I'm sure we've covered this now and again, but I just got done with a writeup of a few space and sci-fi RPGs I recommend over at my blog (Traveller, StarCluster 3, HardNova ][, and Stars Without Number).

With that in mind, which space and sci-fi RPGs have worked best for you and your groups over the years, and what particularly did you or your groups like about them?

Quote from: Zachary The First;633657With that in mind, which space and sci-fi RPGs have worked best for you and your groups over the years, and what particularly did you or your groups like about them?

I've run pretty much nothing but my own game for sf since 2008, though we played with Mongoose Traveller, Starcluster 3, and 3:16 as well. I often go back to my roots with classic Traveller and Striker for ideas.

WEG Star Wars probably. Breaks down after a while because with high Skills there's little you can't do, plus it removed Stormtroopers as a threat. Still, there was a lot of exploding Imperial stuff to get through before then.

Starships and Spacemen would be a good generic sci fi game if hacked a little to remove all trace of Star Trek. Or perhaps use as is with the premise that the Federation has fallen into silence - Warp Speed is limited, communications are down and you're out there, alone. Every man, woman, pointy eared Vulcan-a-like for themselves. Those nutty Zangid/Videni are out there still mind.

Wanted to play Buck Rogers XXVC but my group had splintered by the time it came out, plus I was interested in other stuff. The computer games were great, good skill system, great fluff. Think Star Wars in a Solar System.

We tried Traveller, it was ok. Not enough exploding things for our group at the time and isn't combat lethal? Can't remember its been a while. Hell, character creation was lethal too, if I recall.

Star Frontiers
Simple system, fun aliens, interesting adventures and alien world (Volturnus!) While its system isn't new and wondrous it is a solid game and gives me a lot of good memories. My groups loved the spaceship combat and we had a blast exploring the worlds.

Starcluster 3
Its just such an awesome toolkit game. It needs a better layout, but the plug and play systems make it very functional and the cluster system and Bailey-Wolfe index materials are awesome.

Mongoose Traveller
Simple, functional version of Traveller, a great game and packed with fun things

Stars without Number
Much like Starcluster this game is awesome in so many ways. I've yet to play it but its a fun read.

Justifiers
Uplifted animals and planetary exploration via transmat drive, hard worlds and hard characters doing what they can to pay off their very existance.

Hellas
Just so fun, epic space opera and ancient greek myth feel. Can't go wrong there.


I'm a huge fan of SF, so it depends a lot on my mood which one is on the top at a given time.

Derelict Delvers will be there when its done and I'm hoping Hulks and Horrors!

I like Bulldogs! a lot. I think it's got one of the best, most colourful set of alien races available to player characters ( it's got urseminites need I say more?) and it's a nicely slimmed down implementation of Fate. The loose,largely implied setting very much nails the soft-sci-fi tone of Ice Pirates or Titan AE.

Historically I've been wedded to WEG Star Wars D6. I'm not even that big a Star Wars fan, but combination of the beautifully intuitive D6 rules with one such a well known licence make it the most accessible game ever made.

I loved 2000AD from when I was a kid so now for Sci Fi I take a 2000AD idea and run it with Savage Worlds. I did a whole Strontium Dog Mod that runs well but for other stuff, Rogue trooper, Meltdown Man, Street Football, VCs, Bad Company, Sinister and dexter etc you can run it out of the box basically.

So for Rogue Trooper you add the Biochip edge and the Immunity to toxins edge. etc etc

Classic Traveller has been my go-to scifi game.

Stars Without Number may not replace Traveller for me, but both sessions I have run have been great fun and I will run it again.

I got into Mechanoids again and the sessions were cool, but the effort I was putting into making it a Rifts hybrid got switched into work on my own game.

I have enjoyed Dark Heresy and hope to play more.

Deary me, I'm struggling to find any SF games on my shelf. There's my 30 year old copy of Traveller, and then...

GURPS New Sun. It is SF, honest. I don't think I'd ever find enough players with the patience to read Gene Wolfe in order to play, though. I guess The Chronicles of Future Earth would be more accessible.

Not really spaceships games, though.

Traveller is the one I keep coming back to. Classic, Mega, T20 and Mongoose versions have played well with my group. TNE and T4, not so much.

I've had some fun running Bulldogs, though I find I have to tweak the setting to be a bit harder. The races are an unexpectedly colorful and fun part of the game, though. Diaspora seems like a fun FATE variant with a cool setting builder, but I've never got a chance to actually play it. Starblazer Adventures I never got a chance to play either, but I found myself ripping it off for my retro SF homebrew Rocket Corps. SBA is such a bif SF toolkit that seems like it would lend itself well to many games based on properties (like the recently mentioned Last Starfighter, as well as my old favorites like Farscape.

When we are short of players in my normal Friday session, sometimes I'll pull out Danger Patrol, which isn't exactly traditional space opera so much as Buck Rogers meets Lensmen. And it's free; get it here: http://www.dangerpatrol.com/. The thing that's amazing about danger patrol is how it plays out like a nail-biting cliffhanger with the world going to shit around you, but I don't think it's suitable to campaign play.

I had a go at playing traveller in the 80s, which was kinda fun, but the campaign didn't last long and noone else wanted to run it. I would have liked to have given it more of a go though.

I ran Spacemaster 2nd ed in the 90s for several years, which was great fun.  Very detailed system, I got all the expansions like star strike for hex based space combat and armored assault for landside combat...
Great times, but I doubt I'd have the energy or time to do that again.

I've played and ran various versions of gammaworld over the years, which is a kind of scifi. Always good for a laugh.

Very recently, like weeks ago I tried out Stars without number. I liked it so much I have ordered the hardback.   Great stuff. I got the campaign module, hard light as well, which is worth buying.
sort of oDnD rules in space.
My kids love it too, who I mostly run it for.

I like Traveller, doesn't matter which version, for my sci-fi gaming. Star Wars is also a favorite of mine. I slightly prefer the WEG version; however, I can't find anyone to play it who can make a regular commitment and my fiancée rarely steps out of the d20 system (though she does love d20 Star Wars). Someday, when we can afford $30 for the new Fantasy Flight version, I'd love to try it.

Quote from: APN;633668WEG Star Wars probably. Breaks down after a while because with high Skills there's little you can't do, plus it removed Stormtroopers as a threat. Still, there was a lot of exploding Imperial stuff to get through before then.

I've been thinking that the difficulty system needs to be changed - i.e. by +5 or +10.

Most of my Scifi gaming has revolved around some version of Traveller - Mega, or Mongoose, or d20 (ugh). The lifepath system has typically been a hit with gaming groups.

I've played in one group that extensively used the Blue Planet setting, but not system - and, frankly, it's one of the best Scifi settings I've read. Near-future, soft-cyperpunk - a beautifully detailed, colonized waterworld.

I've got a soft spot in my heart for Jovian Chronicles, though I've never run it or played it. I like pieces of its setting: the colonization of our Sol system; the escalating solar-system-war. And I'm not really an anime-giant-robot fan.

Well, one reason I've put so much time and effort into sf game design is that I'm not really happy with most of them for one reason or another.

I love Traveller at its heart but Classic Traveller's good stuff is spread out between dozens of other books and Mega Traveller is an erratta catastrophe and TNE is interesting but weirdly broken in weird ways, T4 is close to perfect but very unpopular and the places where it's not perfect are very problematic, Mongoose Traveller is functional but goes down the usual path of error in taking away death in character generation which is essential to the balance of the system.  I think T5 might fix the character creation issue by making higher stats more likely to decline with aging but when we were playtesting it the system was so hard to follow and interpret that we gave up after three session.

I really loved Mechanoid Invasion book 3 and consider it the finest itteration of the Palladium system.  Buck Rogers XXVc is under rated and a very nice hard sf transhuman future.  Well except for the telepathic cats on Mercury, of course.  As much as it's reviled by the TSR fans for being Flint Dile's baby I think it needed a cartoon show.  It would have made a great 80s cartoon.

GURPS Space is technically very nice.  I've always felt that the third edition Tech Level effects were overstated, I think that's why I always misremember the weapons being completely unable to penetrate the armor.  But GURPS Space also takes almost as much work as designing your own game system.

Star Cluster runs a little too close to my own game in places and a little too far from it in others.  To be honest even thinking about it tends to suck the wind out of my sails when it comes to working about Galaxies In Shadow.  I think Star Cluster is a solid game that doesn't get enough love but it really deserves a hard cover edition with fantastic art and layout that a kickstarter could give it.

Quote from: Zachary The First;633657With that in mind, which space and sci-fi RPGs have worked best for you and your groups over the years, and what particularly did you or your groups like about them?

HERO, for all the reasons that HERO is awesome to begin with.

It does have a problem with Starships, and in some settings I've had to swap out to a set of home grown rules.

Quote from: gleichman;633764HERO, for all the reasons that HERO is awesome to begin with.

It does have a problem with Starships, and in some settings I've had to swap out to a set of home grown rules.

Brian, have you ever checked our StarCluster? Very robust game and toolkit. Just curious.