Syfy game systems

[tony gent]

Hi all can anyone recommend a good syfy system that's easy to pick up and easy to get hold of.
Don't mind old or new but not setting specific like star wars
Thanks

[Daw]

Traveller is good

Sci Fi is Aasimov thru Zelazny

SyFy is Sharknado

[Distant Scholar]

Maybe he actually meant a SyFy game.

[I have no affiliation with the above link.]

All of my Sci Fi game recommendations are out of print (or not simple).

[JonGarrett]

FATE. You can do whatever you want with FATE, it's simple to play, and you can read the rules Here. The rule books are simple to find too.

[R_Chance]

Stars Without Number. It's OGL, class based (standard 3 classes) and sandbox. Think of an OGL Traveller. Starships, etc. There are a number of supplements, free material and another related game called Otherdust (think a gritty nanite based Gammaworld). It's very well done.

[P.H. Dungeon]

Most sci fi games are setting specific, unless you pick a generic system and then use some kind of sci-fi pack for it- like FATE, GURPS, Savage Worlds, Cypher System, BRP etc...

[R_Chance]

Forgot, but you can get the Stars Without Number: Free Edition pdf on Drivethru RPG. For free, obviously. They have the free Mandate Archives PDFs as well, there are several of those. Another Sci Fi RPG, but not so simple, would be Mongoose version of Traveller. If you like older versions of Traveller, those are available as CDs, typically one per version (Classic, MegaTraveller, TNE, T4, T20 and the new Traveller 5) from Far Future Enterprises. Traveller, as much as I love it, is not simple. Especially T5. SWN has stayed fairly straight forward. Anyway, although SWN and Traveller have background settings they can be played without setting specific material. Other setting agnostic systems that I know / have are largely out of print.

[Tinkergoth]

Savage Worlds. Add Science Fiction Companion. Then, if you want to get fancy, you've got the following options (just use the rules and ignore the setting fluff):

- For a grittier, cyberpunky feel, grab the Interface Zero 2.0 rulebook
- For a transhumanist game, grab the Savage Worlds edition of Nova Praxis
- For a more traditional science fiction game, grab The Last Parsec and any of the three additional books for it (Leviathan is my personal favourite).

[Abraham spalding]

Fortunately several new or rehashed systems are coming out. Invisible suns is one such new system and alternity is one of the rehashed ones.

Alternity is out of print but still easy to get with a decent amount of online support. It is a roll low system with a d20 control dice and a situational bonus die being added or subtracted.

[TimD]

LOL at thread name.

Now I want to see a game: SyFy: exiled from NBC - a system where the players are NBC execs or failed marketing people with spelling issues who have blackmail info, political connections, etc. that keep them from getting fired, but not from being moved to a network they despise. Game play to consist of finding a way to destroy the network by introducing wrestling, canceling Dresden files because not enough non-SF people are watching it, etc. in a desire to burn it down andtry to return and destroy their enemies at NBC...

[David knott 242]

There was a horror movie mini-RPG published in Dragon magazine that I remember fondly. One of the stats in that game was Unintelligence -- basically the intelligence stat inverted so as to allow for unlimited stupidity. A game system based on Syfy movies has to have that stat in it.

[Scorch_13]

Rifts is easy to get into once you get past character creation. There is a fairly large skill set system and the magic system is MP based. It can bog down if you do combat actions the way that it says in the books. A few people that look at the system get game paralysis on character class/ racial class/ psychic class choices. It's similar to Pathfinder in that way as it has a huge amount of variability. Once you are past initial choices though it is all percentile based on skills.

GURPS and Champions can both fit the bill as well. They are both worse on character creation though than Rifts. GURPS especially so. GURPS is similar to Rifts in that it is anything goes. Champions is Superheroes, but it does have support for just Sci-fi settings if you ramp up the tech level and use magic as "Psionics".

4th(?) Edition Gamma World is pretty good, but it uses 2nd edition AD&D rules. It was a pretty good edition though. Simple to play, lots of customization and zany adventures.

Morrow Project is near-future, So there are psychic powers and laser weapons along with power armor. Mostly though, it is a paramilitary setting about finding your place in the world.

Corvus Belli is putting out a new game soon, it is Called Infiniti. It is based off of a miniature game.
In the same spirit as that one, Gear Krieg was pretty sci-fi for being set in WWII. It was about super-science.

On the zanier side:

For Savage worlds there is the Low Life supplement where you can be a intelligent cupcake.

HoL - an old White Wolf (published under Black Dog I think) game where you are stranded on a wasteworld where there is no plot and everything is permitted.

Darwin's World - never played it, but it looked funny.

[Bluenose]

Eclipse Phase is rather easy to get hold of - as in, it's free here - and very well regarded. There's a 2nd edition of Mongoose Traveller fairly recently out, so you aren't collecting a large line as yet if you're a completist.

Of course it does depend on exactly what sort of game you're looking for, because there's a huge variety of both approaches (rules light, complex, etc) and sub-genres (space opera, hard science fiction, cyberpunk/transhumanism, etc). And probably a game that does that.

[GreyWolfLord]

Star Frontiers is always my favorite.

Great game from the 80s...and now you can download the rules from what has been called the official site for several years now at

Star Frontiers

They also have remastered rules here

Starfrontiersman

[Starglim]

Russ Morrissey's NEW, part of the WHAT'S OLD IS NEW project, is just going to print and you can already get PDFs. It's generic SF, much like several of the others named.

Also,
Alternity Syfy

[Abraham spalding]

Starglim wrote:

Russ Morrissey's NEW, part of the WHAT'S OLD IS NEW project, is just going to print and you can already get PDFs. It's generic SF, much like several of the others named.

Also,
Alternity Syfy

I'm going to have to figure out which user you are on that site now.

[Starglim]

Abraham spalding wrote:

Starglim wrote:

Russ Morrissey's NEW, part of the WHAT'S OLD IS NEW project, is just going to print and you can already get PDFs. It's generic SF, much like several of the others named.

Also,
Alternity Syfy

I'm going to have to figure out which user you are on that site now.

uncle_jimbo

I'll have to accept responsibility for that thread.

[Scott Romanowski]

Traveller 5.0 came out recently. You don't have to use the OTU.
http://www.farfuture.net/

[Abraham spalding]

Starglim wrote:

Abraham spalding wrote:

Starglim wrote:

Russ Morrissey's NEW, part of the WHAT'S OLD IS NEW project, is just going to print and you can already get PDFs. It's generic SF, much like several of the others named.

Also,
Alternity Syfy

I'm going to have to figure out which user you are on that site now.

uncle_jimbo

I'll have to accept responsibility for that thread.

Hehehe, that explains so much.

[Hitdice]

R_Chance wrote:

Stars Without Number. It's OGL, class based (standard 3 classes) and sandbox. Think of an OGL Traveller. Starships, etc. There are a number of supplements, free material and another related game called Otherdust (think a gritty nanite based Gammaworld). It's very well done.

Not to pick nits, but SWN isn't actually OGL. I was very surprised to find that nothing in there is open content. It's a good system, and Kevin Crawford is a reasonable guy, but you have to get his permission to publish 3pp. (It's so similar to B/X D&D that it's a pretty moot point, but what can I tell you, I'm anal retentive.)

I've been getting my OSR sic-fi fix from White Star and The White Star Companion lately. There's a lot of 3pp out there, but with just those two books you can play a jedi knight, fighting alongside a borg, fighting alongside a transformer.