best system for this type for fleet based combat / rpgs?

[Stormwolf69]

Ok, I am trying to set up a campaign for my game group. They said they wanted it to be either in the 40k (rouge trader) or the starwars saga. But here is the thing they have said that they wanted it to be fleet based. Were each player is a captain of there own ship. What system is the better one for fleet based action?

[Thrudd]

Battlefleet Gothic is an actual ship-to-ship tabletop combat game set in the WH40K universe. Its rules should still be downloadable somewhere if you hunt around.

There's also a Star Wars:Armada tabletop game currently produced by Fantasy Flight Games.

I'm not sure that any RPG alone would be great if the main focus is going to be space battles, there just isn't much tactical depth there. But you could homebrew a way to let the RPG and battle game intersect, the way Mechwarrior:RPG and Battletech did - replace the RPG's ship rules with the fleet battle game, and come up with some way for the RPG characters' abilities and actions to impact the battle.

[Beleriphon]

Saga isn't a bad choice. Ship to ship combat is interesting enough that you could fudge some stuff up for a player being commander of a ship. It doesn't it look it but a ISD-II can trash multiple smaller ships in combat pretty quickly. Like three rounds quickly, and still be in fighting form.

The way the rules work is that each character takes a role on a ship, and executes relevant actions. The Commander is such a role, but is mostly relegated to bonuses to other roles and what not. If you want different actions look at the maneuvers section of SotG. They'll probably be good inspiration for different "moves" a commander can make. Keep mind most of the rules are sort of predicated on the player using fighters, or taking specific roles as a group on one ship.

[DeTess]

battlefleet Gothic is an interesting ruleset, though it works best if you've got actual minis and stuff. It shouldn't be too hard to create some basic rules for unique captains for each ship as well (things like special orders, extra re-rolls for stuff and whatever).

[Knaight]

Warbirds could work for this pretty well, especially with the space supplement. By default it's geared more towards small fighters, but the rules are structured such that they'll scale up well.

[DeTess]

Warbirds could work for this pretty well, especially with the space supplement. By default it's geared more towards small fighters, but the rules are structured such that they'll scale up well.

That's quite true, though Warbirds does have a bunch of mechanics that are more geared towards their specific setting that you'd have to strip out (most of the stuff related to scandals and such). It's not that difficult to do, but something to keep in mind.

[Rhedyn]

Ok, I am trying to set up a campaign for my game group. They said they wanted it to be either in the 40k (rouge trader) or the starwars saga. But here is the thing they have said that they wanted it to be fleet based. Were each player is a captain of there own ship. What system is the better one for fleet based action?
I would do it in Savage Worlds (with Sci-fi companion), but that's because I've experienced that the Table Top Miniatures Rules for ships work just fine and the system then provides rules for all the other stuff you might want to do and handles players having a large amount of allies well.

Also 40K is a weird mesh of Sci-fi and Magic and my group likes traditional RPGs.