Looking for a System: "Space D&D"

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drkrash

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A couple years ago, I tried running Starfinder for my 2 sons because they loved the art. We didn't get very far because, well, I'm past wanting to deal with Pathfinder-level detail for a play experience that doesn't match (i.e., I have no issue with crunch, but I want to feel like the crunch pays off at the table). After it failed, my older son (now just about 17) wandered away from role-playing (which is disappointing to the dad who has played non-stop for 45 years).

Today he brought up Starfinder again and said he'd still like to play something *like* that, which he described as "space D&D." What systems might I explore to re-consider this idea? Things I'd like or need:

1) Gun porn and gear porn are a *must.*
2) Must have playable alien races.
3) Ideally has some form of spaceship combat.
4) Some form of character customization is needed, which generally rules out something more OSR-based.
5) "Module" support of some kind would be super-helpful.

Like I said, this basically describes Starfinder; I just don't like the 3.x crunch anymore. Something based on 5th ed would work (they know and like that system), but it doesn't have to be D&D based.

I personally have been looking for an excuse to buy Infinity. My concern there is that I've only read and never played 2d20 and my understanding is that it's pretty cumbersome too. Battlelords sounds like it would fit too, but the same concern about cumbersome crunch seems to fit there too.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.
 
I recommend Dark Matter 5e - this introduces Mega Damage and Mega Creatures into 5e though (similar to Palladium's mega damage mechanic).

Spaceships and Starwyrms also for 5e.
Wildjammer is a fan supplement that uses Dark Matter mechanics to create a Spelljammer game.

All would work great with Esper Genesis.
 
If you can brave the madness that is Palladium, I recommend looking into the Rifts Phase World setting.
Dark Matter has you covered there with mega damage for 5e. And like Savage Rifts seems mostly restricted to big weapons, namely ship mounted.
 
I recommend Dark Matter 5e - this introduces Mega Damage and Mega Creatures into 5e though (similar to Palladium's mega damage mechanic).
Thanks! I will check this out, if only to rob the Mega-Damage mechanics.
 
Ship weapon damages are given in mega damage points - Page 161

Its range and the dimensions of its spell effects are multiplied by 100, to a maximum range of 10,000 feet. Also, the spell deals mega damage instead of normal damage - page 164

New Size Category: Mega Dark Matter introduces a new size category, larger even than Gargantuan: Mega. Creatures of Mega size will always have the Mega Creature trait, which will elaborate on its dimensions. Some Mega creatures occupy a 500-by500-foot space (only one square using the Rule of 100), while others can be as large as a 2000-by-2000-foot space. Generally, Mega creatures will possess mega hit points, deal mega damage, and will have movement and senses reaching thousands of feet, to match their scale. Mega creatures can't be summoned, and non-mega creatures can't transform into them - page 202

Therefore, ships use Mega Hit Points, instead of regular hit points, to describe their damage and repair. A single mega hit point equals 100 hit points. A ship’s hit points represent the resilience of its hull - page 159

So although some ships and some creatures have an AC, they also have HP and SP (shield points) in mega too.

I hope this helps?
 
While out of print Alternity (1E not the rebooted one.) ? If you get the Gun books LOTS of gear porn. Star Frontiers is less D&Dish, but lots of gear, you do need the the main rulebooks and Knight Hawks for space ship. (I don't know the new Alternity game, it might sub as well.)

You can brew magic in Alternity 1E (with the GM's guide and or Beyond FX) Not sure of any for Star Frontiers other than Psionics....(need Zebulon's Guide for that.)
 
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fancy dice aside, the Star Wars games from Fantasy Flight/Edge Studios fit the qualifications. I’d pick up Edge of the Empire corebook to start, or the beginner’s box for it.

another option is to pick up the savage worlds corebook along with the sci-fi companion and their Last Parsec settting guide. They also have several adventure modules for that setting. And savage worlds has custom race creation rules for all your alien needs.
 
It's out of print and won't be getting reprinted or released in .pdf but TSR's XXVc. is literally second edition D&D in space. The setting is a pretty solid transhumanist terraformed solar system with no ftl or aliens but lots of really weird genetically engineered character options ranging from cat guys to silver plated spacers (surfboard not included).

Mechanoid Invasion book 3 is great and closer to D&D/less work than modern Palladium games (no physical skills, no mega damage). That said, The Mechanoids are really tough antagonists. Book I starts when one of their light motherships (only the size of North America) shows up at the Gideon E colony to strip mine their star. The only reason the colonists even get to fight back is that the Mechanoids hate humans and like to make them suffer.

IRRC there's a game called Derelict Divers that's about adventurers exploring space hulks.

Star Frontiers is pretty good for gun porn and simple enough in play. The initial adventure starts with a dungeon crawl (escape the cruise liner and fight the pirates) and ends up in a hex crawl.
 
fancy dice aside, the Star Wars games from Fantasy Flight/Edge Studios fit the qualifications. I’d pick up Edge of the Empire corebook to start, or the beginner’s box for it.
This is exactly what I would recommend as well.

The corebook gives all you need for the beginning of a campaign, then you can add other books when you want more depth with specific character types.

Links to a load of adventures can be found at swrpg community.
 
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If you go with the Star Wars RPG from Fantasy Flight, I would suggest the starter sets instead of the core rulebooks. Iach starter set (there are five, I think) has some different pregen characters and adventures to get you off and running right away. The core rulebooks had way too much detail for my liking -- really deep skill trees, for example -- and I found the starter sets to be a lot more readable.
 
For the Fantasy Flight games there are fan made dice rollers online, and even an official phone app, that all interpret the dice rolls for you. So you don’t have to track down the physical dice sets.
 
XXVC is long out of print but there is a retro clone out....



IP/numbers filed off but D&D in Spaaaaaaace! If you like your space relatively solar system based with rocketships and rayguns rather than warp drive and teleporters and holodecks etc. Available on drivethru.

I've not printed this one out yet but it's on the pile/list o stuff to print. Have all the XXVC stuff on the shelves upstairs but never got chance to run it. I did play the heck out of Countdown to Doomsday and Matrix Cubed on the Amiga back in the day though. A search will reveal them on abandonware sites along with the rule/log books for the games which pretty much have a lot of the rules in them. It's AD&D with a percentile skill system bolted on.

Edit: Some more pages to peruse.






 
There's a few options I'd look to in my collection if I was trying to fulfill your criteria:

Cepheus Deluxe - Slightly lighter, in general, than Mongoose Traveller 1e and Cepheus Engine (upon which this is based) but it has good character options and fairly light spacecraft rules. If I remember rightly there's only two Alien species to play though. However, it's compatible with a ton of stuff from both Mongoose and the various publishers of Cepheus-compatible game lines. So there's plenty of Alien species, gear, vehicles, and adventures/missions that can be easily adapted to Cepheus Deluxe.

Frontier Space - A light but detailed D100 system. There's examples of several Alien species with rules for creating more. There's a decent amount of gear, vehicles, and spacecraft. There's a few mission modules out there too. It's also compatible with a number of other games like Covert Ops, Barebones Fantasy, and Sigil & Shadow so there's additional options you could grab from them. It's clearly a homage to Star Frontiers and fairly well regarded.

Thousand Suns Revised
- This would be my number one choice. It's a light-to-medium crunch system that's 2D12 roll under stat+skill. Although it's easy enough to convert to a roll-over system. It's got a fair number of Alien species, and rules for creating new ones, in the core. The spacecraft and space combat rules are fairly light but you can get a Starships sourcebook that provides more advanced rules if you want them. There's also a decent amount of gear and if you can find and pick up (it's not that difficult) the original, non-revised edition supplement Foundation Transmissions there's rules in there for creating new gear too. There's plenty of character options in the core book (with some alternative approaches to CharGen too) and you could expand things further by adding more options from other games using the same system (Colonial Gothic 2e's Player Companion has some good ones, such as Advantages and Disadvantages). Another thing in it's favour is that it isn't all that hard to convert stuff over from D20 Modern and Future. The only thing it's really lacking is Modules. There's one setting book and and a single issue of a magazine to support it in this regard. It's not all that hard to convert things over from other systems though.
 
Come to think of it WotC did three different Star Wars rpgs based on the d20.
Yes, but the first two editions are very 3E-similar and have some quirks, and the Saga Edition is outrageously pricey on the secondary market nowadays.
 
There's free and very well organised adaptions on the internet for Mass Effect and Star Wars using the 5e engine.

star wars 5e
Mass Effect 5e

I checked out Star Wars 5e a few years ago and looked pretty good. Campaign fell apart due to problems with the player, but I thought it was a pretty complete and well made game for something completely free.
 
Saga Edition is outrageously pricey on the secondary market nowadays.
Saga Edition is actually REALLY good. My second favorite Star Wars game, and second favorite d20 variant (behind Mutants and Masterminds).

But yeah, if you want to find it all legally for a decent price... uhhhh, good luck on that.
 
I reckon have a go at one of these
  • Traveller (I prefer Mongoose Traveller 1E)
  • M-Space (BRP Mythras - med crunch)
  • River of Heaven (BRP OQ - low crunch)
  • Stars Without Number (OSR)
  • Esper Genesis (D&D 5E)
 
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Come to think of it WotC did three different Star Wars rpgs based on the d20.
There's a really good fan version of Star Wars based on Fifth Edition, too; it'd be even better if the people developing for it didn't think 5e was the best game ever, but it's pretty solid on its own merits.

edit: I think I'm always going to regret ragequitting their Discord server over the fucking asinine spellcaster stacking, justified by a bunch of children whining about Guardian/Consulars getting Extra Attack and 9th level spells at 20th level, before pointing out to them that College of Valor Bards and Bladesinger Wizards get Extra Attack and 9th level spells by 17th level with none of the ability score/feat requirements of a multiclass character.
 
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A couple years ago, I tried running Starfinder for my 2 sons because they loved the art. We didn't get very far because, well, I'm past wanting to deal with Pathfinder-level detail for a play experience that doesn't match (i.e., I have no issue with crunch, but I want to feel like the crunch pays off at the table). After it failed, my older son (now just about 17) wandered away from role-playing (which is disappointing to the dad who has played non-stop for 45 years).

Today he brought up Starfinder again and said he'd still like to play something *like* that, which he described as "space D&D." What systems might I explore to re-consider this idea? Things I'd like or need:

1) Gun porn and gear porn are a *must.*
2) Must have playable alien races.
3) Ideally has some form of spaceship combat.
4) Some form of character customization is needed, which generally rules out something more OSR-based.
5) "Module" support of some kind would be super-helpful.

Like I said, this basically describes Starfinder; I just don't like the 3.x crunch anymore. Something based on 5th ed would work (they know and like that system), but it doesn't have to be D&D based.

I personally have been looking for an excuse to buy Infinity. My concern there is that I've only read and never played 2d20 and my understanding is that it's pretty cumbersome too. Battlelords sounds like it would fit too, but the same concern about cumbersome crunch seems to fit there too.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.
My suggestion is, unsurprisingly, Cepheus or Mongoose Traveller (any edition of Mongoose, but Cepheus Deluxe recommended).
Why?
Gun and gear porn, man. Both editions of Mongoose Trav have got a separate supplement for that:thumbsup:!

Also Cepheus Deluxe introduces a kind of HP which...I don't like, because they bring the game closer to D&D IMO. But if that's the goal your group...:shade:

Other strong points: playable alien races galore, some form of spaceship combat, and you can basically use any module for Classic Traveller, Mongoose Traveller or Cepheus. Hard to beat that last one if you want module support:grin:!
Actually, due to how SWN works, you can easily use its modules (and of course, the Refereeing tools...) for Cepheus as well:angel:! Just assign combat skills based on the SWN combat stats with some rounding down, and go ahead.
 
I second UnplayedRanger's suggestion.

I ran 3 seasons of a space opera campaign based on SW and their implied default setting, modding 3 separate campaigns set in different universes and with different tech levels to fit the default setting.

You have a minor issue of their Scifi Companion being one edition behind the current rules, but there is a conversion guide.

In terms of your requirements:

1. Weapon variety is not to the level of Traveller, but there are several classes of scifi weapons from sidearm to ship weapons
2. Several premade alien races including space yeti, space tabaxi, lizardmen, space Elf, and groot, and rules to create custom races. Most of my players chose to play humans. Go figure.
3. Rules for vehicular and spaceship chase and combat
4. Skill based advancement system allows you to customise characters
5. Let me elaborate

The Last Parsec has several modules based on the premise that the PCs are all members of a company called JumpCorps which is a convenient excuse to make them all members of a party and go on missions. I did not use any of them.

For my campaigns, I started the PCs out as space truckers, and played the Bulldogs! Heart of the Fury campaign. I started them off with some Daring Tales of Spacelanes modules, some adventures from Pirates of Drinax (that's a whole campaign worth looking into if your son wants to play space pirates), before starting them on the "space truckers save the galaxy" campaign proper.

For the second campaign I played the SW third party campaign called Seven Worlds - this is a lower tech, slightly harder scifi campaign. PCs start off as members of some sort of galactic police IIRC. A bit more railroady, but they once again save the galaxy.

For the third campaign I ran the Mongoose Traveller mega campaign Deepnight Revelation. This is a multi-year campaign where the PCs are crew of an exploration starship that has to travel through uncharted space. Unbeknownst to them other humans have preceded them, and the true nature of the mission is more sinister than they have been told... unless they were already in the know - they can play as either. This has a more hierarchical format, but there are like 6 or 7 mission books for you to pick adventures from. There is a lot of Traveller lor embedded in the story, so unless you are familiar with and like the Traveller lore, you may have to do some tweaking.

SW is less crunchy than 5e or Starfinder, but that's a feature, not a bug.

I personally do not like the more "narrative" and "collaborative" types of RPGs, some of which were suggested above - I suggest you check with your son how he might feel about them.

Good luck.
 
I was going to suggest 1st edition Alternity, but someone beat me to it. One of my favorite RPGs.
I'll also suggest Stars Without Number, very nifty old school RPG.
I'll suggest 2 that no one else has mentioned yet.
Equinox, which is sort of a follow up to Earthdawn and Shadowrun, Humanity has managed to control the mana cycle that resulted in Earthdawn and Shadowrun, but this resulted in demons invading earth. So we blew it up, and now there is an asteroid belt where earth used to be, but humans have moved out into the stars. High tech, high magic, weird aliens.
Battlelords of the 23rd Century, you can not get more gunporn in an RPG without it being named gunporn. Weird aliens, psychic powers (you have to be one of the 3 aliens that can do it, but...) space battles and other fun stuff.
 
  • Stars Without Number would be my first pick. Don't let the OSR credentials fool you, there are tons of options. The rules can support a wide array of sci-fi settings and not just the default setting (which is pretty good). I can't praise this enough.
I second this.

But if you want guns, guns, guns without drowning in the details Mongoose Traveller 2e (Imperium or 2300AD) or Cepheus is your ticket.
 
Anyone picked up Dark Matter then? What did you think?
 
XXVC is long out of print but there is a retro clone out....

As someone else who also owns the entire XXVc game line, including multiple copies of the core, does Overlords really offer me anything like streamlining or improved rules? Or is it pretty much a straight copy (ala Chill/Cryptworld?)

Does Overlords provide any explicit abilities for the Rocket Jock? In the original game it just says they can make a skill check to do things, but never elaborates on what their piloting skill allows them to do. I always felt that leaving it completely undefined with no guidelines whatsoever was more than a bit lazy.

Does a serial numbers removed version of the XXVc setting appear? Or is it a new setting? Or is it just a vague sort of style of setting it encourages while just focusing on replicating the old rules?
 
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