Quantum Starfarer: Traveller Without The Headache

Ever wanted to try a space combat game like Traveller but can’t be bothered with all the rules? Quantum Starfarer by Stellagama Publishing takes what’s fun about Traveller and strips away everything else.

33 pages. You can read this a few times, give your players copies, and be playing with practically no cost and no prep time.

The Core System

2d6, meet or beat a target. Seven skills: Combat, Knowledge, Physical, Social, Space, Stealth, Technical.

You can build really interesting characters with just those. Start with five points across them, none higher than three. Done.

The Health System

Stamina: 7 + Physical skill. This is your buffer. Lifeblood: 14 + (Physical skill x 2). This is what matters.

Combat damage hits stamina first. When stamina’s gone, you take a minor wound (minus one on all rolls) and start losing lifeblood. End of combat? Stamina comes back. Lifeblood takes much longer.

It’s less deadly but has teeth. The impact comes when you start losing lifeblood.

Traits

Pick one. They’re like talents rather than skills. Most grant advantage - roll 3d6, take the two highest.

Not many of them, but really easy to create more for your table. If a player wants to do a specific thing, make a trait for it.

Vehicle Combat

This is brilliant. One system works for both ground vehicles and spaceships.

Position: Both sides roll 1d6 + Technical + Agility. Whoever wins has position.

If you have position, you roll normally. If you don’t, you’re at minus three.

That’s how they handle three-dimensional space combat. Complex made simple. All the fun, none of the complication.

Scale

Simple table for when small arms hit vehicles. Attack lands, roll for damage - might be nothing, might destroy their sensors. Real variety without pages of rules.

Starship Design

They’ve taken a complex thing and made it buildable.

Pick tonnage. Add armor (percentage cost based on ship size). Three drives: maneuver, jump, power plant. They’re interlinked - can’t have a huge maneuver drive without a big power plant.

A couple of pages gives you everything to build a complete ship. Plus example ships you can drop straight into your game.

Sector Creation

Enough guidelines to build diverse worlds without overwhelming detail. Technology levels, world tags, everything you need for a campaign.

Advancement

One XP per adventure. Five XP gives you a rank increase:

• New trait
• Increase lifeblood or stamina
• Add 1 to a skill (up to four times total)

Simple progression that doesn’t break anything.

Hero Points

Two per character. Reroll any die, or force the referee to reroll one of theirs.

Plus: if you beat a DC 8+ check by more than six, you add to a pool everyone can use. Encourages big swings.

Why I’m Covering This

I bought this gorgeous setting called “Men on the Moon” - late 1900s reimagined space. Men on the moon, Martians, that kind of alternative future. It uses Quantum Starfarer as its rules.

I could happily run the hell out of that setting with this system and not take up any brain space learning rules.

Stellagama does great stuff. I’ll probably cover Cepheus Deluxe too - more meat on the bones if you want it. But if you want space adventure without the headache? This is it.

Get it. Quantum Starfarer