PDA

View Full Version : Sci-Fi System?



Novawurmson
2012-06-18, 12:09 PM
I'm getting an itching to run a sci-fi game in a high-technology, humans-have-populated-much-of-the-galaxy, somewhere-between-Firefly-and-Star-Trek, kinda game, and I'm not sure what systems to look at. I'm most comfortable with Pathfinder, but I'd need to do some serious revisions to the classes and skill system to make that work (among other things). I played Alternity when I was fairly young, but I remember the rules being needlessly complex.

What are some good systems out there for running a sci-fi game?

Mando Knight
2012-06-18, 12:23 PM
Star Wars SAGA could work after you rip out the Jedi. Like Pathfinder, it's based on the d20 system, and after you take out the Jedi it becomes a fairly basic Sci-Fi system.

Unless you want laser-sword-wielding psychic wizard-monks. Then you can leave the Jedi in.

Fireheart
2012-06-18, 12:26 PM
Traveller.

The Mongoose edition seems pretty reasonable. We're still working on the combat but when you add ships and lasers, it makes sense to be a bit more complicated. (And in this version, you can't die in character creation.)

We're actually getting ready to start a game with a similar concept. Center of Galaxy/Imperium/Star Wars Empire. Outer Rim/Firefly.

~Fireheart

hamlet
2012-06-18, 12:42 PM
Stars Without Numbers is good.

As is Thousand Suns.

Both very simple sci-fi games.

Alternity is still better, though.

The J Pizzel
2012-06-18, 01:26 PM
Star Wars SAGA could work after you rip out the Jedi. Like Pathfinder, it's based on the d20 system, and after you take out the Jedi it becomes a fairly basic Sci-Fi system.

Unless you want laser-sword-wielding psychic wizard-monks. Then you can leave the Jedi in.

This. SAGA is an amazing game. Just reflavor certain things and you're good to go.

TheThan
2012-06-18, 07:45 PM
Star wars saga is very good.

D20 modern-future CAN work, but you have to be very careful with the wealth system, as it’s easily broken.

I’m planning one that uses gamma world 3rd edition with a custom space battle system, which I need to actually start building.

Grail
2012-06-18, 09:02 PM
Alternity

or

True20, a generic d20 derivative that does this kind of game better than most. And it does away with horrible hit points.

Hylas
2012-06-18, 09:14 PM
Warhammer 40k. Choose from the Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader, and Deathwatch flavors depending on what you want to do.

Dark Heresy - Weaker starting characters, good for making specialists. Standard money system. Small scale.
Rogue Trader - Stronger starting characters (they start at 5000 xp compared to Dark Heresy) and the money system is abstracted for making large trades and dealing on a large scale.
Deathwatch - I haven't played or looked over this system, but I believe it involves space marine player characters.

Oh, GURPS, there's all sorts of various tech levels and tech paths you can go down. I've read over the future-tech books for 4e and it goes into detail for bio-tech, nano-tech, and other fun things.

Knaight
2012-06-18, 10:36 PM
Starblazer Adventures and Diaspora could work - Starblazer Adventures is better for Star Trek, Diaspora better for Firefly, so which of these is better depends on where in between you end up. Both are medium complexity, both use the FATE system, and both are fairly solid games. Other options include various Cortex games, including the Cortex Firefly game.

However, before any of these, I'd look into Bulldogs!. Like Starblazer and Diaspora, it is a FATE system game, but there is also a d20 incarnation. It's not as good, but the author is better with d20 than almost anyone else who has worked with it, and the d20 influence shines through in both versions, which should make it ideal for those who like Pathfinder.

Beleriphon
2012-06-18, 11:52 PM
Deathwatch - I haven't played or looked over this system, but I believe it involves space marine player characters.

Well, Space Marines that do D&D things at the behest of the Inquisition. So its a lot of "Go to X place and kill it with fire".

Trinoya
2012-06-19, 05:28 AM
I'm getting an itching to run a sci-fi game in a high-technology, humans-have-populated-much-of-the-galaxy, somewhere-between-Firefly-and-Star-Trek, kinda game, and I'm not sure what systems to look at. I'm most comfortable with Pathfinder, but I'd need to do some serious revisions to the classes and skill system to make that work (among other things). I played Alternity when I was fairly young, but I remember the rules being needlessly complex.

What are some good systems out there for running a sci-fi game?


If you're looking to sci-fi systems, the serenity game, star trek D20, star wars D20, and B5 systems all work well. Traveler is also pretty good.

That said, if you're looking into the premise of your game being somewhere between "firefly and star trek" but with a scope of "most of the galaxy is populated" then you are defiantly looking into the wrong sci-fi series for inspiration. In one universe they don't even have FTL, and in the other they most certainly have not populated much of the galaxy. Admittedly, both have lots of good technologies and concepts to pull from (so naturally don't limit yourself), but you'd be better off looking into sci-fi with actual galaxy spanning civilizations for an idea of how it would likely operate.

Siegel
2012-06-19, 05:47 AM
There is a normal Sci-Fi hack for Mouse Guard

There is also Burning Empires but i don't think you want to look into that one, extremly cool system but doesn't suit your premise i fear...

Hylas
2012-06-19, 10:44 AM
There's a Babylon 5 RPG? If it doesn't have the most amazing story and low-budget minis to play with then it just won't have the same atmosphere.

Novawurmson
2012-06-19, 10:52 AM
Only playing in a Babylon 5 RPG if Russians have separate stats from other humans.

TheEmerged
2012-06-19, 12:30 PM
Alternity is worth tracking down, especially at the power level you're discussing. The second-longest campaign my group has ever run used and enjoyed it.

Novawurmson
2012-06-19, 02:59 PM
I think the Alternity books are rotting at my parent's house. I'm actually going to visit tomorrow, so maybe I'll try to dig them out...

Wolf_Haley
2012-06-19, 03:52 PM
Eclipse Phase is an amazing book, and the PDF is free to boot.

Raum
2012-06-19, 09:38 PM
What are some good systems out there for running a sci-fi game?Diaspora. Break away from d20! ;)

eggs
2012-06-19, 10:12 PM
I default to Diaspora with scifi, so I'd support those suggestions.

And even if something else catches your eye, I'd give its SRD (http://www.vsca.ca/Diaspora/diaspora-srd.html) a look. Diaspora has some cool ideas in just its structure that you might want to crib for something else (and it's free to check them out).

Mando Knight
2012-06-20, 12:27 PM
There's also Mekton Zeta. Neat system focused on both human-scale characters and various mecha (using the Japanese definition... that is, any mechanical vehicle). The system was designed for humanoid robot action, but due to the rather freeform style of the mecha creation system, can be easily adapted to aerospace fighters or capital ships. (Though the expansion book, Mekton Zeta Plus, is needed if you want to do a lot of in-depth mecha creation.)

The caveats I'd note are that it has Reflexes as a god stat (followed by Intelligence, due to being skill-based) in combat, and the target numbers don't scale correctly (easy task for an average, untrained person has a ~60% chance of success, and 10% chance of success on an average task).

Hunter Noventa
2012-06-20, 02:42 PM
One option is the Palladium System (RIFTS et. al.) but it's pretty horrible to work with.

We're considering 4th edition shadowrun for a Mass Effect game, but it really depends on where your focus is, as to what system will work best.

is it character driven? Combat driven? What kind of combat?

The_Jackal
2012-06-20, 04:10 PM
Traveller.

Yes. Very yes.

Tetsubo 57
2012-06-23, 07:01 AM
I would choose Star Wars SAGA to run a Star Wars game. But I think Star Wars D20 would make an awesome generic SF system. Just take out the Force abilities. Plus it has the Ultimate Alien Anthology for loads of great alien races.

CET
2012-06-26, 05:45 PM
As is my custom, I'm going to plug open d6 (http://opend6.wikidot.com/). It's free, attribute/skill based (no classes, levels or hp), and has a pretty simple, intuitive system that still allows for the GM to tac the game out and add crunch.

Also, you can use all of the old West End Starwars books. And the fan material - so much fan material! Mostly on scribd - some wonderful geek named Thiago Aranha.

dps
2012-06-26, 09:21 PM
Traveller.



You might also want to look into 2300 AD, if you like Traveller but want more of a hard-SF feel (it was originally going to be called Traveller 2300 or something like that, but they changed it because it's not really Traveller). The downside is that while Traveller products have been put out by other publishers since GDW went out of business, AFAIK 2300 AD died with GDW. The setting might also not be exactly what you're looking for, but it shouldn't be hard to adopt the system to a slightly different SF setting.

And of course, a hard-SF setting might not be what you want anyway.

Beleriphon
2012-06-27, 12:20 AM
You might also want to look into 2300 AD, if you like Traveller but want more of a hard-SF feel (it was originally going to be called Traveller 2300 or something like that, but they changed it because it's not really Traveller). The downside is that while Traveller products have been put out by other publishers since GDW went out of business, AFAIK 2300 AD died with GDW. The setting might also not be exactly what you're looking for, but it shouldn't be hard to adopt the system to a slightly different SF setting.

And of course, a hard-SF setting might not be what you want anyway.

Somewhere between Firefly and Star Trek is definitely a space opera style, hard sci-fi is probably not a good choice.

I like Star Wars Saga. D20 Modern using D20 Future can be fun. Mutants & Masterminds can work nicely, as can GURPS.

hamlet
2012-06-27, 07:32 AM
Actually, upon getting my hands on a copy of Thousand Suns at last, I can heartily recommend it.

Very simple in terms of design. Very easy to use and adapt. Very geared towards "Imperial Sci-Fi" as in the type of sci-fi from its heyday with Bradbury, Assimov, and etc. I think that, for simple and easy to use systems for Sci-Fi, it really is quite excellent. Surprisingly so.

Mando Knight
2012-06-27, 11:17 AM
Somewhere between Firefly and Star Trek is definitely a space opera style, hard sci-fi is probably not a good choice.

I like Star Wars Saga. D20 Modern using D20 Future can be fun. Mutants & Masterminds can work nicely, as can GURPS.

They're still a "harder" SF than Star Wars. The thing with SW SAGA is that laser guns are fairly lethal (a single hit is likely to take out a low-level character, and HP is fluffed also as not just toughness but also a bit of luck etc.), it supports all your basic Space Opera/space-SF material (hull armor, deflector shields, torpedoes, laser guns, smugglers, starship captains, androids, psionics, laser swords, capital ships and starfighters...), and once you strip the Star Wars specific names and materials (remove Jedi and the Force... Force Points are easily reflavored as Psi or Action Points, the Force is another name for psionic powers) it becomes a fairly generic Space Opera/Sci-Fi system.

Gavinfoxx
2012-06-27, 11:25 AM
For Space Opera, I will definitely second Open D6 / D6 Space. I would not suggest any of the WH40K systems for that, they are too narrow and crunchy and complicated and limited in options due to the requirements of the lore.

Driderman
2012-06-27, 01:25 PM
Savage Worlds is pretty-rules light and good for everything. I'm sure there are space splatbooks for it too, if you don't want to homebrew your own space-themed advantages and skills. It can be a bit on the lethal side in respects to combat, so be sure to keep that in mind if you use it.
I generally find that for space-theme games you need to keep the rules light or you risk ending up with anendless amount of rules for alternate ammo, spaceship stats, alien races, specialised tech skills and all sorts of other balony, which'll drown out the actual game if you're not careful.

Ravens_cry
2012-06-27, 01:27 PM
There is a normal Sci-Fi hack for Mouse Guard

Do you still play as mice?