Space RPGs compared

[trader jim]

PVernon - hi - you will get a hoot outta this -
there was "Ole" ME, at work, on graves, at 0313,
playing around on E-bay, checking out Roleplay....
when all of a sudden up pops SPACE 1889!!!....BANG.....when the dust settled i bought the whole/entire system including all the modules for $21.00!!!!.....all I got to do is find the board war game in good shape!!!
Now you all may ask, Is he crazy??? nooooo,
damn thing looks interesting to me, looks FUN!!!
cover an area seldom played, Victorian Sc-Fi, what else is on the MARKET in this area????
I WANT A FLOAT SHIP!!!!....May model one!!!

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

heres my bit...

AD&D: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks... that Karate robot stomped on my elf...

Metamorphosis Alpha: Man, i hope they got RPGs in the old folks home for me.

GAMMA WORLD : nuff said.

Villains and Vigilantes : Played a kick ass legion of superheroes type game. The King of Super Games

Star Trek: (fasa) character Generation Alone took fifteen weeks

Judge Dredd: (GW) I WAS the law...

Other Suns: (FGU) The even more byzantine progenitor of Space Opera

Space Opera (FGU) Where... Am... I? Lost in rule book... cant... escape...

GAMMA WORLD: Just mentioning it again, because it ruled.

RIFTS: Good at first, lame with mechanoids and post apocolyptic circus. Damn you, Kevin Siembda.

Mechanoids: Dumb system. Bad art. Dumb concept.
See above for Curse on creator.

Star Frontiers: crappy system, but I had a butt-kickin' draslite

Star Fleet Battles: Destroyed my mind.

Shadowrun: BARF! character archetypes! BAAARF!

Space: 1889 :

Ringworld: I got to be a puppeteer! lame system.

Time Master: zzzz

Starforce (SPI) Great, but you got to be into thousands of cardboard chips

Starsoldier (SPI) Ditto as above

Revolt On Antares (TSR) back when TSR cared...

Gurps: Space Pirates ruled... I was a Kaa. I ate people. I had henchmen. great fun.

Champions: All that math...

DC heroes: Good system. Hard to integrate with existing DC heroes

Marvel Superheroes: Art and source material: IN (incredible) playability: PR (poor)

T20 : Delish!

CT: embodies all that is right and good in the universe. Don't think so? Whaddya you know, Traveller hater? (joke)

MT: wrecked the vehicle system. task system unwieldy. Hated "shattered Imperium" backgound.

TNE: zzzzzzzz

Lords of Creation: Loved it. loved Goofy art. loved rock solid system. Pass the Proton Beamer!
If I was in a band, it would be called "The Yeti Sanction"

Star Wars 1: loved art. hated archetype character creation. Always wound up playing Chewbacca or the Lobot.

Star Wars d20: I cant play it, as I hate george lucas for Episode 1 and 2. Eat RAM grenade, Jar Jar! Die!!!! Dieeeeeee!!!

DUNE (avalon hill) Goofy, but fun. Each player had a little box to hide what he was doing from the other players. Game Board Ruled. Kwitzach Haderach token is framed on my desk.

Mutants and Masterminds: just started playing... It may suck... maybe its my GM...

Necrosnaphot: A strange mix of Necromunda (games workshop) style Wargaming with a shipboard Snapshot sort of action. I had a pirate gang of eldar.

Striker: Cool but all math.

Rogue Trader: Fun. very british. Rules all over the place. some art very disturbing

Warhammer 40k: Eldar. Rules revisions stunk. To much money for it. Loved the figures, though...
Swooping Hawks Away!!!

Dr. Who. Great show. Game was Dr. Butt. Too Bad.

Azanti High Lightning: Marc Miller has two brains.

GAMMA WORLD! GAMMA WORLD! GAMMA WORLD! GAMMA WORLD! GAMMA WORLD! GAMMA WORLD! GAMMA WORLD!

oh, and, GAMMA WORLD!

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

GAMMA WORLD!

 

[Secrect Cow Level]

Originally posted by Baron Saarthuran:
GAMMA WORLD!

GAMMA WORLD's the bomb! I voted five stars for you because you love GAMMA WORLD as much as I do!

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

Indeed, good sir!

My Yexil and I thank you. Hey you got five Domars I can borrow? (hahaha)

 

[GypsyComet]

Originally posted by Baron Saarthuran:


Ringworld: I got to be a puppeteer! lame system.

Now now. Ringworld had an extreme level of detail in character creation that I found a tad daunting, but play generally followed the classic BRP (Basic RolePlaying, the core rules at the heart of classics like RuneQuest) model. Lethal in the extreme if you played violent. Since the game was supposed to be about exploration (and its hazards), violence wasn't assumed, which put a lot of people off the game.

The essays on Niven's universe, however, were so well done that he used large parts as the writers bible for the later Man-Kzin Wars books.

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

Indeed sir, The background was what made it an excellent offering! I never quite got into Runequest, but I seem to remember having a lot of fun with BRP at the dawn of a little game we called "Call of Cthulhu" Great fun!

(Bows, arms outstretched in Sidur Haskian gesture of respect)

 

[clementk]

Originally posted by Gallowglass:
As one of the (few) resident Jorune obsessives, it falls to me to defend my all time favourite (today anyway ) game - 2nd edition was eminently playable (I ran two highly successful campaigns and played in a third) and I also ran a number of third edition games - the only significant ommission was the Stamina values for large creatures which I didn't even notice until I got the Sholari pack, several games in. And the whole game isn't written from the point of view of a native: only the Tauther Guide is an IC document. It was the first part of the third edition rulebook, which was a mistake: in 2nd edition it was a separate booklet in the boxed set, which worked much better.
[/QB]

Ack, this is what I get for looking at 3rd edition recently but not 2nd. Have to dig out my copy when I get a chance. I've not actually played the game though I wouldn't mind trying a online game sometime.
Didn't the game at least use native terms in the rules quite a bit throughout though? Not necessarily from the perspective of a native talking to another.

Ahem, right, sorry, I'll get of my soapbox now...

Ah no problem, I'll admit Tekumel's had some incomplete game systems etc.

I guess it comes down to, it'd be nice to see a new edition of the Jorune (or at least a cleanup of the 3rd edition) but for various reasons I don't think that will happen any time soon.

That's one thing that's very cool about Tekumel, pretty much *evertyhing* is still in print and Prof. Barker's writing again.

Casey

 

[clementk]

Originally posted by Merchant Reaper:
<snip> if any of you know a good, moderately easy to adapt, game source for body enhancements? You know, cybernetics, bioware kind of stuff, etc... Traveler has always been seriously lacking in this area. Shadowrun has a lot of cool ideas for these kind of things, but I am looking for stuff already in the d20 format, if it exists.

Any pointers?

http://www.darkquest.com/products.html
CyberStyle D20

I don't have any of the cyberstyle pdf files but I have one of their cityguides and dweomercraft looks interesting.

Rpgnow is a good place to buy pdf d20 stuff IMO.

Casey

 

[clementk]

Originally posted by trader jim:
PVernon - hi - you will get a hoot outta this -
there was "Ole" ME, at work, on graves, at 0313,
playing around on E-bay, checking out Roleplay....
when all of a sudden up pops SPACE 1889!!!....BANG.....when the dust settled i bought the whole/entire system including all the modules for $21.00!!!!.....all I got to do is find the board war game in good shape!!!
Now you all may ask, Is he crazy??? nooooo,
damn thing looks interesting to me, looks FUN!!!
cover an area seldom played, Victorian Sc-Fi, what else is on the MARKET in this area????
I WANT A FLOAT SHIP!!!!....May model one!!!

Victorian Science Fiction (VSF) is very fun. Heliograph has reprinted all the Space 1889 except for Temple of Mars (?) I think. They're no longer printing the reprints so pick them up ASAP. No ships though just books.

Gaslight is a fun set of skirmish rules with easy rules for vehicles, etc.
Gaslight home page

http://www.brigademodels.co.uk/
makes some cloudships (aeronef)

as well as
Wessex Games

who make the Aeronef rules (like Full Thrust lite) along with some more ships.

I suggest you check out groups like the following on yahoo groups:
Gaslight rules group
Colonial Wars
real nice chaps and dang helpful

Victorian Adventure

Finally, the Forgotten Futures website not only has a decent shareware rpg but tons of period works, info, artwork, including period air and space ships. Heliograph printed the main rules and a few of the sourcebooks.

HTH,
Casey

 

[clementk]

Originally posted by Baron Saarthuran:
Indeed sir, The background was what made it an excellent offering! I never quite got into Runequest, but I seem to remember having a lot of fun with BRP at the dawn of a little game we called "Call of Cthulhu" Great fun!

(Bows, arms outstretched in Sidur Haskian gesture of respect)

I had the AH edition (RQ3) which seemed to better edited but too bad the Chasosium editions are $$ as I always liked their books.

BTW, you might want to look into the well done King of Dragon Pass computer game. I think it's about $20 now well worth a look. Mac or PC and has low system requirements.

With Herowars/Quest out I don't think you'll see a BRP Runequest again though there's a "improved" system (Legion?) being worked on.

For BRP sword-n-sorcery I prefer Stormbringer.

Call of Cthulhu is still good IMO. The Delta Force books by Pagan Publishing are a must for modern play and are great for X-Files type games.



Casey

 

[sandman]

Originally posted by Casey:

Call of Cthulhu is still good IMO. The Delta Force books by Pagan Publishing are a must for modern play and are great for X-Files type games.

It's Delta Green....

Don't confuse the two or you'll be picked up by the wrong Conspirators

 

[clementk]

Originally posted by Sandman:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Casey:

Call of Cthulhu is still good IMO. The Delta Force books by Pagan Publishing are a must for modern play and are great for X-Files type games.

It's Delta Green....

Don't confuse the two or you'll be picked up by the wrong Conspirators

</font>

Ia! This is what I get for playing too much of both games and posting right before sleep. At least that's the FNORD explanation.


Casey

 

[Calaem]

As with Murph.. I sometimes use CP2020 Character generation and skill/combat mechanics for a grittier tech/bio campaign. I still havent figured out a good way to use CP2020 and still keep the flavor of CT character generation terms of service during character gen, but I'm working on it.

CT: simple, straighforward, started it all for sci-fi gaming... (No I don't count Star Frontiers)

MT: Good flavor and designs. Great task system, too much errata, complicated starship combat.

TNE: ICK.. what were they thinking? Vampire WHAT? Turn off the Damn radios... Nobody ever thinks of the silly O-N/O-F-F switch.

T4: Over-thought tasks system (1/2 dice?). Good flavor and milieu change. Played very little.

Aftermath: Very complicated, bulk vs weight, vs movement, vs mussle velocity, vs scientific calculator to keep track of it all. Very compete game though.

Forgotten Worlds: Odd little spinoff type sci-fi game published around 1988. Not to complicated, but not that great. Has some very interesting ship designs (I'll post somewhere eventually) and design philosophies.

CP 2020: Clean, efficient game system in a gritty world. Easily dangerous for munchkin players. "No you cannot hack into the orbital grid and take over the world" geesh Some great source material for traveller.

Star Wars: Quick simple, leans too much towards the 'good guys', not much room for grey. A little campy at times for those players looking for 'hard science' games.

Rogue Trader: Although not really an RPG, it had many RPG elements and I always thought it would work well as one.

Paranoia: Simple, sneaky, deadly, and not much room for expansion. Lost interest rather quickly. After all how many times can you get killed six times in one game and still complete the deranged mission?

 

[Aquinas]

If I've missed this thread I appologise; but has anyone played Luther Arkwright RPG?

Very cool and very sureal... Moorcockesq...

Sadly only one scenario been published as far as I know.

BTW according to the BBC news we are at war all bar the shouting...

 

[Jame]

Never heard of that Luther Arkwright game. Must've been before my time or out of my area, though the second might explain the lack of supplements.

DEATH TO WAR!

 

[Gallowglass]

"The Adventures of Luther Arkwright, the Role-Playing Game (c) 23rd Parallel Games, 1992"

Inspired by the comic of the same name by Bryan Talbot. Can't speak for the rules (my copy went west many moons ago and I never ran it...) beyond vague memories of it being an over-chromed (i.e. too much unnecessary extra detail) BRP derivative. But the setting... Ahh.

It is often described as Moorcockian in the sense that it involves multiple realities, but the comparison only works with a limited subset of MM's multiverse, as Talbot has a much more rigorous and coherent view of the interplay between his "parallels". This, combined with a wonderful instinct for interesting alternate earths (mostly playing with various key points in English or European history) and Talbot's beautiful illustration style made the original series a great read and to me ultimately more satisfying than Watchmen. Haven't read Heart of Empire yet...

And I am eagerly awaiting my copy of the Blakes' 7 role playing game...

 

[Gerald]

One game everyone appears to have missed is Renegade Legion: Legionaire. A testament, perhaps, to its forgetability.

Anyway, I bought it cheap, for poach purposes. The setting is pretty cool, in a Roma Aeterna sort of way. It was almost a darker, grittier version of Star Ace, what with the righteous rebels against the evil empire, etc.

 

[Aquinas]

Moorcockian was the best adjective I could come up with. It works well with the GURPs Alternate Earths settings.

There is only one SciFi game that I've every found unfathomable and that is Continuum "Role Playing in the Yet" which scares me every time I try and read it

 

[travalv]

Originally posted by Gerald:
One game everyone appears to have missed is Renegade Legion: Legionaire. A testament, perhaps, to its forgetability.

Anyway, I bought it cheap, for poach purposes. The setting is pretty cool, in a Roma Aeterna sort of way. It was almost a darker, grittier version of Star Ace, what with the righteous rebels against the evil empire, etc.

======================================

Wandering off-topic...

One set of senarios in my To-Do List is to write the reverse of this: a big, well-meaning, but hidebound empire (waves to Strephon...) trying to cope with numerous smart, fast-moving rebellion movements. Sure, the rebels have a point, but their solutions to the problems is pretty short-sighted and ugly, leaving things worse then they were under the Imperum.

(Makes a memory call from some unused mental files...)

Didn't MegaTraveller actually deal with this senario? Well, somewhat: but I would like to keep things on a FAR smaller scale, about subsector size. This way, ordinary PC's (and 'minor noble' PC's) can actually have a chance to Set Things Right...

======================================

Wandering back on topic...

I have heard that the reason the line died is that the players of Renegade Legion were quite satisfied with the material they did have, and simply didn't want anything else. Without any demand, the game simply folded up stakes.

This illustrates the problem of focusing on just the military side of gaming. After you put out the supplements for Ground Forces (Leginnaire), Naval Warships (Levatithan), Fighters (Intercepter), and Strategic-scale batles (Prefect), what else do you really need?

In contrast, Traveller has the trading, exploration, and political game as well as mercenary/military game. And a lot of serious cultures as well, all interacting with each other. And did I mention the joys of the historical background?

Another benefit of Trav has over Renegade Legion (and, to a lesser extent, Mechwarrior) is that thing's aren't so black and white in Trav. The Imperium is somewhat more likely to be with the Good Guys then the Bad Guys, after all. AND there are more powerful players in Trav (racial groups, corporations, plantary govt's and to a lesser extent religions) than there are in Mechwarrior or Renegade Legion.

So you can't allow lazy mental habits to form in Traveller - you always have to Pay Attention to your surroundings.

======================================

Did anyone mention Shatterzone? I ddn't care much for the game, but I have heard that they have some good corprorate material (as does Shadowrun). I greatly enjoyed the Fleet supplement, BTW, if you want a more darker Imperial Navy...