thalassogen
SOC-12
Found another one: Thousand Suns and it is currently on sale at DriveThru.
Space RPGs compared
- Thread starter Murph
- Start date
Garyius2003
SOC-13
Yes, the character gen took forever, we were early teens, so that didn't help. We played the intro adventure and we way over did the 'uniform makes the man' stuff the game set up. We tried it (once?) more.
Classic Traveller was way easier to roll, and we didn't love the nav end of travel in Universe.
I re read the rule book and adventure a few years ago and was surprised how clunky the ship design was in addition to the mechanics of everything.
thalassogen
SOC-12
Oh. 
leo knight
SOC-12
Gotta love necromancy!
A few games I've encountered over the last few years:
Hard Nova )( by Precis Intermedia Games: Point buy character generation, roll under attribute+skill on 2D6. Very rules light. Space combat uses the same numerical scale and systems as character combat. The built in setting has a space opera feel. Not as detailed as Traveller, but very cheap, and easy to get started. I bought the PDF package, with an expansion and a lot of beginning scenarios, for not much money.
X-Plorers by Grey Area Games: a D&D retro-clone, uses the standard 3-18 stats, with four character classes: Soldier, Tech, Scout, and Scientist. Each has class skills, using a roll over D20 mechanic, like old D&D saving throws. Combat is D&D with ascending armor class, eg. unarmored is AC 10, leather is ac 12, etc. Experience gets you higher levels, more hit points, etc. Ships are basic, with hits, armor class, etc. in six size classes. Essentially D&D in space, without magic. I got mine as a free download.
QAGS by Hex Games: a generic rules set, but with supplements for various settings. The Sci-Fi setting is called "Rocket Jocks". Chargen is point buy, and very abstract. Characters have the stats Body, Brains, Nerve, Job, Gimmick, and Weakness. All run 6-16 for normal humans, but can go as high as 19, or low as 1. All tasks use a D20 roll under mechanism they compare to "The Price is Right": roll as high as possible without going over. This makes contested rolls easy to judge. My favorite rule, they gve experience in 'Yum-Yums', and recommend using candy. The GM can use these Pavlovian rewards to reinforce desired behavior. Players can bribe the referee to get better results, save Yum-Yums to spend on better stats, or eat them. The basic rules can be had for free at their website. The printed rules don't cost much, and the setting supplements are available as cheap PDFs. Be warned, the writers have a locker room sense of humor, and cuss a lot.
Spaceships have the same stats as people, only multiplied by a size code. Small ships seem more survivable than in Traveler, big ships more vulnerable. The setting has a very space opera, goofy feel.
A few games I've encountered over the last few years:
Hard Nova )( by Precis Intermedia Games: Point buy character generation, roll under attribute+skill on 2D6. Very rules light. Space combat uses the same numerical scale and systems as character combat. The built in setting has a space opera feel. Not as detailed as Traveller, but very cheap, and easy to get started. I bought the PDF package, with an expansion and a lot of beginning scenarios, for not much money.
X-Plorers by Grey Area Games: a D&D retro-clone, uses the standard 3-18 stats, with four character classes: Soldier, Tech, Scout, and Scientist. Each has class skills, using a roll over D20 mechanic, like old D&D saving throws. Combat is D&D with ascending armor class, eg. unarmored is AC 10, leather is ac 12, etc. Experience gets you higher levels, more hit points, etc. Ships are basic, with hits, armor class, etc. in six size classes. Essentially D&D in space, without magic. I got mine as a free download.
QAGS by Hex Games: a generic rules set, but with supplements for various settings. The Sci-Fi setting is called "Rocket Jocks". Chargen is point buy, and very abstract. Characters have the stats Body, Brains, Nerve, Job, Gimmick, and Weakness. All run 6-16 for normal humans, but can go as high as 19, or low as 1. All tasks use a D20 roll under mechanism they compare to "The Price is Right": roll as high as possible without going over. This makes contested rolls easy to judge. My favorite rule, they gve experience in 'Yum-Yums', and recommend using candy. The GM can use these Pavlovian rewards to reinforce desired behavior. Players can bribe the referee to get better results, save Yum-Yums to spend on better stats, or eat them. The basic rules can be had for free at their website. The printed rules don't cost much, and the setting supplements are available as cheap PDFs. Be warned, the writers have a locker room sense of humor, and cuss a lot.
Spaceships have the same stats as people, only multiplied by a size code. Small ships seem more survivable than in Traveler, big ships more vulnerable. The setting has a very space opera, goofy feel.
GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
A few other recent additions:
Ashen Stars - Based on Robin Laws' "Gumshoe" system. I'm not really taken with the emphasis on investigation to the de-emphasis of nearly everything else, but the setting does have its points.
Hellas - Remember that setting SJG did in the pages of Pyramid years ago by blending GURPS Celts with GURPS Space? This follows a similar idea, but using Classic Greek culture, mores, and other tropes. I found it on a sale table. The mechanics are a bit odd IIRC (haven't looked at it in a while), but the willingness to discuss and account for every aspect of the culture does lead to some awkward bits of setting.
Stars Without Number - A SF game to come out of the D&D Retroclone movement. A more straightforward D20 port than T20 attempted, so your opinion of D20 will inform you here more than I can. The Referee's section has some very good advice for handling sandbox-style games, whether you run the rest of the game or not.
Ashen Stars - Based on Robin Laws' "Gumshoe" system. I'm not really taken with the emphasis on investigation to the de-emphasis of nearly everything else, but the setting does have its points.
Hellas - Remember that setting SJG did in the pages of Pyramid years ago by blending GURPS Celts with GURPS Space? This follows a similar idea, but using Classic Greek culture, mores, and other tropes. I found it on a sale table. The mechanics are a bit odd IIRC (haven't looked at it in a while), but the willingness to discuss and account for every aspect of the culture does lead to some awkward bits of setting.
Stars Without Number - A SF game to come out of the D&D Retroclone movement. A more straightforward D20 port than T20 attempted, so your opinion of D20 will inform you here more than I can. The Referee's section has some very good advice for handling sandbox-style games, whether you run the rest of the game or not.
Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
Has High Colonies been mentioned? I've always wanted to play it. It looks intriguing. But, I've never gotten around to giving it a go.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
The only other Space RPG that I own is the venerable Metamorphosis Alpha, by TSR. I got that out for my game design class, and decided that it might be worth resurrecting. As it takes place in a generation ship, it has a lot of stuff for metal-poor worlds, like Victoria/Lanth. Do not think that the first edition of Gamma World counts as a Space RPG. Oh, forgot that I also have Ringworld too.
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Lightspeed hasn't been mentioned yet. It looks nice a nice enough game using the Fuzion system. I've not read it in years but (IIRC) the background is a mix of just about everything the author could get their hands on so you can easily go from Star Wars to Star Trek and everything in between.
Thousand Suns has already been mentioned. I ran a game of it last summer and whilst it's a nice game it left me feeling I could do the same and more with Mongoose Traveller.
Cold Space is pretty much what it says on the tin; the Cold War after FTL drive has been discovered. The timeline is continued with FTL Now and fall of the Soviet Union.
Both of those games use the StarCluster system.
D6 Space is WEG Star Wars with the serial numbers filed off to provide a generic game. It also has the benefit of being free!
Thousand Suns has already been mentioned. I ran a game of it last summer and whilst it's a nice game it left me feeling I could do the same and more with Mongoose Traveller.
Cold Space is pretty much what it says on the tin; the Cold War after FTL drive has been discovered. The timeline is continued with FTL Now and fall of the Soviet Union.
Both of those games use the StarCluster system.
D6 Space is WEG Star Wars with the serial numbers filed off to provide a generic game. It also has the benefit of being free!
The original West End Games Star Wars system, as opposed to WotC`s later D&D derived version was a reasonable fast and easy to play system that managed to capture its source material resonably well.
The first edition was a bit buggy in places but they fixed most of the problems in the second edition.
The first edition was a bit buggy in places but they fixed most of the problems in the second edition.
Fantasy Flight Games' Star Wars is conceptually similar to WEG 1E to a great degree. including the movement rules being too abstracted. Edge really captures the feel of the Han Solo trilogy, and can get that Ep IV vibe going, too.
I like it as well as, if not a bit more than, WEG.
sarahnewton
SOC-9
Hi everyone,
I thought I'd just chip in and mention "Mindjammer - Transhuman Adventure in the Second Age of Space", our new far future science-fiction RPG using the Fate Core system, which has just launched. It's available for pre-order now, with an immediate download of the "Thoughtcast Edition" pre-release PDF, with the production PDF end of month and 496-page hardback at the end of March.
Mindjammer is actually the second edition - first ed was a Starblazer Adventures transhuman space opera supplement which won an ENnie Judges Spotlight in 2010. The new edition's massively expanded, and a complete standalone RPG. It features virtual realities, sentient starships, realistic aliens, and mysterious worlds; you can play hardened mercs, cunning traders, steely-nerved pilots, intrigue-filled spies and culture agents, aliens, divergent hominids, artificial life forms, and even sentient starships.
The game has its own default setting - the New Commonality of Humankind - but is also intended as a ruleset you can use for any science-fiction setting. It's also very modular, and rules like worlds & civilisations, stellar bodies & star systems, and alien life may be of interest to folks here at CotI.
You can check out the www.mindjammer.com website for previews, downloads, artwork maps, samples, and much more information about the game, and of course I'd be more than chuffed to answer any questions.
Thanks for reading!
"Grab your blaster, thoughtcast your orders to the starship sentience, and fire up the planing engines — come and defend the light of humanity’s greatest civilisation as it spreads to the stars!"
Cheers,
Sarah
I thought I'd just chip in and mention "Mindjammer - Transhuman Adventure in the Second Age of Space", our new far future science-fiction RPG using the Fate Core system, which has just launched. It's available for pre-order now, with an immediate download of the "Thoughtcast Edition" pre-release PDF, with the production PDF end of month and 496-page hardback at the end of March.
Mindjammer is actually the second edition - first ed was a Starblazer Adventures transhuman space opera supplement which won an ENnie Judges Spotlight in 2010. The new edition's massively expanded, and a complete standalone RPG. It features virtual realities, sentient starships, realistic aliens, and mysterious worlds; you can play hardened mercs, cunning traders, steely-nerved pilots, intrigue-filled spies and culture agents, aliens, divergent hominids, artificial life forms, and even sentient starships.
The game has its own default setting - the New Commonality of Humankind - but is also intended as a ruleset you can use for any science-fiction setting. It's also very modular, and rules like worlds & civilisations, stellar bodies & star systems, and alien life may be of interest to folks here at CotI.
You can check out the www.mindjammer.com website for previews, downloads, artwork maps, samples, and much more information about the game, and of course I'd be more than chuffed to answer any questions.
Thanks for reading!
"Grab your blaster, thoughtcast your orders to the starship sentience, and fire up the planing engines — come and defend the light of humanity’s greatest civilisation as it spreads to the stars!"
Cheers,
Sarah
CT Still the first and my favorite. The additional data in the Megatraveller rules added more depth and scope.
TNE Interesting premise,the AI Virus sounded like Maxmium Overdrive meets the Cylons
Space Opera Good game, the character generation was a bit complicated though. We still use the added settings and races as material for my Traveller Game. ( all that space past foreven don'cha know )
Star Trek another all time favorite and I like their Klingons much better than the ones that showed up in TNG
Other Suns Never played it but used the races to add flavor to my Campaign
Space 1889 Never played it but enjoyed reading the books, and now enjoying the novels.
Never played Star Wars, 2300 or Aftermath. Borrowed aliens from 2300 and Star Frontiers though
TNE Interesting premise,the AI Virus sounded like Maxmium Overdrive meets the Cylons
Space Opera Good game, the character generation was a bit complicated though. We still use the added settings and races as material for my Traveller Game. ( all that space past foreven don'cha know )
Star Trek another all time favorite and I like their Klingons much better than the ones that showed up in TNG
Other Suns Never played it but used the races to add flavor to my Campaign
Space 1889 Never played it but enjoyed reading the books, and now enjoying the novels.
Never played Star Wars, 2300 or Aftermath. Borrowed aliens from 2300 and Star Frontiers though
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Space Opera has a really good combat system, it's just not the one you are supposed to use. There are optional rules for resold combat, I found that I could adapt those to become the core combat mechanic for the game.
Character generation is a mess, nothing can fix that apart form use BRP skill system.
Character generation is a mess, nothing can fix that apart form use BRP skill system.
