What is the best system to run a hard sci-fi campaign with, Veeky Forums...

As fun as traveller looks... what the fuck do you even do for a campaign in it?

Anything? Why would it be different for Traveler?

You do whatever the group wants?

Merchants, mercenaries, diplomatic parties, rebels, SS13 Nuke Ops, play a game of pseudo-Paranoia based off SS13, go explore the stars, play The Expanse in your own version, or whatever the hell else. The system actually has good support for pretty much all of that, too.

Haven't you ever wanted to have your first fatality during character creation? Now that's REAL hard sci-fi.

It's like if Transhuman Space was completely retarded and borrowed themes from a gay pride march. It's also really not hard sci-fi.

Hard sci-fi? This puppy right here, or the second edition of it, Orbital 2100, which is for the Cepheus Engine. (IE Mongoose Traveller 1e with the serial numbers filed off)

GURPS

Traveller is the best system, followed closely by Stars without Number if OSR is your thing.

GURPS is only getting suggested by number-crunching obsessed autists or players who have never had to GM the game. Spoilers it's a fucking shitty game with more granularity than a wheat silo.

Later supplements are fine. The secret behind Eclipse Phase is that either The Jovians or Ultimates are correct, and that everone else is wrong and probably gene trash

Thematically, it plays like a bizarre mix between Cyberpunk and Space Opera, although it's more Ghost in the Shell than it is The Expanse, you dig?

But like The Expanse anyone from in the asteroid belt is immediately shit.

Oh look a person who has never played gurps

How sad

The silhouette core system is great. The game is insanely lethal. In our first mission we lost one member and almost everyone else was at deaths door. Mechanics are simple enough to where you can add in whatever you'd like.

He's right though. Nobody except those who already use the system for every other game they run isn't going to have to wade through all the fucking Asparagus supplements just to make X campaign work with Y gameplay.

Not to mention there's been such a massive break in editions since the last one (which has a fair amount of negativity around it anyway) that the average game store no longer stocks anything GURPS related. I think I've seen a total of one copy in a used book store, and the fact it was there in the first place means the previous owner didn't care to keep it.

Jokes on you mate, I used to run GURPS all the time. I ran it for a Fallout inspired game and another time for a super heroes game. Everytime of took hours for character creation, all the rules were way to fiddly, and GM prep was far too complicated for a college student who also had to complete assignments and work for his money.

Again, maybe you like GURPS if you're an idiot savant with math, who has more time on their hands than a life prisoner in solitary confinement, but the rest of us like actually playable games.

My lgs has tons of gurps books.

I could run a hard sci-fi campaign on the basic set alone. The only other books tha would be nice would be spaceships and ultra tech(only really necessary if you are OCD like that)

People just falsely believe the Gurps is bad meme

Where you using all the rules?

I've gotten my prep time down to like 10 minutes, just have a bunch of really basic npcs stated up as well as any important npcs.

Where you stating everything?

I only ever used the basic rules. Face it man, it's a shit game.

Basic rules?

So like every skill in the game?

That's hilariously inefficient, take a look at wildcard skills. And basic npcs.

And the campaigns you picked are really book heavy too, I wouldn't use gurps for supers(mutants and masterminds is better for that)

I really haven't had any issues with it

How do I even play Traveller? There's so many versions and I hear the rules for the newest one are a clusterfuck

The fact is that giving GURPS as an answer is no different than saying FATE. Both are shitty, reddit-tier games

It's not Naritive that's a big deal.

Fate grinds my gears

It's stupid playable i think you are just sperging

T5 is a clusterfuck at the moment. Mongoose Traveller 2e is okay, except there's no more third party support because Mongoose a dumb and greedy -- the new licensing model meant Mongoose 1e's third party publishers all moved over to the Cepheus Engine, which is an OGL licensed clone of Mongoose 1e.

Easiest solution: Grab the corebook of MgT1, Mgt2, or maybe the Cepheus Engine, and you're good to go.

(Classic Traveller is still the best IMO, but some assembly is required.)

Gurps
Anyone who says otherwise is a brainlet

Albedo.

Like most furry rpgs, it's surprisingly good.

Literally firefly or Cowboy bebop

This is literally "I have no fucking clue how to run a GURPS game" the post.

GURPS: the only system whose players are so retarded that they think "if you don't enjoy it you're playing it wrong" is a valid argument.

>the only system whose players are so retarded that they think "if you don't enjoy it you're playing it wrong" is a valid argument.
...I take it this is your first time on Veeky Forums, or discussing roleplaying games in the internet in general?

Not him, but creating a character in GURPS doesn't takes hours. So yes, he can reasonably say "you're playing it wrong".

>GURPS is best system prove me wrong
>Proof
>You're just playing it wrong

At least the pathfinder mongoloids recognize that their game is shit.

You're kind of slow, aren't you? I'm not taking part of the argument, I'm just mocking you.

It's not a matter of enjoyment, if you're a GURPS GM and character creation takes hours you aren't using appropriate templates, which is something the actual books tell you that you need to do for character creation. And GM prep is not any more complicated than it is for any other game.

No. "GURPS is the one system to rule them all" is just a gurpsfag in-joke. Very few gurpsfag actually think that way.

Not to defend GURPS, but sometimes "you're playing it wrong" is correct. Like see the guys (now less common since the releveant meme has fallen out of favor) who would bitch that D&D is shit because "I rolled a 1 and the DM said I stabbed myself for 12 damage and I died!"
Even though that's not part of the rules, and is basically blaming D&D for the fact that the DM either didn't read the rules or made up his own shitty houserule for critical fumbles.
In that case, then yes, they really are playing wrong -- because they explicitly didn't follow the rules, and the game sucked as a result.

OTOH, "if you don't find GURPS super fun and easy to play then you're doing it wrong" is on some pretty shaky ground, and sounds like autismos who can't accept criticism of their pet system.

You don't have to like or enjoy GURPS at all (feel free to hate it) in order to acknowledge that it is actually a very solid game. Similarly you don't have to hate it in order to acknowledge the very real flaws that it has.

It's a divisive game, but that doesn't mean you have to sacrifice logic or impartiality when you talk about it.

>"if you don't find GURPS super fun and easy to play then you're doing it wrong

No, I take that back. is saying that if chargen takes hours, you're not following the rules which encourage you to use the proper templates to speed things up, and that sounds valid from here.

I agree with you, but I think the fanbase is a large part of why it's so divisive. OP stipulated he was looking for something other than GURPS and the first five answers were "LOL JUST PLAY GURPS."

>OP stipulated he was looking for something other than GURPS and the first five answers were "LOL JUST PLAY GURPS."
One is caused by the other. Obviously someone would have recommended it anyway, but as is it's more surprising that there are people who don't at least mention GURPS.

>I was not equipped to teach or run the game properly
>Therefore the game requires too much time and math

Sorry about your experience, user. There are resources which do 99% of the work for you, increasingly so as more are published. GM prep is a breeze if you grok the system, too. It's good to know some rules that are likely to come up that session, but even if something you can't predict happens, it's easy to reference.

It _is_ pretty frontloaded, but once the legwork is done at first, you shouldn't need to fuck around with the books much during play.

>Fanbase is a large part of why it's divisive
I can agree with that. I also think a large part of it is "GURPSposting" though (the Veeky Forums and forums equivalent of "install gentoo") by people who know of it but aren't an actual part of the community, which are commonly confused/conflated with the actual playerbase who don't really want to poison the well any further.

As far as this specific thread, yes, it's taking the piss a bit. As a GURPS fan I usually try to address GURPSposting because it does damage the reputation of the fanbase over time, but this thread may have been doomed from the start due to the cadence of the OP (there's nothing wrong excluding systems from what you want suggested to you, I just mean the wording). Can't win 'em all I guess.

>Proof
>Subjective experience which does not demonstrate how or why it was that way.
That gives a lot of leeway to say "you're playing it wrong". If a lot of people have managed to avoid or iron out that shitty experience by doing something the right way, then they are probably in a position to reply in that way to someone. "It takes too long and too much math" is right away an indicator that the person was doing things in a poorly advised way, or didn't "get it".

>are correct
What are they correct on?

Try Traveller, and be willing to mod the hell out of everything.
Keep in mind, Traveller didn't start out trying to simulate Hard SciFi, it tried to simulate Pulp SciFi. And then people tried to make it hard.
But it can do hard pretty well (see Orbital 2100, which mods the hell out of everything)

Use Traveller for rules, GURPS for getting additional information.

I just said 'fuck it' and started making my own system.

Traveller, with the exception of original Traveller, is just as if not moreso mechanically heavy and complex as GURPS. If you want a "lighter" system for hard sci-fi, try Diaspora. It's actually rules-medium, but uses some narrative conceits to streamline the crunch factor involved with sci-fi gaming.

How's that working out?

>Traveller, with the exception of original Traveller, is just as if not moreso mechanically heavy and complex as GURPS.

That's silly. Classic and Mongoose are both generally light and easy to play. Yeah, T5, New Era, and Traveller: GURPS are as crunchy as GURPS, but who even plays those?

I have Marc Miller's edition, but the most recent editions are fine too.

The game is actually very fun. Just gotta get my lazy ass to type it all up in a single complete document instead of many half assed notes and diagrams

Starfinder

Nah, I agree with Responding with GURPS is clearly a reddit-tier suggestion. When people ask for a game to play a kind setting they don't want to hear about a generic system. They want to hear about games specifically designed to simulate that setting.
In that regards
>Just play GURPS
Is no different than responding with
>Just play FATE
They're two sides to that same lazy answer.

Mongoose Traveller is not any lighter than GURPS as far as my experiences go, which leaves classic/original Traveller as the only version that's any lighter than GURPS.

Just my opinion of course.

Which is why helpful GURPSposts actually include the specific list of rules modules you would use. Like "space, ultra tech, basic set, maybe biotech if you want some weird stuff, and avoid using anything beyond tl10" or whatever.
Of course that would also generally be posted in a thread that didn't specify "no GURPS". This thread was more or less intentionally baited.

>What is the best system to run a hard sci-fi campaign with, Veeky Forums?

How hard? For something like The Expanse, you probably need Eclipse Phase with the transhuman shit thrown out of the window (much easier than it sounds).

Alternatively, you can look into the Star Wars special dice system.

>Tfw no MCRN Marine gf

Risus(evens up)?

Suggested GURPS reading (GURPS, the reference system!): Space (for good world building shit), Spaceships (for ship building ideas. There's a few pyramid articles, or a flat out book in the Spaceships series, that details creating your own components, especially engines), Ultra Tech, Transhuman Space.
Rules: Traveller (Cephus Engine is good), and modify it to fit what you want. For the version that is very hard SF, use the Orbital setting for your jumping off point.
As someone who has messed around with both GURPS and Traveller, Traveller is the simpler one once you throw out the Third Imperium setting - and the default characters are competent, middle aged people, going through their midlife crisis in space. You basically start your adventures in the middle of their life, and the character creation gives you an idea of where they were before.

GURPS.

my points to NOT die on deep space

GURPS is the real answer user. Traveller isn't quite hard sci-fi, Starfinder is a joke, and Stars Without Number has psionics in it.

>SWN
>When op asked for hard scifi

Kys.

Nothing, because the Planetary Consortium is basically right about everything.

What the other anons said. It's a shit game for shit people.

Ignore the cryptonazis - I'd definitely put it in the 'firm' category over hard but it's very well developed for what liberties it does take. The crazy stuff is mostly relegated to Alien technology anyway, which you can run entire campaigns ignoring.

Most of the time I run Mars GitS with it anyways.

Speaking of sci-fi, does anyone know a good system for running a Dune campaign?

Everything about this post is wrong, including when you said "the" and "and".

GURPS nearly entirely exists in the Basic Set. Most supplements just add suggestions about how to use existing mechanics in new ways. There are the catalog supplements, sure, but that's just four books and only two are needed in a sci fi game.

The editions change was pretty minor. Mostly a matter of simplification and consolidation. Stuff that used to be in supplements got moved to the basic set. Psi and sorcery use the advantages system in the core book now. Armor/shields got simplified. Costs for skills were simplified. But a 3e supplement can still work with a 4e campaign if you apply some common sense.

Many stores are dropping RPG books altogether because they no longer move fast enough to justify their shelf space apart from d&d. In the case of GURPS, they're on the PDF model now, so there isn't product to move.

>Jokes on you mate
>I'm a screwup therefore the systems to blame

I wouldn't call Traveller hard sci fi, but there isn't much fantastical about it. And it's certainly a great game.

GURPS Traveller is good too but yeah I'd take an early mongoose edition.

The two hard sci fi settings that come to mind when I think about them are BattleTech and Transhuman Space.

It's generic, but better at some stuff than others. We had a VtM thread a few days ago and I specifically argued why GURPS wasn't best. A Mecha thread last week, too.

In this case, hard sci fi gritty realism is GURPS's wheelhouse. Right alongside with modern tacticool operating. It's just how things are.

And op phrased his nogurps demand as b8, so suprise surprise we took it.

Yo.

And it's not really furry, just anthro. Albedo was going decades before the furry movement started.

This.

Not true, user. The "Furry" fandom can be traced back to the 70s at least. Though back then they were just weird comicbook fags for the most part, the over-the-top deviancy happened long aferward.
That didn't stop early 80s SF con goers from jokingly calling them "the skunkfuckers" though. Heh.

I don't really consider the "skunkfuckers" to have been the genesis of the furry movement. They were just a loose handful of individuals with some obsessive-compulsive tendencies that focused on anthro characters. Really they weren't any different from the trekkies or any other fandom that took things too far.

That's just IMO based on what I know of the whole thing, though. It's not like I've researched it in depth or anything.

Maybe, but even so, they were a part of a small fandom that referred to itself as "furry fans." The fandom at that time were largely focused on the funny animal comics, as opposed to "furry fans" today and their focus on fursonas, YCH auctions, wearing carpets, internet drama, and so forth.
I'm pretty sure you can go six degrees of separation and draw a straight (hah) line between some of those early fan circles and the modern furries.
Source for this shit: I'm an old comic book fag and I've talked with folks who were there.

Fair enough. I'm an oldfag, too, but I never dealt with any of the fandoms back in the day. Maybe that was the genesis, then.

Honestly, I think that GURPS is probably your most solid choice for hard sci-fi. Its complex system suits this genre pretty well. There is one alternative nobody mentioned, though. Cyberpunk 2020 with the Deep Space supplement. It would also do hard sci-fi very well. The system is detailed enough on space related stuff, and more dynamic than GURPS for combat.

Furry became distinct from funny animals by the mid 1980s, though there were a fuck of a lot of people jerking it to Omaha The Cat Dancer in the 70's. I'm old as the wind, I remember people drawing all kinds of shit after Robin Hood in '73.

80+ replies and no mention of 2300AD yet?

>In this case, hard sci fi gritty realism is GURPS's wheelhouse. Right alongside with modern tacticool operating. It's just how things are.

Wow, now I'm motivated to get into GURPS.

>Tossing people out of the airlock
It's like you want you hydroponics to hit a phosphorus bottleneck

>"I want to play a game about killing orcs where I can be a cool elf wizard, what's the best system?"
>"Don't say D&D or Pathfinder"

Hey guys! What is a good RULES LIGHT system to play hard sci-fi?

>Reminder that ss13 has the best setting for a sci-fi game.
haha clowns and *fart

>I wouldn't call Traveller hard sci fi, but there isn't much fantastical about it.

It is soft like jelly.

There is a simple way to tell whether a sci-fi setting is soft or hard: if it unironically has spaceship-mounted plasma cannons then you can bet your ass that it is soft. Same goes with artificial gravity, inertia dampers, and/or spacecraft moving around like ships or aircraft.

FFG's Star Wars. The game literally plays itself, you don't even need players.

Well, in all fairness Omaha was porn, so I'm not surprised people got their wank on to her. Not surprised Robin Hood was popular, either. Furry or not, Marian was pretty hot.

i love me some d100 roll under but the ultralib part turns me off

You can play the conservative part of it as well, just have to read between the lines a bit. The economy becomes a little fucky when anyone can have anything and the only bottleneck to production is how fancy of an item your assembler can make, but it's doable.

this

Fate based RPGs like Diaspora and Mindjammer.

It's a good investment. Pretty much anything reasonably grounded and low power, gurps can do well. Gritty low fantasy, tacticool espionage, etc

You can, but the devs really, really don't want you to. Anyone further right than the anarchists is basically a moustache twirling retard. The Ultimates were the only competent ones, and as of 2e they're 'officially' no longer a player option

How is the space combat in Mindjammer? Is it better than the -4 to +4 line graph thing so horribly over-explained with paragraph after paragraph of nonsense and jargon which convolutes what should be a simple concept so horribly it completely stops making any sort of sense that they use in Diaspora?