Does anyone have recommendations for a story-centric sci-fi RPG where you play as a crew piloting a spaceship and exploring different planets? I'm looking for something that is NOT focused on combat, but instead on a mix of adventure and a sense of found family.
Some games I'm considering in the thread below, bonus points for recommending a system that I already own.
#Coriolis I own and have played before. The setting and artwork are amazing, but the mechanics just got in our way too much and focus too much on long equipment lists over things that drive story. I'd consider stealing the setting and playing with a different system.
The Cosmic Fantasy edition of the #QuestRPG seems to be right up my alley but unfortunately its release seems to be delayed.
Above the Flying Mountain (an expansion for #Wanderhome, which I own but haven't played) also seems like it could work well, though I must admit I am a bit intimidated by trying to convince my friends to play a diceless and gmless game.
In a similar vein, #Flotsam seems to nail the found family aspect but I really don't want to leave out the adventure and exploration.
I also own the pdfs of both #Ironsworn #Starforged and #ScumAndVillainy but both are a bit too gritty and combat-focused for my purpose (not that I dislike those in general, but I'm already playing a pretty gritty D&D campaign and I'm looking for something more positive).
#TheStarsAreFire is a setting for #CypherSystem that I apparently own the pdf of (I think from some bundle?) and looks like it could be interesting, but I haven't managed to really grok the Cypher mechanics yet. If anyone has experience with it I'd love to hear about it!
@dregntael I’ve played in, GMed in, and written in Cypher System. I am absolutely a novice compared to others I know around here but I’m happy to help.
I’m also happy to pass along my favorite “cheat sheets”, which I pass along to players in every game since I discovered them: https://www.reddit.com/r/cyphersystem/comments/ji4r7g/cypher_system_cheat_sheets/
I find that the Cypher mechanics support my crazy ideas across genres and settings instead of getting in the way. To me, that’s RPG gold.
@dregntael I run Salvage over Saturn for about 5 or so sessions, went really well. Wrote 2 posts around that: https://d20.rs/tag/revel
@dregntael Late to the thread, but in case you're still not decided, I recently asked on r/ironsworn for some non-combative Actual Plays of #Starforged: https://old.reddit.com/r/Ironsworn/comments/118m21n I got a reply from a guy who did a campaing with an explorer character, expressly avoiding combat. I found it very cool and interesting to learn from. Also, for a playthrough that I intend to eventually start on my own, I plan to explicitly Set A Flag on combat and avoid it. (I want to play a SF detective.)
@dregntael how do you see #Starforged as combat-focused? There is nothing I saw there stopping me from running it like #wanderhome , playing a diplomat, a community facilitator or similar. I have a few sketches of a Voidborn character helping people fix their habitats and a healer / naturalist cataloguing new fauna.
Even the very basic combat mechanic can be used for any kind of conflict, be it a debate, an attempt to persuade a community or win someone's favor.
It doesn't say "take damage".
@dregntael take away the combat-focused assets, create Truths which give you good reasons why no one wants to resort to violence and there's nothing in the mechanics which forces you to fight!
"An ally turns hostile", you might roll. This doesn't mean they stab you, but they will act against you, not unlike Wanderome, Ryuutama, Dream Askew / Dream Apart.
@dregntael no mechanic in the game rewards you for resulting to violence: you get XP for exploration, creating bonds (very Solarpunk) and fulfilling vows / completing quests.
Frame it like https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41637112-a-half-built-garden - a first contact story where violence is the lose condition - and even the most hostile human factions need to resort to diplomacy.
@alxd That's good to know, I definitely need to give the rules a throughout read!
@dregntael I can recommend the https://www.youtube.com/@thebadspot let's play, going through all the mechanics. The game does feature violence, but it's not downplayed.
The first time it happens it's pretty traumatic to Archer and influences the plot for the following seasons.
What might be shocking is that after every battle, the bloodied, exhausted, spiritually broken character... is not rewarded. They chose to fight, survived. No XP for that.
Making friends? Helping a faction? Have some XP!
@alxd Well, the cover does have an image of someone holding a large rifle and a knife, but perhaps I shouldn't judge a book by its cover. Two of its main stats also mention combat explicitly, so it hardly seems like it plays a small role (in contrast to, say, Tales from the Loop or Flotsam or Wanderhome).
@dregntael which main stats? Momentum? Spirit? Health?
Well, last game my Medic / Naturalist lost both by trying to save someone from a ship wrecked on an unstable moon and almost dying. There was physical danger (the moon was in PIECES), a tension clock, but no one forced me to shoot anyone!
@alxd I meant Edge ("quickness, agility, and prowess when fighting at a distance.") and Iron ("physical strength, endurance, aggressiveness, and prowess
when fighting at close quarters.")
@dregntael it's not a game which makes violence impossible, it's just doesn't reward it. The fact that most people choose to solve problems this way? It's their choice, stemming from our culture, but it can be as well avoided.
The same way you're not forced to take a pet or a companion, even if that's one of the more important mechanics in the game.
@dregntael I'm working on a few smaller hacks on my own, including "learning a community", where you have several long-term tracks of not only winning some factions' favor, but really understanding and becoming a part of that group. That might work wonderfully with the games like Wanderhome and Ryuutama, while still being quite fascinating.
@dregntael one of the possible starting Truths is that there are Five Clans at war. Another is that the humanity came here on a generation ships.
What if the conflict is not a "war", but philosophies, even biologies becoming so different that people are almost different species and need translators, diplomats?
One faction needs to terraform almost any planet, another wants to keep environments pristine and catalogue everything. How do you find a middle ground?
> I'm looking for something that is NOT focused on combat, but instead on a mix of adventure and a sense of found family.
Again, please take a look at https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41637112-a-half-built-garden , it is a first contact book about exactly that :] It can help not only with a non-violent framing, but some ideas into how to play non-naive conflicts between civilizations, all cherished, not seed as threats to each other.
@dregntael another game with communities, found families, but few spaceships I could recommend is https://ufopress.co.uk/legacy-game-line/ . Again, the violence is an option, but you are actually rewarded to think long-term.
Sure, you can use this tech as a +3 sword now, or turn into infrastructure which will help your community / faction for the next three decades. It's up to you!
Game played across generations, with many characters within a faction, telling a story of rebuilding a world. PbtA.
@dregntael and a shameless self-insert, if you want some ideas for non-violent faction conflict, check out my https://alxd.org/solarpunk-rpg-factions.html#solarpunk-rpg-factions - five factions want to rebuild the world, each one in a different way.
Then, our https://podcast.tomasino.org/@SolarpunkPrompts podcast has 10-15 minutes story / adventure / campaign ideas for communities with non-violent tensions and dramas.
@dregntael it's quite different from #wanderhome , which focuses on the journey, never staying in a single place / community for too long. I find more interesting opportunities for drama by jumping between a few known, well-defined, character-created communities, allowing you to get more emotionally invested and fully knowing the price of escalating a conflict.
@dregntael another take, from the Half Built Garden and Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota:
After spreading among the stars we woke up The Precursors. They are Bigger Than Us and incomprehensible - and want us to prove that we can prosper without violence.
Different societies have different solutions, some opting for totalitarianism, some for a form of hive-mind, some neurobiological modification of human psychology.
Is this a price worth paying? How do you represent this mess to the Precursors?
@dregntael another #starforged
world truth idea for a non-violent campaign:
Every person intentionally killed by another conscious being has their mind uploaded by the Precursor Artifact and turns into some kind of alien-space-zombie and creates new problems for the civilization. Killing other humans is not only a taboo, but a Generally Bad Idea.
A lot of the cultures, traditions, procedures were created to avoid violent conflicts and create some consensus mechanisms.
@dregntael you can create some cool backstory for it.
The first time humanity arrived in this part of galaxy, someone tried genociding a minority, which turned out to be a Bad Idea and the aggressors were wiped out.
Step by step, over the next two hundred years, we learned how to live in this forced-peace, some factions truly embracing it, some feeling that humanity lost something from its old culture and spirit.
@dregntael Combat in #Starforged is entirely optional; the exploration and bond-building systems are thoroughly rewarding even if you never get into a fight, and the combat subsystem itself has room for nonviolent resolutions.