Quote from: Zachary The First;633780Brian, have you ever checked our StarCluster? Very robust game and toolkit. Just curious.

I've heard nothing about the system that would appeal to me, but then again almost no one including the author ever talks about system these days. It may as well be a black hole.

Unless it's starship combat system includes robust power allocation, hex-based significant maneuver, non-ablative damage, non-ablative shielding, and the option for single weapon attacks instead of the so boring 'fire everything at everybody mass fire'- I'm not interested.

Loved Star Frontiers, i think the art brought it to life, at the time that is!

Another vote for Hard Nova II, Metamorphosis Alpha and Gamma World as sci-fi worlds if not a different genre, always loved Traveller but found it too dry. Starblazer Adventures was my attempt to put all the good ideas in one place.

Mutant Chronicles will be fun to bring back again too!

Traveller and Metamorphosis Alpha - the originals of both.

I love SF but I have very little SF gaming under my belt. Most of it was WEG (D6) Star Wars (several games including an epic Old Republic campaign, well before the prequels came out), with GURPS Space a distant second. I did play a few sessions of WotC d20 Star Wars (1e) shortly after it came out. And then, for the better part of a decade, nothing.

In the last few years I've been trying to get more SF gaming done. I ran a Mongoose Traveller mini-campaign that got mixed reception with my group. I ran a single Starblazer Adventures game but the system didn't click with me. I've got Stars Without Number and D6 Space in PDF just begging to see serious use, and I've also got Eclipse Phase in print and I'm dying to give it a try.

Another game that I've owned in PDF for some time now, that looks very, very interesting, is Bill Coffin's Septimus. The drama surrounding Eric Gibson's catastrophic mismanagement of WEG made this game stillborn. Nevertheless it's an interesting setting, and a great supplement to a D6 Space game if you want to introduce transhuman elements such as nanotech and genetics.

Nevertheless, I haven't given up on Traveller. I've picked up 2300AD last year, Paul Elliott's Orbital (hard SF, STL Solar System Traveller campaign setting) this year, and I'm looking forward to snagging the Mongoose Traveller: Prime Directive setting book.

As usual, the problem here is having too many games, and too little time to game.

"Sci Fi" is a little too broad a category for me to chose a favourite, so I'll divide it by genre:

For Space Opera my fav is hands down WEG's Star Wars, 1st Edition.

For "realistic" Space Fiction I'd go with classic Traveller.

For straight "science fiction" (the exploration of the affect of a new technology on society, meaning everything from Robocop to Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy), I'd go with my house system, Phaserip, unless I wanted to get all nitty gritty with the science, in which case I'd use GURPs 3rd Edition.

for Space Fantasy I'd use Doctor Who: Adventures in Time & Space

I love me some Star Frontiers. Back in the day, and in more recent times. Perhaps not as shiny as newer games. But we have fun just the same:)

The space RPGs that I like are ones that both emulate the genres very well and are easily adaptable. Traveller (all), WEG d6 Star Wars, LUG Star Trek, Mekton II and Mekton Zeta, Jovian Chronicles, and Cyberpunk 2020 (Near Orbit and Deep Space).

I keep coming back to Traveller and WEG d6 Star Wars as the top two. WEG d6 Star Wars is science fantasy and emulates the Star Wars universe to my satisfaction, Traveller is medium hard science fiction and emulates many of my favorite authors works. They are two different tools for two different genres, each can be pushed into use for the other but it is not a really good fit when done.

A lot depends on what you are looking for in a space RPG.

I've always got a couple of one-shots for HardNova ][ on standby when something SF is required *now*. When it comes around to my next long campaign, I'm leaning towards Hellas, though something EABA is always a possibility.

Quote from: Ronin;633868I love me some Star Frontiers. Back in the day, and in more recent times. Perhaps not as shiny as newer games. But we have fun just the same:)

Had a lot of fun with that one back in the day. Still remember the ads in Marvel comics for the game back in the early 80s. Unfortunately, while living in Texas, the game was ruined for me by a surprisingly racist game group I played with once.

Our group cut our teeth on SpaceMaster but in the end I got some Alternity books and that always worked for us. I grabbed some Starcraft mods for the game and we played that for a long while.

It suited us by being generic enough to cater for whatever whim we were after.

Quote from: Zachary The First;633780Brian, have you ever checked our StarCluster? Very robust game and toolkit. Just curious.

Not a game for Mr. Gleichman, Zachary. Not a game for lots of people. Most aren't looking for the things it does.

-clash

Quote from: flyingmice;633895Not a game for Mr. Gleichman, Zachary. Not a game for lots of people. Most aren't looking for the things it does.

-clash

You know, in making my list, I started thinking about how it's pretty cool how different games can offer such different gaming experiences, yet still be enjoyed by the same group. Neat stuff.

Well, I suppose if I was worried about only liking stuff that was super-popular and in at the moment, I'd be on a different message board....or in a different hobby.

Quote from: Zachary The First;633899You know, in making my list, I started thinking about how it's pretty cool how different games can offer such different gaming experiences, yet still be enjoyed by the same group. Neat stuff.

Well, I suppose if I was worried about only liking stuff that was super-popular and in at the moment, I'd be on a different message board....or in a different hobby.

Excellent points!

-clash

Also, I really want to run Space Master 2nd edition one of these days. I've messed around with SpaceMaster: Privateers, but I've heard SM2 was a superior game. I need to grab those pdfs from RPGNow and see what I think. It looks like the print boxed set is fairly expensive, though.

I still think Space Master Privateers gets a bum rap.  The biggest problem is the last minute format change from a two box Future Law and Tech Law to a single core book and three Tech Law books.  It makes the game an editing and organizational nightmare.  The setting is too stripped down in the core to really show any depth at all.  They'd have been better salvaging the dozen odd pages spent on fluff fiction with the full skill and talent system and more vehicle stuff and putting in generic furry races.

The problem is that while the races stats fit for the Privateers setting, they're massively over powered relative to the fantasy races.  Want a human who makes a high elf look underpowered?  The humans from Privateers do.  Want a combatant who makes a high elf look slow?  A Valiesian or Falaris does that without breaking a sweat.  Want to break trolls over your knees like kindling?  The Kagoth can.

If they had wanted the setting to be more popular, more of the background from the Future Law book would have helped.  It puts some flesh on the skeletons and makes all the races but the Valiesians look a lot better.

Incidentally I believe the ancients that seeded the seven races around in a grand experiement were the Valiesians.  It would explain why Earth was originally engineered for them.  An odd hanging detail.  I also suspect that the reason the sensenet is eating any robot that logs in is because there's a conspiracy among the Xanotasian and a brain tape of one of their queens has taken over the public network.  It likely ties into the Kagoth "psychic plague" that's turning them from pascifists to killers.  If they're routinely logging into the sensenet it seems likely the slow aggregation of subliminal cues could be responsible.  Why?  My guess would be that in their great psychic wisdom the Xanotasian Queens have predicted that the Falar will eventually destabilize and overthrow any interstellar government and that any peace would only last a generation and lead to a greater war.  Of course, Robert Defendi won't say and ICE never did get the actual setting books out.