Quote from: Simlasa;802136My initial interest in Spacemaster was thinking it was somehow related to the Silent Death miniatures game... which it might have been but not really.

It is - at least the original Spacemaster - not Privateers - is. All the noble houses, like Kashmere, Colos, etc. line up. Silent Death's universe is pretty much the Spacemaster universe one or more centuries later with a different starship combat system and new enemies.

Later!

Harl

The thing is, that the Spacemaster fans liked the developments in Silent Death the New Millennium about as well as Traveller fans liked the developments in Traveller the New Era.  Which is to say, not at all.  Sure it was a setting collapse by a bug race that turned out to be everywhere instead of years of civil war followed by weaponized sentient computer chip-like organisms.

It's interesting to note that Traveller and Spacemaster are both imperial sf but the settings couldn't be more different.  Spacemaster's take is much closer to Dune by way of Starwars than Traveller's Foundation + H Beam Piper that occasionally looks a bit like Starwars if you squint really hard.

Spacemaster Privateers is a totally different setting, in which precursors spread the same seven races over a large area of space.  Each race is very specialized and eventually two starfaring nations emerge.  One, a healthy democracy and the other a psychotic empire, when they meet, hijinks ensue.  A bit contrived perhaps, but well set up to get right in and play, sure the aliens aren't very alien and are very stereotypical but you can tell a new player "You're a knightly wolf man fighting to free your people from the evil cat people." and they get it right away.

Quote from: RPGPundit;801934What SF RPG do you think, of all those ever made, was the very best?

Traveller. It's just a matter of deciding which version to use.

Quote from: Simlasa;802136It's odd to see so many people mentioning Spacemaster... it always seemed an outlier to me that I never heard much mention of or read articles about.

From my POV, in the 80s and 90s, Spacemaster was pretty high profile in the RPG shops.
They always had it in stock and they kept new stuff coming in.

I'll buck the trend and cast my vote for 1st ed Paranoia. We actually played it more than Traveller.

Personally, I really enjoy HardNova II and Thousand Suns Revised. What I've seen of D101 Games' Kickstarted hard scifi game for OpenQuest River of Heaven also looks good and I'm really eager to see what DwD Studios will come up with for FrontierSpace.

But just from reading Mongoose Traveller, I can see why that would probably be the best scifi game, especially with regard to its versatility.

Quote from: 3rik;802241What I've seen of D101 Games' Kickstarted hard scifi game for OpenQuest River of Heaven also looks good and I'm really eager to see what DwD Studios will come up with for FrontierSpace.

Yeah, RoH does looks good, and I'm hoping that it gets some solid support.

FrontierSpace has been a long time coming. Been a few years since I first read about it. I've stopped holding my breath on that one.

Blue Planet v2 from FFG gets my vote, for its excellent setting and easy to use system.

Transhuman Space featured some absolutely amazing worldbuilding, but I can't enjoy gurps. Really, I tried. I give it a solid 2nd place.

#1 - Classic Traveller, for "hard" old-school SF adventuring.

#1A - Star Ace, for over-the-top Space Opera action and adventure. Polar Bears flying starfighters. 'Nuff said.

What a great collection of games. Many of which I have plagued and none of which I would turn down.
Add in some new games like eclipse phase, mind jammer, and diaspora and it's a great field for RPGs.

I would split them between strong settings and toolboxes, but even then, most Spacefaring SF games are toolbox sandbox by necessity.

There's a lot of Star Wars D6 and Classic Traveller mentioned. It's a pretty old crowd around here, isn't it? SW D6, Traveller, TSR D&D, Cthulhu, they are all pretty old games.

Anyway I like Traveller too. My favorites are Fading Suns, Blue Planet and when I want something lighter Slipstream.

Quote from: jan paparazzi;802403There's a lot of Star Wars D6 and Classic Traveller mentioned. It's a pretty old crowd around here, isn't it? SW D6, Traveller, TSR D&D, Cthulhu, they are all pretty old games.

Anyway I like Traveller too. My favorites are Fading Suns, Blue Planet and when I want something lighter Slipstream.

I actually haven't played Traveller, but just from reading the Mongoose edition it does seem like the best choice for a generically usable scifi game that's neither too light, nor too heavy and is still well supported.

I like what I've seen of Blue Planet, but it seems a bit too setting-specific to pass the test.

Actually, personally, if I were going to do SciFi with a published game, I'd probably go Fate.

It has the builder breadth of a game like GURPS or M&M, but without the fiddly details I dislike.

(But I'd still use GURPS Space as a reference, assuming I was doing a multisystem game)

What no love for Space Quest? Innovative – the first game I know of that used a D30. And it used 3D star mapping which games like Traveller and FASA Star Trek totally ignore. And who doesn't love giant space slugs and void sharks as monsters in space!!!.

Seriously though, the games I've played the most* are Traveller, FASA's Star Trek, and WEG Star Wars D6 (2nd and 2RE).

Traveller was the first Sci Fi RPG and the nuts and bolts, technology had a hard science kind of vibe. I had a lot of fun with character and world creation in Traveller, so it has to be in the running. However on the down side, I have always loathed a couple of the name choices in Classic Traveller to whit: "slug thrower" for chemical powered projectiles and "sand caster" for the ship-based anti-laser defense systems. The guy who came up with those names was all out of cleverness and creativity that day.

We had a lot of fun with Star Trek. We used the FASA ships and settings but ignored most of the rules except for the character creation career path. So I can't in good conscience give the nod to FASA Star Trek.

I've played far more WEG Star Wars than the other two systems combined and enjoyed it more. As others have said it was incredibly fun and easy to learn and play. And WEG shaped a lot of the Expanded Universe novels and such that came afterwards. However, in answer to Alderaan Crumbs question, I would argue that Star Wars is fantasy in space much more than it is Sci-Fi.

So, despite my aversion for the dumb ass slugthrowers it's Traveller for the Sci-Fi win.


* I really did play and run Space Quest, but the class based system was a bad version of OD&D in space with D30s substituted for D20s.

Quote from: jan paparazzi;802403There's a lot of Star Wars D6 and Classic Traveller mentioned. It's a pretty old crowd around here, isn't it? SW D6, Traveller, TSR D&D, Cthulhu, they are all pretty old games.

Speak for yourself, I only started playing SW this year. My rulebook is only two months younger than my brother.

Good design, though, doesn't age.