White Star / X-Plorers - What's the Difference Between the Two? (Part II)

Continuing with Part II of the comparison between White Star and X-Plorers. Part I is here.

When it comes to creatures, X-Plorers is very much a "do it yourself" type of system. There are examples (3 alien races, 3 earth creatures, 3 mars creatures, etc) but they seem to lack - something. This is purely opinion time here, so take it for what it's worth. The sample creatures in White Star seem more imaginative to my eyes but the system included to create your own in X-Plorers seems fairly complete. Something useful I may borrow, although I don't have a problem "winging" my creations.

Healing in X-Plorers is quicker than White Star, which is surprising, considering that White Star draws upon Star Wars and other recent scifi for some of its tropes. I may borrow the healing rules from X-Plorers for my White Star campaign.

Space combat is very different between the two systems.

X-Plorers 

Ÿ- Determine initiative
-Ÿ Party with initiative acts first in the following
phase order and results take effect:
   1. Navigation Phase
   2. Engineering Phase
   3. Pilot Phase
   4. Gunner Phase
-Ÿ Party that lost initiative acts in the same
phase order and their results take effect
-Ÿ Once the round is complete, roll a new
initiative and start a new round if the battle
has not been resolved (either by a ship being
destroyed, incapacitated, or having
escaped)

White Star 

1. Determine Initiative.
2. Starship with Initiative acts first (attacking, using items, etc.) and results
take effect.
3. Starship that lost Initiative acts, and their results take effect.
4. The round is complete; keep turn order for the next round if the battle
has not been resolved.

Actually, X-Plorers space combat reminds me a bit of what I remember from Classic Traveller. has much more complete starship descriptions and options. I THINK White Star space combat will play out closer to regular combat than X-Plorers space combat, but I'll have to playtest that or rely on the experience and feedback of others.
White Star

X-Plorers includes an optional psionics system. Again, it uses a skill system, which is either something you love in your old school games or you don't.

White Star includes some basic setting material (including a star map), some campaign themes as well as an adventure to kick things off with.

So, where does one stand at the end of this admittedly basic comparison?

X-Plorers has a no frill, art free PDF that can be had for free. If price is your only concern, the answer was made for you before I wrote a single word. That being said, at the price of free, X-Plorers is an excellent source of ideas for your White Star campaign.

If you compare the regular X-Plorers PDF at $5.95 to White Star at $9.95 (or $7.95 with my discount link) White Star is by far the more complete and ready to play out of the box product. White Star is also a tool box, so it expects you to add, change, warp and delete from the rules included. It's pretty durable and hard to break.

White Star / X-Plorers - What's the Difference Between the Two? (Part I)

I've gotten numerous requests to compare White Star and X-Plorers. Multiple times a day for the past week. So, here goes nothing ;)

Presentation-wise, White Star wins hands down, and I'm not just saying that because +Jason Paul McCartan is a good friend of mine. X-Plorers has a serviceable layout.

White Star evokes the feel of Star Wars, Firefly, Guardians of the Galaxy and even Battlestar Galactica. X-Plorers feel evokes the movies and TV series of the late 50's and early 60's. A big portion of that may be the cover and the Earth-centric setting (if four paragraphs a setting makes - and to think I thought four pages was limited to work with ;)

White Star uses the six attributes you already know from the OSR game of your choice. X-Plorers reduces that number to four. Wisdom is rolled into Intelligence and Strength and Constitution are rolled into Physique. Charisma is renamed Presence and Dexterity is renamed Agility. Why? No idea. White Star defaults to a -1 / +1 spread, while X-Plorers defaults to a -2 / +2 spread on attribute bonuses.

X-Plorers uses a universal experience table whereas White Star has an experience table for each class.

Both games have 4 base classes each. In White Star, they are: Aristocrat, Mercenary, Pilot and Star Knight (as well as 3 other classes - Alien Mystic, Alien Brute and Robot). In X-Plorers it's Scientist, Soldier, Scout and Technician. Pilot and Scout fill the same niche and Mercenary and Soldier. Classes in White Star have "class abilities" (think AD&D Paladin kinda sorta in the way it's handled) which are like minor powers or boosts and X-Plorer classes have skills that are rolled on a D20. This is a very major difference between the two games.

X-Plorers includes rules for multi-classing, which is pretty nifty, but it isn't really true multi-classing - it's learning skills from another class. White Star doesn't have any such rules. It might make for a decent houserule.

I'm surprised that X-Plorers doesn't use the dual stated AC from Swords & Wizardry, as it builds S&W. Not a big deal, or even a little deal, just interesting to note. White Star uses the dual stated format.
upon

Equipment in the two games overlaps at points, but either list would make a good supplement for the other's game. Armor is much more expensive in X-Plorers, by a factor of 10 or more in some cases. It is also more generic in White Star, as it is described by light, medium or heavy instead of Mesh Suit, Reflec or Combat Armor in X-Plorers.

Part II later today.

X-plorers Boxed Set X2

I got my 2 boxes of the X-plorers Boxed Set - #52 and #60 of 200.  Pretty damn cool!

One minor quibble - the maps are awesome but they don't want to lay flat - they were shipped rolled and want to stay such.  Folding them would have been painful, I'm sure, but I've already creased them trying to get them to stay flat.  Like I said, very minor complaint.

I noticed one typo - a reference to a "strength bonus" on page 30, which is obviously a hold over from the  OGL rules X-plorers is built upon (it should be referring to Physique, which is combination of Strength and Constitution).  I only noticed this as page 30 is the first page I opened at and started reading right away.

Anyhow, very high quality boxed set, but I expected nothing less from Brave Halfling Publishing.

Mix and Match - Building the Perfect System, or Not

As I await the arrival of some of my pre-orders (most notably the X-Plorers Boxed Set on the Tome of Horrors Complete) I'm set to do a more through read of the Adventurer Conqueror King System, specifically the campaign rules.

The way I see most of the Old School / D20ish rules that have been released, they are fairly modular in nature. You can pick and choose subsystems fairly liberally between them, mix and match, and with a little tweaking you can have a mish mash of rules that do your bidding.

I really like S&W Complete. It feels closer to the AD&D rules that we used to play with then even OSRIC does.

I also like LotFP's Weird Fantasy. Not so much the rules (I understand what Raggi was going for, but it does not fit my style of play) but the GM advice and such.

The Secret Fire has a few things I want to lift, 'tho I'm not sure it would be the core I would build off of. TSF is something I'd have to run as is to run it well.

ACKS feels fairly close to S&W Complete to my eyes, and I think I could bounce back and forth between the two fairly seamlessly.

Why the hell can't I think of running a game without mixing or houseruling? Heh

Free Adventure For X-plorers - Cleopatra Station

Brave Halfling has released a free adventure for the X-plorers RPG.  Cleopatra Station is a short adventure / mission to get your X-plorers campaign rolling.

You can get the game in a free (no art) version if you haven;t checked it out yet (link is on the page for the free mission)

From the blurb:

Owned and operated by RA-Industries, Cleopatra Station is a small, wheel space station that orbits around Mars's fast moving Phobos moon. This is a long-term lab that conducts experiments in the genetic mutation of Crain, a corn-like grain substance that grows very well on the dust plains of Mars. It is the home of several scientists and their families. Howver, all communications with Cleopatra Station have simply ceased. RA-Industries needs to find out if there is a problem, and your X-plorers team is just right for the job.

Cleopatra Station is a short sample mission. This mission is designed for 3-5 player characters of first level, and will take about 2-4 hours to complete.

X-Plorers Boxed Set Coming From Brave Halfling

I need to thank Ze Bulette for bringing to my attention Brave Halfling's latest release: X-Plorers Boxed Set.  I do love me some boxed RPG sets.  I'm already in for 2 sets - at $25 a piece it's a hard price to beat.

Maybe I'll finally have the SciFi RPG rules I want to use...