D20 Sci-Fi

[trancejeremy]

Well, it depends on what you want.

Bulldogs! is pretty good if you are looking for something using the regular d20 rules, but is sort of action orientated. It reminds me of Star Frontiers in feel.

Fading Suns d20 is pretty good, and also uses the regular d20 rules. It's sort of like Dune in feel.

Dawning Star is a bit depressing (I thought), but is very well done and uses the d20 Modern rules. It's also close to being hard sci-fi.

Dragonstar was a very good implementation of D&D space, but the products got worse and worse.

Traveller 20 is great if you want a splitting headache. Really, it's not that bad, except for the rules and the setting. If any system didn't have a single redeeming feature, this would be it. (IMHO). If you think Star Wars has odd classes, T20 has classes that have a BAB progression even worse than +10 at 20th level. Most have very poor ones, which results in multi-classing being broken, as it's possible to have a mid level character with a BAB of +0.

Stargate SG-1 probably has the best implementation of the d20 rules around (IMHO), based on Spycraft, but is obviously aimed at a Stargate style game

RPG Objects has a number of PDFs for d20 Future/Modern called "Blood & Space" which are okay. And the Prometheus Rising setting is a pretty good hard sci-fi game set in our solar system.

 

[Bront]

did the Dragonstar game not go far because of the setting or was it the players? I want to run it sometime soon and I would like to avoid any pitfalls in the setting.

Player and GM availability. Nothing about the system, just everyone suddently became unavailable.

 

[Bront]

Traveller 20 is great if you want a splitting headache. Really, it's not that bad, except for the rules and the setting. If any system didn't have a single redeeming feature, this would be it. (IMHO). If you think Star Wars has odd classes, T20 has classes that have a BAB progression even worse than +10 at 20th level. Most have very poor ones, which results in multi-classing being broken, as it's possible to have a mid level character with a BAB of +0.

I saw the .25 BAB in the demo. If it's a game with less combat, or at least less person to person combat, no problem. Also, the quick fix for the BAB issue is to use fractional BABs.

The oddness in Star Wars is little things, like Diplomacy not being a Scoundrel class skill makes no sense.

 

[Shadowdancer]

If you think Star Wars has odd classes, T20 has classes that have a BAB progression even worse than +10 at 20th level. Most have very poor ones, which results in multi-classing being broken, as it's possible to have a mid level character with a BAB of +0.

Well yes, if you pick classes that don't traditionally receive any combat training, they won't have a good BAB progression because they haven't been getting into much combat. It's more realistic. And there are people who like playing those types of characters, that's one of the reasons they like playing Traveller -- all of the emphasis is not on combat. You can create and play skills-oriented characters who can make significant contributions to the game without pulling out a gun and shooting something or someone. And XP is not determined by what you've killed. That doesn't make the game bad or broken or unplayable, IMHO. It just makes it different from most FRPGs.

 

[Turanil]

I have several d20 sci-fi games:

Bulldog! is a sci-fi d20 game with a pulp flair and that is totally compatible with D&D 3.5 (unlike other d20 sci-fi games). To know more about it I suggest you read the reviews of it.

Traveller 20 has a somewhat obsolete sci-fi feel, and I don't like the classes very much. But you could try T20 Lite to get a better idea, that is available for free on RPGnow.com

Deadstars Deadstars may not be the best d20 sci-fi game, but it's available for free on RPGnow.com

d20 Future would be my choice for a sci-fi game. The bad point is that you must also have the d20 Modern book, and creating characters in d20 Modern/Future is long and tedious. However, there is plenty of supplements out there (mostly in PDF available on RPGnow.com) for this game.

 

[Aeric]

I've always been a big fan of Jovian Chronicles and Heavy Gear, and the d20 Mecha Manual has some of the mecha from both games in d20 stats. If you like mecha, and don't mind doing a bit of conversion, both games have excellent, thought-out and detailled backgrounds. Throw in some d20 BESM and you're set!

 

[Psion]

I saw the .25 BAB in the demo. If it's a game with less combat, or at least less person to person combat, no problem.

Precisely. Having BAB tied to class levels is only tolerable in D&D precisely because combat is considered to be such a central feature. Traveller does not share this assumption, so having an even lower BAB for sedentary characters is not only justifiable, it's almost obligatory (if you use BAB at all. IMO, they should have made weapons skills like BESM d20 did.)

 

[Ed Cha]

Dawning Star

and

Bulldogs! d20

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

If you don't want to do work, I'd suggest TravD20, Fading Suns D20, Dragonstar, and Gamma World in that order. They're all pretty well set up.

With a little work, you can have fun with D20 Future.

With a decent amount of work, you can use Mutants & Mastermind, and have EXACTLY what you want. Its primarily set up to be a superheroic game, but because of this, its EXTREMELY flexible.

 

[Baron Opal]

So, if you want to use d20 Future, you need to have d20 Modern anyway?

Baron Opal