Alligator Alley Entertainment has sent over some previews of the upcoming sourcebook for the D&D 5E-powered Esper Genesis RPG.
What are some selling points on the game and/or setting? My group was interested in it.That's pretty sweet art! My Esper Genesis campaign was a wild ride. The starship combat is pretty cool too; very "Han and Chewie."
What are some selling points on the game and/or setting? My group was interested in it.
Proceeds to give a long, fantastic, detailed explanation.Rules wise:
Highly compatible with 5e, so I feel like I'm getting more options for my 5e game, whatever genre I'm using. The sci-fi spins on some classes and new classes (an engineering "cleric" who can fix equipment or fix the crew, "warlock" hacker/psion, a psychic warrior, a tweaked hunter "ranger" and a cyborg "paladin" makes melee no joke.) And many of EG monsters and D&D monsters can be used for either game.
PC starships have their stats that are modified by which bridge station a PC sits and there are also crew maneuvers to get your dog fights on. But you can still run a melee inside the ship at the same time.
You have guns but are invited to add damage types to get the laser guns and sun swords you need. High velocity is a new damage type for guns, but you also have Dune-like personal shield devices that ensure squishy classes don't get squishier.
If a GM doesn't use EG for their own homebrew campaign, the Silrayne Arc is pretty fun.
For the species, many of them have cool backstories and connections to each other. You have:
The wonder material, sorium, runs the Jump Drives and either gives a rare sentient psychic powers or responds to their mental commands to make nanobots. It even makes guns better, generating new bullets if you don't fire too fast.
- Bio-android who make good engineers - or fighters
- Living stars in containment suits
- Very short scientists who communicate with their tentacle hair
- Blue telepaths whose distant cousins run an evil empire
- Shape shifting space nomads
- Elementally powered, space samurai lizard people
- Genengineered humans
- Space cat people
This material is mined from alien artifacts found near jump "gates," which are more like jump zones. Though there are a few natural rifts in the galaxy as well.
The setting implies that your PCs are minor superheroes in the setting (like Shadowrun) and it tries to offer spots and organizations to let you riff off most of the major SF genres, cyberpunk (several of the EG adventures out are cyberpunk adjacent), military SF, exploration, cosmic horror, etc.
Bless you if you have read this far, so I will tell you the general reaction to the game, for they are both the same.
Before playing EG: 5e rules for SF, yeah, yeah. We'll see.
After playing EG: Holy crap, now I get it! That was fun! Same time next week?
I think the secret sauce is that the classes, races and rules work well and the world is in enough broad strokes that a GM can riff on it pretty well, but you're not tied to major tropes like you are with a game based on a franchise.
Just my 2 cents.