Space Adventure RPGs

[gamerprinter]

Fantasy Games Unlimited produced Space Opera in 1981, and if you have a firm idea on what type of sci-fi game you want to run this game is not a bad choice. It is straight up aliens and strange worlds and fantastical science fiction. But if you are looking for a particular setting then find the game which is focused on the particular setting you are into. Space Opera is best used by Star Masters who are interested in creating their own original sci-fi universe.

I still have some of the star system guides, I think, Confederate States Alliance is one. I'd say my development of my Kronusverse setting for Starfinder is procedurally more like Space Opera than Traveller or anything else of inspiration.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I still have some of the star system guides, I think, Confederate States Alliance is one. I'd say my development of my Kronusverse setting for Starfinder is procedurally more like Space Opera than Traveller or anything else of inspiration.

SO had some colorful material, and a few of the mechanical ideas were interesting, but in many ways it was pretty much a train-wreck of different-mechanics-for-every-purpose and unclear character generation rules. I tried more than once to get ready to run it and never managed, and I can't say that of virtually any other FGU game of the time, some of which appeared more complex on paper.

 

[aramis erak]

Fantasy Games Unlimited produced Space Opera in 1981, and if you have a firm idea on what type of sci-fi game you want to run this game is not a bad choice. It is straight up aliens and strange worlds and fantastical science fiction. But if you are looking for a particular setting then find the game which is focused on the particular setting you are into. Space Opera is best used by Star Masters who are interested in creating their own original sci-fi universe.

It can also be described as "Traveller redone by guys who love complexity and prefer Roddenberry to Doc Smith and CJ Cherryh."
It supports the same range of activities, it has a traveller inspired character prior experience system (source: Phil McGreggor via email, circa 2002), and lots of Jeff Dee art.... it can be used as easily for gritty to derring-do focued campaigns, but with the notice that all the drives are essentially warp drives - the Sublight and FTL are different regimes of a singular warp effect - and the weapons are essentially phasers and photons only.

 

[aramis erak]

SO had some colorful material, and a few of the mechanical ideas were interesting, but in many ways it was pretty much a train-wreck of different-mechanics-for-every-purpose and unclear character generation rules. I tried more than once to get ready to run it and never managed, and I can't say that of virtually any other FGU game of the time, some of which appeared more complex on paper.

Having run some 2-3 session adventures...
char gen isn't bad, just poorly presented; skills are bought at the end based upon class, career, and time in services.
It's design is, much like traveller, custom rules for most of the skills. It does, however, require a lot more math...

It's up on Drive through for the brave/foolish/mathlovers...

 

[Thomas Shey]

It can also be described as "Traveller redone by guys who love complexity and prefer Roddenberry to Doc Smith and CJ Cherryh."
It supports the same range of activities, it has a traveller inspired character prior experience system (source: Phil McGreggor via email, circa 2002), and lots of Jeff Dee art.... it can be used as easily for gritty to derring-do focued campaigns, but with the notice that all the drives are essentially warp drives - the Sublight and FTL are different regimes of a singular warp effect - and the weapons are essentially phasers and photons only.

Star Trek and Star Wars (parts make the latter obvious).

And the space weaponry is all that, but there was actually a wide variety of personal scale weaponry.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Having run some 2-3 session adventures...
char gen isn't bad, just poorly presented; skills are bought at the end based upon class, career, and time in services.

Maybe so. All I know is it managed to defeat me during a period when I was having no trouble engaging with the Hero System and Aftermath!

It's design is, much like traveller, custom rules for most of the skills. It does, however, require a lot more math...

I never was a fan of that approach in general, and adding in the level of crunch to it that SO had (and to make it clear, I'm fine with crunch but if I'm going to have it I want a system with a common approach) was, well, a thing.

 

[aramis erak]

Star Trek and Star Wars (parts make the latter obvious).

And the space weaponry is all that, but there was actually a wide variety of personal scale weaponry.

Not unlike Traveller again!
In all seriousness, it's Phil & Ed's "advanced Traveller" - the star wars effect was minimal in core, but yes, once you get to the ship books, becomes VERY obvious. But the ship mechanics remain, throughout, purely CT plus TOS, TAS, & SFTM Star Trek.

Maybe so. All I know is it managed to defeat me during a period when I was having no trouble engaging with the Hero System and Aftermath!

Once you get the disconnects, it actually runs really well. Generate atts and background, do careers, then buy all the eligible skills (by class and career) desired

I never was a fan of that approach in general, and adding in the level of crunch to it that SO had (and to make it clear, I'm fine with crunch but if I'm going to have it I want a system with a common approach) was, well, a thing.

In 1981, the separate rules by skill was pretty much the norm.
Rolemaster was moving towards a unified mechanic, but had a bunch of exceptions in skill handling (Adrenal Moves, Body Dev, SP Dev. Spell Aquisition).
Palladium had only a couple special case non-combat skills, but every combat skill was a special table of modifiers... and early palladium wasn't even X+(Y per level), so the skills were 1-3 skills per progression
RuneQuest was still possessed of multiple skill approaches (as it was 2E) with a few boolean, most percentile.
Star Frontiers iwas a mostly unified skill system, but still had rules blocks per skill with different odds per subskill, and each non-weapon skill being a chunk of rulebook space.

 

[Thomas Shey]

In 1981, the separate rules by skill was pretty much the norm.

You might get some of it, but that wasn't, for example, the approach in RQ. Or even Champions (outside of combat, and why that used such a different process is a historical accident rather than a deliberate decision). Both of those added up to "make your roll, modified by difficulty." The difficulty numbers might be spelled out under individual skills, or you'd get things like opposed skills, but the fundamental resolution was all the same.

Rolemaster was moving towards a unified mechanic, but had a bunch of exceptions in skill handling (Adrenal Moves, Body Dev, SP Dev. Spell Aquisition).

Well, arguably, those were proto-talents that were done as skills because nobody had any idea about something like modern talent systems. Even TFT sort of lumped them together.

Palladium had only a couple special case non-combat skills, but every combat skill was a special table of modifiers... and early palladium wasn't even X+(Y per level), so the skills were 1-3 skills per progression
RuneQuest was still possessed of multiple skill approaches (as it was 2E) with a few boolean, most percentile.

I don't think I agree, outside of the obvious case of combat skills. You pretty much had straight resolved skills, and opposed skills. What else was there?

Star Frontiers iwas a mostly unified skill system, but still had rules blocks per skill with different odds per subskill, and each non-weapon skill being a chunk of rulebook space.

I'm not really talking about taking space out to do separate modifiers, but where the resolution itself is different for various skills.

 

[aramis erak]

I don't think I agree, outside of the obvious case of combat skills. You pretty much had straight resolved skills, and opposed skills. What else was there?

Note: I'm looking at the 2nd ed of RQ - NOT the 1984 3rd ed, which is, functionally, VERY VERY different.
Alchemy - 2 pages of special case by potion type skill. And Alchemy skills are boolean... "... the type which are learned totally or not at all" (p 45)
Oratory has a special table for its meaning
Language skills aren't rolled most of the time and has a half page of mechanics.
Spells (both types) are different (and from each other)

I'm not really talking about taking space out to do separate modifiers, but where the resolution itself is different for various skills.

The resolution itself only unified in RQ with 3rd ed... wherein Avalon Hill forces Chaosium to get professional...
excepting languages.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Note: I'm looking at the 2nd ed of RQ - NOT the 1984 3rd ed, which is, functionally, VERY VERY different.
Alchemy - 2 pages of special case by potion type skill. And Alchemy skills are boolean... "... the type which are learned totally or not at all" (p 45)

I'd forgotten there was even Alchemy rules in the book, to tell you the truth, so I'll give you that one (though we mostly played 1e so it may not have existed there.)

Oratory has a special table for its meaning

As long as the resolution is the same, I don't consider that any more significant than the fact that, say, jumping or climbing rolls do; how the rolls actually effect a situation beyond crit/special/succeed/fail/fumble doesn't seem to be special casing in the sense I was using it.

Language skills aren't rolled most of the time and has a half page of mechanics.

I'll give you those.

Spells (both types) are different (and from each other)

Until sorcery came along, spells simply weren't skills; they were resisted rolls, but that doesn't seem any more significant than the fact damage rolls aren't done like skills. Again, that's output issues, not resolution per se.

The resolution itself only unified in RQ with 3rd ed... wherein Avalon Hill forces Chaosium to get professional...
excepting languages.

As you can see, I disagree with all but two of your examples here (one of which I'd forgotten even existed).