Games with spaceship creation rules

Hi!

My Real Life™ group wants to start a game of space exploration/trading/combat (still TBD the tone of the game), and I'm wondering which system to use. I want to focus on the spaceship crew topic. Can you recommend me some handbooks with nice spaceship creation rules? I already know about Stars Without Numbers. :-)

Thanks!

Hey :)

Starscape is a PbtA game currently in beta and pay-what-you-want.

It's focused on how the ebb and flow of trust moves between crewmembers of a spaceship - you can do horror, comedy, star trek-style, whatever using it. The moves focus on how the relationships between the crew changes as stuff happens. I love it :)

It has a simple ship-building set of questions for the players if you were looking for something narrative-focused and free-form.

Death in Space - an OSRy-kinda-Mork-Borg-in-space game also has a simple set of "hub" creation guidelines (the hub can be a spacestation or a spaceship) with a list of modules you might include in it, consideration of power required to run them, and so on.

Starfinder and the Savage Worlds Sci Fi companion both have rules for building and customizing ships.

Traveller and the lighter weight Cepheus System as well, include rules for trade, IIRC.

I'll second Qralloq's recommendation for Traveller. Every edition of that game afforded users extensive rules on building custom starships, assuming one didn't want to use the standard designs. Trade rules varied in quality with editions. Exploration is a bit harder to do in most of the official settings as the Imperium is mostly surrounded by other states.

I've recently acquired Coriolis which also has starship design rule and standard ships. The design rules aren't nearly as extensive as Traveller, so if you're not looking for heavy design work, it's an alternative. "Free Traders" can be a adventuring theme, but I'm not sure there's much in the way of trade tables like Traveller. The setting has a far amount of detail available, but exploration is one of the adventuring themes, particularly if the GM decides that the group discovers a new jumpgate.

I'm not sure what Alien has to offer in terms of ship design and trading as I haven't read it in detail yet. But I think that could be an option as well. Exploration is definitely a gaming theme that can be chosen for the group, just be careful where they go. ;)

If you want rules light there is Hard Nova. There is the old standby Star Frontiers or there is a "new" edition called Frontier Space.

There is also d6 space which free. You can also use the original star wars rules for material as it is the same base system.

If you like detailed rules there is also spacemaster.

From what I recall of the game, Rust Hulks had a fairly nice and simple system for creating your ship. It was mainly narrative, with each 'room' having a tone/feeling/personality, and a Move (in the PbtA sense) as well as a function and Stat to use with that Move.

Traveller's Ship Building rules are extensive, and one can make a whole game of it. :)
Mongoose Traveller 2e omitted these rules, but they were added back in the 2022 Update. High Guard has even more rules for this.

Rogue Trader has an excellent ship creation system, great rules for upgrading and changing the ship in play and acquiring new ships, and very neat space combat rules, but it's Warhammer 40k, so everything is on a very large scale. The PCs in Rogue Trader are assumed to be rather important people. If they smuggle guns to a world under siege, for example, they're smuggling tens of thousands of weapons.

there is a SciFi setting book for the old/ little known 'Amazing Engine' RPG system, called Bughunters - it has a wonderful, easy to use spaceship building/upgrading chapter that could be plugged into any RPG. It includes modular maps.

Now THAT'S a system I haven't thought of in a LONG time!


The old FASA Star Trek had a pretty robust, if IP specific, ship construction system. The current Modiphius Star Trek Adventures system also has a bespoke ship construction mechanic as well.

Wow, so many options so far! Thank you everyone, now I am overwhelmed, hehe.

I will also put a shoutout for Traveller as a system that has some great rules for ship creation and adjudicating interstellar trade. You can check out a basic version of them in the Traveller SRD, and various editions have even more crunchy rules to suit your tastes.

The Fantasy Flight Games' (now "Edge Studio") iteration of the Star Wars RPG (Edge of the Empire, etc) has a pretty robust starship "crafting"and modification mechanics, and a pretty robust set of rules for a whole crew to be doing things while onboard, like, during dog fights. Also astro navigation mechanics etc.

And the community has taken each one of those elements and expanded them more.

Plus the "Narrative Dice System" it uses is one of my favorites and so yea I 'd just highly recommend it all around for your purposes.

Some time ago I was doing my "research" for best space ship battle rules and looked into quite a few rulesets for this. What I found that "on paper" (as I haven't had occasion to test it "on people" ;) - hopefully here on GP, some day:) ) the best so far are:
- Coriolis - everyone has something interesting to do, but still relatively simple, but elastic,
- Traveller - quite similar rules, but a little more complicated,
- Star Wars/Genesys RPG are also good,

Scum & Villainy - offer different approach, as it is on Blades in the Darks engine, so more like moves, but worth a look,

As for creation of space ships alone and if you like it detailed I don't think you will find anything better then Traveller rules - they thought about everything(you i.e. count each room/ship gear in tons, it influences speed, FTL travel and everything), but Coriolis also has some space ship creation rules, but more simple (what is better for me).

Probably best video in the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylYmiTm1GV8&t=10s

I think Traveller is probably too much, we don't need that level of detail. Probably something more narrative like PbTA/Fate, or medium crunch like Savage Worlds, would work better for my group of players.

Uncharted Worlds has ship creation rules if you're interested in PbtA.

Or you could go with Spacedock... https://www.coldnorth.com/owen/memoryicon/spacedock/spacedock.pdf >__>

Great suggestions so far. I'd add:

Superlight: Offworlders (moveless PbtA), Tiny Frontiers (Tiny D6), The Stellar Hack (TBH), The Space Hack (TBH), Pew Pew!, Black Star

Medium Cronch: Frontier Space (Star Frontiersy), Bulldogs (Fate), Scum & Villainy (FitD), Hulks & Horrors (OSR), Mothership Shipbreaker's Toolkit, Tachyon Squadron (Fate)

Mother of God, it's Full of Stars: GURPS Space, Diaspora (Old Testament Fate)

I know Worlds Without Number and the Serenity RPG have them.
I have copies I can get to you if you want to look.

Monolith is a free/pay what you want system based on Cairn.

It has space ship creation/Combat rules but I haven't read them in a while.

Just putting in a second for Savage Worlds. The new Sci-Fi Companion just wrapped up its Kickstarter and should go into pledge manager soon. If it's anything like the Horror Companion or Fantasy Companion (both of which I have), then it's going to be simply awesome!