D&D General Is D&D-powered Sci-fi Having a Moment?

Going back as far as 1980's Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, science fiction and D&D have always had a connection. Barrier Peaks was a D&D adventure by Gary Gygax which featured a crashed spaceship, robots, and ray guns. The player characters were regular fantasy D&D characters, but the unusual situation they found themselves in was pure sci-fi. You can grab a 5E conversion guide for it over on DM's Guild, and Goodman Games put out a conversion back in 2019.

Earlier editions of D&D's d20 System even powered official Star Wars games from WotC. These days it feels like D&D sci-fi is having a moment! With Traveller 5e currently crowdfunding, let's take a quick look at some of the various 5E-powered science fiction games currently available:

• Esper Genesis
• Dark Matter
• Carbon 2025
• Voidrunner's Codex
• Exodus
• Traveller 5E
• Neon Odyssey

Esper Genesis from Alligator Alley Entertainment was one of the earliest 5E sci-fi games. It launched on Kickstarter in 2017, so it is positively venerable when it comes to this list. It is inspired by Star Wars, Mass Effect, Phantasy Star, and Ghost in the Shell, and features psionic characters called "Espers".

Dark Matter from Mage Hand Press came along in 2018 (and there's a new Mega Box version which just recently crowdfunded) as a campaign setting. It was followed by a full starter set in 2020. Like Esper Genesis, this is inspired by space opera with influences like Star Wars, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Expanse, and Doom.

In 2019, Dragon Turtle Games crowdfunded Carbon 2025. This one was more cyberpunk than space opera, set in a dystopian America. Like many cyberpunk games, it features cybernetics, hacking, and evil corporations.

The Voidrunner's Codex from EN Publishing (that's us!) was in 2024, and was a big slipcase containing three books, a GM screen, and a box full of maps, deckplans, and tokens. Again, space opera was its inspiration, with Star Trek, Star Wars and the like at the forefront.

Exodus is a sci-fi TTRPG originally developed by one of WotC's game studios, based on the upcoming video game, was shared with early adopters in 2025, and is due to be released via Renegade Game Studios later this year. It sounds like Renegade has plans to continue the line; the initial releases in August will be the Exodus Traveler's Handbook and the Creature Catalog.

Traveller 5e is the currently crowdfunding project from World's Largest RPGs. It's an adaption of the iconic Traveller game to the 5E ruleset, and is another with a big box full of tokens and maps and stuff.

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Neon Odyssey from Legends of Avantris is coming soon to Kickstarter and with over 15,000 pre-launch followers looks like a strong contender for the million dollar TTRPG crowdfunder club. It, like most of the others, is BIG and, like most of the others, focuses on space opera.

There's also an unofficial community-built Star Wars 5E out there, and games like Stars Without Number or Starfinder are D&D-adjacent, while things like Spelljammer are more fantasy than sci-fi. And, of course, there are plenty of non-D&D sci-fi games out there--Alien, The Expanse, and so on.

So, as long as space opera is your jam, it looks like you're spoiled for choices! Most seem to come in boxes or slipcases and loaded with maps, tokens, and other goodies, and they generally cover similar things--psionics, starship building and combat, big equipment lists, vehicles, and so on. Since they're all 5E-powered, in theory they should all be cross-compatible so you can pilfer alien monsters from one game and use them in another, and select your choice of psionic systems. The props--deckplans, tokens, and so on--will be useful in any sci-fi game.

Now we have space opera well-covered, is it time for some gritty sci-fi? Mongoose has its new NASA-adjacent Pioneer game coming (which is very timely with today's Artemis II launch!) but that's powered by (non-5E) Traveller rather than the D&D ruleset. Perhaps 5E isn't the right ruleset for a gritty game, as the zero-to-hero trajectory is definitely designed with high fantasy in mind. Shattered Worlds from Siegebreaker Games is a post-apocalyptic game, and Scrapper: Powered by 5E is a sci-fi setting where you play salvage engineers in space.

What's your favourite 5E-powered game?

 

[BiblioTek]

It's interesting - whenever I see something about the Mage Hand Press Dark Matter setting I think back to the old TSR-created Alternity sci-fi settings Dark*Matter and Star*Drive (as well as Gamma World and Starcraft Adventures) . They're owned by WotC now, who could certainly do something with them if they wanted to.

 

[AlViking]

It's interesting - whenever I see something about the Mage Hand Press Dark Matter setting I think back to the old TSR-created Alternity sci-fi settings Dark*Matter and Star*Drive (as well as Gamma World and Starcraft Adventures) . They're owned by WotC now, who could certainly do something with them if they wanted to.

The Exodus video game comes out next year. I know they had a rulebook for early backers, I wouldn't be surprised if they start selling books after the video game release.

 

[timbannock]

The makers of Esper Genesis also got to come full circle and make the Phantasy Star RPG using a 5E basis, but it seems like what little discussion surrounds it is pretty muted.

I was hoping it would go for a streamlined 5E, but it doesn't sound like it went that route -- I can't really seem to find an in-between on the Shadowdark to full 5E scale, except maybe Pugmire...? There's at least 2 or 3 sci-fi variants of Shadowdark that came out recently, but I've heard little about either of them, as well. Anywho...

Back to the question: my favorite 5E-based sci-fi is currently Death In Space. Yeah, it's nominally more of a hack/mash-up of Knave and Mork Borg, but it's got the 5E-isms of advantage/disadvantage and such. I think it's broad compatibility with OSR games makes it easy to reskin and mash-up with a gazillion other releases, but the streamlined 5E-at-its-core mechanics makes it a cinch to get players to grok it at the table. Matter of fact, I used it as my system for Traveller, since I only needed to come up with about a page of house rules for ships and jump travel. I honestly think that does Traveller better than a huge 4-book release possibly could, unless you're a game system mechanic gearhead, I suppose.

 

[Fezzwick]

I have played every official version of Star Wars (d6, D20, Revised d20, Saga, FFG narrative) and am going to run a one shot using a modified Traveller based take on Star Wars this summer. I have played Alien and Blade Runner from Free League. I liked Gamma World as a kid, and enjoyed the 4th edition Gamma World too for its zaniness. I played the original Morrow Project too. And I got to play Alternity and WEG d6 Star Wars with Bill Slaviscek last year at Gamehole Con in Madison, which was a real treat.

Out of all of them, I think I have the fondest memories of my Star Wars Saga game. I took my group from 1st to 20th level using the Dawn of Defiance campaign.

I do want to play Coriolis too, but I see that as more Space Fantasy, and not Sci-FI.

 

[djotaku]

Expedition to Barrier Peaks is also available for 5e in one of the anthologies I own. I want to say it's in Infinite Staircase, but I'm unable to check at the moment.

Also, in terms of 5e-adjacent d20 games, I'm pretty sure Pathfinder took this idea and turned it to a whole country on Golarian that's based on sci-fi tech from a crashed spaceship. (While the rest of Golarian is your typical fantasy world) I could be wrong - I'm going based on something I read recently, but I haven't played Pathfinder yet.

 

[djotaku]

Also, in terms of 5e-adjacent d20 games, I'm pretty sure Pathfinder took this idea and turned it to a whole country on Golarian that's based on sci-fi tech from a crashed spaceship. (While the rest of Golarian is your typical fantasy world)

Did a quick look at the GM Core PDF. On page 147:

Perhaps the strangest of the Broken Lands lie near its heart. The rugged hills and plains of Numeria are home to many Kellid clans. In the distant past, the crash of a scientifically advanced starship brought strange aliens, mechanical monstrosities, and technological wonders to Golarion, but its fiery arrival left large reaches of the surrounding land blighted and blasted even to this day.

 

[jinnetics]

Not sure the Dark Matter links are working...

 

[Dragonhelm]

I played Esper Genesis once at Gary Con a couple of years back, run by the setting's creator Rich Lescouflair. I had a lot of fun. Some of the classes were designed to have a familiar feel to them, and the rules on vehicles, IIRC, are similar to D&D's rules on vehicles.

It is hard sci-fi, but if you check out Expedition from the Mysterious Peaks for a look on how to play Esper Genesis with D&D. I got to help playtest that at the aforementioned Gary Con.

I'll discuss Dark Matter in another post, as that one has more of a personal connection.

 

[Spectral Anomaly]

Just noting that Traveller 5 and Traveller 5e are two different games. Traveller 5 is the fifth edition of Traveller, and is the one whose graphic you're using in the article. Traveller 5e is the game that's currently crowdfunding that adapts Traveller to the D&D 5e ruleset.

The fact that a major RPG news site fell into the trap set by the terrible name choice by World's Largest RPG really does not bode well for this project.