The Question That Leads You To Fun: "What If?"

After partaking of a lot of Super Robot Wars V, and now revisiting the series appearing in it as I can, I had an idea:

"What If:

• Civilization, after the final defeat of Boskone, continued to expand throughout the universe?
• The Lensmen running Civilization found threats equal to Boskone in the other galaxies of the universe?
• The Guardians decided that the most effective and efficient way to deal with all of these threats was to replicate the relationship between Arisia and Civilization.
• They appointed just ONE LENSMAN, PER GALAXY to the Mentor role, and charged him with guiding the natives therein up to becoming Civilization themselves in turn?"

Congratulations, you just witnessed the key pillars of many gaming and prose projects: taking a speculative question, turning it into a fundamental framework to build from, and playing it out to conclusion.

It's the same thing that makes anthologies like the one I'm working on interesting. It's what drives fan-fiction (good, bad, and ugly), and in many cases fiction itself. For gaming--RPG, wargame, etc.--it's the first step towards creating that feedback loop that drives at-the-table gameplay, especially at the campaign level.

Yes, I'm going to do something with this idea--multiple things--in due course. See the Study later this week for one such something. For gaming, I'll post a follow-up later this week here at the Retreat. Right now, I just want you to explore how the "What If?" game and see where it takes you- because it's going to be fun.