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Your Favorite non-GDW Scifi RPG, Part 1

Your Favorite non-GDW Scifi RPG, Part 1


  • Total voters
    179
Updated for my current preferences: FFG SW - not just edge, but F&D, and the very narrativist Firefly (Which, for those keeping score, isn't actually the same game engine as Serenity).
 
None of these games ever really appealed to me, I guess.

I think that, except for Traveller, I'm not much of a RPG person.
 
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Started GMing Space 1889 in November, using the reboot with the Ubiquity system. The group is having a blast, as the style points for playing to your motivation and flaw emphasizes the ROLE playing.
 
I voted for Battletech and Mechwarrior, as I love the idea of it even though I have never been able to get a group together to run in on a consistent basis.

I also voted for Fading Suns, a game I have never played, but I love the feel of the setting.
 
I thought Space:1889 was a GDW title?
It was, but is now a Heliograph Title, under license from Frank Chadwick.

Coldn't this be said from Traveller too?

For the same reason, IMHO, at least MgT, GT and I guess (I don't know them) T20 and TH should also be in the list (assuming GDW means MWM companies, as, striclty speaking, even CT is, or so I understand, now FFE, not GDW...)
 
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I voted for Space: 1889, but I notice that Gamma World and Metamorphosis Alpha are not part of the poll. I think that Metamorphosis Alpha was the first science fiction role-playing game, or at least the first one that I bought. I also still have the original edition of Gamma World.
 
The first sci fi game I ever did was the miniatures game Starguard! (McEwan Miniatures) back in the late 70's. Still have a few of the figures from that game lying around somewhere too.
 
Really surprised to see so many other Fading Suns fans. They always seem so thin on the ground...

FS came out during the d20 'splosion. It got buried on shelves. The d20 version didn't help things - it damaged the rep.

And its fanbase overlaps heavily the 40K fanbase and Traveller fanbases.

See, it's essentially "Our WH40K license got pulled before we could finish writing, so we changed it" ... the mechanics look like WWG's Storyteller doing 40K crossed with Dune, but then reworked to use d20's instead.
 
FS came out during the d20 'splosion. It got buried on shelves. The d20 version didn't help things - it damaged the rep.

And its fanbase overlaps heavily the 40K fanbase and Traveller fanbases.

See, it's essentially "Our WH40K license got pulled before we could finish writing, so we changed it" ... the mechanics look like WWG's Storyteller doing 40K crossed with Dune, but then reworked to use d20's instead.

Fading Suns actually predates D20 (if by D20 we mean 3rd Ed) by several years, and it's less tied to 40k than Vampire and Werewolf from White Wolf, and old school cult based Runequest (which is no surprise, since RQ is listed as a V:tM inspiration).

Of course, even 40k at the time was not anything remotely like 40k today. I started playing 40k in the early 90's, and even then, as it started to become more "grim dark," things weren't nearly as polished or consistent as they are now.

I'm on pretty friendly terms with one of the founders of Armorcast. They used to have a license from GW to make large scale warmachines (coincidentally they had one for Battletech too), and he's told me that back in the mid-90's, negotiating with GW was like talking to your gaming buddy. I doubt it's that way now.
 
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