Best d20 Sci-Fi System for Universe Building?

[elijah snow]

After 20 years of fantasy gaming, I'm serious about developing a d20 universe for sci-fi roleplaying. What is the best system for: 1) building systems (planets, ships, weapons, etc.), 2) rules (races, classes, etc.), and 3) flull (history, culture, specific planets, etc.

I've heard great things about d20 M/F, Stargate SG-1, and T20 Traveller.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

 

[rgard]

After 20 years of fantasy gaming, I'm serious about developing a d20 universe for sci-fi roleplaying. What is the best system for: 1) building systems (planets, ships, weapons, etc.), 2) rules (races, classes, etc.), and 3) flull (history, culture, specific planets, etc.

I've heard great things about d20 M/F, Stargate SG-1, and T20 Traveller.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

T20 Traveller would be my system of choice. The original black book Traveller covered planet/system development and had commerce rules. I'm not certain how much it varies from T20 as I haven't used the old books in years.

We did get some funny results with the black book version. At one point the pcs were selling F16 fighter jets at a 400% mark-up to farmers on an airless planet. That said, I'm can't say for certain we did the dice rolling correctly either to get that result.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[edemaitre]

Best D20 SF universe building

The "Star Wars: Saga Edition" RPG has fairly streamlined character rules, as well as plentiful and well-known examples of worlds and ships, but it's a bit skimpy on world-building advice, at least so far. D20 "Stargate SG-1" and "Farscape" are better, providing more help for creating planets.

The OGL versions of "Babylon 5" and "Prime Directive" (in the "Star Trek" universe) are good for history and societies, while the D20 "Modern: Future" supplements were good for generic tech. I'm also a fan of the more-generic -- and thus, potentially more useful to homebrew space opera campaigns -- D20 "Bulldogs" and "Blood & Space" books, as well as the D20 "Jovian Chronicles/Mecha," if you're interested in near-future speculative fiction and harder science. There's also some decent D20/OGL cyberpunk support out there, as well as some for "True 20" (the engine behind "Mutants & Masterminds") and "Spycraft 2.0" (the engine behind "Stargate SG-1").

Still, if you had to buy only D20 SF book to run from, "Traveller," or "T20," is indeed your best bet, especially if you want to get away from licensed properties. It offers the most "out-of-the-box" world-creation rules and tech, while most of the others above require additional books (e.g., "Star Wars: Saga Edition -- Starships of the Galaxy") that might be out of print.

You could run a decent (classic/revisionist) "Battlestar Galactica," "Honor Harrington," or Asimovian/Heinlein game with T20. However, if you're a hard-core science fiction fan, you'll probably gravitate to the rules set that offers your preferred level of complexity and then liberally borrow from the rest...

I guess my short answer would be "T20" and "SG-1" for planets and a human-centric universe; "SW:SE" and the generic D20 books for characters, aliens, and tech; and "T20" and any of the licensed adaptations for history. Good luck!

 

[Khairn]

For building worlds and tech, I would look at T20 and the Space and Blood books.

Depending on the type of future setting you're looking for, I highly recommend the DawningStar books by Blue Devil. Tech and flavor of the starting world on par with Firefly / Serenity, and with so many plot hooks thrown into the starting system that the universe is practically pre-built.

Personally I use the rules from Space Opera by FGU as my world building system of choice.

 

[The Lost Muse]

If you are planning on using traveller, you may want to wait until Mongoose puts out their new version, which I believe will have an accompanying SRD.

 

[smootrk]

I suggest Star Frontiers although it is not D20 (although much of the D20 Future material borrows heavily from the Star Frontiers material, so you could do a D20 game that way with a little work cross-referencing). For most of the Star Frontiers material you can visit www.starfrontiersman.com for remastered pdf's of the original game as well as a lot of really great fan-generated material.

Dralasites rule!

 

[elijah snow]

I will try to investigate all of these options. At the moment, I'm leaning towards a combination of T20 and d20 Future. Please, I'm interested in any more suggestions you all may have.

I also just looked at the Rifts d20 Conversion and thought those rules looked pretty righteous.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

If you go look through the OGL and d20 forums old pages you can find Warlord Ralts setting and systems for high-tech weapons, powered armor, starships & vehicles. I haven't seen him around for a while. I think some indie publisher picked him up after it saw the setting stuff here.

 

[RPGRealms]

If you are planning on using traveller, you may want to wait until Mongoose puts out their new version, which I believe will have an accompanying SRD.

It's not d20.

BTW, you can buy just the Worlds and Adventures PDF for T20 from my site, RPGNow or DTRPG.

 

[S'mon]

I will try to investigate all of these options. At the moment, I'm leaning towards a combination of T20 and d20 Future. .

That would be my preferred approach. Traveller is best for planet generation, but I find it too gear-heady with hardware and would use d20 Future for spaceships & such.