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Assuming you didn't want to go with Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader/Deathwatch, what system would you use to model the 40k universe?

GURPS, Traveller and RIFTS could all do it, what else?

Here's the criteria...
-classless
-levelless
-doesn't have to be gearhead, but should be higher then the tabletop level of granularity for weapons/armor, handling daggers to plasma cannons
-has some magic/psion system.

Wondering if there's any perfect game I'm forgetting. :D

Quote from: CRKrueger;408493Assuming you didn't want to go with Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader/Deathwatch, what system would you use to model the 40k universe?

GURPS, Traveller and RIFTS could all do it, what else?

Here's the criteria...
-classless
-levelless
-doesn't have to be gearhead, but should be higher then the tabletop level of granularity for weapons/armor, handling daggers to plasma cannons
-has some magic/psion system.

Wondering if there's any perfect game I'm forgetting. :D

Barbarians of the Aftermath uses 'Professions' as skills, but they're not really classes, so I'll throw that in the pot. I think the author is planning on releasing a free 'Future Heresy' setting that seems to be a send up of...well...you know.

If I were making it up from scratch I'd go with BRP... fast, deadly, gritty, versatile. I'd keep the sanity rules from CoC, turn on some of the powers... maybe even the 'fate' point option. Rename some of the weapons from Ringworld, Futureworld, Cthulhu Rising, etc... use the mutation rules and demon summoning rules from Stormbringer/Corum.

Sixcess would do it beautifully.

I might use Shadowrun 2nd or 3rd, in a pinch.

BRP or Unknown Armies would be ideal.

I actually saw a pastiche of 40k in AFMBE for Unisystem.  Like any of the various systems it needs fleshing out to be a complete 'product', but unlike many the system is simple and robust enough to handle it quickly.

Not my first choice necessarily however.

GURPS, of course, is near ideal. Pre-existing Psychic rules, Ultratech provides powered armor and rules for most (if not all) 40k style weapons (which, really: You mostly just need a believable statline and a block of flavor text...), and everything else is mostly modeled by having enough points to buy the various advantages.   Space Marines buy lots of strength and health, levels of hard to kill (or, if you REALLY want to get stupid wit' it, just point out every geneseed modification they actually have individually and construct it as a package deal..), inquisitors have law enforcement powers, patrons (the Ordos), and lots and lots of status.

Its also a hell of a lot of work and might be just a bit too un-cinematic for 40k.  40k is hellaciously cinematic (though, yes, very grimdark about it. But its anti-cinematic if your unstoppable killer fungus ork deathmachine goes down in a single second of autofire lazgun shots. Uncinematic means fragile BADGUYS too...)

Fading Suns!!!

Admittedly it's not just a system, it's a game too, that's so close to 40k it's already basically a 40k RPG.

I think EABA could handle 40K if you use the personality disorder rules to simulate being corrupted by chaos.

Savage World Necropolis book is very 40k-ish.

Also Mutant Chronicles and Waste World , if you can find them, share some of 40k aspects.

Finally D6 setting Septimus I think has some 40k aspects too (well any sci-fi game that put The Corruption and The Great Heresy in its setting is going to make you think og 40k at least a little).  And its free.

Fading Suns doesn't count, for many of the same reasons GURPS doesn't count: Fading Suns can do any form of Sci Fi without significant alteration of the base. Star Wars? Its in there. Dune? Its in there. 40k? Its in there.

Thanks for all the input.  BRP never struck me as a "plasma cannon capable" system, but Cthulhu Rising's making me reconsider.  I'll have to check out Septimus and EABA those are definitely two I hadn't considered.

Starblazer Adventures can do it in a pinch, and fulfills most of your criteria; however, the relative lack of granularity (particularly in regards to tech) might disappoint you.

I mean, a Superb (+5) particle beam cannon is little different from a Superb (+5) nuclear missile, especially if both have the "Dirty Radioactive Weapon" Aspect.

Waste World - abso-friggin-lutely.   It was also written by Bill King (who writes for GW) and its clearly his homage to a 40k RPG.  

It's an easy point-buy and you can easily put together all the 40k bits via the system and most of the 40k gear is there with serial numbers filed off.

BUT if you want to use 40k figs on the table and emulate the fiction of big ass battles with all sorts of crazy and the PCs as the big heroes of that universe....I would totally go Savage Worlds.

Ah... but can he FIND Wasteworld?

Eons ago I sold mine for beer money and I've regretted it ever since.

Third vote for Savage Worlds.  It fits all of your criteria and lets you use a lot of minis that will die real fast.

The only thing on your list somewhat "iffy" is robust armor armor.  I've yet to see a Savage Worlds supplement tackle an extensive armor list and make them all a lot different from each other.  I wonder if one of the other guys have.

Quote from: winkingbishop;409027Third vote for Savage Worlds.  It fits all of your criteria and lets you use a lot of minis that will die real fast.

The only thing on your list somewhat "iffy" is robust armor armor.  I've yet to see a Savage Worlds supplement tackle an extensive armor list and make them all a lot different from each other.  I wonder if one of the other guys have.

Yeah, that's a problem with Savage Worlds, BoL, etc all the rules light games tend to also be gear-light as there's not much granularity to them, nature of the beast.

As for Waste World, Noble Knight Games comes through again, will check it out and see.

There's Warp Cult (http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=72842), a fan-made game about 40k cultists.

I'd also vote for SW. There's a nice 40kish supplement called Necropolis.

It's not really dark millenium, but for fighty sci-fi games, I used to dearly love Battlelords of the 25th Century.

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http://friendfeed.com/metascape/8d738ebb/metascape-guildspace-rules-16-0
Of course, you'll need some crazy moon voodoo dice for that one.

Hmm I'll mention Amazing Engine's Bughunters! game (basically an Aliens ripoff setting). Just mentioning for completeness since I picked this up recently and its on my mind -  it did actually seem better than some of the other Amazing Engine products I own, though (I also have Magitech and Galactos Barrier, which are pretty lame).
Has reasonable grimdarkness and attribute-check-based-skills which are sort of Warhammeresque anyway. No magic system included unless you cross it over with one of the other Amazing Engine sourcebooks though - maybe in "For Faerie Queen & Country" (which I've never seen a copy of).

It seems to me that Bug Hunters was somebody's baby it also got a folio game.

I think we'd better add Gamma World first and fourth edition to the list.  GW covers lots of the stuff you'd want and the first edition in particular is not overly tied to classes and levels.

Now if you want to emulate some of the mechanical pecularities of the system TSR's old XXVc game would actually be a good pick because the weapon damages for the ranged weapons are very much in line with the hand to hand weapon damages.  Now it is a class and level game but if you decided to drop the classes and just count +1 to hit as costing 5 skill points you'd be able to drop the levels as well and just hand out skill points.

The Buck Rodgersy side of the game is actually pretty 40k as well when you really think about 40k's actual play as opposed to the fluff.

Quote from: David Johansen;409122It seems to me that Bug Hunters was somebody's baby it also got a folio game.

I hadn't known about the SNIPERS game folio for Bughunters, thou art most learned Papa Homer! Writer was Lester Smith (but..."original design by Zeb Cook?). I think it would have been near the end of the Lorraine Williams era - though I suppose she might have been there until TSR was actually sold (?). And the guy who did Galactos Barrier around the same time was the same  junior staffie who was asked to spy on Gary Gygax for TSR (Edit: Colin McComb).

There was a comprehensive fan made 40k rpg that used the same system as WHFRP1. Here it is. (http://www.goblin-online.net/fortyk/wfkrp.html)

The web page says that they took all that stuff down when Dark Heresy came out, but it's all still there in the zip file at the bottom of the page.  Looks pretty good, though I'm not averse to the "official" offerings.

Quote from: stu2000;409109I'd also vote for SW. There's a nice 40kish supplement called Necropolis.

It's not really dark millenium, but for fighty sci-fi games, I used to dearly love Battlelords of the 25th Century.

Tell us more about Necropolis and Battlelords!!!

Especially Battlelords.

Battlelords is, or was(?) rereleased recently.  Its very 'over the top' in writing and presentation, humans are sort of the 'lame duck' race, you can play a walking octopus with a taste for human flesh, a puddle of jello or a giant headed psychic (called a melonhead several times in the text. The race is the Mutzachan).

If you must play a human, there are six fingered, super cool dude orions and human clones that are both better than ordinary humans.

System wise its somewhat over the map. The damage/armor system was fairly innovative (armor has its own hit points, a hardness, and so forth, all fairly smoothly integrated on paper. I've never played it, however so i can't speak for at the table), and the skills are a percentage variant. The hard part would be the fiddly creation system. there are a LOT of attributes, fun random tables to roll on (at least one entry makes you a back-up musician for the pastiche of Pink Floyds 'Dark Side of the Moon'... the album is 'Purple Icecream has no bones' or some such...), and skills are somewhat interrelated in purchase (as I recall...) and have differing 'costs' from a pool, and different starting bases.

For a gear head, the weapons and armor are pretty good, and the supplement for both was top notch (this, unfortunately, I must speak to from distant, rather than fresh, memory), if somewhat 'old school science-y fiction-y.  No gauss guns, or really 'high tech slug throwers', despite lots of 'old tech slug throwers', and a few 'huh' weapons like Omega Guns (also known a Thud Guns. Fun name, big damage, but WHAT is it?

The author, however, was a crack addled monkey on speed with a fetishistic love of bad jokes, colloquialism and exclamation points.  Some of the art makes me think it should be 'Battle Lords of the 1980s'.

Any other questions?

Quote from: Spike;409341Battlelords is, or was(?) rereleased recently.  Its very 'over the top' in writing and presentation, humans are sort of the 'lame duck' race, you can play a walking octopus with a taste for human flesh, a puddle of jello or a giant headed psychic (called a melonhead several times in the text. The race is the Mutzachan).

If you must play a human, there are six fingered, super cool dude orions and human clones that are both better than ordinary humans.

System wise its somewhat over the map. The damage/armor system was fairly innovative (armor has its own hit points, a hardness, and so forth, all fairly smoothly integrated on paper. I've never played it, however so i can't speak for at the table), and the skills are a percentage variant. The hard part would be the fiddly creation system. there are a LOT of attributes, fun random tables to roll on (at least one entry makes you a back-up musician for the pastiche of Pink Floyds 'Dark Side of the Moon'... the album is 'Purple Icecream has no bones' or some such...), and skills are somewhat interrelated in purchase (as I recall...) and have differing 'costs' from a pool, and different starting bases.

For a gear head, the weapons and armor are pretty good, and the supplement for both was top notch (this, unfortunately, I must speak to from distant, rather than fresh, memory), if somewhat 'old school science-y fiction-y.  No gauss guns, or really 'high tech slug throwers', despite lots of 'old tech slug throwers', and a few 'huh' weapons like Omega Guns (also known a Thud Guns. Fun name, big damage, but WHAT is it?

The author, however, was a crack addled monkey on speed with a fetishistic love of bad jokes, colloquialism and exclamation points.  Some of the art makes me think it should be 'Battle Lords of the 1980s'.

Any other questions?

In the first place the orions have 7 fingers, not 6.

In the second, calling the author, Lawrence Sims, a "monkey" is racist as he is black, you know.

The rest of your comments re BL23C are essentially accurate.

The BattleLords comments are good. I'd simply add that it flows very smoothly at the table, and chargen doesn't have to be fiddly if you don't want it to be. I didn't realize it had been rereleased. It was a used $1 bin favorite for a while around here, as well as the Uncle Ernie's supplements. I imagine it wouldn't take long for stuff to come up on ebay or Troll & Toad or Noble Knight or whatever.

Necropolis 2350 is a SW licensed sourcebook by Paul "Wiggy" Wade Williams--who does so much of their official stuff--from an outfit called Triple Ace Games.
You can see it here:
http://www.tripleacegames.com/Necropolis.php

Sci-fi religious warriors fight a weird, undead menace. There's lots of unlikely military gear and vehicles, fake Latin, dark art--all the stuff you love from 40k.

I like the official 40k games just fine, but honestly, I like this better. I don't even like SW all that much, but I feel like this is a really good use for it. They have a lot of cool stuff for it at the site, but I haven't seen that much come through the flgs. As much as folks like SW and 40k around here, I'm not sure why that would be.

Ah, interesting.
Hmm Battlelords. Background roll system was interesting (interesting results, albeit limited - just the one table of highly defined concepts, nothing crazy like Central Casting's roll up system). Seemed to have alot of racial variation between characters in that each race had its own saving throw mods (whatever they were called), vision ranges and so on, and I thought Cybernetics costing CON points was interesting.

I was a little disturbed that the walking squids that eat human flesh are methane breathers. Never let biochemistry get in the way of a good story, though. Oh and genetically perfect superhumans like having especially ugly normal-human mates, for some reason ??

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;409362Ah, interesting.
Hmm Battlelords. Background roll system was interesting (interesting results, albeit limited - just the one table of highly defined concepts, nothing crazy like Central Casting's roll up system). Seemed to have alot of racial variation between characters in that each race had its own saving throw mods (whatever they were called), vision ranges and so on, and I thought Cybernetics costing CON points was interesting.

I was a little disturbed that the walking squids that eat human flesh are methane breathers. Never let biochemistry get in the way of a good story, though. Oh and genetically perfect superhumans like having especially ugly normal-human mates, for some reason ??

A nice detail was the fact that things made to be handled by each specific race had a modifier when used by another race due to the difference in anatomy.  The Phentari (The squids people keep talking about) were immune to this as their tentacles could wrap around any from. Also the mazians (blobs) could mold to any grip. Other races had trouble using a weapon made for a very different race.

The Genhumans tended to seek out "fugly" humans as mated because they were engineered to be beautiful, and had a perverse attraction to the unattractive as a symbolic rejection of obsession with beauty. Also, it was a sort of way of saying "I married a human, you can tell by looking."

Methane breathing life forms eating human flesh...not much to say there.

The saving throws were called "Survival matrix rolls" and  used to resist special types of damage and effects. Often equipment needed to make SMRs to survive EMP and electrical attacks. Nothing like surviving an arc thrower attack only to have most of your expensive weapons and equipment knocked out by it...

Quote from: Cylonophile;409384A nice detail was the fact that things made to be handled by each specific race had a modifier when used by another race due to the difference in anatomy.  

That is nice, I didn't notice that on my read through.

It did seem OK as a system - some quite good ideas here and there, overall fair implementation and nothing too much too complain about, I'm just a jerk and like nitpicking things.

I found it hard to read -in terms of 'grokking' the mechanics from reading the text, it was harder that I thought it should be given that it wasn't an epically complex system - but it did seem OK as a system. Despite my nitpicking, some quite good ideas here and there, overall fair implementation and nothing too much too complain about.

I got the impression it might be more fun to GM it than play?...I'm guessing it might have lots of PC disintegrations and Uncle Ernie's monsters look reasonably fun, whereas I guess PCs aren't going to be too deep or interesting. Again, just an impression, haven't actually played it.