Off the Shelf: M-Space

There is a video by Black Lodge Games (https://youtu.be/umTGzLa-QyI?t=5170) where they talk to the creator of Mythras, Lawrence Whitaker, and the game M-Space was mentioned as being one of their breakout success stories of a game using the Mythras Gateway license.

The M-Space game is said to simulate anything from Star Wars-like science fantasy to "hard science fiction" settings. I don't know if I would include Traveller in "hard science fiction" anymore, since it has leaned into the pulp adventure side of the genre these days, but it still could be on the fringes.

M-Space was also described as "liminal," as in a state of transition between states, and even a liminal space. The entire look of the game is liminal, which is a perfect presentation for a science fiction game, to capture those moments in-between, the quiet snowfall on a city a million light-years from Earth, as people go about their business in the day-to-day.

What is here is here, and what is now is now.

It is almost "anti-corporate" science fiction in a way, the perfect "blank paper setting" that does not rely on Alien, Star Wars, Star Trek, Guardians of the Galaxy, Firefly, or any other of a million licensed IP properties sold to us like Twinkies, Pizza Hut, or Cheerios as "the future." Even science fiction roleplaying games do this, with Starfinder and its Muppet-like races cavorting about, Traveller with its Imperium, or other games with their "this is not Alien" sort of settings.

Everyone is either trying to "sell a vibe" or "copy someone else."

In a sense, it is a more challenging design goal to come up with a "blank sheet of paper setting" for science fiction than it is to copy someone else's look and feeling. M-Space does that perfectly with its liminal presentation, creating an actual "blank state" world where anything could happen.

This also has that "Tales from the Loop" feeling of the everyday mixed with the fantastic. That game also has these liminal qualities, where the everyday is blended with the strange in a seemingly normal world that is not all that normal after you spend a few moments taking it in. But to the people there, everything is normal, and nobody is walking around with their mouths open, saying, "Whoa!" every five minutes. This isn't a Hollywood movie, and we aren't stupid.

Things in liminal worlds "just are" to the people there. While they may seem fantastic to us as observers in this world, to the characters in that world, they are just a part of everyday life.

This is why liminal art and concepts make for such a strong science fiction presentation. They invite us to "cross over" too and experience the other world, where everything around us seems normal and everyday. This is not a comedy, space opera, puppet show, licensed IP experience, Star Knights, space federation, or pulp adventure reimagination.

While M-Space could be any of those, it "clears the lane" for you to fill all that in yourself. Even the structure of the universe is undefined; this could be anything from "near space" science fiction between the Earth and Mars with a handful of space stations and colonies, or "far flung" science fiction in a million inhabited worlds in a sea of stars of unimaginable size and population.

Like a 4X space game where you set the universe size to something far too huge for you to manage and end up with ten thousand worlds you need to micromanage, this game can give you that sense of overwhelming magnificence where you realize the universe is too expansive for you to wrap your mind around and consider the individual places.

But the game can also take place on Earth and a single Mars colony, a narrow simulation of a single place and moment in time in a giant universe, but a very narrowly focused area and situation.

M-Space is both definite and infinite at the same time.

This is that liminal quality.

So, why play this when you have GURPS Space? This is harder to answer. M-Space is Mythras, that 3d6 stats and d100 skill resolution, Runequest-style game that blends the familiar qualities of 3d6 D&D with the early-era TSR d100 games like Gangbusters, Star Frontiers, and Top Secret. The Runequest style "mixed 3d6 and d100" system is what D&D and the TSR games should have morphed into, using all the polyhedral dice, but ditching the d20 versus AC for to-hit rolls, and adopting a more simulation-oriented approach.

Mythras is the perfect blend of B/X D&D and the early-era TSR d100 games.

It eclipses and goes far beyond BRP and the Runequest-style d100 systems, becoming something of its own. This is where D&D should have gone instead of morphing into the video-game-like D&D 3.5E.

Once you know this, Mythras becomes something very familiar and very special.

GURPS is a 3d6 system like Champions, and does a fantastic job at being anything it wants to be. Where any given Mythras game needs to be rewritten to support a genre, GURPS does not, and it plops down on the couch and says, "Yup, I can do that" like a John Belushi-type character out of a Saturday Night Live skit. The humor lies in GURPS repeating that line for any profession someone in the skit suddenly needs, whether it's a plumber, electrician, beautician, hair stylist, psychologist, doctor, physicist, or any other profession. The punchline is that the character doesn't look like they are that, but they actually are, despite their outward appearance.

M-Space is the Mythras version of liminal science fiction. It is the physicist who wears the lab coat, tie, and pocket protector. It wears thick glasses and carries a clipboard. This was designed to "do that" and has that look we expect. We can play GURPS and "just have everything," but there is a comfort in the familiar that puts us in a particular frame of mind. We can expect "GURPS stuff" to happen in GURPS. In M-Space, we really have no clue.

GURPS also requires a knowledge of the "GURPS way," such as knowing all the special combat options and rules, which give you all the cool attacks and options. In M-Space, "combat specials" appear during fights, but can be communicated with a simple player handout. However, the entire game operates on a percentage-based system, allowing a new player to navigate with a character sheet and minimal rules knowledge.

What is your chance to "do science?" It is the percentage on the character sheet. In GURPS, it is N-minus, but you need to know modifiers and 3d6 probability, plus a lot of point-building experience for creating characters. With M-Space, it is simply "roll scores, write down secondaries, and assign a pool of points to skill," allowing you to start playing, which is trivial for new players.

GURPS will allow for a greater and more in-depth roleplay experience with its advantage and disadvantage system, and this is a strength of the system. M-Space and Mythras are B/X evolved, foregoing internal point modifications for internal factors, but this is ultimately replaced by a universal system for passions, which drive motivation. The passions system in Mythras and M-Space replaces the need for mental advantages and disadvantages in GURPS. It is not as tightly defined and specialized, but it is a more flexible and modifiable system that evolves with the character as play goes on.

GURPS is a box of generic Legos that you can assemble into anything you want.

M-Space is the box of Space Legos, and a blank sheet of paper on which any science fiction story can be told.

It is the familiar.

Yet different.

M-Space

The Runequest 6 ruleset switched companies and became the d100, BRP-like Mythras game, spawned a sci-fi game called M-Space. This is almost a rules-light implementation of the Mythras engine, and it is a complete sci-fi game with alien creation, starship construction and battles, and character creation and combat. There are exploration rules, too.

Runequest 6 had many fans. The new Runequest is also excellent; it is another flavor of BRP worth supporting. If you are in the d100 BRP world, you have a lot of excellent choices.

The only weak parts of the M-Space game are the equipment and gear, with only a sample selection. I can pull in a gear list from many other games, from Star Frontiers and Cepheus Engine to Space Opera, so this isn't too much of a problem. However, it will vary if you use this game to play in another universe. Sometimes, a considerable default gear list will limit what you can use the game for since a gear list for a hard-science Traveller-style game will not fit in a Star Wars-style universe. Also, in Star Wars, that universe is not as "gear dependent" as a game like Star Frontiers, where characters are more defined by their collection of gear to activate their skill and abilities.

There is also an argument in sci-fi that the genre should not be so dependent on gear. The presence of it should be more determined by an oracle roll; the situation, or even skill possession, should assume the relevant gear is on the character without them needing to buy and track it.

If you are a technician, your skill grants you a "tool vest" for free. If someone in the story "takes it from you, " you will make technician rolls at a substantial negative modifier. The vest is also easily replaceable by access to any tool locker, where you can grab a tool belt and load it up with the things you need. The same goes for a medical kit, investigative gear, or any other piece of gear a skill may need.

Secondary "skill enabler" gear is assumed to come with the skill and is easily replaceable enough that you don't need to track it other than "has it" or "doesn't have it." In a survival situation where characters start off prepared, assume every character possesses "skill equipment," at parts of the story, they use it up, lose it, or eat through their survival rations in 7 days.

There will always be "unique items" like a teleportation belt, which must be tracked, purchased, and written on a character sheet. Weapons and armor are also significant enough to buy and track. If it is a weapon, unlinked to a skill, story item, strange find, or a unique item - track it on the character sheet. If it is everyday "skill enabler" gear, if you don't have it, put an "X" by the skill, and try to replace it as soon as possible.

Why does sci-fi need giant equipment lists? This definite "survivalist theme" in many sci-fi games turns it into a game of, "Didn't explore the planet with salt pills? You're dead." Players must go down the gear list, check 'do we have this' boxes, and buy dozens of minor items, such as a compass and lighter. Gameplay turns into, "What did we forget to take camping this time?"

The Star Trek TV show may have had under 5 or 6 props for the series used regularly. With the communicator, big phaser, women's shaver phaser, tricorder, and medical wand thing, Star Wars never worried about huge gear lists. Many sci-fi shows handwaved gear as something of lesser importance to the story.

Sci-fi games get into D&D "shop at town" mode, and we have shopping lists. Some games even have books full of gear. This is only bad if you assume this is how you must play. Yes, gear lists are more of an OSR thing, but if I am playing a Star Trek TV series-inspired game, I don't need a list at all, just a few item descriptions. It seems strange, but many sci-fi genres do not need gear lists.

However, if you look hard enough, there are good sci-fi equipment guides out there that are mostly setting neutral. This one by Angry Golem Games works well for most sci-fi settings. The OSR weapon damages are primarily in line with BRP and M-Space, and it contains enough general gear and tech trinkets to keep you shopping and geared up for quite a while.

Pick up a copy of the Space Opera PDF for really old-school games, which has powered our sci-fi gear lists for decades (even Star Frontiers). This is a solid 40-page list of sci-fi gear that covers a lot of genres, and since the gear is a multi-sci-fi genre, it fits well in many games. Weapon damages don't exist in an OSR or BRP format, but they do give a "wound factor" number that is easily convertible into a damage die; just count a +0 as a d6 and step up a die for each +1 (0 = d6, 1 = d8, 2 = d10, 3 = 2d6, etc.). Ignore the armor and penetration numbers here, too.

Is M-Space worth playing?

My feeling is yes since I have nothing like it, and it fills a need from a d100 sci-fi role-playing angle—especially with the BRP-style "improve as you go" game style. Frontier Space is the ultimate Star Frontiers replacement since it solves SF's broken action economy and higher-than-100% skill system.

So why not play Frontier Space?

FS is a more straightforward game but is more gear-dependent. FS also does not have a ship design system. FS has a character-point-driven improvement system (with a talent system) that is a crowd-pleaser since SF sorely needs this. FS has a very pulp feeling.

M-Space feels like hard sci-fi, almost like a Traveller. There is a de-emphasis on gear, like the Star Trek or Star Wars universes. In most situations, you can "assume" skills have gear, and characters either have it or not. In Star Trek, Spock has his "tricorder" in that pouch, and you don't need to track it, buy it, or write it on a character sheet (unless it gets destroyed or lost, X next to the skill until the skill-gear is replaced). Only track weapons, armor, unique, and story items.

Otherwise, head out into the universe, explore, and use the skills you want to improve.

Okay, my next question is, why not BRP?

M-Space has starship design and combat, which you could use with BRP, too. The beauty of the d100 systems in this family is a level of cross-compatibility on par with OSR games. You could use ORC BRP for characters and M-Space starships—no problem! M-Space is a more rules-light implementation, with far fewer rules than Frontier Space and BRP. It leans on Mythras for special case rules, but the game is complete. On another note, BRP suffers from the same sci-fi equipment list problem M-Space has, but my fix works well enough.

Also, M-Space has sections for simplified combat and starship combat rules. The game falls on the most rules-light of the BRP-style systems, streamlining the system even more than the BRP book.

What would an M-Space game feel like? Based on the art, I get this almost massive, open-ended, expansive, and vast sense of wonder only games like Tales from the Loop give me. Lots of sci-fi games "get in your face" like Star Wars, Starfinder, Star Frontiers, Star Trek, and others - they come at you hard and tell you, "This is how you play." The play structure is predefined, and social interactions and expectations are pre-set. An infinitely large game like Traveller can feel confining and small because everything is known. Even Starfinder feels small since there are no mysteries to the universe, and magic does everything.

M-Space feels like my first time in Minecraft. The only other game that gives me that feeling is Stars Without Number. But unlike SWN, M-Space is open-ended on progression and develops as you develop your character. Does your space pilot become a merchant, space miner, or mercenary? Unlike SWN, no classes exist, and your future is up to you.

The stars seem like a more enormous place without character classes telling you where to go.

M-Space is also rules-light like the original Traveller little black books but without the setting. Frontier Space feels set in either its universe or the original Star Frontiers universe, and the heavy focus on gear makes it a "shopping game" style of sci-fi instead of an "experiences-based" model. Tales from the Loop is also an equipment-light game; you decide if someone has something, and that is it. You are not going to Uncle Farley's General Store and trying to spend 5 dollars and 35 cents on gear and writing down bubble gum, comic books, playing cards, dice, and Swiss Army knives on character sheets.

So, I don't know where this would go or how it would play. In Starfinder, I know I am heading into a space dungeon or abandoned starship, and there will be football-headed space goblins in there to kill and take their weapons because we are eternally poor. In Star Frontiers, there were only a few good adventures. In M-Space, I don't know what this game is or does.

And all that is mine to make.

That freedom, while frightening, is fantastic. I will never worry about a book contradicting my universe or living up to the original game. I will never feel like I need to have a Star Wars adventure. I will never need to feel guilty that I am not "boldly going" anywhere. I will never be tied to "fighting the evil space aliens" - unless I want to. I will never have a galaxy so large I will feel hopeless. I can never explore it, and most of it is the same anyway because of UPP codes.

The universe and the expectations around that universe are mine.

I don't know what to do with it, which is fantastic.

BRP gave me that feeling back in the day with the big yellow book. It was always a game that seemed hard since it gave you everything and told you nothing. I now see how beautiful 'zero-story' games are like this. Why do I need game designers to tell me how to play their games? BRP, Hero, and GURPS are like that for me. Cypher falls in the middle since there is much designer influence around the play structure, yet the game has no story.

BRP games are excellent. Once you break free of your d20 dependence and class-based systems, the training wheels come off, and your mind opens to infinite possibilities.