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A thread to discuss The Expanse Roleplaying Game, by Green Ronin publishing.

Link to quickstart here.

Character sheet here.

Please let me know if you have links to any other player aids.

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Hey all, anyone else have experience with this game? I found it used at our FLGS (surprising considering it's only been out a year) and picked it up on a whim, because my gaming group and I are all big fans of the show and novels. I didn't expect much because I hadn't heard any new or reviews out of it, but we ran through the scenario in the back of the book and had a great time. I was pretty impressed with a lot of things.

It uses the AGE system, which is a classless gaming system developed for Dragon Age and has since been applied to Modern Age and other licensed properties. This was our first encounter with it, and it took me a bit to get used to the different probability curve you get with 3D6 instead of 1D20 (truthfully, I'm still not completely sure). Fortunately, the book has a table that provides you with a range of challenge numbers (n = 8) from Routine (7) to Nigh Impossible (21), which include the ability score you'd need to pass the test 50% and 90% of the time. I relied on this table a lot throughout our encounter to handle unexpected situations, fitting the difficulty of the test to the skills of the player rolling.

Another thing I enjoyed was the Drama Die and Stunt Points - but after some adjusting to online gaming. One of the D6s you roll is a different color. If you roll a double on any of your D6s, you get stunt points equal to the number you rolled. You can cash those in to perform a stunt - which is exactly what it sounds like: a dramatic flourish that adds to your success. The more stunt points you spend, the more most radical and excellent your sweet sick stunts are going to be, bro. These range from Parry (1 SP) to Break Weapon (5 SP). But these don't only apply to combat; any test can produce stunt points. This leads to a bit more micro-managing when gaming online, but it wouldn't be an issue at all if we were meeting in-person. It killed the mood a bit; "okay that's cool but did you roll any doubles?" Further, the drama die still matters even when you don't generate stunt points, because it indicates your degree of success (as opposed to how much you beat the target number) - so there were a lot of variations of "You need a 12 here." "Okay, I rolled a 14." "Okay, what you'd get on the third die?" "Oh, okay, with the third die, I got an 8 on two die, and a 6." "So you rolled 14 and a 6 on the drama die?" That sort of thing. Again, this isn't really the game's fault; if we were playing in person, all die rolls on the table, it would both be more clear to the players what I was asking, and I wouldn't have to nag. There are also pages and pages of potential stunts; investigation stunts, communication stunts, general combat stunts, hand-to-hand stunts, shooting stunts, pistol stunts, rifle stunts, grenade stunts, etc. Fortunately the DM's guide provided a .pdf of the stunt list (12 pages long), which I could share with the players. But I got the sense that these were only ever meant to be suggestions, and encouraged my players to come up with their own stuff. The first time, it delighted me; our technology expert got permission to access some information from Tycho Security; scoring 6 drama points, he declared he wanted a backdoor to their systems. How could I refuse? Another funny and exciting moment occurred during the end of the scenario, where one character used Spray and Pray (5 SP) with predictable results. I really liked how the mechanics encouraged little storytelling moments throughout the game. But I reiterate my minor complaint about the book keeping I was doing to make sure everyone was taking advantage of available SP.

I liked what they chose to abstract; using pooled tests during leisure time to devote to ship/equipment maintenance, or to maintain social relationships, had a nice montage feel. Reducing income to an ability to use in a test was perfect; my players enjoyed being able to roleplay wealth, and one player gambled his income score to temporarily gain a boost. Ammo only comes up if you fumble a weapons check; that represents a jam or the gun needing to be reloaded. Even weapons are reduced to "pistol", "rifle", "small close combat weapon." The rules are telling you what is important to the game designers; namely, reducing technical book keeping for both players and GM, and emphasizing storytelling and narrative even in combat situations. Even hit points are replaced with "Fortune"; you spend fortune to reduce damage, then take conditions (Wounded, Injured, Unconscious) to avoid death. Essentially the same function as hit points; but one doesn't have to rationalize a paladin taking 15 damage after getting fire breathed all over. Fortune represents you ducking out of the way of a bullet, rather than accumulating damage like a video game character. In this way it avoids being what Ron Edwards calls a "heartbreaker"; it improves upon the grammar of 3.5D&D design in a self-aware way. These are not mere house rules; these are well-informed design choices that help to emphasize more narrative play.

Speaking of combat, the rules for ship-to-ship combat are really exciting. We didn't use them in our introductory game, which had a few people new/out of practice to role-playing (we're more of a board/wargaming group), so I decided to focus on the basic rules (which the scenario in the book accommodated). I'll share them with my group before the next time we play, but it gives everyone something to do; you assign roles, make opposed tests for command, electronic warfare, targeting, maneuvering (which affects your ability to lock onto your opponent as well) and so on. Plus more stunts for more options. I can't say much more until we run through it but it looks like a lot of fun.

The scenario in the back of the box isn't quite enough to run on its own; you need to take a bit of time and fill in some of the details. I didn't need to roll up any extra stats or similar (except for a ship for the crew), but it's a strong scaffolding and my players had a lot of fun with it. Special mention to bubbasun who came up with the idea of using Discord to send Terminal Messages, and that set everyone off; sharing information in-character, it helped keep people engaged even when they split the party. I'd encourage people to try it even if they are gaming in-person; get a group chat going or similar. It wasn't as disruptive because it was all in-character.

Just the impressions from one game but I'm excited to try and get a campaign going (although likely a slowly-paced one given our relative schedules). Unintended comedy when 5/6 people showed up as Martians. I'd definitely recommend it for people interested in remote playing as well; if you trust your players to self-report their drama die and skill points (in the sense of remembering to tell the GM, not in the sense of them cheating) then there's no issue.

Other people's thoughts and feelings?

I saw the book pre-pandemic over at Barnes and Noble and was surprised to see it there. Is it based off of the books or the TV show? I'm guessing the former but I'm personally only familiar with the latter so don't know how much of a difference exists.

They use as a reference point for the game's "present" the space between the first and the second book, which was reproduced very closely in the first season and a half of the show. There's not much important that's different, and there's a great lore section that is (relatively) spoiler-free.

That said, the mechanics are mechanics; there's nothing that prevents you from setting it at any point during the books or show, or a different science fiction universe. I'm a big fan of both the show and the books (read them all, haven't seen Season 4 yet) and was happy with how both were represented.

Originally the Expanse setting was going to be an RPG, and there's a nice preface by James S. A. Corey giving their blessing to the game. Kind of came full-circle, there.

The system is needlessly complex and in my opinion takes away from roleplaying significantly.

Typically playing new RPG systems is hard because either everyone is familiar with d20 and doesn't want to learn a new system, or because the new system is just too heavy to teach to casual players or roleplayers.

 Togusa wrote:
The system is needlessly complex and in my opinion takes away from roleplaying significantly.

Typically playing new RPG systems is hard because either everyone is familiar with d20 and doesn't want to learn a new system, or because the new system is just too heavy to teach to casual players or roleplayers.

I find this true of 90% of RPGs..... for as long as I can remember.

However, I will have to look closer at this AGE system.

 Easy E wrote:

 Togusa wrote:
The system is needlessly complex and in my opinion takes away from roleplaying significantly.

Typically playing new RPG systems is hard because either everyone is familiar with d20 and doesn't want to learn a new system, or because the new system is just too heavy to teach to casual players or roleplayers.

I find this true of 90% of RPGs..... for as long as I can remember.

However, I will have to look closer at this AGE system.

I didn't think it was overly complex; as I said in my initial post, I actually thought they successfully abstracted and simplified several areas to avoid unnecessary crunch. But I would agree with the assertion that the rulebook is written in a way that it seems to be overly crunchy; for example, there's a way to calculate a twist (The Churn) based on how many successes/failures your players roll. Or the stunt points, which give you a table of options, with thirty pages of potential options. This is all just scaffolding. Based on your post I get the sense you've a good history with RPGs, and so I'd recommend taking a second look at the book; all apparently prescriptive roll-play sections (e.g., pg 20, the list of possible minor, moderate, and major consequences to a failed roll) are really just there to provide structure for roleplay (e.g., the GM doesn't have to memorize all of those possible consequences; this is just a launching pad for their own creativity). My players also really enjoyed the stunt system, and came up with really creative uses for them. For the players that were newer to roleplaying, or had come back after a few years off, I got the sense that they appreciated that amount of structure to give them options. As we continue our campaign, I expect to have to rely on that structure less and less.

That said, it's an interesting situation because it happens to be an IP we all really enjoy; we love those books and the show, and this was a cool way to hang out in that world. We could use any system for that, for sure, but this one happens to be really effective. My personal favorite system to teach and play are d100 or dice pool success systems, because they are pretty intuitive; but other than the third die problem I mention in my original post, there's nothing too complex in the base system that wouldn't be an easy thing to resolve in person. Just my two cents.

Edit: Easy E, I'd be really eager to see you do a write-up; I'm a big fan of your blog.

 Don Qui Hotep wrote:


Edit: Easy E, I'd be really eager to see you do a write-up; I'm a big fan of your blog.

Thanks!

I have not really expanded to RPGs on the blog because..... WOW.... I can't even keep up with Wargames!

However, I have actually been playing a few more RPGs lately, and I definitely see some interesting trends in RPG game design there that I have some clear ideas about.