Fantasy party finds space ship (system recomend.)?

Let's say your OSR standard-dnd-like party (so elfs, halflings and dwarfs can be included, but not necessary... and magic is available too) at the end of their dungeon crawling, in the ancient "tomb"/ruins has found the vary strange device. Vessel one may say. And it can "magically" fly... even off the planet... :) Let's not burden our precious brains with figuring out how the heck they ara able to pilot it... for now :D And they discover the space station hidden behind the moon and quite a sprawling community of "quite a few" new species. And they are able to communicate with them (again... let's not be peaky... they are heroes after all! :) Valerian way (I think, as I know the comics and 1 movie very briefly). How do you continue?

To be more precise, I'm more asking bout mechanical side of things. That's my main reason for this post.

Let's say you were using system like: Old School Essential Advanced, Dungeon Crawl Classic or Five Torches Deep Core Rules - so quite compatible with each other and DnD B/X in particular. Eventually: Swords and Wizardry, White box or Castles & Crusades ? Hope the pattern in visible here :)

Now you want to make smooth transition of your party's PCs to new environments - so be able to use extended rules and equipment that include "space things": Space ship battles, 0 gravity, blasters, lasers, maybe even hacking (if they will find someone that will do it for them ) or cybernetics (wood elf with cybernetic arm - anyone? ;) ). AND: you don't want to depart very far from what your PCs are (at least at the beginning ) and the rules by which you were playing so far. So should be DnD B/X semi-compatible at least.

So far I have found two candidates for this:
White Star: White Box Science Fiction Roleplaying
Dark Matter for 5E by MAGE HAND PRESS
Solar Blades and Cosmic Spells (but looks too rules-lite for my taste)

Few caveats:
- I think, I'm not looking for Spelljammer - want to have some "hard sci-fi" ships,
- Starfinder is/seams probably too complicated(don't like hours long fights) and NOT very OSR'y, so probably also not what I'm looking for,
- I know about Stars Without Numbers... but I don't know why: the rules/book feel somehow "flat" for me... so passing on it for now. But maybe you will convince me to give it a second try?
- the best rules for spaceships battles - for me - that I found so far are in Coriolis, and then Traveller - everyone on the ship have something to do during the fight, would be great to have something like this here,
- Mutant Crawl Classic - as far as I know - don't have space ships battles in it?

So any recommendations for such situation? What system would you use? Have you done something like this in the past? How it went?

Maybe with other systems you have done something like this? (I wonder how it would work from Forbidden Lands to Coriolis... ;) but that completely another story... )

What about Star Wars 5e? It is a heavily modded DnD 5e with star wars dressing.

Hello Pedrop,

The Seed of Worlds blog has done a playtest of various fantasy space combat systems, many of which would bolt on to your existing B/X game or be highly adjacent, including:

Shadow of the Spider Moon (3.5e)
Aces High (5e, from Arcadia #3 by MCDM)
Spelljammer (AD&D)
Calidar (OD&D update)
Crawljammer (DCC - couldn't actually find the link to this, not sure if he ever wrote the article)

He also wrote about the topic more broadly without playtest feedback here in A Roundup of Spacefaring Fantasy.

I also saw that Goodman Games is doing a second edition of Star Crawl, which is basically DCC/MCC meets Star Trek. You can still get the original edition on their website.

Not sure if any of this helps, but keep us updated on what you end up deciding!

Spacehulk is meant for this.

How about savage worlds?

Hmmm... I aim at transition from OSR-like type system into OSR-like system :) In terms of complexity ratio also. So as the rules for Star Wars 5e - at first few glances - look quite good, they are too complicated for my needs right now. In the way that: probably fights will be too crunchy and long for my needs.

Thanks a lot! I will check those articles for sure.

If someone is interested I have also reposted my question on redit: Redit link

I will report my final decision, but for now it looks that most probable candidates are (in this order):
- Star Crawl - in the end I have bought the rules pdf. Space ship's battles are in the right crunch ratio for me. The ships have different armor on 4 sides - so positioning matters, modules can be hit when the armor is down. Shields. Nice difference between sizes of the ships - by damage denominator -> so smaller ships can hit bigger once, but it will take them much more time/hits to do some significant damage - what is very thematic. Overall nice, elegant implementation. For the rest of the book: more like package of good ideas, but some could be more developed. In general: high recommendation. It has the same kind of brilliance as original DCC - simple rules, but very thematic and elegant - but not as polished as DCC core book(yet, probably).
- little known (I think), Knave hack called Spacer - it also have quite good, but simple rules for space ship battles, its free. I forgot at it at first, but got back to it for this subject. High recommendation to check!

What is interesting that on the forums and indeed: Star Wars (even 1st ed) from West End Games has really not bad rules for Space Ship combat. I would consider using them, if I will find how to convert them for DnD-like system :) But they have some parallels to Star Crawl I think, so probably I will not have to. It shows how truly amazing system it was for its time! (and I still like rule system at its own too).

Still not decided about: Solar Blades and Cosmic Spells, Stars Without Number

I have discarded (for now) those:
White Star: White Box Science Fiction Roleplaying
Dark Matter for 5E by MAGE HAND PRESS

In both of them, their chapter about space combat begins with something like: "Ok, space ship combat is just like personal combat, but ships are bigger... " - so no interesting ideas for what I'm looking for...

Does it have some specific/good rules for space ship combat?

I like the system a lot, have core book, but for now I'm looking for DnD-like systems as I plan to use modules from this enviroment, as there is so many good ones to choose.... out there... unfortunately... popularity matters for those of us who usually don't have time to do conversions... :(

If not DnD-like, I think I would rather go in direction of Forbidden Lands and Coriolis.

The Science-Fiction Companion for Savage Worlds has just wrapped up its Kickstarter, so it will likely be several months before anything solid comes down the pipe, but it should have rules for handling everything from spaceships to mecha. They have released two "sneak peeks" of what they are working on (I think these were for supporters only) that looked pretty good; one for mecha and the other for ships. You might also check out The Last Parsec. I don't have this one personally, but it might have some good information on spaceships. The original Science-Fiction Companion is still available and has some great information. It's for the Deluxe rules, rather than the Adventure Edition, but the differences aren't too vast.

I have seen this KS @WntKnt . But I wonder if the new Sci-Fi companion also have soo brief rules on spaceship battles - mainly claiming they are based on Chase rules with some exceptions - or they did develop something new, specifically tailored for Spaceships ?

I'm unable to answer that as the preview was primarily about their new damage system for spaceships; a very simple and elegant solution.

Is it public somehow? So I could find it on KS? Or for backers only ? But: sounds promising, that they do something specific for spaceships!

Starfinder works if you're trying to move from 3/3.5e D&D to sci fi.
Something like Esper Genesis if you're moving from 5e to sci fi.
If you're strictly needing to port from OSR only, then White Star from White Box (which is Swords and Wizardry). Or lesser known options like BX Space (never tried it so I can't vouch for it).

This summer Starfinder and Pathfinder 2e will be compatible, but I don't know how it fits into your timeframe.