Would anyone want to suggest a favorite space/sci-fi system? I'm rolling around ideas for a game at the moment, but nothing really solid.

I've been looking into Traveller v.2 by Mongoose Publishing. It looks alright, but isn't really my first choice. The character creation rules seemed to get pretty complicated, which turned me off a little bit. I've also considered using d20 modern with the future sourcebook. I honestly really don't like the d20 modern base classes very much though. Also, I've played a lot of Pathfinder and it's a little difficult for me to find the desire to go back to something closer to D&D 3.0. I've also consider using the d20 3.5 Star Wars rules, but they present many the same problem for me that the d20 modern rules do.

I'm looking for something with a fun combat system (something with some good rules for cover) since there's probably going to be a good amount of combat. It will probably need stats for plasma guns, energy swords, and the like. Preferably something with a system for designing starships and droids. Preferably something with rules for FTL travel and "beam-me-down" technology. I mean, I could just say: "You have beam-me-down tech on your ship," but I'd prefer some more solid rules, the kind I used to come up with when I hard more time for this kind of thing. :)

Appreciate it!

Might look into Savage Worlds.  It's got a bit of crunch to it, but it's not overly rules heavy either.  It uses a pretty straightforward classless point based system for characters.

It's a universal system, so the core book is fairly generic.  There's a few futuristic weapons along with modern and medieval varieties, as well as a handful of vehicles.

The "Science Fiction Companion" has a lot of good additional rules for working in the genre.  New character buy options, futuristic weapons, vehicles, and both pre-generated starships and robots as well as simple systems for building your own.

I wholeheartedly recommend Alternity by TSR before they were bought out by WotC.  You can get virtually everything in digital format, though the books are long since out of print.  Combat is fun and lethal (though I recommend using some alternative rules for armor, as armor can as designed can make combat drag out too long as it directly negates damage.)  It's an entirely skill-based system, all actions rely on a d20 roll with degrees of success, with dice rolls modified by a secondary control die that takes the place of flat bonuses.  The excellent (but unfinished) free Warships supplement offers starship creation rules, and the base game has fairly good rules for designing small, more intimate vehicles.  There is a supplement for robots and androids called Dataware.  It covers everything from near-future to Star Trek levels of technology and beyond.

You can get a taste of things from the www.alternityrpg.net which is an amazing and active community with a huge amount of fan-made content.  It is a mostly classless system, instead focusing on skills as a means of developing your character.  There are fan made rules for stripping out the classes entirely.

It's truly a unique system and lends itself to a huge variety of sci-fi settings.

GURPS 4  is the best combat system but far more complex than Traveller which is my 1st choice.  Nothing is cooler than generating a character do to the EVENTS that occur.

Mongoose Traveller's chargen is designed to be almost a game in itself and is deliberately 'fulfilling'. However there is a quick set on p40 that will have a character ready to go in ten minutes.

In reply to icosahedron152 (msg # 5):

Right on. I haven't completely given up on Traveller. Appreciate the tips!

I am curious what these problems and issues are. I am making my own system so it is always good to know what players don't like so I can avoid the same issues.

As for suggestions, it really depends on what crunch level you are looking for and whether you mind making your own character options or need prepackaged content.

I definitely second Savage Worlds though, as it is a really good system.

Also there are actually two different d20 star wars games. The older one had a really nice ship supplement that has all kinds of good rules for ships from designing and making, and even modifying, ships (both in and out of character) to ship combats, to character options, and even new uses for skills. (I have the book and love it. Using it for inspiration for my system)

Any class based system tends to not hold on too well with more modern settings.  You tend to have to shoehorn a character concept into a class.  Not to mention, level based systems tend to more space opera settings (like Star Wars) and less to more Hard Sci-Fi settings.

Myself, I prefer career based systems like Traveller (Classic, Mega, Mongoose, or TNE) or skill pick systems (though these require a bit of responsibility on the players to set up a realistic character).

That being said, you have to find a system you're comfortable with and your players enjoy.  Nothing else matters if you aren't comfortable running it or they aren't comfortable playing it.

I'm partial to Stars Without Number. It's a simple system to learn, is easy to customize, and doesn't need a treasure trove of dice to play. It also gives you a ton of charts and resources to build your own universe.

How about Diaspora or Bulldogs for FATE?

Nice thing about GURPS is you can streamline character creation using templates to give focus without constraining player choice overly.  It has all the rules you would ever want for designing robots, vehicles, ships, etc., but can be played without them just by assigning them stats as needed for plot.

I will throw in a vote for Star Frontiers.

It is a classic TSR d100 system from the 80s with a whole cult following.  There is an official site (approved by Wizards of the Coast) posting all the rules and old adventures publicly, and there is an unofficial site of very high quality fan updates and expansions to the system.

I find it to be as malleable and generic as GURPS as to various settings and methods of play, but not quite as detailed as to combat issues, which makes it nice to run at a quick pace on RPoL.

I've only ever played Star Frontiers once a long time ago, but I have it and would love to find a game of that as it feels like its captured the old school scifi feel quite well.

There's at least one such game on RPoL, but I don't know how many in all.

Anything is a space / scifi game if you make it one

Look I got a Mage 2054 game lol there in a living space ship off to fight the spiritual personification of technology that's taken over the giant moon sized base that was build out of / into the spiritual center for order in the universe, beacuase it's trying to assimilate science and has its eyes set on the patriarch (dogma), so there goin to blow up as much of the place as they can before the 'moon' with its umpteen-zillion sides becomes a sphere (intimate-sides).

Lol so yah Mage insanity.  But iiiiiinnn ssssppppppaaaaaacccceeeeee lol. XD

The crew is a cyborg, a money-construct, a spiced up ex-marine full of bird DNA and four arms, a corprtite assassins, a mid evils night, a poison ivy like chick but whose plants are made of and grow out of metal, and a monk with a dragon living in his skin, oh and a were-panther with an unicorns horn and owl wings

Yah role playing games can and will be whatever you and your players shan't them to be

You can have DnD 3.0 cowboy cavemen in the renasonse if you want, go wild with it lol

Just a FYI. There is an independent, but respected, combat supplement for Traveller that might be worth looking at. I'm not sure how it would translate to PbP, but I'm not sure how well any combat system with the complexities of cover, etc, will translate to PbP...

http://www.bitsuk.net/Products/ACQ/ACQ.html

You could try Hellas (http://www.hellasrpg.com) but it's got a setting that's fairly well tied into the system.

However...


Hellas has a fun combat system. Rules for cover are basically just modifiers to your to hit roll or evade roll; there's not a separate solid system for adjudicating that.

Stats for plasma/laser guns, projectile guns (from pistols to shotguns to sniper rifles), laser swords (or spears or axes) and even Personal shields. Robots are a collection of stats. You can do cyber-limbs, but the rules are weak there (as in an arm is just an arm, but you can explain it adding to STR or whatever just like any other item).

There are rules for building starships. Rules for building robots (just like monsters).

There is a FTL system - slipspace - that can drive you mad if you're sailing through it for too long. There's a system set up for tracking sailing times and how to shave off bits and increase your speed and what happens when you're using slipspace and all that.

No 'beam me up' tech, though.

It depends on how detailed you want it.  Star Frontiers has a decent combat system from the 80s that isn't too hard -- all percentage based -- and the starfrontiersman.com has added many fun additions since the books went out of print.

Star Frontiers also has a Knight Hawks add on, which is specifically for spacecraft battles, astrogation, etc.

If you want really specific battle rules that take into account many little details, I think GURPS has the most flexibility.  It is just hard to run effectively on a PbP game unless you have a really dedicated GM and players.

Just been looking through my archives for another thread.

You might want to check these out:
Fast and Dirty by Ivan Sorenson, 71 pages.
Legions of Steel by Global Games, 40 pages.

D6 Space, otherwise known as the WEG D6 Star Wars system would be perfect for your needs. It's also free on RPGNow.com. :)

Just to let everyone know, I am actually looking into most of your suggestions, particularly the ones that have free content for me to glance over. Appreciate your help.

I'm not sure if I want to run this over PbP or table-top at the moment. Right now it's just a fun idea for me to kick around in my spare time.

The sites to go to for Star Frontiers that have approval to post the free rules and supplements are:

starfrontiers.com

and

starfrontiersman.com

The latter has updates and supplements that make the game more expansive and up to date.

In reply to Heath (msg # 22):

I thank you sir. ;)