Can anyone recommend a Sci-Fi/Future game?

[Rhun]

I have to recommened d20 Modern with d20 Future. Not quite perfect out of the box (at least for me), but plenty of options and easily modified.

 

[Nuclear Platypus]

Unfortunately you'd have to create it yourself but given d20 Modern / Future and all the extra 3rd Party goodies, it shouldn't be too difficult. Go with Westwood Studio's Command and Conquer stuff. You've got the techologically advanced Global Defense Initiative (with mech walkers in Tiberium Sun), slightly less so but more fanatic Brotherhood of Nod (Tiberium cyborgs in the same), etc. Heck, there's even the villain with a thousand lives - Kane. Swipe stuff from others in the Red Alert series as well for more goodies.

It might be obscure enough that with a lil filing of the serial numbers, the players won't know the difference.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Fading Suns has a strong Space Opera theme to it. It comes with its own rule set and in D20.

 

[Starglim]

Alternity's still a great game. It's a broadly flexible modern and future (and past/fantasy in fan support) ruleset. The original Star*Drive is a space opera campaign setting for Alternity.

 

[Justin D. Jacobson]

It makes me feel warm all over to be a couple of hours late to the thread and already have a few Dawning Star mentions. Thanks.

If you have any questions about DS, let me know.

 

[EditorBFG]

I can't believe no one has mentioned Bulldogs! yet.

Here's a review:

http://www.enworld.org/reviews.php?do=review&reviewid=2039829

I think it's been reviewed more than once on EN World, but this is the one that I found.

 

[Justin D. Jacobson]

I can't believe no one has mentioned Bulldogs! yet.

Indeed, Bulldogs! is great for starship, robots, and gear. And, of course, for gun-toting cigar-chomping teddy bears. One caveat: It uses the D&D 3.0 version of the SRD.

 

[DMH]

Alternity's still a great game. It's a broadly flexible modern and future (and past/fantasy in fan support) ruleset. The original Star*Drive is a space opera campaign setting for Alternity.

I second that. Star*Drive, the main Alternity setting has a decent amount of support (~20 books) and the other settings, Dark*Matter and Gamma World have material that can easily be imported with little or no balance issue (a major plus of Alternity over d20).

 

[Johnny Angel]

I second that. Star*Drive, the main Alternity setting has a decent amount of support (~20 books) and the other settings, Dark*Matter and Gamma World have material that can easily be imported with little or no balance issue (a major plus of Alternity over d20).

Star*Drive is my own preoccupation, and I've gone to some considerable effort to make it playable by d20 Future rules. You can find some materials useful to this end at the link in my .sig, which should take some of the work out of it for you if you should decide to go that way.

Dawning Star is also a good option for d20 Future with adventures ready to run -- a big plus for me. The setting has a kind of Firefly/Tales of the Gold Monkey feel to it, at least for the first supplement. I try to support it with my chargen sheet, but who knows when I'll have time to work in that mass of stuff from the most recent supplement Helios Rising (however, if anyone has specific requests, let me know).

Blood & Space does for d20 Future what WotC should -- supporting the system with well thought-out supplemental rules. If you use the d20 Future system at all, you'll eventually want to look at the Blood & Space 2 material. They have their own campaign setting called Prometheus Rising, which is high-tech but also fairly realistic in that it's contained within our own solar system. The setting book itself is also rich with supplemental rules. And their Modern Dispatch series contains at least one adventure for that setting.

I've given more-or-less this same spiel a number of times on this board. I wish I could tell you more about the other things people have recommended. T20 is the latest manifestation of an enduring classic, and they seem to be supporting it. I've neer seen Bulldogs! at all.

 

[trancejeremy]

The trouble is, most in print d20 Sci-FI games are just frameworks. The only real exception is Dawning Star, which has 2 books and some others, and while I like that, it's pretty much set in one star system. (It's also expensive to get into if you don't have D20 Modern & d20 Future, although the latter isn't a must own)

Bulldogs!, which I liked, is mostly rules in its book. There is some setting info, but really, not much, most of it is in small sidebars. It's a very good stand alone sci-fi d20 game. Yeah, it's based on 3.0, but most of the changes to 3.5 were in magic and classes and such and don't impact it much.

T20 I think has some PDF supplements. But it's such a mess as a game, I wouldn't recommend it.

Fading Suns d20's corebook is quite good, but the d20 supplements for it are of poor quality (the ones I have) when it comes to d20-ness