mithriltabby | Diaspora: Hard Science-Fiction Role-Playing with Fate ★★★½ (Reply)

Diaspora is an instantiation of the third edition Fate system (currently best known for the pulp RPG Spirit of the Century) inspired by the classic game Traveller and updated for thirty years’ progress in hard sf storytelling. The writers for Diaspora have done a good job of fleshing out the differing scales of the system, with rules for personal combat (including more details on armor and weapons than in SotC), starship battles, social struggle, platoon-scale warfare, and developing clusters of star systems. Like SotC, there are no significant rules for advancement: character details can be shuffled around as they change, but any gain in skill has to be offset with a loss in some other skill. The writeup is a useful framework, but not as colorful as SotC (in either the setting or the stunts); if you loved Traveller but want a more storytelling-oriented system to use where you already have inspiration, this is likely to be great for you. I find it worthwhile as a playtested instantiation of Fate to compare to when developing my own game, but no story ideas are jumping off the page waving at me.