Wherein I Talk About Space RPGs

I have always been more of a fantasy guy than a sci-fi fan for as long as I can remember.  I don't know if it comes from growing up in woodsy New Hampshire or if it's something other influence from my childhood, but I've always been way more into swords & sorcery than space operas.  This isn't to say I didn't love Star Wars growing up or that I don't still get the hankering for some space traveling now and again in my games, but it's something that comes and goes more often than not.

Surprisingly, the first roleplaying game I remember playing semi-regularly growing up was West End Games' D6 Star Wars. I had tried AD&D and couldn't get my head around it mechanically at ten or eleven years old, and I snagged a copy of ICE's Middle Earth Roleplaying around the same time period, but since I had the book I was expected to run the game, which I was very ill-prepared for at that age.  Star Wars kind of had everything in it that made it a perfect for me at that time period, which I should point out was also around the time the special edition movies were released in theaters.  The mechanics (or at least what we considered the important mechanics of combat and skill tests) were somewhat easier to follow, it came packed in with a familiar setting, and the best part was that it had rules for space combat and modifying starships.  All of our games tended to center around drumming up cash to buy a new ship or mod out an existing ship, and it functioned as a fantastic campaign device.

I recently had a group of close friends decide they wanted me to run a game for them, and they skew much more to the sci-fi end of things, so I started to look at different sci-fi roleplaying games that are out in the market at the moment.  Unfortunately, I never bought the West End Star Wars back in my heyday and it's currently out of print, so that wasn't an option.  But the big thing I wanted to make sure was included in the system was the ability to both modify starships and rules for ship-to-ship combat.

White Star

One of the first ones to jump out at me was James M. Spahn's / Barrel Rider Games' White Star, which is based on the OSR Swords & Wizardry White Box system.  I should point out that none of the players in the group were experienced gamers and had really only light experience with d20 rules, so this seemed like a good bet.  The character creation process is simple, with a limited number of choices, and there are rules for ship modification and dogfights, so this was the first game we rolled out.  One of us lives outside New Orleans, so we ended up using Roll20 for the game, which may have helped killed this one from the get-go unfortunately.

I should point out that there is nothing wrong with White Star as a system, and in fact I think that the game itself is a very well designed and appreciate the work involved.  It unfortunately was just not the game for my particular group.  Part of it was the lack of Roll20 character sheet integration, as I had to self design crude character sheets to keep track of everything.  But the bigger part I think was that the game itself is just too rules-light and open for me to run with this group, which is by design.  Combat is simple enough, and the space combat rules are seamless, but where the system falls apart for us is in the lack of skill checks.  This probably comes down to me not being a big OSR guy, but given how unforgiving combat in White Star can be for low level players, they needed to try and get creative in how they approached encounters rather than go guns-blazing.  But there is nothing there from a system standpoint.  No skills, which we could've probably gotten around by using attribute modifiers for instead, but there are no rules for increasing attributes when gaining levels either.  This meant that they would never improved as the game went on.  So then we looked at the saving throws (which advance with each level gained) as an alternative, but it was too broad.  It seemed very counter-intuitive that a pilot would be roughly as likely to be able to hack a security system as he would be able to execute some feat of great strength.  We made it three sessions with rules discussions in between before we shelved this one.

Stars Without Number

While we were working through our ill-fated White Star game, I continued researching other systems.  The next one that jumped out at me was Sine Nomine Publishing's much-lauded Stars Without Number.  This one also used a modified version of the d20 system, had rules for ship modding and space combat, and now most importantly had rules for skill rolls.  This addition also allows for slightly more customization of characters despite having only three classes compared to White Star's seven (including races), which meant rolling characters took slightly longer, but not Burning Wheel level by any means.

SWN also benefits from having interactive character sheets on Roll20, and I can say that I likely wouldn't be able to run the game with this group without it.  Between the completely different mechanics for combat vs. skill rolls and the number of modifiers for each combat roll, I doubt my players would've been able to grasp the mechanics without the Roll20 macros.  The game also has a pretty rad ruleset for factions and star system generation, although we haven't yet ventured into this part of the system.  In addition, the game allows for helpers on rolls, which appeals to the BW fanboy in me considerably.

That being said, I still find myself kind of dissatisfied with the system.  Part of this is that I am not a big prepper as a GM, and SWN is a game that requires a lot of it.  Another part of it is that the system is still more or less part of the OSR umbrella, which means it's very unforgiving combat-wise, especially as it pertains to healing.  The healing aspect is likely by design in order to function with the faction turns system, forcing characters onto the sidelines for an extended period while the universe around them advances plot-wise, which would be awesome if we were using that part of the system.  Given that we aren't, we've instead had to improvise our own healing system in the game.  I'm also not completely sold on the rules for Psionics, but that could dwindle a bit the more they get used in play.

D6 Space

Were it not for the group really being reticent to step outside of d20 mechanics, I think I would've gone instead with the spiritual successor to Star Wars, D6 Space (also by West End Games).  Granted it's been years since I've played in the D6 system and it lacks the built-in setting strength of Star Wars, but I still think if I had gotten my players on board with learning a new system we all might have had a better experience with our game to this point.  If the opportunity presents itself down the line for another sci-fi game, or if my players decide to give another new system a try, I think this will be the system I run in the future.  It will be interesting to see how much I've romanticized the system in my memory as well.  It could very well be that it just doesn't hold up as well with time, but given that the PDF is free on DriveThruRPG it's no real risk outside of time spent.  Plus, it has a Roll20 character sheet, which is a pretty surprising bonus.

Feel free to comment with some of your favorite sci-fi game stories or systems.  In particular, if you play White Star, let me know what I'm missing.  I don't enjoy the idea of calling a system a loss, so please try and convert me back into getting that one onto the table again at some point.