Game Mastering: Theory and Practice

I am back from my trip to the U.S. My son is really happy to be attending an American high school rather than a Korean one. I had a good visit with my parents and got to meet some old family friends, and just get a little refresher of Midwest life. But I'm happy to be back in Korea. And without further ado, on to gaming discussion. 

Recently, discussion on BX Blackrazor and The Tao of D&D has focused on how to teach someone to be a good Dungeon Master. I've been to busy with non-gaming stuff to get in on the conversation, but I'm definitely interested, since I'm nearing completion of the first draft of my TS&R GM book. 

Before I left for the states, I was thinking that it might be a good idea to do a comparison of several different editions/games, including what I'm doing with my TS&R book. I had started to look through the advice in the 5E book, and in my opinion, it may be fine for experienced DMs moving to 5E from another edition or other RPG, but for a novice, it's got the organization of the information all wrong. It starts off with all of these big picture campaign setting discussions, like what sorts of deities exist in the world. Definitely NOT where a new DM should begin. 

The writers obviously expect that the "game play mechanics" should be obvious from the PHB, so all the DM needs to do is create a campaign world. But even then, I wouldn't start with that sort of stuff. I think it's better to teach the new DM about how to run the game, why certain things are done the way they are, and how to manage the group. 

Back in grad school, one of my professors titled every single class she taught as [Insert Course Content Here]: Theory into Practice. While I found it amusing at the time, it's not a bad strategy for teaching. Start by explaining the basic theory of how the game (ideally) works and why certain mechanics are the way they are. Then move on to the concrete details of how to craft interesting encounters, dungeons, game worlds, multiverses, etc. and solid advice about how to run the table and manage the game group. After that, if necessary, deeper theory could be discussed. 

If I have some free time, I'll maybe take a closer look at how different DMGs are organized and the information presented, from the lens of an instructional manual for the game. I expect Mentzer and 2E AD&D likely are better at this than others, but that's just my gut instinct.

TS&R Dungeon Design

I finished up the first draft of my dungeon design advice for new DMs (or those new to old school style gaming) today. I'll work on the Wilderness design section next, and let this section sit for a while before I read over it and make some edits. For now, though, I'm pretty happy with what I've got down. 

While I was writing up the chapter, I did take a break and re-read the advice Mentzer gave in his Basic Set, which is how I learned to do it. My section isn't as concise as his, but it explains about more dungeon types and gives more of the rationale behind dungeons both as game elements and as part of the fictional fantasy world. I don't give as many specific examples of traps and specials, but in the age of the internet, I'm not to worried  about needing to do that. I was more focused on the how and the why of these types of encounters, along with monster and treasure stocking, and general dungeon design for different purposes. 

It's six pages long (A4 size). The section headings are: 

Dungeon Creation

I. Types of Dungeon

II. Megadungeons

  A. Dungeon Levels

  B. The Megadungeon as a Setting

   C. The Mythic Underworld

III. Scenario Dungeons

IV. Lair Dungeons

V. The Purpose of the Dungeon

VI. Drawing Dungeon Maps

VII. Stocking Dungeons

  A. Wandering Monsters

VIII. Traps

  A. Types

  B. Triggers

  C. Effects

  D. Hazards

IX. Specials

  A. Secret Doors

X. Unguarded Treasures

XI. Dungeon Dressing and Sensory Information

 

Thoughts on the Pre-Modern Mindset

I recently finished reading Juval Noah Harari's Sapiens. Yeah, it's a decade old by now. I'm behind the times. I may finally get around to watching Black Mirror or Star Trek: Enterprise now that I'm done with the book. 

I received the book a few years back from a friend who was leaving Korea. He dumped a bunch of books on me. This one intrigued me, since a libertarian friend of mine had sworn up and down that the book was total garbage. I was curious about what the book might have said that would make him hate it so much, especially since I'd mentally lumped it into the "Oprah-lectual" category with books like anything by Malcolm Gladwell or Thomas Friedman. The sort of book that's a best-seller because it's just smart enough to make the uneducated in a particular field feel educated about that field after reading it, but it's really actually fairly superficial. People who've read it pretend they're experts on the subject at cocktail parties. That sort of book.

Wow, I sound like such a book snob, reading that over again. Well, so be it. I'm not too particular about the fiction I read. B-class dreck, if it's entertaining, is fine with me. But I read way too much serious academic writing for work to be impressed by these pop-academic works. 

Well, Sapiens was interesting, after all. I have some quibbles. Harari seems suitably cautious with some of his pre-historic claims early in the book, but presents other claims about pre-history as dead certain. That makes me wary of his historic claims as well. But overall, it gave me not so much better insight into humanity as a whole, but some ideas that might translate to better gaming. So that's a win. 

The final third or so of the book, if you haven't read it, makes a big argument that the Scientific Revolution, Capitalism, and Imperialism are intricately linked and without all three happening in Europe around 500 years ago, the world would have just kept chugging along Medieval style until now. The reason is that people before that time, or in other areas of the world around that time and for some time after, were convinced that there was nothing new to be learned about the world. The Ancients had had it all figured out (or it had been handed to people by gods in ancient times) and so there was no need to be curious. No need to innovate. And even if people had been curious, without capitalism to fund it and imperialism to support capitalism, the science never would have caught on. 

I'm a bit dubious of that claim. But I'm not a historian, so I'll not try to argue the point. 

I will focus on that mindset Harari presents for the Pre-Modern. 

There's no need to innovate, we already do things in the best way possible. We (as a society) already know all there is worth knowing.

Obviously, that isn't true. Technology did advance over the centuries. People did learn new things. People did go out and explore beyond the horizon. Sure, the pace was slow, compared to the Renaissance through Industrial Revolution, and glacial compared to the rate of change these days. But there still were people who were curious, and who figured new things out. 

But the vast majority of people were still pretty complacent. Really, the vast majority still are today. That's why you get people at school board meetings or elected officials saying things like "I didn't have to learn all this new-fangled gobbledy-gook when I was a kid. Readin', writin', and 'rythmatic is all the kids need to learn today."

So how does this relate to D&D (and other medieval-style fantasy games)? 

First, I think it would argue against the idea of "magic as technology" seen in settings like Eberron. As post-moderns, we might like to think that trains and telephones and the like would inevitably be developed by industrious mages. But if we consider the pre-modern mindset as laid out by Harari (assuming it's true), that likely wouldn't happen. 

Most wizards and clerics would be hoarding their magical powers, leveraging the rarity of them for their own benefit. Making magi-tech that benefits all in society, or assuming that there are hundreds of low level craft-mages making society chug along, would weaken the power of the mighty wizards and patriarchs/matriarchs. 

Besides, those clerics have access to commune with the Powers that Be. Surely, if non-spell imbued religious leaders in our own history could make the real-world populace believe that all the insights of the Heavens had already been laid out in a book, clerics with actual spells and actual access to the words of the gods would foster that mindset even more strongly. 

So even more so than in our own history, a fantasy setting's populace should be pretty set with the idea that society had its peak back in some fabled Golden Age, and it's all down hill from here. There's no progress worth working for, as we're already at or past the peak. We know all the spells that are worth knowing. We have all the weapons and armor we'll ever need.

Second, it would help set the PCs as "adventurers" even further apart from society. What's over that hill? What's down in that dungeon? What's across the sea? What would happen if we overthrow the tyrannical dragon that plagues our town? Most people think it's a bad idea to even consider it. But not those pesky adventurers. And their meddling is going to bring us a whole lot of trouble down on everyone else.

It would just make things a lot more interesting, I think, if the "spirit of adventure" wasn't lauded in the society of the D&D world. 

Third, though, is the effect that those adventurers have on the society, which logically would go against the above. Following Harari's argument, it was the invention of the concept of 'capital' as a loan leveraged against the future profitability of a venture, rather than loans leveraged on established wealth, that led to the development of modern society/scientific revolution/imperialistic expansion. 

Before that became a thing, the wealth of a society was relatively static. 

Adventurers going out and bringing back the long lost wealth is going to disrupt that. 

Now sure, we've all seen the advice given to explain pricing in the various D&D editions as "boom town" pricing based on the influx of wealth from the megadungeon. And yes, some DMs do depict the disruption to society caused by the influx of wealth from adventuring. But in my experience, this is the exception not the norm. 

Adventuring brings surplus wealth to the society, and it's surplus wealth (or the expectation of future surplus wealth, according to Harari) that allows for science to develop, but also creates the need for imperial expansionism of the European imperialist tradition, rather than those of earlier empires like Alexander or Genghis Khan. 

Adventurers (and by this I mean specifically the player characters) are likely to be the impetus for all of this revolutionary change in the game world. They're going out and conquering new territory, plundering the wealth of the conquered areas, and through inventiveness and application of their resources, creating new spells and magic items, eventually becoming rulers of territories, and possibly setting up the magical industrial revolution -- or trying to, at least. 

Society as a whole, especially if it's even more fanatical about the concept of "all that the world needs to know is known and was passed down from the Golden Age/the gods," is going to be dead set about stopping this from happening. 

Religious groups and powerful wizards don't want their mystique shattered. Kings and nobles don't want their authority challenged. Wealthy landowners or merchants don't want their wealth devalued. And John Q. Serf doesn't want to deal with cognitive dissonance. All levels of society are going to be against a group of upstart adventurers trying to "make the world a better place" if they do go about trying to revolutionize things. 

And if the players just go along with things the way they are, using their wealth simply to increase their own power/prestige, but not change the world, there will still be conflict over that, but it wouldn't turn the world into the magi-tech world of Eberron.

Again, this is just from my limited gaming experience, but it seems like most campaigns never really touch on the political and social implications of adventuring. And this is most likely because of the mindset of the players and DMs being post-modern. We've all grown up with stories of plucky businessmen who founded simple businesses that became multinational corporations. Explorer/conquerors like Columbus, Magellan, Cook. Inventors and scientists as kooky geniuses creating marvelous gadgets and uncovering the mysteries of the universe. That's all normal to us. 

And so, we make all that seem normal to the NPCs of our game worlds. But there's probably a lot more interesting game to be made if we stop giving post-modern world views to our NPCs, and start giving them pre-modern ones instead.

Necessary Build-Up: Running High Level 5E

So you're a 5E DM, and you've been suffering many of the problems that that edition suffers at high level? Are combats a hit point slog? Do they take too long? Are players spending more time designing alternate PCs because they're bored with the ones they have? Is it too hard to balance combat encounters or design challenging adventures because of oodles of hit points and so many spells/powers? 

What to do?

Well, sit back and let me try to share some advice. It may not all be good advice, and some of it will definitely not be easy, but don't give up hope!

If you're a 5E (or probably any other more recent edition) D&D DM who isn't yet at the high level of your campaign but want to keep it going at that level, this will be much easier for you. 

The trick to building a long-lasting campaign that can handle high level play is to build up complexity into your game world as you go. Don't just focus on the "story" of this group of heroes. Also don't assume they're by default heroes, but that's a post for another day. You need to world build.

It's fairly easy to grab a map you like off the internet, or even to make your own. You could also use a published adventure setting like Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk or Golarion. Now, you need to start filling in ideas about what is, could, or will be going on in those towns and kingdoms and monster-infested waters when the PCs aren't there. 

No, you don't need to keep track of everything. You don't need to play out the whole world. Take a breath. It's OK. We're gonna get through this. 

You do need to have ideas about who's in charge of what, and what the cultures are like in at least a general sense, and what wars might be brewing, and where powerful monsters lair, and where to find mysterious artifacts. And on the smaller scale, who are the power players in the local area? What are their beefs? How can they help or hinder the PCs? 

If you have a fleshed out game world, even if it's not completely fleshed out yet, and especially if it's sometimes inconsistent (the real world is after all!), you can leverage those elements to provide challenges for your players besides yet another quest to yet another dungeon to slay yet another set of 3-4 balanced encounters of monsters/traps, then a boss fight. 

Here's the trick though, and why it's easier if you're not yet at high level. You don't need all of this to start. You build it up little by little, and layer complexity and detail onto the game world as you play. 

I mentioned in the comments of my last post that I haven't actually run a high level game since I was in high school. And mostly that is because of two things: living the expat life where gamers to play with come and go often, and my own gamer ADHD due to having too many game systems or campaign styles that I'd like to run. With my current game, I'm committed to running it as long as I can, and getting it up into the high levels. I think I'll go into detail in a future post (or posts) on what I remember doing back in high school (lots of PCs were in the level 20s/attack ranks, a few made it into the 30s), as well as what I'm doing now to lay the foundations of long term play in my current campaign (highest PC currently is 4th level).

 For now, though, I'll say this. Pay attention to the game world. Have recurring NPCs and villains. Have at least some idea of the region's politics, even if it's all background and never effects play at low levels. Work on multiple factions/power centers/sides that the PCs may join or oppose (or even ignore), rather than focusing a grand narrative around defeating some Voldemort style baddie. Take notes on what the PCs have been doing, and how it may affect these powers that be. Every now and then, throw in agents of those powers. Have them notice what is happening with the PCs. When they get enough fame and fortune (upper mid levels is a good place for this), have them start getting recruitment offers or else people sent to actively oppose the PCs' efforts. Have townspeople recognize them when they introduce themselves by name, or even have them known by their appearance. If the PCs are antagonizing some power center, have wanted posters or bounty hunters show up. If the PCs are aiding a power source, have offers of aid arrive occasionally. 

Build up some detail in your game world over time. It doesn't have to be fully fleshed out yet. But it should be reactive to what the PCs are doing. Don't just have "town" be like in a video game, where every NPC has one line of dialogue, and the town simply exists as a place to buy/sell, heal, and rest up. Make the setting a character. Build it up as you go. Keep taking notes. Use those notes to make the game world richer in future sessions. 

If you build it up enough, by the time the PCs are high level, the offers of guild memberships, knighthoods, offers to be kept on retainer as a court wizard, etc. will help give them goals and make the players want to invest in the setting as well. And once they're invested, there will be more to do at high level than rinse-and-repeat dungeon raids and hit point slog combats.

Bartertown

 I'm working up notes for a play-by-post Gamma World game. The home town will be fairly primitive, just having barely reached Tech Level II (early Bronze Age) but there are some definite Tech II and even a Tech III (Medieval) settlement nearby. Plus a market in the Tech III settlement run by Restorationists where artifacts can be bought and sold...the only catch being that the Tech III society is ruled over by the Knights of Genetic Purity. There is a trade town nearby as well, which takes domars (cash in Gamma Terra), but the home town will be only barter based. Junk from ruins will be a prime means of acquiring things, but time and effort also play a part. A day's food? How about you give me that shiny doo-dad you picked up in the ruins. Want a new spear? Plow my field for me.

I plan to have notes for important NPCs of what they have, what they need, what they want in trade. But for less important NPCs, or when the PCs want something I haven't considered, I made a Barter Table. Figured I might as well share it with you guys. Never know when this might come in handy. It could work for D&D or other games, too, really. Just replace junk with something relevant to the campaign.

Barter Table

	NPC Wants (roll 1d6):
Players Want:	1	2	3	4	5	6
Food (1 meal)	1 junk	1d3 junk	1d2 labor	1 service	1d3 goods	nothing
Water (days)	1 junk	1 labor	1 goods	clothes	nothing	nothing
Labor (1 hour)	1d3 junk	1 labor	1 creature	1 meal	1d4 water	nothing
Service (1 hour)	1d6 junk	1 bauble	1d3 meals	1d2 labor	1d3 goods	nothing
Clothes	1 junk	1d4 junk	1d2 labor	1d3 goods	nothing	nothing
Lodging	1d4+1 junk	1d6 labor	1d4 service	1 creature	1d3 meals	nothing
Goods (Tech I)	1d4 junk	2d4 junk	1d6 meals	1d10 labor	1d2 goods	nothing
Goods (Tech II)	2d6 junk	3d6 junk	2d4 meals	2d6 labor	2d6 goods	no trade
Goods (Tech III)	2d10 junk	3d12 junk	2d10 meals	2d8 labor	4d6 goods	no trade
Weapon (Tech I)	1d10 junk	2d6 labor	2d6 service	4d4 goods	1d8 meals	nothing
Weapon (Tech II)	3d4 junk	3d6 labor	4d4 service	1d3 creatures	3d8 goods	no trade
Small Creature	1d8 junk	1d6 meals	1d6 water	1 creature	2d4 goods	nothing
Medium Creature	2d8 junk	1d4 labor	1d4 service	2d6 goods	4d6 goods	no trade
Large Creature	3d8 junk	2d6 labor	2d4 service	1d6 creatures	4d10 goods	no trade

Junk: On average, 1 curiosity = 20 junk/5 baubles; 1 bauble = 4 junk; 

Labor/Service in hours; labor = physical work, service = mental work

Goods: 1 Tech III item = 10 Tech I items or 3 Tech II items. 1 Tech II item = 1d3 Tech I items

Nothing: free if NPC is friendly, will not trade if hostile; No Trade: will not part with item

Creating original cultural features in OA settings

A semi-random thought hit me earlier today. Thinking about my original Zhongyang Dalu setting, I was considering ways to merge elements of various Asian cultures (and sometimes non-Asian cultural elements) into original cultures. That's basically what Gygax and Arneson did in their campaigns, just with mostly European historical cultures as the basis of their ideas.

In simpler terms, using discrete cultural elements as LEGO bricks and using them to construct a fantasy culture.

Then, something I'd thought about last year came back to me. In 1E OA (and in the 3E book's setting of Rokugan), social status is defined by the Japanese cultural caste system. Originally Confucian in origin (and possibly being influenced by the Indian caste system despite its differences), you get what I used in Chanbara. Nobles at the top, the "buke" (samurai caste) of warriors next, then commoners (in theory anyway), artisans, merchants (money for nothing [interest/mark-ups on goods] makes them rich but gets them no respect), and untouchables at the very bottom.

But in Korea, while there was a hereditary aristocracy, the Yangban, the real movers and shakers were people who could pass the Civil Service exam (in some eras of Chinese history this is also the case). Bureaucrats, functionaries, auditors, inspectors, governors, tax collectors, historians -- these were the influential members of society in Joseon Korea. Well, them along with the Military Service, which was also exam based.

It didn't matter how low-born you were (again, in theory), if you could pass the Civil or Military Service exam, you were made into an agent of the crown. In practice, low-born members like the Korean hero Yi Sun-shin, the admiral who helped defeat the Japanese invasions in the 16th century, faced discrimination and plotting by officials of aristocratic birth. But social mobility was possible.

I think this sort of social structure might be more conducive to an RPG setting than one where you're pretty much set in your social status at birth. Granted, in Japan's Warring States period, commoners who fought well could be granted samurai status. And in the same era and later in the Edo period after the wars were over, merchants with enough cash could purchase samurai status for themselves or more often for their children.

But in Korea, if you studied hard enough, you could rise easily through the ranks.

So, one thing to think about when designing fantasy OA cultures is to consider the social hierarchies and how people moved (or were prevented from moving) within them. The Mongolians had a more egalitarian society. Anyone who was a good warrior and leader could become khan, and you only remained khan as long as you were militarily successful or politically savvy. I'd need to study up a bit more on Philippine and SE Asian cultures, but I would bet the Thais, Burmese, and others may have had different structures as well.

Of course, in addition to politics and social structure, religion is important. And synchretism is the order of the day. There were many native animist practices in most regions of East Asia. There were Hinduism and Buddhism influences from India. There are Taoism and Confucianism (not originally religions, more just belief systems but made religious over time) from China. There is Bushido (again not really a religion but sometimes treated as one de facto) from Japan and Legalism from China. And in practice, they all blend together to some degree or other.

The Chinese conception of Buddhist Heaven isn't Nirvana, it's basically the Taoist conception of the realm of spirits and immortals, just with Buddha added in as the top boss. Shinto (animism) blends with Buddhism and Confucianism in Japan. In Korea, Buddhism was seen as an unwanted foreign influence by the government, who pushed a version of Neo-Confucianism as the primary philosophy for the people. Christian and Muslim missionaries were in China during the 8th or 9th century, maybe earlier.

Take elements from the above (and other belief systems, or made up elements that don't feel off) in various amounts, mix and match, and voila!

With the social/political system and religion of each culture spelled out, it's just a matter of adding some small, unique touches. And since this is fantasy, with magic and monsters and non-human people, adding in some unique touches helps make them feel different than humans. This is something I tried to do in the old 3E OA Zhongyang Dalu setting of mine, before I started retro-cloning Dragon Fist and needed a world with primarily Chinese influences.

As I said before, in most D&D settings, sometimes there are cultures that are very obviously drawn from one primary real world source -- the Known World setting has a lot of these, but other times the cultures don't handily map to a real world culture. And that 's a great thing for a game.

Fun with the Fermi Paradox

Recently, in addition to working on my dissertation, making a new set of fold-up paper minis (just need to format the pdf), and getting ready for a vacation, I've been watching Neil DeGrasse Tyson's Cosmos: A Spacetime Oddysey. I missed it two years ago when it first aired. And of course, my mind is now thinking of lots of interesting ways to set up a galactic scale sci-fi RPG campaign.

One good place to start for assumptions about extraterrestrial life in the universe is the Fermi Paradox, and the Great Filter hypothesis that goes with it. Are you familiar with it? If so, you can skip the next paragraph. If not, here's the Fermi Paradox in brief (and click that link for an excellent in-depth discussion of it if you want to know more):

If the estimated number of stars in the universe, the estimated number of planets around those stars, and the estimated chances of life spontaneously arising on any planet with suitable conditions are what scientists believe them to be, even at the lowest, most conservative numbers, our universe must be bursting with life. And given the 13.5 billion or so years since the Big Bang, there must be many intelligent species out there besides us. Yet (this is the paradox), we can't detect any signs of them (or have we?). There are several explanations for why this might be so, including the idea of the Great Filter, an event that makes it highly improbable that life will advance to not only intelligence, but to super-intelligence levels needed to colonize other planets.

So that's the Fermi Paradox in a nutshell (and I'm sure I've introduced some error into the concept by such a brief recap, so if you're interested, click that first link above and enjoy). And the various hypotheses that seek to explain it can give  your sci-fi campaign some interesting twists. The best thing is, they're fairly setting neutral, unless you're planning to use a popular sci-fi franchise like Star Wars, Star Trek, Babylon 5, Firefly, what have you.

The first way to solve the Fermi Paradox is to suggest that there ARE NO HIGHER CIVILIZATIONS (we aren't quite there yet in real life). In other words, the Great Filter is behind us. Let's look at some conceits that could inform your sci-fi campaign if this were the case:

1. There is no life in the universe except that on Earth.
The Earth is the only planet where there is life. The Great Filter is the formation of life itself.

You could set up a campaign set on Earth in the far future, just with lots of fun high tech toys, but otherwise more or less your typical human drama. Or you could set up an explore/terraform/colonize setting, where the PCs are faced with this challenge - to seek out suitable worlds for colonization (exploration and bottle-city human drama on their ship), or to be among the terraformers or colonists (a survival against nature game).

The Bible (or whatever creation myth you choose) was correct after all. Considering Einstein's Theory of Relativity, if you choose the Earth as your frame of reference and consider celestial motion in a certain specific way, the universe DOES revolve around the Earth. Could the revelation of our unique status in this universe propel humans to embrace Scripture and form future theocracies? This might step on a few real world toes among players, so use this idea with caution.

2. There is life in the universe, but we are the only intelligent life. 

Maybe we're the first and more will come later, or maybe others existed before and were wiped out. The Great Filter is behind us, or else where we are now in the early 21st Century (nuclear or environmental devastation of the planet, overpopulation leading to catastrophe, etc.), and humans just squeak through.

In this case, you may have a campaign set up where the PCs are among colonists sent to settle other habitable planets with no need of terraforming. Of course, the life forms on the other planets will be different, interesting, and often dangerous. If you go with a "we're the first" premise, then you get exploration, cataloging and survival on alien worlds. If you go with a "no others survived this far" premise, you can add in exploration of the ruins of lost alien civilizations to the above. [Stars Without Number uses this conceit as its default, with options to add in alien species if the GM wishes.]

3. There is other intelligent life, but they're only just as advanced as us, or less so.

Conditions in the universe have been such that we're leading the pack as far as super-intelligent civilizations go. The Great Filter is behind us, and behind several other civilizations. And we were just too far away to detect each other's presence until the advent of FTL, warp engines, star gates, or however you want to move people around interstellar distances easily in your campaign.

In this universe, it will be a game of planetary exploration as in #2, but with First Contact opportunities, and the interspecies ice-breaking games that come with that contact. There will be a limited number of player races (the few super-intelligent species), but there could be any number of intelligent but non-advanced civilizations on other planets if the Great Filter is the industrial/nuclear age transition. [Star Frontiers uses this conceit, with only five star-faring races, all of comparable tech levels.]

Finally, it could be that humans form the first Type II civilization and are the first to colonize other planets. If there are other intelligent but not yet advanced alien species out there, then it may be the job of the PCs to study them passively (a la Star Trek's Prime Directive), or to conquer them, or to make peaceful contact with those we can and enlist their help to pacify those we can't make peaceful contact with (although if we're the only star-faring race, there would need to be some sort of situation like James Cameron's Avatar, with its unobtanium, necessitating our even bothering with the hostile aliens).

The second way to solve the Fermi Paradox is to suggest that ADVANCED ALIEN CIVILIZATIONS ARE OUT THERE, BUT FOR SOME REASON WE CAN'T DETECT THEM. We are probably past the Great Filter (although not necessarily), if a Great Filter exists, but by design of the aliens, limits of our technology, or cosmic chance, we (us, real 21st Century humans, not your campaign) just haven't encountered these other civilizations yet. These also give use plenty of fodder for designing a campaign.

4. Advanced aliens visited Earth long, long ago, and just haven't been back since then.

This idea, the Ancient Astronauts theory, is of course a popular one now. Maybe the aliens seeded life here, then forgot to return (or were wiped out by enemies). Once humans gain interstellar travel capabilities, the campaign could be one of piecing together the mysterious clues to the origin of life on Earth.

Or maybe the aliens finally return, and bring humans into the galactic (or intergalactic) civilization. This way, you could play as modern humans, out exploring the galaxy for the first time, but with guides along the way. Alternately, the seeding species may have put us here for a purpose (crops, slaves, lab rats) and the PCs have to resist the alien overlords. Wars of humans vs. alien invaders is probably not a trope I need to go into great detail here, I'm sure you've got a handle on this idea.

The third idea related to this is that our ability to get past the Great Filter, or simply to develop to a Type II and/or space-faring species is some sort of test. Once we pass the test, we become citizens of the galaxy. The campaign will again consist of the players having to negotiate strange alien customs while exploring the galaxy.

5. Most of the galaxy has been colonized by a single Type II or proto-Type III civilization, but the Earth is in a galactic backwater. 

This is the basic concept of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. There's just nothing on Earth to interest the aliens, so why would they bother coming here? As with the Hitchhikers series, maybe the aliens have just stared paying attention at the time the Great Filter hits (whether that be Vogons or something more serious is up to you), and the PCs are the few survivors taken in by the aliens at the last minute. And it need not be silly as in the Hitchhiker books.

Or maybe 'Space Noah' leads a small group of survivors off of Earth just in time, and when they escape destruction, they find an advanced civilization has already pretty much taken all the good planets. This could then be a sort of Battlestar Galactica type game, where the few survivors of Earth need to explore, fight, negotiate, or run from the galactic civilization.

It could also be that there's no imminent disaster for Earth, but a select few, the PCs, by design, chance, or fate, have been taken from Earth (or find a one-way ticket off through science). Maybe they want to get back, and that's the campaign -- survive in the galaxy long enough to find a way back to Earth. Maybe they're happy with their lot in life, and have no desire to return to Earth (like Star Lord in Guardians of the Galaxy). Whether galactic murder-hobos or scientific explorers, the PCs can enjoy their status as "oddities" among the galactic civilization(s).

6. There are several Type I and Type II civilizations that vie for control of the galaxy.

This one, again, maybe doesn't need a lot of explaining. There are two or more "galactic empires" that compete for habitable worlds to colonize, or lesser species to exploit, or just have some sort of beef with each other that prevents them from coexisting (the desire to become the Type III civilization of the Milky Way, maybe). Humans could be one of these empires (and the campaign would be similar in some ways to Star Trek, with the Federation, Klingons, Romulans, Borg, etc.), or we could be caught in the crossfire once we're finally noticed or make ourselves known. Maybe the aliens notice the potential of humans, and they are vying to make us allies. Maybe they notice the potential in humans, and are trying to wipe us out before we become yet another threat. 

7. Physical colonization of planets is unfeasible, and interstellar travel is a rarity.

In this situation, the cost outweighs the benefit for galactic colonies. If Type I or Type II civilizations are utilizing all potential energy sources of their planet/star, why bother going somewhere else? Maybe the civilizations come into contact by some form of FTL communications system (the ansible of the Ender books, or subspace frequencies of Star Trek, for example). We can learn from them, they can learn from us, in some sort of galactic Google Hangouts sessions, but never shall we meet...unless, a crazy group of humans (the PCs) decide to build an FTL ship just for shits and giggles and set out to meet these other peoples of the galaxy! This could be fun, because each planet visited would then open up the opportunities for the players to play a member of an alien species (they've got their own crazy weirdos as well).

8. Smart civilizations don't advertise. 

There may be predatory alien species (the lizard folk of V, the whatever they are from Independence Day, etc.). The smart civilizations don't go around making unnecessary signals that would draw their attention. There's a lot of potential with this idea. Humans may have made the mistake of attracting unwanted attention (war against alien invaders) which then leads to the need to find extra-terrestrial allies -- not easy when they don't want to be found. This would be a combination of survival/war, and exploration/mystery solving.

Maybe WE are the predator species, and we need to hunt down and locate the inhabited worlds for some reason. I think most players enjoy the occasional game where they're the bad guys, but this obviously wouldn't be the game for everyone.

There could be a Type III civilization that keeps others down, swatting the flies before they can become a real threat. This could also be interesting, as the PCs would be facing a vastly superior foe. How do you defeat a galaxy-conquering species that is millions or even billions of years more advanced technologically? Do you make this an Ewoks vs Empire type situation for the players? Do the PCs just try to find a place to hide, searching the galaxy for an even more backwater world to relocate to once Earth has been discovered?

9. The government is covering up the evidence.

Maybe there are thousands of extraterrestrial civilizations, maybe there's one Type III super-civilization, or something in between. No matter what, the various world governments (or at least the great powers) are suppressing that knowledge. While many scientists might scoff at this in real life, it has vast potential for gaming. Of course, you could go the X-Files route, with the players trying to uncover the alien conspiracy. Or you could go the Star Gate route, with the PCs being the agents of the government(s) who go out among the stars to deal with alien threats and treat with alien allies.

10. The aliens are all around us, but we just can't detect them. 

Maybe their technology is so different from ours that we can't detect them because we're looking for the wrong things (and vice versa). Maybe their form of life is just so alien to ours that we wouldn't even be able to notice them (non-carbon based, for example) if we were standing next to them.

In the first case, the PCs may be in for a surprise first contact, thinking the campaign was something along the lines of suggestions 1 and 2 above, only to meet a twist along the way. This would switch the explore/survive campaign into a study/befriend campaign. Or an alien war, those are always fun, too.

In the second case, maybe the thrust of the game is to learn about these truly alien life forms, and eventually find some way to make contact with them. There's a lot we could learn from a species so different from us that we wouldn't even likely be competing for the same planets (unless one or both of us are into terraforming!). I could see a game starting out where a planet that we had detected as Earth-like was not (terraformed by the aliens to suit their biology) by the time a generational or hypersleep colony ship could arrive. Solve that mystery, players!

There's more that can be gleaned from the Fermi Paradox and the idea of the Great Filter, these are just a few. Feel free to chime in with others you might think of (or ways to improve my ideas) in the comments!