list.
Ron Cobb is another inspiration. Where most of this genre concentrates on spaceships and Big Dumb Objects (with Jim Burns occasionally concentrating on nipples — more on this in a moment), Ron Cobb's work brings humanity to even the most alien of aliens.
Jim Burns had what I think is a fairly common evolution for a dude: he had a daughter, and then realized that women — even sexy ones! — are people. I want characters of any and no gender to be like Jim Burns women at their best.
These are all pretty recent Burns paintings. One of the distinct features is that the paintings are not composed to highlight the nipples on the spacesuits.
I'm not against nipples on spacesuits, btw. But I think it should be only one element in the palette.
There's another element to these paintings that I like: the focus is on the wonder. There's conflict in many paintings, but most of the time, the focus is on seeing something beautiful. When you imagine yourself in this painting, YOU are beautiful.
That means that a lot of "Action" rules (in Bronze terms) are about making something beautiful happen. Bronze Actions are about giving limited control to the actor's character and creative constraints to everyone else so what follows maintains context.
In this case, the context includes gigantism, bold colors, and the unintended consequences of your psychic powers.
The context also includes your fiction.
What aliens have you met? Those are the kinds you can be.
What is your ship's personality? That determines how it acts or responds.
How close are the Southern Arm Confederacy's psychic hounds? That determines the kind of menace they can pose.
Asking the right questions (like in Bronze where it asks if you've offered something they want) has a lot to say about how the game moves and feels.
I'm gonna stop now and leave you with some robospiration.
