Which Sci-Fi RPG has the richest setting?

[Torm]

[Note: I am slightly biased against Serenity as I love the series and the film, but am really looking for more of a hard science RPG as opposed to a Cowboys in Space affair.]

A vote FOR Serenity. Players ALWAYS play either Cowboys, Ninjas, Pirates, or Knights, anyway - those are where the fun is. And if you're talking about the TECH being hard science, Firefly never talked too much about the engine tech (which is good, because that's boring anyway in an RPG) and the number of things they got RIGHT is pretty impressive: silence in space, things continuing to move along a vector with nothing to slow them down, the tech of the outer worlds being mostly back down to what can be sustained locally, mass weapons instead of lasers. And so on.

If you're looking for a more rigid structure for things, put them in the Alliance worlds, possibly even in the Alliance military.

 

[MummyKitty]

Traveller is the best hard sci-fi game that I've played. The background covers thousands of years of history and can encompass any kind of campain you can imagine from war, exploration, political intrigue, starship battles, etc. Tech levels can vary from caveman to far future. I'm partial to the "classic" timeline myself, which is either in the old books. The GURPS materials are an alternate version of the timeline where the emperor didn't get assassinated.

If you play the GURPS version, you can layer on even more complexity with their Space rules. I like their plantary generation system even though it is fairly complicated. Traveller's is good for quick and easy generation though.

As was mentioned, I haven't ever played Mechwarrior but the background material that I've read does seem pretty detailed and has a good hard sci-fi feel.

Have fun!

 

[DMH]

Traveller is the best hard sci-fi game that I've played.

How can you define a setting with FTL and the ability to speak to aliens as hard? Harder than Star Wars, yes. Hard, no.

As for my vote, I have to go with Serenity since it is the hardest science rpg you have listed.

 

[Psion]

Richest? Traveller.

Hard-science-est? 2300AD.

 

[jcfiala]

Transhuman Space (GURPS, but very few stats, so easily portable to d20 or else) and all its supplements.

I'll second the nomination of Transhuman Space.

 

[trancejeremy]

The original Travller was never printed in hardback to my knowledge, but I've seen a 'Marc Miller's Traveller' in hardback printed in 1992 or so, which I've been told isn't really all that faithful to the original GDW box set (despite the fact that Marc Miller designed that, too). Is that what you speak of? If so, I may have to append that to my list.

Nope. I mean "The Traveller Book", which was a hardcover version of the original Traveller. Basically combined the first 3 little black books with some additional material into one 160 page hardback. Published at the same as the Traveller Adventure, 1982.

Also had a softcover version

http://www.travellerbibliography.org/gdw-ct/TTBsoft.html

There was really no setting in the first 3 little books. Most of the setting was developed in the adventures and later supplements.

Traveller was sort of relaunched in '82 or so, with that book and the Traveller Adventure, and a line of regular sized supplements


The trouble with Marc Miller's Traveller (the 90s version) was many, IMHO. A lot of people didn't think it felt like Traveller because it was actually set before the original Traveller setting, in a way to dodge the whole end of the Imperium thing. (Gurps Traveller takes the tack that the whole Classic Traveller era never stopped).

 

[Bavix]

Dawning Star

I have to cast my vote for Dawning Star, a fairly new setting for d20 Modern and d20 Future from Blue Devil Games. I bought a copy at GenCon Indy on a whim. Even before I finished reading it, I decided that as soon as my current D&D camaign winds down I'm running a Dawning Star campaign.

It strikes me as a mix between Battlestar Galactica, Lost In Space, and Serenity because there's MANY different campaign styles you could run from it.

 

[Melan]

Original Traveller (little black books + supplements edition) didn't have much of a detailed setting in its rulebooks, but like 3e, it had an implied setting. Using the three basic books, you could essentially play games resembling the Foundation series and other 50s humanocentric SF. The latter books had more details, and I believe more on the world as well. As previously mentioned, GURPS Traveller has a lot of setting details right there in the first book, with a good summary of the Third Imperium. OTOH, my opinion is that Original Traveller is the only true Traveller, and the rest are only pale imitations of the real thing.

Space Opera has a lot of flavorfull supplements, from world guides to descriptions of individual locations - I think one described a space casino. It has been a while since I read them, though (a friend lent me some of his books), and I can't recall too much about them, except that they weren't too bad.

 

[Goodsport]

I would say 2300 AD, though I'll admit that that's the only game on the list I know quite well. The only other game there that I'm at least somewhat familiar with is Traveller.

Among the other things already stated in this thread about it, 2300 AD also has the benefit of being a "sequel game", set in the same universe as Twilight: 2000 but 300 years later (which is why the first edition of the game was called Traveller: 2300 - though after some customers complained about mistakenly believing that the game was instead set in the Traveller universe, the game's second edition was retitled 2300 AD).

Both Twilight: 2000 (the latest edition was Version 2.2) and 2300 AD each has a nicely-detailed history - when combined together, the amount of detail is massive!


-G

 

[jdrakeh]

Space Opera has a lot of flavorfull supplements, from world guides to descriptions of individual locations - I think one described a space casino. It has been a while since I read them, though (a friend lent me some of his books), and I can't recall too much about them, except that they weren't too bad.

Noble Knight (my online retailer of choice) actually has the entire line of Space Opera in stock (much of it still in shrink wrap), which is one of the reasons that it made my list... but I've often heard the same criticism leveled at Space Opera that I've heard leveled at Universe (i.e., it's an unplayable mess). This is why I'm more interested in setting (I think that I'll probably be using GURPS or Fudge 10th Anniversary as the system, unless I end up snagging Classic Traveller).