Cosmic ray exposure doubled beyond the edge of the solar system on entering interstellar space. I guess we are trapped here for all time.
What currently traps us is our lack of faster than light technology. By the time we have that, if we ever have that (and I think we will), cosmic rays will be a minor footnote. For that matter it's not an overwhelming problem even with our present level of technology.
From what I've learned from reading d20 Future, unless we find FTL we are simply not getting out of the solar system, ever, because the travel times even at near light speed are simply impractical.
Oh, forgot to add something. I wrote a highly detailed treatment of Robotech, after having been disgusted with the Palladium system.
I used d20 Modern for it, and a lot of tinkering with d20 Future.
You basically need a LOT of goofy shaped dice, as I did the best I could to minimize the number of dice needed once I sized up the weaponry, and the d20 Modern, d20 Future, and d20 Apocalypse books to play. You might want the Book of Erotic Fantasy for their d20 version of sex, but I can easily summarize the necessary stuff (the anime IS a romance after all).
That's it. Everything else is gravy. I have all the tech laid out already, including where and when it will become available.
private message me if you want a copy, and specify which era you want to start out with.
May I reccommend the new Star Wars game from Fantasy Flight, Edge of the Empire?
It's got the polish of a AAA, but the quirky soul of an indie game, weird custom dice and all. It hasn't been released in full yet, but the beginner's box is out now - me and the local gaming crew have had more fun with it than was expected, or may be entirely reasonable.
The basic mechanic has you add in dice for your aptitude, dice for opposition, and then dice for other factors, roll'm all, and then compare success, failure, advantage and threat.
Also Triumph and Despair, which work about how you'd think.
The most common result seems to be either succeeding - but with complications, or coming up short - but gaining some kind of useful edge in the process. It moves failure away from being a binary pass/fail thing, and for that, I adore it.
Would work fantastic for a Mass Effect-style game, in my opinion.
Additonally, I have a question for the thread: what's the feel of the Warhammer 40K games like? I've been interested for a while, but I've never gotten my hands on them.
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Fading suns. Yay theocratic empire in SPAAAACE!!!
May I reccommend the new Star Wars game from Fantasy Flight, Edge of the Empire?
It's got the polish of a AAA, but the quirky soul of an indie game, weird custom dice and all. It hasn't been released in full yet, but the beginner's box is out now - me and the local gaming crew have had more fun with it than was expected, or may be entirely reasonable.
The basic mechanic has you add in dice for your aptitude, dice for opposition, and then dice for other factors, roll'm all, and then compare success, failure, advantage and threat.
Also Triumph and Despair, which work about how you'd think.
The most common result seems to be either succeeding - but with complications, or coming up short - but gaining some kind of useful edge in the process. It moves failure away from being a binary pass/fail thing, and for that, I adore it.
Would work fantastic for a Mass Effect-style game, in my opinion.
I can't wait for them to release a Jedi volume
I can't wait for them to release a Jedi volumeRah rah Star Wars!
True thing. Of course, it's FFG, so it's a three-book series. Force-sensitives can be modeled in the beta (and presumably the core when it releases) but the Jedi book is the 3rd in the series. Fantasy Flight is no Paizo when it comes to releasing things on a schedule.
I've just started modding the system to account for higher-level Force-users.
But then, I don't think I've ever managed to play something RAW. I try sometimes!
May I reccommend the new Star Wars game from Fantasy Flight, Edge of the Empire?
It's got the polish of a AAA, but the quirky soul of an indie game, weird custom dice and all. It hasn't been released in full yet, but the beginner's box is out now - me and the local gaming crew have had more fun with it than was expected, or may be entirely reasonable.
The basic mechanic has you add in dice for your aptitude, dice for opposition, and then dice for other factors, roll'm all, and then compare success, failure, advantage and threat.
Also Triumph and Despair, which work about how you'd think.
The most common result seems to be either succeeding - but with complications, or coming up short - but gaining some kind of useful edge in the process. It moves failure away from being a binary pass/fail thing, and for that, I adore it.
Would work fantastic for a Mass Effect-style game, in my opinion.
The one thing about this game that makes me wonder is the custom dice. I have a ton of dice and every game seems to require tons of them. Buying a ton of dice that are useless for every other game on a game system which is incomplete, and may never be complete, is not something I want to do. It strikes me as a gimmick and as something to sell. So, do the custom dice make a big difference? Are there results on them that couldn't have been derived from reading regular dice? I've looked at it several times and ended up not buying it. What am I missing?
*edit* You could achieve a range of results just from reading the total of regular dice. I've seen systems where opposing dice subtract from a total as well...
@ R Chance - Well, having played the Star Wars: Edge of the Empire Beginner Game I can say the dice are really nice. It took less than 15 minutes for us to be able to intuitively read the results.
It was very fun, but not for everybody.
However, for those more budget-conscious (FFG products are always spendy), they do sell a Star Wars Dice App for the game, so you can do that instead of buying a whole slew of special dice.
(BTW: Custom dice seems to be FFG's new schtick--quite a few of their newer games use dice unique to those individual games.)
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Ok so lots of Alternity fans here I see. Let me ask you this then, besides races what makes it a good system? I can make up races easy thats not what I am worried about. I want a fast and furious combat system. I want some complexity but nothing that will drag. A lot of the systems I have seen so far are quick but kind of boring.
We played it to death when it came out and I collected all the supplements. The combat system is very 'D&D' but with the cool difference of having different types of damage (stun vs. lethal) for each weapon and depending on how well you hit. The skill/combat system is fast and the action moves at a good pace not really hampered by 'the system'. If your wanting the 'new' d20 approach to combat of players yelling I hit using the feat of 'Mantis Warrior Over-head Double-chop Disembowelment' you will find the system lacking. But if you want exciting abstract battles you'll like the system.
S.
@ R Chance - Well, having played the Star Wars: Edge of the Empire Beginner Game I can say the dice are really nice. It took less than 15 minutes for us to be able to intuitively read the results.
It was very fun, but not for everybody.
However, for those more budget-conscious (FFG products are always spendy), they do sell a Star Wars Dice App for the game, so you can do that instead of buying a whole slew of special dice.
(BTW: Custom dice seems to be FFG's new schtick--quite a few of their newer games use dice unique to those individual games.)
It's not the cost of the dice or the game so much as having to buy dice for one specific game system that may, or may not, end up being completed in any reasonable time frame. If they brought something special to the game that couldn't be done with ordinary polyhedral dice I'd be better with it. It's the "buy these dice because we want something extra to sell" vibe that bothers me.
Additonally, I have a question for the thread: what's the feel of the Warhammer 40K games like? I've been interested for a while, but I've never gotten my hands on them.
I have played in all the Warhammer 40k games, except Rogue Trader. I find them fun, but deadly. Depending on which game you play, changes the starting power level of the characters. The universe is grim, with no true good guys. The Imperium is controlled by an undead god-emperor, to whom they sacrifice 10,000 psykers a day to the golden throne. There are the xenos (aliens)who are considered a scourge to be eradicated, and some of them truly are. The last main faction is chaos, who are the evil bad guys. You can have fun playing them in Black Crusade. The main rules are pretty basic: roll percentile dice add or subtract modifiers, and compare to a target number. If you roll less than or equal to the target, you succeed. If you have any more questions, I can get into more detail.
It's not the cost of the dice or the game so much as having to buy dice for one specific game system that may, or may not, end up being completed in any reasonable time frame. If they brought something special to the game that couldn't be done with ordinary polyhedral dice I'd be better with it. It's the "buy these dice because we want something extra to sell" vibe that bothers me.@ R Chance - Well, having played the Star Wars: Edge of the Empire Beginner Game I can say the dice are really nice. It took less than 15 minutes for us to be able to intuitively read the results.
It was very fun, but not for everybody.
However, for those more budget-conscious (FFG products are always spendy), they do sell a Star Wars Dice App for the game, so you can do that instead of buying a whole slew of special dice.
(BTW: Custom dice seems to be FFG's new schtick--quite a few of their newer games use dice unique to those individual games.)
That's very reasonable. I've encountered other issues - namely, my girlfriend collects various dice, and she's not particularly enamored of the plain, primary colors of the custom dice next to her many interesting sets.
Having said that, you can play the game with a standard set of polyhedrals just fine - there's a little cheat sheet that lets you sub in your D6's, D8's and D12's. After a little while, it becomes pretty intuitive.
Having said that, I really do support the custom dice mechanic - it makes the game feel very unique, and the myriad narrative goodies generated by dice rolls are basically free candy for me & my players. At no point does it feel tacked-on to me. The designer goes into the philosophy behind the dice here in some detail. TL;DR version? Most games have binary pass/fail terminal outcomes. You roll dice, and it works or not. The custom dice give 250 different terminal outcomes - which sounds like a pain, but it's really just gradiated stages of 3 different axes. Most of the time, you'll either succeed with complications, or fall short while gaining some ground. It's very narrative.
Basically, you can do it with one set of dice that gets passed around (which is what we've done so far), and my group has enjoyed them an awful lot.
Your mileage, as always, is likely to vary.
Additonally, I have a question for the thread: what's the feel of the Warhammer 40K games like? I've been interested for a while, but I've never gotten my hands on them.I have played in all the Warhammer 40k games, except Rogue Trader. I find them fun, but deadly. Depending on which game you play, changes the starting power level of the characters. The universe is grim, with no true good guys. The Imperium is controlled by an undead god-emperor, to whom they sacrifice 10,000 psykers a day to the golden throne. There are the xenos (aliens)who are considered a scourge to be eradicated, and some of them truly are. The last main faction is chaos, who are the evil bad guys. You can have fun playing them in Black Crusade. The main rules are pretty basic: roll percentile dice add or subtract modifiers, and compare to a target number. If you roll less than or equal to the target, you succeed. If you have any more questions, I can get into more detail.
First of all, thanks!
Secondly, how is the feel of the combat? Is it tactical and lethal along the lines of XCOM (the video game), or is it closer to the high-HP d20 model like Pathfinder, or high-randomness like Savage Worlds?
Or is it not like those things at all?
The setting is just ridiculously rich, I wound up running a sort of miniseries in the universe, and I basically went diceless. Rogue Trader in particular really appeals to me.
I'm not sure how it plays, but the old West End Games company put out their D6 game engine as a generic OGL. That was the game engine they used for the original Star Wars rpg before they lost the license.
There are a bunch of supplements for it for different genres, and its all free.
Like I said I dont know how well it plays, but for that price, might be worth a look anyway.
Additonally, I have a question for the thread: what's the feel of the Warhammer 40K games like? I've been interested for a while, but I've never gotten my hands on them.I have played in all the Warhammer 40k games, except Rogue Trader. I find them fun, but deadly. Depending on which game you play, changes the starting power level of the characters. The universe is grim, with no true good guys. The Imperium is controlled by an undead god-emperor, to whom they sacrifice 10,000 psykers a day to the golden throne. There are the xenos (aliens)who are considered a scourge to be eradicated, and some of them truly are. The last main faction is chaos, who are the evil bad guys. You can have fun playing them in Black Crusade. The main rules are pretty basic: roll percentile dice add or subtract modifiers, and compare to a target number. If you roll less than or equal to the target, you succeed. If you have any more questions, I can get into more detail.First of all, thanks!
Secondly, how is the feel of the combat? Is it tactical and lethal along the lines of XCOM (the video game), or is it closer to the high-HP d20 model like Pathfinder, or high-randomness like Savage Worlds?
Or is it not like those things at all?
The setting is just ridiculously rich, I wound up running a sort of miniseries in the universe, and I basically went diceless. Rogue Trader in particular really appeals to me.
Combat is VERY deadly. Weapons do tons of damage, and you don't have much health to lose. Further, there is a body part system and a crit system that does everything it can to murder you. And some of those crits are really interesting: Detonations of grenades or ammunition that can really spread the misery. Plus, starter characters are weak and fail often.
First of all, thanks!
Secondly, how is the feel of the combat? Is it tactical and lethal along the lines of XCOM (the video game), or is it closer to the high-HP d20 model like Pathfinder, or high-randomness like Savage Worlds?
Or is it not like those things at all?
The setting is just ridiculously rich, I wound up running a sort of miniseries in the universe, and I basically went diceless. Rogue Trader in particular really appeals to me.
It is deadly as in depending on the weapons and talents the characters have and the qualities the weapons have, you can be one-shotted. You cannot go below 0 wounds, but that is when you start taken crits, which can kill you.
The basic way combat works is the same as I described in the previous post: Roll percentile add and subtract modifiers compare to your weapon skill. If you roll a success, you hit. your opponent can try a reaction which are dodge or parry, if he succeeds he avoids the blow, if he fails, you roll damage. You subtract opponents armour and toughness bonus (The tens number of his toughness stat.), If there is anything left over that is the amount of wounds taken.
Now I did say basic. The amount of reactions (base is one), number of attacks, if you get to subtract armour or toughness bonus, can all be affected by various talents and traits.
I hope this helps.
That's very reasonable. I've encountered other issues - namely, my girlfriend collects various dice, and she's not particularly enamored of the plain, primary colors of the custom dice next to her many interesting sets.Having said that, you can play the game with a standard set of polyhedrals just fine - there's a little cheat sheet that lets you sub in your D6's, D8's and D12's. After a little while, it becomes pretty intuitive.
Having said that, I really do support the custom dice mechanic - it makes the game feel very unique, and the myriad narrative goodies generated by dice rolls are basically free candy for me & my players. At no point does it feel tacked-on to me. The designer goes into the philosophy behind the dice here in some detail. TL;DR version? Most games have binary pass/fail terminal outcomes. You roll dice, and it works or not. The custom dice give 250 different terminal outcomes - which sounds like a pain,but it's really just gradiated stages of 3 different axes. Most of the time, you'll either succeed with complications, or fall short while gaining some ground. It's very narrative.
Basically, you can do it with one set of dice that gets passed around (which is what we've done so far), and my group has enjoyed them an awful lot.
Your mileage, as always, is likely to vary.
Hmmm. Well I might give it a go. You make it sound fun / interesting. The "cheat sheet" for standard dice sounds good, although it does make it sound gimmicky if they are not absolutely needed. Thanks for the information and the link.
I happen to like palladium's rifts... It's got gritty, perilous, takes the focus off of levelup ding, levelup ding... Has experience point tables that take the focus off of outright killing and instead being imaginative, intelligent and heroic/valiant... There isn't a single build anywhere in the system that doesnt have an 'achilles heel' somewhere else in the system, and for the most part you get all of your characters 'abilities' up front at character creation, so you dont have to waste valuable game sessions 'earning your build/character' and can get right into the meat of your campaign. Your character growth in terms of 'what new things you get as you level' is barely anything so instead (for our table at least) the game leaves you instead to develop the other elements of your character... Meaning plot/drama/tactics.
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So we ran the FFG SW edge of empire beginners box on Friday.
The good.
For me the narrative style and quick combat was a nice change up from PF/D&D. Character sheets were pretty easy to read and can be contained on one page. They used a lot of elements from Traveler which is cool because I like that system.
The bad.
Combat was a little wonky. Part of that was the GM was a little under prepared for the session. Some of my players had a hard time with movement they are so used to a battle grid. We had a hard time getting used to the symbols on the dice instead of numbers. A lot of these issues I think would go away once people became more used to the system. Problem is in my experience its hard to get into a game if it doesn't grab you right out of the box.
The ugly.
The dice. A set of dice comes with just enough to run. Sometimes you need to re-roll some dice for a check. This leads me to believe people will end up buying multiple sets which kind of rubbed me the wrong way. We struggled getting the meaning of the die results down. Success, fail, advantage, threat, triumph, disaster there were a lot of terms making die rolls sometimes unnecessarily complex. Maybe that will go away with more experience with the system.
Overall it was fun. The beginner box doesn't include force or powers so I don't think it would suit my Mass Effect needs at this time. Ill keep an eye on it though I liked the narrative aspects the game offers.
Thanks for that review, Pan. I bought this a while back. Haven't played yet but I get the same feeling about the dice...both that they'll be slow to read for a while until we get a feel for them and that they're some sort of sinister ploy to run up the price of cheap plastic. They *are* pretty however. :)
Are you going to run Long Arm of the Hutt? It looks as if there's some fun depth in that one.
M
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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There are hundreds of games out there, either sci-fi themed or generic. Some very old,; others newish. If this thread goes on long enough, you'll get people advocating for Star Hero and Savage Worlds and dozens of other systems. You'll be paralyzed.
My advice:
You're going for a serious commitment of time and resources. Let's say you pick ICE's SpaceMaster, or FGU's Space Opera or PsiWorld, or the newer Serenity RPG. You're going to be devoting hundreds of hours, over a year or more, to the campaign. Make sure it does what you want, and make sure the mechanics are comfortable.
It does What You Want:
- What kind of starship combat do you want? Do you want a system where ships of the line routinely blow away smaller scout ships? Are the PCs going to be spending a lot of their time traveling from one star system to another? Are they going to be passengers? Command crew of a big ship? The entire crew of a small ship like the Millenium Falcon or Serenity? Or maybe they're going to stay put on one plet or a small system.
That's important, and you'll want a game that matches your expectations. I don't care how much you like the mechanics of Blue Planet, if you want people driving their vessel through the sea of space, it's going to be the wrong system.
- How do you envision psychic powers or magic working? What about nano-tech? Cybernetics? AIs and robot PCs?
Do you want a game which elevates characters with psychic powers above their psi-null peers? Or are there crippling disadvantage compensations? Same with bionics.
Don't fight the game system. If you want a game without psionics, but Star Ace relies on psychic powers for healing and astral navigation, it's not the right game system for you. If you want a game that's thick-on-the-ground with bionic / cybernetic enhancements, play Cyberpunk or Shadowrun, not Traveller.
It is much easier to play a game system that matches your genre, rather than shoehorn your genre into a more familiar system.
You like the Mechanics
The genre has the potential to be very, very deadly. (You're flying in space!! A simple scimitar in D&D can wound one person at a time. A private sidearm onboard a space ship, or a ship travelling in warpspace, can rupture the hull and destroy the entire crew.) How lethal do you want the system to be? Do you want a system where the PCs can spend Karma, or Hero Points, or whatever other dice-cheating mechanic?
Lastly, once you decide on a likely system candidate, see if there's any way to hook up with a session, maybe at a large gaming convention. If you decide you don't really care for the game's arm-waving, or kludgely mechanics, or abstract combat, or a requirement for miniatures ... you will never fall in love with your campaign. And you won't be able to sell your players on it.
I played a fair amount of SLA Industries, which while the system is clunky in the iniative steps and the skill breakdowns are a little overzealous, the game is amazing. It's a gritty gross biogenetically enhanced sci-fi serial killer game all strung out on drugs set in a dark horrific world.
I've played several of the games mentioned above, but I have heard the 40k games rules don't work so well, although I've really wanted to try it. Anyone played an extended campaign in rogue trader?
I have never played or gm'd Rogue Trader, but I have played or gm'd in the others. I think once you get used to the system, it is pretty straight forward. The universe you are playing in has over twenty years of background, but still is flexible. It is a 1d100 system, add and subtract modifiers, and compare to target #. (Usually your stat, at least at the beginning.) Like I said, pretty basic. combat takes a little getting used to, but once you do it goes smoothly. My suggestion is use the combat rules in either Black Crusade or Only War, because those are the newer books and they have been working out the kinks with each new book.
Eclipse Phase was mentioned a few times. Here it can be downloaded for free.
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Stars Without Number Free Edition
You can't beat FREE for a core book. And it is meaty. SWN is a solid Traveller lite game that is loads of fine for me. Mind you starting characters tend to be squishy, but the game stresses using your head over raw combat anyway.
The support for the line is very solid AND it ties in nicely with Other Dust a post-apoc spin off game by the same writer. It's faction and sector building rules are great and it's wonderful for sandboxing.
Travller is maybe the only other of this type I'd suggest but it can be pricer.
The new StarWars's Edge of the Empire game is nice, but requires speciality die. Again, if price is an issue.
Your choice.
PS. I also like Eclipse Phase, but it's not for all groups.
Eclipse Phase, hands down best sci if game I've bought in the last 10 years, if you've read Richard K Morgan's altered carbon aka the Takashi Kovacs novels the setting is extremely similar. I've been running an EP game for the past three months, setting is incredible and the players are having an awesome time, and all the books are available as PDFs for free. Can't praise it enough.
The hard scifi premise sounds brilliant.I am willing to buy it just to support the setting.
That said as far as the system goes: I 've heard the rules are a mess and very crunchy..any truth to that?
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I've been a Traveller fan since it came out (1977 iirc) and despite the various edition changes I still am. Traveller is an excellent system for generic Science Fiction and has any number of interesting settings (and Mongoose in particular have used the Traveller rules for several setting specific games).
One of those settings is the 'Strontium Dog' stories, by Alan Grant and John Wagner (more famous for Judge Dredd).
It's sci-fi, but since the PCs are mutant bountyhunters, they can't put down proper roots, so your games can still have them be the usual itinerant murder-hobos, that D&D players will be used to.
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The one thing about this game that makes me wonder is the custom dice. I have a ton of dice and every game seems to require tons of them. Buying a ton of dice that are useless for every other game on a game system which is incomplete, and may never be complete, is not something I want to do. It strikes me as a gimmick and as something to sell. So, do the custom dice make a big difference? Are there results on them that couldn't have been derived from reading regular dice? I've looked at it several times and ended up not buying it. What am I missing?
That's something that put me off trying the 3rd Edition Warhammer Roleplay, as well.
I don't want game night being derailed, because someone's 'special' die rolled under the fridge.
Or "We can't play until we find where we put my character's card for his special ability!".
I like a character sheet I can customise, keep safe, and print off when needed.
I've been a Traveller fan since it came out (1977 iirc) and despite the various edition changes I still am. Traveller is an excellent system for generic Science Fiction and has any number of interesting settings (and Mongoose in particular have used the Traveller rules for several setting specific games).
One of those settings is the 'Strontium Dog' stories, by Alan Grant and John Wagner (more famous for Judge Dredd).
It's sci-fi, but since the PCs are mutant bountyhunters, they can't put down proper roots, so your games can still have them be the usual itinerant murder-hobos, that D&D players will be used to.
Players in regular Traveller games aren't murder hobos. No. Because they're not that specialized :) You could call them money grubbing hobos though :D Anything for a megacredit...
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Stars Without Number Free Edition
You can't beat FREE for a core book. And it is meaty. SWN is a solid Traveller lite game that is loads of fine for me. Mind you starting characters tend to be squishy, but the game stresses using your head over raw combat anyway.
It's more D&D in space than Traveller. The good D&D, not d20.
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What currently traps us is our lack of faster than light technology. By the time we have that, if we ever have that (and I think we will), cosmic rays will be a minor footnote. For that matter it's not an overwhelming problem even with our present level of technology.Cosmic ray exposure doubled beyond the edge of the solar system on entering interstellar space. I guess we are trapped here for all time.
Tell that to Ben Grimm.
Tell that to Ben Grimm.What currently traps us is our lack of faster than light technology. By the time we have that, if we ever have that (and I think we will), cosmic rays will be a minor footnote. For that matter it's not an overwhelming problem even with our present level of technology.Cosmic ray exposure doubled beyond the edge of the solar system on entering interstellar space. I guess we are trapped here for all time.
Bah! Old comic-tech. It's better now (but only if it suits the story)...