Crowd Sourcing

[flare22]

Hey guys I am going to swallow my pride here and try and crowd source some ideas. I am currently trying to build a sci-fi game and im looking for a good rules set I have already designed and excellent setting but I cant seem to locate a game that really gives me what I want. the first idea I had was shadow run by my setting does not have magic or non humans and while I could just say those are not available but I feel that it would have some unforeseen consequences. I then tried cyberpunk 2020 it really fit the setting but the cybernetics making your slowly go insane as well as certain other rules would require me to rewrite portions of the game.

so basically I am looking for a good sci-fi tabletop RPG without magic set in the near or far future if its not well known it should not be to complicated for an experienced Role player to learn. and whiles its not a requirement it would be nice if it had some kind of cybernetics or power armor rules. also it does not really matter if it has multiple races as long as I can restrict people to playing humans without to much trouble from the game mechanics.

[Username17]

Honestly, rules-heavy science fiction games don't have a great track record. Generally speaking they are incredibly specific and hard to adapt, incredibly borked mechanically, or both. You can do pretty well with a rules-lite, and you probably should. Munchhausen or FATE would be a good bet.

-Username17

[Zaranthan]

What would your opinion be of Shadowrun with the magic sliced off? No mages, no adepts, no metahumans. All grimy dystopian transhumanism, with a bit of gun fetish on the side.

Of course, it's still Shadowrun, so you have to find a matrix rewrite you like, ranging from Frank's EotM to "roll Logic + Hacking to shut down the security system." Personally, if you're snipping out the magic already, that leaves room for Ends to make a pretty good system to base your campaign setting around.

[flare22]

Shadow-run without magic or meta humans And cyberpunk 2020 are my top two options right now but I am trying to expand my horizons and see if i cant find something better.

I have tried fate and the system never really appealed to me that much bu tI have never heard of Munchhausen its name after the German baron right? is their a summery online or maybe PDF i can download. Or if not is their a drunken review you can link me to?

[Username17]

Munchhausen is a very bare bones cooperative storytelling game. Your character sheet is just your character's name and title. You take turns telling stories, and if someone has an idea they say "That's not how I remember it..." and go off on a tangent or rewrite some of the last part of the tale. If people like the new direction, they just go from there, if not they revert, and if there's a disagreement you settle ties with rock paper scissors. It is highly recommended that you drink while playing.

And that's essentially the whole game. It tells stories in any genre and is the fastest rules litiest game that can exist. It doesn't work for players who need more structure or when two players fundamentally disagree on story tone.

-Username17

[Josh_Kablack]

Personally, I'd put some heavy limits on things and run with the HERO system. But that's a lot of effort and pain if you don't already have a group familiar with HERO/ Champs.

If you are gonna go with an R Tal system, Mekton Zeta is more inherently sci-fi and lighter than Cyberpunk 2020, so it might be worth checking out. On the downside, it is rather mecha focused and suffers from the "what sort of scrub are you that you didn't buy your reflexes to 10?" inherent in all R Tal games.

Hrm, Danger Patrol still has a free bare bones PDF available. Is that close to what you're looking for?

Also, maybe worth bugging Dragon_Child about his homebrew sci-fi stuff and how far he got into hacking Feng Shui into pure sci-fi game.

[TheFlatline]

Let's see here...

GURPS will have what you want, somewhere in it. And that's pretty fucking rules heavy. That's extremely modular though, and might be the best option.

I'm particularly fond of Traveler, but that's not rules heavy. It also focuses on space exploration. I'm reasonably certain that Joss Whedon played a lot of Traveler in his youth, because Firefly is littered with shitloads of references to the RPG.

2300AD is the "prequel" for Traveler and is a "hard" sci-fi RPG as opposed to Traveler's space opera feeling.

Eclipse Phase is kind of cool, but I found the rules to be... messy. It focuses on transhumanism, which is a theme that usually isn't picked up on frequently.

Beyond that you have the Warhammer40k trilogy, with Dark Heresy being the lowest power tier, then Rogue Trader, then Deathwatch, but I find those rules are fucking nightmares. I ran a 2 year Dark Heresy campaign and while my group generally considers it to be the best game they ever played in, I never left a session without a splitting headache from juggling all those fucking rules. I haven't looked at 2nd edition DH's beta yet.

Fantasy Flight Games just released a Star Wars RPG that uses custom dice that I found tepid and boring, but you can find the old West End Games D6 Star Wars on the cheap and strip out the force and have a playable game.

Shadowrun without the magic is fine except for the fuckerated matrix rules, and I don't care what edition you're playing. If you want to roll with SR, use 4th edition or Anniversary edition (they are the same basically) and crib Frank's Ends of the Matrix rules, since it's feasible that you'll be dealing with hacking a lot more once you strip out all the magic.

[DragonChild]

Also, maybe worth bugging Dragon_Child about his homebrew sci-fi stuff and how far he got into hacking Feng Shui into pure sci-fi game.

Kinda far but still a long way to go, and it's much more focused on a sort of action movie and fantasy tropes - there's still magic and stuff, so likely inappropriate.

Unfortunately, I don't really have any suggestions. Every sci-fi game I've played has pretty much sucked.

[tussock]

GURPS 4th. It's got your power armour and cybernetics and other future tech, in whatever specs you like. Even laser-swords. The basic game system is not horrible, and their boards are pretty helpful at pointing out what's needed for your ideas to work.

I mean, you have to choose not to build unkillable werewolves or whatever, because it's a gigantic open-ended toolbox, but most people are fine with that if you tell them what's desirable. All the supernatural stuff's in it's own chapter these days anyway, and so's the magic, and the psi, and everything, because it's got like 50 chapters.

[Username17]

Every sci-fi game I've played has pretty much sucked.

I've poked at the genre a few times. It's pretty hard to make a science fiction game.

First of all, most games are basically D&D clones when you strip the spoilers and hubcaps off. That doesn't work for shit in Science Fiction. No one gives a rat fuck whether Picard is physically stronger than La Forge. In the standard six stat array, Intelligence and Charisma are individually worth more than all four other stats combined. In science fiction, your ability to science things or delegate is seriously worth more than any and all of your physical capabilities. By kind of a lot, actually.

Secondly, scaling. Science fiction weaponry goes "over nine thousand," and does so very quickly and obviously. Using "mere" nuclear weapons is kind of retro at this point, meaning to feel properly futuristic there have to be weapons the turn modern day city destroyers to shame. And beyond that, there are space ships, force fields, moon fortresses, and shit that require those weapons to even scratch the paint. Any game system that can't handle multiple orders of magnitude destroying and recreating the RNG repeatedly is simply disqualified.

Thirdly, future tech is actually extremely specific. Most of what you do in a Sword and Sorcery game is run around manipulating physical objects with your thumbs. So most of the game can be extremely grounded in the basic physics engine. It's not all that hard to swap in a different world setting, because a standard four man party has two guys who can be expected to have exactly the same capabilities no matter what the sword and sorcery setting actually is. Heck, even wizards and healers spend most of their time using their hands, talking to people, and hitting things with sticks. But in a science fiction context, that isn't true. Every character interacts with most problems through super tech, which means that the entire problem space and solution space of every character are defined by exactly how the future tech works. So a game system written for a setting with or without giant robots, wireless hacking, mind control rays, force fields, faster than light, body transfer cloning, cybernetic augmentation, pocket dimension storage, or a hundred other science fiction conceits is actually really hard to port to a setting with different conceits.

It's why my suggestion is actually to go full ruleslite and high abstraction with heavy heavy magical teaparty elements. Such games work at all in any genre, which makes them about the only games that have ever been written that really function in a far future science fiction context.

-Username17

[Neurosis]

Hey guys I am going to swallow my pride here and try and crowd source some ideas. I am currently trying to build a sci-fi game and im looking for a good rules set I have already designed and excellent setting but I cant seem to locate a game that really gives me what I want. the first idea I had was shadow run by my setting does not have magic or non humans and while I could just say those are not available but I feel that it would have some unforeseen consequences. I then tried cyberpunk 2020 it really fit the setting but the cybernetics making your slowly go insane as well as certain other rules would require me to rewrite portions of the game.

so basically I am looking for a good sci-fi tabletop RPG without magic set in the near or far future if its not well known it should not be to complicated for an experienced Role player to learn. and whiles its not a requirement it would be nice if it had some kind of cybernetics or power armor rules. also it does not really matter if it has multiple races as long as I can restrict people to playing humans without to much trouble from the game mechanics.

Use Hero System. Haven't tried 6th yet, so I recommend 5E. That is all. It can do anything quite well, including sci-fi.

[Username17]

Use Hero System. Haven't tried 6th yet, so I recommend 5E. That is all. It can do anything quite well, including sci-fi.

I'm gonna disagree there. I loves me some Hero system, but it really doesn't play well with transient equipment. And in a science fiction game that's almost everything.

Hero System's point system only makes any sense with regard to things which are personally owned. That makes it great for superheroes, passable for fantasy, and hot garbage on a plate for science fiction.

-Username17

[Neurosis]

You don't need to pay character points for equipment in a heroic campaign, though. You only pay character points for equipment if, for instance in a sci-fi game, you want your special snowflake starfighter to be a vehicle your GM can never take away.

In a standard heroic campaign, stuff and the ownership of stuff is handled more or less the same as in Shadowrun or Traveller or what have you. You can gain it and lose it through normal in-universe means.

[Username17]

You don't need to pay character points for equipment in a heroic campaign, though. You only pay character points for equipment if, for instance in a sci-fi game, you want your special snowflake starfighter to be a vehicle your GM can never take away.

In a standard heroic campaign, stuff and the ownership of stuff is handled more or less the same as in Shadowrun or Traveller or what have you. You can gain it and lose it through normal in-universe means.

Sure. You're physically capable of statting up arc welders and space skiffs and whatever else using Hero System. But if the player characters are routinely using gyrojet rifles and beam swords that they didn't buy with points and aren't subject to their active point limits, the strengths of Hero System are basically out the window.

You still have a bunch of point calculation and algebra to do to make characters, but it's all meaningless because none of the system's game balance mechanisms actually engage with what characters are actually doing.

-Username17

[Omegonthesane]

You don't need to pay character points for equipment in a heroic campaign, though. You only pay character points for equipment if, for instance in a sci-fi game, you want your special snowflake starfighter to be a vehicle your GM can never take away.

In a standard heroic campaign, stuff and the ownership of stuff is handled more or less the same as in Shadowrun or Traveller or what have you. You can gain it and lose it through normal in-universe means.

Sure. You're physically capable of statting up arc welders and space skiffs and whatever else using Hero System. But if the player characters are routinely using gyrojet rifles and beam swords that they didn't buy with points and aren't subject to their active point limits, the strengths of Hero System are basically out the window.

You still have a bunch of point calculation and algebra to do to make characters, but it's all meaningless because none of the system's game balance mechanisms actually engage with what characters are actually doing.

-Username17

Disclaimer: I barely know what Hero System is.

Couldn't "purchased equipment" represent what you routinely have access to? So, you pay for a +37 Shoota, and this is flavoured as your ship having a rack of +37 Shootas and you having a +37 Shoota license rather than literally being exactly one +37 Shoota.

[Neurosis]

I think I get what you're saying.

Hero System has a few different ways of handling equipment, actually. (As is common with HERO, there are redundant systems in place that aren't really meant to overlap; you're just supposed to pick the one you like.)

There's the "access" model, where your character pays character points for improved access to higher technology/better than street level gear. The GM would have to figure out tiers for available equipment, of course, and either work with the PCs to stat-out equipment they want or stat out a pool of gadgets they might want.

Then there's the resource points model where you allocate a pool of character points (IIRC @ 1:5) for purchasing fungible/transient gear.

Either one works if you (as the GM) want to keep character equipment on a "points" scale.

Hero system can certainly handle cybernetics and powered armor well; cybernetic capabilities are, after all, powers with certain Limitations, and the same is true of Powered Armor (OIF, and possibly Fuel Dependent).

I won't deny that doing...just about anything...in Hero System is fairly crunch-intensive for the GM, but the OP didn't seem averse to that. It's worth checking out. Star Hero and its supplements have a fair amount of example content that might be helpful, while someone out there has converted just about everything from Shadowrun to Hero System, a fan-made project called Shadowpunk, from which you could take or leave whatever you fancied.

[Neurosis]

Couldn't "purchased equipment" represent what you routinely have access to? So, you pay for a +37 Shoota, and this is flavoured as your ship having a rack of +37 Shootas and you having a +37 Shoota license rather than literally being exactly one +37 Shoota.

Snuck in on me there. Hero system handles both of these pretty elegantly. As for a rack of +37 Shootas, 5 Character points doubles the amount of any power/gadget you have adnauseum. So a 37 Active Point gun is 37 Active Points, two of them is 42 Active Points, four of them is 47 active points, eight of them is 52 active points, and so on. As for the license, you can get a license to use/operate/concealed carry just about anything, it's a Perk ("Perquisite") you throw a few character points at.

[flare22]

how hard is it for and experienced table top GM to learn gurps 4? and tell me more of this Mekton zeta I have never heard of it and is sounds intriguing.

[Avoraciopoctules]

how hard is it for and experienced table top GM to learn gurps 4? and tell me more of this Mekton zeta I have never heard of it and is sounds intriguing.

http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/lite/

http://www.mektonzeta.com/

Gurps is really complicated, it gives you the toolset to assemble rules for a specific setting. Zeta looks like it has detailed point buy for your giant robots, more minimalist d10-based stats for pilots.

[Josh_Kablack]

Frank's right in that HERO has problems with the "heroic genre" assumptions about equipment as relates to a sci-fi setting where different tech is on the table and supposed to matter. Those problems are not insurmountable, but they are not non-issues.

That said, if you are gonna go rule-heavy, I'd still start by hacking HERO instead of going with GURPS - the two systems are similar in many ways, but GURPS's strength is its wealth of sourebooks which isn't as useful for a homebrew as HERO's presentation of a flexible meta-system in the core book.

[tussock]

Check out GURPS Ultra-Lite 1-page if you want a basic idea of it.

http://e23.sjgames.com/item.html?id=SJG37-0032

And GURPS Lite 32-page for more detail.

http://e23.sjgames.com/item.html?id=SJG31-0004

Those are free, but they may want you to register or something.

Anyway, GURPS 4 is pretty damn simple to play. It's 3d6, roll under, and everything is a skill check that you make once and that does what it says on the tin. Hack the mainframe and turn off the garbage masher on level 17? Roll under Computer Hacking to get in and Computer Operation to do it, done. If you want active ICE programs, you can add a contest of Hacking vs Programming. Or you know, if no one can hack you apply various social skills or observation skills to picking up passwords or getting people to do it for you, as suggested for you in the Computer Hacking skill description.

Figuring that shit out as you go is part of the deal, exploiting your skill set for fun and profit, or making something work off the defaults if you have to.

There's a huge amount of optional modifiers/fiddly shit for combat, and a few other things, but the basic system is very simple and resolves quickly because suckas gunna go down, and then you gunna brain them. Ambushes and cover and flashbangs and proper tactics abound, because not taking advantage of stuff gets you killed.


And it is a point-buy thing, so, like, balance is not something it enforces for you in any way. But you've got a setting idea, so it'll have everything you want and you just ignore the rest of it.

[flare22]

One of things about my setting is that it does not have giant human shaped robots mainly because I don't want that to be the center of my setting and because if you give someone a mech every problem starts to look like a zaku. That's why I ruled out heavy gear and other mech heavy centered game. I realy should have pionted that out from the start sorry. Ill should also add that I doubt my game will leave a specific country let alone reach space.

Still transhumanism cybernetics and hacking are great and vehicles and powered armor exist In my setting. but if I find a game that fits the setting but does not have powered armor I can live with that ill just say its use is restricted to military personel or something.

[TheFlatline]

Frank's right in that HERO has problems with the "heroic genre" assumptions about equipment as relates to a sci-fi setting where different tech is on the table and supposed to matter. Those problems are not insurmountable, but they are not non-issues.

That said, if you are gonna go rule-heavy, I'd still start by hacking HERO instead of going with GURPS - the two systems are similar in many ways, but GURPS's strength is its wealth of sourebooks which isn't as useful for a homebrew as HERO's presentation of a flexible meta-system in the core book.

Dafuq?

Yeah, GURPS has a lot of source books, but I find them useful for a starting point for homebrew. I made a Dune module for GURPs using GURPS Space and a few other expansions. It made things easy actually.