How about a Sci-fi RPG from Wizards?

[VGmaster9]

Back when TSR made the short-lived Sci-fi game, Star Frontiers, it was like their ultimate sci-fi game while D&D was their ultimate fantasy game. Of course, there's also Traveller, but it's more on the hard side in terms of science.

Wizards could make an RPG that would be considered "D&D in space", but would be purely sci-fi just as D&D is purely fantasy. It would also be alot more popular than Traveller. Things included would be space being the ocean, tons of planets to be in, lots of different kinds of spaceships from space pods to massive space stations, lots of races, psionics being the mystical power of the universe, faster-than-light travel, and different kinds of guns such as ballistic, gauss, laser, plasma, ion, and more.

Like how D&D took lots of ideas from fantasy media, this one would take ideas from many sci-fi franchises, like Dune, Star Trek, Star Wars, Warhammer 40k, Starcraft, Mass Effect, and more. You think it has a chance at success?

 

[Morrus]

Wizards could make an RPG that would be considered "D&D in space", but would be purely sci-fi just as D&D is purely fantasy. It would also be alot more popular than Traveller. Things included would be space being the ocean, tons of planets to be in, lots of different kinds of spaceships from space pods to massive space stations, lots of races, psionics being the mystical power of the universe, faster-than-light travel, and different kinds of guns such as ballistic, gauss, laser, plasma, ion, and more.

Well and truly on it - in a big, big way!

While SANTIAGO is an adventure path, the Player's Guide will be comprehensive enough to let you run your own sci-fi games using the D&D rules, even if you're not interested in the plot of the AP.

 

[VGmaster9]

Well and truly on it - in a big, big way!

While SANTIAGO is an adventure path, the Player's Guide will be comprehensive enough to let you run your own sci-fi games using the D&D rules, even if you're not interested in the plot of the AP.

Looks space western, but looks interesting enough. But still, even as a game itself, this can use D20 rules.

 

[Morrus]

Looks space western, but looks interesting enough. But still, even as a game itself, this can use D20 rules.

d20? SANTIAGO is 4E scifi (the "Western" bit is just the adventure plot - the rules are general sci-fi), but there's a metric boatload of d20 space games out there if that's what you're after. Too many to count!

Of course the d20 STL no longer exists, so you'll need to find 'em second hand (unless the publisher rereleased it without the d20 logo, as some did).

I haven't tried any of the d20 space games except Dragonstar, so I can't really vouch for their quality.

 

[VGmaster9]

I was talking about my game idea, not Santiago, and I meant a standalone game using 4e rules. It would be like how Games Workshop made Warhammer FB and Warhammer 40k, how Blizzard made Warcraft and Starcraft, and how Bioware made Dragon Age and Mass Effect. D&D should have its own official sci-fi counterpart like those other fantasy games.

 

[Morrus]

I was talking about my game idea, not Santiago, and I meant a standalone game using 4e rules.

4E? Sorry, thought you were talking about d20. There aren't any (3rd party) to my knowledge - the GSL isn't very friendly to standalones like the OGL was, and I can't imagine WotC has any plans in that regard (unless you count Gamma World).

They did produce Star Wars, but that was d20 not 4E, so probably not what you're looking for (and they don't have that license any more anyway).

I think the best you're likely to get is a 3rd-party product, but it won't be standalone.

 

[VGmaster9]

I got kinda mixed up and had no idea that D20 and 4e are different (took me that long to figure it out lol), and Gamma World seems to be labeled as a D&D game. I just think it would be real awesome if Wizards actually made a sister RPG of D&D. GW, Blizzard, and Bioware did the exact same thing.

 

[Stormonu]

Well, if they'd kept the Star Wars license, they could have done that. However, it's likely that were they to try a sci-fi 4E game, it would pale to the recent Star Wars SAGA they did, and I'd imagine it would sell poorly.

I don't know why, but sci-fi has never seemed to click - TSR/WotC's gone through Star Frontiers, Gamma World (6 editions!), Alternity (Star*Drive and Dark Matter settings), Amazing Engine, d20 modern and lately Star Wars SAGA. So far, none of them have had the staying power that D&D has enjoyed, and I don't really understand why.

Personally, If WotC could file the serial numbers off the Star Wars stuff and re-release SAGA as a generic sci-fi space opera game system, I think that would be the best option in these times.

 

[Morrus]

Yeah, they've tried it lots of times before and it's never taken off.

 

[JohnRTroy]

Science Fiction is a harder genre than Fantasy for several reasons.

1) Fantasy games tend to be unstructured with heroes playing adventurers. That might be harder in certain S-F settings. The team dynamics of say, Star Trek (organized military/government) is different than, say, Star Wars (organized or disorganized depending on your point of view), or something like Farscape.

2) Many Fantasy games are designed to be more or less "generic". Sure, there can be specific settings, but they are based on mythology and inspiration from fiction and other games. Two DMs can have vastly different campaign worlds and yet still use things like the monster manual. We usually populate our worlds with faeries, monsters, dragons, etc.

S-F is much more dependent on setting, and there are more demands for, if not "realism", an Internal consistency. Thus, each game has to have a campaign setting. You can do something like GURPS space, but it's really hard to just create a generic "monster manual".

And each S-F setting is widely different, having its own rules for things like technology, how the theoretical sciences works (FTL travel, Psychic powers, etc.) Different genres appeal to different people.

I think the only successful SF games have been those from licensed properties (Star Trek, Star Wars, etc.)--and I'll count StarFleet Battles since it's more or less a depreciative of Star Trek due to some licensing technicality--and Traveller. And the latter was the first SF RPG and thus probably benefits from its long history--but even that gets strained due to the various game systems and what (IMO) is a campaign setting that shows its age in terms of S-F trends (lack of cybertech, nanotech, transhumanism).