So...I need some help.

The Whispering Monk · Jul 16, 2021

I'm going to be running a RPG modeled after @Big Steve's excellent Undiscovered Frontier fiction on this website.

Links for your enjoyment! (and I want to make sure @Big Steve gets the credit he deserves)
Undiscovered Frontier Pilot
Undiscovered Frontier Season 1
Undiscovered Frontier Season 2
Undiscovered Frontier Season 3
Undiscovered Frontier Spin Off 'Episodes'

The help I need is in finding a system that will let me focus on narrative challenges and still provide the structure for good, fast action combat for both personal, vehicular and starship combat from multiple universes. Something that will handle force powers, technical challenges and character development without plateauing at a certain point where the skill level means there isn't a challenge any more for the characters.

I've looked at the D20 system and that's just a no go.
Pondered adapting the Star Wars RPG Narrative system
Haven't looked into GURPs yet, but it's on my to-do list....

So what RPG system should I look at using? HALP!

Bear Ribs · Jul 16, 2021

FATE might work for what you're looking for. The Core Rules are free which doesn't hurt.

Rather than set attributes Like str, dex, wis etc. you have "Aspects" of your character set to specific values, so you might be a dragon that has "Can Fly" +2, Loves Treasure +4, and Thick Scales +3. The game avoids the usual issue with flaws, you get points for your aspects when they actually cause you problems and spent the points when you use them to avoid a problem. So our erstwhile dragon's "Loves Treasure" aspect would grant the player points when the dragon character gets distracted by something shiny or does something stupid to get treasure and spends points when its love of treasure allows it to appraise something and discover a clue or learn how to use a magic item. Thick Scales would similarly use points to resist taking damage and supply points when the dragon turns out to need to feel for a hidden lever and can't get any sensation through its scales.

The Whispering Monk · Jul 16, 2021

Bear Ribs said:
FATE might work for what you're looking for. The Core Rules are free which doesn't hurt...

So what's the difference between Fate Core and Fate Accelerated? <~~while I peruse the Fate Core PDF~~ so not quite free anymore. At least the link doesn't work for the free d/l.>

EDIT: additional question? How well does it work with Vehicular combat? Thinking Star Trek style systems and ships.

Bear Ribs · Jul 16, 2021

The Whispering Monk said:
So what's the difference between Fate Core and Fate Accelerated? <~~while I peruse the Fate Core PDF~~ so not quite free anymore. At least the link doesn't work for the free d/l.>

EDIT: additional question? How well does it work with Vehicular combat? Thinking Star Trek style systems and ships.

The download worked for me just now, click the link that says Fate Core in PDF, Kindle, ePub (zipped).

As far Starship combat nothing unusual, it's a very freeform system so your ship would just have its own aspects but there's nothing outstanding about it.

For other systems I've heard good things about FASA's old Star Trek RPG for ship combat but never tried it myself, not sure how hard to find it would be either.

The Whispering Monk · Jul 17, 2021

For whatever reason, the link wouldn't work with Chrome. Had to open a different browser.

The Whispering Monk · Jul 17, 2021

@Bear Ribs, I'm pretty sure that Fate is not going to be sufficient for what I'm intending, but I appreciate the contribution.

I tried looking for the FASA Star Trek stuff, but I couldn't find anything out there, but product reviews. There were a couple of questionable d/l sites, but I didn't want to dip my computer into those waters.

Bear Ribs · Jul 17, 2021

Maybe if you clarify a bit what you're looking for. At first I just thought pulpy space adventures which FATE does well but that wasn't it, and I'm not sure quite what you hope the system you're looking for to do.

The Whispering Monk · Jul 17, 2021

So...think Star Trek space combat with shield degradation, system damage, repair efforts and such.

This SHOULD allow me to have all PCs active in the combat, not just pilot and gunner.

S'task · Jul 17, 2021

Well... there is the current Star Trek RPG, which uses a 2d20 system and seems pretty solid, being built specifically to account for having multiple roles and having ship rules built in.

There is also my mainstay for when I want to hack something together, Savage Worlds, which offers a lot of options and has a pretty decent sized fanbase, so there's lots of homebrew rules for doing things.

Fyi, both these two systems, 2d20 and SW, were designed with Pulp style gameplay in mind, which fits well with Star Trek in my experience.

The Whispering Monk · Jul 17, 2021

I'll look at the newer ST rules, but Savage Worlds is right out. I have had WAY too many bad experiences go with that system. It breaks WAY too easily.

S'task · Jul 18, 2021

The Whispering Monk said:
I'll look at the newer ST rules, but Savage Worlds is right out. I have had WAY too many bad experiences go with that system. It breaks WAY too easily.

Which edition and playing what games? There's some significant differences between each edition, and then there's also a lot of specialized rules if, for instance, you were playing Deadlands that are specific to Deadlands and don't apply outside of it. I've been playing it for years and not seen it break in any real ways, but I guess that depends on what you mean by "break" too?

The Whispering Monk · Jul 18, 2021

@S'task
It's been mostly Dead Lands with some modern Cop/Paranormal adventures as well. Though that last one did not go very far thanks to the covid nonsense.

As for breaking, I mean that past a certain point in character development (potentially in creation), challenges were pretty easy to handle. Mostly, this was due to people ultra-focusing their character in one direction. This happens, but it also meant that the GM would have to then come up with opposition to match. Downside: every other character not focused that way was completely destroyed/flummoxed by incidental attacks by said challenge. I felt this was a direct result of the dice system that Savage Worlds uses.

EDIT: I'm pretty sure this was in the newest edition of Savage Worlds.

S'task · Jul 18, 2021

The Whispering Monk said:
@S'task
It's been mostly Dead Lands with some modern Cop/Paranormal adventures as well. Though that last one did not go very far thanks to the covid nonsense.

As for breaking, I mean that past a certain point in character development (potentially in creation), challenges were pretty easy to handle. Mostly, this was due to people ultra-focusing their character in one direction. This happens, but it also meant that the GM would have to then come up with opposition to match. Downside: every other character not focused that way was completely destroyed/flummoxed by incidental attacks by said challenge. I felt this was a direct result of the dice system that Savage Worlds uses.

EDIT: I'm pretty sure this was in the newest edition of Savage Worlds.

There's a lot of stuff in Deadlands that is specific to Deadlands, and I assume what you're talking about is that the players basically built their characters to have d10s or d12s in their primary combat skill from character creation? You're right, that can make things... difficult on a GM, but in my experience the answer there isn't to try and challenge the party or those character on their strength, but hammer on their weaknesses. Then again, I'll admit that if you're dealing with a lot of munchkins, SW does arguably have some exploitable design aspects. SW assumes a certain maturity of players to create what I would say is a "well rounded" character, one whom hasn't literally sacrificed everything to get a d12 in Fighting at character creation. The answer to that, I'll be honest, is simple GM gatekeeping, characters that hyperspecialized should just be rejected by the GM.

I've been running and playing Savage Worlds for years, and never really run into what you're describing (though I can imagine how to do it)... so I don't think it's necessarily a result of the SW system. Any system can be broken by min-maxers.

The Whispering Monk · Jul 18, 2021

S'task said:
Any system can be broken by min-maxers.

You're absolutely right about that.

Savage Worlds is a little too pulpy for what I'm looking for. I want something that feels crunchy in combat, but allows for the narrative base you can get with Savage Worlds and the FFG Star Wars RPG game.

I think I'm realizing that what I'm looking for doesn't exist just yet, and I'm being lazy by not just modifying an existing framework. Dag'nabbit...I was hoping someone had already done the hard work.

If you have other great ideas, then let me know. I'm definitely still open to possible suggestions.

S'task · Jul 18, 2021

The Whispering Monk said:
You're absolutely right about that.

Savage Worlds is a little too pulpy for what I'm looking for. I want something that feels crunchy in combat, but allows for the narrative base you can get with Savage Worlds and the FFG Star Wars RPG game.

I think I'm realizing that what I'm looking for doesn't exist just yet, and I'm being lazy by not just modifying an existing framework. Dag'nabbit...I was hoping someone had already done the hard work.

If you have other great ideas, then let me know. I'm definitely still open to possible suggestions.

From what I've seen of the 2d20 system its got a decent amount of crunchy but still has a bit of narrative framework to it. That said, I've not played it or run it.

Bear Ribs · Jul 18, 2021

The Whispering Monk said:
You're absolutely right about that.

Savage Worlds is a little too pulpy for what I'm looking for. I want something that feels crunchy in combat, but allows for the narrative base you can get with Savage Worlds and the FFG Star Wars RPG game.

I think I'm realizing that what I'm looking for doesn't exist just yet, and I'm being lazy by not just modifying an existing framework. Dag'nabbit...I was hoping someone had already done the hard work.

If you have other great ideas, then let me know. I'm definitely still open to possible suggestions.

Hmm, well although you already rejected D20 the Star Wars Saga edition is one that fits all your criterion, space combat is crunchy and designed around either everybody in a fighter doing their own thing, or each person in a capital ship doing a separate job (ie. pilots, gunners, engineers doing damcom, engineers reinforcing shields).

I do agree you won't find exactly what you want though, fundamentally "crunchy" and "narrative-based" are at the opposite ends of the RPG spectrum and don't generally appear in the same system.

The Whispering Monk · Jul 18, 2021

Bear Ribs said:
...fundamentally "crunchy" and "narrative-based" are at the opposite ends of the RPG spectrum and don't generally appear in the same system.

Is this the part where I ask for an "AMEN!"?

- which is my conundrum...

I've done a lot of play in the D20 Star Wars, but the down side is I sold all my books a decade ago.

I think I'm going to try and use the FFG SW RPG system and incorporate some crunchiness from the Captain's edition of Star Fleet Battles...I need to go through the latter system to see if it's worthwhile to do so.

GoldRanger · Jul 25, 2021

Starfinder comes to mind (another D20 system), but I'm not sure the space combat is that good there.

Typhonis · Jul 28, 2021

How crunchy do you want your space combat? Because you can have a totally different system for that. Or you grab a copy of Cepheus engine to see how it does. For a more TOS feel Starships and Spacemen have you covered.

For starship combat look up Starmada.

Bear Ribs · Jul 28, 2021

So this might help. I waded through RPG.NET* to see what their recs were.

Star Wars Saga Edition was still the frontrunner but I found this, which has a fairly lengthy list of space combat-centric RPGs currently available. You might be able to find what you want there.

*Appreciate my sacrifice!

So...I need some help.

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