3:16 Carnage Among the Stars is pretty great. You can write a campaign in an afternoon.
It's military SF ala Starship Troopers. There's a surprising amount you can do with it, given that it's an indie game (many of which use the mechanics to funnel you into a particular play style). Though there is a repetition of: Land on planet, engage hostiles, problems arise, deal with them, eradicate all alien life on planet. But that's what the game is mostly about, and you can do plenty of other stuff besides that. Those are the action scenes between which the interpersonal stuff will happen, just like in a military novel.
There's also a cool checklist of all the different planetary types (ice world, radioactive, etc.), alien types (bug, mutant, android, etc.) and alien special powers (ambush, leap, etc.). The checklist keeps the GM honest because he's not supposed to double up on anything. It's like a reverse character sheet: it tells the GM what options he no longer has. Fun because it forces variety.
I have only run one session of it but it was a blast.
It's military SF ala Starship Troopers. There's a surprising amount you can do with it, given that it's an indie game (many of which use the mechanics to funnel you into a particular play style). Though there is a repetition of: Land on planet, engage hostiles, problems arise, deal with them, eradicate all alien life on planet. But that's what the game is mostly about, and you can do plenty of other stuff besides that. Those are the action scenes between which the interpersonal stuff will happen, just like in a military novel.
There's also a cool checklist of all the different planetary types (ice world, radioactive, etc.), alien types (bug, mutant, android, etc.) and alien special powers (ambush, leap, etc.). The checklist keeps the GM honest because he's not supposed to double up on anything. It's like a reverse character sheet: it tells the GM what options he no longer has. Fun because it forces variety.
I have only run one session of it but it was a blast.
