So for a few years now I've wanted to run a game, well more like 3 games. In my head I call it a legacy series.
Anyway...
The idea is basically to have a group of players start of with absolutely no skills, probably as children or teens and have them train to become a group of elite space explorers sent out to colonize a new planet.
So stage/game 1 would be character creation and initial skill building in the guise of some kind of academy.
Stage/game 2 would be on the star ship traveling through space to their destination (or not... As the games goes).
Stage/game 3 would be on the new planet trying to colonize.

Wether each stage gets it's own game or it's all done as one I'm still sort of debating and it's one of a list of things I need to sort before I can get this idea moving.
Another is, as this thread title suggests, the system. The last time I played D&D was 1996 and I have very little memory of it. Now I mostly play free-form or homebrew systems. So I'm looking for help. Having read this far can anyone suggest a system that is simple enough that my poor math skills can cope but flexible enough to cope with big character growth and possibly large variations?

Basic Roleplaying System. Or use Call of Cthulhu 7E, the system works for child players, just alter the basic skills from Adult to Child, and then advance from there. Both are Skill based d100% Systems. 7E CoC has some cool new rules for Half Skill and 1/5 Skill for Challenge Ratings and Difficulties.

Gurps. Each level is a different point value. Start off small, maybe 25-50 points. Assigned training points during the training phase to cover learned skills (don't forget a list of electives).

There are a couple obvious skills to be learned on board the ship, during the travel phase, which can assigned, as well. Shipboard job assignments translate into more skill points.

And, of course, the Colony phase takes care of it self, as you don't need ways to boost character levels (point totals), anymore.

Gurps calls 200 hours of training equivalent to a point, so a year's schooling is about 10 points per 50 weeks at 40 hours/week. There are rules for somewhat more intensive training, if you want more skills in a shorter time period, but a bachelors' degree is a 4 year course, for about 40 points. This is 40 skills at basic training, or fewer at higher levels.

There are also rules in the book for training time on the job into more skill points for a higher skill level, which might come in handy for the shipboard portion, if you're mainly looking for an experience boost

Both the training and ship phases can also add actual experience points to spend on whatever the character wants,a s well, if you want to play out portions of one or both phases. And,f course, that will be what you use for the final phase, which is likely the main game.

I've done this a couple times using Gurps, although I used cold sleep so the ship phases was less of a factor for me, save at the very end of the journey.

I've not had great luck, but that could be me, or it could be I used slowboats, and no FTL comms, so it was a one way trip. Colonizing a planet isn't that much fun unless it's a weird planet. Just saying. Otherwise it's most a job, not an adventure.

OH! Uncharted Worlds is also a good choice, It uses the Apocalypse World Hack. Great for quick characters.

In reply to Thruxus (msg # 4):

I'm going to keep throwing this out there until it's a thing, because I love, love, love the system and it hacks beautifully. Cortex Plus. (as can be found in Exalted: Blood and Fire, an Exalted-based hack of the system. You can also try the Cortex Plus Hacker's Guide)

Stage 1 is just basic characters, and the XP-based advancement system allows the PCs to build up their options any way they wish.

Stage 2, you stat up a star ship how ever you like, as a group asset or power set, or a full-fledged character in its own right.

Stage 3, stat up their colony, the planet, the environment, whatever, again, as similarly or differently from the ship as you like.

The system is lightweight, and uses a dice pool mechanic that offers tactical decisions with every roll, while still offering quick, single-roll resolution for various tests. It's based on a narrative engine, so it tends to stay balanced, even between power levels/scales. SFX and other modifications to the dice roll mechanic are very flexible and the whole system is a piece of cake to re-theme and adapt for any kind of game. GMing is a breeze, just make up a pool on the fly (within reason), and statting up NPCs, puzzles, and encounters all rely on basically the same methods. Did I mention I love, love, love this system?

Savage Worlds is an awesome, easy, and flexible system with an easy capacity for any genre you want. The best part is that growth is mainly versatility which means that characters can become veterans without becoming demigods that are practically immune to anything normal people might do.

Traveller is the system for space adventure IMO. It has a detailed Academy based character generation system. Normally, this would be used to generate mature characters with interesting histories, but it could easily be adapted to form the background to an academy-based role-play instead, using RP to replace or moderate dice rolls. Instead of simply rolling on a table and learning that Fred went on a commando mission in his nineteenth year and learned Skill X, you can send young Fred on a commando mission where Skill X is developed.

Progression in Traveller is largely about learning skills, just as in RL, and power is often a measure of influence rather than personal prowess.

I would echo icosahedron152's suggestion, with one modification:  consider using the freely available Traveller Plus rules for character creation.  They are written for online gaming use, and permit the creation of characters that players want to play.

Whatever system you eventually choose, it sounds like you have some great stuff brewing in that noggin of yours - I look forward to hearing about your game some more.
This message was last edited by the user at 16:12, Sun 26 Nov 2017.

I would second the suggestions for GURPS and Traveller.  Both can accommodate what you want fairly easily.

FATE is also quite flexible and could be easily molded to suite the game you want to run/play.  The one thing in FATE's favour over GURPS and Traveller, is that FATE has an SRD, so you should be able to do most, if not all, of your designing for free.

Also the Fate Core books are just available on their Downloads page. It's one of the -ahem- Aspects of Evil Hat Productions that drew my attention and convinced me it was worth getting all their dead trees in my local gaming store.

Wow, thanks everyone.

I've tried to wrap my head around FATE, even played a little Accelerated Edition and I just can't get a handle on it. The whole aspects thing throws me.
I've also tried Roll For Shoes and that's just too chaotic for this.

I'll look into Gurps and Travellers first and see if I can grasp them enough to test them out. If not I'll move on to Savage World's etc.

I can say for sure, GURPS is a lot less abstract. Even at the bare bones level things are a lot more strictly quantified. But with the study times and whatnot someone mentioned upthread, it may be exactly what you're looking for.

Cypher System is very flexible and fairly rules-lite for creating whatever challenges are needed (academic, ships, colony issues).  It's a general system, so can be adapted for any flavor of game.

Starfinder, Pathfinder's Sci-Fi sister game, has extensive ship and ship combat rules, flexible classes, and will undoubtedly have books for planet exploring/settling before too long.

Somehow, along the way, I missed Traveller Plus. Thanks for mentioning it, horus. That's another one for my collection, and it looks like there is some useful stuff in there. :)

Glad to be of some small service.  I have a spreadsheet built for Traveller Plus character creation that tracks character points (build points by any other name) as you create the character.  I may even have it in Excel format somewhere, but my most recent one is an Open Document Spreadsheet built using LibreOffice.