Hi folks! If you’re into tabletop RPGs and sci-fi, there’s a place for you here!

!scifi@ttrpg.network
/c/scifi@ttrpg.network

User Monomyth posed an interesting question on the Traveller discord that I wanted to replicate here:

hi team, just a quick discussion based question with no right answer; if youre running a game, and the players decide to veer off course into something completely out of left field (such as going to a planet you do not have prepped), is it appropriate to come up with some "delaying issue" so you can have it ready for next session?

Transposing to other settings: what do you do when the players go off-script?

I can summarize some answers we’ve got on that server, but I don’t want to prime your answers from the start.

What are your favorites to play on? Anything valid, be it a published RPG setting, an adaptation you did of other media (book, game, movie), a mashup you or someone else create, etc.

This is meant to be a non-exhaustive list, in stream-of-consciousness order.

Dedicated systems

• Traveller (in its many incarnations throughout the past nearly 50 years and derivatives such as Cepheus, Hostile)
• 2300 AD (now a setting for Traveller)
• Cyberpunk (2013, 2020, V3.0, Red)
• Paranoia
• Eclipse Phase
• Lancer
• Star Wars roleplaying (different games by different publishers: WEG d6, d20, FFG NDS)
• Warhammer 40K
• 3:16: Carnage Amongst the Stars
• Shadowrun
• Apocalypse World
• Coyote & Crow
• SLA Industries

FATE based systems

• Bulldogs!
• Mindjammer
• Nova Praxis
• Diaspora
• Atomic Robo

OSR/d20 based systems

• Stars Without Number
• Starfinder
• Mothership
• CY_BORG

Year Zero

• Mutant: Year Zero
• Alien: The RPG
• Blade Runner: The RPG
• Coriolis – The Third Horizon

GURPS

A host of modules and supplements named after the subgenre, GURPS-style. GURPS Transhuman Space, Cyberpunk, etc.

Other systems

• Star Trek Adventures (Modiphius 2d20)
• Dune: Adventures in the Imperium (Modiphius 2d20)
• Rifts (Palladium)
• Robotech (Palladium)
• Scum and Villainy (FitD/PbtA)

Solo friendly

• Stoneburner
• Ironsworn: Starforged (PbtA)
• Hostile (Cepheus/Traveller)

Out of print/No longer developed

• Firefly RPG (Cortex Plus)
• Serenity RPG (Cortex Classic)
• Battlestar Galactica RPG (Cortex Classic)
• Gamma World (D&D)
• Space Opera
• Other Suns
• Albedo
• Space Master
• HARP SF
• Blue Planet
• Ringworld
• Living Steel
• High Colonies
• Jovian Chronicles
• Heavy Gear
• Justifiers
• Star Frontiers
• Universe
• CORPS

Have a suggestion to improve this? Your favorite game missing? Leave a comment.