Blackadder
Community Supporter
Could also try the HERO system (Star Hero specifically).
Need a sci fi game that's non d20
- Thread starter Ashrum the Black
- Start date
Let me tell you about Heavy Gear. It is a great rpg.
Now please don't think of mechs (called gears in Heavy Gear) running around and thats all you do is battle. HG has a very detailed history and background for any type of story you can think of. Right now my group of former "naysayers" to trying this game are playing a very fun adventure called The Paxton Gambit, and adventure produced by the makers of HG and it's all adventure and role-play. Getting this adventure alone with the basic rules (2nd edition) will give you 4-6 months of gaming, if you game once a week. The players play a group of "police officers" that get entangled in a web of deceipt from numerous parties and have to unweave the mess while keeping alive. Their is alot of roleplay and tons of gun battles, but it's also a thinking "gamers" game. They are police officers after all...but not just average officers. We have a SWAT sniper, demolition expert, ex-gear pilot (will come in handy durning the adventure), K-9 officer with dawg (lizard creature), hot-shot young driver with 2 guns a blazing, and of course and internal affairs type.
This is a very fun sci-fi adventure. The rules are simple to learn yet detailed in application. The action is fast and death can come quick for those gamers who don't keep their head.
Please check it out. It is a very under used game out there and is one of the best I've ever played in my 30 years of gaming. You won't regret it.
THE BEST PART IS YOU DON'T NEED TO BUY A TON OF BOOKS!!!!!!!!!! UNLESS YOU WANT TO.
Gallo22
Now please don't think of mechs (called gears in Heavy Gear) running around and thats all you do is battle. HG has a very detailed history and background for any type of story you can think of. Right now my group of former "naysayers" to trying this game are playing a very fun adventure called The Paxton Gambit, and adventure produced by the makers of HG and it's all adventure and role-play. Getting this adventure alone with the basic rules (2nd edition) will give you 4-6 months of gaming, if you game once a week. The players play a group of "police officers" that get entangled in a web of deceipt from numerous parties and have to unweave the mess while keeping alive. Their is alot of roleplay and tons of gun battles, but it's also a thinking "gamers" game. They are police officers after all...but not just average officers. We have a SWAT sniper, demolition expert, ex-gear pilot (will come in handy durning the adventure), K-9 officer with dawg (lizard creature), hot-shot young driver with 2 guns a blazing, and of course and internal affairs type.
This is a very fun sci-fi adventure. The rules are simple to learn yet detailed in application. The action is fast and death can come quick for those gamers who don't keep their head.
Please check it out. It is a very under used game out there and is one of the best I've ever played in my 30 years of gaming. You won't regret it.
THE BEST PART IS YOU DON'T NEED TO BUY A TON OF BOOKS!!!!!!!!!! UNLESS YOU WANT TO.
Gallo22
VorpalBunny
Explorer
trilobite said:
Last Unicorn Games had the license from the Herbert estate for a Dune RPG. Then they were purchased by WotC, and the license was nullifed. There were a few copies of the RPG printed as a GenCon preview-thing, but those are the only copies in existence. You could find it on on ebay for a couple of hundred bucks.
No word on whether or not the Herberts will give the license to another company, but I wouldn't hold your breath.
TransHuman Space is a beautiful game. IIRC, it is set less than 200 years in the future and is pretty "realistic" as far as science fiction goes. The authors try to take current technological trends and extrapolate from there instead of the usual and typical "spaceships zooming around faster than light speed zapping things with their ray guns". Think nanotech instead.
The rules themselves are quite simple, being essentially only 32 pages long, a version of "GURPS Lite".
And one book is all you need to play the game.
The rules themselves are quite simple, being essentially only 32 pages long, a version of "GURPS Lite".
And one book is all you need to play the game.
Last edited:
Kannik
Legend
I second the Heavy Gear motion presented above, and also throw into the ring
Jovian Chronicles as your Gundam-esque solar-system bound SF setting (and if the giant robot aspect is unwanted its very easy to remove them). The settings in both of these games are quite fantastic.
For a more uber-space-opera game, check out Core Command. The book may not contain quite as much info as one may be expecting, but it is deliberate to allow the GM to put in as much customization as they want. Besides, it's UBER space opera. }
Star Hero is a great toolkit for creating SF campaigns of pretty much any flavour, and is useful even if you don't use the HERO system (though, of course, an expensive option as you won't be using any of the rule bits).
Both above systems, HERO and Silhouette CORE (used in JC and HG and CC), are generic rules that can be adapted to just about any campaign.
Old-school WEG Star Wars can be a lot of fun if you are into SW, and the system works quite well for heroic action, I found.
LUG Trek, keeping on the licenced theme, also worked very well. The ICON system was very usable, and we had a killer GM who made the game a blast }
Still using the ICON system was the Dune RPG, though you will pay through the nose for a copy
Some ones off the top of my head,
Kannik
Jovian Chronicles as your Gundam-esque solar-system bound SF setting (and if the giant robot aspect is unwanted its very easy to remove them). The settings in both of these games are quite fantastic.
For a more uber-space-opera game, check out Core Command. The book may not contain quite as much info as one may be expecting, but it is deliberate to allow the GM to put in as much customization as they want. Besides, it's UBER space opera. }
Star Hero is a great toolkit for creating SF campaigns of pretty much any flavour, and is useful even if you don't use the HERO system (though, of course, an expensive option as you won't be using any of the rule bits).
Both above systems, HERO and Silhouette CORE (used in JC and HG and CC), are generic rules that can be adapted to just about any campaign.
Old-school WEG Star Wars can be a lot of fun if you are into SW, and the system works quite well for heroic action, I found.
LUG Trek, keeping on the licenced theme, also worked very well. The ICON system was very usable, and we had a killer GM who made the game a blast }
Still using the ICON system was the Dune RPG, though you will pay through the nose for a copy
Some ones off the top of my head,
Kannik
dpmcalister
Explorer
An excellent (and even better, FREE!) sci-fi RPG is ICAR. It can be downloaded from www.icar.co.uk (and, no, I am not linked with the writer in any way - I just think it's an excellent, non-d20 sci-fi RPG).
baseballfury
First Post
I still have a warm place in my heart for the West End Star Wars game. It's easy and fun. And if I close my eyes, I can pretend Episodes 1 and 2 never happened.
Similar Threads
