Looking for a system to run a hard Sci-Fi game inspired by the likes of Cowboy Bebop and Firefly. Preferably not a Fate hack. Any suggestions? Also, cool spaceships general.
Traveller?
>>48195680
>cowboy bebop
>hard sci-fi
really?
>>48195703
As opposed to Star Wars, yeah. And I said it was an inspiration.
>>48195680
Traveller is the obvious choice. Someone's going to chime in "GURPS." One of the more overlooked options is Alternity, which is actually pretty great if you can get over some of the more dated clunky bits.
>>48195699
My main problem with Traveller (at least the last edition) was the tiny amount of stat blocks for spacecraft.
>>48195703
>>48195680
Yeah, you don't want hard sci-if but I get where you're coming from. You want a "firm" sci-if setting where space is still a vacume, guns are as civilized as weapons get and there is no such thing as magic, space or otherwise. You don't want Mass Effect, Star Wars or the Matrix.
>>48195699
You want Traveler. The rules are a skeleton. Your setting is there to flesh it out. Go crazy, kiddo.
>>48195766
So homebred some more stats on the ships. I've always fancied the complex ship, myself, so I think I get you. Allow upgrades, make them up if you have to. Let them make a spesheur snurfrake spes shep by buying bits here and there to make this system or that system better. Make that the whole campain. Make the struggle be food every day, fuel and repairs and just keep flying.
>>48195812
You pretty much hit the nail on the head. I'm okay with some purely theoretical tech (the setting has Alcubierre drives and gravity manipulation) but I don't want psionics. What I really need is just a shitload of ship stat blocks for the last edition. (Can't find the new one anywhere.)
>>48195912
Is it really nesscesary to put numbers on things like ships? If they are just the backdrops of the setting then I would suggest a more narrative system where you can go "These things exist" and be done with it, unless using ships and other stuff like that is a big part of the setting then forget what I said.
>>48195997
It's a space opera thing, so they're pretty essential.
>>48195680
Stars without number could work
>>48195997
There's another way to look at shipr, anon. In Cowboy Beebop and Firefly, the ships are characters. They have faults, they sometimes are friends and sometimes enemies. They're like another companion on the adventure not just a setting in one. At least that's true of the smaller ships. Fuckhuge ships are more like a place than a person but fuckhuge ships rarely have a place in a setting like that, anyway.
>>48195680
>Cowboy Bebop
>Firefly
>hard Sci-Fi
>>48196145
Also, damn, now I want to play a try AI persona as a spaceship. Carrying the party, running electronic warfare support from the back row while the party pushes into the enemies habitat. Complaining about how some couplers are decoupling. Having hot tea ready when they get back.
>>48195680
we need a different word for that sort of Sci Fi.
I motion for Trucker Sci Fi.
>>48196251
Space convoy
(nah. firm sci-fi works. It's not hard, it's not fantasy.)
>>48196251
It's already got a name. Space western.
Check out the Liberty's crusade Starcraft books and Jack L. Chalker's planets trilogy for other good examples.
Almost all good examples are from the 90's early 2000's sadly though.
>>48195680
Cthulhu Rising has (had) neat stuff.
>>48195758
>>48195680
yeah im gonna be that guy and say gurps, it sounds like it has exactly what op wants just grab gurps light basic set and various spaceship books off the gurps general pdf and you should be good to go
>>48196020
>hard coding numbers on theoretical spacecraft
>space opera
Nigga please.
>>48195758
I'll be that tag chiming GURPS.
GURPS!
>>48196658
>>48196978
little late
Play Eclipse Phase. Be a ranger in the Martian outback, fighting Triads and gunrunners.
>>48196191
Y-you want to play the ship as waifu? Makes as much sense as anything, to be honest senpai.
Still try fate, im running a hard sci-fi campgain with stanislav lem and dicks as inspiration. It works way better then gurps.
>>48199349
>dicks as inspiration.
...can't tell if typo or intentional...
>>48199676
Its a pun. Philip k. Dick
Mutants and Masterminds
>Cowboy bebop > FTL gate system that will mysteriously keep you in the ftl state if shit fucks up forever.
>Firefly > Mysterious psychic girl, traveling range teleportation that probably goes faster than light
>Hard scifi
>>48196168
my only objection to Cowboy Bebop as termed hard scifi is the fact that it's grounded in Noir with sphagetti western influences with space travel as a back drop. You could do the entirety of Bebop's story on modern day Earth and and it would still work (save for a few episodes, namely Boogy Boogy Fung Shui)
![Rocinante[1].png](https://i.imgur.com/lctw9ay.png "Rocinante[1].png")
>>48196191
>Making sure your crew has hot caffeinated drinks.
Top tier shipfu.
>people recommending Traveller
In theory it's the perfect system for this, but in actually it's machinery is such a grind. Traveller _itself_ gets in the way of playing Traveller.
>>48195766
Oh man, you have no idea what's out there. People have been building stat blocks and deck plans for Traveller ships for over 30 years, man. There's a ton of them.
And OP: Firefly probably began life as a Traveller campaign.
http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/13668/is-the-firefly-tv-series-based-on-joss-whedons-game-of-traveller
Alternity. If you don't think the main game has enough regular gunpowder firearms for your space adventures, get the Dark*Matter Arms and Equipment guide. And then just get Dark*Matter, and enjoy X-Files the RPG.
>>48195680
>not a Fate hack
But the best hard sci-fi RPG is a Fate hack
>>48199676
Man, I remember there was a time where I couldn't get enough Dick. Just Dick after Dick after Dick. I was insatiable.
>>48200005
>inspired by
I'm going for the general feeling of the shows, not directly ripping lore from them.
>>48203716
Go to the bookstore and tell them you love Long, Dick, Pohl, and Moorcock.
>>48195680
Traveller. Looking into Orbital for super hard sci-fi (e.g. no sci-fi at all) or 2300ad for hard as fuck sci-fi with one setting exception (stutterwarp FTL).
>>48195680
Traveller
>>48203056
Seconding this suggestion.
Diaspora adds a lot of good mechanics to a slightly older and chunkier version of Fate. The result is an RPG that's fluffy in most areas, and suitably fleshed-out in the important spacey sci-fi stuff.
Plus its descriptions and rules for space travel strike the best mix of gamey and realistic that I've seen yet. If you don't like Fate, you should lift Diaspora's space travel rules and use them with any other RPG to get a decent result.
No matter what you run, be it Traveller, GURPS or some Indie game in-between, you definitely need to look at Diaspora (as >>48203056 said). It's a FATE hack, but it's the hardest sci-fi RPG I've ever read, and I love the genre. It also has the Atomic Rocket seal of approval for hard science fiction. If nothing else, you should steal some ideas from Diaspora, and homebrew them into your Traveller game.
>>48195680
I've been playing Fragged empire recently for pretty much the same purpose. I highly recommend checking it out.
File is too big to upload the full core rulebook tho. Here are the quick start rules.
>>48202078
>Traveller _itself_ gets in the way of playing Traveller.
I've never found this. What edition did you try to play?
we played Mongoose and had a very successful and easy campaign lasting years. The players didn't really have to know anything. As long as the ref knows the system well, and has some good quickref tables for randomly generating NPCs and encounters, it runs like clockwork. Very simple and easy to play, provided the ref has at least read and understood the core rulebook.
>>48196168
>>48196145
>>48195882
>>48195812
This guy here.
I'd be interested to know what the attributes would be if we were to make a ship-as-character sheet. It would have to be something like a combination of character sheet and equipment list...
Attributes
>Habitat
>Power
>Sensory
>Combat
>Computer
>???
>>48205002
Oops... not this guy.
>>48195703
>>48205002
No one else on at this hour so I will be forced to get shit done all by myself.
I think these 5 systems plus >Engines.
Thathe ought to cover about everything. Give players option s to buy components that boost the basic performance of those attributes for specific purposes.
>>48205046
Or maybe have engines be a subsystem that uses power... yeah. That.
>>48195766
There are ships all over the internet, depending on edition.
The real concern is that Traveller is capable of Hard SF, but defaults to Space Opera instead. If you want high crunch and detail within Traveller, look at the ship systems for MegaTraveller or TNE. Mongoose and T5 are simplified on purpose.
You can mix and match subsystems (like ships) with few issues.
>>48202078
That really depends on your table. The hard cases on the internet are not your players.
Well, unless they are.
Save the extreme crunch for between sessions, put a lid on the inevitable setting wonk, and. Just. Play.
>>48195766
Mongoose decided to split starship design rules from the main book (sharing that distinction with Traveller:The New Era, which is often discarded for the same reason)
Any other edition, and you can make as many was you want.
Traveller is about as hard as scifi can get without making it hard to function as a story. They made 3 concessions, to allow anti-gravity, ftl travel, and magic cold fusion. Remove any one of those, and your hard sf gets funky. Multi-generational voyages, or causality breaking ftl.
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/ is a good setting resource, if only to decide where you want to soften your game.
