Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Future Wars => Topic started by: Bahir on January 09, 2022, 08:50:14 PM
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Hi all,
I quick question for the collective. Some of my gamer group has indicated a desire to try doing a Sci-Fi RPG. I've got the mini's and scenery, but I'm not sure what rule sets to explore.
In the distant past, I've played Classic Traveler and Mega Traveler and over the holidays D&D5E
Do you have any recommendations of Sci-Fi based RPGs? I'm looking for an easy-to-understand rule set that is not too expensive. If it allows for customizable races that would be a bonus!
Thanks in advance!
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Basic Role Playing from Chaosium,it’s got everything,and if it doesn’t it’s easy to stat up :)
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There's a wealth of stuff out there at the moment, just depends on what you want to do.
For "extant" universes, Doctor Who, Star Trek and Star Wars all have currently-published games that are fun and capture the mood of the setting well, plus the West End Games Star Wars has been re-issued if you don't mind a more clunky system for the oldschool feel. If you can find it, the 40k Rogue Trader RPG by Green Ronin is actually excellent and doesn't need to get tied down in all the "typical" 40k stuff if you don't want it to.
The Expanse and Firefly also have RPGs but work well as "generic" settings as well, if you want something solid to build your own world around. There are add-ons for Fate and Kids on Bikes if you want something light and quick to play, plus plenty of Cyberpunk games have space options, notably Ex Machina and Noise.
Hopefully that's not too much to go on.
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For the game (miniatures), bearing in mind the KISS
(Keep It Simple Stupid) rule, I would recommend
Galactic Heroes from the Fist Full of Lead stable of games.
They are quick to learn, easy to add local/scenario rules &...
FUN. :D
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Savage worlds is a nice simple ish RPG with good sci-fi support and very suited for miniature play, it works well with a good smattering of npc allies under player support as well for those larger fights.
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I'd second Basic Roleplaying and recommend Traveller too (I know you know it, but it's definitely worth a second look); both have a strong emphasis on skills that's important for sci-fi games (Can someone hack the security system? Does anyone know how to fly this thing?). I don't think adding your own species to Traveller would be hard, and you could use the Droyne, Aslan and Vargr as templates or pointers.
It might be worth getting the free version of Stars Without Numbers (https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?action=post;topic=134966.0;last_msg=1713634). I haven't played it, but it's a very exciting ruleset.
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Have a look at some of the Two Hour Wargames games. A lot of their 5150 games are defined (by them) as RPG lite.
https://twohourwargames.com/scifi51urrer.html (https://twohourwargames.com/scifi51urrer.html)
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Maybe the old Star Frontiers RPG is an easy to understand and cheap one, there is plenty of stuff avaiable for free as magazines and well written adventures. Not really a RPG but a Boardgame with RPG elements and for free is the old SPI Freedom in the Galaxy. SPI has also released the first sci fi RPG Universe.
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Just had another look at Stars Without Numbers. It allows all kinds of alien PCs and has lots of stuff on creating your own species.
The game runs on an old-school D&D framework (much simpler than 5e D&D) and has a full suite of skills and backgrounds, as well as a ton of random-generation stuff for the GM. It's clearly influenced by Traveller, but it's more accessible, I think. The rulebook is an amazing thing to be made available for nothing: fully illustrated with 250+ pages.
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A lot of it depends upon what you want.
For a more Pulp scifi, I actually took the Star Wars: Saga Edition rules, pulled the force use out and just re-themed it and everything worked quite well. You could even keep the force use and ditch Jedi and lightsabers and it still works well if you want psionic abilities there and the higher adventure feel to it.
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Or, you could just use the rules you are used too? D&D rules applied to a Sci-Fi setting?
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Savage Worlds and Stars Without Number, mentioned above, support or should be easy to use with miniatures and shouldn't be hard to make DIY alien types with - I've played a Savage Worlds space opera game with several playable species created for it.
Traveller is still around in various versions - the edition from Mongoose (https://www.mongoosepublishing.com/rpgs/new-traveller.html) is best known for its adventure series The Pirates Of Drinax (bias note: I know the head writer) and there's an open content free derivative called Cepheus (https://www.paulelliottbooks.com/what-is-cepheus-engine.html) as well, among others.
For something close to D&D, there's Starfinder (https://paizo.com/starfinder) the space-based fantasy spinoff from Pathfinder.
While it has a more abstracted combat system, Ashen Stars (https://pelgranepress.com/2010/07/09/ashen-stars/) (bias note: I know the publisher) also covers the "small ship and crew getting in trouble on the frontier" subgenre well, with some adventures worth checking out for any game in that style. Since the background for Stargrave (https://ospreypublishing.com/stargrave) reminded me of it, I wonder if one could swap it in as a combat system, or another skirmish game like Rpgue Stars (https://ospreypublishing.com/rogue-stars) or the not-quite-RPG solo wargame Five Parsecs From Home (https://www.modiphius.net/products/five-parsecs-from-home).
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Galactic Hero’s from FFOL. It’s the way forward.
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Definitely look at Savage Worlds. It's got everything you are looking for. Easy to learn the rules and easy to transfer to other genres. The best game for tabletop miniatures with scope for bigger battles ( have done up to one hundred per side but it took a while). Lots of fan and retailer content too. Rules light enough that anyone can play. It's so good I rarely run anything else these days.
Traveller us good to. Great background if that is what you want. The rules make it quite system specific. You can have your own world but ship combat is hard to turn into anything other than what it is