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Dellis
2018-08-30, 06:37 PM
I'm considering starting a new campaign.

My problem is I've never found a sci-fi game system that really convinced me. Starfinder seems fine in its ship combat rules, but is otherwise too restrictive and too DnD-y; Cyberpunk I've never tried but it strikes me as the kind of game that is really tied to its setting; for others I have other concerns.

All of the game systems I've found, moreover, are closely tied with their settings. Starfinder WORKS using their classes, if you do not use classes as delineated in the Starfinder handbook, you might as well create a game from scratch; same could be said for cyberpunk.

This is fine for someone who just wants to play, but I want to create a new setting, down to character abilities, classes, spells, monsters and challenges.

Is there a system out there which gives me the kind of flexibility I need, while still giving me a framework in which to create classes, skills, etc?

Koo Rehtorb
2018-08-30, 07:23 PM
Look at Stars Without Number. But be aware that you're probably trying to make the game more complicated than it's intended to be if you want to add new classes and abilities.

By default there's three classes, warrior, expert and psychic. And each of them has one ability, ignore damage from an attack or automatically hit and do max damage once per fight, reroll a skill check once per scene, and "has the ability to use the psychic rules".

Thrudd
2018-08-30, 07:49 PM
GURPS is truly generic and has supplements for any sort of sci-fi you could want, from space fantasy to near future hard sci-fi to transhumanist dystopia, far future ultra high-tech, anything. It can get a bit weighed down in rules and modifiers depending on how much stuff you decide to use.

D6 Space is also a generic sci-fi system that lets you do a lot, though might lay more on the space opera side as opposed to hard sci-fi. It was originally made for Star Wars, but they genericized it when WotC got the Star Wars license. It's not as many rules as GURPS, so might play a bit faster when you're first learning it. It's also free online, so that is a nice plus.

Neither of these use classes, but with D6 you can design templates for the players to choose from instead of having them build their own characters entirely.

Nifft
2018-08-30, 08:21 PM
This is fine for someone who just wants to play, but I want to create a new setting, down to character abilities, classes, spells, monsters and challenges.

Is there a system out there which gives me the kind of flexibility I need, while still giving me a framework in which to create classes, skills, etc?

What kind of setting & genre do you want?

If you want psychic swashbucklers in spaaaaaace then StarWars SAGA might be a decent place to start.

If you want Ghost in the Shell investigators in spaaaaaace then Eclipse Phase may have the tools for you.

Etc.

So, what's your setting about?

Telok
2018-08-30, 10:42 PM
You should decide what level of science, what level of fiction, and what level of detail you want.

Starfinder has science words, D&D fiction, and 3.5/PF detail at the personal level. It also has a bolt-on space fighter board game.

Options include everything from Traveller through to Paranoia.

iTreeby
2018-08-30, 11:25 PM
Blades in the dark has a scum and villainy mod but if you don't like star wars you could easily reskin it if you want the sort of gritty collaborative game that blades lends itself to.

The FATE system is really modular but not very crunchy.

Rynjin
2018-08-30, 11:28 PM
Svage Worlds is a good catchall system any time you need a rules medium, setting agnostic rules system. It has sourcebooks for pretty much anything as well (some stuff from Savage Rifts would convert well to a sci-fantasy setting, and there's a Science Fiction companion premade as well).

Couatl
2018-08-31, 02:58 AM
I totally recommend Shadows over Sol. It is relatively light game in space that can be completely detached from its setting and easily emulate lots of sci-fi settings. I myself have DM-ed a silightly modified version of the game in the setting of Starcraft and the system handled it nicely.

Besides it has an interesting gimmick by using standard poker cards instead of dice (although it has rules for dice also, if you like). And it has the most realistic system rules for hacking I have seen in a sci-fi setting.

Bad thing is that it does not support spaceship to spaceship combat, although it has some supplement about that which I haven't read. Spaceships there have more dungeon-like role, since it is originally in the space horror genre (think of Alien 1 or 3).

I have also heard very good things about Fading suns, but have never had the opportunity to try it and if someone has, I would like to see his opinion.

farothel
2018-08-31, 03:59 AM
I can recommend Alternity. Apparently there's a new version of it now, but I'm still using the old version (from around 2000). I'm not sure, but I think you can get the old PDFs on DriveThru (at least you could when I last checked, but with the new version it might not be the case anymore). It has a fairly compicated character creation system, but after that it's very easy to play. You have classes, but the only thing they do is give a different bonus on your initiative and make some skills a bit cheaper, so you can get rid of them if you want. The same with the level system. It's mostly used to compare PCs and NPCs, but you can easily remove it if you don't like it.
You can also play from the stone age to the far future, so you can decide how much sci-fi you want. There are two 'official' settings, StarDrive (far future, the default setting there always gives me a Firefly kinda feel) and DarkMatter (a contemporary setting a bit like X-Files), but you can make your own if you want.

You can start playing with only the Player's handbook. It's useful to have the GM Guide, but you can do without it. All the other sourcebooks are completely optional.

Delta
2018-08-31, 04:05 AM
What kind of setting & genre do you want?

If you want psychic swashbucklers in spaaaaaace then StarWars SAGA might be a decent place to start.

If you want Ghost in the Shell investigators in spaaaaaace then Eclipse Phase may have the tools for you.

Etc.

So, what's your setting about?

Yeah, this is kind of a huge thing. SciFi covers so much ground, it would be helpful to be more precise as to what kind of setting OP is actually trying to create. Savage Worlds makes for a completely different gaming experience than GURPS, yet both can be really solid systems for SciFi games.

Pleh
2018-08-31, 06:34 AM
If you want psychic swashbucklers in spaaaaaace then StarWars SAGA might be a decent place to start.

Seconding this and adding that you can remove the Jedi and the Force elements of Saga, if you want more common Sci Fi out of Saga.

Saga filled with soldiers, bounty hunters, nobles, scoundrels, ace pilots, gunslingers, starships, and aliens works pretty well as generic or repurposed sci fi setting.

Anonymouswizard
2018-08-31, 08:50 AM
It sounds like you want Traveller. I recommend Mongoose Traveller (MgT) over Traveller5, and the choice between 1e and 2e boils down to do you want a ship construction system in the codebook or a greater variety of technology levels.

Character creation is a lifepath system, so you roll your stats, pick your homeworld, and make your way through various trends in a career (all terms are 4 years long). Each term gives one or more skill points, a roll on that career's Benefits Table, and potentially more depending on how you roll. At the end you pick a package of basic skills and distribute them among the PCs.

Technology wise it's somewhat lower tech than many offerings (lasers require belt or back mounted batteries so firearms are preferred, ships travel at a rate of 1-6 parsecs per week, no deflector shields unless you're playing MgT2e), bit there's still a lot of the goodies that you'd expect.

JAL_1138
2018-08-31, 10:43 AM
The upside to GURPS is that it can do pretty much anything. Really. Not an overstatement. Anything. The downside to GURPS is that it’s really, really crunch-heavy in the character/gear stage and is consequently quite heavy on GM prep. Balance requires GM review, as it’s possible to game the point-buy system to build some pretty broken things, but that’s kind of a known issue in most point-buy systems. GURPS products tend to be expensive, too.

WEG D6 isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty darn good—though I’ll caveat that by saying I’ve only used the old Star Wars version, not D6 Space (rules of which are basically the same as Revised & Expanded, from what I hear, but the big draw for WEG SW was the writing and setting info, how much flavor it added to even mundane gear. Dunno how well the generic version holds up without that). Beware the blaster-proof Wookiee, Force user brokenness, and other balance issues. D6 Space is available free.

Savage Worlds’ rules are okay, but the gear lists can run into issues of derp with real-world weapons and armor—entirely fictional gear less so, but still occasionally dodgy. Also beware of high Toughness (akin to the blaster-proof Wookiee).

FUDGE is a generic system and relatively simple, but it’s more of a construction kit than finished game—you’ll need to create a lot to use it for what you want, but it’s designed to make that process reasonably simple and fast. It’s also not really suited for especially gritty games. It’s maybe not quite so pulpy/cinematic as FATE, its offshoot from another company, since it doesn’t have the Aspects system or FATE point economy, but definitely bears a resemblance, so it’s not going to give you a lot of grit either. There’s also a free version.

Anonymouswizard
2018-08-31, 04:30 PM
The upside to GURPS is that it can do pretty much anything. Really. Not an overstatement. Anything. The downside to GURPS is that it’s really, really crunch-heavy in the character/gear stage and is consequently quite heavy on GM prep. Balance requires GM review, as it’s possible to game the point-buy system to build some pretty broken things, but that’s kind of a known issue in most point-buy systems. GURPS products tend to be expensive, too.

The other massive, massive upside to GURPS is the sourcebooks. They're insanely well researched and written, even if the rules are only so-so. In my opinion GURPS Space is a must for any space-based game, because it has amazing sections on FTL drives, FTL comms, FTL sensors, STL drives, STL sensors and comms, interstellar governments, and the affect of all of these on the campaign (including remembering to point out that no FTL drives + no FTL comms means no interstellar empires). You do have to do research to see how much of a given book is rules and how much is extras.

Another downside is the bizarre decision by the designers not to use nice convinient SI units. I should be carrying stuff in kilograms, not pounds!

JAL_1138
2018-08-31, 07:13 PM
The other massive, massive upside to GURPS is the sourcebooks. They're insanely well researched and written, even if the rules are only so-so. In my opinion GURPS Space is a must for any space-based game, because it has amazing sections on FTL drives, FTL comms, FTL sensors, STL drives, STL sensors and comms, interstellar governments, and the affect of all of these on the campaign (including remembering to point out that no FTL drives + no FTL comms means no interstellar empires). You do have to do research to see how much of a given book is rules and how much is extras.

Another downside is the bizarre decision by the designers not to use nice convinient SI units. I should be carrying stuff in kilograms, not pounds!

Ultratech, the sort of personal-gear book for sci-fi, is one of the rare exceptions to the “awesome sourcebooks” thing, alas. Really inconvenient layout; some of the things you beed to get all your equipment together are pretty scattershot throughout the text, not enough is compiled into simple-to-use tables, and the guns are kinda borked mechanically and in terms of verisimilitude. It’s pretty interesting read, though, even if it’s frustrating to actually use.

Anonymouswizard
2018-09-01, 03:12 AM
Ultratech, the sort of personal-gear book for sci-fi, is one of the rare exceptions to the “awesome sourcebooks” thing, alas. Really inconvenient layout; some of the things you beed to get all your equipment together are pretty scattershot throughout the text, not enough is compiled into simple-to-use tables, and the guns are kinda borked mechanically and in terms of verisimilitude. It’s pretty interesting read, though, even if it’s frustrating to actually use.

Yeah, in terms of a reference for other games 3e's Ultratech books are much better than the 4e offering. I mean I like the 4e book, and it's quite literally required to play TL9+ games without homebrewing all the technology, but it suffers from being rushed out compared to High Tech and Low Tech.

I'm not too torn up over the guns, being from a nation with regulations on personal firearms gunplay wasn't the most important section of the book for me, but yeah they can be borked.

JAL_1138
2018-09-01, 08:44 AM
Yeah, in terms of a reference for other games 3e's Ultratech books are much better than the 4e offering. I mean I like the 4e book, and it's quite literally required to play TL9+ games without homebrewing all the technology, but it suffers from being rushed out compared to High Tech and Low Tech.

I'm not too torn up over the guns, being from a nation with regulations on personal firearms gunplay wasn't the most important section of the book for me, but yeah they can be borked.

I haven’t looked at High-Tech much—just skimmed, since I won’t be using it in the upcoming sci-fi campaign I’ve been learning GURPS for, but from what little I’ve seen, it’s a far better organized and easy-to-use book (insofar as anything in GURPS can be easy to use given GURPS’ degree of crunchiness) with more applicability as a general reference for systems outside GURPS.

Ultratech’s not all bad, it’s just not up to the standard of High-Tech, and aaaarrrrrggggh is it poorly laid-out and annoying to use; you’ve got to scour the whole book to put together one single piece of kit. For example, a computer—computer hardware and display are in one chapter, but programs are scattered throughout the book in different chapters; e.g. tactical programs such as databases of targets are in the chapter on weapons, word processing software is in the media and playback chapter, and nowhere is there a comprehensive software list) and then you’ve got to refer back to a table in the chapter with the computer and display to figure out what they cost by complexity and your tech level, and oy vey, can I just buy a damn computer already?! If you want an IFF system to separate targets from friendlies that you can use in a gunfight, you’ll need to check the Computers chapter to get a wearable computer and HUD (unless you’ve got one already), then go to Weapons for an IFF interrogator to install on your gun, then go to the Defenses chapter for an IFF comm upgrade, which you have to go back to the Computers chapter in order to price based on its Complexity, and you might want a comm system with an IFF too so it isn’t completely dependent on the specific weapon with the IFF interrogator in its sighting system, so you’ll need to look in yet another chapter for directional comms, and then...then you pull your hair out in frustration and just decide that if you get in a firefight you’ll kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out because the IFF is too much trouble to put together. That kind of thing.

LordEntrails
2018-09-01, 12:26 PM
Never read or played it, but their is also WOIN:New that is supposed to be generic enough for what you want.

Rhedyn
2018-09-02, 12:52 AM
Svage Worlds is a good catchall system any time you need a rules medium, setting agnostic rules system. It has sourcebooks for pretty much anything as well (some stuff from Savage Rifts would convert well to a sci-fantasy setting, and there's a Science Fiction companion premade as well).
While not a true generic, Savage Worlds is very solid and you can do most any sci-fi with just the core rules and the sci-fi companion. The Last Parsec is a decent generic sci-fi setting with a few campaign books to really play up the sci-fi companion.

Savage Rifts is science Fantasy, but the sci-fi elements are great.

Nova Praxis is a great setting to use for Transhumanism sci-fi, which is a really niche genre of Sci-fi. If you want to run a story about pseudo immortals in a pseudo post scarcity situation, Nova Praxis has you covered.

Interface zero adds some solid cyberpunk support, but it's mostly there to distill the sci-fi companion into something with more specific flavor.

If you want something flexible and mid-crunch go with Savage Worlds. And the best part is that after your sci-fi binge, you can keep using the system for other genres. My personal favorite system.