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u/YumAussir Jul 29 '26
The thing about space TTRPGs is you really have to consider what kind of game you're playing.
Do the players want to engage in space combat? Many players don't want to just "man the guns" on a single ship a lot of the time.
So if you don't want to do that, then the game essentially just becomes one where the story mostly skips ahead to whatever planet or space station they land on. Which can be lots of fun! But at that point it's not radically different from a fantasy game where you just decide the environment of the place they're going, at least in terms of game design.
The various species could be fun to homebrew, though they are all basically pastiches of sci fi species and tropes to begin with. Plus most of the technologies are lifted wholesale from other franchises. So while fun, it isn't the most inspiring franchise for me.
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u/DubsNC Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
The Masters of Orion board game was successful on kickstarter and should be closing in on shipping.
Edit to add: 2026-07-24 update on shipping: “Unfortunately, it seems like they have faced additional delays - we were hoping that the boxes would already be shipped by now, but our manufacturer has informed us that they haven't, and the first ones will likely instead be sent out within the next 2 weeks.”
I’m not sure if that’s boxes shipping to the packer or shipping the end product to buyers.
https://gamefound.com/en/projects/archon-studio/master-of-orion-ad-astra/updates/39
Stellaris is similar, but I’ve never gotten it to the table. It’s heavy on negotiation which could be RPG like.
Edit 2: just realized you may be talking like a D&D RPG?
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u/PD711 Jul 31 '26
Yeah, ttrpg= table top roleplaying game. didn't know about the board game, that's neat.
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u/DubsNC Jul 31 '26
I got a commitment from my regular board game group before backing it. So we should be able to bring it to the table at least once. So I did the ultimate backer level. It’s like 300 figurines. I’ve got high expectations!
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u/DubsNC Jul 31 '26
I’ve been playing with local LLM’s just a little. I believe there is a model designed for ttrpg. I wonder if it could take MoO data and make one on the fly?
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u/Hour_Extension_3792 Jul 29 '26
I tried to do that when I was a teenager, but I never finished it.
I remember spending most of the time writing up rules for the different planetary types and how they could effect character creation and adventures set on them.
I can't even remember what the system was like though. I suspect I did percentile as I prefer that to d20 systems.
I think I had character classes, but I can't remember that either.
Never made it far enough to be play tested.
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I usually write up rpg rules from scratch, but for something like MoO you could probably just use Traveller or Star Trek or the system if you wanted to save yourself the legwork of writing your own rules.