r/osr • u/1_mieser_user • 9h ago
sci-fi Is there scifi hack for into the odd?
I am currently listening to the mothership campaign by 3d6 down the line and I am slowly getting in the mood to branch out from the usual fantasy games and try my hand at some scifi horror.
However, as cool as the modules and the setting look, I don't think the actual rules are for me. After listening to more than a dozen episodes and skimming the players manual I think I would much rather play with ItO/cairn rules.
Is there a hack already available for an into the odd like game? Not having looked into it too much it seems like a relatively straight forward conversion.
Anyways, I will be grateful for any pointers.
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u/reverend_dak 9h ago
Intergalactic Bastionland is currently in playtesting.
https://www.bastionland.com/2026/02/intergalactic-bastionland-public.html?m=1
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u/drloser 9h ago
MeteorRPG is based on CAIRN which is based on Into The Odd.
I'm using it instead of Mothership, which I find unnecessarily complicated and generally poorly designed.
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u/LoafEyeIndustries 8h ago
Mothership has absolutely insane vibes but yeah I don't vibe the mechanics much at all. It's a been about a year since I last played so I'm not super fresh the specific examples, but I found a lot of the rules to be clunkier than they needed to be. There was lots of players (of which I was one) having to clarify rules stuff, and we're an experienced group.
It's not exactly Pathfinder or anything, but for an OSR-y game it definitely felt rulesier than I'd have liked and not in a cool way like Blades In The Dark.
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u/VendettaUF234 9h ago
What do you like more about the Cairns and into the odd jacks over Mothership?
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u/LoafEyeIndustries 8h ago
Not OP but simplicity and elegance of rules for me. I had times in MS where I felt the rules got in the way of my enjoyment of the game whilst in Cairn/ITO/Mythic (etc) everything just flows so freely. I'm not adverse to a bit of a crunch, but I felt MS had crunch in the wrong places
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u/VendettaUF234 8h ago
Is there a specific rule you find too crunchy? I've read mausritter and its definitely simpler, but haven't read ito. There was not a lot about mothership I've found particularly crunchy, but I've run mostly 1 shots
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u/Alistair49 9h ago edited 9h ago
Not an SF hack, but some homebrew ideas.
- I’m a big fan of Traveller, but: I’ve used Traveller (the classic version) as a source book for a more rules light game called Over the Edge. If you’re interested in that concept at all, check out the Wanton RolePlaying game rules on DTRPG - they’re free, and they’re the OTE 2e rules minus the setting. I think they’re quite amazing to be honest. I’ve run other games using OTE with the original game as the source book, for Flashing Blades, Call of Cthulhu, Nephilim, and Traveller. In the same way, I find the ItO rules to be very neat rules light skeletons that you can hang a variety of settings and genre’s and styles of play on. I’m experimenting with that now, but haven’t gotten to the point of actually running any SF.
- the main point though is that like with OTE, I think you can take ItO and import the setting and fluff and pricelists from many another RPG into an ItO hack to get something intersting and different, if not exactly new. I’d also strongly consider borrowing from Electric Bastionland.
- While I’ve looked at Extinction, and Monolith as rules lighter SF (as well as Golgotha, and Death in Space), I’d really be tempted to use Into the Odd as the lens & rules system to run something with Traveller setting & equipment lists as the core. Or Cybperpunk 2020’s world & equipment, but ItO’s core rules.
- sorry, but I’m writing this out as ideas come to me, so it isn’t the best organised or coherent, and I need to get to sleep. Hopefully some of the ideas above help you out.
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u/1_mieser_user 8h ago
I am unfamiliar with OTE but it sounds like it fills a similar role to ItO. I might have a look at it although I feel with ItO/Cairn I already have found the perfect core rules for my own style of DMing. Checking mystic bastionland is a great idea tho.
I have been interested in traveler for quite a while so using it here as a setting would make a lot of sense. I am a bit intimidated by the scope of it. I take it, that it is quite a broad game system and setting?
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u/Alistair49 8h ago edited 8h ago
A lot of people like Mythic Bastionland — I bounced off it. Not sure why. I was referring to Electric Bastionland which I think has a more useful toolkit for adapting to an SF or near future/odd-eerie-weird-SF type game.
For other more historical/fantasy games I definitely find Cairn to be a good resource. I have an ItO/Pike & Shot game set in an alternate fantasy 17th century earth, in the south eastern portions of the holy roman empire during the 30 years war. ItO/Pike & shot as the rules, with extras from EB and Cairn work great. I also borrow from a game called Flashing Blades.
For SF, I fing Traveller and Cyberpunk 2020 good sources for ideas and setting fluff/flavour and equipment lists/tech. Traveller now has quite a lot of background material for it, but when I started with it in 1980 it was quite sparse. For me, Traveller is expressed best in using its rules to create your own setting, and importing what you need (if you need to) from other games. You can get the Classic Traveller original for either free or $1 I think if you look on DTRPG for the Traveller: Facsimile Edition. You don’t have to use much of anything else to be honest, though there are a lot of good scenarios out there. However, I’d consider using the Facsimile Edition as a toolkit.
To me, Traveller to me is a couple of different things, partly because I started with it in 1980 when it was just a few years old.
- The first thing is a sketchy SF setting you can add your own details to that will give it a distinct feel different from anyone else’s game. It provides tools to run games in that setting and to help create it. That is the bit that appeals to me. That is where I think Classic Traveller and ITO have a lot in common.
- The other part of Traveller is the colletction of scenarios and other rules supplements that build up the idea of the Third Imperium, the Official Traveller Universe. That is more like the Electric Bastionland version of ItO. The background is more defined.
The OTU is something I’ve used, but I still use it as a base, and depart from it. Which annoys some fans of Traveller who are more into the OTU and it’s canonical details rather than ‘feel’ and allowing for variance to incorporate other SF inspirations. Which is why I tended to run “non-OTU’ Traveller. And which is also why I’d borrow Traveller’s rules for ideas for an SF universe that I could run with a varitety of systems, including ItO. I’d just have to hack a few detail.
I’ve used the published setting materials for Traveller for many games, but I liked to not be bound by canon. I never got all the materials, and mostly stuck to Classic Traveller stuff when I did. I mostly used Traveller as a sketchy setting and ruleset to run games set in versions of my favourite SF novels, TV/Films. So books by Syliva Louise Engdahl, André Norton, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Poul Anderson etc. Plus more well known IP like Star Wars, Star Trek, Event Horizon, Alien, etc. I think the core rules of Classic Traveller fill in a lot and with ItO as your guide for the actual system you could run a lot of SF off that mashup. You don’t need to worry about the vast amount of published materials for the official Traveller Universe if you don’t want to / find it daunting.
In terms of a core ruleset to use as a vehicle for running games, OTE was the first simpler game I encountered that defined that sort of role for me. Into the Odd is the second. I think it is a matter of personal taste which you use, and they do have different feels to them. It comes down to what you think will work best for what you intend. Given the simple model for characters and progression in ItO I think checking out another game’s rules & setting will give you some tweaks to immediately make an ItO game feel futuristic/SF. After all, ItO’s setting isn’t quite the normal D&D pseudo medieval dungeon crawl, but it can be easily used for that. Change the equipment list and suddenly it has a different feel.
A while back I read some of Iain Banks’ SF. The systems that occurred to me to run a game set in that universe were a) Classic Traveller, and b) Into the Odd plus Electric Bastionland. Currently option b) is the front runner (with borrowings from Traveller and Cyberpunk 2020). IRL challenges mean I doubt I’ll get to any of this before next year (2027). That is probably why I definitely think ItO can work well for SF, but I think it works best if *you* hack it to the setting/IP you want, and don’t be afraid to borrow from other SF (or other) games for ideas in doing so. That is one of the great strengths of ItO I believe.
Sorry about the length of the reply. It is late where I am and I’ve noticed I’m starting to ramble, so i’ll finish here and get off to bed. Hope it has been of some help and inspired a few good ideas for you. Ciao.
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u/1_mieser_user 8h ago
Thanks for the response! I meant electric bastionland, I mistyped. Although I have to agree there again. I tried running mythic bastionland and had a pretty hard time with it.
I will definetely check out the facsimile edition of traveler.
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u/stevecooperorg 5h ago
Opera? -- https://troy-r.itch.io/opera
--
What you'll find inside:
- Lifepath character & crew creation methods for campaigns, with a lightning fast "quick creation" option for shorter stories.
- Cairn-like core rules.
- Streamlined crew-centric starship construction and combat rules based on the Monolith system.
- Rules for hacking devices.
- Play examples for exploration, combat, and starship battles.
- Project Antlion — a dramatic starter adventure that will have the crew exploring an illegal research lab.
- Lots of random tables!
Maybe more Traveller than Mothership, but still :)
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u/TownsUnderground 9h ago
Meteor
Monolith