Space: 1889

[copeab]

About a week and a half ago I picked up the Heliograph reprint of Space: 1889. I have since read through all of it (except the Luna adventure). I was aware that it was considered a "great setting, lousy mechanics" game. The mechanics are quite bad so much as inconsistent -- a lot like AD&D 1e which used a different dice mechanic for each system.

It also suffers (like many games of it's era) by setting starting skill levels too low for the most part.

I also have an issue with how close combat works, but that could be moot depending on how I end up handling the mechanics.

My options are:

* Use the mechanics as-is. I think the quick-rolls (mainly used in combat) of 1d6 vs a target number are a bit too simplistic. The dice pool for most other rolls is a little inconsistent (sometimes skill, dice, sometimes attribute dice, sometimes both together) but this doesn't bother me greatly.

* Use my own mechanic. About a decade ago, I was trying to come up with a simple game. Skills and attributes were each rated on a 1-6 scale (like Space: 1889, it turns out). Tasks were resolved by adding the skill, appropriate attribute and any modifiers and rolling this number less on 2d6.

* Use dice pools: Drop the quick roll mechanic and have everything use the dice pool. This would require a bit more work converting the quick rolls over, but the dice pool rolls would remain the same.

* Use another game system: My leading contenders are some flavor of D6, Fudge or GURPS 3E. I'm not considering any other systems (I know there is a Savage Worlds version of the game, but it's not in contention).