Thinking about starting another game in the next few weeks, wanted to see if there was interest. I have pretty much everything to date from Mongoose and most stuff from third parties so I can run what the crew is interested in.

Salvage, Exploration whatever you might be interested in. Solomani Front comes out hopefully this week so that is also a possibility. Trojan Reaches, Foreven, Reft, Spinward Marches, etc. I try to make it fun for everyone, currently running two other games, 1,630+ posts and 450 posts. The only way I disappear is dying.

Think it over if you want to try Mongoose 2nd edition. I don't know everything, but between us we'll muddle through.

 I am always up for a Space Opera. I am most interested.

In reply to zagygthemad (msg # 1):

I had the first edition rules for a while and never got much of a chance to try them, so I'm interested.

In reply to engine (msg # 3):

What are you interested in playing? Imperial, Solomani, Vargr, Aslani, Zhodani?

Salvage, Exploration, Trade game going everywhere, I won't do a Naval Campaign or the War, too much for me to lift.
This message was last edited by a moderator, as it was against the forum rules, at 18:40, Wed 03 Mar 2021.

In reply to zagygthemad (msg # 4):

Imperial, if that means "baseline human" as I recall.

I don't want to get into, like, real economics, but I liked what I read about the trading rules in the book I had. I like the idea of travelling from planet to planet trying to make a profit, maybe having to take on the odd mission to make ends meet, and taking risks to get and fulfill the best contracts.

I'm not into solving mysteries for their own sake, but I don't mind them in the background.

Unless the person who likes dealing with trade is willing to do the paperwork, I don't recommend a Trader game because it puts too much of a burden on the GM to keep up with the paperwork. Unless there's a simplified system.

Traveller's system deals with too many details.... type of cargo, how many tons, price per ton, and then you get into modifiers by where you're buying it and where you are selling it... often information that isn't readily available.


Space Opera has always appealed to me, but I've found it rather difficult to run. Concept is easy; executing it so that it's fun is hard.

On the other hand, something unusual would interest me. Something like Dark Matter TV, Killjoys TV or continuum TV could be entertaining.


I suppose another possibility is something like The Strange/Numenera RPG. Tweaking that into Space Opera could be hard... perhaps a take on Flash Gordon and Mongo.

In reply to StarMaster (msg # 6):

Oh, I thought the trading rules seemed straight-forward and mostly a matter of dice rolls. But admittedly I've never used them. But the game type was offered, and the "paperwork" is easily tracked on the board, or a Google Sheet.

I like the idea of trading, because it's a clear purpose with clear success criteria, and failure doesn't automatically mean death or capture or the like. Traveller has always been touted to me as a game that's about more than combat - in fact a game in which combat shouldn't be considered "fun" at all, in the sense of players engaging in it eagerly. But trading seems like it could involve some exciting risk along those lines.

Exploration or investigation is a bit more vague than I like, unless there is a specific piece of information that needs to be discovered.

I like characters to change in capabilities through their own efforts and gaining or losing money seems like the way that's done in Traveller, since skills tend not to improve. There are lots of jobs, of course, but trading seems like it could involve a wide array of situations requiring various types of characters and equipment.

The trouble with trading in Traveller is that either it doesn't work out and you go bankrupt, or you have someone with a massive focus on Broker and money pours in like a waterfall, completely breaking the premise. (The GM can try to counter that by endless handwaves of why your funds disappear, but that feels pretty phony pretty quickly.)

That, and yes, it's an inordinate amount of work unless someone has aspirations of being an accountant.

An exploration focused game works by way of having expenses covered and missions assigned. These can be specific or general. "Go survey part of that sector" leaves all of the details up to the PCs as long as they're getting the job done somehow. You might still haul a little bit of cargo on the side, but even that's more likely to be for a mission-related purpose rather than general moneymaking.

You could be working for the Scout service, a private interest, some other agency (Imperium or otherwise), etc. How political it gets will depend on the who and the why.


The Deepnight Revelation campaign takes the exploration campaign to the extreme, but it's probably too much to reasonably cope with in a PBPost context.

I see, thanks for laying that out. I withdraw my interest.

Sorry we discouraged you. I run 5 Traveller games, so I've been dealing with trade for several years.

It does occur to me that the GM could use a simplified system. It's about how many factors you want to take into account. If you just use a bear/bull market, that could make it easier.


As for exploration, there are several variants on that. It gets down to the scope that you want to deal with: explore a planet, explore a system, explore a subsector, explore the unknown.

I am interested, I've tried several times to play a psionic but the games never went very far.  I like the Zhodani and would like to play one, even if the campaign is not centered on them.

 What about Criminals? There was a short run series, where they had a ship called the Rasai, and they had no memories in the beginning.  Just sounds interesting, but I am up for whatever.

That sounds like Dark Matter, the ship was The Raza.  Great show, ran for three seasons.

 Yes, that was the name of the series, Darn shame it got canceled.

In reply to Bannacor (msg # 14):

link to another game

This is the game page if you are interested.