Space Adventure RPGs

Yora · May 1, 2022

I'm feeling once again the drive to start working on a space adventure campaign. And I noticed that space RPGs are not just less popular than hign fantasy ones (which everyone knows), but that they are actually barely even talked about at all.

Which quite surprises me, since there's really quite a lot of them, which are not obscure by any means. Three Star Wars games, Traveller, who knows how many Warhammer 40k games, Stars Without Number, and Scum and Villainy are names you frequently see mentioned and mostly very positively. But usually it remains at the occasional mention.

I am hesitating to use the term sci-fi games, as Star Wars and 40k are straight up fantasy in space, and for example cyberpunk games would be sci-fi but not set in space. What I am talking about are the spaceships and aliens kind of games.

With so many highly regarded games out there, how much space campaigns are actually being played? Is it really a lot less than fantasy games in general, or just a case of none of them being D&D? When it comes to running adventures, I don't see either as any better or worse suited to ease of play and creating stories than the other.

Morrus · May 1, 2022

D&D is always the big kid on the block, and it's fantasy, so most of the talk is about fantasy by default. Traveller is pretty big, Star Wars is big, but not D&D big.

dragoner · May 2, 2022

Depends on what one is looking for, sci-fi can encompass quite a range of settings. Running a sfrpg group on facebook, it has roughly 3.5k members which yeah, is tiny compared to the D&D groups. Though there are a lot of games out there, maybe I can point you in the right direction? Right now, Mothership is huge, though there is also a lot of talk about 2400. I also have a setting for Cepheus Engine, which is Traveller with the serial numbers filed off, called "Solis People of the Sun" I made a bundle on dtrpg - Sale - A Wild Bee Bundle Appears!

hawkeyefan · May 2, 2022

I’ve played a couple recently; the Alien RPG and Mothership.

Those both lean a bit toward horror, but they’re solidly sci-fi space-faring games.

Grendel_Khan · May 2, 2022

It's not a comprehensive look at what people are playing, but I think Roll20's quarterly Orr report is pretty interesting. Even if you add up all of the SF games on there it's an absolutely tiny slice of the pie.

The Orr Report Q4 2021 - Roll20 Blog

The last quarter of 2021 is in the books, and while we’re all focused on the future, here’s one final look back at tabletop roleplaying on Roll20 from last year. Lots of familiar faces in the Most Popular systems, with Dungeons & Dragons: 5th Edition, Call of Cthulhu, both Pathfinder editions...

blog.roll20.net

I think @Morrus has it right: Fantasy is so dominant in part because D&D is so dominant. Kind of a chicken-and-egg situation. But I'd take it a step further, and propose that it's also a lot easier to run fantasy than SF, at least for traditional RPGs. If PCs don't have access to cars or planes, much less spaceships, the GM can prep for a narrower range of environments and encounters they'll be in. Replace blaster rifles and grenades with broadswords and area-effect spells and combat can seem more predictable and manageable on a given map. So even if D&D had somehow never become (or stayed) what it is, I bet fantasy would still be the go to, and SF a very distant second or even third.

Sir Brennen · May 2, 2022

I think sci-if games of the type the OP is refers are alive and well in RPGs if you know where to look.

I’m currently running a sci-fi space campaign using Savage Worlds and a third-party setting called Seven Worlds. The setting has the Atomic Rockets Seal of Approval for scientific accuracy.

As that campaign is winding down, I’m looking at some other games also in the sci-fi genre, still with space faring as a primary element. They’re all rather dark in tone, as well all being rather recent games with some good word of mouth. They are:

Alien - the official licensed game from Free League, using a modified version of its Year Zero Engine rule system. Reviews praise its Stress mechanism to emulate the horror sci-fi genre.

Mothership - another horror sci-fi game that recently had a hugely successful Kickstarter for it boxed set. A system that’s like Basic Roleplaying and Traveller had a baby, with a few modern mechanical nods thrown in.

Hostile - built on the Cepheus Engine rules, themselves drawn from the OGL of the Mongoose iteration of Traveller, this is Aliens with the serial numbers filed off. Compatible with the 2d6 system of the original Traveller game.

Lastly is Death in Space: a very rules light game in the OSR vein. Also drawing influence from 80’s industrial sci-if movies like Alien/Aliens and Outland, with a bit of metaphysical weirdness thrown in. After coming off a medium-crunchy system like Savage Worlds, I’m really drawn to playing a rule light system where I don’t have to crack the book open to look anything up, and leans into improvisational play.

Death in Space also has a very open 3rd-Party license, so hopefully it will get the kind of love that it's fantasy cousin - Mork Borg - from the same publisher does.

Dannyalcatraz · May 2, 2022

I’ve been playing RPGs since 1977, starting with AD&D. Traveller was my second RPG.* FWIW, Champions was #3.

In all that time since then, the vast majority of my gaming has been in some kind of fantasy campaign.

Since then, I could probably count the number of sci-fi games I’ve played in on the fingers of my 2 hands. If it’s more, it’s not by much. And a good chunk of those were in Austin, Tx as one guy was seeking the perfect anime giant robot RPG to run. We tried at least 3 different systems.

Superheroic games? Probably about the same.

Horror, westerns, and everything else? A half-dozen of each, max. (Oddly, the two playtests I’ve been a part of were NOT fantasy games.)

And just so we’re clear, I have a bunch of non-fantasy RPGs on my shelves. But getting players to play those games seems nigh-impossible. Hell- in some groups, getting players for non-D&D games is an exercise in futility.

* Yes, I did have a character die in ChaGen.

gamerprinter · May 2, 2022

While Starfinder RPG is certainly science fantasy, as magic abounds, and the default setting is scientifically problematic at best, but that exists now.

Now I'm a third party publisher for Starfinder, but I lean harder sci-fi personally, and to a degree create content that is less fanciful. I've published supplements and modules, created a bunch of starship deck plans (I was a pro cartographer, long before I was a publisher). My most recent publication provides the tools and incentive for me to take the default setting used as back story in all my products, and create an expansive series of mini setting guides, one star system at a time for an interstellar setting of dozens of systems.

My new toolset is from The Planet Builder, a series of tables (designed by an astrophysicist) to custom generate entire, scientifically viable star systems: stars (even multi-star systems), planets, moons, orbits, belts, trojans; planetary cores, composition, type (asteroid to super gas giant), atmosphere, hydrosphere, climate, weather; lifeforms, simple to advanced, if sapient technology, power source, government; and a full stat block. A planet point system allows you to adjust table rolls, use as a macroeconomic trade unit for interstellar trade, and build extra-planetary resource stations, and other structures to grow your system over time. While it was designed to be Starfinder compatible, it's easily usable for any sci-fi game system - Traveller, Alien RPG, Stars Without Numbers, any system lacking star system generation rules. (I developed this last year, published in December, $3.99)

The Kronusverse, my default setting, began as humanity from Earth forced to leave and settle the nearest planets under megacorp dystopian rule which lasted for half a century, before the vast underclasses got generational colony ships funded in a great odyssey to escape the region now known as Corporate Space, into the unsettled systems beyond in region called Colonial Space. Today 36 star systems have been colonized, and a number of systems have indigenous alien civilizations now active members of the colonial government. The colonial government was formed following an alien incursion that destroyed an entire star system forcing the independent colonies to combine their forces to oppose the aliens. (My plan is to create at least a couple dozen colonized star systems as separate guides, and a small overview guide).

Here's my planned lineup of initial products for this new series...

Not trying to be an ad, but suggest that some "science fiction" games are current with ongoing first and third party support, so you needn't be fully dismayed for the lack of games in this genre... and while 1st party is more "fantasy", my third party stuff is more "science".

However, I've played Star Frontiers back in the early/mid 1980's, and while I've created some custom Traveller based deck plans in the not-so-distant past, I've only actually played Traveller back in the 80's too. I owned several supplements and system guides from Space Opera, played a bit in the late 1980's. Also played Paranoia then, but I don't think that counts as "sci-fi". I'd been absent from playing any sci-fi, up to the time I got my itch and started creating deck plans, and then because I'd published a Japanese horror setting for Pathfinder, once I learned Starfinder was on it's way, I was ready to jump on it. One of the author/designers I'd collaborated with long ago with another publisher (I was cartographer), wanted to write a sci-fi horror one-shot series, had heard about Starfinder, saw my deck plans and asked if I'd publish it, so I did...

Mezuka · May 2, 2022

Esper Genesis based on 5e:

Esper Genesis - Heroic Sci-fi Roleplaying for 5E

Esper Genesis 5E is a heroic sci-fi tabletop roleplaying game powered by DnD 5th Edition. Published by Alligator Alley Entertainment.

espergenesis.alligatoralleyentertainment.com

In 2021/2022 our group played The Expanse, Aliens and Dune. I'd say 50/50 with fantasy games. Which is extremely rare in my 41+ years of roleplaying. During which it has been 90/10 in favour of fantasy (D&D).