Hero Sys, GURPS, and Star Hero books.

[NuSoardGraphite]

I really do recommend The Ultimate Vehicle as in a long and involved Sci/fi or Space Opera campaign is going to have more vehicles than just starships. A lot more.

You have to design the characters personal hovercraft, the the Hovertanks that the evil overlord's forces use to suppress rioting, and the Mecha that the Marines use to battle alien invaders...

The Ultimate Vehicle also happens to have a lot of premade vehicular equipment that you can just drop into any vehicle design and will make things a bit faster for you. Also the additional vehicular action rules and hit location charts are a must.

[Ndreare]

I personally would recommend you get the Star HERO book and The HERO System 5th edition. The rest is nice but hardly necessary as all the rules you need for a game are included in the main rule book. However if you are financially stable then I would recommend Terren empire and The Ultimate Vehicle Guide possibly even the HERO System Bestiary as even it have some pre generated robots doomsday machines and alian monsters. In total I would say I have yet to buy a HERO product that I thought was bad or I lost money on.

As for G.U.R.P.S. it is in my opinion very good at doing gritty genres like Starship Troopers and Horror like Cathulu however if you want a cinematic feel to your game like Star Treck or Star wars then nothing does it like HERO.

From my past experiences with games (and have played dozens) the only thing HERO does not do really well is the Dark and Gritty. That is not to say that HERO cannot do it just that it is not done really well.

P.S.: If for some reason you want Gritty in HERO where players are as likely to die as thugs then all you need to do is limit the max resistant DEF and have bad guys use killing attacks.

[projecktzero]

Originally posted by Monolith
I used to play GURPS Traveller before Star Hero was introduced. I like GURPS but I think it sometimes gets bogged down and becomes too techie. I am very please with my current Terran Empire campaign.

I'd agree with the "techie" part. I'm also concerned with the lethality of GURPS. Since it strives for realism, I think it'd be easy for a character to die. From what I remember of the Hero System, it was a lot harder to die. Granted that was 1st ed Champions, but even normals could hang in there. They'd be in a coma, but they wouldn't die like flies getting swatted.

You will need FREd. Star Hero is probably the best genre book published to date

I'm looking forward to picking it up. I really like GURPS Space. It does get you brain storming.

I hope that helps some. You can read about my game in the Star Hero forum under "Tales of the Fearless Coward." I also have our ship's writeup there. It might give you some basic idea of what TE is like at any event.

Thanks. I'll wander over to the Star Hero forum and check it out.

[projecktzero]

Originally posted by Ndreare
I personally would recommend you get the Star HERO book and The HERO System 5th edition. The rest is nice but hardly necessary as all the rules you need for a game are included in the main rule book. However if you are financially stable then I would recommend Terren empire and The Ultimate Vehicle Guide possibly even the HERO System Bestiary as even it have some pre generated robots doomsday machines and alian monsters. In total I would say I have yet to buy a HERO product that I thought was bad or I lost money on.

I'll definately get FRED and Star Hero. After I digest that, I'll see about TUV.

As for G.U.R.P.S. it is in my opinion very good at doing gritty genres like Starship Troopers and Horror like Cathulu however if you want a cinematic feel to your game like Star Treck or Star wars then nothing does it like HERO.

From my past experiences with games (and have played dozens) the only thing HERO does not do really well is the Dark and Gritty. That is not to say that HERO cannot do it just that it is not done really well.

No Cyberpunk HERO? I would think that much of that depends on the GM, but I see your point.

Thanks for the help.

[Ndreare]

Actualy I have been rereading my copy of Cyber Hero as I will soon be GMing a Black Operations game (starting sunday). But no for your apparent needs I do not think a ten year old book on Cyber Tech will be very usefull as most players will be more interested flying space ships than siting at a computer. (But there is some decent looking hard ware in there for a 1/2 ciborg type character.)

[NuSoardGraphite]

Originally posted by projecktzero
I'd agree with the "techie" part. I'm also concerned with the lethality of GURPS. Since it strives for realism, I think it'd be easy for a character to die. From what I remember of the Hero System, it was a lot harder to die. Granted that was 1st ed Champions, but even normals could hang in there. They'd be in a coma, but they wouldn't die like flies getting swatted.
.

Thats Supers style combat where characters mostly use Normal Damage attacks and the defenses tend to be a bit high.

If you are playing a "Heroic" level game and using a lot of killing attacks (as will occur in a Star Hero game) then the Lethality of Hero is actualy higher than in GURPS. GURPS characters actualy can take quite a bit of damage before they die, just not very much before they are "hurt" (taking someone to negative health makes them badly hurt, but to kill them, you have to take them to -50 HT or something like that If I remember correctly)
In Hero, the lethality increases dramatically if you use a combination of the Hit Location rules with the Impairing and Disabling optional damage rules. Where taking a Disabling wound to the Head, Chest or Vitals location is likely to kill a character outright, depending on the nature of the attack (a plasma blast or Sword stroke to the Head location that does a Disabling wound should kill just about anyone).

With those optional rules in place, Dark and Gritty is no problem whatsoever in Hero, in fact staying alive becomes a challenge...