Rocket Age has been my favourite role playing setting for quite some time now.
To start with the rules fit the genre really well. The use a 2d6+Attribute+Skill set up and a degrees of success system, so that it isn't simply a case of succeeding or failing. You could find yourself swinging onto another silt sea ship and knocking a villain over the edge as you do so, or hanging on for dear life as you are tangled in the ropes.
The same system is used for social, combat and adventure encounters, so there's never any new rules to learn. Damage comes off your attributes, so characters degrade fast, adding to the tension.
Story points have wide reaching uses and effects, but also help with balancing characters. They make characters far more durable, allow them to pull of great feats and are also your currency for the really cool items, meaning if you do have a character laden with jet packs, ray guns and space armour he won't overshadow the beautiful Courtesan who relies on her wits and charms.
The system is very flexible and it's very easy to build whatever creature or character you want to put in it. The game never actually explains how to do that, however, remember that players should usually have far more story points than NP Cs and monsters and you should do fine.
As a side note, this game uses the Vortex system originally built for the Doctor Who and Primeval RP Gs by the same publishers, so there is a good deal of compatibility with those two games.
Okay, so on to setting. There is a lot of setting to go around and it covers most of the classic sci-fi conventions.
Mars is a dying world, covered in criss-crossing canals and divided between warring city states and Earthling invaders. Venus is a primordial Jungle planet, full of Ape-men, dinosaurs and giant insects. Jupiter has sky islands and a mysterious species living deep beneath the clouds. Then there is mysterious Europa, blasted Io and green Ganymede.
If that seems like a lot of stuff to you, you'd be right and that's before injecting the various factions, colourful characters and mysterious locations into the setting. The choice of the 1930s allows for a plethora of real world organisations and of course, that includes the Nazis. In some ways this is one of the settings greatest strengths, because despite the fact that you can play any of the alien races, the Earthling stuff grounds a lot of what's going on in a strange sort of reality. It really feels more possible than it is and that's special.
Go have a look. It feels incredibly familiar but refreshingly different.
My favourite setting of all time.
Rocket Age has been my favourite role playing setting for quite some time now.
To start with the rules fit the genre really well. The use a 2d6+Attribute+Skill set up and a degrees of success system, so that it isn't simply a case of succeeding or failing. You could find yourself swinging onto another silt sea ship and knocking a villain over the edge as you do so, or hanging on for dear life as you are tangled in the ropes.
The same system is used for social, combat and adventure encounters, so there's never any new rules to learn. Damage comes off your attributes, so characters degrade fast, adding to the tension.
Story points have wide reaching uses and effects, but also help with balancing characters. They make characters far more durable, allow them to pull of great feats and are also your currency for the really cool items, meaning if you do have a character laden with jet packs, ray guns and space armour he won't overshadow the beautiful Courtesan who relies on her wits and charms.
The system is very flexible and it's very easy to build whatever creature or character you want to put in it. The game never actually explains how to do that, however, remember that players should usually have far more story points than NP Cs and monsters and you should do fine.
As a side note, this game uses the Vortex system originally built for the Doctor Who and Primeval RP Gs by the same publishers, so there is a good deal of compatibility with those two games.
Okay, so on to setting. There is a lot of setting to go around and it covers most of the classic sci-fi conventions.
Mars is a dying world, covered in criss-crossing canals and divided between warring city states and Earthling invaders. Venus is a primordial Jungle planet, full of Ape-men, dinosaurs and giant insects. Jupiter has sky islands and a mysterious species living deep beneath the clouds. Then there is mysterious Europa, blasted Io and green Ganymede.
If that seems like a lot of stuff to you, you'd be right and that's before injecting the various factions, colourful characters and mysterious locations into the setting. The choice of the 1930s allows for a plethora of real world organisations and of course, that includes the Nazis. In some ways this is one of the settings greatest strengths, because despite the fact that you can play any of the alien races, the Earthling stuff grounds a lot of what's going on in a strange sort of reality. It really feels more possible than it is and that's special.
Go have a look. It feels incredibly familiar but refreshingly different.