Thus far I only know of DnD 2nd Spell Jammer which is absolutely crazy and Rogue Trader which is a poor system in my opinion. Can anyone recommend a system that has a decent amount of space combat?

Thanks

Alternity
D20 Future
Star Wars (West End Games)
Star Wars D20

Those are the system off the top of my head that have space combat mechanics. They are decent enough. Are you looking for the system to do something specific?

I've got nothing too concrete at the moment. I guess I'm looking for a firefly-ish feel with small time pirates completely outmatched but can keep under the radar. If you know spell jammer, I'm kind of going for that with out the animals in space and other batshit-ness.

Well, there is Firefly

Technically, it's the Serenity RPG.

I dunno if it's due to legal reasons tho.



-k

I think it is because it came out after the movie, which was called Serenity, so they were likely trying to link it to that. I seem to recall some of the pictures being from the movie and everything.

GURPS seemed to have some pretty good rules. Traveller as well. Both are a might heavy on the math side, though.

Oh yeah, GURPS has a really fun space system now that I remember. Well, I don't know how fun the system itself was, but I had alot of fun designing different ships with it.

There's also Diaspora: it's a bit more open-ended, but a lot of people like the rules-system.

http://www.vsca.ca/Diaspora/

It came out the summer before the movie. It contains stills from the movie.

I second either the Cortex System (Serenity/BSG/generic) or WEG (d6) Star Wars.

I'm a big fan of Jovian Chronicles, which is all fairly hard sci-fi, with the exception of gundam style giant space robots. But you can pretty easily take out the giant space robots and put in space attack ships instead and nothing really changes. It all takes place within the solar system, though - no FTL or anything. But there's plenty of opportunity for intrigue.

I can personally attest to Traveler. Fun system but character creation is a little annoying since a lot of the advancements are randomly chosen instead of you deciding how to go. (Oh, you want THAT skill? well roll a d6 and see what you got...a 3, well sorry, but you get THIS skill instead...)

I believe there are rules for not having to randomize things, but I'm not sure...probably depends on the edition of the rules you use (I think I played the most recent one from Mongoose Games)

Kind of reminds me of the... mechwarrior RPG I think it was, except that Mechwarrior was good. You basically went through and picked different very general paths, like 'tour of duty' or 'free merchant' or something like that. You rolled the dice, and the result basically told you how well it went. Like snake eyes means you were captured by enemies and tortured for a couple years, and box cars meant that your platoon found some old tech cashe and you got a ton of money and a really high tech gun. 7 meant you just had a normal tour, nothing exciting happened, you gain some weapon skill of your choice and a side skill like gambling or something.

I have to say, I really loved that system purely for going through and making characters and seeing how they came out.

Star Wars WEG d6 is solid.

Classic or Mongoose Traveller are very fun, but very random.

Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader I've heard great things about.

Another option... HERO System (Star Hero 6th ed. isn't out yet, however; next Gen Con most likely)

Bye
Thanee

RIFTS has a bit of space rules in some of the books, but it's rifts and well the damage rules are nutz.

MDC mega damage means a normal human is toast in one hit unless wearing power armor

I know, that type of chargen is a lot of fun but you seldom see it anymore. The whole point of Twilight 2000 the PC game was basically to make characters and take them through the chargen tree.

I too have heard a lot of good things about Dark Heresy.

The Honor Harrington RPG will likely have comprehensive ship combat rules when it comes out.

Of course, the smallest typical combatant is typically a destroyer so...

Traveller is a game you'll want to take a look at.

Rifts! Where you can play a super steroid mutant or a mega cyborg or a mech pilot or... a scholar.

Yeah, balance isn't the game's strong suit.


-k

Sounds cool.

Edit: Have I ever mentioned that I used to work on my own game system, which had a space adaptation. One of the races was basically an entire race of scientists. They had exciting classes like 'researcher' and 'programmer' and 'engineer'.

Put it on this forum so we can read all the rules!

Only has about a dozen pages of rules, and I don't have them on me. But I do have an easy weekend for the first time in a while, I'll see if I can't recreate some of them.

I honestly think I had more written on the background/history of the Ro'am than I did rules for the rest of the game combined

Yep, it is pretty cool, but really crazy.

And if you ever meet a Splugorth there, run, just run!

One million M.D.C. is really as much as it sounds, if your laser pistol does 1d6 Mega Damage.

Bye
Thanee

What about the original ? Traveller (and it's MANY incarnations)

oh don't fret...we've got that idea out there already...

Ah, Traveller. One of the only games where you can die in chargen.

in the mongoose version (love their LBB variant) that only happens if one opt for ironman rules. If not one get a mishap and get booted out of whatever career one was advancing in at the time.

I have no idea how good an RPG Prime Directive is, but the associated space combat game, Star Fleet Battles is the best space combat game I've ever played. But if you think Traveller is math heavy, you're not going to be a fan.

heh, if anything is math heavy, it is the gurps when played with the realistic optional rules. Deltav calculations, anyone?

So, what, play those rules and learn how to launch a manned space mission?

Maybe not launch, but perhaps fly one when outside a gravitational well.