Okay, so eventually I'm going to want to build and use my Firstlight and Titan Sets, and I'm wondering which rpg system would be a good fit for my needs. I do own Gamma World, and I really like it for shorter, wacky gaming experiences. I'm sure it will be a lot of fun. However, I really enjoy longer stories that employ serious character development, and GW just isn't really suited for that.

It seems as though most of the Sci Fi RPGs out there are based on existing licenses (Star Wars, Firefly, Fallout). Though I'm not 100% ruling these out, I'm not really that keen on the idea of using a movie or tv world to game in.

At the moment, I'm considering GURPS, but have no experience with it, and the generic aspect of it seems a bit intimidating. I would like to be able to tell stories that range from ship-based to planet based, and from high tech to post apocalyptic. It certainly seems that GURPS was practically born to handle that kind of thing, but before I jump in I thought I would seek some other opinions.

Does anyone have any thoughts on GURPS as a sci-fi game? Are there any alternatives to GURPS that I'm not considering? Any suggestions/feedback? Thanks in advance, guys.

Traveller, in one of it's various incarnations, would seem to be a good bet (try searching traveller on RPGNow or Drive Thru).
The current Mongoose Publishing system looks pretty slick too.

Thanks for the quick responses, guys! I added Traveller to my Amazon wish list while I research it further.

As for GURPS, I had no idea that a free GURPS Lite even existed, so thank you so much for that little tidbit, Zorg. I've already downloaded it and will read through it and try to get a feel for the system. Do you play GURPS as a sci fi game? I'm asking because I was wondering if you had any suggestions as to additional "flavor" books to add to the two core books.

Thanks in advance for any further advice!

Hmm, never tried or researched Gurps. I use a bastardization of Dragon Quest percentage based stats with a bit of Star Frontiers as well as the type of settings Space Opera gave in my twenties.
I have not found what I wanted for a "sandbox level-less" system so I have been Alpha testing my system and have had good results.
As I look there are so many tools any more to help create scenarios and modules once you find the gaming mechanics you like.
I like writing the adventures from scratch myself even back in the day of D&D at High school in the back of Physics class.

AstroSynthisys (sp?) is a good tool to model planetary systems as well as the Star Systems your players my encounter. Finding WWG for the TLX and other SCIFI models has helped me greatly to attract my Player group. We are all in that 40 something class of gamers. Just my little 2cents.

BTW, please let me know what system you seem to like and why if you don't mind. Thanks -D²

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/13/13192.phtml
Found this on the Lite version. He is not a fan apparently. -D²

While I run an Star Wars game (mainly love the setting) i have been in games that covered Sci-Fi very well, it is a "generic system" like GURPS.

it is "math heavy" in some ways (building characters and powers) but combat isn't bad at all and it doens't take long to get the system.

There is also another Generic system i am in a game of, covers modern amd with support for "Sci-fi" in the base book and has some specific books as well (I am however not a super fan of Savage worlds, loved the last edition of Deadlands but not the new system i play it but I won't run it).

My group just played its second evening of our new campaign of traveler. We are using the mongoose rules although we have played all of the others over the years. They are easy to pick up and play fairly smoothly. This time the guy whose turn it is to game master converted many things in the universe over to Mass Effect. It drops into the traveler universe really well. He really went all out by taking tons of screen shots for the equipment conversions and stuff. Its been a blast so far.

I've tried most of the systems out there and I have not found one that fits just about every setting and offers almost all the choices like GURPS does.

Not to flame but it has been my experience that people that don't like GURPS don't like the fact that there are not pre-made settings or adventures and/or tend to forget that with GURPS everything is OPTIONAL.

I purchase adventure modules from other companies and I just switch the monsters over. Not really hard, it is the story that is important. Honestly you could play an RPG without any rules at all.

I have run several settings and games in GURPS and we use different rules for each

Fantasy/Wuxia = Use all the cinematic rules and don't use the more realistic rules, almost all of the character creation options are used. Combat is kept fun and exciting using only the rules that we want to at that moment in the game and disregarding others. This could change during the next combat. It works really well.

GURPS Fallout = We keep the cinematic rules to a minimum and limit the type of character creation. We pay attention to the combat rules more strictly. Combat is moderately deadly, characters might walk away from being shot by automatic rifles.

GURPS Traveller = Next to no cinematic rules, we like to get technical on this one. Combat is deadly just like in real life. It does not matter how many Character Points you have, getting shot will still kill you. skills and brains are more important.

GURPS Super Heroes = What ever keeps it fun. We flow back and forth on this one.

Thanks everyone for all the great feedback. I still think I might check out GURPS, but Traveller and Savage Worlds both sound pretty interesting too. In fact, Savage Worlds is only about 10 bucks on Amazon, so I'll probably pick that up in addition to GURPS. Can't beat the price.

The real selling point of Gurps, in my opinion, is the flexibility. With SW, frex, you're stuck with the gaming style the rules support. With Gurps, you can switch from scifi to post-apoc to Fantasy, from over-the-top cinematic to gritty realism, from Warhammer ratcatchers to Marvel superheroes.

If you like flexibility, tinkering, and a wide set of choices, then Gurps is for you. When you want a ready-made setting, rules optimized for that specific setting, and a number of adventures for that setting, then Gurps might not be your cuppa.

To me, this is not really a question of money - there's a number of cool games which are dirt-cheap or for free. It's a matter of time. I don't want to invest the time to regularly learn new systems whenever I want to switch setting, genre or style.

My two cents - this is, obviously, a matter of personal taste.

---

As to specific Gurps books suitable for scifi:

The Basic Set is indispensable.

Gurps Space is about how to design a scifi setting, with planets, solar systems, and alien species; tech assumptions, scope and scale. It's not a setting itself.

Gurps Ultra-Tech is a gear catalogue, ranging from near-future, plausible gadgets to Star Trek- or Precursor- wonder science. Nice to have. Not crucial.

Gurps Gun Fu (pdf) helps you do high-action shootout games. For the price, it's top, imo.

Gurps Biotech is mainly useful for transhumanist, cyberpunkish, or Outbreak-in-Space games.

Gurps Action (pdf) focuses mainly on simulating movies such as Die Hard, but it's useful for scifi, too.

Gurps Powers is superb, especially when you intend to include lots of psionics (in which case, Gurps Psionics (pdf) might be worth looking at).

It really depends on the kind of game you want to play.

In addition to all the classics mentioned so far, there have been some pretty nifty sci-fi games popping up on the indy scene in the past couple of years.

If you're looking for a "hard" sci-fi game without an included setting, the game I'd recommend is Diaspora. The authors were themselves big fans of Traveller, so they really do a good job of capturing that feel:



Thousand Suns is also in the hard sci-fi camp, but includes a very customizable "meta" setting, as the author describes it.



Now if you're more in the mood for a game where a calculator capable of computing square roots is listed under the "required materials" heading, check out Stellar Winds:




Personally, I like them all but I'm partial towards Diaspora. I'm working up a few sessions with that system set in the Firefly universe for some upcoming gaming conventions this summer. I don't know if I'll ever actually *play* Stellar Winds, but you have to appreciate the attention to detail on the author's part.

P.S.
For any fellow RPG nerds reading this, I know that Firely has it's own game, but I'm not fond of the Cortex system that's used in all of the Margaret Weis Productions games (Firefly, Leverage, Supernatural, etc.)

Game on!

Gaussian, thanks for the links. I've checked them out, and they do seem like great games; however, I think the small "indie" status of them is a bit worrisome. I couldn't find Diaspora on Amazon, for example. This, of course, is hardly a litmus test for what makes a great game. Its just that I want to make sure that I am able to easily obtain updates, expansions, etc.

Oh, and Stellar Winds scared the hell outa me, lol. Sounds like a fantastically detailed game, and I wouldn't hesitate to play it, but it sounds like running it requires quite a bit of math skills. Not that I can't add 2 and 2 (wait, its 4, right? Right?) but I'm a very right-brained guy. Math is not my friend, lol.

In any case, this thread has generated some extremely valuable information. I've learned a great deal about the sci-fi rpg world, and discovered games I never even knew existed. I really appreciate everyone's contributions.

And Zorg: Wow, thanks for that detailed list. It gives me a sense of what to look for when I jump in. After the two core rulebooks, sounds like I'll start with Space, Powers, and Psionics. Then perhaps Gun-fu for those blaster fights. I'm already getting excited thinking about designing my own campaign universe.

God, I love being a geek.

Spycraft 2.0 is very versatile, and has been the basis for my Fallout and Steampunk games. It contains qualities for modifying the game to fit assorted settings - increasing/decreasing lethality. How trustworthy the average NPC is, how healing works, etc.. Soon to be replaced with a less flexible Spycraft 3, so if it sounds worthwhile then get it soon. The new Spycraft is going to be pretty much dedicated to the likes of Commander James Bond. Better at that one task, but less adaptable outside of that specialty.

True20 is another possibility. Very generic, but easily tailored to fit the desired setting.

GURPS was never my cuppa - but it is extremely flexible, with lots and lots of support for many genres. Do not take my dislike of the game as a mark against it - this is purely a matter of personal taste. It is an excellent game that I just happen not to like.

The Auld Grump

GURPS is a great choice for the types of science fiction you mention (the only genre it will likely have trouble with is mecha games, but that will hopefully change when GURPS Vehicles comes out). Regarding the complexity issue, GURPS is really only as complicated as you make it. In fact, GURPS only has three basic game mechanics:
Success
Contest
Reaction Rolls
and 3 basic rule architectures:
Primary and Secondary Stats
Adds/Dissads and Modifiers
Skills, specialization and Techniques

Everything else is just a variation of one those. Since nobody has mentioned it yet I'll point out that GURPS is a hex based game and as a result the tactical combat rules won't work out of the box work with WWG terrain (unless you either custom print tiles with a hex grid or use hex transparencies). Keep in mind that the tactical combat rules are totally optional so the game works perfectly well without them. I figured it worth mentioning since you clearly plan on using WWG terrain.

Ignoring the benefits gained by only having to learn one ruleset that will work for the majority of genres (which other people have already pointed out), the other major benefit is that the supplemental material made by SJGames is truly second to none. In fact, the non rules specific content of their supplements is often good enough that people use it for their non-GURPS games.

Also, to add to the list of books of interest that zorg posted above:

High Tech: A gear book that covers the late 18th century to modern day. Really only useful if your sci-fi game will be taking place in a future version of our own world, or at least one that will make heavy use of real world weapons and kit (like fallout).

Tactical Shooting: Similar to Gun-Fu except it details rules meant for realistic games rather than cinematic. So far my favorite GURPS supplement, it turns what was already an excellent ruleset for gunfights into arguably the best game in town for realistic gun play. Like I pointed out above, the non-rules content presented here (commonly trained shooting techniques, room clearing diagrams, the shooting "styles" used by various real life military, police, and civilians over the years) would be valuable to anyone running a realistic gun game regardless of the rules used.

Hope that helps and good luck with your game!

Thanks, Comedian.

Yeah, I actually hadn't realized that GURPS was hex-based (been so busy with work I haven't been able to read the "Lite" rules I downloaded yet.) Not sure how I feel about that at the moment. Though its true that I can use gridless terrain, all the terrain I've printed out so far has been one-inch grid. And I don't relish the idea of printing out two sets of terrain.

Poop.

Still not ruling GURPS out, but this does sort of change my landscape a bit. Need to think on it some more....

And thank you as well, Matthew777, Auld Grump, and everyone else. I'll have to go check out the new links and see what I can find out.

In a scifi game, a gridded map is less important imo, since the engagement range is typically higher compared to Fantasy.

Again - even if you use the highly optional Tactical Combat rules (which I wouldn't recommend to someone new to the system), you can forego hexes if you use the free Range Ruler (a simple foldover).

Also, what the Comedian said.

There is also......



Digitally remastered with Permission from WOTC.

The EZine that is used to support is very well done, and if you're not into traveller.... then Star Frontiers is a close second.

And it's Free.

Went to a bookstore today to try to see what they had. I was able to glance at the GURPS character core book, but wasn't able to flip through the campaign core book (out of stock). Lots of stuff in the character book...a bit overwhelming, but I think that's true of any new rulebook until you have a chance to give it a thorough reading.

I downloaded the GURPS ruler so that I could see what everyone was talking about. Handy little thing. Still not sure how you handle movement and all without squares or hexes, but I'm sure all will make sense eventually.

I still really like the idea behind GURPS, and I'm fairly positive I'll pick it up at some point. But, as a new GM, I'm wondering if Savage Worlds wouldn't be a better system for me to start with. I'm getting the impression that it is simpler than most other systems out there (which is both a strength and a limitation, I suppose).

Bottom line: I like both, and probably will be happy with either.

EDIT: And once again, I have to express my appreciation for all who contributed to this thread. What a wealth of information. You guys rock!