Airship Combat RPG

[Kharthus0716]

Hello friends,

So I have recently finished reading the Cinder Spires, and I kind of want to run a game based in that world, with the characters being on board an airship, (possibly in command, deciding that later) and partaking in airship to airship combat, including boarding actions, and salvaging them as well, now, I was thinking of using one of the very few airship based RPG's, but finding a good workable airship combat system seems more difficult than I had thought. I need something that is number crunchy, and not too complicated, I had thought of just using Mongoose traveller, and just changing the rules to reflect Airships, instead of space ships, but that could take a lot of time, and possibly time that I do not have.

TL;DR I need a well working Airship combat system.

Thanks everyone.

[Sacrieur]

Ever played Skies of Arcadia?

Yeah, that.

[Kharthus0716]

Was that made into a Pen and paper RPG?, I was not aware, and seem unable to find mention of it online

[Tvtyrant]

I would get the Stormwrack book and just modify the ship rules from that. More complicated would be using the spelljammer rules, which work in 3D but involves gravity wells.

[hamlet]

The Champions of Mystara boxed set from BECMI D&D has rules for this straight up. Not too difficult I'd imagine to update it to whatever system you might want to use, or just stick with BECMI. Create a few rules for cannon and you're all set.

[Telok]

I was recently reminded of Space: 1889. It had a skyship module or splat or something. I have no idea how you would find a copy to look at though.

[Mutazoia]

Look up a copy of the old Spelljammer setting...this should cover more or less exactly what you are looking for. It was designed for flying ships in a fantasy setting.

[JoeJ]

Look up a copy of the old Spelljammer setting...this should cover more or less exactly what you are looking for. It was designed for flying ships in a fantasy setting.

You don't have to look far, it's right here. On sale, even.

[Knaight]

Just how number crunchy do you want? To use things more towards each end, Swashbuckler of the Seven Skies has some crunch to it but is pretty light, and should work beautifully. As always, GURPS is a functional option, but it's extremely crunchy. In the middle there's less that I know about, but you might be able to hack Warbirds into functioning. It emphasizes planes pretty heavily, but there are airship rules, though the focus there is on plane-airship fights.

[ZenoForce88]

Cubicle7 has a book out called Airship Pirates, it's pretty light weight, yet robust at the same time. The game was actually sparked based on the songs by the Steampunk Bang Abney Park. It uses a "Lite" verson of the same system used in their Victoriana Game, but the two are similar enough that you could easly bring the rules over from Victoriana to add some crunch, or fantasy elements such as magic.