That Space Stuff, Part 3

I got my character created, my laser pistol in my holster...now what? Do I have a job at a starport? How much does that pay per day? Are there mission, planet, and star system generators? Can I easily create alien species, robots, starships, security systems, and NPCs? Are there mission creation systems?

Sci-fi is a lot more complicated than fantasy. You can run dry on ideas in an instant. The nature of a dynamic environment in three dimensions, with cultures, cities, space travel, and billions of factors, can overwhelm any game master.

Every tool a game gives you goes a long way.

Frontier Space has a lot more of that low-level sandbox sci-fi information. Where a game like Stars Without Number is incredible for creating planets and fantastic adventures, the nitty-gritty for how you do a 'street level' sci-fi campaign is fully realized in FS.

Where 5E games often fall short is in the limited space and energy they have left to do 'the other stuff.' You will have unique characters and powers, but very few 5E games cover the rest of what you need. This has been a curse on 5E ever since the original 5E DMG was released, and the world took that as, 'Oh, game mastering advice is not important.'

I can find plenty to do for my Frontier Space pilot-engineer. There is a table for wages and pay grades. If I have a million credits, I can buy a scout ship.

My Esper Genesis character awaits a published adventure and boxes of credits to open in space dungeons. The game does an incredible job with classes and powers, but like 5E, what lies beyond that is weaker and depends on published content.

This is the same problem Starfinder had for me. The entire starship economy in that game is lost in space, and taking cargo for profit to buy ship upgrades is hand-waved away. They have this strange space socialist society where starships are given to parties, and the upgrades are free. I still felt there was no sandbox to play in, nothing to the world on a low level, and the game revolved around the adventure path. All the flashy powers in EG or Starfinder are useless without supporting material.

Again, another difference between old-school games and new. OSR games give you the tools to fuel your imagination. 5E and -Finder games are tools to sell published adventures and put your wallet on a content stream.

Give me Frontier Space, Traveller, Stars Without Number, and any other classic or old-school sci-fi game, and I am set for life. I like the Esper Genesis vibe, and it feels like Mass Effect.

But I can get space magic through modding Frontier Space with Barebones Adventures. I can also get trading and exploration games with Traveller or SWN.

Many of these 5E games are fantastic, but many are just flashy collections of classes and powers and not much else. I see many Kickstarter 5E games, too, and most of them follow that same model - lots of cool character options, and behind that façade, the support for living in a world like that feels lacking.

5E is fading fast for me, outside of Level Up Advanced 5E. That game backs up the other pillars of play, and every other game - even 5E sci-fi - feels lacking compared to the entire sandbox and social play support that A5E gives me. A5E spoils me regarding 5E, and the other wannabe 5E games feel like they have pieces missing.

Even stock 5E feels weak compared to the better character-building systems of games like Shadow of the Demon Lord (and the Shadow of the Weird Wizard Kickstarter, which I am in on).

Esper Genesis vs. Frontier Space: Round 2

I did create my pilot-engineer character in Esper Genesis. I wanted to make sure my comparisons weren't just theory-crafting and go through character creation and that big 'what next' step that happens after.

Both systems created the same character. My hybrid pilot-engineer hero guy who makes his living flying a piece of junk, keeping it running on ingenuity alone, and getting into trouble he has to fly his way out of. In the 5E space game, he had "space magic" that simulated fantastic engineering powers. He had a skill and toolkit in Frontier Space - no magic.

To be fair, in EG it isn't magic but 'super high tech' nano-bot and energy science that lets him do amazing things. In game design terms, it is magic. A way to quickly describe the impossible by today's understanding and comprehension. The world of EG feels higher-tech than a traditional Star Frontiers or even Frontier Space setting. I assumed he had one of those Mass Effect-style arm computers with a holographic display. That thing could use an ancient energy source to do amazing things, like conduct scans, blast laser energy, and direct nanobots to make minor repairs close to him.

It does not surprise me that a 5E game leans into the 'personal power' design style, shipping hundreds of powers, dozens of classes, and even more variance with subclasses. This is how a 5E game works: it ships with hundreds of options that could never be tested on how they work with each other. The game sits broken, sells expansions, and is technically in beta for 10 years. They release a new edition that finally addresses the exploits - and nobody will play it since the broken design was more fun. If you cater to self-focused power gamers, shipping a fixed edition will not appeal to them.

So we could never do 'space magic' in Frontier Space? Not true.

DWD Studios also creates a little-appreciated game called Barebones Fantasy. This has a magic system. All you need to do is add the five magic skills to the game and add one +0 skill pick (that does not have to be a magic skill) to character creation. You add these skills to FS:

• Cleric
• Enchanter
• Leader
• Scholar
• Spellcaster

Ignore the scout, thief, and warrior skills in BBF; these are already skills in FS. And set the following skill/level equivalencies in FS for the magic skills, and improve them like FS skills:

1. -20 to +0
2. +5
3. +10
4. +15
5. +20
6. +25 and higher

Ignore the BBF magic skill percentage chance calculations and stay in FS's skill and success chance systems (the action economy will take care of this quick). If our engineer with nano space magic wants to do a scan with his +5 'spellcasting' skill (level 2), it is PER plus 5 as the success chance. Spells are picked off the BBF lists, and the 'divination' spell becomes 'scan' for our space engineer, and it can be used once per hour (as per the divination rules in BBF).

A repair power that uses nano-bots? The heal spell is in BBF, and we could flavor this to only work on machines. Our cleric spellcasting skill would use the same spell for living things and have their Mass Effect-style armband project nano-healing bots to repair wounds.

It is all flavor! Play Cypher System, and you understand this.

BBF has a concept of a primary skill; wizards, if they choose spellcaster as their first skill pick (in FS, the +0 skill), this is a primary skill, and you get 2 spells a level instead of one. You can simulate this in FS by saying if you put a +0 skill in a magic skill, it is a primary.

And characters with that extra +0 skill choice do NOT need to pick a magic skill. You can pick another skill and ignore 'space magic' entirely, which works well since in EG all engineers are assumed to be 'space magic casters' - and in the hybrid BBF-FS hack, you can have engineers who rely on traditional skills without all that 'nano space magic' stuff. Characters who do not choose magic skills get that extra +0 skill and start off more powerful.

And with the BBF-FS hack, you get a few interesting new character types. A scholar with space magic scholar powers? Enchanters who can use powerful nano-powers to enhance objects, or even create robots? Leader skills for space admirals? Clerics for 'nano-powered' space healers?

Just flavor all the BBF magic with 'techno science' explanations, and you have a sci-fi plus space magic hack that feels like EG without all the 5E imbalanced cruft, self-centered design philosophy, and system complexity. FS plus this system feels like a Mass Effect, and characters have 'personal powers' that enhance the game but do not focus too much on personal power. But they feel more unique and capable, which hits that 5E sweet spot.

This also could be used for my 200-years-after game set in the original Star Frontiers universe and gives me a set of kewl-powers to add to the game that signifies a jump in technology and personal power. The Enorea crystal tech on Volturnus was probably used to create all these cool nano-space magic powers, and now everything is techno-slick like Mass Effect. Yet there still is room for those holding onto the old ways and that original traditional skill base and way of doing things. Even without space magic, it is possible to roll up your sleeves and fix a hyperdrive the old-fashioned way.

Part three for this comparison and hack is coming, and it has to do with the part that happens after character creation...

The 5E Thing

I wanted to use Esper Genesis for a Star Frontiers ' 200 years after' style campaign, but it fell apart. This is a great game, with many compelling character powers and classes, along with one of the best "Mass Effect" vibes - with no magic - that I have ever gotten from a sci-fi game.

But it isn't Star Frontiers.

These days, the excellent Frontier Space is my Star Frontiers. Nothing is close, nor does anything work as well as this. The original Star Frontiers rules work but show their age in many ways. With FS, the action economy is fantastic, the support for many sci-fi standards is right there, and the rules give me easy character creation and options for improving characters that beat the original game. Scores above 100% in FS do not break the game; the game is designed for higher-level play from the start.

But the fascinating thing to look at here is why EG failed for this setting. EG is a Mass Effect-feeling version of 5E, a stand-alone system with fantastic classes and non-magic powers. It should be an excellent choice.

And then I realized that, at times, the secret sauce design of 5E can suck. The entire 5E design theory is to keep granting powers and abilities at every level. 5E is heavily influenced by mobile game design, and constant reinforcement and power grade make you want to play "one more level."

But 5E has a dirty underside with the design. Because the notion of power is centralized within the character, external items and wealth are deemphasized. The game reinforces a very inward-looking design, where "my character is my god" sort of feeling. You gather so many abilities and powers it gets to be like a bad MMO, where you fill up 100 action buttons (and still need more), and how you "play" the game involves rotations of what buttons you press, in what order, and on what timing.

5E is a very "me" focused game. Wealth and magic items are relatively unimportant. The world around you is less important. The story is less important. The NPCs in the world are unimportant. The god you serve is the exponential power curve, and the power is mostly inside you.

With Star Frontiers and Frontier Space, character power is relatively linear. What is important in a sci-fi game like this? Having credits to buy a starship and maintain it. Establishing contacts, finding missions, and building a story. Relationships with NPCs are essential. Story arcs are important. Character power happens naturally, but it is not a driving force.

Your adventure motivation is for the story and not to gain power.

The sources of power in traditional games are often outside the character - wealth, relationships, accomplishments, treasures, and a few other things. Very few character types are built on that 'internal power' design philosophy - wizards, clerics, and a few others - but it is not 100% that all the classes are inwardly focused like that.

In 5E, I stare at those character sheets and wonder, how can I get to another level? The 5E design is based on a very me-centric and selfish design philosophy. It is a superhero game where nothing outside your list of powers matters.

When I want to be a space trucker, visit a star system, figure out what is going on, and how I can flip my cargo for a profit - I am externally focused. No power will do that for me. I need to get my hands dirty and roleplay. I need to make friends and get into trouble or have trouble finding me. My eyes need to be open. I need to ask the right questions. I need to meet people and determine how my next space trucking run will expand my bank account. Someone may need help along the way.

The EG classes and powers did not feel correct for a Frontier campaign.

They felt so inwardly focused and took over my thinking of how my characters interact with the world.

Level Up: Advanced 5E Starter Box

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/enworld/a5e-starter-box

They seem to be leaning on the 5E books for rule support, but I would be much happier if they leaned on the 5.1 SRD instead since compatibility between whatever Wizards does in the next version and this set is not set in stone. It is a minor point since the official A5E books are stand-alone, and this starter set is targeted at "players with 2014 versions of 5E books that are looking for a new thing."

I would love an A5E SRD standalone rulebook for product development.

Would I like this to be a stand-alone? Honestly, yes, break with the past and go your own direction. The core A5E game does precisely that, rewriting everything to create a new product. But as this stands, it is an excellent product I will support.

But why A5E? I am back to hand-creating character sheets, and it takes me 30 minutes to assemble a character. I dislike the character generator programs out there - they limit your options, often don't have the 3rd party books you love in them, and they force you to play the game one way. If I hand-roll a character, that character is mine, and I can tweak and customize them any way I want.

A5E is also a fantastic departure from 5E. The system is tuned and tightened, and if all One D&D is going to be is a balance patch - I would instead break from Wizards and go with community-balanced and developed games rather than the Wall Street overlords at Wizards.

If A5E needs tweaks, I am free to make those.

In D&D, I feel you won't be able to because anything outside of the VTT will be homebrew and looked down upon. After all, if people are paying to play the game that way, what value does 'unofficial 3rd party content' have?

If I do things by hand, I still own my game.

If I play something not made by Wizards and not tied to an official VTT, I own it even more.

And A5 E is the most OSR-style and 4E-like version of 5E out there, with the math highly tuned, so it is my 5E of choice.

5E: Stop it with the Darkvision Please

5E and its darkvision problem are almost a joke now.

I was reading through the race selections of Esper Genesis, and seven of the nine races have darkvision or a variant of it. One of the races that doesn't can get it as an option, though. For some, it does not make any sense.

Stop it. You might also list torches, lanterns, flashlights, night vision gear, and other light sources as "human vision assistance." If I play this game, the races are getting a massive redesign. I see one or two having it out of the nine. They have an aquatic race with tentacle hair, and I expected them to have another enhanced sense, like vibration sense (or even hearing), but no, it is darkvision again.

What is the problem with 5E? Would enhanced senses ruin every module Wizards ever published? Does sensitive hearing or smell cause so many arguments designers banned it from the game?

If a race has darkvision, it will get swapped with another enhanced sense. I am done with darkvision unless it is granted by equipment. Yes, even the cat people. After a thousand years of being in space, they are accustomed to normal light but retain their heightened senses of smell.

And sadly, 5E puts too much emphasis on vision. Senses like the enhanced sense of smell, heightened hearing, vibration sense, enhanced taste, empathy, heat sense, distance vision, and so many other great senses are there to design with - yet this darkness dungeon map line of sight mentality rules 5E designs.

There is no such thing as a dark and spooky starship wreck if every race in the party can see through the darkness. To be fair, it isn't just Esper Genesis; many 5E games have this reflexive, "give them darkvision," thing going on - even the D&D expansion books have darkvision like the plague.

No wonder Shadowdark is taking off; 5E designers just can't get enough of the darkvision, and people are sick of it. If people ask me why I play other games, I can usually say, "darkvision," and they instantly know why. What's worse, some players will pressure people who pick non-darkvision races in a party to change their minds and align the party to the god of dark-vision.

It is like playing Resident Evil but with full-bright environments. Hello, zombies in the back corner of the room! Hello, zombie dog waiting to ambush me outside the window! What is the point of a dungeon anymore? It is just walls now.

Describing a dark spaceship corridor and having characters shine a flashlight down there to check it out is ruined. Are the designers more concerned about how the game plays with other 5E material, ease of play on battlemats, or immersion?

For sci-fi, I am choosing immersion every time.

Off the Shelf: Esper Genesis

 

I like this game despite its chronically out-of-print referee's book, the glossy page presentation, and the feeling of "5E Mass Effect" drawing me in. The fact that the referee's book is only PDF hurts, and I wish I had a hard copy. I may order a B&W spiral-bound copy.

And Ultramodern 5 is a much more complete and expansive game for 5E sci-fi and far more popular. UM5 feels cyber-punk and magic-oriented and reminds me a lot of Shadowrun. It is an excellent 5E system for sci-fi and is well-supported.

Esper Genesis cuts closer to the base 5E rules, making it easier to mod and play with other 5E games, such as Level Up Advanced 5E. So, if I wanted to swap out the rule engine for A5E, that would be easier with EG than UM5.

Esper Genesis has fantastic classes and powers, all tech-based, and they feel very Mass Effect to me. The default setting is exciting and moldable, and you could play everything from a 5E version of Star Frontiers to anything imaginable. I can see this powering a simpler version of Starfinder quickly.

One strange drawback is the weapon tech, which assumes a default projectile-weapon universe. There are guidelines for swapping out damage types to "hack in" a laser pistol, but no laser pistols in the game. I would edit the weapon list to suit my game (and make more guns high velocity to up the damage to unarmored targets). I would add lasers, blasters, and other sci-fi favorites.

Laser pistol: 1d6 radiant damage, 60/300 range, 2 lbs., high velocity, 20 shots, 500 cr. If you wanted the Star Frontiers 'varying power levels' just give it three settings: 1d6, 2d6, and 3d6 damage. Make ammo consumption: 1, 3, and 5 shots to account for diminishing returns. Make a natural 1 an overheating result for the two higher power levels (like a jam), and the weapon needs to cool down for a combat turn (or two for setting 3) before it is used again.

Game design is fun! Play games that let you do this.

There is also that thing in sci-fi RPGs of "too many weapons, who cares, only use one." We played the original Space Opera and had characters who only had a blaster pistol and never used another weapon.

I found it strange the weapons did less damage than the ones in the DMG. Still, they have weapon properties that double damage targets with no natural armor (this term is crucial once you open the monster book), so they try to balance lethality with playability. Less damage is a more intelligent choice, especially with a party of four all blasting away. As usual, the warriors get action surges and extra attacks, so DPS should scale along 5E levels.

I would rather have the weapons doing 1d6 to 1d12 damage instead of the 3d6 sci-fi weapon damage in the old DMG and keep turn damage predictable along 5E levels; otherwise, that party of four is doing 12d6 damage a turn (plus ability modifiers) if they all hit and will vaporize anything in front of them below ten hit dice. Tell yourself, "It is all cinematic damage," and it will be fine.

EG is a game that deserves love, attention, and a second edition. What we have today is impressive and a solid sci-fi game that presents the basics and does not try to do too much. UM5 does everything, and I find that book easy to get lost in. EG does a Mass Effect-style game perfectly, and it has room to mod in plenty of custom ideas.

Level Up: Advanced 5E - Staying Power

I put this game aside for a while, and I ended up missing it. 

A 5E-based game does not do that to me. Why? I don't really like 5E; it is just a collection of combat abilities and powers. Out of combat, 5E sucks and has very little depth. You will typically have the charisma class do all the talking while everyone else stands around and waits. The highest passive perception party member spots the traps and hidden items like a radar system. The ranger is there as the 'checkbox that we don't get lost' and avoids wasting the players' time with a GM sidetrack or encounters on the way to the dungeon.

5E has this video game mentality: "If it is not in the officially published module, you are wasting your player's time." It actively fights against GM creativity with passive skill checks. Unlike the OSR, where you have to search that chest before you open it, the passive system kicks in and makes players lazy - well, I should have spotted it! Is a goblin hidden around a corner? Well, I should have seen him!

5E goes out of its way to trivialize out-of-combat abilities and to minimize GM creativity. You play a game like Call of Cthulhu or Traveller, and suddenly, those characters seem deep and complex. Those games have a focus on non-combat abilities as their primary design goal.

5E also trivializes death and danger to the point where a great sword could cut your character in half multiple times in a day, be brought back with a healing word, and be fine - 100% healthy - with infinite bisections. It is the worst part of the game and even worse than the 4E MMO-isms it brought in.

So why did I miss A5E?

Well, it gives characters a considerable amount of non-combat abilities and bonuses, many of them dealing with the other 2 pillars of play - social and exploration. The game supports all three modes of play through character creation and advancement. Exploration, navigation, and survival are essential! Where you rest matters. Your social abilities matter.

You can't recover from death an infinite number of times.

This game was created by 5E fans who had problems with many parts of the game, and they did the hard work and fixed them. They kept inspiration as well but merged the concept with a destiny system. Where Tales of the Valiant seems more like "a compatible 5E mod," - A5E seems more like a complete rebuild.

If the original Warhammer FRP was the UK's answer to D&D, Level Up A5E is the UK's answer to 5E.

It also shares a little of Warhammer's grim and gritty DNA, but it retains the play and feeling of 5E. You will not 'get away with' ignoring overland travel. You will not ignore food, water, and even light. You will not marginalize social encounters, and everyone at the table will have tools to bring to a social encounter. You will carefully consider where and how you rest. You will not get away with the party hiding in a small closet in the middle of a deadly dungeon and taking a long rest next to the entrance.

Martial classes are fun and have options. Casters aren't nerfed. You feel powerful, but you also have vulnerabilities. You track resources. Your party stamina matters. You can't just 'close your eyes and push through to the boss battle' like you can in a videogame.

I can hear UK players calling old 5E out, laughing at the stupidity of what the game forces players to do, calling parts of the old 5E design rubbish and lazy, and then fixing it in their own version.

"We are in the Tomb of Horrors, right? Well, let's all climb into this closet and take a short rest!"

That sort of statement should be met with stares of disbelief followed by laughter. You are in a horror module. If this were Dungeon Crawl Classics, I would have the closet be a giant mouth, the door grows teeth, and you are all swallowed alive; please roll new characters. Save-or-die if I am feeling generous. Even in old D&D, that is six 1-in-6 (or 2-in-6) wandering monster rolls for that hour of downtime. Prepare to be surprised and run an extra combat without the benefits of the rest.

Try putting away your old 5E books and forcing yourself to just play with this. Don't say, "I wish they would have made this an add-on for 5E," because that argument marginalizes their hard work here.

5E is reductive and brings everything down to the combat lowest denominator. Combat power - by the numbers - is all that matters. This is a very American perspective on fantasy and roleplaying, and it isn't always correct. Frankly, it gets tiring after a while, and One D&D is leaning more into this numbers-based mobile game theory.

A5E was designed in a different mindset, where there is much more to being an adventurer than where your position on a hypothetical damage spreadsheet puts you. Your character is twice as deep as Tales of the Valiant (which borrows some ideas from A5E) but ten times deeper than a base 5E character. When I design a base 5E character, I think about combat power first. When I design an A5E character, I am forced to consider abilities and powers out of combat - and how these would help my party.

If you play A5E by itself, you see the system in an entirely new light. What it could be.