Best RPG to run a Firefly game

[Dbudzik]

Scum and Villainy

 

[Dbudzik]

Scum and Villainy

 

[dbm]

I saw someone recommend Savage Worlds, but for me, SW doesn't reflect the lethality you see in Firefly or certainly Serenity.

There are multiple ways to address that if someone wanted to.

First, sticking to mostly Extras as enemies would mean they go down in a fight easily, so you would see people being dropped quite quickly in many fights.

Second, tweak the stats for guns and armour. Guns aren’t super high damage dice in many cases, and default high-tech armour includes ‘ballistic protection’ which massively increases its protection against guns. Tune the guns up slightly and reduce the availability of sophisticated armour and you will change the lethality dramatically.

Third, you can use the Gritty Damage setting rule to make all injury more impactful.

In my experience, Savage Worlds is highly tunable and very easy to home brew for as needed.

 

[The Soloist]

What about Coriollis?

Coriolis is Arabian Nights flavour with mysterious 'Alien Gods'. We did a space trucker campaign, and it worked fine. To do true Firefly, you would have to ignore a larger part of what makes the game unique. Better to use another system.

 

[BJK Games]

I'd say Scum and Villainy would be your best bet, tbh. I haven't ever tried the actual Firefly game itself, but I know that S&V is pretty much a spiritual successor that is truly fantastic and takes a lot of inspiration from the 'verse.

 

[Theory of Games]

Cool! Unfortunately my group is not 5e fond.

Well it would help if we knew what your group's gaming preferences were. That way we aren't tossing out ttrpgs that don't qualify

 

[Micah Sweet]

What RPG would you use to run a Firefly/Serenity game?

• Firefly RPG, obviously. But,
• Traveler? For the commerce aspect.
• Star Wars Edge of Empire? Rogues, anyone?
• Stars Without Number? Adventures galore!

What else?

All of those are excellent choices. SWN would I think be particularly compelling. But I think I would like to run it in Level Up's Voidrunner's Codex rules. Hits all the bases from what I can tell.

 

[FrogReaver]

I’ve not played the others but I think stars without number would handle it well. Love the game too! Though can’t say I loved the ship combat, but I don’t know that any game handles ship combat well.

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

There are multiple ways to address that if someone wanted to.

First, sticking to mostly Extras as enemies would mean they go down in a fight easily, so you would see people being dropped quite quickly in many fights.

Second, tweak the stats for guns and armour. Guns aren’t super high damage dice in many cases, and default high-tech armour includes ‘ballistic protection’ which massively increases its protection against guns. Tune the guns up slightly and reduce the availability of sophisticated armour and you will change the lethality dramatically.

Third, you can use the Gritty Damage setting rule to make all injury more impactful.

In my experience, Savage Worlds is highly tunable and very easy to home brew for as needed.

I think this gets to the core of the problem I see: if you're having to make so many tweaks, are you sure that's the best system for it?

I enjoy SW when I play its different iterations. If you're going to play Firefly, however, armor shouldn't be a factor at all - I'm not sure a situation comes to mind where the main characters, who would be your PCs essentially, ever wear armor. Getting shot causes longer term issues that you can't just 'shake off'.

YMMV

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think this gets to the core of the problem I see: if you're having to make so many tweaks, are you sure that's the best system for it?

I enjoy SW when I play its different iterations. If you're going to play Firefly, however, armor shouldn't be a factor at all - I'm not sure a situation comes to mind where the main characters, who would be your PCs essentially, ever wear armor. Getting shot causes longer term issues that you can't just 'shake off'.

YMMV

Yeah. The narrative mechanics layer of SW is a little thick for my kind of play, let alone as what would IMO be a good sim for Firefly.