Your Favorite non-GDW Scifi RPG, Part 2

[G. Kashkanun Anderson]

What? No Metamorphosis Alpha?

Seriously, that's the only other SF RPG I ever played. A friend of mine had a copy back in the seventies, and we played a couple of sessions of it.

The fact is I discovered Traveller practically within a few months of getting into Role Playing (through D&D, natch), and never really took any interest in any other Sci-Fi RPG stuff.

Frankly, there really wasn't any time; we played a lot of Traveller in those days, and whatever RPG time that remained was split pretty evenly between D&D and C&S (Chivalry & Sorcery).

Man, I wish I still had that Big Red Book; but it completely disintegrated after years of reading and referencing ... reading and referencing ... and referencing ... and referencing ...

 

[beowulf2044]

Time Master? Oh, yeah. I love Time Travel games, and adopted Traveller for use in a long running Time Wars campaign (it's still going on). There was also Greg Porter's Time Lords, which ranked right up with Space Opera as having a plethora or rules that made the game as such just about unplayable (of course, you could throw out everything you didn't need or want; for me that reduced everything to the size of a phamphlet).

 

[Marchand]

No StarCluster?!

I've been picking up some PDFs. I particularly like their spacecraft design sequence.

It's indie press and needs a lot of fleshing-out, but I mainly buy stuff to pilfer for my own system and setting, so that's the way I like it. And indie press has some beneficial aspects. Two of the PDFs I bought (for USD2.50 each, if I remember rightly) turned out to be, more or less, duplicates. I received an email from the author kindly offering me a refund or voucher towards another book.

Anyway, it's clearly Trav-inspired, but with a slightly less "retro" feel - e.g. there is a biotech supplement. The literature it reminds me most of, in overall feel, is Iain M Banks' non-Culture SF. Which is a good place to be.

 

[calmar11]

UNIVEEEEEEEERSE !!!

Difficult answer....but I saw lately you named Universe !!!

So.....

Of course SPI's Universe !!!!!
Absolutely !!!!!

My favorite SF game !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (...I love MT , and , for sure, but Universe is in my heart.. )

 

[Quint]

I have to say, including Shadowrun but not Cyberpunk 2020? At least Cyberpunk actually gave you two supplements for space. Did Shadowrun even give us that much..?

D.

 

[thalassogen]

I like Mindjammer (Fate Core).

 

[robject]

No Gamma World?

Not that it matters. I outgrew it fast.

 

[agorski]

Although it's pretty much unplayable (chargen takes hours!), I always thought that Space Opera had a lot in common with Traveller. It even had an equivalent to Striker in FGU's Space Marine miniature rules.

 

[aramis]

Although it's pretty much unplayable (chargen takes hours!), I always thought that Space Opera had a lot in common with Traveller. It even had an equivalent to Striker in FGU's Space Marine miniature rules.

I was able to walk people through CGen with 30 min and a calculator...
It was very parallel. Mechanically, it was closest to TNE.

 

[calmar11]

Space Op'

I have Space Opera, we always had it, but were so afraid : we never played it.
Character creation was a mess, we took hours to create them. Its true it was based on Traveller, as all old SF games. I think I we were to young to play Space Opera, it was the era of very complicated systems. Maybe at these days, Space Op' was the only choice to play """realistic""" SF system. ( in the 80's to 90's , complication = realistic , which was not rarely true !). We tried a lot of SF rpg's ( Space Master, Star Wars 1st ed. , Traveller, Megatraveller, Star Frontiers, Universe, Empire Galactique, Mega II ( these 2 are french SF games, excellent ), and some others... ) , but SF rpgs weren't really loved in France , I never understood why...I am a great fan , but it was always extremely hard to motivate players...in France, it was the realm of Fantasty, and now really grotesque and impossible to believe settings...
Well...
Talking about the topic, there are a lot of fans of Space Op' around the world , and I understand it !!!

It's still a great game ! The 3 supplements about Starships is worth a look , and sectors are useful ( thanks to Traveller, again... )

 

[aramis]

I have Space Opera, we always had it, but were so afraid : we never played it.
Character creation was a mess, we took hours to create them. Its true it was based on Traveller, as all old SF games. I think I we were to young to play Space Opera, it was the era of very complicated systems. Maybe at these days, Space Op' was the only choice to play """realistic""" SF system. ( in the 80's to 90's , complication = realistic , which was not rarely true !). We tried a lot of SF rpg's ( Space Master, Star Wars 1st ed. , Traveller, Megatraveller, Star Frontiers, Universe, Empire Galactique, Mega II ( these 2 are french SF games, excellent ), and some others... ) , but SF rpgs weren't really loved in France , I never understood why...I am a great fan , but it was always extremely hard to motivate players...in France, it was the realm of Fantasty, and now really grotesque and impossible to believe settings...
Well...
Talking about the topic, there are a lot of fans of Space Op' around the world , and I understand it !!!

It's still a great game ! The 3 supplements about Starships is worth a look , and sectors are useful ( thanks to Traveller, again... )

Space Opera isn't all that realistic. Most of its presumptions are in fact less realistic than Traveller across the board, at least for the science of the 1981 time-frame.

I happen to be looking at the "Space Opera II Development Pack" - which I got a link to from Phil Greggor, and have spot checked against my dead tree from '83... 2E was just a relayout at that point.

SO was class based -
Armsman, Tech, Scientist-Engineer, Scientist-Medical, Scientist-Research, and Astronaut. These determined skill costs.
Careers are resolved before taking skills, and rank achieved tells you certain minimum skills to buy. A few careers are class-restricted.

The primary career set is the SpaceForce... which is very much a "Star Trek Federation StarFleet with the serial numbers and GR's "no enlisted" both filed off."

The Ship Weapons are pretty much phasers and photons, renamed.. The ships use continuous speed drives - both sublight/impulse and warp... well, called TISA manoeuvre drive and Warp Drive (measured in LY/day).

It has a LOT more in the core than any pre-T5 edition of Traveller. As with Rolemaster, once you get mentally up to speed, it works fine... but that's not easy.

Oh, and ship combat is actually pretty fun, and VERY trek like.

And, as with everything FGU, acronyms are everywhere, and some are kind of humorous... BOSS, BRINT, IPA... 2E uses them less.

I don't know if 2E was ever actually released.... I do know Phil was a bit annoyed that (1) his name wasn't on the playtest cover, and (2) isn't in the text anywhere... and (3) that he hadn't been consulted at all about it.

I haven't heard from Phil in a few years now... His last post was 2013, but he logged in more recently.

 

[calmar11]

Thanks for all your precisions !

..I forget to name FASA' Star Trek RPG we loved to play ( and also the great Starship Combat system ! )

 

[RandyB]

Space Opera isn't all that realistic. Most of its presumptions are in fact less realistic than Traveller across the board, at least for the science of the 1981 time-frame.

I happen to be looking at the "Space Opera II Development Pack" - which I got a link to from Phil Greggor, and have spot checked against my dead tree from '83... 2E was just a relayout at that point.

SO was class based -
Armsman, Tech, Scientist-Engineer, Scientist-Medical, Scientist-Research, and Astronaut. These determined skill costs.
Careers are resolved before taking skills, and rank achieved tells you certain minimum skills to buy. A few careers are class-restricted.

The primary career set is the SpaceForce... which is very much a "Star Trek Federation StarFleet with the serial numbers and GR's "no enlisted" both filed off."

The Ship Weapons are pretty much phasers and photons, renamed.. The ships use continuous speed drives - both sublight/impulse and warp... well, called TISA manoeuvre drive and Warp Drive (measured in LY/day).

It has a LOT more in the core than any pre-T5 edition of Traveller. As with Rolemaster, once you get mentally up to speed, it works fine... but that's not easy.

Oh, and ship combat is actually pretty fun, and VERY trek like.

And, as with everything FGU, acronyms are everywhere, and some are kind of humorous... BOSS, BRINT, IPA... 2E uses them less.

I don't know if 2E was ever actually released.... I do know Phil was a bit annoyed that (1) his name wasn't on the playtest cover, and (2) isn't in the text anywhere... and (3) that he hadn't been consulted at all about it.

I haven't heard from Phil in a few years now... His last post was 2013, but he logged in more recently.

I loved the setting for it, too. One of my "I've got to use that somewhere" items comes from it: the Azuriach Imperium. Scary bunch, that.

 

[aramis]

Space Opera was unapologetic - both about it's being Space Opera and it's own complexity.

My favorite, tho, the MekPurr - Cross the Kzin with Scotty...

 

[Vargas]

The group I was in long ago tried Space Opera and we didn't really do more than a few sessions.

And since I didn't realize that there was a second part to this poll I'll repeat myself and say . . .

. . . still Thousand Suns.

 

[nats]

You forgot Elite Dangerous RPG

 

[aramis]

You forgot Elite Dangerous RPG

Very likely to be cancelled; Bell's rights were non-transferrably licensed, and Braben cannot legally license the RPG.

 

[Spenser TR]

Just saw this pop up... another vote for Shadowrun here, and certainly Eclipse Phase as well.

 

[Bravesteel]

I used all three of my votes in part 1, but I'd like to give an honorable mention to N.E.W. from W.O.I.N. by EN Publishing. Pretty solid, but light enough to just roll with it and have a good time.

 

[Thanos]

So now we have two of these polls. Is there to be a third one with all new games or a battle of the champions from the two polls? A third thread where we has out what this all means, if anything?