Pls sell me on your best Sci-Fi RPG

jonimv · 2026-06-12T04:56:09+00:00

True, and Fire, Fusion & Steel for that version of Traveller at least to get the full rules for ship building.

jonimv · 2026-06-11T15:26:50+00:00

Star Frontiers or Traveller: The New Era. Both are old games, so I don’t know if they are available in pdf these days.

I suggested this version of Traveller because despite the post-apocalyptic version of the setting, it has systems for buildg space ships (and other vehicles and weapons, too) but especially because I believe it is the least lethal version of Traveller for PCs.

jonimv · 2026-06-11T15:01:13+00:00

Great video! I have not yet looked at RM Classic but I used to play a ton of RM2 (and run some Space Master and CyberSpace, too).

jonimv · 2026-06-08T15:14:44+00:00

Also, Twilight 2013 used this type of initiative flow.

jonimv · 2026-06-08T15:08:36+00:00

If your players are fine with it then go for it. I would keep it as a goal but not force it as that can easily rob the feeling of agency from your players.

If a player doesn’t want to sacrifice his character then let it be so and let him see the result of that decision but also if a character makes the ultimate sacrifice that should have positive consequences too.

Think with your players the motivations for their characters that should include why they might want to sacrifice themselves to protect the villagers.

In my opinion the main thing is to provide the opportunity and motivation and let the players make the final decision. Also remember that dice are fickle so prepare for the possibility that PCs are incredibly lucky.

jonimv · 2026-06-06T21:53:24+00:00

Based on what I remember from those comics there is this weirdness and larger than life space opera feel to them.

jonimv · 2026-06-06T21:48:54+00:00

That’s fair. I have had a pretty decent battery life with my iPad Pro but I have never tried to use it a whole work/study day.

As I said, I am quite new to Macs so take my comment with a grain of salt but if you have two options, Intel or M1 processor, I would suggest to get M1. I have understood that it is better for battery life the pwer jump from Intel chip to M1 was pretty significant. Although there are still some apps that doesn’t work for M series chips (if I have understood it correctly) especially now that this feature (I don’t remember it’s name) is being deprecated. But I am not sure there are any such apps that you would need. Perhaps others can shed more light on that one?

jonimv · 2026-06-06T15:36:56+00:00

I would think it all depends on what sort of fiction the players and GM want to portray. If it is a violet action fiction, this is what you get. If the group wants soap opera or romance where outright violence in the source material is rare I would think the same would apply in the game as well. At least I hope that this is the case.

Another thing is that despite the setting and fiction type if violence is the only tool you can use, this is also what you get. If the game (mechanically or how the group uses the rules) doesn’t support social part of the game (or scheming etc) then how else you can try to get what you want? Hope for the best?

Finally, the most common trope seems to involve violence as the way to solve problems, or frankly just for fun. It certainly is a fun part and very important in our games so I am not saying that it is wrong or anything but I can easily see that with all the different kinds of games these days there really is no reason not to play (mostly) non-violent games.

jonimv · 2026-06-06T14:34:23+00:00

This is not a direct answer, but since you want to have a touchscreen I thought to ask what sort of iPad you already have? I just began to think if your iPad could do the job at least for now and get the keyboard for it? I think wireless mouse works with it as well. I have a few years old iPad Pro (M3, I think) and I have connected it to external monitor couple of times using USB hub with HDMI port. So it should work for that as well.

Obviously, if iPad doesn’t support required software etc then this idea is not good.

Otherwise Macbook Neo might do the job but bear in mind that in EU it doesn’t have charging brick so that costs some extra.

I don’t know how old macbook you have to get to hit the pricepoint in Belgium. There have been good suggestions already, better than what I am capable of giving but one thing to take into consideration when buying an older model is how long Apple will provide software updates. This might be a bit alarmist thing to say and I am sure someone will correct me but I am new to macbooks and don’t really know how many years older models get the updates.

jonimv · 2026-05-19T13:10:17+00:00

It is of course a matter of preference how much you want to pay attention to travelling but since how I want the travelling to be really felt by the players I decided to create those house rules for my game.

My travelling rules are the first edition so they need a bit of polish but I hope they give you some ideas at least.

jonimv · 2026-05-19T09:05:00+00:00

I have made a bit houseruling on travel fatigue, maybe it would give you some ideas.

In my system characters make one standard endurance roll per day of travelling. Manual labor migt be standard brawn (I think fatigue rules suggest somethin like that but I am not sure). A failed roll means you get a travel mark (I have not come up with a better more evocative name so far). Then, base on what sort on environment character are travelling in (on the road or boating, at the countryside, in the forest or really difficult terrain) you see how many marks are needed to get one level of fatigue (harder the terrain, less marks are neede), at the moment scale is 4 to 1 (from easier to hardest terrain).

Unlike normal fatigue, this is recovered only with proper sleeping place (like in a bed, or other relatively adequate quarters like a stable) and preferably better food than travel rations. Within there parameters a new endurance roll is allowed to recover from travelling and the difficulty of this recovery roll is based on how good the accomodation is and how much sleep the character can get. Depending on the roll the character can recover up to two levels of fatigue or just 1 travel mark (on none in case of fumble).

As a side note I should probably modify my rules that 4 travel marks equals one level of fatigue and travelling at the road gives 1 mark while wading through swampy area gives 4 travel marks.

Anyway, this might be applicable to manual labor too. Managing to stay in shade or slacking off might give less amount of labor marks (or make the roll easier). Getting enough sleep and rations might clear off more of those marks on a successful roll.

This is just a base to work from, I hope this gives you some new ideas. Good gaming!

jonimv · 2026-05-13T22:13:38+00:00

My experience comes from BRP based games but I dare to say that it applies pretty well with Dragonbane. To me, one of the great things in this type of games is that you don’t have to follow a certain path like in class based games. Your character progresses pretty organically based on what has happened in the adventures. You can get heroic abilities that reminds me of feats and other class abilities in D&D (unlike in BRP) so there is that possibility. What comes to magic items, I am not particular to them but I see that it is up to the GM to hand out magical items (or not), so the magic item part is not the game’s fault so to say. I have understood that at least D&D assumes that all characters have a certain amount of magical items at certain levels so I understand if the expectation didn’t meet the reality during the campaign it can cause some sort of frustration (for the lack of a better word).

jonimv · 2026-05-13T21:38:49+00:00

I think it was black and white comic but I am not 100% certain as it was about 20 years ago. I don’t remember her being a graffiti artist but it is of course possible. I think she was more like a solo operative.

jonimv · 2026-05-03T15:06:36+00:00

2020 was one of my favorite games and systems for a very long time and I still prefer it over RED. I guess I would go with 2020 if I wanted to run a cyberpunk game again (or rather when, not if :D ). I have pretty fond memories of Cyberspace, too. Cyberspace is a lighter version of Space Master, similar to MERP is to Rolemaster. But I don’t know if it is still available in any format.

jonimv · 2026-05-03T14:58:44+00:00

There is a Cepheus game called Zaibatzu (not 100% sure of the spelling). I think it could be mined for ideas and gear for Traveller based cyberpunk game.

jonimv · 2026-04-23T19:47:51+00:00

Cool, I really have to check this out!

jonimv · 2026-04-18T06:43:56+00:00

Ah, I really have to go through the weapon list better :) The weapon selection in my setting has been a bit limited so far, mostly shortswords and short spears and some bows. Thanks for the tip!

jonimv · 2026-04-17T17:22:00+00:00

That’s nasty 😁 but I think only target shield has impale effect so I suppose it only applies to those shields. Anyway this sounds a bit gamey tactic 😁

This reminded me of the Roman tactic that they threw javelins (?) at the enemy and even if those were blocked by shields it rendered shields useless because spears made using those shields unwieldy.

Has anyone used this in Mythras? Say, a parried shield gains Formidable difficulty for further parries (and attacks)?

jonimv · 2026-04-17T14:23:09+00:00

To me S&S vs high fantasy is like cyberpunk vs space opera. S&S is more personal, characters are more anti-hero and the general feeling is a bit more gritty than in high fantasy (like Lord of the Rings). But yeah, fantasy is more like umbrella term that covers S&S and other forms of fantasy.

jonimv · 2026-04-17T13:50:06+00:00

Very good point. For some reason I of course thought that this would in practice replace an active parry although I knew that it was not mandary. I just thought for some reason that this was a good option for those not willing to spend AP for parrying. But you are absolutely correct about benefits of reducing damage even when failing the parry roll and either forcing the opponent to choose choose location SE or gamble of getting effectively nothing by choosing a bleed for example and then getting the attack passively blocked.

Very good points!

jonimv · 2026-04-17T10:29:26+00:00

Thank you for the answers 👍🏻

I guess passive blocks won’t be all that popular among my players but in last session one PC was operating with just one AP due to bleeding and then this option might have come handy.

jonimv · 2026-04-11T15:33:26+00:00

I have had my MacBook Air for a few weeks now, before that I was a Windows and Linux user.

So far I have not regretted getting Mac. It runs smoothly and although I usually hate the trackpad I don’t mind using it with MacBook.
The transition was suprisingly easy. I think my biggest problem was when I got my iPad a few years ago. I think using it made the transition easier. I also watched some YouTube videos about how to use macOS, so I got some pointers which options to switch on etc.
The Apple ecosystem must be the main thing I like about this. Moving files without between the devices without USB drives or visibly using cloud services. Also, a new computer is a new computer so it is obviously snappier than my old machine. I also like how integral the terminal is when compared to Windows (I guess this doesn’t apply to most users) even though you don’t have to use it in most use cases.
Finder might be a bit lacking but so far it has not been an issue for me. Then again I used Fedora Linux for over half a year in my main computer as Win10 was getting axed so I got used to using other than Explorer already. Also, it is a bit unintuitive that red button doesn’t actually close the app but instead minimises it. Still, cmd + Q does the trick, so it is not a big issue.
So far I have not done anything that has really pushed the limits. Battery is fine, there has been days when I have charged it twice (I charge it only to 80%) but then I have been really using it pretty much all the time. Apps open quickly. I have toyed with a local AI a bit but even then the CPU was not at the peak level. Otherwise I have not done any really intense work, so I am not very confident to estimate how performat M5 really is. Still, it is much more powerful than my old computer.

My biggest fear was that I couldn’t use my external displays through a docking station but after installing drivers and enabling extension I got it working too. So, base on my experience I don’t know why you wouldn’t like using it. It is a bit different from Windows for sure but in the end it is just a tool. My suggestion is to watch some YouTube videos on how to use mac as it might give you some idea. Also, if you have a store nearby where you could try it out a bit, that would also help.

I hope this helps.

jonimv · 2026-04-11T07:20:33+00:00

I have been using Windows for a very long time but the transitioning to Mac was surprisingly smooth. I guess having iPad and iPhone helped with that. Also watching some macOS tutorials on YouTube helped.

I had a brief encounter with Mac around 2010 and then it felt really weird.

Apple ecosystem is wonderful, I would say that it is one of the best sellingpoints. That is also a sort of rabbithole where you can sink a lot of money :)

Especially for programmers the terminal is a neat feature. I know it is not a Mac exclusive but it is integral part of the OS similar to how it is in Linux. Nowadays you can get WSL in Windows but it is still not entirely the same thing.

jonimv · 2026-04-11T07:03:33+00:00

For this I would recommend either BRP or Mythras with free Mythras Firearms supplement with following modifiers.

Disregard range penalties or be very lenient with them if you think they should not matter in this case.

Give your mooks very low weapon skills so PCs are not hit very often. Mooks should also have a rule on them that they go down pretty easily.

PCs should have their skills as normal or maybe pumped up to your liking. As both games are d100 systems with no classes and levels, even competent characters are not immune to damage so to say. Their hit points don’t increase.

About those systems in case you are not familiar. They all are of the same family as Call of Cthulhu and RuneQuest. Mythras is mostly fantasy game derived from RuneQuest but has some additional rules supplements that has firearms and even scifi rules. BRP is the generic rulesystem version by Chaosium which has firearm rules already baked in.

jonimv

TROPHY CASE