Looking for Guardians of the Galaxy type system recommendations.

[Tales and Chronicles]

The Expanse for Modern AGE. The PC are though and flashy with the Stunt system and the narrative behind what replace the good ol' HP (I cant remember the name). Just change the names of places and you can jump straigth to play.

 

[Blue]

The Expanse for Modern AGE. The PC are though and flashy with the Stunt system and the narrative behind what replace the good ol' HP (I cant remember the name). Just change the names of places and you can jump straigth to play.

I haven't really had a chance to look into AGE. For that brief description it sounds good. Does it handle ship combat as well?

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I haven't really had a chance to look into AGE. For that brief description it sounds good. Does it handle ship combat as well?

Yes. IIRC there's the corebook covers most of the rules and there's also a companion book with extra stuff for vehicles and ship.

@Aldarc is more savvy than me on all things AGE, so they may know more.

Its from Green Ronin and there was some review and articles on their website on their rules for ''HP'' and ''armors'', you may want to look them up to give you a better idea.

 

[Tun Kai Poh]

Regarding the part of 2. that says "everyone is doing something important during starship combat," the best solution I've found is to give everyone their own ship during a battle.

So, although I love Scum and Villainy, I'd say, run Beam Saber. It's Forged in the Dark and has rules to give every player character their own personal vehicle to pilot in combat. Just reskin their base as a mothership, and you're good to go.

Beam Saber by Austin Ramsay

A TTRPG about pilots and their massive war machines.

austin-ramsay.itch.io

 

[Blue]

Regarding the part of 2. that says "everyone is doing something important during starship combat," the best solution I've found is to give everyone their own ship during a battle.

So, although I love Scum and Villainy, I'd say, run Beam Saber. It's Forged in the Dark and has rules to give every player character their own personal vehicle to pilot in combat. Just reskin their base as a mothership, and you're good to go.

Beam Saber by Austin Ramsay

A TTRPG about pilots and their massive war machines.

austin-ramsay.itch.io

Beam Saber looks good, but not quite the vibe I'm going for for this group. I've seen good space combat before, but it was when each character explicitly had meaningful things to do. Maybe it was in one of the Star Trek games from a while ago.

From a system design perspective, I almost wish that ship combat was treated as a different pillar of play and used a separate currency. Having a Pilot as a playbook in S&V means working that in that character's specialty as regularly as all of the other player specialties, but they are the only one who's specialty is more often ship combat. Yes, it works fine with any vehicles so it's not so limiting. But still, coming from heavy D&D backgrounds my players are more used to things where everyone can contribute in those types of scenes.

 

[Voadam]

Mutants & Masterminds 3e. Mostly familiar d20 mechanics, fairly streamlined d20 combat where PCs will regularly survive a shootout but much less tactically fiddly than 3e D&D, designed for superhero types with no emphasis on acquiring D&D style loot. There are sourcebooks on space, including a Guardians like team pre done out. It also has a 128 page Basic Heroes Handbook with fully compatible but simplified character creation and some sample Heroes that is cheaper than the main book.

Does not hit every point you raised mechanically, but it came to mind for me for doing Guardians.