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Message: <blockquote data-quote="timbannock" data-source="post: 9521619" data-attributes="member: 17913">My take on the ones I'm familiar with:Alien is great for being Alien. While it's got supplements that expand the field of play considerably, I really think it shines best as a one-shot where you and the players really buy into selling the Panic table results and pretty much working towards a Paranoia-esque 'everybody dies in the end.' The 2nd edition is reported to be reworking that table, so my views may change once that drops. I say all of this with love; I really enjoyed it, I just don't think it's great for anything more than what Alien (the franchise) means to me.Mothership looks like Alien but actually more flexible, in the sense that it has so much worldbuilding generation built into the tables and procedures. You necessarily have to take a stance and answer certain questions on certain information (how do androids work, for example), and that allows the players to have a lot of say in the game's setting. That makes it both easier to jump into than Alien (you don't have to be a fan), and more customized to your group's preferences. That said, I'm not a fan of d% systems, so it's ultimately not going to scratch my itch as a GM, but I'd play the heck out of it.Death in Space is great, because it has some of what Mothership does, but in an even easier-to-mod fashion since it's just a hyper-simplified D&D derivative. Its compatibility with OSR stuff means you can just slot in a bajillion old school-compatible adventures, supplements, monsters, spells, powers, gear, whatever and it all just works without much effort. That said, it's a little too barebones on its own. I found slotting in stuff from the Mork Borg-inspired sci-fi game Vast Grimm greatly expanded things, and made it feel more...complete? You can also use DiS' systems for capital ship combat while using Vast Grimm's Spacecruisers supplement for more dog-fight-y style ship combat without missing a beat. But all that said, while it's my favorite on your list, I think "needs other stuff to make it feel more robust" is a knock against it...unless you've got that other stuff.I'm not familiar with the other two, other than to say that Cepheus is Traveller compatible, so that also opens up a lot of the benefits of DiS. If you don't mind light conversion work, that's a huge boon in getting more gaming material to the table very quickly.Given your specific purposes of learning a game that's got a very strong genre slant, I'd argue Mothership is maybe your best bet, given it also has one of the greatest GM manuals in gaming, not just for the specific genre. Runner up would be DiS, IMO.</blockquote>

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