Best D20 Space Games (not fantasy)

[Wofano Wotanto]

I found a copy of d20 Future for under $20 so ordered that just to check it out. Sounds like it's not a great game but I figured worth a read at least.

That's about how I'd rate it. If nothing else it's an interesting look at what WotC was doing with scifi back in the day - which is not much, but they certainly grabbed bits and pieces from the earlier TSR stuff they now owned, so you get a dash of Star Frontiers and Alternity ported to d20 as well as the more generic stuff. It's kind of a shame they couldn't use Buck Rogers XXVC as well - that was already a thinly disguised 2e AD&D variant and seeing it ported to d20 would have been neat.

Artwork's pretty good too, as I recall.

 

[GuardianLurker]

I'm sorry you paid so close to its cover price. Honestly, take the personal gear and the character options, and throw away the rest.

Spoiler

It's single biggest failure is that it just can't deal with how big space is. Space Combat happens at jet fighter speeds, even for capital ships. Capital ships do not deal appropriate levels of damage. And their FTL is only suitable for inter- PLANATARY travel (intra- solarsystem).

It also fails to deal with varying tech levels well. And... gah. Sorry. It's been twenty years. I can't and don't want to remember all that's wrong. I'll summarize. It is one of the very few supplements I've ever run across that is not fit for use.

For everything else, find a setting you like and just use that.