The great d20 sci-fi bakeoff

[TheNovaLord]

We use a set of homewritten d20 sci fi rules , seems to work pretty well

Amazingly ticks all your boxes except our FTL is very very FTL cf to say star trek warp speed (not sure how fast star wars / d20 future speed is), in fact around 1 light year per minute with jumps as big as 8000LY. Space is really, really, really, empty

our campaign also started of very much in this system (trade intrique around earth, revisiting ancient earth sites, red lords of mars, titan raiders etc). Seemed ok for 7 or 8 adventures then we thought hey, lets go crazy and just see whats out there. They havent returned to sol since.

Unless you write from scratch like i did, and i had a lot of free time, im thinking you'll continue with a mish mash of various systems.....i have bought a few pdf of sci fi adventures and changed as needed. Have also bought a lot of pdf deckplans etc from various online sources. So am financially supporting the cause!

Good luck with your endeavours,

JohnD

If at all interested i could email you a pdf or two of homebrew

 

[Azgulor]

Thanks to all who have responded thus far. The supplements I've been steered to are helping the evaluation. Perhaps unsurprisingly, few have weighed in on the starship combat front - is that indicative that there really isn't a good starship combat system out there?

Azgulor

 

[Azgulor]

So the setting is mostly in the Sol system. You mentioned FTL is pretty new tech?

The prior campaign was. This time, I plan to push the PCs to other planets in the Sol system as well as colony worlds. FTL is fairly new to humans.

Thanks for the feedback!

Azgulor


Also, if it's not treading on secret info, will Farthest Star contain sci-fi oriented base classes? I can see where most, if not all, of the base Spycraft classes could be used but I was assuming some sci-fi archetypes might be addressed as well.

 

[Azgulor]

What you'd end up with is True20. The print book has two different sci-fi settings in the back, which aren't really what you're looking for but may help (Mecha vs. Kaiju and Lux Aeternum).

You might have some luck with adapting the Hot Pursuit d20 chase rules into a startship combat system. I made such an attempt for my impending Tr20 game (attempt found here) which you are free to use, modify or ignore as you desire.

Have you thought of the Serenity RPG? It's a pretty solid system (not d20, similar to Savage Worlds, but some similarities to d20 and it works well).

Of course, the previous posters have made excellent suggestions if you want to stick with d20 Modern/Future (remember Massive Damage! It keeps guns dangerous).

Good Luck!

Not having either game (yet!), I was under the impression that True20 had some traits in common with M&M2e, but wasn't the underlying rules. Presently, M&M2e has a lot more product support. Could I borrow liberally from these products or would I be better served converting d20M/F material over? I'm trying to keep time spent on adapting/creating sci-fi rules/crunch to a minimum. Rules-light isn't a requirement, I just don't want to spend all of my "crunch-time" converting material from system A to system B.

Thanks,

Azgulor

 

[Azgulor]

My own kitbash uses the Star*Drive Campaign Setting with d20 Modern/Future rules, Blood & Space 2, Dawning Star for both rules and for prepared adventure scenarios, a d20-ized version of the old Alternity Warships rules, the Modern and Future Player's Companions. So far, it's been just swell.

Is there a d20-ized version of Warships or did you work up your own conversion? I'm a fan of the Warships supplement, which is probably why the spaceship construction & combat in d20 Future was kind of a let down for me.

Azgulor

 

[Morgenstern]

The prior campaign was. This time, I plan to push the PCs to other planets in the Sol system as well as colony worlds. FTL is fairly new to humans.

Thanks for the feedback!

'Colony worlds' outside the Sol system then? What kind of terraforming tech are these people capable of? Kim Stanley Robinson's Red/Green/Blue Mars trilogy might make for some excelent firm sci-fi reading on colonizing hostile worlds. What happens when someone foots the bill and expects to reap the rewards... I think the most stunning bit of engineering proposed was the construction of a giant fresnel lens between Mars and the sun that inceased the solar infall on Mars to warm it up - it also made the Sun appear to be about the same size in Mars' sky as it appears on Earth - all accomplished with orbital manufacturing techniques and some captured asteroids for mass.

Will you allow beanstalks in your setting? Planetary gravity wells are no joke. Can ships land with ease or is it expected to park in orbit and catch an elevator down/up on the developed worlds?

10's, 100's, or 10's of thoudsands of habitats in orbit around Earth and in the lunar lagrange points? Finite and fragile habitats can give a real sci-fi feel to an otherwise standard adventure. Please refrain from using heavy melter-beams... There's hard vacuum on the otherside of that observation glass...

One world govenrments, mixed country sizes, or highly baulkanized worlds? Star Trek and Star Wars tend to offer huge, monolithic governments for simplicity of recognition (not a trival benefit in storytelling) but you may want to mix in a little cultural complexity. Your players set down on a Maori-colonized world... Anyone know the local lingo?

A few of these things lead to crunch, but they'll give me more of an idea where to focus it .

Also, if it's not treading on secret info, will Farthest Star contain sci-fi oriented base classes? I can see where most, if not all, of the base Spycraft classes could be used but I was assuming some sci-fi archetypes might be addressed as well.

So far I haven't seen any archetypes that have spawned new base classes. I'm expecting 4-ish Expert classes at this point (and a master class for each of the major govenrments). The ace pilot that will come out in World on Fire is a good fit for many settings, and the Gramaton Cleric available now in the free conversion material may fit some settings (gun-fu badass is usually a pretty welcome option amongst players and can make a very memmorable heavy to use against them...). I'm looking at a sort of intuitive AI trainer/handler as a possible Hacker- or Wheelamn-favoring new expert class.

Also, I have some finished ship stat blocks that will plug right into the existing Spycraft vehicle rules (including chases and vehicle combat). These are all drawn from movies and TV with the serial numbers slightly smudged out. If you have any other candidates you'd like, let me know and I'll see if I can cobble together some stats (the ship construction rules could use additional testing ).

http://www.crafty-games.com/dnn/Com...forumid/8/postid/2164/view/topic/Default.aspx

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

My personal preference for that kind of campaign is either one that is explicitly set up for it (like Traveller, in any form, but for you, D20) or something flexible.

And nothing is quite as flexible as a good RPG based on the supers genre. The underlying superheroic fiction genre has archetypes ranging from (using just Marvel comics): talented combatants (The Punisher), high-tech (Iron Man, Kang the Conquerer) to Mutants (X-Men), science accidents (Fantastic Four), mythological (Thor, Hercules), fantasy heroes (The Black Knight, Doctor Strange), pseudogods (The Eternals), aliens (Kree, Scrull, Shi'ar) and so forth...

In other words, such RPGS have to handle ANY form of genre-fiction archetype. FTL, Blasters and Psionics are right up that alley.

In D20, this means Mutants & Masterminds.

 

[Johnny Angel]

Is there a d20-ized version of Warships or did you work up your own conversion? I'm a fan of the Warships supplement, which is probably why the spaceship construction & combat in d20 Future was kind of a let down for me.

I have modified the AlternityRpg.net Warships ship generation sheet to produce a battle sheet usable with d20 skill resolution mechanics. I have just uploaded the latest version which includes an explanation of how it's meant to be used. But if there are still questions, I'd be happy to answer them. Just follow the link in my .sig.

 

[ValhallaGH]

Not having either game (yet!), I was under the impression that True20 had some traits in common with M&M2e, but wasn't the underlying rules. Presently, M&M2e has a lot more product support.

True 20 isn't exactly M&M2e with the super powers removed, but it is very similar. GR developed the Blue Rose RPG, and then noticed people lifting the rules for all sorts of games. They took the ruleset and turned them first into a PDF and then into a printed and seperate book. There are numerous mechanical differences from M&M2e, but the basic ideas and mechanics are the same assuming the lack of superpowers; hence my statement.

Could I borrow liberally from these products or would I be better served converting d20M/F material over? I'm trying to keep time spent on adapting/creating sci-fi rules/crunch to a minimum. Rules-light isn't a requirement, I just don't want to spend all of my "crunch-time" converting material from system A to system B.

Honestly? It depends upon what you want from them. If you just want a simple (yet complete) base ruleset to use for your games that can easily have anything d20 converted to it then True20 would work better than M&M2e. If you're wanting adventures, plots and NPCs from these products for another base system then they are much less useful.

Irregardless, most of my starship combat system is d20 neutral. You'll want to turn the collision damage charts into die type (speed category) and multiples of dice to roll (obstacle size) if you use it with another d20 system. The rest of it should work just fine.

Good Luck!

 

[edemaitre]

D20 sci-fi bakeoff

For scenarios based on the Sol system, I recommend GURPS Terradyne (sadly, now out of print), GURPS Mars, and GURPS 4e Space. Yeah, I know they're not D20, but they'll have much of what you're looking for in terms of description. If you want an anime flavor for your campaign, there's always the revised D20 version of Big Eyes, Small Mouth, which had some support, such as the D20 Mecha Compendium. I'm also a fan of the D20/Silcore "Jovian Chronicles," a solid military SF game set in our solar system.

True20 is relatively new and naturally very similar to the D20 "Mutants & Masterminds" 2nd Ed. superhero rules, but with more of a fantasy bent (at least so far). I do like the streamlined takes on D20/OGL, but a Game Master would have to adapt a fair amount of material from other D20 space opera games to create a proper setting. In that case, you might as well wait for more True20 books or pick up something else in the meantime. I still recommend the D20 Blood and Space as the most generic of the tool kits out there for this genre. Good luck...